Stanley Kubrick: Classic or Dud?

god sorry one more thing: admittedly GREAT opening titles.

no one did fonts better than SK.

In one of those unexpected ironies, the book reads like an early Kubrick film: a mordant, funny attack on authority. But the movie is oppressive.

I like Clockwork least of all Kubrick's films. (Haven't seen the first.) It took me a long time, but I've started to come around a bit on 2001; after three viewings, I really like Barry Lyndon. Those were two that I was slow on, or at least slower than with the rest. Strangelove, too; didn't get it when I was 16 or 17, like it fine now. But I really do dislike Clockwork. (I know the last one's really trashy, but I'd even take it over Clockwork.)

Was Clockwork Orange and Sleeper made around the same time? It sort of has the same feel (minus oversized prop bananas).

Kubrick works best when he's given compost.

Sleeper's a year or two later, I think.

clockwork's '71, sleeper's '73, so kinda.

I mean, Paths of Glory as a script is every midcentury liberal war-sure-is-hell cliche reenergized (Adolphe Menjou even gets to keep his villainous mustache).

note that woody allen would definitely have gone to see a clockwork orange, probably to impress people, so some of the dystopia-parody stuff could have come from there, sure. (and metropolis.)

The great thing about ACO is Malcolm McDowell's performance; physical, rock-star sexy, commanding. Doesn't quite suit Anthony Burgess's intentions, perhaps.

i do remember that scene where malcolm mcdowell is in tighty-whiteys being lectured (in his bedroom for some reason) by the school headmaster or whoever, and the school headmaster is this very particular kind of british-schoolboy-literature unctuous sadist with his unctuous sadism turned up all the way to molester levels, as being sickly funny; it's always stayed with me.

that + the spaghetti scene were what i was thinking of - the latter is played very broadly, but its still very funny. i think it was also during that scene where i realized that literally every performance in the movie was flat-out awful, except maybe david prowse who didn't have any lines.

i still don't think much of the movie, but i guess i was taken by the cinematic-ness of it or something - which is p much how i feel about The Shining too, another movie that i'll always see in the theater whenever there's an opportunity

Love Paths of Glory. Not for its politics--just for the excitement, for the performances, and for the weirdness of Tim Carey.

i think it was also during that scene where i realized that literally every performance in the movie was flat-out awful

there's some unfortunate line of kabuki insanity that this movie crosses for me and the shining doesn't.

Kubrick's Clockwork is definitely a comedy, not a satire, just like Strangelove. He's not offering an implicit humanistic critique because he thinks humans will fuck it up no matter what.

But like that end title of Barry Lyndon says of the 18th century's rich and poor, knave and lord, "They are all equal now."

The great thing about ACO is Malcolm McDowell's performance; physical, rock-star sexy, commanding. Doesn't quite suit Anthony Burgess's intentions, perhaps.

yeah i think him being the only attractive thing in the movie is a real problem. i think kael said the same thing although the only thing i actually remember is the Little Nell joke.

For me, McDowell is really the only redeeming thing about ACO.

OK let's just pretend we've had a discussion about how evil can be superficially attractive, and nobody won.
xp

ACO only loses me when the worm turns on Alex, and then Patrick Magee just hams atrociously (at Sk's urging, I'm sure).

oh no the problem isn't that he's attractive, it's that no one else is. but yeah we don't have to Do That.

god the shot from below of magee leaning against the door making a face. which is repeated almost precisely in the shining, only the face isn't so ridiculous.

you mean the part when he realizes alex is alex? For some reason I remember him being at a writing desk or in a bathtub, not against a door.

oh no the problem isn't that he's attractive, it's that no one else is.

this is Pauline Kael's complaint, btw.

Stanley Kubrick considered both Robert De Niro and Robin Williams for the role of Jack Torrance but decided against both of them. Kubrick didn't think De Niro would suit the part after watching his performance in Taxi Driver (1976), as he deemed De Niro not psychotic enough for the role. He didn't think Williams would suit the part after watching his performance in "Mork & Mindy" (1978), as he deemed him too psychotic for the role. According to Stephen King, Kubrick also briefly considered Harrison Ford.

you mean the part when he realizes alex is alex? For some reason I remember him being at a writing desk or in a bathtub, not against a door.

i remember him as like leaning against the door of the bathroom listening to alex hum singin in the rain in the tub, but like i said, been a while.

harrison ford might have been really interesting in that. xp

you mean the part when he realizes alex is alex? For some reason I remember him being at a writing desk or in a bathtub, not against a door.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, April 5, 2011 8:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

he starts out at the desk, hears alex humming/singing, wheels his ass over to the door to listen in and then when it clicks with him he starts making these crazy gnarled faces with the camera looking at him from below

it's odd that he would have that problem with Williams, since the strangest thing about Nicholson's performance is that his Jack Torrance is unhinged from the start.

Robin Williams/Shining thing doesn't pass the smell test: the movie was certainly shooting by the time "Mork & Mindy" premiered in fall '78, and RW was a nobody before then. A 26-year-old nobody unsuited to the role.

the strangest thing about Nicholson's performance is that his Jack Torrance is unhinged from the start

see, people always say this, and i get it--nicholson is JACK from the beginning in this movie--but i dunno, it's never seemed quite true to me. i mean i know there's that delivery of "see? it's ok. he saw it on the television." which is really like bitter and sarcastic for no reason that's even apparent and suggests serious marriage-related emotional issues. but he's clearly not driving them up there with intent to kill them or anything. he's just an ex-alcoholic and not all that successful of a writer and has resentments about his wife.

i mean the implication in the kubrick version (never read the book) is not that he's an innocent man who has the bad luck to move into a haunted hotel, it's that the hotel sensed his preexisting darkness and drew him--he has always been there, etc..

