Stanley Kubrick

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jon
Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:03 pm

#101 Post by jon » Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:42 pm

How many Kubrick films have you seen?

portnoy
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#102 Post by portnoy » Fri Nov 10, 2006 2:56 pm

Uh nine of them?

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jon
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#103 Post by jon » Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:29 pm

Was just wondering which ones you had and hadn't seen. You probably have either missed Paths or Spartacus. In the case of Paths of Glory, it is something that shouldn't be missed.

It sounds like you think of Stanley Kubrick as a sort of Quentin Tarantino for cinephiles. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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Highway 61
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#104 Post by Highway 61 » Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:56 pm

Sounds like you've been put off by hype. The films you cite are his most popular with the Sin City crowd. Check out (or rewatch) Barry Lyndon and Paths of Glory, pretty much dispells the myths that Kubrick was a shallow stylist. As a Kubrick admirer, however, I'd agree that ACO and FMJ are the worst of his ten major films, but hey, like Matt said, that's like saying this is the worst diamond tiara I've ever worn.

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Gregory
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#105 Post by Gregory » Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:11 pm

Which are his ten major films? I can't understand leaving out The Killing, so I count eleven.
From his more discerning fans I've talked with, the overall opinion seems to be that A Clockwork Orange is the most difficult one to take seriously. Along with that, I would add that I think Lolita is seriously flawed (although I wouldn't say that Kubrick's execution of the material was entirely to blame for this). I also have some reservations about Spartacus.
If one thinks there isn't a lot going on in Kubrick's films, it's probably better to start with one film and try to get a real discussion of it in a separate thread. This may not work -- it's harder than discussing cover art, after all, but it's easier than trying to get at the substance of all of Kubrick's films at once.

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Barmy
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#106 Post by Barmy » Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:39 pm

ACO fans are not discerning? Yikes! :x :evil: :|

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gubbelsj
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#107 Post by gubbelsj » Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:20 pm

Sorry to keep returning to the same old line, but check out Robert Kolker's chapter on Kubrick in his book A Cinema of Loneliness. Kolker stays away from pure hagiography, but strongly suggests that Kubrick is too often dismissed for just what you've pointed out - all surface, no substance. It's not hard to understand why many come away with this view, and I'm not going to insist you're wrong. Suffice it to say that Kubrick is a director I've long struggled with, veering from "what a genius" to "what a hype" back and forth, time and again. These days, I'm rather squarely in the genius camp, and I think Barry Lyndon is the skeleton key to his oeuvre - if you can "get" that one, the others may fall into place (good and bad). I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are specifically on Lyndon. Are Kubrick's distancing techniques and lack of emotional involvement in this film what turns you off? The fact that the images are so artificially designed to evoke stationary art as to detract from whatever's occurring within the frames? Kubrick's utter discarding of plot, emotions, and character development? This is what many accuse Lyndon of. But Kubrick's intentions suggest he wants to present beauty as cold, perhaps horrible - this is both one of the chilliest and most beautiful films ever made. It touches me deeply - I don't see it as being cynical or ironic, just profoundly sad - but I can see why others might be repelled by it.

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Gregory
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#108 Post by Gregory » Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:58 pm

Barmy wrote:ACO fans are not discerning? Yikes! :x :evil: :|
That's not exactly what I wrote.

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Highway 61
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#109 Post by Highway 61 » Fri Nov 10, 2006 8:13 pm

Gregory wrote:Which are his ten major films? I can't understand leaving out The Killing, so I count eleven.
I include The Killing, but leave out Spartacus. Or is that a mistake too? I've only seen it once, and I know Kubrick hated it, but if it's misunderstood, I'd be happy to revisit.

Roger_Thornhill
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#110 Post by Roger_Thornhill » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:27 pm

I know Full Metal Jacket is disliked by many cinephiles for a variety of reasons, but the ones I most often hear are that it's politics are rather obvious and that the second half doesn't measure up to the first half. To me, though, I think the possible hidden reason is simply that too many average Joe dimwits love this film and that many film buffs have a sort of knee-jerk reaction to that: "If those idiots like this film, it can't be good!" Let's face it, it's arguably Kubrick's most appealing film to mainstream audiences, especially to men. But what has always struck me as interesting is how many Marine Corops Vietnam veterans I've spoken to who cite it as the most realistic Vietnam war film and the most honest depiction of US troops in the war. Talk to any Marine Corps Vietnam vet and chances are they'll have nothing but praise for Kubrick's film.

