Stanley Kubrick

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{{Infobox Celebrity | name = Stanley Kubrick | image = Kubrick 70s.jpg | caption = "I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself." | birth_date = 26 July, 1928 | birth_place = The Bronx, New York City, United States | death_date = 7 March, 1999 | death_place = Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England | occupation = film director and producer | spouse = Toba Metz, Ruth Sobotka, Christiane Harlan | website = | footnotes = }} Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director and producer who is widely considered to have been one of the most innovative, talented, and influential filmmakers of the late 20th century. Kubrick's films, most of which were adapted from literary sources, are characterized by technical brilliance, inventive, often economical storytelling, and timeless wit. His trademarks include close-up shots, long tracking shots and extensive zooms, and use of pop songs and classical music.

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Early life

Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928 in the Bronx, New York City, United States, the first child of Jacques Kubrick and his wife Gertrude (born as Perveler). A second child, Barbara, was born in 1934. Jacques, whose parents had been Jewish immigrants of Austro-Romanian and Polish origin, was a successful doctor. When Kubrick was twelve years old, his father taught him how to play chess.

At thirteen Jacques bought Stanley a Graflex camera, triggering Kubrick's fascination with still photography. At this time, he became interested in jazz, and strove to become a drummer.

Image:Young Stanley Kubrick.jpg

Kubrick attended William Howard Taft High School from 1941 to 1945. (Chanteuse Eydie Gorme was a schoolmate.) He was a poor student with a meager grade average of 67. When he graduated from high school in 1945, colleges were flooded with soldiers returning from service in the Second World War, and Kubrick's poor grades eliminated his hopes of getting into a post-secondary school.

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Still Photographer

During Kubrick's high school years he received a camera from his father and his interest in photography became increasingly serious. Chosen to be the official school photographer for a year, he sought job opportunities on his own. By the time of his graduation Kubrick had already sold a series of pictures to New York's Look. To supplement his income, Kubrick began playing "chess for quarters" in Washington Square Park and in Manhattan chess clubs. Kubrick also registered for night courses at the City College, to improve his grade average. Kubrick continued to approach Look with new pictures to sell and was hired as an apprentice photographer in 1946. He later became a full-time member of the staff.

During the years he spent at Look (1946–1951), Kubrick developed his photographic talents in various commissions in the United States and abroad, and married Toba Metz. They moved to Greenwich Village. It was also during this time that Kubrick began frequenting film screenings at the Museum of Modern Art and at cinemas all over New York City. He became particularly inspired by the complex and fluid camera movements of Max Ophüls, whose films influenced Kubrick's developing visual style.

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Motion Picture Film career and later life

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Early films

In 1951 Kubrick's friend Alex Singer persuaded him to make short documentaries for 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 in 1951, Kubrick was able to sell Day of the Fight to RKO Pictures for a profit of one hundred dollars. Kubrick quit his job at Look and began work on his second documentary short, Flying Padre (also from 1951), funded by RKO. The Seafarers (1953), Kubrick's first film in color, was a 30-minute promotion for the Seafarers' International Union. These three films, in addition to several other short subjects which have not survived, would be his only works in the documentary genre. He also was the second unit director of an episode of the television show Omnibus focusing on the life of Abraham Lincoln. This assigment came to him while Kubrick was staying at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, Illinois: the assignment would take him to Hodgenville, Kentucky, the site of Abraham Lincoln's birthplace (according to Vincent LoBrutto's biography.)

Beginning with Fear and Desire in 1953, Kubrick would concentrate solely on feature-length narrative films. Fear and Desire concerns a team of soldiers trapped behind enemy lines in a fictional war. In the finale, the men realize the faces of their enemies are identical to their own (the characters are played by the same actors). Fear and Desire garnered respectable reviews, but was a failure commercially and artistically. Kubrick denied the showing of Fear and Desire in retrospectives and other public screenings after he had established himself as a major filmmaker. Kubrick's marriage to his high school sweetheart Toba came to an end during the making of Fear and Desire. He next married Austrian dancer Ruth Sobotka in 1954, and worked in a cameo appearance for her in his next film. Killer's Kiss (1955), like Fear and Desire, is a short feature film with a running time of little over an hour. Like Fear and Desire, Killer's Kiss gained limited commercial and critical success. The film revolves around a young welterweight boxer at the end of his career who gets himself mixed up with organized crime. Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss were both privately funded by loans from close family members.

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The Killing

Kubrick's next film was to be about a race track heist that goes horribly wrong. Singer introduced Kubrick to a young producer named James B. Harris. The two became lifelong friends, and their business partnership Harris-Kubrick Productions would finance Kubrick's films from The Killing (1956) to Lolita (1962). They purchased the rights to the Lionel White novel Clean Break which Kubrick and co-screenwriter Jim Thompson turned into a screenplay. 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, and although not a financial success, it was Kubrick's first critically acclaimed film, and brought Harris-Kubrick Productions to the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The major studio offered the pair the chance to pick out a project to develop from their massive collection of copyrighted stories. They chose The Burning Secret by Stefan Zweig, which Kubrick turned into a screenplay with Calder Willingham. However, the deal with MGM fell through before the film got properly underway. Kubrick and Harris began to plan their next project.

