What are your thoughts on Stanley Kubrick?

H

HenryMurdoch

Member
I recently watched the documentary Stanley Kubrick A Life In Pictures, what a great documentary! It's hosted by Tom Cruise and has a lot of celebs in it and some never before seen footage on set with him.

I finally got around to watching THE SHINING. I'm not a big horror fan which is why I never thought to see it. It didn't really seem like a horror film, wasn't that scary. However it was one of the most beautiful films I've seen. I was blown away by the long tracking shots that were incredibly smooth.

His attention to detail is unbelievable.

Anyways, just wondering what the consensus was on Kubrick? If you say over-rated, you should really watch that documentary. :D
 
I don't know if anyone else has ever noticed it, but his films seem so much wider than your average film. He manages to get much more in each shot, does anyone know how he achieved this?
 
I might be the only one, but my favourite Kubrick film is his biggest flop: Barry Lindon.

Frank
 
I've never really liked him. It seems like he knows how to make part of a good movie, then the rest falls apart (or is just far less interesting).
 
He made a pair of first-rate films: Dr. Strangelove and The Shining (both at the to o' their respective genre)...

Otherwise, greatly overrated - or, as Horse said, he made bits and pieces of goodness.
 
The first 1/2 of Full Metal Jacket could have been it's own movie, and i would have been fine with it. The Shining is probably my fave of Kubricks.
 
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2001: A Space Odyssey
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The man knows what he's doing. I'm not a fan boy who'll fall for anything he makes, but the majority of his films are ones I think are incredibly well made. The Shining is near the top of my list for awesome films.
 
I'd say overrated, but with the caveat that I haven't seen all of his work.


Seen:


2001
The Shining
Sparticus
Clockwork Orange
Dr. Strangelove
Paths of Glory
Full Metal Jacket

and most of Eyes Wide Shut (but was too young to really know what was going except orgies).

I still need to see Lolita and Barry Lyndon (along with a couple of his earlier films) to make a full decision but- from what I've seen, he has the same problem other directors like Lynch, Hitchcock suffer from- he knows how to use the camera in the technical sense, but not how to say things.

2001 almost said something- I used to think that film was so amazing. The first 20 minutes still are (with man's birth- it starts so interestingly, with so many possibilities), then it gets so obsessed with all of it's technical FX breakthroughs that it forgets where it is and becomes boring eye-candy with little to say.

Clockwork Orange is by far his most overrated film, loved by teenagers simply for the rape scenes (SERIOUSLY) and ultra violence. To me, it's ultra-cynical.

But I do have to say Paths of Glory- perhaps one of his most "straightfoward" films- is also his best. Why? There's humanity. There's a fear of death, and Kubrick uses the camera to look at people and examine them instead of just making fun of violence through ridiculous satire. The ending scene is truly horrifying, and it's one of the few, true "anti-war" films that really works- not by making war exciting, but by making it look pathetic and murderous and using the camera like a microscope to give FACES to the people that die in it.

Sparticus is also interesting, though I still hold that Paths is the only somewhat deep film I've seen by him yet. His camera choices in that one are also very subtle, and the black and white suits his style much better than color. I'm not dismissing him though, seeing as I haven't seen it all- but I still think he's overhyped.
 
I hear he was good at what he did, I never really got into his movies, maybe the Shining a little, I was 9 or 10. He inspired a lot of people who made really bad infomercials.
 
He's brilliant...
He's dead...
Boy did he pay attention to detail
Redrum...
Barry Lindon used NASA lenses and had freakishly shallow DoF
A Clockwork Orange had penis shaped popsicles
Heeeeeere's Johnny!
People that think he's overrated suck (J/K.. sort of)
Actually not so much the people, but the fact that they think he's overrated sucks, maybe he is, but maybe I give him a pass because he is sooooo f-ing passionate and such a visionary...
 
ChipG said:
34 hours on this post with 122 page views, says everything right there...
Click to expand...

You could be right, but I don't think that's reliable. As a test, I searched for "Citizen Kane", and found an old post asking about Citizen Kane Cinematography. It has a total of 343 view and 3 replies (in a filmmaker forum no less) -- and that's for a film referred to as the greatest American film ever.

It is more likely that most people are just not interested in taking part in a discussion that has an attention grabber for a subject. I am a Kubrick fan yet my first reaction was to not bother with the thread due to its high "my dad is stronger than your dad" potential. Plus it's in the off-topic section, which I suppose many avoid to begin with...I rarely look at it myself.
 
I have seen most of his films and Like his work. I actually love eyes wide shut and the parts he directed on A.I. were very creepy. Then Steven came in and speilberged it Which is not really a bad thing. (maybe)

2001 was great, the shining was amazing, and Full Metal jacket has many classic moments.
 
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