Stanley Kubrick: Classic or Dud?

this is making me crazy:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/05/leon-vitali-on-the-barry-lyndon-aspect-ratio-issue.html#comments

yeah it's pretty nuts

it's been back-and-forth w/ J Wells and Kenny all week.

So has anyone seen this Kubrick exhibit in Paris? It's going to LA next year.

http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/expositions-cinema/kubrick/

nrq, if you check the Wells blog, Kubrick approved a 1.66 laserdisc of BL, so...

that's what i mean about it making me crazy. i dimly remember something about the kube being quite pragmatic about home-viewing versions. on the other hand there was some crazy story about a letterboxed tv '2001' with, um, spattered white bits on the black bars or something.

white flecks representing stars. this was in john baxter's biog iirc.

Kubrick didn't care.

Kubrick is so boy.

Kubrick, on the Barry Lyndon set:

http://mycoffeelounge.net/pixup/36809-6862.jpg

looks more like Patrick Magee

he was pretty assiduous about framing in theatres but with tv it's another thing

I know I've already said this on this very thread, but it always seems like the easiest way to resolve this is to just include multiple versions of the film on the disc. Watch it in whichever aspect ratio you prefer!

Just rewatched 2001 in a theater, coincidentally. Totally forgot about the super-draggy post-monkeys moon section, but the rest still pretty much rules.

i think the first time i watched 2001 was the starred-up letterbox version, kind of annoying when the spaceship seemed to just disappear into midscreen.

xpost I (very briefly) read that as saying everything after the monkeys is boring.

I only know Glenn Kenny from The Girlfriend Experience (I know, I know), so it's fun to combine this interview of him with his face/voice in that movie.

http://i.imgur.com/1OSuU.gif

:D

awesome!

Just saw Barry Lyndon for the first time. Now there's an odd duck.

happy birthday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0yVoxUQ7Q8

Saw Spartacus tonight. Not for the first time, but the full "roadshow" treatment with overtures, intermission, and Super Technirama 70. Was Spartacus commonly seen by critics at the time as a stand-in for MLK? I'm looking around online and don't see anything specific--it seemed obvious to me, but maybe my timeline's off, and his public profile wasn't yet large enough to attempt such a message when the film was being shot in '59. Anyway, very good. My dad's cousin Nick Dennis stars; Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier are in it too.

Annoying/amusing anachronism, hearing Peter Ustinov refer to Woody Strode as "the Negro" in that one scene. Was that the result of circa-1959 political correctness on the screenwriters' part? or did they think that calling him "the Ethiopian" or "the dark-skinned one" or something similar be too unclear for audiences?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3zzgX6UUNQ

i didn't realize it before that clip but jack nicholson would have made an awesome wolverine.

http://en.ce.cn/entertainment/photo/200704/07/W020070407526461648806.jpg

A lengthy, rewarding Barry Lyndon analysis:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2011/10/the-conversations-barry-lyndon/

i recently watched the new blu-ray of Barry Lyndon and it's as great as ever. for me at least, it's an overwhelmingly dark movie, but oh so beautiful. i just wonder if that beauty is supposed to be vacant and as flat as a painting or something cosmically or spiritually redeeming.

slant magazine article is great, thanks for posting

i do like the reading of the final duel in that piece. it always felt almost like a joke. it's practically the first redeeming thing Barry does, and then he pays for it in the most brutal fashion.

His love for his son, as the Slant authors suggest, is redeeming, and then his mercy toward the creepy stepson is unrewarded.

oh yes i forgot about that. actually, i've always found that relationship hard to figure out. i wonder if it's Barry genuinely loving someone or more like a mini-Me kinda situation. again, i guess it straddles that line like so much else in the movie. I really hope this makes a showing in the upcoming Sight and Sound poll because for me it's clearly Kubrick's best, most moving, most beautiful movie.

i love this movie

I really came around on Barry Lyndon, to a degree that I don't very often with films. Somewhere between a year or two ago, on another thread--a Best Picture of '75 poll, I think--I said that even though I liked Barry Lyndon, I probably would have placed it fifth among the five nominees that year. (Cuckoo's Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, and Nashville.) I've watched it a couple more times since, and I'd now put it second or third. Nashville's still my #1; it's hard for me to compare Barry to Jaws, but one of those two would be next. When I did a countdown of my 50 favorite films on Facebook a few months ago, I had Barry Lyndon on the list. The one that's gone down in my estimation is Dog Day, which I watched again a couple of months ago. Great for the first half, then I think it starts to meander.

I'd like to see your list, clemenza.

It's an open group, Ryan, so give this a try: https://www.facebook.com/groups/200962099931650/. If that doesn't work, send me note through ILX mail and I'll get it to you.

it worked. thanks!

Damn, i gotta read that article sometime.

Really love that movie, btw. I love how long and drawn out it is. That is probably why I also think "2001" is the greatest film ever made.

The first time I saw it, it brought "A Clockwork Orange" to mind, what with the main theme, which really sounds similar in some ways to the ACO theme. And the bit with the thieves that rob him sort of made me think of something from that as well. Maybe "Barry Lyndon" is what happens to Alex after he is cured.

"I love the use of the color blue by the artist."

I watched this for the first time last year in 35mm and it wast just such a treat. thanks for the article

Saw a 70mm print of 2001 at the Lightbox tonight. As obscure as ever to me--tonight I started thinking that it might be the work of someone who felt quite overwhelmed by the '60s--but I did notice in the credits that there's a Glenn Beck in the film. He plays an astronaut. Hibernating or not, I'm not sure.

Rich or poor, they are all equal now.

Can anybody recommend some online 2001 writing, specifically technical aspects/the making of/etc.? Started showing a roommate this and while she fell asleep halfway through, for me it was bliss and gorgeousness like always. Probably the most beautiful film, at the very least image-wise, that I have ever seen. The compositing in the moon-landing sequences is flawless and breathtaking, giving a tremendous sense of scale to every element in the scene. Often in this film there will be little windows or ledges with tiny people walking around on them, and you hardly notice it at first, it's such a genius technique. There's always so much bombast and BIG PRETTY PICTURES in his films but he's equally adept at putting in little understated touches that help give everything more life. And clearly he is aware of his powers; in this film is contained not only the 'ultimate psychedelic trip' in the starfield light show, but quite possibly the most boring and comedically dry military briefing ever shot.

If they ever make a Kubrick Biopic I reckon Stanley Townsend is the man.

http://www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk/servlet/file/store5/item116701/version1/fileservice28/116701_28_preview.jpg

XP Piers Bizony wrote a book that's pretty great iirc

http://www.amazon.co.uk/2001-Filming-Future-Piers-Bizony/dp/1854107062

I believe Douglas Trumbull is getting his special Oscar Saturday night btw

Nice. Between 2001 and Blade Runner, he's responsible for a whole lot of the look of cinematic sci-fi.

and lately, The Tree of Life

Can anybody recommend some online 2001 writing, specifically technical aspects/the making of/etc.?

Cinefex devoted an entire issue to 2001... worth tracking down a copy.

Also,

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PIZEzX7yL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg