Stanley Kubrick

"I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself."

(Stanley Kubrick)

As one of the most widely acclaimed and influential directors of the postwar era, Stanley Kubrick enjoyed a reputation and a standing unique among the filmmakers of his day. He had a brilliant career with relatively few films. An outsider, he worked beyond the confines of Hollywood, which he disliked, maintaining complete control of his projects and making movies according to his own ideas and time constraints. To him, filmmaking was a form of art and unlike Hollywood, not a business.

Working in a vast range of styles from dark comedy to horror to crime to drama, Kubrick was an enigma, living and creating in almost total seclusion, far away from the watchful eye of the media. His films were a reflection of his obsessive nature, perfectionist masterpieces that remain among the most thoughtful and visionary motion pictures ever made.

Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928 in the Bronx. In 1942, while still in high school, he initially had an interest in photography, which his father

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introduced. Stanley father, Jacques Kubrick, spend his life as a physician. His first brush with fame occurred when Look magazine published one of his early photographs of a newspaper seller overwhelmed by the headlines announcing the death of President Roosevelt.

Shortly there after, Kubrick started work at Look magazine as an apprentice photographer. In 1946 he became a reporter for the magazine and traveled across the United States and Europe. While a student at Columbia University, Kubrick became interested in filmmaking and attended the Museum of Modern Art showings regularly. To supplement his income, he played chess for money in Greenwich Village.

In 1951 at the age of twenty, Kubrick and a school friend, Alfred Singer used their life savings to finance his first film, Day of the Fight, a sixteen-minute documentary on boxer Walter Cartier. This short film was later purchased by RKO for its This Is America series and played in theaters in New York. Encouraged by his success, Kubrick quit his job at Look and pursued filmmaking full-time. Soon, RKO assigned him to head a short film for their documentary series Pathe Screenliner.

The title, Flying Padre was a nine-minute film highlighting Fred Stadtmueller, a priest who piloted a small plane around his four hundred mile New

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Mexico parish. After this he filmed other documentaries, including his first color film The Seafarers. Kubrick, with the aid of friends and relatives, raised $13,000 to finance his first feature film, the war story Fear and Desire. The film was silent at first with the dialogue dubbed in later. It never made back its initial investment. Then in 1955, he directed his second feature film, the gangland melodrama Killer's Kiss. This film was more successful and was sold to United Artists.

In 1956, Kubrick directed his first studio picture, The Killing with a screenplay by Jim Thompson. This was his first artistic success and it brought him to the attention of MGM production head Dore Share. In 1957, Kubricks hot Paths of Glory, which was rejected by many studios until Kirk Douglas decided to star in the film. This led to a much-needed financing deal with United Artists. The film won considerable critical acclaim and promoted Kubrick's reputation as a rising talent.

In 1958, Marlon Brando hired him as director for his Western One Eyed Jacks. Kubrick resented Brando's constant intervening in his work and he left the film forfeiting $100,000. In 1959, Kubrick became director of Spartacus. He took the job even though he had no influence on screenplay, production and distribution. Spartacus is Kubrick's first commercial success. The most costly film produced at that time, with a budget of $12 million, it proved to be a major hit

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and won several Oscars and a Golden Globe for best film. Spartacus remains his only all-Hollywood production.

In 1961, Kubrick shot Lolita, based on Nabakov's book of the same name, about a man's infatuation with his teenaged stepdaughter. Due to a number of legal and financial difficulties, the film was shot in England. The film was another commercial success, although the critics didn't like it. Because of this experience, Kubrick created his own production company located in England where he chose to live and work after the film's completion.

He next turned to his first undisputed masterpiece, the 1964 Cold War-era black comedy Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This film was an adaptation of Peter Georges novel Red Alert starring Peter Sellers in three different roles. Critics praised the film one of the funniest film created. With that, the film received Oscar nominations for best director and best picture.

In 1965, Kubrick began production on what was to become his crowning achievement, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Inspired equally by the story The Sentinel and the three questions "Where do I come from? Who am I? And Where am I going?" this 1968 film is a complex reflection on man's instinctive desire for

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violence. What Kubrick seems to be suggesting is that all human progress is linked to the satisfying of these instincts. When these are repressed, as in the society of 2001, man wastes away.

Kubrick, through this film, points out how powerless human thought becomes. This film quickly emerged as a landmark in motion picture history, growing in status to become recognized as one of the greatest and most thought-provoking movies ever released. It was his only film to win him his first and only personal Oscar, not for directing but for visual effects.

Kubrick's next successful and controversial film was A Clockwork Orange. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess. This film is a satiric essay on crime and punishment