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Paths Of Glory

Image:Stanley Kubrick on set of Paths of Glory.jpg

Kubrick suggested they adapt author Humphrey Cobb's Paths of Glory, the story about three innocent French soldiers accused of cowardice by their superiors, who were to be shot as to set an example for the other men. Kirk Douglas plays Colonel Dax, who tries to prevent the men's execution. Kubrick, again with Willingham, developed the story into a complete screenplay. Prior to Kirk Douglas' involvement in the project, Harris and Kubrick had little success in interesting a studio. Once a major star of Douglas' caliber was on board, United Artists decided to take up the film. Paths of Glory (1957) went on to become Kubrick's first significant commercial and critical success. The production of the film took place in Munich, Bavaria. While in Germany, Kubrick met and became romantically involved with a young actress named Christiane Harlan (who performed under the stage name of "Susanne Christian"), for whom he had created the only female part in Paths of Glory. Christiane (born in 1932) was four years his junior and had been born in Germany into a theatrical family. She trained as a dancer and actress. The two would marry within a year. The marriage was Kubrick's third and last, ending only with his death in 1999. In addition to raising Christiane's young daughter Katharina (born 1953) from her previous marriage, the couple would have two daughters: Anya (b. 1958) and Vivian (b. 1960).

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Spartacus

After returning to the United States, Kubrick worked for six months on the Marlon Brando vehicle One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Because Brando wanted to direct the film himself, Kubrick left before the actual production began and spent time on projects that never went beyond the script stage. Kirk Douglas requested that he take over the director's chair on Spartacus (1960), the real life story of a man who led a slave revolt against the Empire of Rome, and Kubrick agreed. During the production, creative differences arose between Kubrick and Douglas, who was both the producer and star of the film. Kubrick was frustrated by his lack of creative control, a result of having been selected as the second director after Anthony Mann had dropped out for creative differences only one week into production. The battle for creative control between Douglas and Kubrick, who had developed a good rapport during Paths of Glory, would result in a falling-out between the two men; in later years Douglas would refer to Kubrick as "world-class shit". Although Spartacus was well-received by critics and moviegoers, the battles waged over the film convinced Kubrick that he would have to find ways to work with the financial resources of Hollywood without becoming involved in Hollywood's production conventions.

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Lolita

Kubrick relocated to England to make Lolita in 1962, and would reside there for the rest of his life. The film caused Kubrick's first major controversy. Vladimir Nabokov, the book's author, produced a screenplay that would, hopefully, allow the story to be filmed without the final film being banned from theaters worldwide. Despite Nabokov's own self-censorship in the screenplay, several scenes which made their way into the final film had to be re-edited in order for the film to be released. The result was a film that attempted to tone down the more perverse aspects of the novel, sometimes leaving much to the audience's imagination (we never actually see Humbert and Lolita in bed together). The actress who played Lolita, Sue Lyon, was sixteen at the time of filming. Kubrick later commented that, had he realized how severe the censorship limitations were going to be, he probably never would have made the film. In 1997 a more faithful version of Lolita was directed by Adrian Lyne. The film also anticipated the dark humor of Kubrick's next film, Dr. Strangelove. Its very dark subject was controversial, but the film was highly successful and has many times been considered a classic film.

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Dr. Strangelove

Kubrick's next project was the critically-acclaimed Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), based on the novel Red Alert by ex-RAF flight lieutenant Peter George (writing as Peter Bryant), and co-written for the screen by Kubrick and George in collaboration with American iconoclastic satirist Terry Southern. While Red Alert was a deadly-serious cautionary tale for the Cold War era, Strangelove would evolve, almost accidentally, into what Kubrick himself would call a "nightmare comedy".

It was with Lolita that Kubrick first worked with Peter Sellers. Kubrick asked Sellers to play four roles simultaneously in Strangelove. Sellers accepted, but eventually only played three of those roles, partially due to a leg injury, and partially due to the difficulty of mastering Maj. "King" Kong's Texas accent. Kubrick's decision to film a Cold War thriller as a jet-black comedy was a daring risk, one that paid off for both himself and Columbia Pictures, which studio coincidentally also released the nuclear war thriller Fail-Safe the same year.

The film portrays an "accidental" nuclear war between Russia and the United States, brought about by the paranoid actions of the mad General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden). Most of the film takes place at Burpleson Air Force Base, when RAF Group Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers) tries to stop General Ripper, and the now famous War Room, where the President (also Peter Sellers), General Turgidson (George C. Scott) and the mad German scientist Dr. Strangelove (also Peter Sellers) try to stop (or, in some cases, not stop) the B-52 bombers on their way to nuke Russia.

By belittling the sacrosanct norms of the political culture as the squabbling of intellectual children, Strangelove foreshadowed the great cultural upheavals of the late 1960s as well as Kubrick's next project. Kubrick and Strangelove went on to earn four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the New York Film Critics' Best Director award. Kubrick's success with Strangelove persuaded the studios that he was an auteur who could be trusted to deliver popular films despite his unusual ideas.

