When I was a boy my parents took me to the Uptown theater in Washington, DC to see Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece, "2001: A Space Odyssey," in all its 70mm glory and while I don't remember much from my pre-teen youth I do remember this spectacle. The America of 1968 was just starting to chase the LBJ Great Society pipe dream and the near future envisioned by Arther C. Clark and Kubrick had not yet taken it's 50 Years of Failure detour so the fantasy of orbiting space stations and expansive moon colonies seemed achievable. In fact, a young boy of today watching this movie might rightly ask, "why don't we have these things? Shouldn't I be living in a Moon base? What happened to this future I was meant to inhabit?" There's an answer for those questions and it's shown in the film's opening "Dawn Of Man" sequence when the circle of monkey-men huddled around a watering pool get beaten and run-off by a competing clan of monkey-men using weapons fashioned from bones.
I think, as a direct result of this violent scene of Australopithecus conquest, framed as it is between the brutish existence pre-monolith (or God as I interpret it) struggle and space exploration, I've always been fascinated by pools - swimming pools to be specific - and the community space they create in our modern world that stretches as far back as one can go in pre-history. Pools are archetypal and symbolic in a way that few other public spaces can match and my boundaries include small ponds, hot springs, spas, fountains and baths - even small plastic blue kiddy pools in the back yard qualify as a mythic body of water to gather the clan around. My father built a pool in our back yard just as his father had done at the old family place and his father's father had built a natural, spring fed pool at the home place before the advent of modern plumbing and water filtration systems. For myself, I have a pond with a sandy beach, a dock and platform for bringing family and friends together to swim and relax. All of these pools, and many more at private homes, country clubs, schools and institutions have been the locations of great moments in my life - so pools are important.
Imagine the world without:
I asked Grok AI why the pool is such an important symbol and here's what it spit out:
In art and literature, a pool of water traditionally carries rich symbolic meanings, often tied to its life-giving, reflective, and transformative qualities. Here are the primary symbolic associations:
1. Life and Sustenance: As a source of water, pools symbolize life, fertility, and nourishment. They often represent abundance or the sustenance necessary for survival, as seen in ancient myths where water sources are sacred or tied to creation stories.
2. Purity and Renewal: Pools are frequently associated with cleansing, purification, and renewal. In religious and mythological contexts, they symbolize spiritual rebirth or baptism, as seen in Christian traditions or ancient rituals involving sacred springs.
3. Reflection and Self-Discovery: The still surface of a pool often serves as a mirror, symbolizing introspection, self-awareness, or truth. In literature, gazing into a pool can represent a character confronting their inner self or hidden truths, as in the myth of Narcissus.
4. Transition and Transformation: Pools are liminal spaces, often marking boundaries between worlds or states of being. They can symbolize gateways to the subconscious, the divine, or the afterlife, as in myths where water leads to other realms (e.g., the River Styx or sacred pools in folklore).
5. Conflict or Power: In some narratives, pools represent contested resources, symbolizing survival, control, or territorial dominance, as seen in stories where access to water sparks rivalry or signifies authority.
6. Mystery and the Unknown: Deep or dark pools can evoke the unconscious, hidden knowledge, or the mysterious. They may symbolize the depths of the human psyche or the unknown forces of nature, as in Romantic literature where water often carries an air of enigma.
In the context of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the drinking pool aligns with these traditions, particularly symbolizing survival, conflict, and a transformative moment in human evolution, amplified by the monolith’s influence. Its role as a contested resource and a site of intellectual awakening ties directly to these broader symbolic themes.
Being a cinephile, with a taste for the alternative and experimental, I thought of myself as very knowledgeable about important pictures from this era - what I call Charlton Heston's weird years (starting in 1965 with The War Lord/Major Dundee and ending in 1973 with Soylent Green) - including 1968 films like Bullitt, Planet of the Apes and Once Upon Time in the West along with 2001: A Space Odyssey and many others. So I was surprised when a friend asked if I'd ever watched The Swimmer staring Burt Lancaster released in that magic year of '68 and I had to admit that I'd never heard of it. I did a quick Google search on The Swimmer and, sure enough, listed in the top 20 movies of that year, broadly reviewed at the time, innovative director making allegorical "statement' on American culture, blah, blah, blah... how on earth had I never seen this film? I had seen My Mountain Song 27 by Stan Brakhage and Third Eye Butterfly by Storm De Hirsch but never been exposed to a feature film about New England suburbia based on a short story of the same title by John Cheever. So I watched it that night and now I know why The Swimmer hasbeen culturally blacklisted and forgotten in the popular imagination.
