Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick (/ˈkuːbrɪk/; July 26, 1928 â€" March 7, 1999) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, and editor who worked predominantly in the United Kingdom. Part of the New Hollywood film-making wave, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential directors of all time. His films, typically adaptations of novels or short stories, are noted for their "dazzling" and unique cinematography, attention to detail in the service of realism, and the evocative use of music. Kubrick's films covered a variety of genres, including war, crime, literary adaptations, romance, black comedies, horror, epic and science fiction. Kubrick was also noted for being a demanding perfectionist, using painstaking care with scene staging, camera-work and coordinating extremely closely both with his actors and his off-screen collaborators.

Starting out as a photographer in New York City, Kubrick taught himself all aspects of film production and directing after graduating from high school. His earliest films were made on a tight budget, followed by the Hollywood blockbuster, Spartacus; he spent most of the rest of his career living and filming in the United Kingdom. His home at Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire became his workplace where he did his writing, research, editing and management of production details. This allowed him to have almost complete artistic control of his films, but with the rare advantage of having financial support from major Hollywood studios.

Many of his films broke new ground in cinematography, including 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a science-fiction film which director Steven Spielberg called his generation's "big bang", with innovative visual effects and scientific realism. For Barry Lyndon (1975), Kubrick obtained lenses developed by Zeiss for NASA in order to film scenes under natural candlelight and The Shining (1980) was among the first feature films to make use of a Steadicam for stabilized and fluid tracking shots. As with his earlier shorts, Kubrick was the cinematographer and editor on the first two of his thirteen feature films. He directed, produced and wrote all or part of the screenplays for nearly all his films.

While some of Kubrick's films were controversial with initially mixed reviews, such as Paths of Glory (1957), Lolita (1962), and A Clockwork Orange (1971), most of his films were nominated for Oscars, Golden Globes or BAFTAs. Film historian Michel Ciment considers his films to be "among the most important contributions to world cinema in the twentieth century" while director Norman Jewison calls him one of the "great masters" that America has produced.

Early life

Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928, in The Bronx, the first of two children to Jewish parents Jacob Leonard Kubrick (1902â€"85), known as Jack or Jacques, and his wife Sadie Gertrude Kubrick (née Perveler; 1903â€"85). Kubrick's sister, Barbara Mary, was born in May 1934. Jack Kubrick, whose parents and paternal grandparents were of Polish, Austrian, and Romanian ancestry, was a doctor. At Stanley's birth, the Kubricks lived at 2160 Clinton Avenue in the Bronx. Kubrick biographer Geoffrey Cocks writes that although Kubrick's family were not religious, his parents had been married in a Jewish ceremony.

A friend of Kubrick's family notes that although Jack Kubrick was a prominent doctor, Stanley and his mother were unpretentious. As a boy, Kubrick was considered "bookish" and generally uninterested in activities in his Bronx neighborhood. Many of his neighborhood friends would later help him in his early films, including writing the music scores and scripts.

When Kubrick was 12, his father taught him chess, which remained a lifelong obsession and appeared in many scenes in his films. Kubrick explained that chess helped him develop "patience and discipline" in making decisions. At the age of 13, Kubrick's father bought him a Graflex camera, triggering a fascination with still photography. He learned to develop his own photos in a darkroom and began shooting candids on the streets of New York. He also began going to cinemas and studying film technique. Kubrick had little success at school and his father was disappointed in his failure to achieve academic excellence.

Kubrick attended William Howard Taft High School between 1941â€"1945 (one of his classmates was Edith Gormezano, later known as the singer Eydie Gorme). He joined the school's photography club which required him to photograph the school's events for their magazine. Even so, Kubrick continued to struggle academically, achieving only a 67 grade average. According to his English teacher, Kubrick was interested in literature from an early age, but had a poor attendance record and often skipped school to watch double-feature films. He graduated in 1945, but his poor grades, combined with the demand for college admissions from soldiers returning from the Second World War, eliminated hope of higher education. Later in life, Kubrick spoke disdainfully of his education and of education in general, maintaining that nothing about school interested him. His parents sent him to live with relatives for a year in Los Angeles in the hope that it would help with his academic growth.

Photographic career

While still in high school, Kubrick was chosen as an official school photographer for a year. In 1946, since he was not able to gain admission to day session classes at colleges, he briefly attended evening classes at the City College of New York (CCNY). Eventually, he sought jobs as a freelance photographer, and by the time of his graduation, he had sold a photographic series to Look magazine, having taken a photo to Helen O'Brian, head of the photographic department of Look, who purchased it for $25 on the spot; it was printed on June 26, 1945. To supplement his income, Kubrick played chess "for quarters" in Washington Square Park and various Manhattan chess clubs.

In 1946, Kubrick became an apprentice photographer for Look and later, a full-time staff photographer, where he became known for his story-telling in photographs. In 1948, Kubrick's photos were published "N.Y. World Art Center", including one of anti-Nazi German artist George Grosz sitting on a chair in the street. Kubrick, a boxing enthusiast, eventually began photographing boxing matches for the magazine. His earliest, "Prizefighter", was published in 1949 and captured a boxing match and the events leading up to it. Also in 1949, he published a photo essay named "Chicago-City of Extremes" in Look, which displayed an early talent for creating atmosphere with imagery, including a photograph (pictured) taken above a congested Chicago street at night.

During his Look magazine years, Kubrick married his high-school sweetheart Toba Metz in May 1948. They lived together in Greenwich Village. During this time, Kubrick began frequenting film screenings at the Museum of Modern Art and the cinemas of New York City. He was inspired by the complex, fluid camerawork of the director Max Ophüls, whose films influenced Kubrick's later visual style, and by the director Elia Kazan, whom he described as America's "best director" at that time, with his ability of "performing miracles" with his actors. Friends began to notice that Kubrick had become obsessed with the art of filmmaking, spending many hours reading film theory books and taking notes.

Film career

Short films

In 1951, encouraged by a high school friend, Alex Singer, Kubrick made a few short documentaries, beginning with The March of Time newsreels sold to movie theatres. His first was the independently financed Day of the Fight (1951), notable for using reverse tracking shot, later to become one of Kubrick's characteristic camera movements. Inspired by this early success, Kubrick quit his job at Look and began work on others, including, Flying Padre (1951) and The Seafarers (1953), Kubrick's first color film. These three films constitute Kubrick's only surviving documentary works, although some historians believe he made others. He also served as second unit director on an episode of the TV show, Omnibus, about Abraham Lincoln, clips of which are included in the documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001).

Kubrick knew he could make a film for much less than the company was paying other filmmakers, telling an interviewer, "I can't believe it costs that much to make eight or nine minutes of film". He began learning all he could about filmmaking on his own, calling film suppliers, laboratories, and equipment rental houses. Kubrick decided to make a short film documentary about a boxer, the same one he wrote a story about for Look a year earlier. He rented a camera and produced a 16-minute black-and-white documentary, Day of the Fight.

To supplement his income to pay for the production, he sometimes played competition chess in Washington Square. And to save on cost, he handled various duties for the film: "I was cameraman, director, editor, assistant editor, sound effects manâ€"you name it, I did it. It was invaluable experience, because being forced to do everything myself I gained a sound and comprehensive grasp of all the technical aspects of filmmaking."

Film historian Paul Duncan notes that the film was "remarkably accomplished for a first film", and was notable for using the reverse tracking shot Some who worked on the film alongside Kubrick observed his production style: "Stanley was very stoic, impassive but imaginative type person with strong, imaginative thoughts. He commanded respect in a quiet, shy way. Whatever he wanted, you complied, he just captivated you. Anybody who worked with Stanley did just what Stanley wanted".

Fear and Desire (1953)

Fear and Desire (1953), Kubrick's first feature film, was a low-budget production about a team of soldiers caught behind enemy lines in a fictional war. Kubrick and his wife Toba Metz were the only crew on the film, which was written by his friend Howard Sackler. It garnered some respectable reviews but was still a commercial failure. Kubrick was later embarrassed by the film as an amateur effort and tried to keep it out of circulation. He called it a "bumbling, amateur film exercise ... a completely inept oddity, boring and pretentious."

The film is said to demonstrate Kubrick's early interest in warfare and, observes film historian James Naremore, "He's especially interested in how rational, militaristic planning spins out of control and becomes irrational." Kubrick's later films expressed different aspects of that same theme, including Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket. The film was shown on television for the first time on Turner Classic Movies in December 2011, and four of his early films, including this one, became available in the fall of 2012.

