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Early life
Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928 at the Lying-In Hospital in Manhattan, New York City, United States, the first of two children born to Jacques Leonard Kubrick (1901-1985) and his wife Gertrude (née Perveler; 1903-1985); his sister, Barbara, was born in 1934. Father Jacques, whose parents were Jewish immigrants of Austro-Romanian and Polish origin, was a successful doctor. At Stanley's birth, the Kubricks lived in an apartment at 2160 Clinton Avenue in The Bronx.
Kubrick's father taught him chess at age twelve; the game remained a life-long obsession. When Stanley was thirteen-years-old, Jacques Kubrick bought him a Graflex camera, triggering Kubrick's fascination with still photography. He also was then interested in jazz, attempting a brief career as a drummer.
Kubrick attended William Howard Taft High School, 1941–1945. He was a poor student with a meager 67 grade average. On graduation from high school in 1945, when soldiers returning from the Second World War crowded colleges, his poor grades eliminated hopes of higher education. Later in life, Kubrick spoke disdainfully of his education and of education in general, maintaining that nothing about school interested him.
In high school, he was chosen official school photographer for a year. Eventually, he sought jobs on his own, and by graduation time had sold a photographic series to Look magazine in NYC. Kubrick supplemented his income playing "chess for quarters" in Washington Square Park and in various Manhattan chess clubs. He registered for night school at the City College to improve his grade-point average. He worked as a freelance photographer for Look, becoming an apprentice photographer in 1946, and later a full-time staff photographer.
During his Look magazine years, on May 29, 1948, Kubrick married Toba Metz (b. 1930) and they lived in Greenwich Village, divorcing in 1951. It was then that Kubrick began frequenting film screenings at the Museum of Modern Art and in the cinemas of New York City. He was particularly inspired by the complex, fluid camera movement of Max Ophüls, whose films influenced Kubrick's later visual style.
Many early-period (1945-1950) photographs by Kubrick were published in the book "Drama and Shadows" (2005, Phaidon Press).
Film career and later life
Early Films
In 1951, Kubrick's friend, Alex Singer, persuaded him to start making short documentaries for the March of Time, a provider of cinema-distributed newsreels. Kubrick agreed, and independently financed Day of the Fight (1951). Although the distributor went out of business that year, Kubrick sold Day of the Fight to RKO Pictures for a profit of one hundred dollars. Kubrick quit his job at Look magazine and began working on his second short documentary, Flying Padre (1951), funded by RKO. A third film, The Seafarers (1953), Kubrick's first color film, was a 30-minute promotional short film for the Seafarers' International Union. These three films constitute Kubrick's only surviving work in the documentary genre (he was involved in other similar shorts which have been lost). He also was second unit director on an episode about the life of Abraham Lincoln for the Omnibus television programme. The Seafarers was announced to be released on an official DVD, but never was; none of these shorts has ever been officially released, though they are widely bootlegged, and clips are used in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures.
In 1953, beginning with Fear and Desire (1953), Kubrick concentrated solely on feature-length, narrative films. Fear and Desire is about a team of soldiers behind enemy lines in a fictional war. In the finale, the men see that the faces of their enemy are identical to their own (the same cast play all the characters). Kubrick and wife Toba Metz were the only crew on the film, which was written by Kubrick's friend Howard Sackler, later a successful playwright. Fear and Desire garnered respectable reviews, but failed commercially. In later life, Kubrick was embarrassed by the film, dismissing it as amateur, refusing Fear and Desire's projection in retrospectives and public screenings on establishing himself as a major filmmaker. It is often said that Kubrick bought every print of the film which he could, to keep people from seeing it. At least one copy remained in the hands of a private collector, and the film was subsequently bootlegged on VHS and, later, DVD; all releases of the film are unofficial and in violation of applicable copyright laws. (The consensus opinion is that the film is bad, though student filmmakers tend to describe it as 'encouragingly bad', inasmuch as it shows how humble Kubrick's beginnings were.)
Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba ended during the making of Fear and Desire. He met his second wife, Austrian-born dancer and theatrical designer, Ruth Sobotka, in 1952. They lived together in the East Village from 1952-1955 until their marriage on January 15, 1955; the couple later moved to Hollywood during the summer of 1955. Sobotka, who made a cameo appearance in Kubrick's next film, Killer's Kiss (1954), also served as art director on The Killing (1956). Like Fear and Desire, Killer's Kiss is a short feature film, with a running time of slightly more than an hour, of limited commercial and critical success. The film is about a young, heavyweight boxer at the end of his career who is involved with organized crime. Both Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss were privately funded by Kubrick's family and friends.
The Killing
Alex Singer introduced Kubrick to a producer named James B. Harris, and the two became lifelong friends. Their business partnership, Harris-Kubrick Productions, financed Kubrick's next three films. They bought the rights to the Lionel White novel Clean Break, which Kubrick and co-screenwriter Jim Thompson turned into a story about a race track robbery gone wrong. Starring Sterling Hayden, The Killing was Kubrick's first film with a professional cast and crew. The film made impressive use of non-linear time, unusual in 1950s cinema, and, though financially unsuccessful, was Kubrick's first critically successful film. The widespread admiration for The Killing brought Harris-Kubrick Productions to the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio offered them its massive collection of copyrighted stories from which to choose their next project. Eventually, they chose The Burning Secret by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. Kubrick wrote a screenplay with Calder Willingham, but the deal collapsed before the film got properly underway.
Paths of Glory
The World War I story, based on Humphrey Cobb's novel Paths of Glory (1935), is about three innocent French soldiers charged with cowardice by their superior officers as an example to the other soldiers. Kirk Douglas was cast as Colonel Dax, a humanitarian officer trying to prevent the soldiers' execution. Paths of Glory (1957) was Stanley Kubrick's first significant commercial and critical success, establishing him as an up-and-coming cineaste. Critics praised the unvarnished combat scenes, and Kubrick's cinematography: Colonel Dax's march through his soldiers' trench in a single, unbroken reverse-tracking shot has become a classic cinematic trope cited in film classes. Steven Spielberg named this his favorite Kubrick film.
Paths of Glory was filmed in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. During its production, Kubrick met and romanced the young German actress Christiane Harlan (credited by her stage name "Susanne Christian"), who played the only woman speaking part in the film. Kubrick divorced his second wife Ruth Sobotka in 1957. Christiane Susanne Harlan (b. 1932) was born in Germany to a theatrical family; she trained as an actress. During her marriage to Kubrick she concentrated on a career as a painter. The two married in 1958 and remained together until his death in 1999. In addition to raising Christiane's young daughter Katharina (b. 1953) from her first marriage to the late German actor, Werner Bruhns (d. 1977), the couple had two daughters: Anya (b. 1958) and Vivian (b. 1960). Christiane's brother Jan Harlan was Kubrick's executive producer from 1975 onwards.
Spartacus
On returning to the United States, Kubrick worked for six months on the Marlon Brando vehicle One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Later, Kubrick claimed Brando forced him from the film, because Brando wanted to direct it himself. Kubrick languished working on unproduced screenplays (including, notably, Jim Thompson's treatment, Lunatic at Large) until Kirk Douglas asked him to assume direction of Spartacus (1960) from Anthony Mann who, two weeks into shooting, was fired by the studio because he lacked leadership (or, more likely, for disagreeing with producer-star Kirk Douglas).
Based upon the true story of a doomed uprising of Roman slaves, Spartacus established Stanley Kubrick as a major director. The production, however, was difficult; creative differences arose between Kubrick and Douglas, the star and producer of the film. Frustrated by lack of creative control, Kubrick later, largely disowned its authorship. The Douglas-Kubrick creative control battles destroyed their work relationship from Paths of Glory. Years later, Kirk Douglas referred to Stanley Kubrick as "a talented shit". Spartacus was a major critical and commercial success, but its embattled production convinced Kubrick to find ways of working with Hollywood financing while remaining independent of its production system. Kubrick referred to Hollywood production as "film by fiat, film by frenzy", this reasoning lay behind Kubrick's moving to England in 1962.
Lolita
In 1962, Kubrick moved to England to film Lolita, and resided there for the rest of his life. Unsurprisingly, Lolita was Kubrick's first major controversy. The book by Vladimir Nabokov, dealing with an affair between a middle-aged pedophile and a twelve-year-old girl, already was notorious when Kubrick embarked on the project, however it was also at the time, steadily acheiving popularity; eventually, the difficult subject matter was mocked in the film's tagline, perhaps to gain attention: "How did they ever make a film of Lolita?". Nabokov wrote a three-hundred page screenplay, which Kubrick abandoned; reportedly, Kubrick wrote the final screenplay.
