Critical Analysis: Stanley Kubrick • Page 2

I don't think cultural impact or legacy necessarily mean one is better than the other. I don't think Suspiria was quite as available as TCM was, nor was it as accessible from a viewing experience. While both are "weird" films, Suspiria is definitely more so.

And yeah Fulci is definitely the better filmmaker than Argento overall. Argento made some absolutely terrible movies, especially later on.

Yeah sure they made it more faithful to the book, but it was a terrible made for TV movie. In a perfect world I would have a faithful adaptation made by someone that had the talent of Kubrick, or at least close to it. Hell, give me the exact movie just with the backstory and depth of Jacks character from the book and it would probably be one of my all time favorites.

I'm not saying it's a bad movie. Trust me I know The Shining is one of the best of all time, it's an incredible movie. I just personally don't enjoy it because of my own biases attached to the book.

 

Never seen TCM but Suspiria is the fucking shittttt. Love that film so much.

 

I wish he got to make his Napoleon film.

 

One of the greats, no doubt. My personal favorite is 2001, but I can see why others wouldn't like it or think it hasn't aged well. Always wanted to see Eyes Wide Shut, I think that's his only "classic" I still haven't watched.

 

I haven't seen most Kubrick films since I first viewed them in high school, and I would prefer to view them again now as I'm much better at watching movies now than I was 6-8 years ago. The most recent Kubrick viewing I had was Eyes Wide Shut a couple months ago. It's one of my favorite pieces of filmmaking, a haunting, dreamy blurring of reality and fantasy, and those fantasies bordering on nightmares. It's sexual politics are fairly straightforward, if hidden beneath the orgy textures and star power of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but I absolutely love what it has to say about communication in sex and how domesticity and gender roles can make sex complacent, routine, and dangerous.

Also, a thought better suited for whenever Tom Cruise gets one of these threads, but his 1999 produced two peak masterpieces in Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia. It could be argued he's one of our most underrated actors, given that most see him as "just" a movie star making disposable action films (which is a reputation he's earned over the last 15 years, even if some of those action movies, Minority Report, Edge of Tomorrow, are really great).

 

Magnolia is one of my all time favs

 

I've seen Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining. The latter is an amazing feat in terms of tone and imagery.

 

Kubrick is the quintessential mainstream filmmaker, IMO. He is the director that, I believe, all aspiring filmmakers want to be. When you ask someone to name a director, chances are Spielberg is first - you ask a film enthusiast/filmmaker/film major to name one? I think Kubrick is going to be the first name on most occasions.

Just think of how memorable and emotionally riveting his films have been, whether it's the story, characters, music or imagery. It's typically a combination of each. He has total autonomy and creative freewill (for the most part). His films have stuck with all of us to this day and continue to resonate with every new generation. Not simply a few of his movies have made profound impacts on the world of film - I would argue that they all have. Each of his films have carried over for decades, and I find it difficult to NOT remember huge chunks or at least an image of any of his films. That speaks volumes to me.

 

Kubrick is a director who has never repeated himself. That being said I don't enjoy all his movies.
I wonder what AI would have been like if Kubrick hadn't died before finishing development because the Kubrick through Spielberg AI is completely devoid of any charm, overly long, and downright nonsense at the end.

 

I think I'm the only person alive who liked AI

 

AI is an underrated movie in my opinion. The whole premise of the android just wanting to be accepted and loved is something I really latched onto when I watched it, mainly due to my childhood, and I really loved the idea of the future that gets presented in the movie. Plus, how can you go wrong with Ministry being in your movie?

 

Agreed 100% I get that it would have been amazing to see Kubricks AI, but I also think there is value to be had in watching Spielberg interpret it and kind of do an adaption, in a way, of a Kubrick film.

I think it fell in a weird place. Many casual filmgoers felt it was too dark for a Spielberg movie, while the other side thought it was too "Spielbergy". I could be way off on that, seeing as how I was a young teen when it came out, but that's the perception I get. And I actually love the ending.

 

Too dark for a Spielberg movie? Had those people never heard of Schindler's List before? I rewatched it some time back after buying the Blu Ray and I think it still holds up. The CGI is a little dated and the ending is still kinda questionable but still holds up.

 

I know right? I get this a lot from friends or coworkers when I talk about him in general, that his movies are too happy and upbeat. Shindlers list, Munich... The guy can make a dark film.

I'll have to give AI another watch, it's been a long time! Also all this Kubrick talk makes me really crave Dr Strangelove... Which really might be the best comedy ever made.

 

How did he watch it?

 

Mighty impressive of a long dead man to be able to revive himself to watch a documentary about a movie he made.

 

Writing about Kubrick at this point is almost a chore; his work has been digested and analyzed so many times that there is little to say. Kubrick is one of the rare filmmakers that appealed to the mainstream and the art film world, and as a result people can watch his films for pleasure or read into them as much as they want, with plenty to be gained from both. Kubrick repeated himself so often that even an amateur film enthusiast can tell you about the Kubrick stare; that is a recognition that very few artists in any medium can tell you about. While he started off allowing the studios to control him, his decision to completely leave the mainstream and become an isolated hermit has been an inspiration to most filmmakers that desire complete authority.