Killer's Kiss (1955)

Following Fear and Desire, Kubrick began working on ideas for a new boxing film. Due to the commercial failure of his first feature, Kubrick avoided asking for further investments, but began working on a film noir script with Howard O. Sackler. Originally under the title Kiss Me, Kill Me, and then The Nymph and the Maniac, Killer's Kiss is a 67-minute film noir film about a young heavyweight boxer's involvement with a woman being abused by her criminal boss. Like Fear and Desire, it was privately funded by Kubrick's family and friends, with some $40,000 put forward from Bronx pharmacist Morris Bousse. Kubrick began shooting footage on Times Square, and on one night he was approached by curious policemen on Wall Street, to each of whom he gave $20 to keep quiet. Kubrick had the time to do much exploration during the film, discovering new angles and ways to generate imagery, and experimenting with lighting. He initially decided on recording the sound on location but encountered difficulties with shadows from the microphone booms, restricting camera movement. His decision to drop the sound in favor of imagery was a costly one; after 12â€"14 weeks shooting the picture, he spent some seven months and $35,000 working on the sound.

Although the film met with limited commercial success, with mediocre acting, film historian Alexander Walker finds it was "oddly compelling". The film's striking aspects, states Walker, include Kubrick's lighting and photography, and the tone of the film with its urban loneliness and melancholy. One of the film's most prominent scenes is a finale fight in a mannequin warehouse, which while unusual was an intentional metaphor for the way the central characters become other people's puppets and are forced to act against their own will earlier in the film.

The Killing (1956)

The Killing is a fictional story of a meticulously planned racetrack robbery gone wrong, starring Sterling Hayden. This is Kubrick's first full-length feature film shot with a professional cast and crew. Its non-linear narrative had a major influence on later directors, including Quentin Tarantino. The Killing followed many of the conventions of film noir, in both its plotting and cinematography style, and although the genre peaked in the 1940s, many critics regard this film as one of its best. Not a financial success, it still received good reviews, and brought Kubrick and his producer partner, James B. Harris, to the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which offered them its collection of stories from which to choose their next project.

Paths of Glory (1957)

Kubrick's next film, Paths of Glory, set during World War I, is based on Humphrey Cobb's 1935 antiwar novel, and stars Kirk Douglas. It follows a French army unit ordered on an impossible mission by their superiors. The film was his first significant commercial success, and established Kubrick as an up-and-coming young filmmaker.

Critics praised the film's unsentimental, spare, and unvarnished combat scenes and its raw, black-and-white cinematography. The film was banned in both France and (for less time) Germany for many years for its fictionalized depictions of the French military.

Kubrick's cinematography was particularly commented on by critics, along with other directors. "Colonel Dax's (Kirk Douglas) march through his soldier's trench in a single, unbroken reverse-tracking shot has become a classic cinematic trope cited in film classes," and director Steven Spielberg once named this his favorite film.

Uncredited work on One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

Kubrick worked for six months on the Marlon Brando vehicle One-Eyed Jacks (1961). The script was written by then unknown Sam Peckinpah, and Kubrick insisted on rewriting it. Kubrick quit as director, explaining that "Brando wanted to direct the movie." Kubrick much impressed Brando who said of the director "Stanley is unusually perceptive, and delicately attuned to people. He has an adroit intellect, and is a creative thinkerâ€"not a repeater, not a fact-gatherer. He digests what he learns and brings to a new project an original point of view and a reserved passion".

Spartacus (1960)

Spartacus is based on the true life story of the historical figure and the events of the Third Servile War. It was produced by Kirk Douglas, who also starred as rebellious slave Spartacus, and co-starred Laurence Olivier as his foe, the Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus. Douglas hired Kubrick, after having previously worked with him on Paths of Glory, to take over direction soon after he fired director Anthony Mann.

Kubrick, at 31, had already directed four feature films, and this became his largest by far, with a cast of over 10,000. At the time it was the most expensive film ever made in America. It was also the first time that Kubrick filmed using the anamorphic 35mm horizontal Super Technirama process to achieve ultra-high definition, which allowed him to capture large panoramic scenes, including one with 8,000 trained soldiers from Spain representing the Roman army. Kubrick was accustomed to staging and lighting all scenes, as a result of his photography background. According to film author Alan K. Rode, Kubrick began instructing cinematographer Russell Metty, who was twice Kubrick's age, how to photograph and light scenes, which led to Metty threatening to quit. Metty later muted his criticisms after winning the Oscar for Best Cinematography, his only win during his career.

Kubrick had conflicts with Douglas, including his dissatisfaction with the screenplay. He also complained about not having full creative control over the artistic aspects. For Douglas, the film was a "labor of love". He had used his own funds to purchase an option on the book Spartacus from author Howard Fast, and he hired all the primary creative forces involved in production, including Kubrick. Kubrick decided that in the future he wanted to have autonomy on films he worked on, and as a result, Spartacus became the last film in his career where he lacked full control.

Originally, Fast was hired to adapt his own novel as a screenplay, but he had difficulty working in the format. He was replaced by Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten. Douglas insisted that Trumbo be given screen credit for his work, which helped to break the blacklist.

The filming was plagued by the conflicting visions of Kubrick and Trumbo. Kubrick complained that the character of Spartacus had no faults or quirks, and he later distanced himself from the film. Despite the on-set troubles, Spartacus was a critical and commercial success and established Kubrick as a major director, receiving six Academy Award nominations and winning four. It marked the end of the working relationship between Kubrick and Douglas. Co-star Tony Curtis, in his autobiography, called Kubrick his favorite director, and praised his individual relationships with actors.

Lolita (1962)

In 1962, Kubrick moved to England to film Lolita, his first attempt at black comedy. It was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, the story of a middle-aged college professor who becomes infatuated with a 12-year-old girl. It starred Peter Sellers, James Mason, Shelley Winters, and Sue Lyon. Lolita was Kubrick's first film to generate controversy because of its provocative story. Kubrick toned down the screen adaptation to remove much of the eroticism in the novel and made it into "an epic comedy of frustration rather than lust", writes film author Adrian Turner.

Kubrick was deeply impressed by the chameleon-like range of actor Peter Sellers and gave him one of his first opportunities to wildly improvise during shooting while filming him with three cameras. To best utilize Sellers' talents, Kubrick, in consultation with him, vastly expanded the role of Clare Quilty and added new material in which Quilty impersonates various other characters.

Stylistically, Lolita was a transitional film for Kubrick, "marking the turning point from a naturalistic cinema ... to the surrealism of the later films", notes film critic Gene Youngblood. The film received mixed reviews, with some critics praising it for its daring subject matter, while others, like Pauline Kael, describing it as the "first new American comedy" since the 1940s. "Lolita is black slapstick and at times it's so far out that you gasp as you laugh."

According to social historian Stephen E. Kercher, the film "demonstrated that its director possessed a keen, satiric insight into the social landscape and sexual hang-ups of cold war America". Kubrick had shown an affinity for liberal satire when he approached others he hoped would become collaborators: he asked comedian Lenny Bruce to work with him on a film, and did the same with fellow Bronx native, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, whom he invited to Los Angeles to work with him on a screenplay titled Sick, Sick, Sick.

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Kubrick's next project was Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), another satirical black comedy. Because Kubrick came of age after World War II and the beginning of the Cold War period, he, like many others, was worried about the possibilities of nuclear war. He became preoccupied with it in the late 1950s, fearing that New York, where he lived, could be a likely target, and even considered moving to Australia, particularly Sydney or Melbourne. He began consulting with others about the possibility of making the subject into a movie.

The novel Red Alert was recommended to Kubrick, and after reading it he saw in it the makings of a good film story about nuclear war. Kubrick then began working on a screenplay along with his producer, James B. Harris, who had produced three of his previous films. Another collaborator was Red Alert's author, Peter George, who would subsequently also write the novelization of the film, dedicating it to Kubrick.

During that writing period, Kubrick decided that turning the otherwise frightening and serious story into a satire would be the best way to make it into a film, although Harris felt otherwise, and chose not to produce it. Kubrick told Harris, "The only way this thing really works for me is as a satire. It's the same point, but it's just a better way of making the point." Harris recalls being worried that Kubrick had ruined his career, but being pleased with the result.

According to LoBrutto and others, "Kubrick was taking a bold and dangerous leap" in his decision to make Red Alert into a comedy, as the topic of nuclear war as a film subject at that time was "considered taboo" and "hardly socially acceptable". Before writing the screenplay as a satire, Kubrick studied over forty military and political research books, including unclassified information on nuclear weapons and effects from Charles B. Yulish of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He decided that a "serious treatment" of the subject would not be believable, and that some of his most salient points would be fodder for comedy. He then decided to try to "treat the story as a nightmare comedy."

