Stanley Kubrick: Classic or Dud?

btw I leafed through this Taschen book on the unmade Napoleon last week, def worth if if you can spare the $70 listprice and want to look at shit like SJK's letter to his historical consultant asking about horse showing of the era, how people addressed each other, etc. Plus all the test costumes, and a draft of the script.

https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/film/all/04973/facts.stanley_kubricks_napoleon_the_greatest_movie_never_made.htm

(I see looking at hidden posts that i am not the first)

I saw the Nolan print of 2001 today and yeah, it's good. Excellent experience to have at least once. The "journey beyond the infinite" benefits from the darker, refulgent colouring. There are lovely edit marks for scene ending top right, the screen is constantly flickering with light, and jumping with scratches on the film. It's a new thing.

seeing the unrestored print in 2 weeks

a discovery:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/15/stanley-kubrick-lost-screenplay-burning-secret-found

Cool. "James Mason in Sue Lyon" tho, hmm

Couldn't get into Filmmaker--felt like a really weird vanity project. It was news to me, though, that Leon Vitali also played lead orgy guy in Eyes Wide Shut.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/leon.png

His name also pops up in the newspaper article Harford reads about the girl's drug overdose:

https://i.imgur.com/bKnAnfZ.png

I got this from this mind-boggling shot-by-shot analysis of EWS:

http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/ews_toc.htm

yikes, not sure i have a month to go through that site, but i was not aware there'd been a 1969 adaptation of Traumnovelle (ie before EWS).

Alba jogged my memory on the 2001 thread, I meant to post this last week, a much longer cut of the Japanese guy's set visit during the Shining - with some nice stuff- that I linked upthread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVlXbS0SNqk

Xp: there *was* a Kubrick approved video transfer of 2001, the Criterion laserdisc done in 1988.

The Big Picture: 2001 on Video, Thomas E. Brown.

the same transfer, done in 1988 by the Voyager companies' legendary Maria Groumbos Palazzola. This was transferred from a 35mm "anamorphic" source (at the time of this transfer there was no 65mm/70mm telecine equipment in existence). The transfer was done in association with Full Metal Jacket's editor, Martin Hunter and "dailies" of the transfer were sent to Stanley Kubrick in England. Kubrick faxed back comments and Palazzola has written that he required 6 runs through with changes before he would approve it. The transfer was "state of the art" for 1988, with good image detail, fairly low grain and good fidelity to Kubrick's detailed color scheme.

Screen caps are scarce, but they don't have the yellow cast of Nolan's "restoration" (or at least that trailer).

My best guess is that late 60s 70mm prints had color timing which compensated for the higher color temperature of carbon arc projection lamps, while the "restoration" is that color timing projected through lower color temperature (redder/yellower/"warmer") of modern xenon arc lamps.

I believe that was essentially Nolan's explanation of the look of the "unrestoration"

There is absolutely zero chance that K built blinding white sets and models, lit it to perfection and thought "I really hope it comes out a bit yellowy on the colour timing, I'd also like the flaws in the film stock to feature, that's why I shot it on the largest available stock with meltingly bright lighting." The "unrestoration" is pure hipster-Luddite bullshit. The man was an exacting, technical photographer to whom accuracy was life and death.

on his 90th, a taste of Kubrick's NYC, and a 1966 New Yorker profile

He saw the entire film collection at the Museum of Modern Art. Twice.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/nyregion/new-york-today-stanley-kubricks-new-york.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1966/11/12/how-about-a-little-game

Seeing Killer's Kiss tonight on 35mm

70mm 'unrestored' 2001 for me...

I'm intrigued how in '66 The NYer just IDs Jim Thompson as "a writer friend" of Kubrick's. He truly was a cult item.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) | Director of Photography: Stephen H. Burum | Director: Brian De Palma | #OnePerfectShot pic.twitter.com/vgi9UZGLrC

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) July 12, 2018

there *was* a Kubrick approved video transfer of 2001, the Criterion laserdisc done in 1988.

No idea if it's accurate but the poster implies that the 1999 DVD is from the same transfer with no colour changes.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/2001-a-space-odyssey-4k-uhd-available-for-preorder.356390/page-17#post-4634987

xps re: thompson

Despite some positive critical notice—notably by Anthony Boucher in The New York Times—he was little-recognized in his lifetime. Only after death did Thompson's literary stature grow.

Oops, this post, xpost.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/2001-a-space-odyssey-4k-uhd-available-for-preorder.356390/page-17#post-4634981

Some more about the colour timing business...

https://forum.fanres.com/thread-1596-page-4.html

"I am seeing the new 70mm at the Castro, and intermission just started. It basically looks identical to the last two prints I saw. The comment above that makes it seem like the "turquoise and teal" is some brand new 2018 revisionism are mistaken - the colors are the same as the last two prints I saw which were also struck from a circa 1999-2000 element. The scenes with noticeably odd colors, like a few teal skies in the Dawn of Man section, or the slightly yellow tinge of the space station, or the moon taxi interior with a teal wash and the view of the moon out the window looking purple, all match between the Cinematheque print I saw in 2016, the c.2001 print I saw at the Castro last year, and the new one. The Jupiter mission sequences have the same warm/cool, 80s/90s LPP-esque dichotomy (e.g., there's a scene where the pod bay looks teal and cyan, then takes on a warmer, faintly gold hue with brighter white highlights when the lights turn on).