Despite changing Lolita's age from twelve years to fourteen years, which was a more acceptable age for commercial appeal at the time, several scenes in the final film had to be re-edited to allow the film's release. The resulting film toned down what were considered the novel's more perverse aspects, leaving much to the viewer's imagination, some viewers have even wondered whether Humbert and Lolita actually embarked on a sexual affair, as most of their relationship, sexually, is implied and suggested. Later, Kubrick commented that, had he known the severity of the censorship, he probably would not have made the film. However, Kubrick always spoke highly of James Mason, who portrayed Humbert Humbert in the film, identifying him as one of the actors with whom he most enjoyed working. Lolita also was the first time Kubrick worked with British comic Peter Sellers, a collaboration which proved one of the most successful of his early career, most notable for Dr. Strangelove (1964). Oswald Morris was the director of photography. Morris went on to shoot the hugley successful musical Oliver.
Lolita's release in 1962 was surrounded by immense hype, which is responsible for the box office success at the time; it was also given an "Adults Only" rating at the time, since ratings for film and literature where not applicable at the time of Lolita's release. Critical reception for the film was mixed, many praising it for its daring subject, others surprised by the lack of intimacy between Lolita and Humbert. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing of an Adapted Screenplay, and Sue Lyon, who played the title role, won a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer Actress.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), became a cult film. The screenplay — based upon the novel Red Alert, by ex-RAF flight lieutenant Peter George (writing as Peter Bryant) — was co-written by Kubrick, George, and American satirist Terry Southern.
Dr Strangelove is often considered a masterpiece of black humor. While Red Alert is a serious, cautionary tale of accidental atomic war for Cold War-era readers; Dr. Strangelove accidentally evolved into what Kubrick called a "nightmare comedy". Originally intended as a thriller, Kubrick found the conditions leading to nuclear war so absurd that the story became dark and funny rather than thrilling; Kubrick reconceived it as comedy, recruiting Terry Southern for the required anarchic irony.
Peter Sellers, memorable as 'Clare Quilty' in Lolita, was hired to simultaneously play four roles in Dr Strangelove. Eventually, Sellers played three, due to an injured leg and difficulty in mastering the Texas accent of bomber pilot Major "King" Kong. Later, Kubrick called Sellers "amazing", but lamented that his energy rarely lasted beyond two or three takes. To capture the actor's limited energy, Kubrick set up two cameras to film Sellers improvisation. Strangelove often is cited as one of Sellers's best films, and proof of his comic genius.
Kubrick's decision to film a Cold War thriller as a black comedy was a daring artistic risk that paid off for him and Columbia Pictures. Coincidentally, that same year, Columbia Studios released the dramatic nuclear war thriller Fail-Safe. Its close similarity with Dr Strangelove prompted Kubrick to consider suing the makers of that film, but decided against it.
Dr. Strangelove portrays a deliberate American nuclear war launched against Russia, by U.S.A.F. General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden). In real time, the film's duration, the story intercuts among three locales: (i) Burpleson Air Force Base, where RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Sellers) tries stopping the mad Gen. Ripper; (ii) the Pentagon War Room, where the U.S. President (Sellers), U.S.A.F. General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), and (officially ex-)Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove (Sellers) try stopping (or not) the B-52 bombers enroute to dropping nuclear bombs on Russia; and (iii) Major Kong's (Slim Pickens) renegade B-52 bomber aeroplane where his crew try to complete their mission. Production designer Ken Adam's sets for the film — especially the War Room in the Pentagon — are considered classic film production design.
In belittling the sacrosanct norms of the political culture of mutually assured destruction (MAD) as the squabbling of intellectual children, Dr. Strangelove foreshadowed the cultural upheavals of the late 1960s and was enormously successful with the nascent American counter-culture. Dr. Strangelove earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Best Director) and the New York Film Critics' Best Director award. Kubrick's successful Dr. Strangelove persuaded the studios that he was an auteur who could be trusted to deliver popular films despite his unusual ideas. Director of Photography was Gilbert Taylor, a noted cinematographer who shot 'Star Wars' and 'A Hard Days Night'.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Kubrick spent five years developing his next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), (photographed in Super Panavision 70). Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke, expanding Clarke's short story "The Sentinel". The screenplay and the novel were written simultaneously — the novel was published in tandem with the film's release, and credited only to Clarke — the literary and the screen stories substantially deviate from each other; despite this, Clarke and Kubrick later spoke highly of one another.
