I read
this article Essam sent me (not tagging him over Ramadan), which confirms Kubrick was already using Campbell's
Hero With a Thousand Faces very explicitly for his conception of
2001 in 1964--among other interesting tidbits. What I'm still unable to confirm is whether Campbell wrote publicly about the Pollen Path before 1986--six years after
The Shining came out. (The Pollen Path seems
very important in the film so I really have to give a hat tip to these Si/Ti jumper alpha kids for identifying that painting, even though the bonkers correlating mania of their online Kubrick cottage industry upsets me
a lot).
But the chronology doesn't really matter much, methinks. Kubrick read Raul Hilberg's
Destruction of the European Jews (he would later start and shelve a Holocaust filn due to
Schindler's List and he went and struck up a mail correspondence with Hilberg. I'm sure he did this all the time. If Kubrick
didn't strike up a relationship with Campbell, I'd be surprised.
This was part of the genius of the man. It wasn't just the unusual combination of his very high level in both mathematical/technical and arts/humanities arenas (and I ain't talking DaVinci clean, imperial arts); it was also his gung ho, get up and go, man on a mission no matter what, brass tacks, no nonsense, lusty bossy and when necessary down and dirty
gamma extravert personality. The
business of chess remained his game no matter what board he played on. Chess, visionary art, and
him--those were the three legs of the perfect tripod for his camera.
Not for nothing 'my' King K. was also King Kong on top of the giant phallic Empire State Building that I would see five blocks away from my window on the 17th floor in 1980. There was a genius to his
personality. Te, Te, and more Te. He imposed his will, he got shit done. I really can't see him as anything but TeNi now. As
the ENTJ, really.
But about the unforeseen toll his PolR as superpower Si was bound to take on these King K. cottage industry alpha jumper babes in the cyberwoods...