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2001: A Space Odyssey

Kubrick spent five years developing his next film, 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey (photographed in single-film MGM Camera 65/Super Panavision 70 Cinerama). Kubrick collaborated with Arthur C. Clarke, adapting parts of Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", and together they first concurrently produced the novel that was released alongside the film, and then towards the end Kubrick simultaneously wrote the screenplay. The film was groundbreaking in its use of visual effects. Despite numerous nominations in the categories of directing, writing, and producing, the only Academy Award Kubrick ever received was for his supervision on the special effects for 2001. The realistic look of the spacecraft would have a huge impact on the portrayal of technology in subsequent science fiction movies. The film was also notable for its use of classical music such as Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra and Johann Strauss' The Blue Danube. 2001: A Space Odyssey represented a radical departure from both Kubrick's previous films and the mainstream Hollywood paradigm. While Kubrick would never again push the experimental envelope quite so hard, paradoxically Kubrick would win total creative control from Hollywood by succeeding with one of the most "difficult" films ever to win such a wide release. Critics were initially divided in their response to the film, but it was a huge popular success (mostly because of the 60's counterculture who loved the film for its "star gate" sequence - which prompted the film's distributors to add "The Ultimate Trip" to the movie poster). Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey are always different and though it was made in 1968 it still causes debate today. When Joseph Gelmis asked Kubrick what the film means, Kubrick replied:

"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."

It is possible that 2001: A Space Odyssey is Kubrick's most famous and influential film. Steven Spielberg called it his generation's "Big Bang" for the race to space. The special effects techniques that he pioneered were built upon by Ridley Scott and George Lucas for films such as Alien and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, respectively. Even now, the special effects in 2001 look superb, and often look more convincing than CGI animated spacecraft in films seen today. It is particularly notable as one of the few films in which space travel is presented in as realistic a manner as possible (for example, there is no sound in any of the space scenes). What keeps the film alive today is because it is so mysterious. Its main themes (the meaning of life, superintelligent computers, extraterrestrials, the search for God and a place in the universe, rebirth and evolution) are conveyed in an artistically ambiguous and intelligent way. This keeps the film ripe for debate and deep meditation. Whole books have been written about interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even Arthur C. Clarke has gone on record of not knowing exactly what Kubrick was up to when making the film, even going as far to say that 2001 was 90% Kubrick's vision.

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A Clockwork Orange

Kubrick's next project was to be an epic biopic of Napoleon. He did a great deal of research and wrote a preliminary screenplay, but ultimately the project was cancelled, partly due to the release in the west of Sergei Bondarchuk's epic film version of Tolstoy's War and Peace (1968) but mainly because of the box office failure of the Napoleon-themed Waterloo (1970). Kubrick, not the most modest of artists, said in notes to his financial backers as seen in The Kubrick Archives, that he wasn't sure how his Napoleon film would turn out except he was expecting to create "the best movie ever made."

Instead his next film was A Clockwork Orange (1971), which was darker in tone than 2001 (and originally released with an "X" rating in the US). The film was based on the famous Anthony Burgess novel about a murderous, rapist hooligan that suffers no conscience pangs, named Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell), who undergoes treatment to be 'cured' of violent urges, only to be made into a robot without the option of moral choice and gets a defenseless comeuppance from his former victims. The films asks the question: is it better a man be a man but have the right to choose to be evil than a man to be made to be good without the option at all? For the score, he invited electronic pioneer Wendy Carlos, creator of Switched-On Bach, to adapt famous classical works such as Beethoven's 9th symphony to be played on the Moog synthesizer. She agreed, and the resulting music is beautifully surreal, and makes the movie seem other-worldly.

Its depictions of teenage gangs committing acts of rape and violence made the film controversial (despite the fact that the book had been inspired by the real-life assault by four G.I. deserters on Burgess' own wife) and the controversy increased when copycat acts were supposedly committed by criminals wearing the costumes of the film's characters. Kubrick was perplexed by critics who said he was glorifying violence. When he received death threats targeting himself and his family, Kubrick took the unusual step of removing the film from circulation in Britain, with the result that the film was not shown again there until its rerelease in 2000, after his death. Imposing a ban on the film in Britain showed what unprecedented powers Kubrick had over his distributor, Warner Brothers. For the remainder of his career he would be able to do anything he wished to do in regards to his films, such was the faith Warner Brothers had in his projects.

Contrary to popular belief, Anthony Burgess did not hate Kubrick's film. In fact he called it "brilliant" and did not blame Kubrick, but his American publisher, for the different ending than the one in his novel. Kubrick had read the American version of the novel which had removed the final chapter, where Alex, the thug anti-hero of the story, chooses to lead a peaceful and productive life. Burgess also dedicated his book Napoleon Symphony to Kubrick, who had given him ideas that Burgess used in the novel. In fact, according to the online Kubrick FAQ, Napoleon Symphony was considered for a starting point by Kubrick for his film version of the Napoleon film he wished to make, but never did. According to his autobiography You've Had Your Time and his 1986 introduction to A Clockwork Orange, Burgess did not hate Kubrick's film, he just disliked how, according to Burgess, Kubrick ignored the controversy surrounding the film and left Burgess to defend a work of art that was not his. It should be noted, however, that Burgess considered his novel A Clockwork Orange to be one of his lesser works and wished that he'd be known for works of his that he valued more. A Clockwork Orange however, is his most well known work, and Kubrick's most notorious and controversial film.

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Barry Lyndon

Although Kubrick had been frustrated in his desire to make a film about Napoleon, his next film after A Clockwork Orange was set in the Napoleonic era. 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 was just what Kubrick wanted to film next. It would be Kubrick's least appreciated, in the U.S., post-Strangelove film, despite the strong performances of Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson and Irish actress Marie Kean and a superb supporting cast that included the great Leonard Rossiter. The film, however, found a large audience in Europe, paticularly in France.

