Stanley Kubrick, filmmaker, 1928 -1999 by Jon Stubbs features editor On Monday, March 8, 1999, as the morning news reported the death of perhaps the greatest film director of all time, anybody who ever knew what the word “film” meant felt a little knot in their stomach. Stanley Kubrick had died in his sleep the night before of a heart attack in his London home. Seeing a Kubrick film was more than an evening out, it was an experi ence. Kubrick did not know how to make a bad film. He could have made Home Alone a deep, dark introspec tion into the human soul if he had been forced to shoot the script. Of course, he had better taste. Kubrick was re sponsible for such films as Spartacus, “Each month Stanley Kubrick isn’t mak ing films is a loss to everybody.’’ -Sidney Lumet the 1962 Lolita. 2001: .A Space Od yssey, A Clockwork Oninge. The Shin ing, and Full Metal Jacket. Stanley Kubrick was horn on a Thursday. July 26. 1928 in the l.\mg- In Hospital in Manhattan. New York. Kubrick's father. Dr. Jaques I. Kubrick. M.D., was part of the third generation of an Austrian famils w ho had immigrated to the U.S. on the Lusitania in 1899. Kubrick's child hood was fairly normal, although his attendance was considered poor dur ing his early school years in the Bronx, and his behavior was found to be unacceptable in certain areas by his school. In 1940, when Kubrick was 13, his father sent him to spent a year of school on the West Coast. It was his first trip to Hollywood. During high school, Kubrick be gan to immerse himself deeply into photography. He look pictures as a hobby, and also took pictures of school clubs and activities for his school newspaper. As a high school senior. Kubrick began free-lancing for Look maga/.ine. He continued to work for Look alter he graduated and married his high school sweetheart. Toba Metz. Kubrick's first film. Day of the Fight, was made in 1951. It was a I b minute long documentary about the Walter Cartier-Bobby James boxing match. Kubrick spent $3,900 on pro duction and sold the final film to RKO pictures for $4,000. He took the SlOO profit and immediately secured a ad vance of $1,500 for his next film. Kubrick continued to make short films, such as Flying Padre (1951) and The Seafarers (1953). His first feature-length film, Fear and Desire was released in 1953, lollowed by 1955" s Killer’s Kiss. Stanley Kubrick teamed up with James B. Harris and created Harris- Kubrick pictures to make the 1956 The Killing, an adaptation of the novel Clean Break by Lionel White. The film's bud- get was origi nally $330,000, whi e h pretty low for 1956 in Holly wood, but was huge for two young men who had just started making movies. After The Kill- ing was re leased, an article in Time maga /ine stated: "At twentv-se ven w riter-direetor Stanley Kubrick, in his third lull-length has p i c t u re shown more au- dacity with dia logue and cam Stanley Kubrick lining up a shot on the set of The Shining. era than Holly- wood has see since the obstreperous Orson Welles went riding out of town on an exhibitor's poll." Kubrick had began to not (inly gain popularity and esteem among the critics, but was approach ing the superhuman status of a Hol lywood film director. Kubrick and Harris stuck together for the 1957 release, Paths of Glory, which starred Kirk Douglas. Later came Sparlavus in 1960. also starring Douglas, which won four Academy Awards. As Spartacus was being re leased. Kubrick's third wife, C'hristiane Kubrick gave birth to Stanley Kubrick's third daughter. Vivian Vanessa Kubrick, who would later organize the sound score for Full Metal Jacket under the pseudonym Abagail Mead. Kirk Douglas had this to say about Kubrick after working with him on the set of Spartacus: "You don't have to be a nice person to be extremely tal- ented. You can be a shit and be tal ented and, conversely, you can be the nicest guy in the world and not have any talent. Stanley Kubrick is a tal ented shit." Next came the film adaptation of Vladamir Nabokov 's novel, Lolita, the story of a older man's obsession with a young girl. The film, starring Shelly Winters, James Mason and Peter Sellers was originally given an '‘X’’ rating by the British Board of Film Censors and a “C” rating by the Catholic Church, meaning that any Catholic going to see this film would he committing a sin. Apparently the world was full of sinners in 1962. because Lolita gained much media attention and did quite well at the box office. Just as Lolita was being released, Kubrick and Har ris went to work on their next film. They bought the rights to a novel called Red Alert by a former Royal Air Force navigator and British intel ligence agent named Peter George. The rights were bought for $3,500 and Kubrick began to work with George on a screenplay for a serious drama about the threat of nuclear war. However, one night, as Harris and “He’s a kind of dyspeptic filmmaker, a Type A filmmaker, worrying and wanting to edit right up to the end. He’s very painstaking, obviously. You know what? I think he wants to hurt people with this movie, really wants to make a movie that will hurt people.” -Stephen King Kubrick were working on the script, they began to joke around with the script. "We started to get silly,” Har ris remarked, "kidding around. 'What would happen in the War Room if everybody’s hungry and they want the guy from the deli to come in and a waiter in an apron around him takes the sandwich order?’ We started to giggle about it and say, ‘Do you think this could be a comedy or a satire? Do you think this is funny?”’ The seed for Dr. Strangelove or: How / Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was planted. Features Dr Strangelove starred Peter Sell ers, Slim Pickens, and George C. Scott. A young James Pari Jones has a small role in it, as well. Dr. Stangelove was nominated lor tour Academy Awards, and it won the Writers Guild Award for best screen- play of 1964. Also, it gave Stanley Kubrick recognition as an interna tional writer/director/produccr. For his next film. Kubrick wanted to make a science fiction feature. He was extremely interested in the w rit ings of Arthur C. Clarke and decided to write him a letter, expressing the director's desire to make "a really good sci-fi movie." Clarke agreed lo work on the film with Kubrick, and met him in New York. Kubrick and Clarke toiled over the script for months until they had both decided that it was perfect. "We've extended the range of science fiction," an ec static Kubrick told Clarke. The budget for the film was Kubrick’s biggest ever, $6 million. Kubrick decided that he would shoot the film in London and announced to the press that his next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey would be produced in England. Hvery part of 2001 is famous. From the mysterious, black monolith to HAL's monotone voice to the chill- ing classical music score, everyone, whether they know it or not, has seen ;t reference to 2001 in some form of medium have to look hard to find a reason not Once again, Kubrick feared an "X” rating. In order to please the cen sors. he speeded up the orgy scene w ith Alex and two women. Even so, the censors awarded it an “X.” Copy cat crimes of "ultra-violence” began springing up in England. Kubrick reacted by pulling the film out of the theaters, thus making it illegal to be shown in Britain, where it remains so today. Kubrick's next film was Barry Lxndon. based on lhe novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. The film re ceived less attention than his other films, but is worth mentioning be cause of the unique lighting tech niques Kubrick used in it. Because the novel was based in 1 Kill century Ireland. Kubrick felt that the only way to make a film about a period before electricity was to use candlelight. And so. lighting equipment made of wax and wicks was constructed. The lenses required for filming in such light were the fastest of their time, used only by NASA. John Alcott, the cinematographer for Barry Lyndon, won an Oscar in 1975 for his work on the film. Production designer Ken Adam, who also won an Academy Award for Barry Lyndon, had this to say of Kubrick: “He’s the nearest thing to genius I've ever worked with, with all of the problems of a genius. He’s like a human computer.” 1 think he Thursday, March 18, 1999 - Bv the end of the 19605, Stanley Kubrick and his family were settled in England. It was there that Kubrick finally got around to reading his copy of the An thony Burgess novel A Clock work Orange that Terry Southern had given him two years prior, on the set of 2001. The book w as about a futur istic world where gangs of young criminals ruled the streets. Kubrick once told Rolling Slone that "One could almost say that it's the kind of >ok that you The Behrend College Beacon - Page 7 John C’alley, Warner Brothers ex ecutive, sent a copy of Stephen King's The Shining in 1975. “That was the one and only thing sent to me which has ever interested me or which I ever liked." Shooting for The Shining be gan in 1978. This was to be Stanley Kubrick's first movie to be shot with the Steadicam, a device that allowed the director to shoot such scenes as little Danny riding his big wheel and the chase through the maze at the end. Seven years went by before Kubrick had an idea for another project. He considered making a film about war, but couldn't decide what novel to adapt. Finally he stumbled across a book called The Short Tim ers, by Gustav Hasford, a former Marine and military war correspon- “He’ll be a fine director someday, if he falls flat on his face just once. It might teach him how to compromise.” -Kirk Douglas dent who had served in Vietnam. Pre production on Tull Metal Jacket had Kubrick wanted absolute realism in his actors. He cast Lee Ermey, a former drill instructor, as the inf amous Sergeant Hartman. Much of Hartman's insulting of the new re cruits was contributed by Ermey him self. Kubrick never let Ermey rehearse with the actors who played the re cruits. He wanted their reactions to be genuine; he wanted them to show fear. Full Metal Jacket was com pletely shot on British land, with elaborate sets constructed to represent Da Nang and the Vietnamese jungle. After Full Metal Jacket was re leased, people wondered when Stanley Kubrick's next film would come out. Five years went by, and then ten. And then rumors of a film called Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman began to surface. The sexual-obsession thriller began production in 1996 and, after 19 months of lop secret shooting, is supposedly done. People are wondering what kind of shape the film was left in by its cre ator. Warner spokeswoman Barabra Brogliatti assures us that the film had reached its final cut. Whether it is released on its scheduled date of July 16 remains to be seen. Regardless, if it was released twenty years from now only half finished, it would still be a timeless, priceless piece of art.
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