Boot Camp
My father was actually in the US Marines in Vietnam at the time the events in the film take place (Tet Offensive) and he's always said it's the only Vietnam War film he likes. My father is hardly a film buff, but his reactions to this film have always interested me. He told me how spot on Kubrick was in the boot camp sequences and that the drill sargeants were just as brutal as depicted in the film (although today they can't beat the tar out of you). Portnoy wrote above that Kubrick's themes of dehumanization in FMJ and CO are obvious and rather "adolescent," but in FMJ that's preciously what these men went through in the Marine Corps. My Dad described it as them completely destroying your individuality and identity so that you function as a part of a group. I'm reminded of the beating Sam Mendes took over the boot camp sequences in Jarhead as being too similiar to FMJ, his defense was (paraphrased), "there's only so many ways of showing the same thing."

Politics
As far as the politics go and the Marines' view of the war, my father and other vets told me that the sentiments echoed or suggested in FMJ were similiar to what many of the troops there had: that they couldn't trust the ARVN forces, that the real enemy are the people they're protecting, that the South Vietnamese people hate them more than the North does, that they're wasting their lives for nothing, and that the US government has abandoned them in an endless war of attrition that simply cannot be won. Animal Mother talks about "bombing the hell out of the north" and invading it, which, according to my father and other vets I've spoken with, was the only way that many US troops felt the war could end - China be damned. They'd either get to go home or they'd be dead, at least the war would be finished instead of dragging on endlessly (just want to say these are not necessarily my views in case someone gets confused).

Combat Sequences
Again my father and the vets I know stand by Kubrick's representation of US Marines fighting in Vietnam, even though most of the fighting is in urban areas around Hue City. My father was particularly struck by Kubrick revealing the sniper to be a woman. He told me that he had several encounters with female VC and that it tore him to pieces knowing that they had killed women fighters. I know the revelation of the female sniper is attacked for being rather "underwhelming," but to many US troops in the war it could be extremely distressing. As my father said, "It's one thing to kill a male soldier, it's another to kill a female soldier."

I'm not trying to say that because of the positive reaction of a half a dozen Marine Corps vets I've talked to over the years automatically makes FMJ a masterpiece, it doesn't and I'm sure there's some vets who despise it, but I do find it interesting that many of them stand by Kubrick's film as the best depiction of US involvement in that awful war. My father once told me how he went to see Apocalypse Now in 1979 because of how Coppola had boasted that his film "was Vietnam," and that when the film ended my uncle, who wasn't in the war, turned to my father and said, "That's Vietnam. That's what it was like!" My father simply shook his head. Eight years later they both went and saw FMJ and after the movie ended my father turned to my uncle and said, "Now that's Vietnam. That's what it was like." And as much as I've tried to defend Coppola's film to my father, he can't seem to get past the "innacurracies" in it, even though I tried to explain that it's based on "Hearts of Darkness." To him and many Vietnam vets accuracy is the most important element in films about the war, and Kubrick, in their eyes, accomplished that. To me that seems like quite an achievement, and while this is a rather personalized defense of this film, I think it's worth sharing the viewpoint of some of the people involved in the events depicted in this historical war film because oftentimes we don't get to hear their thoughts and reactions.
Last edited by Roger_Thornhill on Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Gregory
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#111 Post by Gregory » Fri Nov 10, 2006 11:32 pm

Yes, I figured Spartacus might be the one left out. It's a bit of a problem because Kubrick of course had less artistic independence than in his other major films. Visually, though, I see his stamp all over it. He was also able to make some changes regarding the preferences about the content of the film. I wouldn't be dismissive of it just because of Kubrick's own bitterness and misgivings about it. Some of this had to do with the film as a finished product, but much of it also had to do with the experience of making the film, and all the clashes of egos that took place. I usually try to put those things aside for the most part and just consider the film on its own merits.
Again, I think it does have some flaws (I'm not a big fan of Hollywood's big historical epics in general, but I think I'd take this one over Ben Hur, for example). On the other hand, much of it does hold up over time. I should also admit that part of what has maintained my mild interest in Spartacus has to do not with Kubrick but with my very foggy memories of it as the first film I ever saw (at home, mind you) at the age of about four or five.

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Darth Lavender
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#112 Post by Darth Lavender » Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:07 am

I must say, personally, the two Kubrick films which never much interested me are A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket.

Clockwork Orange I loved the first time saw it (mainly because, having already read the novel, I was impressed and entertaining by all the wierd and imaginative little touchs that Kubrick added,) but on later viewings it doesn't hold much interest for me. It comes across as mainly an exercise in cinematic craft, if it had come earlier in Kubrick's career one might call it a 'calling card' type of movie. Perhaps my disinterest in A Clockwork Orange comes partly from my disinterest in the subject of sociology (I'm much more interested in the kind of personalised, existentialist sort of psychology,) or perhaps it's because the movie doesn't bring the audience into a *physically* and thematically interesting place (Barry Lyndon is, I think, the opposite of this, since it takes 2-dimensional images and makes them feel physically real (largely thanks to all that natural lighting.)