Kubrick found that the film would be impossible to make in the U.S. for various technical and political reasons, forcing him to move production to England. There, he developed what became the "first important visual effects crew in the world". To help him write the screenplay, Kubrick hired noted black comedy and satirical writer Terry Southern. Together, they worked closely to transform Red Alert into "an outrageous black comedy" loaded with "outrageous dialogue". LoBrutto notes that the final product is a "raucous satire" that merges Kubrick's "devilishly dark sense of humor" from the New York streets and Southern's "manic comedic mind."

From his collection of thousands of record albums, both classical and golden oldies, Kubrick also selected background songs and music which added to the satirical and sardonic effect: during the opening credits with B-52 bombers in flight, the song "Try a Little Tenderness" set the scene; the pilots proceeded to fly into hostile territory, knowing they would not return, to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"; scenes depicting nuclear explosions featured the song "We'll Meet Again".

The War Room set created for the film by Ken Adam was considered a "classic of movie design." Director Steven Spielberg told Adam that it was the "best set that's ever been designed."

Because of perception that Peter Sellers had been pivotal to the success of Lolita, Sellers was again cast to employ his ability to mimic different characters, this time in three different roles. As he had in Lolita, Kubrick allowed Sellers to improvise his dialogue.

The film stirred up much controversy and mixed opinions. New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther worried that it was a "discredit and even contempt for our whole defense establishment ... the most shattering sick joke I've ever come across". Whereas Time, the Nation, Newsweek and Life, among many, gave it "positive, often ecstatic reviews". Kubrick stated:

A satirist is someone who has a very skeptical view of human nature, but who still has the optimism to make some sort of a joke out of it. However brutal that joke might be.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Kubrick spent five years developing his next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film was adapted from the short story The Sentinel, by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, and the screenplay was written by Kubrick and Clarke in collaboration. The film's theme, the birthing of one intelligence by another, is developed in two parallel intersecting stories on two very different times scales. One depicts transitions between various stages of man, from ape to "star child", as man is reborn into a new existence, each step shepherded by an enigmatic alien intelligence seen only in its artifacts: a series of seemingly indestructible eons-old black monoliths. It also depicts human interaction with our own more directly created and controlled offspring intelligence. The film was conceived as a Cinerama spectacle and was photographed in Super Panavision 70.

Upon its release in 1968, the film appeared to defy genre convention, sometimes considered unlike any science-fiction movie before it, and clearly different from any of Kubrick's earlier films or stories. It contained ground-breaking special effects designed by Kubrick to give the viewer a "dazzling mix of imagination and science", and winning Kubrick his only personal Oscar, an Academy Award for Visual Effects.

Kubrick was very much interested in science and the possibilities that life existed beyond Earth. When Kubrick first contacted Clarke through his friend about helping him write the film, he assumed Clarke was a "recluse", then living in Ceylon. They first met in person in New York, although Kubrick did not offer Clarke the job of writing at that point, nor was the possible film discussed. LoBrutto notes that Clarke was impressed with Kubrick's intelligence.

Subsequently, after they agreed to the story, Kubrick worked closely with Clarke for three months to produce a 130-page treatment for the film, and consulted with other experts and agencies while doing so. Initially, Clarke worked in Kubrick's apartment office on Central Park West with an electric typewriter.

Kubrick describes the movie as "a nonverbal experience", but would not elaborate on the film's meaning during a Playboy magazine interview in 1968, saying that he "tried to create a visual experience, one that bypasses verbalized pigeon-holing and directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content ... just as music does ... You're free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning.

In contrast within a film infused with allegory and symbolism, the film was also noted for its groundbreaking scientific realism in depicting space flight, for example in its depiction of various strategies to deal with zero-gravity, the absence of sound in outer space, artificial intelligence, and the fact that interplanetary space travel will require different kinds of vehicles engineered for different stages of the journey.

2001 was the first of several Kubrick films in which classical music played an important role. At the suggestion of Jan Harlan, Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss was included, used for the opening credits, in the "The Dawn of Man" sequence and again in the ending scene which astronaut David Bowman, as the "star child", gazes at Earth. Kubrick also used music by avant-garde Hungarian composer György Ligeti, his work's first wide commercial exposure, along with Johann Strauss's Blue Danube Waltz.

The film was not an immediate hit among many critics, who faulted its lack of dialogue, slow pacing, and seemingly impenetrable storyline. Others, like Penelope Gilliatt, called it "a great film", and numerous directors were inspired by it. It has been considered amongst the greatest science fiction films ever made, as well as one of the most influential. After it was shown at a private screening at the Vatican, producer Jan Harlan recalls that a cardinal stood up and said to the audience, "Here is a film made by an agnostic who hit the bullseye."

Today, many film critics and moviemakers regard it as the most significant Hollywood film of its generation, with Spielberg calling it his generation's "big bang". Lockwood considers 2001 a "life-changer" in terms of technology and the possibilities of film, realizing it would be even during the filming: "When you've got the best moviemaker of all time, Stanley Kubrick, with one of the best sci-fi writers of all time, Arthur C. Clarke, combining, well, I kinda knew." It is a staple on All Time Top 10 lists.

Napoleon, unrealized film

Following 2001 (1968), Kubrick planned to make a film about the life of the French emperor Napoleon. He had already spent two years doing extensive research about Napoleon's life, and would use a screenplay he wrote in 1961. The film was well into pre-production and ready to begin filming in 1969 when MGM cancelled the project, partly due to its projected cost, and the poor reception the Soviet version received.

Screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin, one of Kubrick's young assistants on 2001, helped research the life of Napoleon for Kubrick. He was sent to the Isle of Elba, Austerlitz and Waterloo, taking thousands of pictures which he later went over with Kubrick. Kubrick also had him read scholarly monographs about Napoleon as well as Napoleon's personal memoirs and commentaries.

In 2011, Taschen published the book Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, a large volume compilation of literature and source documents from Kubrick including scene photo ideas and copies of letters Kubrick wrote and received. Kubrick had already approached numerous stars to play leading roles, including Audrey Hepburn for Empress Josephine, a part which she could not accept.

In March 2013, Spielberg, who had collaborated previously with Kubrick on A.I. Artificial Intelligence and was a passionate fan of his work, announced that he would be developing Napoleon as a TV miniseries based on Kubrick's original screenplay.

Beginning work on A. I. Artificial Intelligence

Since the early 1970s and throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Kubrick collaborated with Brian Aldiss on an expansion of his short story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" into a three-act film. It was a futuristic fairy-tale about a robot that resembles and behaves as a child, and his efforts to become a 'real boy' in a manner similar to Pinocchio. Kubrick reportedly held long telephone discussions with Steven Spielberg regarding the film, and, according to Spielberg, at one point stated that the subject matter was closer to Spielberg's sensibilities than his.

In 1999, following Kubrick's death, Spielberg took the various drafts and notes left by Kubrick and his writers and composed a new screenplay based on an earlier 90-page story treatment by Ian Watson written under Kubrick's supervision and according to Kubrick's specifications. In association with what remained of Kubrick's production unit, he directed the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. which was produced by Kubrick's longtime producer (and brother-in-law) Jan Harlan. Sets, costumes and art direction were based on work by conceptual artist, Chris Baker, who had also done much of his work under Kubrick's supervision.

Although Spielberg was able to function autonomously in Kubrick's absence, he said he felt "inhibited to honor him," and followed Kubrick's visual schema with as much fidelity as he could, writes author Joseph McBride. Spielberg, who once referred to Kubrick as "the greatest master I ever served," now with production underway, admitted, "I felt like I was being coached by a ghost".

The film was released in June 2001. It contains a posthumous production credit for Stanley Kubrick at the beginning and the brief dedication "For Stanley Kubrick" at the end. John Williams' score contains many allusions to pieces heard in other Kubrick films.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

When financing for Napoleon fell through, Kubrick searched for a project that he could film quickly on a small budget. He settled on A Clockwork Orange (1971). His adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel of the same name is an exploration of violence and experimental rehabilitation by law enforcement authorities. LoBrutto describes the film as a "sociopolitical statement about the government's threat against personal freedom", and Ciment explains that, through the story, Kubrick "is denouncing brainwashing of every kind and making a plea for free-will". Kubrick did not deny those conclusions, asserting that even with good motives there were limits to how society should maintain "law and order": "The State sees the spectre looming ahead of terrorism and anarchy, and this increases the risk of its over-reaction and a reduction in our freedom."

Because of its depiction of teenage violence, the film became one of the most controversial films of the decade, and part of an ongoing debate about violence in cinema. Detractors claimed the film glorified violence. Kubrick personally pulled the film from release in the United Kingdom after receiving death threats following a series of copycat crimes based on the film; it was thus completely unavailable legally in the UK until after Kubrick's death, and not re-released until 2000. Kubrick disagreed that a film could transform a person into a criminal, and argued that "violent crime is invariably committed by people with a long record of anti-social behavior".

