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Stanley Kubrick did it his way
- Jgrubb 3y agoNot nearly long enough, but I'll take what I can get.
- CamperBob2 3y agoThe book they're reviewing is out, only $30 in hardback on Amazon. Ordered...
- morkalork 3y agoI'm sure it felt plenty long enough for the people he was directing.
- CamperBob2 3y agoNobody had a gun at their head.
- hinkley 3y agoLost a lot of respect for this man after I found out how he treated Shelley Duvall.
- eikenberry 3y agoBut gained a lot for Shelley... that she was able to direct her terrible emotional state into her acting and give one of her best performances speaks greatly of her.
- tehnub 3y agoMost of what you hear about that are exaggerations and rumors, mostly based on this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o-n6vZvqjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o-n6vZvqjQ. People cite lines like "don't sympathize with Shelly" to jump to the conclusion that Kubrick "ordered the cast and crew to alienate her". Or they cite making her do 60 or however many takes, as if that constitutes abuse. I wonder if the abuse allegations are compounded by Wendy Torrance being so vulnerable and scared in the movie influencing perception of the actress, and also some kind of collective guilt for the initial uninterested to negative critical reaction to her performance.
- hinkley 3y agoStephen King referred to the movie as “misogynistic”. And it was apparently 127 takes.
- subsubzero 3y agoHighly recommend watching "room 237" a documentary about the shining, some of it veers into speculation but one interesting take was that Kubrick in the film specifically lets Stephen King know that this is his vehicle(the movie) and is quite subtle about the message.
- MeImCounting 3y agoThats a lot for sure but I really dont think the number of takes shows abuse or not. I dont have an opinion on any alleged abuse of Duvall either way, because it just doesnt matter enough for me to form an informed opinion. Regardless the number of takes and the opinion of the author certainly dont mean much.
- tehnub 3y agoHe was probably talking about the story. In the book, Wendy is supposed to be strong, not one to be pushed around. In the movie, it's the total opposite.
- WillPostForFood 3y agoThe quotation from a BBC interview is, “Shelley Duvall as Wendy is really one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film, she’s basically just there to scream and be stupid and that’s not the woman that I wrote about.” https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-24151957 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-24151957
- hax0ron3 3y agoI think King was wrong. Wendy outwits Jack and saves her son. Yeah she screams a lot but that seems pretty realistic to me. When push comes to shove and she can no longer deny what is happening, she shows a lot of strength and intelligence. The idea that she is "just there to scream and be stupid" just does not match up with what the movie actually shows.
- kouru225 3y agoIt’s all media bullshit. Shelley Duvall never said he abused her. In fact, she said the exact opposite: that she felt like The Shining was the moment she turned professional and Stanley taught her how to get more out of repetition. The footage you see of Kubrick “abusing her” was cherry-picked by Kubrick himself in order to promote his film. He had a reputation as a “perfectionist” so he thought the footage would drive ticket sales. I think it’s a form of sexism to assume that Shelley was somehow weak and not able to make her own decisions here. If we were talking about Leo DiCaprio or Daniel Day Lewis, we’d all be talking about how much of a dedicated actor he is that he would go through all that hardship just to get a great performance.
- gofreddygo 3y agoBorn in the great depression. little to no interest in education. Picks photography, gets a job as a photographer for a magazine. Starts a movie company at 21 and makes shit movies.But importantly, develops a knack for persuading people to work for little or no money convincing them that the "experience" was was worth more than money Young Kubrick is ruthlessness and ego centric, hard to like... mature Kubrik is intriguing and softer. Then he makes some great movies, gets a family going, has money and goes nuts. This allows him to get obsessive, neurotic, totally fixated on his work, horrifyingly oblivious to the feelings of colleagues and employees driving some to breakdown. Outraged designers, writers all persuaded for the experience and the glory of the final result. All swearing never to work with him again. persuading people to work for little or no money for the experience and the greatness of the purpose and the final result seems like the common pattern between Kubrik and others like Jobs.
- dgllghr 3y agoIt doesn't have to be like this though. Actors and others who work on sets with David Lynch always talk about how wonderful he is to work with and how well he treats everyone. And he is also a man with singularity of vision who does things his way.
- kman82 3y agoLynch is good. But comparing him to Kubrick is like chalk and cheese
- subsubzero 3y agoI like each in their own way, I may be more biased towards Kubrick as I consider the Shining one of my top 3 movies of all time. Lynch may be the ultimate auteur in making a certain type of movie or tv show that really no one else was making or thinking about(Blue Velvet, Mulholland dr. etc). Twin Peaks season 3 might be one of the best tv shows ever made(and also one of the weirdest) and its why I like David Lynch so much. Kubrick touched on that side a bit with 2001(my second favorite of his movies) but his style is much more traditional.
