Stanley Kubrick

[Clay Tayler]

I've watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clockwork Orange, The Shining and most of Eyes Wide Shut (i'll finish it shortly) and can't for the life of me understand why people say his works are so "technically" prefect or what makes him such a great film maker... I find his films very very objective, and unpersonal, as I suppose they are intended to be, they all seem to give you a very odd distant feeling and seldomly do you ever care about his characters (whether they live or die, suffer or success).

 

I understand he puts a lot of symbolism into his movies, like 2001 for example seems to use the number three (3) a great deal... 2+0+0+1=3, he uses the same theme 3 times, he uses the planet alignment three times, etc etc, it's everywhere... the film also deals with reincarnation and a lot of gnostic (Gnosticism) ideas as well as kabbalah ideas... (i'm sure brit, madonna, and ashton love this film...)

 

but anyway, could someone explain what makes him so great, most of his films i find are to uninvolving for me, and i find i get bored... i also think that his looseness with nudity is uneffective... and amatuerish... I think David Lynch does a far better job of making u feel uncomfortable about sexuality in Mulhollond Dr. (the scene where that girl auditions for a role) I found very creepy... while Eyes Wide Shut has so far had the greatest impact on me, as well as The Shining, works like Clockwork Orange (supposedly such a great film) feels as though it was made by me and my friends...

 

also, what makes his cinematography so great, n what is with his wierd style? is it just to make the point that he has a very objective impersonal perspective? the wide shots seem to suggest that, and he uses them exclusively in everyfilm for seemingly every shot expect the odd one... which i think is ineffective, if he really wanted to create distance between us and the character and help us view situations objectively there would be better technics i'm sure...

 

basicly i think the over use of nudity deadins the effect... i see so much of it in his films it has no adverse effect on me which i assume is his goal (make us uncomfortable) but instead I find myself simply bored at the sight of tits, which u'd think should interest me...

 

anyway i'm currently trying to figure out what makes him so great... I've had no trouble understanding what makes david lynch, chris nolan, steven, David Finch, and Terry Gilliams so great... but obviously i don't connect with kubrick...

 

 

OH and PS, what is so beautiful about his work, i find often that his lighting is far far to suttle, especially in clockwork orange where i would have used lots of really great deep shadows and such, he seems to have left his lighting kit at home and just shot things as they were lit naturally... basicly clockwork all around seems like a very amatuerishly shot film, camera work, lighting, etc...

Edited December 15, 2004 by Clay Tayler

[jasarsenault]

HuH?

 

Jason

[Clay Tayler]

HuH?

 

Jason

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

umm, what? what exactly do u not understand or disagree with...

 

did i say something wrong...?

[David Mullen ASC]

These sorts of discussions go nowhere because if you don't like Kubrick, how are someone else's reasons for liking Kubrick going to change your mind?

 

It's like saying "Everyone likes chocolate but I don't like chocolate. I don't like the way it tastes, I don't like its texture, I don't like its color. Can all of you tell me why you think chocolate tastes good? Because I don't get it." Uh, because chocolate tastes good?

 

Even just talking photographically, if you don't resond to Kubrick's films on a visual level, then how will my rapturous descriptions of his use of lenses and film stocks and compositions and movement going to help you? You and I are staring at the same movies and you can see the same things I'm looking at and if you aren't responding to what's on screen, then how can I help you? If someone loves some classical symphony by Mahler and plays it for you and your reaction is "so what?" then clearly the same music is not evoking the same emotional response.

 

Also, you have to consider Kubrick in context to his peers. How many films that came out in 1968 looked like "2001" in terms of lighting and composition? How many period films made by the time of "Barry Lyndon" looked that way?

 

Also consider that many of the directors you admire (Lynch, Fincer, Gilliam, etc.) are huge Kubrick fans. Their work is partially the result of absorbing Kubrick's work. Maybe you should talk to them, or at least, read what they have to say about Kubrick.

[Clay Tayler]

Also consider that many of the directors you admire (Lynch, Fincer, Gilliam, etc.) are huge Kubrick fans.  Their work is partially the result of absorbing Kubrick's work.  Maybe you should talk to them, or at least, read what they have to say about Kubrick.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks for your response, it is much appriciated...

