I have a deep, perhaps even traumatic, memory of the old Disney classic The Black Hole (1979). There are several reasons for this. It is generally creepy for a young adult sci-fi romp (hey, what can I say, I was a young adult once…), the weird ship the main characters find floating on the edge of a black hole is, in effect, manned by zombies, and the whole movie features cuts to this malevolent spinning doom that everything is inevitably plummeting towards.
But maybe most unsettling is the horrible fusion within the dead metal heart of a robot — a machine — that befalls the “villain”, Maximilian Schell, at the end of the film. This happens somehow — through no understanding of physics I have — when he’s sent hurtling beyond the event horizon to…The other side?
Feels like a metaphor for life right now. I sense that I am on the edge of a kind of event horizon. Beyond is everlasting darkness and, oddly, a sense of fusing with the machine. Whatever the hell that means.
But then there is this feeling of being outside of the black hole and its immediate effect. It’s there, you’re not getting away, but you’re not there yet, like the hapless characters in this damn twisted Disney movie. You, for lack of a better analogy, are Ernest Borgnine.
So that’s the deal. You’re on the precipice of a black hole…But not there yet. There’s probably some evil madman out there who thinks it’s a good idea to get there faster. And an army of zombies are ready to do his bidding. Again, metaphorically speaking.
There ya go. Not much to add. Sometimes you really, really pick the wrong movie to relate to at a certain point in your life. Or, perhaps, seen from another point of view, all this can make you (well, me) say: “Where there’s still light, there’s hope.”
Thanks, Uncle Walt, ya freakin’ weirdo.
September 27, 2010 at 11:46 am |
The movie also has a legacy from Jules Verne and Hitchcock, both of whom were, I think, more about exploring than fearing the unknown. Walt’s overriding fear of death – hence his desire to spend eternity as a popsicle – may have propelled the mood of the film into its spookier depths.
September 27, 2010 at 6:17 pm |
Or…That perhaps the black hole is something just so outside our comprehension that the fear is the fear of ignorance…If we can’t explain it we fear it yet rationally it is just as likely to be something wonderful.
It might sound weir.d :) But I’ve always thought black holes perfect metaphors for ‘change’. Both terrify the crap out of us!
September 27, 2010 at 7:51 pm |
@ricki: Well, Walt “died” in 1966 or so, more than ten years before this film, so it was perhaps his spirit that propelled it into, well, spooky, spiral depths…
@leesis: Not sure being stretched out to infinity is “something wonderful,” but I agree that it’s a great metaphor for change, or more particularly, being on the cusp of change. That’s what I was after…
September 28, 2010 at 12:59 am |
I don’t want to be Ernest Borgnine :-(
September 28, 2010 at 7:52 am |
Who does?
September 28, 2010 at 8:14 pm |
I remember that movie. Can’t believe it was 1979. I hear you loud and clear on the “event horizon” thing. Don’t get me started on that. On the other hand, my daughter seems to be a great antidote to that metaphor. She is a beautiful blue sky, a warm summer day, a happy song…Anyway I think you get the metaphorical contrasts I’m trying to express here.
September 28, 2010 at 9:32 pm |
I hear ya. The promise of young life is a light even a black hole — The Black Hole — cannot absorb. She’s also about a billion times cuter than Ernest Borgnine. :)