Full Metal Jacket, however, I never particularly liked and the main reason is simple; there had already been so many fine Vietnam movies that Kubrick's didn't seem different enough to justify it's existance. Had Full Metal Jacket been made a decade earlier, I might be saying something similar about Oliver Stone's Platoon (Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter, however, are unique enough in their characters and subject-matter (with Vietnam essentially just a background) that they would be considered classics no matter how many Vietnam movies had preceded them. (Similarly, Paths of Glory was another example of a film which used the Great War mainly just as a setting to tell it's own story.))

I hesitate to call these 'opinions,' they're really just guesses as to why these two Kubrick films don't particularly interest me.

If I had to choose favourites, topping the list would probably be 2001, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, simply because they share that wonderful sense of eeriness and desolation which is so common to the movies I enjoy.

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Galen Young
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#113 Post by Galen Young » Sat Nov 11, 2006 3:50 am

Every time I see another corporate media teevee news whitewash on the latest from Iraq, I always think of that beautiful ending of Full Metal Jacket with the platoon singing M-I-C K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E over and over...and every time I watch it, it gives me the chills.

Kubrick gets pegged a lot as a "genius", but I prefer to think of him as simply an artist. I always find myself laughing myself silly while watching his films, then followed by an aftertaste of profound sadness. The only other artist I can think of who does that to me, and comes closest to Stanley's level of fanatical perfectionism is Jacques Tati.

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Highway 61
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#114 Post by Highway 61 » Sat Nov 11, 2006 6:03 am

Roger, thank you very much for sharing your father's thoughts on the film. I've often heard FMJ descirbed as the most honest film about Vietnam by critics and veterans alike, but never in much detail. Much appreciated. I remember reading the ultra left-leaning Robin Wood call it a masterpiece and one of the most powerful anti-war messages ever. If I recall correctly, he claims not have been able to speak after seeing the movie he was so devastated. So it seems Full Metal Jacket is undervalued because it is so specialized a war film: not as hypnotizing as Apocalypse Now and not as emotional as Platoon or Casualties of War. Instead, it speaks to an audience to whom war is a major part of their lives, while innocent folks like me take to the theatrics of Colonel Kilgore.

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godardslave
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#115 Post by godardslave » Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:50 am

I cannot think of Spartacus as a stanley kubrick film, he disowned it after it was released, and he had little creative control over the script or final cut.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#116 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Mon Nov 13, 2006 10:58 am

Roger_Thornhill wrote:Boot Camp
My father was actually in the US Marines in Vietnam at the time the events in the film take place (Tet Offensive) and he's always said it's the only Vietnam War film he likes ... He told me how spot on Kubrick was in the boot camp sequences and that the drill sargeants were just as brutal as depicted in the film (although today they can't beat the tar out of you).
I agree. I used to know a history teacher who had served in Vietnam and he said that the boot camp sequences in FMJ were actually not as harsh as his own experiences which scared the hell out of me!
My father once told me how he went to see Apocalypse Now in 1979 because of how Coppola had boasted that his film "was Vietnam," and that when the film ended my uncle, who wasn't in the war, turned to my father and said, "That's Vietnam. That's what it was like!" My father simply shook his head. Eight years later they both went and saw FMJ and after the movie ended my father turned to my uncle and said, "Now that's Vietnam. That's what it was like."
It's interesting because so many vets have had so many different experiences. Another teacher I knew, his brother served in 'Nam and was a Special Ops guy much like Willard in Apocalypse Now and found the film very accurate. This teacher friend said that when his brother came back from the war he was all messed up and would suffer from sudden bursts of violent acts or unusual behavior. So, I guess it really depends on the individual's experience over there.

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#117 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:08 pm

I admire both films, Apocalypse Now probably more so. One thing it covers, that Full Metal Jacket doesn't is the psychedelic element (pot and acid) that seeped through in the late 60's that later turned into a narcotic element (coke and heroin). The only other Vietnam movie I can think of that touched on this like it did was Platoon. I imagine one reason various vets couldn't see Apocalypse Now as something close to their experience was because they likely didn't tune into that experience for themselves.