Kubrick defended the depiction of violence in the film, arguing that "The violence in the story has to be given sufficient dramatic weight so that the moral dilemma it poses can be seen in the right context", otherwise the viewer would not reach a "meaningful conclusion about relative rights and wrongs". The State cannot turn even the most "vicious criminals into vegetables".

Kubrick also expanded his ideas to the nation's popular media and worried that it could have a similar effect on a wider scale. In a letter Kubrick had published by the New York Times in 1972, he warned against what he described as multimedia "fascism" that could also turn human beings into "zombies". Author Julian Rice explains that, in this larger context, Kubrick implies that "spectators" of media can become a "massive entity subject to predictable response".

A Clockwork Orange was rated 'X' for violence in the US on its original release, just a year before that rating became linked to pornography. Kubrick later released a cut version for an 'R' rating, though the original version has since been re-rated to 'R'.

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Barry Lyndon (1975) was an adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's The Luck of Barry Lyndon (also known as Barry Lyndon), a picaresque novel about the adventures of an 18th-century Irish gambler and social climber. The cinematography and lighting techniques that Kubrick, together with his cinematographer John Alcott, used in Barry Lyndon were highly innovative. Most notably, interior scenes were shot with a specially adapted high-speed f/0.7 Zeiss camera lens originally developed for NASA to be used in satellite photography. The lenses allowed scenes to be lit only with candlelight, creating two-dimensional, diffused-light images reminiscent of 18th-century paintings. Cinematographer Allen Daviau says that it gives the audience a way of seeing the characters and scenes as they would have been seen by people at the time.

Production experts have described the efforts that Kubrick took to both acquire the lenses, considered "priceless" by the head of Panavision, and adapt them for use on his camera. He had to have the camera engineered and rebuilt, which made it dedicated for that one lens only.

Barry Lyndon found a great audience in Europe, particularly in France. Its measured pace and length at three hours put off many American critics and audiences, but the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, more than any other Kubrick film. As with most of Kubrick's films, Barry Lyndon's reputation has grown through the years, particularly among filmmakers. The director Martin Scorsese cited it as his favorite Kubrick film. Spielberg praised its "impeccable technique", although he had panned it when younger. Like its two predecessors, the film does not have an original score. Irish traditional songs (performed by The Chieftains) are combined with classical works from the period.

Writer George Lewis said that, for many scenes, Kubrick posed the actors for an instant before the action, thereby creating a painterly quality. He added, "The scenes look like European paintings of the 1700s and 1800s", and such paintings are considered art in the American popular mind. The effect was accentuated, notes Ciment, by Kubrick's use of "slow reverse zoom which, moving out from a single character, enlarges the field of vision until its powerful scrutiny takes possession of the whole decor". Kubrick told Ciment, "I created a picture file of thousands of drawings and paintings for every type of reference that we could have wanted. I think I destroyed every art book you could buy in a bookshop."

The Shining (1980)

The Shining, released in 1980, was adapted from the novel of the same name by bestselling horror writer Stephen King. The film stars Jack Nicholson as a writer who takes a job as a winter caretaker of a large and isolated hotel in the Rocky Mountains. He spends the winter there with his wife, played by Shelley Duvall, and their young son, who displays paranormal abilities. During their stay, they confront both Jack's descent into madness and apparent supernatural horrors lurking in the hotel.

Kubrick, who gave his actors freedom to extend the script, and even improvise on occasion, did so with the film's two main stars. Nicholson notes that actors were given new script pages or revisions on almost a daily basis. According to LoBrutto, Kubrick made it clear that the printed script was to be used as a guide. On the set, Nicholson always appeared in character, and if Kubrick felt confident, after they considered how a scene could be shot, that he knew his lines well enough, he might encourage him, as he did Peter Sellers, to improvise. As a result, Nicholson's 'Here's Johnny!' line was improvised.

Vivian Kubrick's film, The Making of The Shining, shows Nicholson and Duvall rehearsing the scene and revising the script along with Kubrick. Kubrick allowed his daughter Vivian to film the documentary, an unusual move as he kept access to the set closed to all others.

Kubrick made extensive use of the newly invented Steadicam, a weight-balanced camera support, which allowed for smooth hand-held camera movement in scenes where a conventional camera track was impractical. According to Garrett Brown, Steadicam's inventor, it was the first picture to utilize its full potential. Kubrick's perfectionist style required dozens of takes of certain scenes. Nicholson's scene with the ghostly bartender was shot thirty-six times, for example.

As with most Kubrick films, subsequent critical reaction has treated the film favorably. Among horror movie fans, The Shining is a cult classic. The film's financial success renewed Warner Brothers' faith in Kubrick's ability to make profitable films after the commercial failure in the US of Barry Lyndon.

While Kubrick admitted he had always been interested in the subject of ESP and paranormal experiences, he first became interested in doing the film only after he read King's novel.

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Seven years later, Kubrick made his next film, Full Metal Jacket (1987), an adaptation of Gustav Hasford's Vietnam War novel The Short-Timers.

It was filmed in a derelict gasworks in the London Docklands area that was adapted as a ruined-city set, which makes the film visually very different from other Vietnam War films. Instead of a tropical jungle, the second half of the picture depicts urban warfare. Reviewers and commentators thought this contributed to the bleakness and seriousness of the film.

According to Ciment, the film contained some of Kubrick's trademark characteristics, such as his selection of ironic music, portrayals of men being dehumanized, and attention to extreme detail to achieve realism. At the beginning of the film, as new and expressionless recruits have their hair cut down to their scalp, the song "Hello Vietnam" is playing in the background; in a later scene where United States Marines patrol the ruins of an abandoned and totally destroyed city, the theme song to the Mickey Mouse Club is heard as a sardonic counterpoint.

The film is split into halves. The recruits in boot camp are also subjected to what Ciment calls "a form of lobotomy, a barrage of physical and verbal aggression". Ciment writes, "In the transition from man to weapon, Kubrick underlines the process of dehumanization ... the same contradiction between the mechanical and the living that is manifest in A Clockwork Orange." According to one review, notes co-star Matthew Modine, "The first half of FMJ is brilliant. Then the film degenerates into a masterpiece."

Ciment also recognizes aspects of this war film with Paths of Glory, which Kubrick directed thirty years earlier. There are similarities in both films, such as the use of natural lighting, an off-screen narrator, attention to detail, a sense of chaos, and the exploration of panoramic spaces. As a result, both films "accentuate the impression of reality ... and photographic hyper-realism".

Kubrick explained he made the film look realistic by using natural light, and achieved a "newsreel effect" by making the Steadicam shots less steady.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Kubrick's final film was Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as a wealthy Manhattan couple on a sexual odyssey. The story is based on Arthur Schnitzler's Freudian novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story in English), which Kubrick relocated from turn-of-the-century Vienna to New York City in the 1990s. The film's theme has been described by Nicholson as delving into questions of the "dangers of married life", and the "silent desperations of keeping an ongoing relationship alive".

Screenwriter Michael Herr notes that although the film outwardly presents "sex and thrills" as its subject, its ending conveys a message valuing "marriage and fidelity". The "core theme" of the film, writes Webster, is that of "monogamous fidelity".

The secret password that Cruise needed in the film was "Fidelio". Historian Stuart McDougall adds that Fidelio is, "ironically", the title of Beethoven's only opera, and which is subtitled, "Married Love". "One could argue Kubrick strengthened this idea via his choice of password in the film", adds Webster, as the original password by Schnitzler was "Denmark". According to Herr, "Fidelio" is the password and the presiding spirit of the piece.

The title of the film also gives a clue to that theme. Webster sees an antecedent to the title phrase, "eyes wide shut", in a quotation by Benjamin Franklin on marriage: "keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards." Critic Charles Whitehouse agrees, stating, "My guess is that the phrase "Eyes Wide Shut" is shorthand for the most successful attitude a monogamous couple can adopt to viewing each other's inner life."

Kubrick's wife noted his long-standing interest in the project, saying, "over the years he would see friends getting divorced and remarried, and the topic [of the film] would come up". She knew that this was a subject he wanted to make into a film. Kidman observed that "Stanley's expectations of people were not really high".

Although Kubrick was almost seventy, he worked relentlessly for 15 months in order to get the film out by its planned release date of July 16, 1999. He worked 18 hours a day, all the while maintaining complete confidentiality about the film. Press releases were sent to the media, stating briefly that "Stanley Kubrick's next film will be Eyes Wide Shut, a story of jealousy and sexual obsession". Eyes Wide Shut, like Lolita and A Clockwork Orange before it, faced censorship before release. Kubrick sent an unfinished preview copy to the stars and producers a few months before release, but his sudden death on March 7, 1999 came a few days after he finished editing. He never saw the final version released to the public.

