The Movie Sleuth begins its journey through the films of Stanley Kubrick with part one, The Genesis of Kubrick.
The Genesis of Kubrick
There
isn't much one can say about the art of Stanley Kubrick that hasn't already
been said. His films defy expectation,
categorization, and are crafted with a clean, almost God-like precision. To see a film of his once is never
enough. Although the territory might be
familiar from previous viewings, each experience with a Kubrick film can
be re-read as something fresh and new.
Key to the timelessness of his images is the inability for them to
age. Each film is as fresh, subversive,
groundbreaking, shocking, and transcendent now as they were when they were
first released. Unlike other directors
who wear their influences on their sleeve, Kubrick's primary inspiration first
and foremost was his own. And even further
still, Kubrick is still regarded as an artist years ahead of his viewers and
critics in both intellect and technique.
With this retrospective, let us take a gander through the films of what
is probably cinema's greatest film making genius and my own personal idol,
Stanley Kubrick.
Fear
and Desire (1953) 4/10
The
debut of who would eventually become one of the world's greatest directors,
Stanley Kubrick's Fear and Desire is an existential war film about four
soldiers who find themselves behind enemy lines. Devoid of sides or country, the soldiers
wander amid the countryside trying to escape before happening upon a young
woman who doesn't speak their language.
Fearing the presence of enemies nearby, the men apprehend the woman in
an attempt to flush out enemy fire. The
film takes on the feel of a fever dream as the men close in on their
'enemy'.
True
to most directors finding their niche, Kubrick's debut is admittedly rife with
problems. For the impeccable technical
master, there were issues with blocking such as actors entering the wrong side
of the frame, requiring optical flipping for continuity. The film was shot without sound, opting for
post-dubbing later, which exceeded the expenses of the production's tight
budget. Kubrick went so far as accepting
additional short film jobs to garner the expenses required to complete
production on Fear and Desire. While
traces of Kubrick's close-ups and framing are visible, the graceful tracking
shots one is accustomed to when viewing a Kubrick film are noticeably absent
here.
Kubrick
himself was dismayed by the end results and withdrew the film from
circulation. Upon conducting a
retrospective on the director, a theater double-billed Fear and Desire
with Killer's Kiss. Kubrick then
went on to dub Fear and Desire as 'a bumbling amateur film
exercise'. In recent years the Library
of Congress, in conjunction with Kubrick's estate, produced a restored Blu-ray
transfer of Fear and Desire, which included one of his short films, The
Seafarers (the UK edition includes Kubrick's other shorts The Day of the
Fight and Flying Padre).
Although a curious viewing experience for Kubrick aficionados (myself
included), this is strictly for those keen on his work. Much like it's creator, I cannot recommend it
to the average moviegoer.
Killer's
Kiss (1955) 4/10
Kubrick's
second feature, Killer's Kiss, finds the young and budding artist
working within the conventions of late 40s film noir. It tells the story of a flailing boxer named
Davey (Jamie Smith) living in the bronx across apartments from a beautiful taxi
dancer named Gloria (New York Times writer Chris Chase billed as Irene
Kane). Watching her disrobe night after
night from his window (think Hitchcock's Rear Window) he grows
infatuated with her. Meanwhile she continues
to fend off her sleazy, smitten boss Vincent (Frank Silvera from Fear and
Desire) and his unrelenting come-ons.
After a violent domestic dispute with Vincent, Davey comes to her rescue
and the two fall in love. But Vincent
isn't ready to let go of his obsession with Gloria quite yet, and in typical
noir fashion, the two troubled suitors lock horns in a violent battle to the
death.
Much
like his previous feature debut Fear and Desire, Killer's Kiss runs
just over an hour in length and showcases the eventual master filmmaker finding
his niche. An innovative approach to the
boxing match, with low angle close-ups and stark lighting of the heavyweights
throwing punches at each other's sweaty bodies, would predate the iconic
camerawork and editing of Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. It should be noted that Kubrick edited Killer's
Kiss in addition to cinematography and direction. There's an inspired chase sequence involving
Davey evading Vincent and his goons amid the barren cityscape of New York
before happening upon an abandoned factory full of female mannequins (Clockwork
Orange, anyone?). That Vincent
challenges Davey with an axe couldn't help but conjure up images of Jack
Nicholson's infamous use of the said weapon in The Shining. Davey's consistent voiceover narration can
also be traced to Alex in Clockwork Orange, inviting us to share in the
experience of a fighter living on the edge.