As for "weak contrast" and "virtually no blacks or whites," I am seeing neither issue on the print as projected. I think it either just doesn't convert well to consumer digital color space, or they tried to match a digital transfer to the print's colors for that trailer and botched it. The colors in the trailer look similar, but the balance and white/black levels look much better when seeing it on film, projected in a theater.

I am not saying this is accurate to 1968, but it is accurate to the timing I've seen on other 70mm prints from the last 15-20 years. This has to be from a sister element to the one used to make the 2001 reissue prints and the 2016 American Cinematheque print; there is damage I did not see on the other prints, so it may not be the SAME element, but regardless, there is no brand-new revisionism going on in how the print looks as projected. As far as I can tell, any issues with the color are consistent with all the other prints struck since the late 90s. Right or wrong, all I can say is that these colors are not new to *this print*, and whatever they are, they are *not* a brand-new revisionism cooked up in 2018."

These people are mentalists but you've got to respect their literally unbelievable ability to recall and compare exact colours over spans of decades.

yeah, my first and last viewings of 2001 on film were '74 and '01... and you got me

that NY article is one of the greats

As the film appeared on the screen, Lockwood was shown jogging around the complete interior circumference of the centrifuge, which appeared to me to defy logic as well as physics, since when he was at the top he would have needed suction cups on his feet to stay glued to the floor. I asked Kubrick how he had achieved this effect, and he said he was definitely, absolutely not going to tell me.

remembering Douglas Rain and Pablo Ferro

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6050-remembering-two-of-kubrick-s-key-collaborators

Filmworker on Film4 tonight

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6851066/

https://scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/70391703_3341204162563892_5845155554451783680_n.jpg

https://scontent-lax3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/70391703_3341204162563892_5845155554451783680_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_eui2=AeHc8KbbamdNUzz1xaM4C4d6uZ01gu6b5ZwR9f-B_KYX0kLmMHulmNl9NOrWbKHGbc-HN2G8TNbwkWnzvcqVbAvovMLZtKGFuFFl8j5W7B95GQ&_nc_oc=AQkllWVPslYVc4CsETdm8WXuH1YSy4mpTkJq3dVK2Y8F0vNTH_pUOK87Pfva4f0qp2eTTSadACaCReq01jorXxxf&_nc_ht=scontent-lax3-2.xx&oh=4c71f0ad5a6b3434feaae065e5bdd43f&oe=5DF1A95E

finally watched the CC of Paths of Glory I bought in... 2010.

Not sure I never knew that Tim Carey was fired late in the shoot for being a huge pain in the ass, necessitating use of a double in the few remaining scenes. (also the ditching of battlefield narratives involving the 3 men who would go on trial)

also have seen noir vet Emile Meyer in a number of things lately, he is the priest in this

xp interesting — was that info in the commentary, one of the interviews, or the booklet essay ?

It's in the James B Harris (producer) interview. The last straw was Carey claiming he was kidnapped (?!) and refusing to sign a police statement in a timely manner.

btw George Macready and Adolphe Menjou are *really* great in PoG as the scummy generals.

Mejou was a notorious righty commie-hater. When asked how he could work with Hollywood lefties, he said "Easy, I'm a whore."

It's one of the few movies whose narrative inevitabilities (knowing the French high command, in its demand for sacrifices, gives not a damn about Dax's legal case) work on me such that it's hard to rewatch.

I lent my PoG DVD to a friend and I'm afraid I'll never see it again. :(

first film I saw Menjou in (fall '93 or so; PBS loved this film then).

From memory: "Come, come now Col. Dacks--you really are an idealist!"

Douglas' sputtering Kirk Douglas Monologue aimed at Menjou is unconvincing -- it's paced like a scene beloved of Oscar voters -- but I guess the film needed to let some air out.

Paths of Glory was my favourite Kubrick film for the longest time, until, within the past 10 years, it was pushed aside by Barry Lyndon--which, it occurs to me, might be the perfect thing to watch tonight in terms of tone and trying to get some perspective on all of this.

I have been meaning to get around to watching Barry Lyndon for 20+ years, still the only Kubrick I've never seen lol

the Humphrey Cobb novel of Paths ends with the execution, but I think Kubrick and Harris both agreed the audience had to get *some* moral relief (eg Gen Mireau punished in some form for his shoot-our-troops order).

It's amusing to see Emile Meyer, who played the crooked cop in Sweet Smell of Success ("Sidney, come over here so I can chastise you!"), play the priest.

Barry Lyndon is great, everyone talks about how beautiful and painterly it is (it is) but until I saw it again relatively recent I forgot about all the zooms in the movie. it felt like a comedy in a theater

Spartacus seems like a classic 1960s spectacle film

I like it better than I tend to like these things.

complete with an overture and intermission!

The Brits (Olivier, Ustinov, Laughton) are having great fun, and in life they loathed each other.

yes, mastah

I did like seeing the men’s bodies in the baths

the oysters vs snails interlude made me chuckle

it's even funnier when you revel in the Anthony Hopkins dubbing of Olivier

(that scene was restored in the '90s)