Film critic Michel Ciment believes that "he literally worked himself to death", trying to complete the film to his liking. Ciment explains that Kubrick's desire to keep this, and many of his earlier films, private and unpublicized during its production, was an expression of Kubrick's "will to power", and not a penchant for secrecy: "Kubrick felt, quite rightly, that the public generally knows far too much about a film before it opens and that the surrounding media frenzy made the joy of surprise and pleasure of discovery impossible".

Speaking about the film, Kidman notes that, despite some critics describing the film's theme as "dark", in essence "it is a very hopeful film". During an interview in the documentary, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, she says that Kubrick was indirectly stressing the moral values of "commitment and loyalty", adding that "ultimately, Eyes Wide Shut is about that commitment". Although there were rumors at the time that making the film may have negatively impacted her marriage to Cruise, and they both recognized that "Stanley wanted to use our marriage as a supposed reality ... obviously it wasn't us", and she does not believe it affected their relationship. She also felt that acting under Kubrick's direction "was like having a great, great teacher."

Sydney Pollack, who acted in the film, adds that "the heart of [the film] was illustrating a truth about relationships and sexuality. But it was not illustrated in a literal way, but in a theatrical way." Ciment agrees with Kidman, and notes the positive meaning underlying the film, pointing out how some of it is voiced through the dialog, and suggests that the words "resonate like an epitaph" to Kubrick: "Maybe, I think, we should be grateful ... grateful that we've managed to survive through all of our adventures, whether they were real or only a dream".

Unrealized projects

Kubrick both developed and was offered several film ideas which never saw completion. The most notable of these were an epic biopic of Napoleon and a Holocaust-themed film entitled Aryan Papers. Kubrick had done much research on Napoleon and it was well into pre-production, when the studio suddenly pulled the plug after another big-budget biopic about Napoleon entitled Waterloo failed financially. Work on Aryan Papers depressed Kubrick enormously, and he eventually decided that Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List covered much of the same material.

Tony Frewin, an assistant who worked with the director for a long period of time, revealed in a March 2013 Atlantic article: "He [Kubrick] was limitlessly interested in anything to do with Nazis and desperately wanted to make a film on the subject." The article then elaborates upon Frewin's statement and discusses another World War II film that was never realizedâ€"a film based on the life story of Dietrich Schulz-Koehn, a Nazi officer who used the pen name "Dr. Jazz" to write reviews of German music scenes during the Nazi era. Kubrick had been given a copy of the Mike Zwerin book Swing Under the Nazis after he had finished production on Full Metal Jacket, the front cover of which featured a photograph of Schulz-Koehn. A screenplay was never completed and Kubrick's film adaptation plan was never initiated (the unfinished Aryan Papers was a factor in the abandonment of the project).

Kubrick was also unable to direct a film of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum as Eco had given his publisher instructions to never sell the film rights to any of his books after his dissatisfaction with the film version of The Name of the Rose. Eco was unaware of Kubrick's interest and later said he would have relented had he known of it.

When the film rights to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings were sold to United Artists, the Beatles approached Kubrick to direct them in a film based on the books, but Kubrick told John Lennon he felt the story was unfilmable. Director Peter Jackson has reported that Tolkien was against the involvement of the Beatles.

Career influences

Kubrick's family and many critics felt that his Jewish ancestry may have contributed to his worldview and aspects of his films. After his death, both his daughter and wife stated that although he was not religious, "he did not deny his Jewishness, not at all". His daughter noted that he wanted to make a film about the Holocaust, to have been called Aryan Papers, having spent years researching the subject. Most of his friends and early photography and film collaborators were Jewish, and his first two marriages were to daughters of recent Jewish immigrants from Europe. British screenwriter Frederic Raphael, who worked closely with Kubrick in his final years, believes that the originality of Kubrick's films was partly because he "had a (Jewish?) respect for scholars". He said that it was "absurd to try to understand Stanley Kubrick without reckoning on Jewishness as a fundamental aspect of his mentality".

Walker notes that Kubrick was influenced by the tracking and "fluid camera" styles of director Max Ophüls, and used them in many of his films, including Paths of Glory and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick noted how in Ophuls' films "the camera went through every wall and every floor". He once named Ophüls' Le Plaisir as his favorite film. According to film historian John Wakeman, Ophüls himself learned the technique from director Anatole Litvak in the 1930s, when he was his assistant, and whose work was "replete with the camera trackings, pans and swoops which later became the trademark of Max Ophuls".

Film critic Robert Kolker sees the influence of Welles' moving camera shots on Kubrick's style. LoBrutto notes that Kubrick identified with Welles and influenced the making of The Killing, with its "multiple points of view, extreme angles, and deep focus".

Kubrick adapted all but his first two full-length films from existing novels or short stories. Many of the subjects Kubrick used for his films came to him unintentionally and indirectly, from books, newspapers, and talking with friends about various topics. Once he found a subject that interested him, "he devoured all relevant material" he could find about the topic, notes Walker. He occasionally collaborated with writers established outside the film world (often novelists or reporters) for several of his screenplays: Terry Southern for Dr. Strangelove, Arthur C. Clarke for 2001, and Diane Johnson for The Shining.

Geoffrey Cocks believes that Kubrick was also influenced by Ophüls' stories of thwarted love and a preoccupation with predatory men, while Herr notes that Kubrick was deeply inspired by G. W. Pabst, who earlier tried but was unable to adapt Schnitzler's Traumnovelle, the basis of Eyes Wide Shut.

As a young man, Kubrick was fascinated by the films of Soviet filmmakers such as Eisenstein and Pudovkin. Kubrick read Pudovkin's seminal theoretical work, Film Technique, which argues that editing makes film a unique art form, and it needs to be employed to manipulate the medium to its fullest. Kubrick recommended this work to others for years to come. Thomas Nelson describes this book as "the greatest influence of any single written work on the evolution of [Kubrick's] private aesthetics". Kubrick also found the ideas of Constantin Stanislavski to be essential to his understanding the basics of directing, and gave himself a crash course to learn his methods. Kubrick had cited David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977) as one of his favorite films and used it as a creative reference during the directing of The Shining.

Directing techniques

Themes and stories

Kubrick's films typically involve expressions of an inner struggle, examined from different perspectives. He was very careful not to present his own views of the meaning of his films and leave them open to interpretation. Kubrick explained: "The essence of a dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it is simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves."

Diane Johnson, who co-wrote the screenplay for The Shining with Kubrick, notes that he "always said that it was better to adapt a book rather than write an original screenplay, and that you should choose a work that isn't a masterpiece so you can improve on it. Which is what he's always done, except with Lolita". Ciment notes that Kubrick always emphasized that finding a 'good' story was the biggest part of making a film, its visual aspect never posing an insoluble problem for him. And he had "tremendous respect for the writers he worked with" when adapting a book for the screen.

When deciding on a subject for a film, there were a number of aspects that he looked for, and he always made films which would "appeal to every sort of viewer, whatever their expectation of film". According to his co-producer Jan Harlan, Kubrick mostly "wanted to make films about things that mattered, that not only had form, but substance". Harlan explains this during an interview with Charlie Rose in June 2001:

While his films are all very different from each other ... there is something that connects them all, and that is a very serious look at human nature, at human frailty.

In selecting subjects for his screenplays, he rarely had any particular theme in mind. Kubrick stated, "Somehow, the question presumes that one approaches a film with something resembling a policy statement, or a one-sentence theme, ... Maybe some people work this way, but I don't, and even though you obviously have some central preoccupation with the subject, ... the characters and the story develop a life of their own. Nor did he like to explain the theme or story even after the film was completed, preferring to let the viewers and critics interpret their own meanings. Walker explains that "Kubrick preferred to leave the film as the only real comment he could make on his work". Kubrick himself believed that audiences quite often were attracted to "enigmas and allegories" and did not like films in which everything was spelled out clearly. He felt a film was "spoiled" for those

unfortunate enough to have read what the filmmaker "has in mind". ... I..enjoy those subtle discoveries where I wonder whether the filmmaker ... was even aware that they were in the film

Kubrick did enjoy surprising his audience by alternating dramatically the types of stories he filmed, notes Ciment, and it became a key aspect of his originality as a filmmaker. Ciment states that Kubrick often tried to confound audience expectations by establishing radically different moods from one film to the next

It is as if Kubrick were obsessed with contradicting himself, with making each work a critique of the previous one.

Kubrick's films are unpredictable, examining "the duality and contradictions that exist in all of us".