Still,
Killer's Kiss became second to Fear and Desire as a feature that
would inspire chagrin from the master filmmaker when people would ask about
it. For one thing, the ending was
altered by the studio opting for a more optimistic denouemont, against
Kubrick's wishes. To try and imagine
Kubrick not having complete control over his films seems unthinkable, but even
the cinematic God himself still had yet to earn that kind of respect. Though beautifully photographed (as
expected), the plot itself is pulp fiction, traditional noir without any of the
intellect infused within his images.
While a second disappointment for Kubrick, the film inspired a cinematic
treatise on the making of the film called Stranger's Kiss and also
ultimately provided Kubrick with the opportunity to make his first fully
fledged masterpiece, The Killing.
The
Killing (1956) 8/10
Continuing
with the noirish tradition set up in Killer's Kiss with greater control
over the finality of the product this time around, Stanley Kubrick's The
Killing is a superb heist picture, a mobster drama which involves the
audience fully in the planning, execution, and aftermath of the crime. Told in the typical disjointed fashion of
noir but with greater, cleaner technical precision and a stronger story than previously,
we are drawn into a plot involving the robbery of a racehorse track's money
counting room, masterminded by a veteran criminal named Johnny Clay (Sterling
Hayden). Intending on pulling off one
final robbery before settling down for good, he enlists several key players
intended to distract from the robbery, include a sniper ordered to kill one of
the racehorses and a fight spilling out into a lobby. Despite all the effort and success of the
heist, the conspirators turn on one another once the money is on hand and the
plot goes awry.
Following
through with his convictions which he wasn't allowed to express in Killer's
Kiss, The Killing is the kind of classic film noir which sees the
story through to it's logical end. By
that, Kubrick doesn't let his characters off the hook so easily, as the
consequences of the conspirators' actions gradually catch up with
everyone. It's a theme Kubrick would
explore fully in later films like Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon,
the idea of evil ultimately cancelling itself out with time and tide. By the point of The Killing, Kubrick
fully mastered his craft of the motion picture camera, creating his sharpest,
cleanest and fully polished film to date.
Kubrick's perspective, precise dolly shots and tracking shots, indicated
an almost quantum leap of technological advancement over his previous
film. It's worth noting The Killing also
sports an early Sterling Hayden as a leading man in a gangster film,
foreshadowing the work to come as General Jack T. Ripper in Kubrick's Dr.
Strangelove.
Over
the years, the reputation of The Killing as Kubrick's first fully
controlled masterpiece has only grown in stature. Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, for instance,
points to The Killing as the primary influence on his own directorial debut,
Reservoir Dogs. Where Fear and
Desire and Killer's Kiss showcased the early scribblings of a
budding artist, The Killing announced Kubrick as a major talent emerging
within the film community. Not satisfied
with basking in the light of his first critical succes, Kubrick was ready to
create yet another masterpiece, and one of the most profoundly affecting
anti-war films of all time, Paths of Glory.
Paths
of Glory (1957) 9/10
Stanley
Kubrick's Paths of Glory is at once a masterful anti-war epic and an
expression of true patriotism and duty.
In only two hours it manages to encapsulate the full spectrum of horror
regarding combat battle and the ruthless, counterproductive politics behind the
war machine. Set during WWI surrounding
trench warfare between France and Germany, the film is loosely based on the
true story of a Regiment Colonel's (Kirk Douglas, in arguably his greatest
role) efforts to defend three soldiers wrongfully indicted with charges of
cowardice, picked at random as an example to the Regiment for failing to seize
a German position known as 'the Anthill' in order to deflect attention from the
court marshall's own order to the Regimen to fire upon his own squad. While filled with sweeping vistas of warfare
set deep in the trenches, the real battles are fought in court concerning
innocent soldiers needlessly sent to death for the reckless egos of their
superiors.
