Best Stanley Kubrick movie

considering we're surrounded with ppl who routinely rank Kid A over OK Computer, I'm betting Barry Lyndon will win this poll.

-- Stevie D, Thursday, April 5, 2007 3:06 AM (5 hours ago)

Fear and Desire! Has anyone actually seen this in the last decade? Ever?

I watched Killer's Kiss during the ILX downtime -- the acting is poor, but there are moments of real brilliance in there! The fight in the mannequin storeroom is creepy, the rooftop chase prior to that is well staged (and has a couple of funny pratfalls as well). The most omg wtf lol moment was Davey's nightmare, since it used an effect that Kubrick came back to in 2001.

Watched the Criterion DVD of Spartacus, which I likely haven't seen since its early '90s restoration ... the Rome stuff is so much better than the slave scenes (which was apparently Dalton Trumbo's complaint on seeing the rough cut). Some pretty terrible acting too (John Dall, most of Tony Curtis, the gorgeously wooden John Gavin), tho the Brits rule the roost.

But yeah, anyone who thinks this is much of "a Kubrick film," whaaa? SK:

"I tried with only limited success to make the film as (historically) real as possible but I was up against a pretty dumb script which was rarely faithful to what is known about Spartacus. History tells us that he twice led his victorious slave army to the northern borders of Italy, and could quite easily have gotten out of the country. But he didn't, and instead he led his army back to pillage Roman cities. What the reasons were for this might have been the most interesting question the film might have pondered. Did the intentions of the rebellion change? Did Spartacus lose control of his leaders who by now may have been more interested in the spoils of war than in freedom? In the film, Spartacus was prevented from escape by the silly contrivance of a pirate leader who reneged on a deal to take the slave army away in his ships. If I ever needed any convincing of the limits of persuasion a director can have on a film where someone else is the producer and he is merely the highest-paid member of the crew, then Spartacus provided proof to last a lifetime."

morbs where do you rate lolita on your personal list?

You mean the slaves-in-Rome vs. the slaves-free scenes? I actually thought the best scenes were anything to do with that slave salesman, and the lead-up-to and fight and aftermath with the black slave, especially that minute where they just look at each other.

yes, Woody Strode always awesome. But no, I meant the political machinations btwn Laughton and Olivier, tho Ustinov's (the slave/gladiator trader) ham is at its most digestible.

Lolita is fine second-tier Kubrick, the main problem being he should've made it 10 years later w/ greater thematic freedom.

all of these movies are good.

Poll results pretty much as I'd rank them. I would probably have Paths of Glory above Barry Lyndon for 5th though.

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.)

Magical Mystery Tour is in there too.

Yeah the intro is fantastic, the effect of which doesn't quite hit you watching it at home. You need to see it on a huge screen, just completely covered in punkish red with that oscillating synth sound blasting bizarre noise at you. It's also interesting that Alex & co. are all drinking hallucinogenic drugs the entire time and you don't see any fantastical drug sequences or anything because his real life is surreal enough. Maybe the milk bar is really just a boring looking regular bar but the Knivey Moloko makes you think it's a black room with nude white ladies in colorful wigs for tables.

I think you've hit on a big part of K's presentation of interiors in his films

the first 45 minutes is pretty relentless

Maybe already posted, but here's a full analysis of the ACO record store scene with all the sleeves identified.

http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2006/04/13/alex-in-the-chelsea-drug-store/

I love Alex's maniacally gleeful expressions. The terrifying glint in his eye and the mischevious grin. Like when he's driving the stolen car.

you don't see any fantastical drug sequences or anything because his real life is surreal enough

I kinda wonder whether that bogus rear-projection shot during that driving scene isn't meant to look vaguely psychedelic - would Stanley have used such an unrealistic effect if it wasn't intended?