 

You seemed to answer most all my questions well, though your answer is the expected one (basicly it's all opinion)...

 

I guess part of the problem is that he is so over hyped that I have a great expectation of what his films should be, and when they don't live up to this grand idea in my mind I belittle the film to some degree...

 

Could you possibly go into detail about film stock, composition etc etc, these things intrege me greatly...

 

 

Also i know most of my favorite directors are huge kubrick fans... hence my interest in kubrick and the reason i watched his films, because I am trying to figure out what the facination is with his films, what exactly makes them "technically" "perfect" in so many peoples eyes... what makes them perfect in your eyes?

 

i think u misunderstood the intention of my first post... what exactly i want is opinions...

 

I want to understand what i am potentially missing out on...

 

my first post may have been to harsh, but that is only because i wanted strong opinions opposed to me, i wanted people to write "Clay your so wrong, this is why kubrick is great... blah blah blah" and then to explain to me why they feel he is so great... Kubricks films definately do draw out emotional response from me while i view them, it's just that his films and his style is SO unusual that i find it jarring at times... destracting... (but then again kubrick was known to do this to cause his audience to think about what they are watching rather then just be absorbed by it, which seems to be exaclty what i have experienced while viewin his films)

 

anyway I am interested in discussing the topic, hence the creation of this thread...

 

your post David Mullen was excellent, hopefully more will contribute...

[Chance Shirley]

I'm short on time today so I can't go off on a long rant about why I think Kubrick is "the man." I'd like to second David Mullen's opinion that you have to look at the films in context. Especially 2001. I mean, just look at the effects shots in that movie. They look great today -- imagine seeing them in 1968.

 

I'd also point out that you didn't mention DR. STRANGELOVE, which I feel is Kubrick's best movie. It's a little rawer than his later work and not quite as "cold." Plus it's really funny. Watching it might give you a better understanding of why Kubrick has so many fans.

 

- - - - -

 

Chance Shirley

Birmingham, Alabama

[Bill Totolo]

Clay,

 

I can't change your mind but I can offer my opinion into Kubrick's style. You mentioned that you didn't care for the cinematography of "Clockwork Orange". I think you should think in terms of the lighting as revealing character. How would you illuminate the inner life of these characters? Certainly not with portrait/Rembrandt lighting. You have to consider that when this movie was released it had such an impact on audiences that Kubrick pulled ot OUT of theaters within two weeks. People were imitating the violence they experienced on screen. You wouldn't call that "ineffective".

 

Bill

[Mike Welle]

If you have some time, please read this essay on "The Shining." I think the author makes some very good points:

 

http://p066.ezboard.com/ftheshiningcommuni...picID=375.topic

[Clay Tayler]

If you have some time, please read this essay on "The Shining."  I think the author makes some very good points:

 

http://p066.ezboard.com/ftheshiningcommuni...picID=375.topic

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

thanks so much mike, this is exactly the stuff i've been readin over the last few days, trying to figure out what makes him so great.

 

I'll have to go and rewatch the shining so it's fresh in my mind before i read this essay.

 

thanks again

[jeff striker]

i personally love kubrick and he has influenced me very much in my aspirations to become a filmmaker. if you don't appreciate him now, perhaps you never will..but theres also a chance you will learn to appreciate him over time. hopefully the latter

[Nate Downes]

You know, this sounds almost identical to an arguement I heard from someone that listened to Pink Floyd for the first time.

 

"what's the deal?"

"what makes them so special, I enjoy artists x y and z"

 

The thing is, without these earlier, innovative artists, our current crop of movie-makers would not be here. Gilliam, Scorcese, Spielberg, none of them would be where they are without Kubricks work. He created new styles, new methodologies, new ways to work with light and filmstock that makes his films stand out from other movies produced at the same time. Compare 2001 to other science fiction films of the same era, such as Earth vs The Flying Saucers. There is no comparison. Kubrick created new styles of filmmaking that have evolved into the styles seen today. Much like how Welles radically changed filmmaking with his fluid camera style and harsher-than-reality lighting, Kubrick brought new life to the cinema by delivering spectacle that was unmatched in his day. Sure, the latest Star Wars has more flash and spectacle than 2001, but we're comparing a movie from 2001 to 1963, almost 40 years. Kubrick introduced new visual capabilities with the camera, same as Hitchcock did with story. A Kubrick picture looks like a new picture, even tho they are 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years old. That in itself says more about his work than anything.

