Stanley Kubrick: Classic or Dud?

Paths of Glory is the only Kubrick I've seen and like

kirk douglas would have made for an interestingly pissed off dave bowman

i saw it on dvd, on my PC, some years back, and thought it was amazing. warmed to it more than 2001 and the shining (though my favourite kubrick is still fear and desire).

My favorite Kubrick is some photo that appeared in the June 1948 issue of LOOK. It was all downhill for him after that.

lol F&D

SK's 1947 subway photo feature

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/subway-riding-in-the-1940s-with-stanley-kubrick/

thx morbs - love this one

https://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/kubrickmcnyx2011-4-11107-125.jpg?w=900&h=930

looks like Clockwork Orange tramp lyin' there

so many questions

Awesome photo.

That blog and the images derive from the incredible MCNY archive of Kubrick's assignments for Look - 129 assignments, 15 000 images, most unpublished.
http://collections.mcny.org/Explore/Highlights/Stanley%20Kubrick/
http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/4/d/3/f/M3Y59725.jpg

http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/3/3/7/7/M3Y32044.jpg

http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/8/f/f/c/M3Y32193.jpg

http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/8/a/2/8/M3Y5603.jpg

http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/1/f/c/a/M3Y32234.jpg

http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/c/b/b/f/M3Y32283.jpg

http://collections.mcny.org/Doc/MNY/Media/TR3/a/7/d/a/MNY294121.jpg

idnk kubrick invented instagram

Wow at that Hitchcock pic - have long wondered if Stanley had ever met Alfred - wonder if they ever met again. I get the impression that Kubrick was not especially a Hitchcock fan, but they sometimes seem quite alike.

Finally got to see Barry Lyndon in a cinema a few months back -- and really enjoyed its stately melancholy. Wrote this to try and explore why -- not really a review, just some stuff that struck me…

I totally agree about it never feeling like a "long movie", it is such an enjoyable oddysee that doesn't ever feel like more than 90 mins at all.

xp I liked your take Mark - that's me #1 in the comments section!

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-good-man-stanley/

What's the best book about Kubrick? I'd like to read mostly about the life, interested in the films as well of course but not in a dense theory-heavy way.

He is not the subject, but he makes a great cameo, well more than that, in the excellent Jim Thompson bio Savage Art, by Jon Polito.

Finally got to see /Barry Lyndon/ in a cinema a few months back -- and really enjoyed its stately melancholy. Wrote this🔗 to try and explore why -- not really a review, just some stuff that struck me…

Sorry, the author of Savage Art is Robert Polito.

But Jon Polito is still missed. Fly on, Brother Shamus.

Hm, clicking on that link doesn't seem to work in Zing.

Duh, I tried to click on the link in my quote, not in Mark's original post. Never mind.

There isn't an entirely satisfactory Kubrick biography. Alexander Walker's book (in its various revisions) is the closest thing there is to an authorised biography, in that Walker knew Kubrick, and was given some access and assistance by SK. Both the Vincent Lobrutto and John Baxter biographies are 'unofficial' and feature different secondary sources, with varying degrees of insight and relevance. None of them are especially 'theory heavy'.

there is a great 1966 interview on youtube w Kubrick, but I get the feeling he wasn't the type of guy who would have been interested in a lengthy sit-down for an auto/bio, or even write a memoir. As I am in the cult, I like that about him

The three interviews w/ Kubrick conducted by Michel Ciment around Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and the Shining are almost certainly the best print interviews SK ever gave - - you can find them here:

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.html

not quite what you asked for, but if you haven't seen it already jon ronson's documentary stanley kubrick's boxes is a pretty good look behind the curtain, and it seems to be available in its entirety on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/78314194

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0iX2mpXUAAsVw4.jpg

watched barry lyndon for the first time at the weekend. i was completely floored by it. one of the best things i've ever seen. dunno if it's deliberate, but even though it was quite moving and intense especially in the second act, i have to say i found a lot of had real comic quality. like the tiny and ridiculous battles, a lot of it felt like it was lightly skewering pomposity, even with the narrator and the "interval" bit in the middle. prior to even seeing the "interval" part i also thought it seemed like it was meant to resemble a play. the music throughout was amazing also.

the other thing i thought at the end is that the cook the thief his wife and her lover felt very inspired by this. maybe the cinematography as painting feeling, maybe also the main musical motifs have a similarly grandiose feeling.

dunno if it's deliberate, but even though it was quite moving and intense especially in the second act

nah that Kubrick alwayd did things by accident

i quit the Thackeray book about 50 pp in bcz it was too overtly a comedy for me.

less questioning him than wondering if i'd misinterpreted it or found humour that was never supposed to be there.

i found it hilarious at times. like another ilxor said on twitter they'd annoyed friends by laughing at ostensibly unfunny parts and that was probably what i was doing. the quick cut from bullingdon having his tantrum to him caning bullingdon in his study, and also the scene where lyndon loses it and punches the head off bullingdon, i was actually in tears laughing, it was so over-wrought.

i'd kind of like to read the thackeray book after watching it.

i think Eyes Wide Shut is pretty funny in similar ways, and The Shining as well. he was definitely mining some unique form of humor after Dr. Strangelove.

Yes, definitely - I think it's partly a result of him living/shooting in the UK and often working with great British comic character actors like Leonard Rossiter or Patrick Magee.

the music takes it up a notch. I need to watch it again.

i think he cast them once he knew what he wanted to do (tho did Magee ever ham it up like he did in ACO? seems the singular result of maybe 70 takes). xp

Magee also gives a pretty...florid...performance in Tales from the Crypt, and probably some of the other lower rent flicks he appeared in, though yeah, I think it's well known that SK generally favoured the larger than life takes out of the many he shot (definitely true w/ Nicholson in The Shining).

Magee does make a great show of being the blindest of the blind guys in that Crypt ep, yeah.

not to mention the first half of Full Metal Jacket is some of the funniest shit ever

Just ask Mary Jane Rottencrotch.

some amazing stuff in the CC supps for Barry Lyndon, ie the editor on the limits of having ten takes for each line of an actor's dialogue, and the fact that some of the costumes were ACTUAL 18th-century waistcoats, military uniforms, etc.

whoa

also revealed: Ken Adam snuck SK onto the set of The Spy Who Loved Me to help him light a scene.

I think I've known that for a long time but I don't know how.

Kubrick taking test shots of different droog hats

https://scontent.fman1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/24294435_10154799810011148_8219601497069974967_n.jpg?oh=925f65484a69be8cf31ae3e0b135d03e&oe=5A8D8547