Barry Lyndon (1975) was considered by some critics, especially by one of Kubrick's greatest detractors Pauline Kael, to be cold, slow-moving, and lifeless. However, it received many rave reviews in the United States with such noted reviewers as Rex Reed and Richard Schickel, including a Time Magazine cover story. As with most of his films, Barry Lyndon's reputation grew through the years. Kubrick again made use of innovative camera and lighting techniques, most famously by filming many interior scenes through a specially-adapted high-speed still camera lens which allowed the scenes to be lit only with candlelight. His blending of music, mise en scene, costume and action would set standards for period dramas that few other films have matched. The film ended up winning four Academy Awards, more than any other Kubrick film. The lone Oscar Kubrick himself ever received, however, was for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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The Shining

Kubrick's filmmaking pace slowed considerably after the release of Barry Lyndon. The Shining (a 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's novel starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall) is a story about a failed writer going to the off-season Overlook Hotel as a caretaker with his wife and child. The child, Danny, is gifted with the power of "shining", an ability to look into the past or future. Danny starts to see the apparition of two little girls and Jack, who unconsciously also has the gift of "shining", slowly goes mad until the end when he is completely insane, and tries to kill his family with an axe. The film opened to mostly negative reviews but did very well with audiences and made Warner Brothers a considerable profit. Like most of Kubrick's films, subsequent critical reaction has looked at the film with a much more favorable view. Stephen King was not satisfied with Kubrick's movie, calling Kubrick "a man who thinks too much and feels too little." King collaborated with Mick Garris to create a made-for-television miniseries version of novel in 1997. Since then, King has spoken with less hostility toward Kubrick and his film.

Since its release in 1980, Kubrick's film has become a cult classic, often making "Best Of" lists for horror movies, and renewed Warner Brothers faith in Kubrick's ability to make both artistically satisfying but successful films after the commercial failure of Barry Lyndon in the United States. It became an incredibly popular and influential horror film and has also become the victim of countless parodies including The Simpsons and MAD Magazine to recent films such as Seed Of Chucky.

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Full Metal Jacket

Stanley Kubrick's next film was a film adaptation of Gustav Hasford 's Vietnam War novel, The Short-Timers, starring Matthew Modine as Joker, Adam Baldwin as Animal Mother, Lee Ermey as Gy Sgt. Hartman and Vincent D'Onofrio as Pvt. Pyle. The film begins at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, where GySgt. Hartman ruthlessly pushes his new men through punishing recruit training to release their repressed killing instincts, completing their transformation from "maggots" to Marines. Pvt. Pyle, an overweight conscript subjected to relentless physical and verbal abuse by GySgt. Hartman, cracks. The result is a harrowing midnight bathroom barracks scene in which Pvt. Pyle executes GySgt. Hartman before taking his own life, all narrated by the then familiar Marine mantra: "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine..." This scene concludes the bootcamp portion of the film.

The second half of the film follows Pvt. Joker as he tries to stay sane in Vietnam. As a reporter for the United States Military's newspaper the Stars and Stripes, Joker occupies a middle ground in the conflict, using his wit and sarcasm to detach himself from the absurd nature of war. While an American and a member of the United States Marine Corps, he is also a reporter and compelled to abide by the ethics proscribed by this profession. The film's denouement follows a platoon's advance on Hue City, decimated by the major urban warfare which occurred during the Tet Offensive. The film ends in a climactic battle between Joker's platoon and a lone sniper among the rubble of Hue City and Joker's first kill.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) opened to mixed reviews but found a reasonably large audience despite much of its impact being overshadowed by Oliver Stone's Platoon which eventually became one of the reasons Kubrick did not make Aryan Papers in fear that its publicity would be stolen by Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. The film does offer a markedly different and patently Kubrick-esque view of Vietnam. Instead of being set in the pervasive tropical jungle of South-East Asia, the second half of the movie unfolds in a city, bringing the element of urban warfare to an otherwise jungle war. This adds a certain element of surreality, as the common viewer's concept of Vietnam is negated. Kubrick said to Gene Siskel that his attraction to Hasford's book was because it was "neither anti-war or pro-war" and had "no moral or political position" and was primarily concerned with "the way things are."

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Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as a couple caught up in a sexual odyssey (Cruise and Kidman were married at the time). The story is based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella, Traumnovelle (known in English as Dream Story). The story follows Dr. William Harford and his quest to commit adultery after his wife, Alice, shatters his faith in her fidelity after confessing to nearly giving him and their daughter up for just one night with another man. After trespassing on a sinister and mysterious cult, Dr. Bill thinks twice before seeking revenge against his wife when he learns he and his family might be in danger. Days after screening a final cut of Eyes Wide Shut for his family, lead actors Cruise and Kidman, and Warner Bros. executives, Kubrick died of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 70, in 1999, and was interred in the grounds of Childwickbury Manor, Hertfordshire, England.