I think of it more like cartoon-like than psychedelic, even if I would like the latter.

from one of the stars of Room 237

http://www.realitysandwich.com/kubrick_apollo

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/02/stanley-kubrick-favorite-films-list-white-men-cant-jump

In the end, it looks like Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings in return for two things. The first was a virtually unlimited budget to make his ultimate science fiction film: 2001: A Space Odyssey; and the second was that he would be able to make any film he wanted, with no oversight from anyone, for the rest of his life.

LOL at the notion of Federally mandated final cut. Even the US government couldn't guarantee that.

Watching The Shining for the first time in, god, twenty years, I wondered what the hell Jack Nicholson is playing. In the first interview with the Overview manager he puts unexpected quotation marks around his words. Several scenes dribble on too long (Duvall with the doctor). Stunning use of deep focus: loved one shot of Torrance in his room with Danny way in the background.

if you believe Jack's account of Kubrick's wishes, he's playing "interesting" as opposed to "real"

The doctor scene with Anne Jackson always seemed clumsy and unnecessary to me.

Barry Lyndon is my favourite Kubrick, followed by Dr Strangelove and The Killing. Probably reactionary because I just watched Barry Lyndon yesterday evening, but fuck me what a fucking perfect movie and with so much chamber music and perfect narrative/performances. In my opinion this is his finest moment.

The extent to which the accepted wisdom on Lyndon has come around (2nd place Kubrick in both the '02 and '12 S&S polls iirc) gives me hope the same will happen for Eyes Wide Shut eventually.

Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, Lolita and bits of Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove and FMJ are the only Kubricks I can watch again.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, February 13, 2013 3:59 PM (1 year ago)

Wrong again, Maude!

http://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2012/11/07/Photos/MG/MW-AW102_aitf_m_20121107174619_MG.jpg?uuid=fcba08b6-292c-11e2-825a-002128040cf6

btw I wasn't ranking them. I don't care enough about Kubrick to watch his movies over and over so

http://static.tumblr.com/y8hwp0k/ampm28hbt/sophiareaction002.gif

I'm going to give both of you the Ludovico treatment someday, and the footage will be comedy/brawl scenes from John Ford movies.

choreographed by Gregory La Cava

*cut to Eric waving Little Edie's flag around in a bubble bath with 2 naked Dave Francos*

I was cured alright.

Yeah, the climax of Barry Lyndon might be the highpoint of his filmography. A masterclass in sustained suspense.

"A blaster ass in butt-stained piss-sense," I weirdly found myself typing out.

about Dave Franco?

anyone read/ heard this? looks amazing

http://www.fullmetaljacketdiary.com

http://36.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb4pl5QLoL1rovfcgo4_1280.jpg

Tried rewatching FMJ the other night and, man, it felt tedious. :(

I thought this revive was going to be about Paths of Glory today. No offence but this looks like some standard hagiography type shit where the narrator weaves their own mediocre, uninteresting arses into the mix.

I'd need to re-(or first-)screen to do a proper list, but here's an attempt anyway:
1. Eyes Wide Shut
2. Dr. Strangelove
3. Full Metal Jacket
4. 2001
5. Paths of Glory
6. Barry Lyndon
7. The Killing
8. The Shining
(8.5 A.I.)
9. A Clockwork Orange

I haven't paid sufficient attention to Lolita, and haven't seen the first two.

I may be overconsidering production values, or overobjecting to British accents.

Xp: why would the revive be about Paths of Glory?

Over here it was remembrance Sunday and there has been lots of WW1 related stuff on TV recently I thought maybe it was broadcast, saying that it is probably on a BBC blacklist for portraying futility.

I have the most trouble with the middle of that list - BL and PoG (among others?) could easily be reversed.

A brief list.

Interesting to neglect the major players, but absolutely love Lolita/Barry Lyndon. Good list

George Macready in Paths Of Glory + Patrick Magee in BL, are such powerhouse performances. And Sterling Hayden's straight-faced "precious bodily fluids" spiel is still piss funny, even though I wore out a VHS recording of Strangelove in the 80's.