A profligate eunuch had written on his house, “Let no evil thing enter in.” “Where,” said Diogenes, “is the master of the house going?” After having anointed his feet with perfume, he said that the ointment from his head mounted up to heaven, and that from his feet up to his nose. When the Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best seats; “It will,” he replied, “be an absurd thing if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are to live in the mud, and some miserable wretches, who have been initiated, are to be in the islands of the blest.” Some mice crept up to his table, and he said, “See, even Diogenes maintains his favourites.” Once, when he was leaving the bath, and a man asked him whether many men (andres) were bathing, he said, “No;” but when a number of people (anthrōpoi) came out, he confessed that there were a great many. When Plato called him a dog, he said, “Undoubtedly, for I have come back to those who sold me.”
From The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius
The Swimmer
The opening credits show branches bending and shrubbery rusting as someone unseen moves along forest paths silently passing by a stag (regeneration), an owl (wisdom) and rabbits (humility) on the way to...
Westerhazys’ Pool Party: Ned Merrill (Lancaster) arrives at the pool of old friends, chats, flirts, drinks and has the uniquely human inspiration that he can "swim home" via neighboring pools forming the “Lucinda River” (named for his wife). This conceit of imagination and the will to see this quixotic journey to it's tragic end is what drives the plot of the movie and, in my opinion, is as fanciful a notion as traveling to Jupiter. It is the kind of idea, impractical and mythic, that exemplifies the beauty of mankind when Ned dives in to start his journey.
Julie Ann Hooper: Ned swims across pools meeting friends and enemies with affable joy and oblivious confusion about their confrontational demeanor. He has a bestial rapport and footrace with a stallion in a nearby paddock and then encounters a former babysitter, Julie Hooper, who is intrigued by the Lucinda River and joins Ned on his quest; they swim together, crash a pool party, sip champagne, walk through the fields and she confesses a past crush on him. This nymph's song enchants him, seduces him, humors him as she reveals her life struggles and private dreams. She procured a jealous and demanding boyfriend through a computer dating service - the 1960's version of Match.com gave her exactly what she wanted. She admits to aimless teenage nocturnal fantasies about Ned with no consummation. They pause and in repose Ned quotes the Song of Solomon promising to be her guardian angel while making an advance that sends the girl fleeing into the wild.
Nudists Pool: Ned hops a ride in a Rolls Royce and visits the Hallorans' - an old money Yankee couple who are nudists; they are shrewd, filthy rich dogmatists who exile their own family in adherence to a sky-clad orthodoxy. They watched Ned lose his money and social standing and now pity their former "friend" with sympathetic words that mask cold hearts. Ned undresses and approaches the freethinking couple using the daily newspaper to cover his privates were he converses with them in his pleasant way and then swims naked across their pool.
Abandoned Empty Pool: Ned encounters a lonely boy, Kevin Gilmartin Jr., at an empty pool and teaches him to “swim” by imagining water.
Kevin Gilmartin Jr.: They took the water out of the pool because I'm not a good swimmer. I'm bad at sports and, at school, nobody wants me on their team.
Ned Merrill: Well, it's a lot better that way, you take it from me. At first you think it's the end of the world because you're not on the team. Till you realize...
Kevin Gilmartin Jr.: Realize what?
Ned Merrill: You realize that you're free. You're your own man. You don't have to worry about getting to be captain and all that status stuff.
Kevin Gilmartin Jr.: They'd never elect me captain in a million years.
Ned Merrill: You're the captain of your soul. That's what counts. Know what I mean?
Walking into the woods to continue his journey Ned hears the boy bouncing on the diving board and runs back to stop him from falling into the pool and the boy mollifies him by saying, "but there's no water in the pool". Kevin's parents drained the water from the swimming pool to protect him and so created a concrete pit just as hazardous for their son and Ned continues his journey.
Biswangers’ Party Pool: Ned gate-crashes a party put on by nouveau riche ethnics who have "moved to the country" where the hosts and their guests insult him but Ned remains jolly and swims the crowded pool with aplomb. When exiting the pool Ned spots a hot dog cart he made for his daughters and asks if he can buy it back. The Biswangers refuse Ned and banish him from their home making him walk away with the eyes of the crowd following his exit.
Shirley Abbott’s Backyard Pool: Ned arrives at the pool of his former mistress where their memories clash and her resentment over being the “other woman” in Ned's marriage with Lucinda erupts into a dramatic crisis. By this point in the film there is growing evidence that Ned has suffered some kind of psychic break with reality and we've learned quite a lot about his past - humble beginnings, met Lucinda on a cruise ship (he was in steerage), loves his daughters, a flirt and a playboy (red sports car), living the high-life off of old money yankee frugality and prudence until, somehow, he lost it all. So the confrontation with Shirley is the perfect set-piece to show just how delusional this broken cad really is by having his paramour stab and twist the knife. But something truly astonishing happens when she starts recounting his cruel, selfish and dishonest behavior in their tortured history together - the moral lesson that, up to this point in the story, has been as murky as a mud puddle becomes as clear as Shirley's pool.
