Aldous Huxley - The Gravity of Light

1996

Oliver Hockenhull

Mini Biography

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894, at Laleham in Godalming, Surrey, England. He was the third of four children. His brother Julian Huxley was a biologist known for his theories of evolution. His grandfather, named Thomas Henry Huxley, was a naturalist known as "Darwin's Bulldog." His father, named Leonard Huxley, was a writer. His mother, named Julia Arnold, was related to poet Matthew Arnold. Young Huxley graduated from the Hillside School, where his mother was supervisor. He was traumatized by the death of both his mother and sister in 1908. He then followed in the footsteps of his brothers by going to Eaton and then to Balliol College, Oxford University. At age 16 he contracted keratitis which left him practically blind for two years, and disqualified him from service in WWI. Upon his recovery he graduated with a First in English Literature, he taught English literature at Balliol College, Oxford.

Huxley's literary life began in 1915, when he joined the circle of Lady Ottoline Morell at Garsington Manor. There he met Bertrand Russell, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, and Katherine Mansfield. He also met and fell in love with a Belgian refugee Maria Nys. In 1919 she became his wife, and they had a son, named Matthew. In 1920 Huxley began writing for Conde Nast at House and Garden to support his family, and later contributed to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines. He soon established himself as a successful writer and social satirist with his novels: Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925, and Point Counter Point (1928). The latter novel brought him international fame and was lated included in the Modern Library list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century.

His best known novel 'Brave New World' (1932) was actually preceded by "We" (written in 1920, published in English in 1924), which was the very first anti-Utopian novel in literature, written by Yevgeni Zamyatin. Both novels describe the futurist idea of One World State, where totalitarian government manipulates people's lives by eliminating individual freedom, family, art, literature, religions and cultural diversity. Totalitarian government controls humans from their conception and regulates assisted reproduction, as well, as education, indoctrination, and also enforces the medical drug use for pacification. Huxley himself called it a "negative utopia" which was written as a parody on 'Men Like Gods' (1923), a Utopian novel by H.G. Wells, which was also preceded by writings of Yevgeni Zamyatin.

In 1937 Huxley moved to Hollywood, California, with wife Maria and a life-long friend Gerald Heard. There Huxley befriended Jiddu Krishnamurti and became one of his disciples, adopting a blend of eastern philosophical traditions with modernized mysticism. He also joined the circle of 'Swami Prabhavadanta' and became influenced by Vedanta and meditating. Huxley dramatically updated his lifestyle, become a vegetarian and practiced yoga. He also experimented with non-addictive psychedelic drugs and wrote about these experiences extensively. He even reported that his eyesight had improved for the first time in over 25 years. After the Second World War Huxley applied for the United States citizenship, but was denied for refusing to take up arms to defend the country. He remained a British Citizen for his entire life. Later in the 1950's he turned down an offer of a Knight Bachelor by the British government.

In 1955 his wife, Maria, died of breast cancer. A year later Huxley became married to Laura Archera Huxley who was herself a writer and also became his biographer. In 1960 Huxley was diagnosed with throat cancer. In his last Utopian novel 'Island' (1962), Huxley re-visited and updated his basic ideas from the 'Brave New World' and from his other novels. In 'Island' Huxley summarized his views on the modern world and society, including his position on medical drug use and his political stands on democracy, modernity, ecology and pacifism. The novel served as an inspiration for the 1960's psychedelic culture and was also incorporated in ideology of the New Age Movement. Huxley's opposition to the rigid social organization and self-destructive nature of modern class society and inevitable fatality of the modern world was paralleled by that of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Aldous Huxley volunteered in experimental drug use in research carried by his friend Dr. Humphry Osmond since 1953. Huxley repeatedly experimented with mescaline injections and described his observations in 'The Doors of Perception' (1954) and 'Heaven and Hell' (1956). His own health deteriorated dramatically in the early 1960's. Huxley spent his last days bedridden, almost blind, and unable to speak. On his deathbed he made a written request to his wife for an intramuscular injection of 100 mg of LSD. Laura Archera Huxley followed his instruction, and Huxley died peacefully in a few hours after the injection. That was on November 22, 1963, in his home in California. His death was obscured by the news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on the same day.

Huxley wrote the original screenplay for Disney's animated 'Alise in Wonderland' (1951), and co-wrote the screenplays for 'Pride and Prejudice' (1940) and 'Jane Eyre' (1944). Many of his novels were adapted for film or television: two TV productions of 'Brave New World' (in 1980 and in 1998), a BBC production of 'Point counterpoint' (1968) and 'The Devils' (1971) starring Vanessa Redgrave and directed by Ken Russell, as well as other film and TV adaptations.

Aldous Huxley - The Gravity of Light - 1996 - Oliver Hockenhull - Full Movie

Aldous Huxley: The Gravity Of Light incorporates rare archival footage, computer rendered 3D animation, speculative fictions, and selections from his essays. The film begins by reflecting upon that crucial, prophetic work "Brave New World" (1932, Aldous Huxley) and then moves to a further inquiry into the human ramifications of current technological change. The film also recalls the impact of Huxley's LSD-25 and mescaline experimentations and writings for a generation of youth and examines the utopianistic impulses associated with the Rave scene.