Ciment notes that The Shining (1980) continued this process, again being the "antithesis of the film which preceded it, Barry Lyndon. "Such a succession only confirms his habit over the last twenty years of alternating between deliberately slow-paced, meditative, even melancholic works and others with a taut, staccato rhythm, generated by a dynamism which can occasionally be frenetic." Kubrick explains:

There is no deliberate pattern to the stories that I have chosen to make into films. About the only factor at work each time is that I try not to repeat myself.

His preference for finding and adapting unique stories and filming them with photographic realism, was not usually appreciated upon their initial release. Ciment notes that "it's easy to forget just how controversial his films were. Many were rejected by critics at the time of their release, only to become classics of the cinema years later." Jack Nicholson, who starred in The Shining, also recognized, but couldn't explain that aspect of critical reviews.

Although a few of his films were obvious satires and black comedies, such as Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, many of his other films also contained less visible elements of satire or irony. "All his films have a streak of irony," states Nicholson. "This is just one among many things where he and I agreed completely, and I had a lot of fun working on the film," noting that Kubrick "loved to tease". Film author Julian Rice describes many ironic scenes and dialog within Kubrick's films, including The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, 2001, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut.

Writing and staging scenes

Johnson notes that although Kubrick was a "visual filmmaker," he also loved words:

Speaking with him was like speaking with another writer. Much more so than other directors I've worked with. They represented things visually but had little interest in narrative elements, ... Kubrick was very sensitive to the story itself ... He thought like a writer, which I found quite unique.

That trait was also observed by Ciment, who stated that "he liked to talk and he loved words". He adds that Kubrick, although he was a visual thinker, "liked writers and worked with them on his screenplays ... He preferred them to professional screenwriters who he felt were too involved in the well-worn pathways of convention."

Before shooting began, Kubrick tried to have the script as complete as possible, but still allowing himself enough space to make changes during the actual filming. Citing the importance of being in the place of the audience, Kubrick described this early stage of production:

One has to work out very clearly what the objectives of a scene are from the point of view of narrative and character, but once this is done, I find it much more profitable to avoid locking up any ideas about staging or camera or even dialogue prior to rehearsals

Film author Patrick Webster notes that Kubrick's methods of writing and developing scenes fit with the auteur theory of directing, whereby Kubrick's script would be "far from a final shooting script; in other words that numerous changes were made in collaboration with the actors during filming". Actor Malcolm McDowell recalled Kubrick's collaborative emphasis during their discussions and his willingness to allow him to improvise a scene:

There was a script and we followed it, but when it didn't work he knew it, and we had to keep rehearsing endlessly until we were bored with it.

Once he was confident in the overall staging of a scene, and felt the actors were prepared, he would then develop the visual aspects, including camera and lighting placement. As Walker points out, Kubrick was able to handle that phase quickly and easily with his background in cinematography: "He was one of the very few film directors competent to instruct their lighting photographers in the precise effect they want."

Directing

Demanding perfection

Kubrick was noted for requiring multiple takes during filming. His high take ratio was considered "irrational" by some critics, although he firmly believed that actors were at their best during actual filming as opposed to rehearsals. He stated: "Actors who have worked a lot in movies don't really get a sense of intense excitement into their performances until there is film running through the camera".

Nicole Kidman explains that the large number of takes he often required stopped actors from consciously thinking about technique, thereby helping them enter a "deeper place." She describes what she understood to be Kubrick's reasoning:

He believed that what it does to you, as an actor, was that you would lose control of your sense of self, of the part of you that was internally watching your own performance. Eventually, he felt, you would stop censoring yourself."

Many actors considered the large number of takes to be extremely challenging, although "none of his actors has ever questioned the merits of this method, however much he might have suffered from it," states Ciment. Jack Nicholson adds, "Stanley's demanding. He'll do a scene fifty times and you have to be good to do that." During an interview, Ryan O'Neal recalled Kubrick's directing style:

God, he works you hard. He moves you, pushes you, helps you, gets cross with you, but above all he teaches you the value of a good director. Stanley brought out aspects of my personality and acting instincts that had been dormant ... My strong suspicion [was] that I was involved in something great.

O'Neal describes how he felt after successfully completing one long and very difficult scene in Barry Lyndon requiring multiple takes: "Stanley grabbed my hand and squeezed it. It was the most beautiful and appreciated gesture in my life. It was the greatest moment in my career." During an interview in late 2012, he sums up his feelings about working with Kubrick:

It was a stunning experience. I'm still not recovered. He was magnificent. He was breath-taking. I had a man-love for him.

Creative and liberal atmosphere on sets

Actors especially liked that Kubrick would often devote his personal breaks to have lengthy discussions with them so they could gain more confidence. Among those who valued his attention was Tony Curtis, star of Spartacus, who said Kubrick was his favorite director, adding, "his greatest effectiveness was his one-on-one relationship with actors." Similarly, Malcolm McDowell recalls the long discussions he had with Kubrick to help him develop his character in A Clockwork Orange (1971) noting that on his sets, he felt entirely uninhibited and free, saying "This is why Stanley is such a great director."

A decade earlier, Kubrick's work with Peter Sellers on Lolita (1962), a black comedy, gave them both the chance to use improvisation, which Sellers did successfully. According to Sellers' biographer Alexander Walker, his collaborative work with Kubrick became a turning point in his career, noting that "for the first time, he tasted what it was like to work creatively during shooting," as opposed to the preproduction stage. The experience also lifted Sellers' spirit as an actor. Kubrick describes this change:

When Peter was called to the set he would usually arrive walking very slowly and staring morosely ... As work progressed, he would begin to respond to something or other in the scene, his mood would visibly brighten and we would begin to have fun. ... [At times] Peter reached ... a state of comic ecstasy.

Walker adds that Sellers "was 'licensed' to break the rules, ... [and] encouraged by Kubrick to explore the outer limits of the comédie noireâ€"and sometimes, he felt, go over themâ€"in a way that appealed to the macabre imagination of himself and his director."

Costume designer Marit Allen noted that Kubrick's directing style combined "slow interminable rehearsals" and "a kind of malicious humour". Kubrick would "accept anything from anyone, providing they knew what was at stake and did their best, and at the same time he was very demanding with everyone."

Shelley Duvall, who starred in The Shining, had an especially difficult time with many of the long and highly emotional scenes, and had to repeat them until Kubrick was satisfied. She enjoyed the liberal atmosphere and on-set humor during filming, and stated that she learned more about acting in that one year than in all her previous years combined:

He made life miserable for me, but he expanded my scope as an actress. . .[and] to my great surprise, Kubrick gave a great deal of freedom, to Jack and myself, in our acting

Attention to details

Kubrick was also noted for his attention to accessory details. Gay Hamilton, a co-star in Barry Lyndon, notes that even for her costumes he asked to look at every one before approving them. "He was in touch with everything ... There was no question that he had his finger on every single aspect of moviemaking." That impression was shared by cinematographer John Alcott, who worked closely with Kubrick on four of his films, and won an Oscar for Best Cinematography on Barry Lyndon: "He questions everything." Kubrick worked with Alcott in camera placement, scene composition, choice of lens, and even operating the camera. "He's the nearest thing to genius I've ever worked with, with all the problems of a genius," adds Alcott. James B. Harris, who produced many of his early films, agreed that he was a perfectionist:

For him, every single detail was extremely important and he was ready to give himself up totally to his goal â€" which was the movie â€" for you have to live with your work to the end of your life.

In deciding which props and settings would be used, he tried to collect as much background material as possible, "a bit like being a detective," Kubrick stated. For Barry Lyndon he gathered a large file of paintings and drawings of the period from art books, which he used as reference. From those sources, he made clothes, furniture, hand props, architecture, vehicles, etc. Kubrick also found the research process a personal benefit to himself:

You have an important reason to study a subject in much greater depth ... and then you have the satisfaction of putting the knowledge to immediate good use.

Kubrick was also noted for working intensely, with full concentration, when directing. Michael Herr was surprised when visiting him on the set: "I was amazed at how fast he moved, and how light, darting around the crew and cameras like one of the Sugar Rays, grace and purpose in motion." Kubrick states that he rarely adds camera instructions in the script, preferring to handle that after a scene is created:

It never takes me long to decide on set-ups, lighting or camera movements. The visual part of filmmaking has always come easiest to me, and that is why I am careful to subordinate it to the story and performance.

Cinematography

Photography influences and style

Kubrick credited the ease with which he photographed scenes to his early years as a photographer. It was his first "step up to movies", and for Kubrick the one essential piece of knowledge required to film well.

John Alcott also saw the connection, stating that Kubrick "is, in his heart of hearts, a photographer, ... As a result, even in his later films, ... Kubrick would still collaborate with his cinematographers to make sure they captured scenes exactly as he wanted. " He adds that Kubrick displayed his talent as a photographer in some of his earliest films, noting especially the tracking shots in the trenches of Paths of Glory which "because of the angle chosen and the general movement of the scene, appears extremely stable."