The film's special effects, overseen by Kubrick and engineered by special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (Silent Running, Blade Runner), proved ground-breaking and inspired many of the special effects-driven films which followed in the genre. Many manufacturing companies were consulted as to what the design of both special-purpose and everyday objects would look like in the year 2001. At the time of the movie's release, speaking to journalists at an MGM-hosted conference, novelist Clarke, commenting on the film's look, predicted that a generation of engineers would design real spacecraft based upon 2001's fictional spacecraft, "even if it isn't the best way to do it." Despite nominations in the direction, writing, and production categories, the only Academy Award Kubrick ever received was for supervising the special effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This film also was notable for its use of classical music, such as Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss's The Blue Danube waltz. More notable is Kubrick's use of the music of contemporary, avant-garde Hungarian composer, György Ligeti, done however, without his consent. The use of Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, and Requiem, was the first, widely commercial exposure of Ligeti's works. Kubrick's use of music in 2001: A Space Odyssey was unusual for its time, in that it is integral (or ironic) to the film and ideas and not simply a comment upon or an enhancement of the visual action.
Artistically, 2001: A Space Odyssey was a radical departure from Kubrick's previous cinematic oeuvre and cinematic technique. It has only forty-five minutes of dialogue of conversations seemingly superfluous to the background story, the images, and the music, nevertheless it outlines the 'story' while presenting mankind as dissociated from themselves. Clarke's characters function either as extensions to the story or anthropological archetypes. The story and plot are obscure for most of the film's duration, and its ambiguous, perplexing ending continues fascinating contemporary audiences. After this film, Kubrick would never experiment so much.
Despite being an unorthodox science fiction genre film, it was an enormously successful commercial and popular culture phenomenon. This occurred after the public's initial disinterest was followed by word-of-mouth recommendation. Were it not for a six-week exhibition contract, the film may not have had enough time in cinemas to have benefitted from the word-of-mouth popularity as ticket sales were low during the first fortnight of its release; it nearly was withdrawn from release; later, actor Jack Nicholson quoted Stanley Kubrick as having counted two hundred seventeen people walking out of the premiere showing (including the studio head). Paradoxically, Kubrick won total creative control from Hollywood by succeeding with one of the most thematically "difficult" films ever to win wide commercial release.
Initial critical reaction was negative, attacking the film's lack of dialogue and (seemingly) impenetrable story. Following the film's success, however, many critics later revised their opinions. Audiences embraced the film, especially the 1960s counterculture, who loved the movie's "Star Gate" sequence, a seemingly psychedelic journey to the infinite reaches of the cosmos. The cult following the film acquired in the burgeoning drug culture prompted the film's distributors to add the LSD-allusive tagline: "The Ultimate Trip", to the movie's advertising poster.
Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey are as widespread as its popularity, and, though made in 1968, it still prompts debate today. When critic Joseph Gelmis asked Kubrick about the meaning of the film, Kubrick replied[1]:
“ They are the areas I prefer not to discuss, because they are highly subjective and will differ from viewer to viewer. In this sense, the film becomes anything the viewer sees in it. If the film stirs the emotions and penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it stimulates, however inchoately, his mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded. ”
2001: A Space Odyssey may be Kubrick's most famous and influential film. Steven Spielberg called it his generation's big bang, focusing its attention upon the Russo-American space race. The special effects techniques Kubrick pioneered were later developed by Ridley Scott and George Lucas for films such as Alien and Star Wars. 2001 is particularly notable as one of the few films realistically presenting travel in outer space, i.e. the scenes in outer space are silent; weightlessness is constant, characters are strapped in place; when characters wear pressure suits, only their breathing is audible.