Kubrick admitted Lolita needed to be more explicit.

lolita the book is not really all that explicit, tbh

1/ Full Metal Jacket
2/ Dr Strangelove
3/ 2001: A Space Odyssey
4/ Barry Lyndon
5/ Eyes Wide Shut

it's clear, JD

Lyne's was just as ambiguous on that point

Love Alfred's challopsy lists. I never agree with them but they make for great reading and dissecting

Largely agree with this one and the point about concision. Bar 2001 I think it hits the essential work.

as it happens, a student told me this morning that his Euro history professor showed POG last week and the class was devastasted when it ended.

i'm pretty sure i've said this before here but kirk douglas' slow burn in paths of glory is my platonic model of how these things can be done. i would love to know the conversations he had with kubrick about it, how much they collaborated on the emotional structure of his part (if at all), and how tricky it must have been to correctly modulate given that they were probably shooting a lot of stuff out of sequence

I don't know if Douglas' autobio has much on the playing of Dax, but it has Kirk's infamous anger w/ SK

http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=8851.0;wap2

the way Kubrick keeps the audience's righteous anger at a rising boil is pretty masterful.

Stanley Kubrick and his partner, James Harris, the man who put up money to develop the script, went ahead to Germany to prepare PATHS OF GLORY. When I arrived at the Hotel Vierjahrzeiten in Munich, I was greeted by Stanley and a completely rewritten script. He had revised it on his own, with Jim Thompson. It was a catastrophe, a cheapened version of what I thought had been a beautiful script. The dialogue was atrocious. My character said things like: "You've got a big head. You're so sure the sun rises and sets up there in your noggin you don't even bother to carry matches,"And "And you've got the only brain in the world. They made yours and threw the pattern away? The rest of us have a skullful of Cornflakes." Speeches like this went on for pages, right up to the happy ending, when the general's car arrives screeching to halt the firing squad and he changes the men's death sentence to thirty days in the guardhouse. Then my character, Colonel Dax, goes off with the bad guy he has been fighting all through the movie, General Rousseau, to have a drink, as the general puts his arm around my shoulder.

I callled Kubrick and Harris to my room. "Stanley, did you write this?"

"Yes." Kubrick always had a calm way about him. I never heard him raise his voice, never saw him get excited or reveal anything. He just looked at you though those big, wide eyes.

I said, "Stanley, why would you do that?"
He very calmly said, "To make it commercial. I want to make money."

I hit the ceiling. I called him every four-letter word I could think of. "You come to me with a script written by other people. It was based on a book. I love THAT script. I told you I didn't think this would be commercial, but I want to make it. You left it in my hands to put the picture together. I got the money, based on THAT script. Not this shit!" I threw the script across the room. "We're going back to the original script, or we're not making the picture."

Stanley never blinked an eye. We shot the original script. I think the movie is a classic, one of the most important pictures--possibly the MOST important picture--Stanley Kubrick has ever made.

from Morbs' link

Interesting tidbit about a director who has written or co-written, with an exception, every film he's made:

Stanley is not a writer. He has always functioned better if he got a good writer and worked with him on a concept.

makes sense if you think of Jim Thompson, Terry Southern, Arthur Clarke, Frederic Raphael, but afaik SK did the adap of Lyndon himself.

apparently he also tossed the Nabokov script in the ashcan; it was very long and unfilmable.

Yeah, I knew that. For BL and ACO (also a solo credit) I think I read that he followed the Huston method for The Maltese Falcon: ask a secretary to re-type the novel in script format, then he'd edit it.

we should do this again. i imagine Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut would place much higher now

Yeah i was surprised how low EWS (my number 1) was. Looking forward to watching it again over the season; soooo Christmass-y.

Barry Lyndon on TV klaxon (BBC4, Sunday at 9pm)

— Hardcore for Nerds (@HC4N) April 27, 2019

Can't believe I am finally going to watch this, unless the snooker is amazing

On a schoolnight?

knock that fucking billiards on't head - it's an alltime great movie!