Having worked with Kubrick as cinematographer on four films over ten years, he states that Kubrick was "capable of becoming an expert in every field," adding that as a result, "with him there can be no excuses and no tricks because he is on to them immediately." For him, the positive aspect to Kubrick's attention to cinematic detail, was that he gave his crew a great deal of inner energy. "When you're shooting a film with him, it's eight o'clock in the evening before you know it."

Some reviewers have described and illustrated with video clips, Kubrick's use of "one-point perspective", which leads the viewer's eye towards a central vanishing point. The technique relies on creating a complex visual symmetry using parallel lines in a scene which all converge on that single point, leading away from the viewer. Combined with camera motion it could produce an effect that one writer describes as "hypnotic and thrilling."

Use of steadicam's smooth motion effects

The Shining was among the first half-dozen features to use the then-revolutionary Steadicam (after the 1976 films Bound for Glory, Marathon Man and Rocky). Kubrick used it to its fullest potential, which gave the audience smooth, stabilized, motion-tracking by the camera. Kubrick described why he wanted to use it in many scenes:

The Steadicam allows one man to move the camera any place he can walk â€" into small spaces where a dolly won't fit, and up and down staircases ... You can walk or run with the camera, and the Steadicam smooths out any unsteadiness. It's like a magic carpet. The fast, flowing, camera movements in the maze would have been impossible to do without the Steadicam.

Garrett Brown, its inventor, was the operator of the Steadicam for the film. In order to use it, it had to be mounted to a spring-loaded arm attached to a frame, which is then strapped to the operator's shoulders, chest and hips. Kubrick states that it "in effect, makes the camera weightless." During filming, Kubrick would walk alongside him and direct the camera's movements and angles. A scene showing the Steadicam being used while running on the hedge-maze set was filmed by Vivian Kubrick for her documentary The Making of "The Shining".

Kubrick catalyzed the most important extension to the Steadicam since its inception. Since he wanted it to be able to shoot from just above floor level, Brown came up with the "low mode" bracket which mounts the camera on an inverted post, greatly increasing the creative angles of the system which previously could not go much lower than the operator's waist height.

Specialized tools and lenses

Kubrick was among the first directors to use video assist during filming. At the time he began using it in 1966, it was considered cutting-edge technology, requiring him to build his own system. Having it in place during the filming of 2001, he was able to view a video of a take immediately after it was filmed.

On some films, such as Barry Lyndon, he used custom made zoom lenses. This allowed him to start a scene with a close-up and slowly zoom out to capture the full panorama of scenery. LoBrutto records that he ordered the customized 20:1 zoom lens along with a special joystick directly from the manufacturer. He also had them develop a quick-response aperture adjustment device. It allowed him to film long takes under changing outdoor lighting conditions by making aperture adjustments while the cameras rolled. LoBrutto notes that Kubrick's technical knowledge about lenses "dazzled the manufacturer's engineers, who found him to be unprecedented among contemporary filmmakers." Kubrick also operated the cameras himself for many scenes.

For that film he also used a specially adapted high-speed (f/0.7) Zeiss camera lens, originally developed for NASA, to shoot numerous scenes lit only with candlelight. Actor Steven Berkoff recalls that Kubrick wanted scenes to be shot using "pure candlelight," and in doing so Kubrick "made a unique contribution to the art of filmmaking going back to painting ... You almost posed like for portraits." LoBrutto notes that the candlelight scenes became an "instant legend" in the film business.

Cinematographers all over the world wanted to know about Kubrick's magic lens ... he had set a technical and artistic standard that took a Zen-like discipline and dedication to the art of film.

Ryan O'Neal remembers that Kubrick often looked through 18th century art books as reference for setting up a scene: "He found a paintingâ€"I don't remember which oneâ€"and posed Marisa and me exactly as if we were in that painting."

Editing

For Kubrick, written dialogue was one element to be put in balance with mise en scène (set arrangements), music, and especially, editing. Inspired by Pudovkin's treatise on film editing, Kubrick realized that one could create a performance in the editing room and often "re-direct" a film, explaining:

I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of filmmaking ... Editing is the only unique aspect of filmmaking which does not resemble any other art formâ€"a point so important it cannot be overstressed ... It can make or break a film.

Kubrick stated that he used two Steenbeck editing tables and a Moviola, which he said allowed him to work faster. He often spent extensive hours editing, often working seven days a week, and more and more hours a day as he got closer to deadlines.

Walker adds that whether he was directing or editing, "his work so obsessed him that nothing was allowed to distract him from it, disturb or destabilize him. Everything in his daily agenda was arranged with that singular aim." And because he often shot numerous takes of scenes, he could edit with copious options, explains biographer John Baxter:

Instead of finding the intellectual spine of a film in the script before starting work, Kubrick felt his way towards the final version of a film by shooting each scene from many angles and demanding scores of takes on each line. Then over months ... he arranged and rearranged the tens of thousands of scraps of film to fit a vision that really only began to emerge during editing.

Music selection

His wife Christiane has stated 'He was addicted to music, he played it always, all day long. He worked with music, ... classical and the pop songs and he liked jazz music. You name it, a very catholic taste in music'.

In his last six films, Kubrick usually chose music from existing sources, especially classical compositions. He preferred selecting recorded music over having it composed for a film, believing that no hired composer could do as well as the public domain classical composers. He also felt that building scenes from images great music often created the "most memorable scenes" in the best films.

His attention to music was an aspect of what many referred to as his "perfectionism" and extreme attention to minute details. In one instance, for a scene in Barry Lyndon which was written into the screenplay as merely, "Barry duels with Lord Bullingdon," he spent forty-two working days in the editing phase. During that period, he listened to what Lobrutto describes as "every available recording of seventeenth-and eighteenth- century music, acquiring thousands of records to find Handel's sarabande used to score the scene." Jack Nicholson likewise observed his attention to music for his films, stating that Kubrick "listened constantly to music until he discovered something he felt was right or that excited him."

Kubrick is credited with introducing Hungarian composer György Ligeti to a broad Western audience by including his music in 2001, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. His music in 2001 employed the new style of micropolyphony, which used sustained dissonant chords that shift slowly over time, a style which he originated. Its inclusion in the film became a "boon for the relatively unknown composer" partly because it was introduced alongside background by notable composers, Johann Strauss and Richard Strauss.

Personal life

Marriages and family

Kubrick married his high-school sweetheart Toba Metz, a keen caricaturist, on 29 May 1948, when he was nineteen years of age. They had attended Taft High School together and had lived in the same apartment block on Shakespeare Avenue. The couple lived together in Greenwich Village and divorced three years later in 1951.

He met his second wife, the Austrian-born dancer and theatrical designer Ruth Sobotka, in 1952. They lived together in New York's East Village beginning in 1952, got married in January 1955 and moved to Hollywood in July 1955, where she played a brief part as a ballet dancer in Kubrick's film, Killer's Kiss (1955). The following year she was art director for his film, The Killing (1956). They divorced in 1957.

During the production of Paths of Glory (1957) in Munich, Kubrick met and romanced the German actress Christiane Harlan, who played a small though memorable role. Kubrick married Harlan in 1958, and in 1959 they settled into a home in Beverly Hills with Harlan's daughter, Katharina, age six. They also lived in New York, during which time Christiane studied art at the Art Students League of New York, later becoming an independent artist. Like Kubrick, she wanted "solace to think, study, and practice her craft," writes LoBrutto. They remained together 40 years, until his death in 1999. Besides his stepdaughter, they had two daughters together.

Actor Jack Nicholson, who starred in The Shining (1980), observed that "Stanley was very much a family man." Similarly, Nicole Kidman, who starred in Eyes Wide Shut (1999), adds that Christiane "was the love of his life. He would talk about her, he adored her, something that people didn't know. His daughters adored them ... I would see that, and he would talk about them very proudly." The opinion was shared by Malcolm McDowell, who starred in A Clockwork Orange: "He was happily married. I remember his daughters, Vivian and Anya, running around the room. It was good to see such a close-knit family."

Settling in the United Kingdom

Kubrick moved to the United Kingdom to make Lolita because of easier financing via the Eady Levy, since at least 85% of the film was shot in the UK, and freedom from censorship and interference from Hollywood studios. When he hired Peter Sellers to star in his next film, Dr. Strangelove, Sellers was unable to leave the UK. Kubrick made Britain his permanent home thereafter, although "he never considered himself an expatriate American," notes Walker. He also shunned the Hollywood system and its publicity machine, resulting in little media coverage of him as a personality. Christiane Kubrick told the London Times how rough New York had become, with children having to be escorted to school by police, people being rude, and smashed glass all over the street. Although he thrived on the manic energy of New York, Kubrick soon adapted to the more genteel atmosphere of Britain, where he set up his life so that family and business were one.