The film opened to smash box-office business, but slowed down because it was hyped to be the "sexiest film of all time", but was actually a story about marriage, fidelity and betrayal and the illusion of sex and reality of it. Harvey Keitel was originally in line to play the character of Victor Ziegler, the rich socialite who enlists Dr. Bill's medical knowledge in handling an overdosed prostitute. But creative differences precipitated Keitel's departure from the cast. His character was played by Sydney Pollack. The film is often considered one of Kubrick's lesser efforts but, like most of his films, has improved upon its reputation with critics and audiences. According to friends and family, Eyes Wide Shut was Kubrick's favorite of his own films.

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Unrealized Projects

Kubrick had a number of unrealized projects. All but one were never completed as films, but are of some interest to fans.

Famously, he never filmed his much-researched and planned biopicture of Napoleon (Bonaparte) I of France, which was originally to star Jack Nicholson as Napoleon after Kubrick saw him in Easy Rider. After years of preproduction, the movie was set aside indefinitely in favor of more economically feasible projects. Another reason this project was set aside was the release of another film about Napoleon called Waterloo. But as late as 1987, he said he had still not given up on the project, mentioning that he had read almost 500 books on the historical figure. He was convinced that a film worthy of the subject had not yet appeared.

Also in the early 1990s, Kubrick almost went into production on a film of Louis Begley's Wartime Lies, the 1st draft of which he had penned by himself, which he titled "Aryan Papers". Two reasons have been proposed as to why these films were not done: First, the release of Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List in 1993 had taken the limelight concerning the subject of the Holocaust, and second, the subject itself became too depressing, and too difficult, for him to film, this according to his widow Christiane.

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AI: Artificial Intelligence - Final Kubrick Coda

One Kubrick project eventually was completed by another director. Throughout the 1980s and early 90s, he collaborated with a number of writers (including Brian Aldiss, Sara Maitland and Ian Watson) on a project called by various names "Pinocchio" and "Artificial Intelligence". The root of this was Aldiss' short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long", which Kubrick and his writers had fleshed out into a feature-length with three acts. It was to be a futuristic fairy tale of a robot built to resemble and behave as a child, sold as a temporary surrogate to a family whose only son is in a coma. The robot however learns of this, and out of sympathy is left abandoned in the woods by his owners instead of being returned to the factory for destruction. The rest of the story concerns the robot's programmed efforts at understanding if he is different from humans, and whether it is worth remaining functional in a world on the brink of self-destruction.

In 2001, Steven Spielberg took the various drafts and notes left by Kubrick and his writers, composed a new screenplay, and in association with what remained of Kubrick's production unit, made the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence, starring Haley Joel Osment.

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Character

Kubrick was frequently unwilling to discuss personal matters publicly, and had a reputation in the media as a reclusive genius akin to Howard Hughes, something that his family and close friends denied after his death. It has since become clear that he left behind a strong family, many friends, and many who worked for him who speak highly in his favor. The rumor regarding his reclusiveness is purely a myth, and may have resulted from his aversion to travel once he was installed at St.Albans. He once told a friend that he went to London (about 40 minutes by car) four to five times a year solely for appointments with his dentist. His appearance not being well known before the time of his final movie, a British man by the name of Alan Conway successfully pretended he was Kubrick in order to meet several well-known actors and get into fancy clubs.

He was constantly in contact with family members and business assosicates, contacting collaborators at all hours of the day to have conversations that lasted from under a minute to several hours. He also invited various people to his house, ranging from actors, to close friends, admired film directors, writers and intellectuals. Kubrick was also an animal lover. He owned many dogs and cats throughout his life and showed an extraordinary affection for them. Christiane, Kubrick's widow, said in her book version of Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures that Kubrick brought his cats into the editing room so he could spend time with them that was otherwise lost while he was shooting his films. Matthew Modine remembers Kubrick being deeply upset when a family of rabbits were accidentally killed during the making of Full Metal Jacket. He was so upset, in fact, that he called off shooting for the rest of the day. Philip Kaplan, one of Kubrick's lawyers and friends, reports that Stanley once cancelled a meeting with him and another lawyer at the last moment, both of whom had flown to London from the United States for the meeting, because he had sat up all night with a dying cat and was in no shape to participate. Kaplan also reports that the huge kitchen table at St. Alban's was supported by an undulating base and that within each curved space was a dog, most of no recognizable breed and some not notably friendly to strangers.

Kubrick had often been reported of being rather tactless and rude to many of the people he worked with, and despite the media's overwhelmingly unjust view of Kubrick's character, not all of it was without merit. Although he apparently became close friends with Clockwork Orange star Malcolm McDowell during filming, Kubrick abruptly terminated the friendship soon after the film was complete and the schism that resulted lasted until Kubrick's death. Michael Herr, in his otherwise positive memoir to Kubrick, reports that Kubrick was extremely cheap and very greedy when it came to money, and a "terrible" man to do business with and that he was upset til the day he died that Jack Nicholson made more money than him on The Shining (which, Herr notes, if he really did). Brian Aldiss was fired from Kubrick's never completed project AI for going on vacation with his family, which went against his contract even though the two had the project on hold anyway. Numerous other writers were brought in by Kubrick to help write the script for AI, but were also fired when Kubrick found them to be useless. Kirk Douglas often commented on Kubrick's unwillingness to compromise, his out of control ego and ruthless pursuit to make a film his own distinct work of art, instead of a group effort (it must be noted, however, that in interviews Kubrick often acknowledged and admired the effort of his team, especially those who made the special effects for 2001 possible). James Earl Jones, though he admired Kubrick on an artistic level, when remembering his experience with Dr. Strangelove he felt Kubrick was disrespectful toward actors because he seemed to use them as instruments in a grand design rather than allowing them to be creative artists in their own right. George C. Scott, who in retrospect admires Kubrick, famously resented Kubrick using his most over-the-top performances for the final cut of Dr. Strangelove, when Kubrick promised him they would not be seen by audiences. His crew also said Kubrick was notorious for never complimenting anyone and hardly showed admiration of his co-workers in fear that it would make them try less hard, and said that he reserved his positive comments on their work only after the movie was finished, unless he felt their work was "genius" - the only three actors on record that he called "genius" were Peter Sellers, James Mason and Malcolm McDowell.