[Mike Welle]

If it makes it easier to read you might want to highlight the text and copy and paste it into a word processor document--just for easier reading. :)

 

 

 

thanks so much mike, this is exactly the stuff i've been readin over the last few days, trying to figure out what makes him so great.

 

I'll have to go and rewatch the shining so it's fresh in my mind before i read this essay.

 

thanks again

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Clay Tayler]

If it makes it easier to read you might want to highlight the text and copy and paste it into a word processor document--just for easier reading.  :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Already done that :)

 

Before I continue I am still curious as to why Stanley's style is considered Technically Perfect? or is only that he had such control over his films that he created exactly what he wanted? and that is why his films are considered technically perfect... ? I still haven't found anyone that can answer this question... but hear a lot of people, especially critics, ranting and raving about his technical perfect films.

 

 

Thanks again to those that have given useful controbutions to this thread... one of my major questions (which i found some answer for in other threads) was why he chose to use such an odd (or what i deemed odd) way of framing shots. What I mean is he was always shooting in wide angle lenses... I presented one theory as to why above but I read another that i think is probably even better. That Stanley chose wide angle lenses because it seemed more natural. he shot films the way we view the world. from a wider perspective rather then tight, unnatural closeups etc.

 

Anyway with a lot of new information like this I find it easier to understand his films. I'm a veary curious fellow and like to be able to find logical answer to all my questions. so when i see films that i can't interpete right away i either conclude the filmmaker didn't know what he was doing, or he had some very deep meanings that i could pickup on the first viewing and must rewatch it... obviously stanley is of the second variety...

 

Also NOTE: like i stated in an earlier thread my first post may have come off harsh only because i wanted to get a reaction from the posters, and have them share there opinions...

[Christian Appelt]

Clay,

 

I believe that certain types of filmmaking do not transfer well to DVD/television.

It's not a question of technical stuff, but all of Kubrick's films were made to have an impact on an audience of people in a movie theatre.

 

Last year, I had to watch all Kubrick films again on DVD so I could write an article on Kubricks cinematographic tools for the Kubrick exhibition catalogue (link below). When all of his films were screened at the local film museum's theatre, I went and saw every single one - and I was surprised that each one seemed a quite different film from what I had seen over months on DVD.

 

DVD/TV is a more detached medium, and while I praise DVD for doing analyzing films or refreshing memories of a film I saw many years ago on the big screen, IT CANNOT REPLACE THE CINEMA VIEWING. An example: Seeing SPARTACUS on DVD will certainly entertain you but also focus your professional attention on certain stylistic faults or things that seem dated.

I saw the film in the 1991 restored 70mm version, and I never would have imagined how a 2004 audience would react emotionally while watching a 1960 epic movie.

 

Most of today's mainstream movies do not suffer that much because they are essentially made for TV/DVD/video release, but believe me that if you have seen Kubrick on DVD only, you ain't seen nothin' yet (especially with 2001, it's definitely unwatchable on TV, even 35mm is a compromise if you have never seen it in 70mm!)

 

I agree with David Mullen that Kubrick is also a matter of personal liking, so it makes little sense to give examples of his style, but it is always worth studying his picture composition style.

 

Stanley Kubrick exhibition catalogue

Edited December 15, 2004 by Christian Appelt

[Wendell_Greene]

Read this 4 page article on the ASC website:

 

 

Stanley Kubrick :"Quest For Perfection "- October 1999 American Cinematographer

 

Read this article, (which I also included below) and BUY the documentary DVD.

 

 

 

Netribution

 

 

 

Stanley Kubrick was the great gnome of modern cinema. Hidden away in his St. Albans bolthole, he would labour agonisingly for years on each film, each one finally emerging as a polished and wholly unique jewel. It is the enormous diversity of Kubrick?s painstakingly fashioned gems that continues to fascinate.