It's how I roll.

Xp

Yeah I know...I've missed screening after screening of this. But ya know Trump and Ding could be serving up a classic tonight.

Filmworker is on Film4 at 00:30 tonight. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6851066/

https://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03174/barryl_3174963c.jpg
so many good performances in BL but Patrick Magee's turn as The Chevalier is exceptional.

Probably one of the most well-designed and photographed of films. The one-track coldness that Kubrick deals in really works to temper down the iffy (twee) source material.

it is fucking gorgeous.

Patrick Magee's turn as The Chevalier is exceptional.

I don't think I've ever seen Patrick Magee be anything less than exceptional in anything.

have to see Barry Lyndon again, I think I will really appreciate it, but also don't think it will replace 2001 as my personal favorite film of all time

Gotta say it's the first one of his I've seen where I get what ppl are on about wrt Kubrick.

I don't think I've ever seen Patrick Magee be anything less than exceptional in anything.

*Looks at wiki* How much Hammer horror have you seen?

Magee only appeared in one Hammer film, the fairly obscure Demons of the Mind. He's in a fair few horror movies from Hammer's UK rival Amicus, tho.

Yes, he did a lot of crap but he's a magnetic presence. Not exactly what you'd call a naturalistic actor, lol.

Cool it was striking to see someone in a few amazing films and then contrast with horror (I called it hammer only bcz of seeing discussion of their output on here is the extent of my knowledge) which I assume won't have as many demands placed on your actorly skill set (again another assumption)

Don't get me wrong, I love Hammer, Amicus, Tigon and all that guff.

Clockwork Orange was showing at my local cinema and I missed out on seeing it. Been very long since I originally saw it, and I've never seen it at the cinema.

I love Barry Lyndon.

I had Patrick Magee and Henry McGee confused in my mind for a minute there. Now that was a wild ride.

Benny Hill or Sam Beckett, both bring the LOLs, for sure.

up on iplayer (along with paths of glory and 2001)

Cool it was striking to see someone in a few amazing films and then contrast with horror (I called it hammer only bcz of seeing discussion of their output on here is the extent of my knowledge) which I assume won't have as many demands placed on your actorly skill set (again another assumption)

One of the things I like about Magee is that he is giving exactly the same kind of performance in a Kubrick film as he is in a Freddie Francis film or vice/versa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OarsvZbhds&list=PL2AA217275C6F6CF0&index=7

Yeah thanks that was good.

This, from an interview with Vitali about Kubrick's soundtracks. His films through the 70s were mixed for the narrow frequency range of Academy Mono. There was an art to it. Optimizing them for digital adds lows and highs that were never in the original. It's akin to colorizing. pic.twitter.com/aemS2JmyXF

— Eric Dienstfrey (@SignalsToNoises) June 8, 2019

Surprised Barry Lyndon doesn't have its own thread.

Mrs. America used some of BL's score tonight (prominently) during an awkward first meeting between Phyllis Schlafly and Jill Ruckelshaus (Republican, but very pro-ERA). Not sure what the meaning of that was (beyond the obvious, that it's 1976).

Sorry for spamming but can’t figure out which thread this is best on: http://www.ianwatson.info/plumbing-stanley-kubrick/

This is overdue for a repoll:

Stanley Kubrick RE-poll

Great article James!

“If the Labourites ever get in,” he vowed, “I’ll leave the country.” He feared being ruined by tax-the-rich policies – though he never did quit Britain, doubtless because New Labour, finally elected in 1997, no longer bore much resemblance to a socialist party.

It's funny because Emilio's memoir goes to great pains to dispel the myth of SK as the eccentric recluse (but just as much a demanding pain in the ass) maybe the truth of it is somewhere in the middle.

Seems like there is a documentary as well, S Is for Stanley.