Upon purchasing the Childwickbury Manor in Hertforshire, England, Kubrick set up his life so that family and business were all one. He purchased top-of-the-line film editing equipment and owned all of his own cameras. Children and animals would frequently be found coming in and out of the room as he worked on a script or met with an actor.

With his life in order and the financial backing of a major Hollywood studio, Kubrick had all the time and money he needed in order to create a film. Often, he would spend years making a single film, allowing him to make a series of films now regarded as masterpieces by the critical community. As mentioned, Kubrick was greatly disliked by many of the people he worked with. On the other hand, many speak kindly of him, including co-workers and friends Jack Nicholson, Diane Johnson, Tom Cruise, Joe Turkel, Con Pederson, Sterling Hayden, Scatman Crothers, Carl Solomon, Ryan O'Neal, Anthony Frewin, Ian Watson, John Milius, Jocelyn Pook, Sydney Pollack, R. Lee Ermey, and others. Michael Herr's memoir to Kubrick and Matthew Modine's book Full Metal Jacket Diary show a different, much more kind, sane and warm version of Kubrick than the conventional view of him as cold, demanding and impersonal. In a series of interviews found on the DVD of Eyes Wide Shut, a teary eyed Tom Cruise remembers Kubrick shortly after his death with great affection. Nicole Kidman also shares her sentiments. Shelley Winters, who when asked what she thought of him answered, "A gift." Shelley Duvall, who played Wendy in The Shining did not always get along with Kubrick, as seen in The Making of the Shining, but she has since said that in retrospect it was a great experience that made her smarter - though she'd never want to do it again. Also, Malcolm McDowell in retrospect also said, though Kubrick seemingly inexplicably terminated their friendship, he felt it could be because some of the things he said about him were "unfair" and were a "cry out" to Kubrick to call him. McDowell said that he was very sad when he heard Kubrick had died.

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Politics

In his memoir to Kubrick, Michael Herr, his personal friend and co-writer of the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket, wrote: "Stanley had views on everything, but I would not exactly call them political... His views on democracy were those of most people I know, neither left or right, not exactly brimming with belief, a noble failed experiment along our evolutionary way, brought low by base instincts, money and self-interest and stupidity... He thought the best system might be under a benign despot, though he had little belief that such a man could be found. He wasn't a cynic, but he could have easily passed for one. He was certainly a capitalist. He believed himself to be a realist." Herr also wrote that he owned guns and that he did not think war is entirely a bad thing (in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Herr says: "...he also accepted to acknowledge that, of all the things war is, it is also very beautiful.") Herr's memoir is considered by Kubrick's closest friends and family to be the most accurate depiction of the man himself.

Kubrick's work is often not very didactic, and therefore very subjective, with differing viewers seeing very different and very personal things in it. As examples of the lack of clear, unambiguous messages, note that in A Clockwork Orange the police are portrayed as no better than the thugs, and the psychotic, deluded, hypocritical liberal writer Mr. Alexander is no better than the manipulative, sinister, conservative Minister of the Interior.

Kubrick's earlier work can be seen as more "liberal" than his later work. Kirk Douglas' portrayal Colonel Dax in Paths of Glory and Spartacus in Spartacus are that of liberals, and the satire of government and military in Dr. Strangelove seems to point to a more liberal view of life (although the ignorant, hawk General Turgidson in the "War Room" is still more decisive than the peaceful, pacifist President Merkin Muffley). His more mature works do have a stronger element of pessimism and highly suspicious eye of the so-called innate goodness of mankind. In a letter to the New York Times in response to Fred M. Hechinger declaring A Clockwork Orange "fascist", Kubrick wrote: "It is quite true that my film's view of man is less flattering than the one Rousseau entertained in a similarly allegorical narrative -- but, in order to avoid fascism, does one have to view man as a noble savage, rather than an ignoble one? Being a pessimist is not yet enough to qualify one to be regarded as a tyrant (I hope)...The age of the alibi, in which we find ourselves, began with the opening sentence of Rousseau's Emile: 'Nature made me happy and good, and if I am otherwise, it is society's fault.' It is based on two misconceptions: that man in his natural state was happy and good, and that primal man had no society...Rousseau's romantic fallacy that it is society which corrupts man, not man who corrupts society, places a flattering gauze between ourselves and reality. This view, to use Mr. Hechinger's frame of reference, is solid box office but, in the end, such a self-inflating illusion leads to despair."