While we're talking (loosely) about Vietnam, who watched Ed Bradley's camerman at the time talk about their 'Nam experience on 60 Minutes last night?

atcolomb
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#118 Post by atcolomb » Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:07 pm

Speaking of Kubrick was there suppose to be a re-release on dvd of 2001 A SPACE ODYESSY, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and THE SHINING at the end of this year? I thought i did read somewhere Warner Bros. was to release special editions of the the 3 movies.

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Matt
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#119 Post by Matt » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:19 pm

atcolomb wrote:Speaking of Kubrick was there suppose to be a re-release on dvd of 2001 A SPACE ODYESSY, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and THE SHINING at the end of this year? I thought i did read somewhere Warner Bros. was to release special editions of the the 3 movies.
See here.

atcolomb
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#120 Post by atcolomb » Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:29 pm

Matt wrote:See here.
Thanks Matt..... :D

Commander Shears
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#121 Post by Commander Shears » Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:48 pm

I am often surprised to see just how much I disagree with some popular opinions on Full Metal Jacket. It has been described in this thread as being didactic in its politics, while I have always considered the specifics of the war absolutely irrelevant. I think it's a stronger film as a result, giving it more focus on the story of one man's slow transformation from human to killer. The only other war film that explores similar themes, in my opinion, is Apocalypse. That film, though, starts with an already troubled hero, and gets so lost in its own loopiness (I absolutely love it, but I would never argue against its being deeply flawed) that it does not have much of an impact.

My opinion of Kubrick's film may be largely a result of the fact that I cannot think of any other film that ends with a climactic murder that is as far from exhilarating as the final sequence in FMJ. To read people comparing this film unfavorably to Platoon of all things truly makes my brain hurt. Stone's film may purport itself to be anti-war, but when war is depicted as a coming-of-age ritual, combat as exciting action sequences, and the hero as someone who benefits from these experiences (as explained for the visually impaired in the excruciating final voice-over), then war is endorsed. Jacket however, does not begin with a fresh faced boy and end with a wiser man. It begins with a relatively wise young man, and ends with a hardened killer. Jacket is about what Joker loses, not what he gains. It is about killing, not about having one's friends die. The other films of its era were virtually all about a rag-tag bunch of guys learning that, ‘gosh, this war isn't as clear-cut as I expected'. Joker doesn't join idealistically, and then learn an important lesson, he actually attempts not to be involved, but is dragged kicking and screaming downward until he is forced to do what will never leave him.

I'm sure I could think of a few more ways to repeat myself, but you get the point. I am not even sure if I have made any sense at all, as I borderline turn into The Incredible Hulk when I think of Platoon. Please, I beg of you, no matter how much you may hate Full Metal Jacket or even Kubrick's entire oeuvre, don't compliment Oliver Stone.

soma
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#122 Post by soma » Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:28 pm

Commander Shears wrote:I'm sure I could think of a few more ways to repeat myself, but you get the point. I am not even sure if I have made any sense at all, as I borderline turn into The Incredible Hulk when I think of Platoon. Please, I beg of you, no matter how much you may hate Full Metal Jacket or even Kubrick's entire oeuvre, don't compliment Oliver Stone.
Word to that. As far as I'm concerned Platoon is one of the most undeservedly overpraised and overrated films of all time.

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miless
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#123 Post by miless » Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:22 pm

soma wrote:
Commander Shears wrote:I'm sure I could think of a few more ways to repeat myself, but you get the point. I am not even sure if I have made any sense at all, as I borderline turn into The Incredible Hulk when I think of Platoon. Please, I beg of you, no matter how much you may hate Full Metal Jacket or even Kubrick's entire oeuvre, don't compliment Oliver Stone.
Word to that. As far as I'm concerned Platoon is one of the most undeservedly overpraised and overrated films of all time.
and the same could be said of Oliver Stone, IMO

soma
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#124 Post by soma » Mon Nov 20, 2006 12:48 am

Kubrick is one of my favourite filmmakers. I own more DVDs of films directed by himself and Kurosawa than any other directors in my collection. Granted they seem a rather standard choice, and there are other filmmakers I enjoy and respect just as much - but these two have a higher hit rate than any I've seen. Masterpiece after masterpiece after masterpiece.

The only two Kubrick films I've seen that didn't completely blow me away were Spartacus and Lolita.

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#125 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Wed Dec 27, 2006 12:46 am

And when Christiane Kubrick and producer Jan Harlan appeared on the Charlie Rose show in 2001, they noted that Kubrick enjoyed films by New York directors, especially those taking place in NYC, and in particular those of Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese (never missing a film by them). This dumbfounded and moved Scorsese (present on the panel) nearly to tears. I still am kicking myself for not recording this while I was watching. Maybe it will show up on the SE of EWS someday.
Link to that interview.

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