The film's primary themes include: the origins of evolution; sentient computers; extra-terrestrial beings; the search for one's place in the universe; and re-birth all seen within a cold, foreboding light. Books have been written about interpretations of it, and even Arthur C. Clarke is on record as ignoring what, exactly, Stanley Kubrick had in mind in making the film, going so far as to say that 2001: A Space Odyssey is ninety per cent Stanley Kubrick's vision. The brilliant cinematography was by director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth.
Napoleon
Kubrick's next film project was to be a large-scale biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte. He did much research, read books about the French Emperor, and wrote a preliminary screenplay. With assistants, he meticulously created a card-catalogue of the places and deeds of Napoleon's inner circle during its operative years. Kubrick scouted locations, planning to film large portions of the story in the historical places where Napoleon's life occurred.
In notes to his financial backers, preserved in The Kubrick Archives, Kubrick told them he was unsure how his Napoleon film would turn out, but that he expected to create 'the best movie ever made.' Ultimately, the project was cancelled for three reasons: (i) the prohibitive costliness of location filming; (ii) the release, in the West, of Sergei Bondarchuk's epic film version of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace (1968), and (iii) the commercial failure of Bondarchuk's Napoleon-themed film Waterloo (1970). Stanley Kubrick's screenplay for this film has been published on the Internet, much of his historical research would influence Barry Lyndon (1975), set in the late eighteenth century, just before Napoleon's wars.
A Clockwork Orange
In place of his Napoleon, Kubrick sought a project which he could quickly film with a small budget. He found it in A Clockwork Orange (1971). His film version is a dark, shocking exploration of violence in human society. It was released with an 'X' rating in the United States, though it later was re-classified with an 'R' rating.
Based upon the famous novel by Anthony Burgess, the film is the story of a teenage hooligan, Alex, (Malcolm McDowell), who gleefully torments, beats, robs, steals, and rapes without conscience or remorse. Finally imprisoned, Alex undergoes psychiatric aversion treatment to be cured of his instinctively reflexive violence. This conditions him physically unable to act violently, yet also renders him helpless and incapable of moral choice, resulting in a consequently brutal come-uppance at the hands of his victims.
Kubrick photographed A Clockwork Orange quickly and almost entirely on location in and around London. Despite the low-tech nature of the film, when compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick was highly innovative, i.e. throwing a camera from a rooftop to achieve the desired viewer disorientation. For the score, Kubrick had electronic music composer Wendy Carlos, at the time known as Walter Carlos, (Switched-On Bach), adapt famous classical works such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the Moog synthesizer.
The film was extremely controversial because of its explicitly depicted teenage gang-rape and violence. Released the same year as Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs and Don Siegel's Dirty Harry, the three films sparked ferocious debate in the media about the social effects of cinematic violence. The controversy was exacerbated when copycat violence was committed in England, by criminals wearing the same costumes as characters in A Clockwork Orange. The story is narrated in Nadsat, a slang language comprising many anglicized Russian words: the gang refer to each other as "droogie", from the Russian word for "friend."
When Kubrick and family were threatened with death, resulting from the social controversy, he took the unusual step of removing the film from circulation in Britain. The film was not released again in the United Kingdom until its re-release in 2000, a year after Stanley Kubrick's death. In banning his film in Britain, he showed the unprecedented power he held over his distributor, Warner Brothers. For the remainder of his career he held total control of every aspect of his films, including the marketing and the advertising; such was Warner Brothers' faith in his projects.
The novelist Anthony Burgess had mixed feelings about Stanley Kubrick's film. Though Kubrick's film ends differently from Burgess's original novel, Burgess blamed his American publisher for that, not Kubrick, who based his screenplay upon the American edition of the novel, from which the final, 21st, chapter had been removed. In the novel's original ending, Alex, the story's anti-hero, chooses to give up criminal ways to instead lead a peaceful, productive life. Kubrick did not read the final chapter until well into production, deciding it was out of keeping with the tone of his film version.