Kubrick shares much of this view with Robert Ardrey, author of African Genesis and The Social Contract (not to be confused with Rousseau's) and author Arthur Koestler who is famous for writing The Ghost In The Machine, both of whom Kubrick quotes in his defense against Hechinger. Both authors search for the cause of humanity's capacity for death and destruction (Koestler through psychology and Ardrey through anthropology), and both, as Kubrick, are suspicious of the liberal belief in innate goodness of mankind (which Ardrey and Kubrick attribute to Rosseau, who, in Ardrey's words: "Fathered the romantic fallacy") and Behaviourism, especially what they consider "radical Behaviourism", whom they blame primarily on B.F. Skinner. Reading Ardrey's African Genesis reveals he shared Kubrick's bleak view of man, and the growing concern of the juvenile delinquent, as Ardrey writes: "Society flatters itself in thinking that it has rejected the [juvenile] delinquent; the delinquent has rejected society. And in the shadowed byways of his world so consummately free, this ingenious, normal adolescent human creature has created a way of life in perfect image of his animal needs." Such a description brings Alex, the delinquent thug in A Clockwork Orange, to mind. He also says how society might eventually domesticate man through slavery and cure his innate urge to kill and destroy: "We and our greater philosophers must grant, I believe, that the masters of a universal society with the aid of a captive science might just possibly succeed in producing, over a long period, a lasting answer to the problem of our animal nature: a universal human slave inherently obedient to other people's reason." This brings to mind the Minister of the Interior and his proposal for the answer to street violence in Kubrick's film. However Ardrey also believes: "Whether through sentimental attachment or rational choice, I find myself moved to prefer the wild creatures among who I was born to the more literal Homo sapiens that science and tyranny might produce." Kubrick shows this in A Clockwork Orange, that a quick "cure" is not the answer to juvenile delinquency or violence, but that, as the clergyman in A Clockwork Orange, whom Kubrick has called "the moral voice of the story" says, "Goodness must come from within. Goodness must be chosen. If a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." In fact, Kubrick admitted in an interview with The New York Times that his view of man was actually closer to Christian in nature than humanistic or Jewish, as he said, "I mean, it's essentially Christian theology anyway, that view of man." Viewed in this context, Kubrick's film is neither amoral or fascist, but has a strong moral stance and is strongly anti-totalitarian. As Kubrick said in an interview with Gene Siskel, "To restrain man is not to redeem him...I think the danger is not that authority will collapse, but that, finally, in order to preserve itself, it will become very repressive." However, he also says those wishing for anarchy are wrong and that "Law and order is not a phoney issue, not just an excuse for the Right to go further right." Although most anthropologists do not share Ardrey's view of man having a remote anscestor that was murderous in instinct - nobody can disprove it either. Nor do most psychologists share Koestler's or Kubrick's view of man having an innate evil streak - although, again, this has not been disproved either.

Kubrick's view of the individual and his relationship to society is quite unique indeed, and shows no hint at Kubrick having Left or Right dogma allowing the audience to see the world in a larger context, as, also in regard to A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick said to the New York Times, "Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved - that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure." He also said: "The idea that social restraints are all bad is based on a utopian and unrealistic vision of man. But in this movie you have an example of social institutions gone a bit berserk. Obviously social institutions faced with the law-and-order problem might choose to become grotesquely oppressive. The movie poses two extremes: it shows Alex in his precivilized state, and society committing a worse evil in attempting to cure him."

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Religion

Stanley Kubrick was born Jewish, but never much practiced this religion, as his parents weren't very religious either. When asked by Michel Ciment in an interview if he had a religious upbringing, Kubrick replied: "No, not at all." Kubrick might be what is called a naturalist, but finds the thought of life after death to be hopeful. In Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Jack Nicholson recalls that Kubrick said The Shining is an overall optimistic story because "anything that says there's anything after death is ultimately an optimistic story." Kubrick is often said to be an atheist, but this may not be quite true. He said to the New York Times: "2001 would give a little insight into my metaphysical interests," he explains. "I'd be very surprised if the universe wasn't full of an intelligence of an order that to us would seem God-like. I find it very exciting to have a semi-logical belief that there's a great deal to the universe we don't understand, and that there is an intelligence of an incredible magnitude outside the earth. It's something I've become more and more interested in. I find it a very exciting and satisfying hope." When asked by Eric Nordern in Kubrick's interview with Playboy if 2001: A Space Odyssey was a religious film, Kubrick elaborates:

"I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God. I don't believe in any of Earth's monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe. Given a planet in a stable orbit, not too hot and not too cold, and given a few billion years of chance chemical reactions created by the interaction of a sun's energy on the planet's chemicals, it's fairly certain that life in one form or another will eventually emerge. It's reasonable to assume that there must be, in fact, countless billions of such planets where biological life has arisen, and the odds of some proportion of such life developing intelligence are high. Now, the sun is by no means an old star, and its planets are mere children in cosmic age, so it seems likely that there are billions of planets in the universe not only where intelligent life is on a lower scale than man but other billions where it is approximately equal and others still where it is hundreds of thousands of millions of years in advance of us. When you think of the giant technological strides that man has made in a few millennia -- less than a microsecond in the chronology of the universe -- can you imagine the evolutionary development that much older life forms have taken? They may have progressed from biological species, which are fragile shells for the mind at best, into immortal machine entities -- and then, over innumerable eons, they could emerge from the chrysalis of matter transformed into beings of pure energy and spirit. Their potentialities would be limitless and their intelligence ungraspable by humans." In the same interview, he also blames the poor critical reaction to 2001 as follows: "Perhaps there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and Earth-bound that it finds the grandeur of space and the myriad mysteries of cosmic intelligence anathema..."