An
early indication of the impeccable technical quality of Kubrick, Paths of
Glory contains some of the cleanest, most beautifully photographed
sequences of combat ever lensed. Films
like Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and it's D-Day sequences clearly
took note of the inter cutting between wide shots of armies charging ahead into
a barrage of bullets and explosions and close-ups of grimy faces of men huddled
together in the trenches. Kubrick's
symmetrical use of perspective, medium shots and his sharp, clinical editing is
as fully developed and pristine as the footage of his later world-famous
efforts such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clockwork Orange, and his
2nd anti-war epic, Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick's perfectionism also began to bloom
with Paths of Glory, as stories of veteran actor Adolphe Menjou losing
his temper over being asked for repeat takes by the director, albeit a
precursor to Kubrick's request that Scatman Crothers explain the process of
'shining' to actor Danny Lloyd 148 times for The Shining.
The
anger Kubrick's tragedy fills his viewers with is palpable, with its obvious
hypocrisy regarding the unfair trial of innocent men's lives as convenient
coverage for their superior's own infractions.
Less about war itself than the personified images of those purporting to
fight it, it's an indictment of the war machine sacrificing the lives of the
innocent in order to fulfill their own reputation. For years, due to it's portrait of the French
General command, the film was withheld from release in France until the mid
1970s. Only during the film's symbolic
finale when a German woman (Kubrick's future wife, Christiane Kubrick) sings a
children's folk song to a drunk and rowdy Regimen after the execution does the
film's anti-war language become universal and clear. While war is a ruthless meat grinder
devouring nearly all who participate in it, it's the battles fought behind
closed doors that are the most vicious and deeply haunting.
Spartacus
(1960) 6/10
 |
Considered
by many to be the first film to depict gladiatorial battle, Stanley Kubrick's
gargantuan historical epic Spartacus is the director's first foray into
the Hollywood mainstream. Originally
directed by epic filmmaker Anthony Mann for one week, Kubrick was hired to take
over a production in turmoil and wound up pulling together a successful blockbuster,
proving he could work within the system amid movie moguls and still hold his
own. The film also dared to openly defy
the Hollywood blacklist, with full proclamation of Johnny Got His Gun writer
Dalton Trumbo as the screenwriter, garnering the support of President John F.
Kennedy to help end the blacklisting.
Though Kubrick conceded to giving up final cut, a move which
caused him to write off Spartacus for many years, the film wound up
becoming one of Universal Studios most commercially successful films of all
time, earning Kubrick the long sought after right to make films precisely as he
intended to.
Loosely
based on the title character, Spartacus tells the story of a slave who
forms a rebellion and nearly overthrows the Roman Empire. Starring Kirk Douglas as the iconic warrior,
the film is a standard historical epic, an overblown Hollywood spectacle, and
in some circles, “the manliest film of all time”. Spanning three hours, the anti-slavery epic
contains extravagant battle sequences consisting of thousands of extras, many
of which would influence the bloody ground battles in Mel Gibson's Braveheart. It's famous chant of extras shouting 'Hail,
Crassus!' and 'I'm Spartacus', incidentally, was recorded at a Michigan State
Notre Dame college football game. A
precursor to the musclebound action picture, Spartacus is among the
first historical epics produced by Hollywood not dealing with Christianity or
God. There's also an infamous
sequence (restored to the film's 1991
re-issue) dealing with Roman sexual deviance, with Laurence Olivier being
bathed by his slave Tony Curtis. All in
all, this was a Hollywood superproduction that managed to challenge many
standards of the system in terms of censorship and sensibility.
Despite
garnering several Academy Award nominations and solidifying Kubrick's status as
a major force to be reckoned with, Kubrick ultimately wound up disowning the
film over the lack of final cut. For
instance, Kubrick rejected the idea of a faultless protagonist, standard to
Hollywood melodramas, and the director wound up clashing with both screenwriter
Trumbo and Kirk Douglas over the finality of the piece. Others cite Spartacus as the one
bearing the fewest visual trademarks of it's master director. Though excluded from Kubrick's canon, the
film still has an enormous following and Kubrick did give his blessing on the
1991 restoration. The Criterion
Collection laserdisc and DVD releases themselves were supervised and approved
by Kubrick, who would later say “I really don't know what to say to those who
come to me and say 'Boy, I really loved Spartacus'”. In spite of Kubrick's disappointment with the
piece, it gave him the carte-blanche to make his first film completely free of
the constraints of the studio system and the expectations of others. Kubrick earned with Spartacus the
right to final cut for the rest of his career.
-Andrew Kotwicki