Eventually, Burgess dedicated his book Napoleon Symphony to Stanley Kubrick, who had given him ideas used in that novel. In fact, according to the online Kubrick FAQ, Kubrick considered Napoleon Symphony as the starting point for the cancelled Napoleon film he once was to have made. According to Burgess's autobiography You've Had Your Time and his 1986 introduction to A Clockwork Orange, Burgess was irritated that Kubrick ignored the controversy surrounding the film, leaving him (Burgess) to alone defend a work of art not his own. Another likely reason for Burgess's ambivalence towards the film is that he considered that novel one of his lesser works, wanting to be remembered for the books he considered his greater works, yet, largely because of the film's success, A Clockwork Orange is Anthony Burgess's best-known novel. It remains, perhaps, Stanley Kubrick's most notorious and controversial film
Barry Lyndon
Kubrick's next film was an adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon, also known as Barry Lyndon, a picaresque novel about an 18th century gambler and social climber who slowly insinuates himself to English high society. It would be Kubrick's least-appreciated post-Strangelove film, despite strong acting (by Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, and Irish actress Marie Kean) and Kubrick's innovative cinematography and attention to period detail. Despite box-office failure in the United States, the film found a great audience in Europe, particularly in France.
Some critics, especially Pauline Kael, one of Kubrick's greatest detractors, found Barry Lyndon a cold, slow-moving, and lifeless film. Its measured pace and length — more than three hours — put off many American critics and audiences, however, the film was well-reviewed in the U.S. by noted critics Rex Reed and Richard Schickel. Time Magazine published a cover story about the film, and Kubrick was nominated for three Academy Awards. As with most of his films, Barry Lyndon's reputation has grown through the years, particularly among other filmmakers. Director Martin Scorsese cited it as his favorite Kubrick film. Steven Spielberg has praised its "impeccable technique," though, when younger, he famously described it "like going through the Prado without lunch".
As in his other films, Kubrick's cinematography and lighting techniques are innovative. Most famously, interior scenes were photographed with a specially-adapted, high-speed still camera lens (originally invented for NASA) allowing many scenes to be lit only with candlelight, creating two-dimensional, diffused light images reminiscent of 18th century painting. Kubrick's blending of music, mise en scene, costume and action set standards for period drama that few other films have matched. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, more than any other Kubrick film. Despite this, Barry Lyndon was not a box office success in the US, however, it was a big hit in Europe.
Like almost all other Kubrick films, "Barry Lyndon" has a remarkable score, comprised most notably of one of Franz Schubert's piano trios.
The Shining
Kubrick's work pace slowed considerably after Barry Lyndon; he did not make another film until The Shining. Released in 1980, it is a free adaptation of Stephen King's popular horror novel. It stars Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall in the story of a writer manqué who takes the job of off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, a high-class resort deep in the Colorado mountains. The job demands that he, his wife, and son spend the winter alone in the isolated hotel. His son, Danny, is gifted with telepathy, called "shining," and has glimpses of visions of the past and of the future.
To Danny, the hotel displays increasingly horrible, phantasmagoric images, notably the apparition of two girls murdered years before, by their father, the hotel's caretaker. Jack is slowly driven mad by the haunted Overlook Hotel until collapsing into homicidal psychosis, then trying to kill his family with an axe.
The film was shot mostly at the Elstree and the Pinewood studios, near London, where the film sets were built, however the Overlook Hotel exterior is that of the Timberline Lodge ski resort on Mount Hood, Oregon, U.S.A. Kubrick extensively used the newly-invented Steadicam (a spring-mounted camera support) for smooth movement in enclosed spaces, to convey the haunted hotel's claustrophobic oppression of the family.
More than any other of his films, The Shining gave rise to the legend of Kubrick-as-megalomanic-perfectionist. Reportedly, he demanded hundreds of takes of certain scenes (ca. 1.3 million film ft. were exposed), particularly plaguing actress Shelley Duvall. His daughter, Vivian Kubrick, shot a short documentary film of the production. It is available in the DVD release of the film, it is one of few documents of Kubrick in action in the latter half of his career.
The film opened to mostly negative reviews, but did very well, commercially, with audiences and made Warner Brothers a profit. As with most Kubrick films, subsequent critical reaction re-views the film more favourably. Stephen King was dissatisfied with the movie, calling Kubrick "a man who thinks too much and feels too little". Later, in 1997, King collaborated with Mick Garris to create a television mini-series version of the novel. Since then, King has spoken with less hostility toward Kubrick and his film (it was said at the time of the mini-series initial release that King agreed to not speak publicly about Kubrick's version if he were given the rights to do the miniseries).