- Slow_Hand 3y agoKubrick was remarkable in his singularity as a filmmaker. There is a fantastic 1 hr BBC documentary from the mid 2000's called 'Stanley Kubrick's Boxes' in which the documentary crew is given access to Kubrick's estate and warehouses after his passing. They examine the contents of the boxes of research and pre-production material that Kubrick accrued over several decades when crafting his films. The lengths he went to flesh them out are stunning. The takeaway is of someone with a singular ambition and extreme thoroughness when planning their films. It's been immensely inspiring to witness just how intently a creator can focus on crafting their work. I strongly recommend it.
- philwebster 3y agoThanks for sharing! Looks like the documentary is available on Vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/322890808 https://vimeo.com/322890808
- histories 3y agoKubrick famously read "every book about Napoleon that he could obtain". https://imgur.com/lJB7nSb https://imgur.com/lJB7nSb https://imgur.com/ZwruOl5 https://imgur.com/ZwruOl5 https://imgur.com/VUsFyj1 https://imgur.com/VUsFyj1 https://www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/vuzygq/kubricks_napoleon_file_cabinet_with_cards/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKubrick/comments/vuzygq/kubr...
- Slow_Hand 3y agoSounds about right. I recall reading a book about Kubrick 15 years ago in which the author/interviewer visited his house and was left alone in Stanley's study for a few minutes. As he walked around the room and examined the (fully stocked) bookcases he realized that every single book in the room was about Napoleon.
- ryandrake 3y agoOne of the cool facts about Kubrick I've always admired as a testament to his perfectionism is his typical "shooting ratio": The ratio of how much film was shot vs the run time of the final product. For The Shining he exposed 1.3 million feet of film for a movie that runs for 142 minutes, a ratio of over 100:1. The baseball bat scene alone took 127 takes to get right[1]. 1: https://www.jimcarrollsblog.com/blog/2019/6/5/yt0trf17bh9ai4ovwf2am07ms6qszi https://www.jimcarrollsblog.com/blog/2019/6/5/yt0trf17bh9ai4...
- js2 3y agoBarry Lyndon is probably my favorite (or at least, the one I appreciate the most) of Kubric's films when it comes to his perfectionism, but perfectionism alone isn't a great metric for the resulting film: > Cimino shot more than 1.3 million feet (400,000 metres; nearly 220 hours) of footage, costing the studio approximately $200,000 per day in salary (equivalent to $720,000 in 2022), locations and acting fees.Privately, it was joked that Cimino wished to surpass Francis Ford Coppola's mark of shooting one million feet of footage for Apocalypse Now (1979). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(film)#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(film)#Product... Heaven's Gate isn't even all that great to look at. There's still the matter of taste involved, and well, Cimino made some questionable decisions.
- cm2187 3y agoMy favorite trivia on Barry Lyndon is the fact that he built a camera out of satellite lens to get the necessary aperture to shoot candle lit scenes with no artificial lighting. But with such a massive aperture, the actors had to stay absolutely still to remain in focus, which you can tell in the card playing scenes. Though I love the film, the very slow rythme makes it hard to re-watch, and probably impenetrable to today's young audience.
- southernplaces7 3y agoThis could also mean that he's inept at getting composition right, and neurotically obsessive about things that don't really matter. I do photography, and a ratio of 1000 discarded photos to one you keep would far more likely mean someone doesn't know how to select their shots more carefully and can't distinguish what's important, than it would mean that they're a perfectionist genius.
- whycome 3y agoSo far ahead of his time. He really wanted to make a film on Napoleon. Though not officially related to his work, one got made last year to mixed reviews. And he started production on the movie "AI - Artificial Intelligence" after a short story from 1969. He handed it off to Steven Spielberg. /// Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9671018 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9671018
- CamperBob2 3y agoThe crazy thing is, we now have "Dr. Know" from AI, and nothing is really stopping us from building that bear. Nothing but battery life, I guess.
- dragonwriter 3y agoLots of films have been made about Napoleon, many long before Kubrick (before he was born, even) and several while he was an active director, I don't how him wanting to do one and one recently being made makes him "ahead of his time".