 

How can the trippy wonderment of "2001: A Space Odyssey" be understood alongside the jet-black satire of "Dr Strangelove"? What has the tricksy pathos of Lolita got to do with the visceral shock of "Full Metal Jacket"? There is no modern director who has produced such wildly different films. "Kubrick," as Steven Spielberg has said, "reinvented himself with every motion picture".

 

At the same time, the Kubrick myth speaks of a fanatical director who imposed his vision uncompromisingly across each of his movies, personally scrutinising the entire production down to the tiniest detail. After all, to the ill-disguised envy of most of his colleagues, Kubrick could take as long as he wanted to make the films he wanted. Such a situation simply isn?t even a possibility for most directors.

 

It?s no surprise, then, that the perception of Stanley Kubrick as a director at work is shrouded in speculation and rumour. His later films, all made in Britain, were made under conditions of such privacy that the feeling grew amongst those left outside the circle that there must be some dark secret, some black magic, at work.

 

A new documentary made by some of Kubrick?s closest collaborators attempts to break that spell and show him functioning as a director. Titled Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, the epic film was produced and directed by his long-time producer (and brother-in-law) Jan Harlan. We are unlikely to see anything closer to a definitive portrait of Kubrick?s position within the film world.

 

One of the documentary?s main aims becomes clear the moment the title sequence rolls. It flashes up newspaper headline after headline about Kubrick?s ?paranoia?, his ?secrecy?, his ?obsessive? and ?crazy? behaviour ? all the familiar accusations levelled by the film press.

 

The caricaturing of Kubrick as an ogreish recluse became particularly bad in Britain after he withdrew "A Clockwork Orange" from cinemas here, something that clearly rankles with Harlan, as it did with the man himself. In the documentary, Kubrick?s wife Christiane confirms that "Stanley didn?t want to be someone who shot tourists on his lawn, then gave them money when they bled".

 

 

The truth of the matter is that Kubrick aggravated the press by refusing to play the usual publicity games. Feature directors are expected to invite camera crews onto set, permit the presence of a second crew filming the inevitable "Making of?" documentary, and then, when the movie is finally wrapped, tour the main territories giving their finished product the hard sell.

 

Kubrick not only refused to co-operate in the shameful back-scratching requirements of press junkets, he actively loathed explaining what his movies were ?really? about. As a result, the increasingly wild and elaborate rumours went unchallenged. Of more significance, though, his directorial method and thoughts on film-making were left ill explained. It?s here that Harlan?s documentary proves itself to be a treasure-trove of first-hand evidence of Kubrick at work.

 

The key is Kubrick?s refusal to explain his films. According to those who knew him best, this wasn?t high-handed arrogance or the auteur?s ego being affronted. It was simply a reflection of his belief that in making films he was exploring questions to which he didn?t already have pat answers. A large part of his film art was based on the unexpected.

 

The Kubrick myth is so heavily bound up in the idea of his perfectionism that this reliance on surprise seems to be a contradiction in terms. It is, of course, the case that the man invested himself to an astonishing degree in the finest details of his films, working 18-hours a day for interminable months on post-production.

 

Every one of Kubrick?s friends and collaborators seems to have their own story of his microscopic attention to detail. This usually takes the form of finding Stanley scanning foreign press ads to check that they are the right size or leaving 15 pages of instructions on the care of his cats. It was also the case that, uniquely for a major film-maker, every print of every film would be viewed for quality before being released. Douglas Trumbull, who worked on 2001, says that he experienced a "level of quality control astronomically near perfection".

 

These stories all confirm Kubrick?s fastidious attention to detail, and it is easy to see how this care extended to the major processes of movie-making, from the script, set design, sound & music, lighting and camerawork, all the way through to the editing and packaging of the film. But attention to detail is not the same thing as control. The legends of Kubrick?s capacity for infinite pains all tend to the same mistaken conclusion: that the films were produced according to some pre-conceived master plan.

 

In reality, Kubrick was the antithesis of those directors who, like Hitchcock, claim to have storyboarded their film so comprehensively that they can ?edit in the camera?. And, crucially, he would never subscribe to the disdainful director?s maxim that ?actors are cattle?.

