https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=qtPYXHdNIjE
Life is impossible in space. The simple phrase traced on the opening screen encompasses the very poignant manner in which the movie Gravity is able to offer us a perfectly coherent and symbolically rich death and resurrection story within the science fiction frame. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the Symbolic World. In ancient cosmology, the margin of the world and the great ocean which surrounds it were images of wonder, promise, and surprise, but also adversity, foreign enemies, death, and ultimately chaos. The shape of the world has not changed in its essential elements. All that used to be contained in those outer rims of the world has now been projected out into outer space. There we encounter infinite wonder, gigantic scale, infinite alien monsters, and the breakdown of our usual systems of reference. In Gravity, the ancient cosmic symbols of the edge of the world are all lined up in outer space, all joined to the personal journey of a woman to accept, to face, and overcome the tragic and absurd death of her daughter. We can see all the elements of Gravity as a web of consequences laying themselves out due to the movement away from a center, the spinning, the dizziness, and fragmentation which occurs with a general loss of meaning. In the first sequence of the movie, the sense of normal is already exploded as a ship appears above the earth, floating upside down, but technology, the ship itself, like an arc in the void, but also the spacesuits as protective garments, are the sign that order is contained in this state of exile. The crew’s constant communication with home is the necessary act of memory, which is crucial in order to stay connected to who we are, to our identity, to our purpose when we are far away from our origins in both time and space. The shape of memory and connection is story. The experience of outer space is one of wonder for Kowalski, for whom it is his last mission, but it is one of an uneasy awkwardness for Dr. Ryan Stone, for whom it is actually her first mission. And this relationship of the transition between the end and the beginning will be a constant theme in the story. The protective garment and the connection to home is put in danger by an event which signifies this breakdown of order. A missile strike by the Russians on their own satellite causes a series of accidental with other satellites which fragment into this chaotic spray of debris, the residues of technology, which have now become a danger to their purpose, to their mission. In this event, we both get the action of a foreign alien, a foreign agent, as well as the accidental itself. Both of these signify a confrontation with the unknown and with a collapse of meaning. Communication with home, of course, is also cut off. The general breakdown is shown here and in all the other instances in the movie where these chaotic residues circle back. It is shown as an amazing and dizzying fragmentation. Things spin and collide and both extremes manifest themselves simultaneously. That is both the danger of being detached from anything stable, lost to the emptiness of the void, as well as the danger of remaining attached to a collapsing structure. The damages to explore are catastrophic. The ship is destroyed and in the remaining debris and death we see the first of three or Mascots. Marvin Martian, who is the ultimate caricature of an alien wanting to destroy Earth and manifests this intrusion of chaos and destruction. Kowalski in the story acts as the wise man of experience, the guiding force, which teaches Ryan what to do and guides her along her path. He literally tethers Ryan to himself and guides her both psychologically and physically through the void from which he has actually caught her. In that sense he acts as a father figure as she navigates through the chaos. The solution to their problem, with their ship destroyed, is to embark on a journey and travel across the void. In many ways it is shown as an impossible void which goes west and east at the same time, going west in space towards the place where the sun sets, but also strangely going east as they move towards the Russian run space station and then finally attain the Chinese station in order that they can finally return to Earth. As they travel, Kowalski continues to express his wonder and he attempts to coax Ryan out of her story. Beautiful, don’t you think? What? The sunrise. And in her telling that’s where we discover that the story, her story, is not finished. That after her experience of tragedy she is left driving around without a purpose. This is an echo of her spinning and floating aimlessly in outer space. In the approach of the space station Kowalski ends up sacrificing himself to save Ryan and then he guides her towards her purpose, ending his life with a story in wonder and with music. You should see the sun on the Ganges. It’s amazing. If Ryan succeeds Kowalski tells her she will find her story. By this time tomorrow you’re going to be back in Lake Zurich with a hell of a story to tell. From that point the pattern of this relationship between death and rebirth, end and beginning repeat themselves over and over to show us the different aspects of transition between the two. Ryan is still moving away from meaning. This move away appears as moving into foreign space. In the Russian station she has to look at the instruction manual to figure out how the Russian controls and then she finds herself randomly guessing which button to push once she’s in the Chinese station. If in the American ship she saw Marvin Martian, here in the Russian ship she finds an icon of Saint Christopher who is the patron saint of travelers, but who is also a converted an alien in his own matter, known as one of the monstrous races of the ancient world, a giant or else a dog-headed man. Saint Christopher is shown carrying