The Shining

but really, the Taschen facsimile of the Napoleon book set is totally awesome regarding "research mode" Kubrick

This essay (linked in one of J1m Emers0n's latest blogs) is one of the best things on the movie I've ever read, and is credited by JE to be one of the earliest essays to turn the critical tide on the movie: http://parallax-view.org/2009/10/28/kubricks-shining/

That is a very good essay and this def gets at something essential:

Surely this distraction of the self is Hell, not the seamy, vicious gestures by which the lost soul expresses its violence. Jack Torrance is presented with an oneiric environment in which only he matters—and then he doesn’t matter at all. This is the final vacancy. This is the bankrupt script. This is the horror that we feel when Wendy Torrance, come to look for her husband in his writing den, at last manages to see the Overlook manuscript, the outpourings of his creativity: the endless reiteration, in myriad configurations, of the same formulaic line, the same lyric bad joke—”All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Jack the dull boy becomes Jack the bright boy when, having done murder at last, he rises into a previously neutral frame: this time the vacancy is fulfilled in his wide, white, shining face.

The brutalization of Danny (of which Jack had been accused) took place in the mysterious Room 237, whose vibrations had tempted the boy several times previously. We watched through his eyes as he passed through the door, but were spirited away by Kubrick’s cutting to Wendy, who in turn led us to Jack in the throes of “the worst nightmare I’ve ever had,” the gory murder of his family. Hence, though technically innocent, Jack has been formally implicated in whatever transpired in 237.

i've been liking this scene a lot lately and i think that "technically innocent ... formally implicated" thing is rly good cuz it's part of this ongoing thing w jack's relationship to his own idk capacity for violence: the dazed and hurt look on his face when wendy says "YOU did this to him!", the compulsive self-justification to lloyd about the time he broke danny's arm months ago ("it was an ACCIDENT -- coulda happened to anyone!" is the less flashy kubrick equivalent of the part in blue velvet that freaked out dfw so much, where dennis hopper, also looking more-or-less into the camera, says "you're like me"), the genuine confusion, his and ours, over whether he did do this to danny this time and whether he did it to him before and whether it makes him a bad person even though he knows or thinks he knows he's not the kind of person who hits his kid. and then there's the Other Crime that no one in the movie likes to talk about but reminders of which are totally ubiquitous and ambient and which jack and everyone in his country are technically innocent of but formally implicated in, and which is of course not the kind of thing that any of us would ever do, cross our hearts, but was just a kind of unpleasant historical accident, so haha surely we're not required to carry it around w us and be mindful of it and feel the weight of it and doubt our own character like wendy so infuriatingly expects jack to do wrt his personal sin, no, you can rest assured, mr. ullman, that's not going to happen with me.

oh man also this is an excellent reading of the nuance in a linereading we were arguing over upthread:

Jack repeats “A ‘nigger‘?” (a superb reading by Nicholson) in a tone that suggests he is not used to considering negritude an offense, is on the verge of disbelieving laughter, and yet is also fascinated by the new ripple of self-congratulating possibility here.

great post dlh

Now we cut to a position directly opposite him. He drags his hands down over his face and then peers straight at us. His face is brightly—too brightly—flooded by the warm glow of a lighting strip built right into the bar; and now the fluorescence is increased by a sudden, hail-fellow-well-met grin. “Why hello, Lloyd!” And Jack slides into a well-rehearsed litany of worldweary wisdom, a soliloquy pretending to be a monologue, delivered to a composite image of all the bartenders in his past. We have been cast as “Lloyd.” The role is bizarre, but not intolerable. Then Kubrick reverse-cuts and there, where we figuratively stood, is Lloyd (Joseph Turkel).

this is almost the exact reverse of the stunning shot in 2001 where we are looking through the young spacesuited dave bowman's eyes at an old man seated at a table, facing away, who seems to hear us behind him and turns around and comes towards us - but then we realise the bowman whose eyes we were looking through is gone, was never there for the old man who is bowman.

The thing with Danny and room 237 doesn't really make sense to me. Initially, Wendy logically realizes that Jack must have done it, and accuses him accordingly; a scene or two later, in their room, when Jack raises the possibility that Danny might be making it up, Wendy's sold on the crazy-woman-in-the-bathroom claim of Danny's. This seems like a slight disconnect to me.