 

One of the party-pieces of Harlan?s documentary is the story of Sydney Pollack?s arrival on the set of "Eyes Wide Shut". Pollack, an old friend, was well aware of Kubrick?s reputation for exhausting shoots. When he was able to wrap his first scene within a couple of hours, however, Pollack cockily predicted he would be able to return to the US within the week.

 

For his next scene, Pollack made the mistake of asking how Kubrick wanted him to walk across the room and answer the door. "I don?t know," the director replied, "you decide". So Pollack tried, and kept trying different ways for the next two days, waiting for Kubrick to give him the nod. Eventually, exhausted, Pollack declared himself satisfied, only to be told, "I wondered how much longer it would take you".

 

The point of the anecdote is not the casual cruelty of the insatiable director. Instead, it illustrates Kubrick?s astonishing patience and openness when it came to the one aspect of the process he knew he couldn?t control ? the performances. His favourite metaphors for directing a film were the game of chess and the general in battle. The latter especially gives a sense of the chaos and unpredictability that Kubrick was trying to indicate as his experience on set.

 

Just as the general has to constantly adapt his strategy to meet the changing circumstances on the field, not least the uncertain behaviour of his own troops, so the director is always monitoring the performances being delivered, forever leading off in unexpected directions. And there is no question that Kubrick always gave his actors the space to head in whatever direction they felt best.

 

The process, as indicated by Pollack?s experience, could be both testing and exhausting. Shelley Duvall, who seemed to find the process particularly traumatic, confirms that during the filming of The Shining there would be between 30 and 50 videotaped rehearsals of each scene before it was shot on film.

 

Tom Cruise was another who found the limitless experimentation gruelling. Nicole Kidman told Rolling Stone magazine in 1999 that, while Kubrick often told her to ad-lib her scenes, he would work with Cruise on dozens of takes before reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Cruise, in frustration, finally asked "What are you looking for, Stanley?" Kubrick replied simply, "I want the magic".

 

It?s comments like these that betray the origins of Kubrick?s special attitude towards actors. In every set-up, in every shot, he awaited the never-predictable arrival of that special moment.

 

Harlan?s documentary pinpoints the very first occasion of Kubrick capturing the magic. It came when, as a 16 year-old, he took a picture of a newsvendor weeping at the death of President Roosevelt. The iconic photo was snapped up by Look magazine, and set young Stanley on his way.

 

The precocious young Kubrick kept producing photojournalism for Look while preparing his first ventures into film-making. Even his first short film, The Day of the Fight, originated with an assignment to photograph the boxer Walter Cartier. The limited control of the photojournalist is quite strikingly similar to that exhibited by Kubrick when on set.

 

If we equate the multiple exposures of the photographer with the multiple takes of the film director, the logic of Kubrick?s method becomes clear. The photographer is able to choose lenses, filters and sometimes arrange lighting with the utmost care. In fact, Kubrick?s extraordinary use of natural or near-natural lighting is a subject worth examining in its own right, but at the very least it demonstrates a preference for photographing in realistic light that can be related to his early work on photo essays for Look.

 

What is remarkable, though, is the degree to which the mature Kubrick retained the respect for the autonomy of his photographed subjects that would seem to derive from his early work as a photojournalist. Even the carte blanche handed him by Warner Brothers for his later films could never grant him the capability to control his actors? performances. It could, however, afford him the ability to manage the equivalent of a stills photographer shooting a whole reel for each pose. Each scene in a Kubrick film could be permutated until, by luck or perseverance, the right performances emerged.

 

There is one more telling moment in Harlan?s documentary, this time from the subject himself. "Every scene has already been done," according to Kubrick. "Our job is just to do it that little bit better". That assertive perfectionism may neatly fit into the Kubrick myth, but the key word here is actually ?our?.

 

?Our job? is the grand collective drive towards perfection upon which Kubrick insisted. Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures provides abundant testimony that he was only able to achieve this by inspiring fantastic levels of trust and loyalty amongst his many collaborators.

[Matt Pacini]

".... I understand he puts a lot of symbolism into his movies, like 2001 for example seems to use the number three (3) a great deal... 2+0+0+1=3, he uses the same theme 3 times, he uses the planet alignment three times, etc etc, it's everywhere... the film also deals with reincarnation and a lot of gnostic (Gnosticism) ideas as well as kabbalah ideas... (i'm sure brit, madonna, and ashton love this film...)... "

 

Not to take any admiration due, to directors in general, and Kubrick specifically, but let's remember, Kubrick didn't come up with these stories all by his lonesome!