Shirley hated and envied Lucinda who was an establishment matron in the town. Ned was an easy mark for her licentious sexuality which she used as a weapon. Her recounting of their affair has disturbing echos Julie Hooper's secret explorations of his dressing room. Shirley taunts Ned, throws a drink in his face, ridicules his familial duty and orders him to leave. She is completely delusional about her place in the world, the Jezebel spirit of their trysts and the sad ambition of pulling Ned away from his wife and children. Ned might be a dreamer, oblivious to the social signaling of his neighbors and in denial about the status of his marriage and finances but he is completely authentic and free compared to this crazy bitch.
Shirley Abbott: I lied! I lied all the time about loving it anywhere with you! You bored me to tears! With all your stories about your old deals and your old girls and your golf scores and your bloody war and bloody duty to your wife and kids. You bored me to tears! I was playing a scene with you.
Ned Merrill: You loved it!
Shirley Abbott: You met your match with me you Suburban stud! I was acting!
But it gets worse because even though Shirley has been cutting to the bone with revenge poor Ned still loves her and, like a sap, tries to ignite her passions. Instead of romance she gives him a hard tough-love lesson about the nature of thespians - she's a professional actress and she was pretending to be interested in him the whole time. The disclosure of her pretense leaves Ned alone in her pool bewildered about her claim that it was all an act which contemporary critics extol as his well deserved comeuppance for being an attractive, fit, charming, thoughtful, caring, wise and confident mid-20th century American man. But I'm here to tell you the critics, and in my cursory search of many online reviews I can say their conventional take is universal, are wrong because this scene spins the story inside out.
Ned is remembering his affair with Shirley and how it started - who instigated it - why Lucinda had turned cold after he had given her 2 daughters - the desperate loneliness of his loveless marriage - the thrill of attraction from a beautiful and famous actress - the way she listened, laughed and loved with such intensity - the conflicting emotions he felt during the course of their affair - resentment, joy, guilt, confusion, shame and despair tearing his soul apart - Shirley's off-hand comments that became nagging complaints that turned into ultimatums to choose "me or her" because I can't go on like this - the wife's suspicious mind and the mistress' conniving poison - the heart wrenching pain of the breakup and the stoicism required to chose duty over betrayal - the confession to Lucinda and her bitter repudiation founded on social convention. All of this human pain based upon a players lie because she enjoyed the sport of exploiting his manly pride and uncritical heart. It reframes the people and places he has encountered during his odyssey and it transforms Ned into a modern day Diogenes swimming this wicked world in nothing more than a bathing suit.
By this point the movie goers mind is reeling as previous scenes cascade into the abyss of Shirley's vengeful selfishness which shadows the motivations and actions of all these characters (seen and unseen) who have dismissed or insulted Ned. Leaving the gloating Shirley he come to a multi-lane parkway crowded with speeding automobiles traveling the black river of tar through the suburban sprawl of New England and bisecting la Rivière Lucinda. At the side of the road Ned is assaulted by drivers taunting his efforts to cross and the danger of brutal machines roaring past forces him to gingerly crab to the other side.
He finds himself at the public pool where he must pay a fee, shower and scrub his feet just to enter the water filled with townies and proles. These boisterous Homo sapiens are "his people" and this teaming mass is what he escaped by getting hitched to Lucinda and moving up the hill. Ned has retained the common touch and strikes up a conversation with the locals but is rebuked with demands for payment of old debts and ridicule of his children who, he is spitefully informed, think he's a joke. Lesson: you can never go back, and in all honesty why would you? Back to the primordial circle of longhouse judgment fueled by ignorance and resentment - no thanks. Climb the hill Ned, climb the hill.
Open the gate into your overgrown garden and walk past your neglected tennis court toward your derelict cottage. Trudge on through the autumn leaves and ice cold rain to the locked door of your home. Pound the door with your fist, howl like a dog and keep pounding the door until your fist is red with sweat and blood... don't stop. This pain, this abandonment, this struggle is what it means to be a freeborn man and captain of your soul. Ned has not suffered a psychic break with reality - he is reality. It is the sharks and clowns and nerds who occupy and control the pools Ned swims through who live ridiculous and absurd lives of moralizing judgement and envious retribution. The journey is lonely, arduous and ends in ruination so aim high, take the chance, speak the truth and enjoy every moment God grants you on this mortal plane.
As for the whores and fools who fuss and fault your every move, deem you unworthy of good fortune or contemptible in spirit, demand compliance with their cramped vision of what is acceptable - fuck 'em.
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