In 1965 the Kubricks moved to Abbots Mead, Barnet Lane, just south of the Elstree/Borehamwood studio complex. This was a turn of the 19th century house, sold to him by Simon Cowell's father. Kubrick worked almost exclusively from this home for 14 years where, with some exceptions, he researched, invented special effects techniques, designed ultra-low light lenses for specially modified cameras, pre-produced, edited, post-produced, advertised, distributed and carefully managed all aspects of four of his films: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1965 to 1968), A Clockwork Orange (1969 to 1971), Barry Lyndon (1972 to 1975) and most of The Shining (1976 to 1980 - finished the year after he left for Childwickbury Green)

In 1978, Kubrick moved into Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire, a mainly 18th century building about 48 km (30 mi) north of London and a 10-minute drive from his previous home at Abbotts Mead. His new home, originally a large country mansion once owned by a wealthy racehorse owner, became a workplace for Kubrick and Christiane. One of the large ballroom-size rooms became her painting studio. Kubrick converted the stables into extra production rooms besides ones within the home that he used for editing and storage. Christiane called their home "a perfect family factory." Kubrick rarely left England during the forty years before he died. Although Kubrick once held a pilot's license, some have claimed that he later developed a fear of flying and refused to take airplane trips. Matthew Modine, star of Full Metal Jacket, stated that the stories about his fear of flying were "fabricated," and that "he wasn't afraid to fly." He simply preferred spending most of his time in England, where his films were produced and where he lived.

Death

On March 7, 1999, six days after screening a final cut of Eyes Wide Shut for his family and the stars, Kubrick died in his sleep at the age of 70 from a heart attack, due to coronary atherosclerosis. His funeral was held on March 12 at his home estate with only close friends and family in attendance, totaling approximately 100 people. The media was kept a mile away outside the entrance gate.

Alexander Walker, who attended the funeral, describes it as a "family farewell, ... almost like an English picnic," with cellists, clarinetists and singers providing song and music from many of his favorite classical compositions. Although Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning, was recited, the funeral had no religious overtones, and few of his obituaries mentioned his Jewish background.

Among those who gave eulogies were Terry Semel, Jan Harlan, Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. He was buried next to his favorite tree in Childwickbury Manor, Hertfordshire, England. In her book dedicated to Kubrick, his wife Christiane included one of his favorite quotations of Oscar Wilde:

The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.

Influence on film and television

Influence on film industry

Kubrick is one of the most influential film directors in the history of cinema. Leading directors, including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, the Coen brothers, Ridley Scott, and George A. Romero, have cited Kubrick as a source of inspiration, and in the case of Spielberg, collaboration. On the DVD of Eyes Wide Shut, Steven Spielberg, in an interview, comments on Kubrick that "nobody could shoot a picture better in history", and the way that Kubrick "tells a story is antithetical to the way we are accustomed to receiving stories". Writing in the introduction to a recent edition of Michel Ciment's Kubrick, film director Martin Scorsese notes that most of Kubrick's films were misunderstood and under-appreciated when first released. Then came a dawning recognition that they were masterful works unlike any other films. Perhaps most notably, Orson Welles, one of Kubrick's greatest personal influences and all-time favorite directors, famously said that: "Among those whom I would call 'younger generation' Kubrick appears to me to be a giant."

Kubrick continues to be cited as a major influence by many directors, including Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Guillermo del Toro, David Lynch, Lars Von Trier, Michael Mann, and Gaspar Noé. Many filmmakers imitate Kubrick's inventive and unique use of camera movement and framing. Film critic Roger Ebert for instance noted that Burton's Mars Attacks! was partially inspired by Dr. Strangelove. Paul Thomas Anderson (who was fond of Kubrick as a teenager) in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, stated "it's so hard to do anything that doesn't owe some kind of debt to what Stanley Kubrick did with music in movies. Inevitably, you're going to end up doing something that he's probably already done before. It can all seem like we're falling behind whatever he came up with."

Numerous film directors, notably Frank Darabont, have been inspired by Kubrick's use of music. In an interview with The Telegraph, he states that 2001 took "the use of music in film" to absolute perfection, and one shot employing classical music in The Shawshank Redemption follows Kubrick's lead. Critics also occasionally detect a Kubrickian influence when the filmmaker acknowledges none.

Homages

In 2000 BAFTA renamed their Britannia lifetime achievement award the "Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award". Kubrick is among filmmakers such as D. W. Griffith, Laurence Olivier, Cecil B. DeMille, and Irving Thalberg, all of whom have had annual awards named after them. Kubrick won this award in 1999, and subsequent recipients have included George Lucas, Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood, and Daniel Day-Lewis.

A number of people who worked with Kubrick on his films created the 2001 documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, produced and directed by Kubrick's brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, who had executive produced Kubrick's last four films. The film's chapters each cover one of Kubrick's films and Kubrick's childhood is explored in the introductory section.

On October 30, 2012, an exhibition devoted to Kubrick opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and concluded in June 2013. Exhibits include a wide collection of documents, photographs and on-set material assembled from 800 boxes of personal archives that were stored in Kubrick's home-workplace in the U.K. A number of celebrities attended and spoke at the museum's pre-opening gala, including Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Jack Nicholson, while Kubrick's widow, Christiane, appeared at the pre-gala press review.

In October 2013, the Brazil Sao Paulo International Film Festival paid tribute to Kubrick, staging an exhibit of his work and a retrospective of his films. The exhibit opened on October 31, 2014 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto, Ontario and will run through Jan. 25, 2015.

In popular culture

Kubrick is widely referenced in popular culture. The TV series The Simpsons is said to contain more references to Kubrick films than to any other pop culture phenomenon. References abound to many of his films, including 2001, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining. When the Director's Guild of Great Britain gave Kubrick a lifetime achievement award, they included a cut-together sequence of all the homages from the show.

In 2009, an exhibition of paintings and photos inspired by Kubrick's films was held in Dublin, Ireland, entitled 'Stanley Kubrick: Taming Light'. Pop singer Lady Gaga's concert shows have included the use of dialogue, costumes, and music from A Clockwork Orange.

The novelist Carole Morin's noirish thriller "Spying On Strange Men". contains a chapter called 'Eating Custard With Stanley Kubrik' which apparently draws on the author's experience living on the set of Full Metal Jacket.

"I used to have silent dessert eating contests with Stanley Kubrick when I lived in his caravan. Who knows if he regretted his decision to let me eat in the commissary? You can’t tell to look at me how much I can pack in. Stanley’s plate was overloaded with chocolate log, custard, cheesecake, crumble, any pudding going… 
 a naturally competitive man, [he] was too dignified to acknowledge our contest out loud. Usually I won, but I cheated by not having a main course first."

Films about elements of Kubrick's life

Kubrick has been portrayed on film by actor Stanley Tucci in the film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Although Sellers acted in two of Kubrick's films, the material here is almost wholly focused on their work together in Dr. Strangelove.

In the early 1990s, a con artist named Alan Conway frequented the London entertainment scene claiming to be Stanley Kubrick, and temporarily deceived New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich, as well as multiple aspiring actors. Kubrick's personal assistant, Anthony Frewin, who helped track Conway down, wrote the screenplay for a film based on the Conway affair Colour Me Kubrick starring John Malkovich as Alan Conway. Kubrick's widow, Christiane Kubrick, was also a consultant for the film. The film contains several tongue-in-cheek homages to scenes from Kubrick's films. Conway was earlier the subject of a short documentary film The Man Who Would be Kubrick.

In 2002, the French documentary film maker William Karel (occasionally referred to as "Europe's Michael Moore") made initial plans for a documentary on Stanley Kubrick, but changed course. Karel was fascinated by the pervading conspiracy theory that Kubrick had faked footage of the NASA moon landings during the filming of Space Odyssey, and chose to make a parody "mockumentary" entitled Dark Side of the Moon advancing the same thesis entirely in jest. He had the help of Kubrick's surviving family who both acted as consultants for the film and gave scripted fake interviews. In spite of clues that the film is a news parody, some test audiences believed the film to be sincere, including at least one believer in the moon landing conspiracy.

Filmography and awards

See also

• Hawk Films
• Stanley Kubrick Archive
• Stanley Kubrick's Boxes
• Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
• List of famous amateur chess players

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

• Stanley Kubrick at DMOZ
• Stanley Kubrick at the Internet Movie Database
• Stanley Kubrick Collection at Warner Brothers
• The Films of Stanley Kubrick on YouTube, movie clip compilation, 4 min.
• Stanley Kubrick at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
• Stanley Kubrick at Library of Congress Authorities, with 74 catalog records (including 1 "from old catalog")