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.