Let's remember there's such a thing as a writer.

 

Might sound silly, but it just seems there is way too much credit given to directors for EVERYTHING about a film, and even some of my hero's are very guilty of this.

I wonder how Kubrick's DP's that he's worked with over the years feel about being considered100% irrelevant when conversations about his films come up?

 

Speilberg, for example has written two screenplays for features that he's directed:

Close Encounters, and A.I.

Yet there are gobs of interviews, of him saying stuff like "E.T. is a story about my childhood, and I relate to it because of my parent's divorce" blah blah blah, when he didn't write the damn thing!

Julia Phillips said "Speilberg is the ultimate writer-fu**er".

Those are harsh words!

So anyway, not to discredit Kubrick, but let's not forget Stephen King wrote The Shining, for instance!

Writers get even less credit in the industry than DP's do!

 

Matt Pacini

[Dominic Case]

Before I continue I am still curious as to why Stanley's style is considered Technically Perfect?

 

The thing about Kubrick, like many of the "standout" directors like him, is his obsessive and relentless attention to detail. There are many accounts of him checking the details of the ads for his films in local newspapers in Indonesia or somewhere, and getting on the phone to get something corrected.

 

But all the way through production and post, he used to supervise with exhausting (for everyone else) energy. THings had to be exactly right, and he took a close and well-informed interest in every process. Working in the lab that did Clockwork Orange all those years ago, we used to expect him every day to arrive in the printing room to check that the neg was laced up correctly for the answer print. THe word was that up until then he'd never been back to the same lab twice - each lab was a nervous wreck after one of Stanley's films, and refused to quote for the next one. But eventuall y he stayed put, at the lab closest to his Hertfordshire hideaway, for the rest of his life.

 

One story was that once Kubrick got hold of your pager number (before cellphones were so ubiquitous) you might as well throw it in the river Thames, as you wouldn't have a life any more any other way. Someone else had a vision of the river at low tide - the mudbanks all deep with pagers, all with messages from Mr kubrick.

 

Humour aside, this fanaticism for detail does seem to set the great directors aside from the others.

[Guest lonedog]

So anyway, not to discredit Kubrick, but let's not forget Stephen King wrote The Shining, for instance!

Writers get even less credit in the industry than DP's do!

 

Matt Pacini

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Stephen King wrote the book, Kubrick wrote the screenplay.

Although i agree with your point.

I find it a bit odd at times that even in a forum called Cinematography.com, that when most post's refer to a film, they often refer to the director only.

[Max Jacoby]

You have to consider that when this movie was released it had such an impact on audiences that Kubrick pulled ot OUT of theaters within two weeks. People were imitating the violence they experienced on screen. You wouldn't call that "ineffective".

 

That is not true. And he pulled the film to protect his family.

[Wendell_Greene]

I wonder how Kubrick's DP's that he's worked with over the years feel about being  considered 100% irrelevant when conversations about his films come up?

 

Considered irrelevant by whom? Kubrick? No. he mentioned their work in several interviews. By the industry? No. Consider: Russell Metty won an Oscar for "Spartacus" and Geoffrey Unsworth won a British Academy Award for "2001". John Alcott won the Oscar and the British Academy Award for his work on "Barry Lyndon. It was an honor to be chosen to work with such an awesome director, who for intents and purposes could have acted as his own cinematographer.

 

Julia Phillips said "Speilberg is the ultimate writer-fu**er".

Those are harsh words!

 

Yes, they were harsh words, but you also have to take a lot of what Julia Phillips said about Spielberg [and others] during the "Close Encounters" era with a huge gram, er, I mean GRAIN of..... salt. :)

[Mike Welle]

Hi,

I would like to respond to one aspect of your post. I haven't seen all of Kubrick's films, but of the ones I've seen "The Shining" is the one I know the most about. At the beginning of the movie, as you might know, you can see the shadow of a helicopter in the shot of the camera following the Volkswagen. I'd put it at 100 to 1 that Kubrick didn't want this, but he left it in anyway. It's not a big deal--especially not for other directors--but knowing Kubrick, it has always made me wonder why he didn't just trim this--as it is toward the beginning of a shot. There must have been something important in that shot that made him decide to keep it in the movie. Just goes to prove, in my opinion, no matter how hard you strive for perfection--bugs, gremlins and chaos creep into your world.