- whycome 3y agoYou're right. He had a vision for not just a movie, but something of a massive scale. That wasn't really the norm for a historical epic like this anymore. You're right that there are a bunch of films about Napoleon (https://www.vulture.com/article/napoleon-movies-history.html https://www.vulture.com/article/napoleon-movies-history.html) but nothing attempting the scale. The latest Napoleon was the first to attempt that scale ($200m). https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9671018 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9671018 > Slated for production immediately following the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey , Kubrick’s "Napoleon" was to be at once a character study and a sweeping epic, replete with grandiose battle scenes featuring thousands of extras. To write his original screenplay, Kubrick embarked on two years of intensive research; with the help of dozens of assistants and an Oxford Napoleon specialist, he amassed an unparalleled trove of research and preproduction material , including approximately 15,000 location scouting photographs and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. No stone was left unturned in Kubrick's nearly-obsessive quest to uncover every piece of information history had to offer about Napoleon. But alas, Kubrick’s movie was not destined to the film studios, first M.G.M. and then United Artists, decided such an undertaking was too risky at a time when historical epics were out of fashion. He also backed off on AI because the scale/requirements. In my opinion he had the vision, but the tech and audiences just weren't ready. But maybe the same things might have been said about 2001.
- wolverine876 3y ago> Cinema is a collaborative art, and auteurist accounts that centre the director’s vision often seem at odds with the actual process of film-making. But Stanley Kubrick was a special case; a director who won an astonishing degree of autonomy from the Hollywood studios that financed his films and used it to control almost every aspect of those films: the scripts, the performances, the lighting and camerawork, the mise en scène down to the smallest details of sets and props, the gradations of colour in the prints, how the films were promoted and, later, even the typefaces on the boxes of VHS and DVD releases I wonder at directors: It's hard enough to find artists with the insight, vision, expressiveness, and mastery of their craft to create great art. But before film, artists worked mostly alone. I suppose architects and composers have had to be mindful of the performance of a bunch of humans, but didn't necessarily have to manage that process. Stage directors obviously have similar jobs, but necessarily at a much smaller scale, with fewer technical demands, and by my limited understanding, stage directors lean toward overseeing and facilitating the art, which is more a product of the playwright and actors. But film directors - as artists they must be all those things an artist is; and also they must master more domains than most artists - film, audio, script, story, costumes, sets, lighting, etc.; and on top of that they must be top-notch managers: hire and manage hundreds or thousands of highly talented people (just look at the credits), and then coordinate them all to finish on time and also manage a budget in the 10s or 100s of millions, and then also sell their vision to funders. Where are these 'directors' found? Can they really do all that or is it handled otherwise? How are they developed? It's hard to imagine there would be more than a couple of them.
- wizardwes 3y agoI'd say that most of those things you list film directors needing to worry about are just as important to stage directors, but also, film directors have crew and other experts to fill a lot of those gaps. Directors aren't writing scripts, there are scriptwriter for that, just like playwrights, the director just gets some input, which happens in live theater right now. I know a director who is having to edit the script of Hamlet himself right now due to time constraints. A film director doesn't necessarily need to know everything they just need to be able to vocalize their wants and vision to other people who know more, and be able to receive feedback from that. Also, to my knowledge, directors aren't hiring everyone. They might pick a few key people, but that's why you have producers, and you let your key people pick their people under them.
- yrgi 3y ago[flagged]
- pureheartlover 3y agoThis being published by 'Apollo magazine' is bound to get some riled up considering his supposed involvement in the faked moon landings. Here is a nice write up on how he apparently encoded his confession into his films. https://www.aulis.com/deliberate_errors.htm https://www.aulis.com/deliberate_errors.htm
- YPPH 3y agoThe contention the moon landings were faked is ridiculous. The most obvious rebuttal is that the USSR would have asserted it if there was a modicum of truth to it.
- pureheartlover 3y ago[flagged]
- slyall 3y agoA new movie staring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum features this is a subplot. Stay for the last line of the trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0k04aH71UA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0k04aH71UA
- cm2187 3y agoThere is also a hilarious movie called The Moonwalkers which did that also. I think it completely missed its audience which probably killed the director's career which is a pity. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2718440/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2718440/
- pivic 3y agoI've reviewed this book and agree with the Apollo Magazine writer: this book is very sloppily edited. There are better books about Kubrick; I recommend: * Taschen books: 'The Stanley Kubrick Archives': https://www.taschen.com/en/books/film/45439/the-stanley-kubrick-archives https://www.taschen.com/en/books/film/45439/the-stanley-kubr... * David Mikics - 'Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker': https://archive.ph/k98vP https://archive.ph/k98vP My review of the Kolker/Abrams book: https://niklas.reviews/2024/03/22/robert-p-kolker-nathan-abrams-kubrick/ https://niklas.reviews/2024/03/22/robert-p-kolker-nathan-abr...