Exacting. Demanding. Controlling. Obsessive. This was Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999), the reclusive mastermind behind 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket. The Kubrick approach to filmmaking was not for the weak of spirit. Actors ranging from Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to Jack Nicholson and Ryan O’Neal were made to endure dozens upon dozens of camera takes until their director was satisfied. Studio overseers came to expect production delays and cost overruns under highly classified conditions. Cinematographers resigned themselves to the producer/director occasionally seizing control of the camera. Craftsmen and artists were driven to near madness with unpredictable Kubrickian instructions.
But the results spoke for themselves: the breathtaking opulence of Barry Lyndon and its landmark uses of genuine candlelight for illumination; the superb Steadicam tracking shots of the terrifying Overlook Hotel in The Shining; the ritualistic cult orgy in Eyes Wide Shut; the spaceship and space station choreography of 2001; the immaculate and deceptive sterility of the Marine Corps barracks in Full Metal Jacket; the notorious “War Room” of Dr. Strangelove.
Such visual splendor was compounded by Kubrick’s uncompromising (and in many cases prophetic) views of humanity that never failed to inflame critical and academic debate: the madness of the nuclear arms race (Dr. Strangelove); the perils of artificial intelligence (2001); military corruption and dehumanization (Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket). Kubrick could also elicit shock and outrage in his landmark adaptations of novels by Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita) and Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange).
Film historian Max Alvarez leads an electrifying filmmaking odyssey through the life and career of one of the 20th century’s most provocative, maddening, and brilliant cinematic practitioners.
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