"This is not a proper documentary," director/producer Oliver Hockenhull explains at the beginning of Aldous Huxley: The Gravity of Light (1996). "The project is not about his chronological life, but about his ideas." Hockenhull's narrative traces Huxley's intellectual and spiritual development through a series of re-enactments, montages, archival footage and computer animation. The production design splinters Huxley's life into fractal recombinations of the ideas, experiences and influences that shaped his life.

The documentary charts Huxley's life from the publication of Crome Yellow: A Novel (London: Chatto & Windus, 1921) to Island (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). Even the titles are epithets (my favorite being "The Singularity of Mind"). The hidden thread that runs through Hockenhull's documentary are excerpts from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interviews that Huxley did in 1957. Hockenhull offers viewers an Impressionist snapshot of the author best known for Brave New World (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc.,1932). A wake-up calling card rather than a dry instruction manual.

Jump cut to Jean Houston reminiscing about Huxley at a 1994 symposium. She reminds the audience of Huxley's passion for Homeric Greek and leads them in a call-refrain. Having summoned Huxley's creative daimon, Houston will later suggest that his life's turning point was Eyeless in Gaza (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936), which was his first overt spiritual work. Huxley, anticipating James Hillman's archetypal psychology, observes: "The seed grows according to its own being."

Transition to sequence on social persona: What 'setting' created the 'set' for Aldous Huxley's gnostic voyage of inner discovery? Huxley identifies a period during the 1930s of depression and life-crisis. He writes pacifist articles and receives death-threats from patriotic English-men. He notes that war manifests as group intoxication and barbarian hysteria. He experiments with the Alexander Technique's psycho-physical exercises as a defense against body-military drills and punishment football. He records sermons for the BBC. It's not enough. The external world triggers internal dissonance. Huxley quotes a letter (21 October 1949) he wrote to George Orwell that conveys what he felt these trends would generate: "The nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four will modulate into Brave New World." This observation grew into Brave New World Revisited (New York: Harper & Collins, 1958), in which Huxley re-examined how his dystopian vision had come into being.

Hockenhull shows montages of boxers, gymnasts and yogis as Huxley presciently warns against the dark-side of the post-war boom. People are being socially conditioned through education that assails free will and encourages social trance. Science and technology accelerates the drive to efficiency. Hockenhull drives this point home in a sequence taken from Point Counter Point (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co. Inc., 1928) that captures the postmodern angst about the fragility of personal relationships. An ex-couple talk by phone: he is fractured and confused, she remains defiant and has moved on. When he evokes visions of Love, she turns this mirage into the sexual conquest by a 'fallen woman'. The tantric Dance of Shakti devolves into a consumptive flight from intimacy. "I'd rather be human," he replies. Faraway, she laughs. Hell is losing other people yet, in an inter-connected society, having them always near (just out of reach). In these moments, Huxley reminds us, "Nothing short of everything is ever enough."

Many would-be Seekers After Truth would turn to drugs and pre-egoic mysticism as an escape from this existentialist cul-de-sac. Author Thomas Mann replies that such strategies are scandalous and admonishes Huxley in correspondence for advocating experimentation with LSD, mescalin and peyote. Huxley replies that there may be a pharmacological substitute for alcohol in fifty years time. Hockenhull wryly notes Huxley interest in Spiritualism and his friendship with J.B. Rhine. The filmmaker remains detached and unconvinced: in a sequence where he visits a channeler to ask what Huxley thinks of his film, Hockenhull dismisses her performance as dramatic acting influenced by her unconscious mind. Our minds, Hockenhull reminds us, sometimes enlighten us with what we want to believe.

Huxley's self-quest to uncover the reality beyond vaguely-defined freedom reached its pinnacle with The Perennial Philosophy (London: Chatto & Windus, 1946) and The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954-56). Captions also quote from Moksha: Aldous Huxley's Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (New York: Stonehill, 1977). Hockenhull invokes the altered states of consciousness that Huxley experienced with LSD and mescalin through looking at flowers. Huxley developed cancer, and on his deathbed (22 November 1963), took LSD-25 while his wife Laura read passages from The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

The documentary, true to Hockenhull's vision, illustrates the contours of Huxley's life at the expense of biographical details. His exploration of philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti and flirtation with Zen, for example, are barely mentioned. Rather, Hockenhull evokes in the viewer a glimpse of the questions that Huxley wrestled with and the subjective nature of his explorations. As with Derek Jarman's sparse Wittgenstein (1993), Hockenhull relies on actors and the creative use of sparse sets. His camera tracks from phone to phone as Huxley's thoughts resonate on the soundtrack, the camera gliding over flickering film lights, melted ice creams and tables. By juxtaposing the focus of a yogi with flower petals, Hockenhull hints at the polarity of consciousness, will and emotions that are transmuted by personal alchemy. His own on-camera appearances are detached and ironic.

Huxley became the visionary laureate for dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Within years of his death, The Beatles paid tribute by featuring him on the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Stanley Kubrick condensed the Vision Quest with the Stargate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Those viewers wanting a summary of his novels or his biography will have to look elsewhere. Aldous Huxley: The Gravity of Light will explain to you, instead, why Huxley remains an important influence on contemporary psychedelic culture and spiritual-oriented philosophies. "If the work has any value," Huxley reminds us, "that is it represented the record of a long learning process."