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Re: SK's films as 'brilliant, cerebral and heartless'...
And I'll just add ...compelling works of genius that mine not only the consciousness of a viewer but the unconscious as well. 2001 is an example. Not too much dialogue but the visuals seep into viewers' minds so what they see eventually floats around in one's head and a viewer makes connections where they can.
Seeing 2001 isn't giving simply a sci-if or space picture. It's probably more like a visual iceberg where alot is going on underneath as one watches the picture. For each picture he does great research so a viewer does get a lot to think about eventually. His genius shines in Barry Lyndon. I think in every shot he has in that film he puts you back into the 18th century.
It's almost as if he was right there and took it all in and brought it back like in time travel.
Kubrick has passed on but his great work lives for us to continually ponder on the screen.
Kubrick went through great changes as his career progressed. His early movies were filled with his passion, like Dr. Strangelove, but after he left the U.S. to live in England, he became more interested in letting visual images, not dialog, drive his pictures. And as that developed, he steadily used a cooler, more remote approach, allowing the viewer to engage or not with his characters.
He became increasingly attracted to material that was difficult to film, too. In The Shining, he simply displayed Jack Torrance slowly going insane. Another director would have used other devices to make the growing insanity more obvious and closer to the book's descriptions, but not Kubrick. As a result, there was a lingering sense of unease after the picture ended.
How does a director show a machine going insane? That's a harder task. But he pulled it off. Barry Lyndon was thought to be unfilmable for many years; Lyndon is an unlikeable cad, the plot plods in too many places, and the book was written at a time when books came out like TV series, a chapter at a time, meant to be read in small segments. Kubrick managed to find a way to make that movie work too.
But those abilities made for a slow production. He was notorious for his slowness.
Kubrick's biggest problem late in his career was his remoteness from Hollywood. He was often too slow to land some of the best scripts, had a lot of financing problems so far away from the industry's center, and had many films that were only partly finished as a result. Other producers would get word of what his latest project was, and make a similar film that hit the screens before Kubrick could get his film finished. His slow movie making eventually put him in a corner, where he could barely compete at the same time his style became increasingly challenging to his audience.
Eyes Wide Shut was probably his last movie, even if he hadn't died so soon after it's release. His way had stopped working by then, and it showed in the movie.
The same sort of thing happened to Alfred Hitchcock and several others.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is excellent.
The Shining is absolutely brilliant. And since I do not expect films to be bound by the novels upon which they are based, I don't waste time disliking the film because it diverges in numerous ways from novel The Shining (which I think is one of Stephen King's truly great works, along with 'Salem's Lot and The Dead Zone).
[quote=banjomike;37317576In The Shining, he simply displayed Jack Torrance slowly going insane. [/QUOTE]
Not really. Jack seemed insane in scene 1. He seemed insane in his last scene. He seemed insane in every scene between. And he typed a lot.
But there was no real character progression. The Shining is a masterpiece of mood, music, and horror. But it's also a great example of truly horrible character development.
You know perhaps Jack 'seemed' insane but also he seemed 'sane' as well in the Overlook scenes. Kubrick no doubt would agree that the 'monster is normality's shadow. Jack's visit to the Overlook was to do 'his work' but in the end it hit back at him reawakening the spooks living in the planking. And they do some work on his increasingly porous being.
His 'progression' I'd say is from that apparently 'normal' guy in the car with his wife and son on the road all the way down to a descent into complete and utter madness. As the film goes on we see a personality slowly destroying itself. The Shining really shows how 'rationality' can mask itself in human behavior.
You know perhaps Jack 'seemed' insane but also he seemed 'sane' as well in the Overlook scenes. Kubrick no doubt would agree that the 'monster is normality's shadow. Jack's visit to the Overlook was to do 'his work' but in the end it hit back at him reawakening the spooks living in the planking. And they do some work on his increasingly porous being.
His 'progression' I'd say is from that apparently 'normal' guy in the car with his wife and son on the road all the way down to a descent into complete and utter madness. As the film goes on we see a personality slowly destroying itself. The Shining really shows how 'rationality' can mask itself in human behavior.
You must have seen a different movie than I did. Nicholson seemed bat-poo-poo nuts in every scene. Even in the car scene, as his wife and son are talking, he seems to be barely holding it in and contemplating driving off the cliff just to shut them up.
The movie isn't about a man going insane. It's about an insane man with an annoying wife and a mentally disturbed son. The guy finally has enough and decides to kill them all.
Does it make for a great horror flick? Sure. And Kubrick was a master of cinematography and use of music for mood. But Kubrick not only doesn't seem to understand basic human nature, he doesn't seem to like people very much, even his main characters. As a director, he's more like a clinician watching rats in a maze. Very cold and disinterested.
Does it make for a great horror flick? Sure. And Kubrick was a master of cinematography and use of music for mood. But Kubrick not only doesn't seem to understand basic human nature, he doesn't seem to like people very much, even his main characters. As a director, he's more like a clinician watching rats in a maze. Very cold and disinterested.
He wasn't always that way. The "I'm Spartacus!" scene where the single tear runs down Kirk Douglas' face would have to rank among the most moving cinematic scenes in film history.
There are too many to list as my favorites. Also, I cannot say there is a single film I hated, even though I am not a fan of Eyes Wide Shut. Probably the one I can always watch is a Clockwork Orange, even though it is very violent & twisted.
When I was out in LA not too long ago, I went to a Stanley Kubrick exposition. It was great with many of the films props on display, including video clips with analysis of colleagues, critics, etc.
"The Killing", "Dr. Strangelove", and "2001" are three of my all-time favorite movies.
Favorite scenes:
"The Killing" - The strangely silent fight scene between Maurice and the track guards.
"Dr. Strangelove" - "You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company."
"2001" - HAL's triple murder of the three astronauts in suspended animation. I consider this to be one of the most chilling murder scenes in cinema history.
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