Best Stanley Kubrick movie

S&S on the Lyndon adap:

Kubrick certainly put his stamp on the material. Thackeray's Europe is marked by bloody, corrupt politics, but Kubrick has no room for terrorist strikes against Irish landlords or German princes commissioning the murders of inconstant female dependents, or even Barry's self-serving term as a Member of Parliament. Thackeray's Barry yarns non-stop in the manner of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman; O'Neal's Barry is reticent, and only tells stories to his son, most affectingly on the boy's deathbed. For the novelist, the duels are divertissements, opportunities for Barry to misrepresent himself as a fine fellow; Kubrick depicts a series of ritual conflicts, which the hero loses even if he happens to win. Barry's adventures in life start with the death of his father in a duel (in the novel, he drops dead at the races), and his wanderings begin when he prevails in a fake duel with Captain Quin (Leonard Rossiter), his rival for his cousin, and has to flee Ireland. Enlisted in the British army, he fights bare-knuckled with a huge bruiser (Pat Roach). Then, in alliance with the Chevalier (Patrick Magee), he collects gambling debts with a sword. His chastisement of the shrill Bullingdon prompts a campaign of insolence that escalates into a horrific beating administered in public on slippery wood floors, a scene that snaps cinematographer John Alcott out of poised, perfect, tracking shots into a flurry of ugly, close, handheld work. Last is the irony-laden duel with Bullingdon, as a good turn earns Barry a crippling reward. Dialogue exchanges, with a bespectacled highwayman or a canny German officer, are similarly cut-and-thrust, and tend to find Barry the loser....

Michael Hordern's narration is a constant presence, at once soothing and peppery.... Writing his screenplay without a credited novelist to assist him, Kubrick simply tweaks sentences from Thackeray so that Barry's self-exposing asides become the objective, mildly regretful observations of, basically, God. A note about a soldier's widow who is, like nearby towns, "taken and retaken several times" during a campaign is self-justifying waffle in Barry's mouth, but coming from Hordern, a more authoritative voice even than the carping Fitz-Boodle, it is a mean-spirited writing-off of a minor character....

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49516

was the ending of paths of glory mandated by the studio? seemed like it would have been more kubrickian for him to have ended it with the soldiers just laughing and hooting

it was not. His producing partner, James Harris, said SK came to him w/ the ending late and his reaction was "Stanley, you can't end it with your girlfriend singing!" But he did.

The singer became Mrs Kubrick for the next 42 years.

Surprised The Shining didn't place higher in this poll.

higher than Barry Lyndon & PoG is too high

hah - well idk it seemed perfect for kirk to have laid it all on the line for his soldiers, and then to end with him watching his soldiers make total pigs of themselves gawking @ mrs. kubrick, without the eventual redemption into tearful reminiscence

it is one of K's more 'humane' endings, along w/ 2001 & EWS perhaps

this recently released region 2 set handily rounds up all of kubrick's pre-Killer's Kiss movies:

http://www.eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/catalogue/fear-and-desire/

Surprised The Shining didn't place higher in this poll.

I'm all for a repoll.

More for EWS's benefit, tho.

yeah EWS is easily top-tier Kubrick

Is there really second-tier Kubrick?

yes, but no third tier!

Fear and Desire, much of The Shining, and some of the shit he didn't rewrite in Spartacus are third-tier.

xxp yeah, the second-place finisher here

Morbs, I'm just going to bash your brains in when I visit NY in April.

But I'll be an outpatient!

EWS ending secretly human, all too human:
http://www.idyllopuspress.com/meanwhile/30784/eyes-wide-shut-resolution-with-helena-in-the-toy-store/

sonofagun

Top tier:
The Shining
2001
Barry Lyndon
Full Metal Jacket
Dr Strangelove
Paths of Glory

Second tier:
Clockwork Orange
Eyes Wide Shut
The Killing
Lolita

Third tier:
Spartacus
Killer's Kiss
Fear & Desire

EWS is a masterpiece of the "late style" type and I think The Killing is kind of a perfect movie.