 

 

 

Before I continue I am still curious as to why Stanley's style is considered Technically Perfect? or is only that he had such control over his films that he created exactly what he wanted? and that is why his films are considered technically perfect... ? I still haven't found anyone that can answer this question...

Edited December 16, 2004 by Mike Welle

[James Visiano]

"we used to expect him every day to arrive in the printing room to check that the neg was laced up correctly for the answer print."

 

Dominic, did you work with Kubrick?

[Shawn Mielke]

My eye isn't as trained as many here, but...

 

The DP not getting mention in conversations, at least by enthusiastic laypeople, about Kubrick's films is kind of understandable, if this is indeed the case. The original poster has already touched upon it. His films often look and behave similarly. Those eerie closeups... It does feel like, if you were to ask any of his DPs what they thought of their own work in a Kubrick film, they'd reply, "I made look like what Stanley wanted." This conversation has brought up two interesting points about the history of Kubrick. That he was a relentless perfectionist. That he was super patient and after the magic.

It sounds like he rehearsed EVERYBODY, the DP included, to the max, trained them up into the perfect KUBRICK vision. (How else does an artist get to be an artist, within a collective?)

 

I know that Kubrick was my first conscious love, as filmmakers go. That bold style, that push on the limitations I found in other styles or cinematic conventions. That sense of clockwork precision. I was totally into it. Not so much anymore. I agree, now, with some of the feelings conveyed by the original poster. Lack of soul. His films don't "breathe" enough for me. They are precise but not what I would necessarily call organic. I think it's just where I'm at, and not at, now, stylistically and philosophically. But, as famed modern day trumpet player said in Ken Burn's Jazz, art does not come to you, you come to it, and I haven't spent a great deal of time with the body of Stanley Kubrick's work in recent years. Sometimes regular bouts of exposure is all it takes to

 

"get it."

[David Mullen ASC]

Technical "perfection" is not particularly accurate, especially when considering his last two films were push-processed to add more grain to the image. "Mastery" or "control" would be a more defining characteristic than "perfection" but even with Kubrick, there was always the happy accident (in a sense, he deliberately hoped for them, or else why go for 100 takes?)

 

Some films are more technically perfect than others ("2001" perhaps being the most refined, followed by "Barry Lyndon".)

 

His DP's and other key collaborators are almost as well-known as he is, so you can't say he never gave them any credit. Considering how he controlled the publicity to his movies, the fact that there were interviews of Trumbull, Alcott, etc. at the time of his films' releases shows that he wasn't trying to hog all the glory.

 

The importance of Kubrick as a visual stylist can be shown by the fact that if you had to list ten enduring, iconographic images from the history of cinema, probably one of them would be from one of his films (probably the Star Child at the end of "2001" or a clip from the Stargate sequence), alongside the image of King Kong on the Empire State Building and Scarlett O'Hara and her father standing under the tree looking at Tara at sunset, maybe Kane's lips saying "Rosebud"... And who can forget the steadicam shots running through the snowy maze in "The Shining"? These are indelible images.

[Justin Hayward]

Clay,

 

I hear what you?re scream?n. I used to feel the same way, but the more I shot, the more I appreciated his work. I watched a documentary on him a few years back and was floored by the visuals of the clips in this documentary. It compelled me to rent all of his films. These were all films of his I?ve seen! They just looked different to me after shooting for a while. Composition mostly.

 

Although I?m always shocked at how beautiful his use of practical lighting is (something I could never accomplish), it?s just something that (for some), comes with time, or maybe not. Everybody has their own taste. I don?t mean to sound flippant, but I understand when somebody isn?t interested in a particular style. However, I?m a strong believer in style morphing. All people?s style/taste morphs with time, even Mr. Kubrick.

 

Lately, when I see a Stanley Kubrick film, all I can think is ?SICK?. He?s so good he makes me sick.