III
The Shining
Superman's Fortress of Solitude
Robert Falcon Scott
The Overlook Hotel from Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (1980)
He wrote in fragments, telling me of how he had gone deep into the mountains in search of solitude. There he would be able to immerse himself in labyrinthine reflection, and finish his work.
He was following in the footsteps of Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson, of Robert Falcon Scott, and of Superman. He believed that he had encountered a Fortress of Solitude, akin to that of the comic book hero, in which all memories were stored and could be reflected upon, away from the distraction of others.
Superman's fortress of solitude as it appears in the film, 'Superman' (1978)
A location where Superman has access to all knowledge in the crystals created by his father.
Here, he studies philosophy, science and space in a remote arctic location, away from the rest of the world.
He insisted that he did not mind this perverse quietude. How could one feel alone in the company of such geniuses as Calvino, Eco, Borges, Baudrillard, and Zizek? – all great explorers of fragmented labyrinths.
He wrote me that Scott’s final expedition revealed the fast-diminishing opportunities for exploration of physical spaces in the twentieth century, and that the only direction left to go in the twenty-first was Space itself. A realm in which we may once more find uncharted volcanic wastelands or unknown realms of snow-covered mountains.
But he believed that there was another form of exploration still to exhaust, one potentially without end – that in the realm of reflection, memory, history, the imaginary, and the unreal. He said that it was into this realm that he had disappeared that winter, seeking to claim ownership over such abstractions through the medium of film, and that separating himself from the physical world and the people within it had been a necessary sacrifice.
But he wrote me that he was now ready to return to this land of the living. He wrote me from the land of the dying and the dead.