Among horror movie fans, The Shining is a classic cult film, often appearing with The Exorcist (1974) and Halloween (1978) at the top of best horror film lists. Some of its images, such as an antique elevator disgorging a tidal wave of blood, are among the most recognizable, widely-known images from any Stanley Kubrick film. The Shining renewed Warner Brothers faith in Kubrick's ability to make artistically satisfying and profitable films after the commercial failure that was Barry Lyndon in the United States. As a pop culture phenomenon, the film has been the object of countless parodies, from The Simpsons and MAD Magazine to recent films such as Seed Of Chucky.
Full Metal Jacket
It was seven years until Kubrick's next film, Full Metal Jacket (1987), an adaptation of Gustav Hasford's Vietnam War novel, The Short-Timers, starring Matthew Modine as Joker, Adam Baldwin as Animal Mother, R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and Vincent D'Onofrio as Private Pyle.
The film begins at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, U.S.A., where GySgt Hartman ruthlessly pushes his new men through punishing recruit training to release their repressed killing instincts and transform them from "maggots" to Marines. Pvt Pyle, a fat, slow-witted conscript, subjected to relentless physical and verbal abuse by GySgt Hartman, slowly cracks under the strain, resulting, on the eve of graduation, in Pvt Pyle's shooting and killing GySgt Hartman before killing himself as he repeats the by-then-familiar Marine mantra: "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine..." The scene ends the boot-camp portion of the story.
The second half of the film follows Joker, since promoted to sergeant, as he tries to stay sane in Vietnam. As a reporter for the United States Military's newspaper the Stars and Stripes, Joker occupies war's middle ground, using wit and sarcasm to detach himself from the war. Though an American and a member of the United States Marine Corps, he also is a reporter and so is compelled to abide the ethics of the profession. The film then follows an infantry platoon's advance on and through Hue City, decimated by the street fighting of the Tet Offensive. The film climaxes in a battle between Joker's platoon and a sniper hiding in the rubble; she becomes Joker's first confirmed kill.
Filming a Vietnam War film in England was a considerable challenge for Stanley Kubrick and team. Much filming was in the Docklands area of London, with the ruined-city set created by production designer Anton Furst. This helped make the film visually very different from the other, contemporary Vietnam War films Platoon and Hamburger Hill. Instead of being set in the tropical, Southeast-Asian jungle, the second half of the story unfolds in a city, illuminating the urban warfare aspect of a war otherwise perceived as fought exclusively in a jungle. Kubrick said to film critic Gene Siskel that his attraction to Gustav Hasford's book was because it was "neither anti-war or pro-war", held "no moral or political position", and was primarily concerned with "the way things are." Which was an amazing view that categorized the war for what was really happening.
Full Metal Jacket received mixed critical review, but found a reasonably large audience, despite being over-shadowed by Oliver Stone's Platoon. This was one reason for Kubrick not making Aryan Papers, in fear that its publicity would be stolen by Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List.
Eyes Wide Shut
Stanley Kubrick was a mute presence in Hollywood in the ten-odd years after the release of Full Metal Jacket (1987); many believed that he had retired from film-making. Occasionally, rumours surfaced about possible, new Kubrick projects, including Aryan Papers and A.I. (eventually produced after Kubrick's death, directed by Spielberg). Stanley Kubrick's final film would be Eyes Wide Shut, starring then-married actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as an upper middle class Manhattan couple in sexual odyssey.
The story of Eyes Wide Shut is based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella Traumnovelle (in English a.k.a. Dream Story), and follows Dr. William Harford's journey to the sexual underworld of New York City, after his wife, Alice, shatters his faith in her fidelity when she confesses to nearly giving him, and their daughter, up for one night with another man.
After trespassing upon the rituals of a sinister, mysterious sexual cult, Dr. Harford thinks twice before seeking sexual revenge against his wife, and learns he and his family might be in danger.
The film was in production for more than two years, and two of the main members of the cast, Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh, were replaced in the course of the filming. Although set in New York City, the film was mostly shot in London soundstages, with little location shooting. Shots of Manhattan itself were pick-up shots filmed in New York City by a second-unit crew. Because of Kubrick's secrecy about the film, mostly inaccurate rumors abounded about its plot and content. Most especially, the story's sexual content provoked much exaggerated speculation; some journalists writing that it would be "the sexiest film ever made." The casting of the celebrity-actor couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman increased the magnitude of pre-release journalistic hyperbole.