Swap tiers for Strangelove and EWS and I can get with that.

I need to see The Killing again...it's probably been 20 years.

Rewatched Full Metal Jacket last year. It's sub-masterwork for sure. not solely cuz the second act is somewhat more conventional.

clockwork @ 'second tier' is crazytalk.

I keep meaning to read a good essay that explains what anyone likes about Eyes Wide Shut — the only SK film I actively disliked. Any recommendations?

DL, the BFI classic book by Michel Chion on EWS is one of the very best of its kind, and def made me re-evaluate it

Cheers. I'll seek it out.

I'm sure I musta said it upthread, but I have big problems with the last 20 minutes of ACO. So did Anthony Burgess.

I don't think ACO is a travesty or anything but it's the one I am least likely to want to watch again. It also seems more dated than the others.

i don't agree with all of it but i thought r. fiore's essay on ACO was pretty insightful:

http://classic.tcj.com/film/real-horrorshow/

comparison w/ Little Murders is interesting.

What we really come away from A Clockwork Orange with is the enjoyment of seeing evil triumph. We enjoy it (or should I say I enjoy it) because we find the burden of maintaining a moral order an oppression even as we understand that once we’re not watching a movie we are mortally fucked without one.

i like this idea. i find Kubrick's Alex fascinating because he's essentially an totally uncompromising aesthete--he's just about the only character in the film that someone like SK could identify with. and what's interesting about this is that it seems to suggest that ACO represents simultaneously a self-accusation and self-justification--it resides in that paradox.

Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Lolita and bits of Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and FMJ are the only Kubricks I can watch again. The didactic qualities of POG are exactly what makes the movie so lean and terrifying to me.

I agree with Ward Fowler's top tier just about. I haven't seen FMJ for a long time tho and only barely remember the 2nd half, the first half is definitely first class tho.

I saw The Killing recently and liked it, but his next one Paths of Glory was next level imo.

yeah he "became Kubrick" as someone wrote about PoG

I have a slight preference for Paths of Glory (based in part by how knocked out I was the first time I ever saw it), but I count The Killing as near-perfect. They're hard to compare directly because of genre, but I don't know that Kubrick's artistry is any more impressive moving from the one to the other. (And The Killing doesn't have anything as awkward as Paths of Glory's last scene.)

The Killing's achievement is more impressive when you hold it against The Asphalt Garden.

The record store tracking shot in ACO alone makes it top-tier. Plus the psychedelic sex posters.

Never Mind the Burgess, Here's the Sex Posters

The Asphalt JUNGLE

Paths of Glory's last scene has tot worked for me to date

The last scene is unearthly, and Douglas plays against it well.

Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Lolita and bits of Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and FMJ are the only Kubricks I can watch again.

Evidently Kubrick is one of those directors that turns you into the opposite of me.

just embrace our Kubridiversity.

The record store tracking shot in ACO alone makes it top-tier.

OTM. no matter what you think of it, there really is no other movie that looks or sounds or feels like ACO. it's pretty breathtaking at times.

think my placing ACO outside of the top tier is partly due to the fact that it was for so long, in britain, this mythical withdrawn film that once it was re-released, after kubrick's death, it couldn't possibly live up to the film that i'd imagined in my mind. of course there are great things, like that stunning opening shot - second tier kube is still p gd! - but overall i found it a bit grinding and heavy-handed, especially in the prison segment. but i shld prob re-screen.

Evidently Kubrick is one of those directors that turns you into the opposite of me.

which means your marriage proposal still stands

I'll look up at 6 o'clock, and there you'll be...

You'll BE there, won't you?!

ACO probably has the most astonishing first minute (or one of the 2-3 best) of any film ever -- those day-glo titles and wendy carlos's soundtrack blasting you in the face, then the slow pan back from malcolm and his gang. still gives me chills every time.

I actually spent a quarter-hour with my ACO dvd a coupla weeks ago, zooming and scanning all around that record store for album sleeves I recognized...I believe the only ones I could identify were John Fahey and Mungo Jerry. (And the 2001 soundtrack, of course.)