My problem with The Shining -- which might be in King's novel; I haven't read it -- is the attempt to give Torrance "motivation." All those scenes of Nicholson talking to himself are so unconvincing, in part because Nicholson's gift as an actor is badinage with real live people. Talking to "himself" brings out an unattractive narcissism.

wait when are there scenes of nicholson talking to himself? he talks when he's alone but it's always to other people--continuing to yell through the storage room door even after duvall is no longer on the other side, or screaming for danny in the maze. there's always a character the lines are directed to.

Talking to the "ghosts."

I like the part where he's walking through the hallways mad as shit though, punching at the air.

after Wendy falsely accuses him.

oh. well they're played by people! they're not even translucent or anything. the weird physical contact with grady in the red bathroom scene and nicholson's like hung-open mouth and little smirk when grady says the n-word. in the bartender scene, though, yeah, you're right, the camera keeps them totally apart.

xxp

anyway jack nicholson has some pretty decent badinage with the camera too.

wish i did not have to go to dinner but i do!

i mean the implication in the kubrick version (never read the book) is not that he's an innocent man who has the bad luck to move into a haunted hotel, it's that the hotel sensed his preexisting darkness and drew him--he has always been there, etc..

ding ding ding ding ding

That's exactly why Kubrick's Shining is superior to King's, which deals in these themes lightly before it definitely moves away from them and becomes a story about a man possessed by something not inherently IN him.

if everyone in the world is a disgusting cartoon why not kill them.
^Love this.

Saw ACO recently at a theater and yeah, it was the funniest showing I've ever been to. Also, the record store dolly shot is my favorite thing in any movie ever.

god sorry one more thing: admittedly GREAT opening titles.

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, April 5, 2011 8:18 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

YES. Just a big blast of a blood blood red filling the screen, crazy 70s synth drones going off all around you. Instantly you are in another world.

mmm, that's the trailer, not the opening. also I thought dlh was talking about A Clockwork Oranhe.

My bad, you're right.

Still, i love the minimalism of that opening segment.

i meant clockwork, yeah--the primary-color fills and wendy carlos going HURMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. although kubrick's pretty good with openings in general.

i guess BOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW would have been more accurate.

i don't really think 'lolita' would've been improved by being more explicit. (it's not like 'lolita' the book is all that explicit!) i think most of its greatness, for me, lies in the performances and how well they bounce off each other. mason is hilarious, yes, but also very sad -- his last scene with lyon is so wrenching it's hard to watch. every time i see the film, i wind up getting caught up in it in a way i don't with any other kubrick film. 'strangelove' is equally good, of course, but i'm so overfamiliar with it it rarely makes me laugh anymore.

i guess ppl are pretty divided on sellers but i think he's great -- his performance is the most genuinely nabokovian thing in the whole movie. i can almost imagine a 'pale fire' movie where he plays kinbote.

given that 'lolita' itself is an unfilmable novel, i give kubrick a lot of credit for turning it into such a compelling, hilarious film (reminds me a bit of what mary harron did with 'american psycho,' except of course that ellis's novel is a piece of shit and nabokov's is a work of genius).

'clockwork orange' has a terrific opening (one of the best in any movie ever: those day-glo titles, then the slow pan back from malcolm's sneering mug -- all set to the wendy carlos soundtrack -- gives me chills every time), but it really gets clunky and plodding after the first half-hour. the violence doesn't offend me, and i certainly don't think it's an immoral film, but definitely one of his worst. really doesn't do justice to burgess's novel, which is totally fast-paced and engaging. and yeah, just so many TERRIBLE performances, apart from mcdowell (who's good, but doesn't suggest the richness of the character in the book, tho i blame that on kubrick more than him -- he's better in 'if!' and 'o lucky man'). it's almost infuriating to think of kubrick forcing perfectly good actors to act the way they do in this movie.

'the shining' has an equally chilling opening, and the score is a big part of why the film works for me (even tho it's slightly overdone in places).

i love the passage from berlioz in the shining score--the main theme, the first one you hear. i hum it when i'm feeling grim.

um, other kubricks:

barry lyndon: left no impact the first time i saw it but really blew me away on a second viewing last year. it's a damn near perfect film. kubrick's icy view-of-god perspective on humanity never worked better. i find the ending oddly tragic, even though barry is pretty unsympathetic throughout.

paths of glory: my third favorite. a borderline-corny script redeemed by masterful execution (um, pun not intended). i kind of hate pauline kael a little bit for once writing that the ending "just makes you feel uncomfortable."

2001: haven't seen it in almost a decade, and have always felt that i can't quite fairly judge it until i see it on the big screen. so, we'll see.

you can find 'fear and desire' on youtube, incidentally. considering how much kubrick hated it, it's not that bad.

barry lyndon: left no impact the first time i saw it but really blew me away on a second viewing last year. it's a damn near perfect film. kubrick's icy view-of-god perspective on humanity never worked better. i find the ending oddly tragic, even though barry is pretty unsympathetic throughout.

Yes, his redemption (in the duel) leaves him crippled and alone.

Barry Lyndon is so good.

Barry Lyndon really does grow on you. There's been a lot of talk about music the last few posts; I think the Chieftans stuff in Barry is as good as soundtrack music gets.