In 1999, days after screening a final cut of Eyes Wide Shut for his family, the lead actor and actress, and Warner Brothers executives, the seventy-year-old director Stanley Kubrick died of a heart attack in his sleep. He was buried next to his favorite tree in Childwickbury Manor, Hertfordshire, England, U.K.
The film did smashing box-office business, which considerably slowed down in the weeks after the film's release. Far from being an erotic thriller, Eyes Wide Shut proved a slow, mysterious, dreamy meditation on themes of marriage, fidelity, betrayal, and the illusion-versus-reality of sexual adventure. Critics mostly were negative towards the film, attacking its slow pace and perceived emotional inertia. Kubrick's defenders have speculated that the mixed criticism of and box-office response to the movie were deeply affected by the pre-release lurid misconceptions about the film — the audience disliked it because it frustrated their expectations.
According to his friends and family, Eyes Wide Shut was Kubrick's personal favorite of his own films. Contrary to that, however, in 2006, actor R. Lee Ermey went on record as saying Kubrick told him in a telephone talk, shortly before his death, that Eyes Wide Shut was "a piece of shit" and that the critics would "have him for lunch". [2] Yet, Todd Field (director, In the Bedroom, Little Children) who acted for Kubrick refutes Ermey's statements, "Stanley was absolutely thrilled with the film. He was still working on the film when he died, and he probably died because he finally relaxed. It was one of the happiest weekends of his life, he had just shown the first cut to Terry, Tom, and Nicole. He would have kept working on it, like he did on all of his films, but I know he was over the moon about the film, as I was told this from people who were with him daily throughout post-production. My production partner was Stanley’s assistant for thirty years." Field stated that Kubrick advised him to stay away from the Texas Chainsaw actor: " I’d originally thought about R. Lee Ermey for In the Bedroom, and I talked to Stanley a lot about that film, and, all I can say, is Stanley was adamant that I not work with Ermey, for all kinds of reasons that I won't get into, because there is no reason to do that to anyone, even if that person is saying slanderous things about Stanley, that I know, for a fact, are completely untrue."
Eyes Wide Shut, like Lolita and A Clockwork Orange before it, faced censorship before release. In the United States and Canada, digitally manufactured silhouette figures were strategically placed to mask explicit copulation scenes. It was done to secure an "R" rating from the MPAA. To Europe, and the rest of the world, the film has been released uncut, in its original form.
Filmography
Documentary Short Films
* Day of the Fight (1951)
* Flying Padre (1951)
* The Seafarers (1953)
Feature Films
* Fear and Desire (1953)
* Killer's Kiss (1955)
* The Killing (1956)
* Paths of Glory (1957)
* Spartacus (1960)
* Lolita (1962)
* Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
* A Clockwork Orange (1971)
* Barry Lyndon (1975)
* The Shining (1980)
* Full Metal Jacket (1987)
* Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
References
* 1. http://www.krusch.com/kubrick/Q13.html
* 2. http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0037.html
* 3. David Hughes (2000). The Complete Kubrick. London: Virgin. ISBN 0-7535-0452-9.
* 4. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. Documentary film. Dir. Jan Harlan. Warner Home Video, 2001. 142 min.
* 5. Kubrick on The Shining An interview with Michel Ciment
* 6. The Hechinger Debacle
* 7. Anthony Burgess, (1962, 1986). A Clockwork Orange. Norton. ISBN 0-393-31283-6.
* 8. Stanley Kubrick, (2001). Stanley Kubrick: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-297-7.
* 9. Jeremy Bernstein (November 1966). "A Day in the Life of Stanley Kubrick". The New Yorker.
* 10. Lyons, V and Fitzgerald, M. (2005) ‘’Asperger syndrome : a gift or a curse?’’ New York : Nova Science Publishers. ISBN 1-59454-387-9
* 11. Rainer Crone (text) and Stanley Kubrick (photographs) (2005). Drama and Shadows: Photographs 1945-1950. Phaidon Press. ISBN 0-7148-4438-1.
* 12. Alison Castle (editor) and Stanley Kubrick (photographs) (2005). The Stanley Kubrick Archives. Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-2284-1.
External links
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