Stanley Kubrick: Classic or Dud?

http://kubrickist.tumblr.com/post/53767113675

cool.

85th birthday. Bro-in-law/producer Jan Harlan on Woody Allen as a projected lead for EWS, and SK's viewing habits:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/interviews/right-hand-man-jan-harlan-stanley-kubrick

cool interview. I always love imagining what the Martin or Allen versions of EWS would be like.

also, a compiled list of films he liked

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile

awesome piece, thanks for sharing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLSWR2EnHEs

Thanks for those. Friend of mine who is also a friend of Alex in NYC raved about that LA exhibit. Interesting about the Spanish movies he mentions. Should be noted that the producer of both Cría Cuervos and The Spirit of the Beehive along with many other films, Elías Querejeta, passed away earlier this month at aged 78. Also didn't know anyone else has seen, let alone liked, The Red Squirrel but me.

teehee:

Gelmis: 2001 took about three years to make - six months of preparation, four and a half months of working with the actors, and a year and a half of shooting special effects. How much time will Napoleon take out of your life?

Kubrick: Considerably less. We hope to begin the actual production work by the winter of 1969, and the exterior shooting - battles, location shots, etc. -- should be completed within two or three months. After that, the studio work shouldn't take more than another three or four months.

(from a 1969 interview with Kubrick)

that's good to hear!

can't wait.
the book from whence that interview came -- the director as superstar -- is a great glimpse of the state of cinema in the late 60s.

this is a neat book! out of print, too: http://www.scribd.com/doc/143395393/The-Making-of-Kubricks-2001

J.Ro and James Naremore on the first 4 features:

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=34118

http://paulnahm.blogspot.com/2010/06/playboy-interview-wstanley-kubrick-in.html

Killer's Kiss actress Irene Kane aka Chris Chase RIP

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/irene-kane-kubrick-actress-chris-chase-652790

http://vimeo.com/78314194

is there a good biography of this guy?

Let me Amazon that for you

Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by Vincent LoBrutto gets an average 3½ stars in reader reviews
Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by John Baxter gets an average 4 stars in reader reviews

Therefore you should read John Baxter's biography

lol

if anyone has an interest in kubrick and can answer my question, i'd appreciate that

i read the LoBrutto one a long time ago and didn't think it was very good. and it'd be pretty out of date by now, i think.

Baxter does some of the commentary for The Shining DVD; not especially illuminating chat, tbh.

The LoBrutto is good on 'the facts', but leans a bit too heavily on a few, relatively tangential sources. He obviously didn't have access to Kubrick or any of Kubrick's family.

AFAIK, the Alexander Walker book, 'Stanley Kubrick Directs', is the only book that Kubrick had some input on.

can we expand this question to books in general?

michel chion's book on EWS is pretty good but I can't think of too many others.

thanks guys! ryan, sure, take it away from here

The BFI classic on 2001 is also pretty good - takes some interesting routes into the film, most especially its anti-nuke message. The Shining volume isn't as good, but that may just be that, post-Room 237, a straightforward run down of the film seems a little redundant.
The Piers Bizony '2001: Filming the Future' is a good production history that doesn't pretend to offer a single critical opinion.

both those biogs pretty bore

at some point i think i'm gonna get a copy of the interviews book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578062977/

has anybody ever bought or leafed through the Napoleon book?

ja

it's worth leafing through

I wish there was a big quasi-academic study a la tom cohen's books on hitchcock. maybe there is and I don't know about it.

I have a friend who recently went with his boss to spend some time at the Kubrick archive at the University Of The Arts in Elephant & Castle. He had a pretty mind blowing experience, it's all there there for the public to peruse, who knew?

http://www.arts.ac.uk/study-at-ual/library-services/collections-and-archives/archives-and-special-collections-centre/stanley-kubrick-archive/

deleuze on kubrick is interesting, jameson on the shining too although its a decade since i read it

i've been to the archive. it's cool.

ever since that tom scharpling aimee mann video i have a hard time not pronouncing his name as "klubrick"

Jon Ronson's documentary 'Stanley Kubrick's Boxes' is online and worth watching if you haven't seen it: http://vimeo.com/78314194

you know, The Killing is such a dazzler!

The internet seems to disagree about whether SK was forced to add the narration. Well?

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1968-three-reasons-the-killing

did you see this out last night?

yep, and I couldn't stay for Kiss Me Deadly cuz I wound up seeing a new dull Mexican arty queer semi-porn film at Lincoln Center. :/

Editing Barry Lyndon: http://m.imgur.com/a/dHY9q

Kubrick's films play all the time, so this isn't that noteworthy, but:

http://www.tiff.net/cinematheque/stanley-kubrick-a-cinematic-odyssey

No Fear and Desire--not sure if it's even possible to see that.

It's Possible

Check internet--why didn't I think of that? Just ordered a new copy for under $15.

they're doing a Kubrick retrospective here in Dublin for the next few months. Fear & Desire (+ Day Of The Fight, Flying Padre, and The Seafarers) showing next week

i watched 'fear and desire' on youtube a few years back (one of the few times i've ever done that with a movie). definitely for committed fans only, but it's not nearly as bad as kubrick thought it was.

Those shorts will be playing before one of the two Killer's Kiss screenings here. I liked Killer's Kiss the one time I saw it--I may just see the standalone screening of that.

Enjoyed the Killing a lot (and similarly skipped Kiss Me Deadly for... Les Amants, I think it was?), but beyond the structural invention I don't care about, I don't see what's so special about it beyond its service as a prototype for the various I-think-greater best-laid-plans films that followed. I suppose those that feel differently may be actively rooting for the SNAFU? I'll take Soderbergh, TYVM.

Toronto is getting the museum show next, right

One of the highlights of The Killing for me is Timothy Carey's character with the fabulously guttural accent, but his overwrought shift in Paths Of Glory was quite jarring - he seems like a hit and miss type of actor.