In an interview with William Kloman of The New York Times, when asked why there is hardly any dialogue in 2001, Kubrick explained:

"...I don't have the slightest doubt that to tell a story like this, you couldn't do it with words. There are only 46 minutes of dialogue scenes in the film, and 113 of non-dialogue. There are certain areas of feeling and reality - or unreality or innermost yearning, whatever you want to call it - which are notably inaccessible to words. Music can get into these areas. Painting can get into them. Non-verbal forms of expression can. But words are a terrible straitjacket. It's interesting how many prisoners of that straitjacket resent its being loosened or taken off. There's a side to the human personality that somehow senses that wherever the cosmic truth may lie, it doesn't lie in A, B, C, D. It lies somewhere in the mysterious, unknowable aspects of thought and life and experience. Man has always responded to it. Religion, mythology, allegories - it's always been one of the most responsive chords in man. With rationalism, modern man has tried to eliminate it, and successfully dealt some pretty jarring blows to religion. In a sense, what's happening now in films and in popular music is a reaction to the stifling limitations of rationalism. One wants to break out of the clearly arguable, demonstrable things which really are not very meaningful, or very useful or inspiring, nor does one even sense any enormous truth in them."

This unique mixture of nature and metaphysics and respect for the unknown may speak well for Kubrick as possibly a postmodernist.

Stephen King recalls Kubrick calling him late at night while he was filming The Shining and Kubrick asked him, "Do you believe in God?" When King answered "Yes" Kubrick hung up the phone on him. This, however, is quite controversial. King has, in fact, had three different versions of the story. One time he said Kubrick simply hung up on him. However, on other occasions he has claimed Kubrick said "I knew it" and then hung up on him. On yet another occasion King claims Kubrick said, before hanging up, "No, I don't think there is a god.".

Finally, Katharina Kubrick Hobbs was asked by alt.moview.kubrick if Stanley Kubrick believed in God. Here is her response:

"Hmm, tricky. I think he believed in something, if you understand my meaning. He was a bit of a fatalist actually, but he was also very superstitious. Truly a mixture of nature and nurture. I don't know exactly what he believed, he probably would have said that no-one can really ever know for sure, and that it would be rather arrogant to assume that one could *know*. I asked him once after The Shining, if he believed in ghosts. He said that it would be nice if there "were" ghosts, as that would imply that there is something after death. In fact, I think he said, "Gee I hope so."...He did not have a religious funeral service. He's not buried in consecrated ground. We always celebrated Christmas and had huge Christmas trees."

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More Trivia

  • Kubrick's later films were usually filmed at Borehamwood Film Studios in Hertfordshire. The Docklands area of London was also used as a stand in for Vietnam in Full Metal Jacket.
  • The last occasion on which Kubrick was seen in public was at a performance of The Blue Room at the Donmar Warehouse then starring Nicole Kidman.
  • Over the years, Kubrick worked on a number of projects which did not evolve beyond the script stage: Napoleon (1969-1971); Aryan Papers (1988-1991), a Holocaust story postponed because of Schindler's List; and Blue Movie (late 1960s, early 1970s), about a director so highly regarded he is allowed to direct a pornographic movie starring major Hollywood stars. This project was proposed by Terry Southern following their collaboration on Dr. Strangelove and was the basis of his novel Blue Movie. In 1997, it was believed Kubrick was making his own "blue movie" with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise (this later turned out to be Eyes Wide Shut).
  • Kubrick's likeness was used in 2010: The Year We Make Contact as the Soviet Premier on a 'Time' magazine cover. On the same cover, Arthur C. Clarke's likeness was used as the American President.
  • According to his wife, Christiane, some of his favorite films were Eraserhead, The Godfather, The Jerk and Summer of '42. He was a fan of Seinfeld, and The Simpsons, which has often referenced his films.
  • Variations of "CRM-114", which was a device used on the B-52 bomber in Dr. Strangelove, have appeared as a reoccuring theme in other Kubrick films. In 2001: A Space Odyssey one of the space pods was labeled with serial number CRM-114. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex was injected with "serum 114" (serum = CRM). In Eyes Wide Shut, the mortuary was located on Level/Wing C, Room 114.
  • The phrase "eyes wide shut" may have an antecedent from a quote by Benjamin Franklin on marriage. "Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards."
  • In the mid-1980's when personal computers arrived in the mainstream, Kubrick became an enthusiast. He traded up as each new generation of PC was produced, with the discarded version joining its predecessors on the industrial shelving in his workspace. The collection soon became an impressive one.
  • The Japanese toy company MediCom Toy Inc. created a brand of toys called Kubrick, named in honor of the filmmaker. The logo for Kubricks was also influenced by the poster for A Clockwork Orange.
  • Stanley Kubrick is also the name of a song by the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai.
  • Someone, supporter of the Moon Hoax theory, is still referencing Kubrick as the director of the supposed fake Moon Landing footage.
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Filmography

Documentary Short Films

Feature Films

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References

| author=Jeremy Bernstein
| title=A Day in the Life of Stanley Kubrick
| journal=The New Yorker
| year=November 1966
}}
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External links

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