In thirteen films, he has four films with little to make them worth watching: Fear and Desire, Killer's Kiss, Spartacus, and Full Metal Jacket. Fear and Desire was disowned by Kubrick himself, which should give you an idea, while Killer's Kiss is too unpolished and would be more fully realized in The Killing. Spartacus is a director-for-hire job and a colossal bore at over three hours, while Full Metal Jacket is divided between an incredible short film about boot camp bookended by a superfluous treatise on war that had already been beaten to the punch by Apocalypse Now and Platoon. Even still, many filmmakers wish they had made films as good as these.

His other nine films vary from good to great, all exploring human depravity in their own way. The Killing is the playbook on how to work within genre and still make something unique. Supposedly anti-war films have a way of accidentally becoming pro-war (Saving Private Ryan), but Paths of Glory wisely chooses to de-emphasize the physical in order to show the aftermath of a witch hunt, and the ways in which powerful people will use that power to totally subvert others. Lolita is a compromised project, but it is still an accurate depiction in the ways in which men allow sex to destroy themselves and the ways in which society indoctrinates girls into thinking that that is their primary asset. A Clockwork Orange is too repetitive for too many viewings, but its dystopian vision feels closer to reality than we may like to admit, and the extreme edge of criminal violence and state violence are shown to be connected in inseparable ways. The Shining is the purest distillation of horror, the feeling of impending doom and the fear that those closest to you can turn on you. While there are spirits and ghosts, the true fright is what the man or woman you share a bed with can do to you. Eyes Wide Shut is powerful in examining how we desire to reach beyond our comfort zone while our domestication keeps us from truly committing to it, and the ways in which we will almost always choose safety and security over further exploration.

The Big Three are Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Barry Lyndon. Dr. Strangelove will always be an important film as long as we have a representative democracy where image control and salesmanship allows lunatics to take power. It may have been a solitary commander that set off the whole situation, but everyone from the soldiers too dumb to realize they are shooting at other Americans to a President who is unaware of the intricacies of his country's defense system are all to blame for that one solitary man to cause so much carnage. All of the air in the room has been sucked up by Donald Trump in the 2016 election, but it is not very hard to imagine President Obama or George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton as the hapless President in the film. 2001: A Space Odyssey becomes more prescient over time, as we enter a newer digital age where machines are going to take on more and more skills that blur the line between automation and artificial intelligence. Science fiction films are given enormous creative freedom to imagine whatever sort of scenario they want, but more often than not they stick to the same formula: Danny Boyle's Sunshine derails the entire film by adding a serial killer in space, and Christopher Nolan's Interstellar ruins a promise of gorgeous imagery by tying everything down to an obsession with love. 2001 makes no pretense of this; the scientists seem bored when they have to engage with human beings back home. They are true explorers, the same way the monkeys are in the stunning prologue.

I had planned to re-post what I had written about Barry Lyndon in the Greatest Films of All Time Thread, but now all of that is inaccessible. In briefer terms, Barry Lyndon is as gorgeous a film as one can see, resembling a painting more than celluloid. It is about a typical story of rise and fall, but Barry Lyndon is a more thought-provoking work because you can see where each decision branches off into possible realities. Barry Lyndon's duel with his stepson is far more exciting and tense than any explosion you will see in a superhero film.

What is so interesting about Kubrick is that we have seen so few direct imitators. European art cinema has been copying Antonioni and Bergman for decades, while American filmmakers still ape Spielberg and Woody Allen. The closest thing to a successor would be Terrence Malick, who has adopted the total control and hermit behavior of Kubrick. Kubrick's ability to wait over a decade between films and then cast top of their game movie stars while capturing the imagination of general audiences seems unlikely to ever be repeated.

 

Watch it! Probably my favorite film by him.

 

it probably is. and thing and alien

 

Eyes Wide Shut is arguably his best and certainly his most universally applicable to modern audiences

 

Still need to see Barry Lyndon

 

Um what?!

 

the themes in that film are more universally applicable to the human condition than any of his other films. everyone can relate save for those who do not seek a significant other

 

I will never forget the time I saw Fulci's Zombie after a blind rent from blockbuster. The zombie vs. the shark sequence might be one of my favorite things commited to film. Like some Herzog-level dangerousness in that scene. Can't believe he just got a guy to wear a zombie costume (and a really high-quality one) and wrestle a goddamn shark underwater in the wild. And not a nurse shark - looked like it might've been a Tiger shark? That's a dangerous motherfucker, possibly one of the more aggressive of any sharks alive. Amazing.

 

So the physical and psychological horrors and toll of war aren't as universally applicable to the human condition as jealousy, marriage and betrayal in the year 2016? Kind of a bold proclamation considering the state of the world.