Christ across the waters. In this moment when Ryan finds herself in the Russian escape pod she actually recapitulates the story of Saint Christopher almost perfectly. She encounters the breakdown of meaning through a man who is speaking to her in a foreign tongue that she cannot understand. This breakdown of meaning reaches its limit as it descends into the barking of dogs which she herself imitates. This tumble into an animal existence into animality is a common image of death and chaos in traditional stories. And within the barking of dogs appears the voice of a child. So just like the dog-headed Christopher carries the child across, so too she encounters her own hope of rebirth. But she still needs to cross the waters of death and so she descends into the underworld where she encounters the ghost of Kowalski. Like the Roman hero Aeneas visiting his father. And Kowalski gives her the piece of the puzzle she needs. The change of death back into life appears as a final trick, a final inversion. Like Christ descending into death and tricking Hades into taking light into darkness, like in the legend of Saint Christopher where Christ tricks Saint Christopher. Like Christopher was looking to serve the most powerful being and now he finds himself carrying an innocent child. So too the solution to Ryan’s death is a surprise inversion. That is to use the landing mechanism to take off. Having reached the Chinese station, Ryan encounters an image of the Chinese Budai, the last mascot. Budai is of course also a foreign image to her, but it is an image of prosperity and cheer. In Chinese Buddhism Budai is understood as a manifestation of Maitreya, that is the last and final Buddha. And so from the Hastan Martian to the transitional Saint Christopher, we now see the future open once more. Although I’ve already said she’s still in chaos, she must guess which button to push, but she moves no longer in despair and discouragement, but she moves with excitement and exploration in the unknown. And it is this excitement that we discover in Ryan as she goes through a purging fire. We find there both her renewed spark for life as well as her acceptance of a possible end. What’s enlivening her is how she has finally found her story. She has found her sense of wonder and she is willing to go through hell to live again. It’s either way, it’ll be one hell of a ride. Communication is recovered with home and they ask her to confirm her identity. Please confirm identity. But there is one more cycle of death and rebirth we need to see. The cold, dark void of outer space has to be directly connected to the chaos and death of the deep, of baptism. Like Saint Christopher, she pledges into the void of the lake. Until now she toiled to protect herself with garments and technology, but now she must in the end remove her layers to regain the earth, regain her ground. With a grateful prayer, she encounters the balance of heaven and earth, experiences up and down, regains her center, meaning just as she has regained her story. And it is in that moment that she finally resurrects, that she can stand again, enjoy and wonder, though with pain and stumbling, and move forward. Okay, everybody, I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of gravity. There are a lot of things happening these days. Next month I’m going to be in Seattle and I’m going to have a few speaking events. In the next few months I will probably be in Florida speaking as well and possibly in South Carolina there’ll be some speaking events as well. I’m going to put all those on my website as soon as possible and you can go find those dates if you want. My carving workshop for this September is totally full, so if you were interested in that you’ll have to sign up for next year. For all of those that are supporting me on Patreon, I want to give you a little bit of a hint of the help that you are providing, what it’s doing. About let’s say almost 10 years ago, my brother Matsir and I, we wrote a screenplay and it’s very relevant to this interpretation of gravity because the screenplay was a kind of epic retelling of the story of St. Christopher. It was kind of like Lord of the Rings but set in early Byzantine area. There was St. Christopher and St. George, there were giants and dragons, and pretty much every single character in Genesis. It was a very epic thing. We wrote it being a bit naive about how Hollywood works and how these movies are made. We did have it scouted and we had some interest from some studios who requested the script, but obviously such a let’s say original and very expensive movie was not going to be made. In the past several years I’ve just been kind of struggling to survive as an icon carver and Matsir was writing his book and so that project was just on the shelf and just gathering But now with all of your Patreon support, I’ve been able to free part of my mind and have jumped back into that project. And so Matsir and I are having the screenplay developed as a graphic novel. We have an artist, his name is Kord Nielsen, and he has already started working on character design and he’s already penciled the first sections and working on thumb nailing the whole thing. So just to tell you how much it’s been able to free up my mind and hopefully very soon we’ll have a pretty crazy story to offer you guys. We’ll probably have a Kickstarter or some other kind of crowdfunding project to raise some money to be able to finish the art of it and also to be able to publish it. So look forward for that and as usual thanks for your support and I’ll see you soon. If you enjoyed this content and our exploration of symbolism, get involved. I love to read your insights and questions in the comments section. You can also share this video on social media to your friends and if you can, please consider supporting us financially through Patreon or PayPal. You’ll find those links in the description below.