The guy who gave the book said there are things that don't make sense in the film no matter how many times that you've seen it, but that that's okay with him.

It makes sense if Wendy is starting to choose sides, and is choosing to believe Danny.

off to see this tonight at the cinema - i've only seen it once, probably about 10 years ago.

Not that I needed much prodding, but that Jameson article more or less confirmed for me that The Shining is Kubrick's greatest movie.

for me it's really a tossup for between The Shining, EWS, and Barry Lyndon (2001 just feels exhausted at this point, as great as it is).

Yeah, those three (four) are the only contenders now.

2001 = Shining > Strangelove = Lyndon >> EWS

Best Stanley Kubrick movie

A Clockwork Orange 	15
Eyes Wide Shut 	3

Still smdh.

I like so many of them. I guess I'd put Barry Lyndon, Paths of Glory, and The Killing at the top.

Seeing people pick Paths of Glory as their Kubrick pick is like:

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26600000/The-Shining-GIFs-the-shining-26648297-500-251.gif

starting to get the impression Eric likes EWS or something

my crazy ranking that no one ever agrees with:

1. lolita
2. barry lyndon
3. strangelove
4. paths of glory
5. the shining

i basically at least like all of them, except ACO.

Yeah, Clockwork Orange is sort of the only capitol-K Kubrick movie I don't really like that much.

It's hardly unusual to consider Paths of Glory one of Kubrick's greatest. (I can't see Eric H.'s image, so maybe I'm missing the punchline.)

strangelove forever for me

Guess I need to see Lyndon again, I thought it was mad boring LOL.

yeah I tried to watch it, it's v nice to look at but it sort of lulled me into intermittent napping

it's a vice grip of fate played out against a gorgeously indifferent universe kinda boring.

Calling a Kubrick movie boring is way rookie.

it's definitely a slow burner (tho never boring imo) with a really enormous pay-off.

I think Barry Lyndon is hilarious, but others may disagree

The compositions in it are pretty crazy. There probably isn't another movie that looks like it (except other Kubesies)

yeah I wouldn't say it was boring. it just required more extended attentiveness than I was willing to offer, lol

wasn't barry lyndon intentionally funny? i lol'd at lyndon.

I think a lot of people think it's more of a tragedy than a tragicomedy

definitely a lot of black humor.

I think I was into the bleak humor enough that I laughed when the insufferable main character's insufferable kid died

Narrator has among the most jocose-toned delivery in any movie.

Actually, I am stifling a chuckle right now. Man, that kid had it coming.

the dumbest, most laffable theorist in room 237 thinks barry lyndon was boring. i present this fact without further comment.

http://i.minus.com/ibcP26So4cbd5M.gif

hahaha

Barry Lyndon is AWESOME. If you think it's boring you must think 2001 is a documentary of paint drying.

I thought that was weird too -- nothing boring about Barry Lyndon unless you find beauty boring (and if so, f u)

i don't get how anyone could find barry lyndon boring and not hate all of kubrick's other films, too.

Yeah, there's a lot of things you don't get. Keep the change kid.

lol

"kid"

david thomson says barry lyndon is the first film that ever sent him to sleep.

i watched it again recently and was struck by how it's v much kubrick's version of lawrence of arabia, complete w/triumphant first half and downer second half. it no longer feels as ponderous as maybe it once did, now that 'slow cinema' is a thing; kubrick's favourite compositional trick here is to open on a small detail and then zoom out - there's a surprising amount of zoom used throughout, moreso than in any other kubrick irrc, and that alone makes it quite zippy.

the ending is p devastating

you guys 'lol' at a lot of stuff that really doesn't merit it

yeah but that wasn't one of them

love barry lyndon fwiw (easily fave of post-2001 kubrick) but not befuddled at idea some might find it boring or slow or that some ppl might enjoy a clockwork orange or the shining (nevermind strangelove or lolita) alot more which is to say at all. brace yrself: i've also come across ppl that call themselves scorsese fans but don't like kundun.

this has been remarked often, but it's still remarkable to how each of Kubrick's movies after 2001 was at the very a "cult" success and often widely disliked on its release, and yet every single one of them (even EWS!) has had some lasting cultural impact except Barry Lyndon--which oddly unique for Kubrick in not having any of those "broad" moments that would carry beyond the context of the film itself.