by Kevin Morris

Created on: May 13, 2007

On Stanley Kubrick

It was only very recently that I became acquainted with Stanley Kubrick. My first experience with his work was in 3rd grade, as 2001 was being aired on TV. Expecting a space film with all of the Star Wars fixin's, I was obviously disappointed (not as disappointed as when my Mom had me watch "this cool alien movie" called Close Encounters of the Third Kind mind you, but disappointed nevertheless). It was seven years until my next Kubrick experience, when I watched Clockwork Orange with a high school friend.

I was, as I assume most people were on their first viewing of Clockwork, unsettled by the content but impressed by the direction. Rape and porcelain penises notwithstanding, I thought it was an excellent film.

Shortly thereafter came Doctor Strangelove, which I watched with a friend who was a bit too interested in the Cold War (he said "Ruskies" a lotodd for a teenager I'd say). In any case, besides laughable exterior shots of a B-52 over Siberia, I was impressed with the film and its actors, George C. Scott in particular.

A few months later I watched both Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut, and realized The Shining, which I had already seen, was directed by Kubrick (I also re-watched 2001, for the record).

So, suffice to say, I have seen the bulk of Kubrick's major films (only Spartacus remaining absent) and sufficient material to analyze.
Certain things about Kubrick stand out immediately: he is methodical, intuitive and extremely talented. The exterior cuts in the conclusion of Jacket, the discovery of Tom Cruise's ruse in Eyes, and assorted shots from Clockwork and 2001 are all fascinating in their own unique ways.

But I have also found Kubrick's style to be inconsistent to the point of being distracting (I mean inconsistent within the same film). For example, the methodical filming of "The Dawn of Man" and other establishing shots in 2001 mesh strangely with the few steadicam scenes in the movie, and I feel as though the same can be said of Clockwork and Jacket.

It's almost as though the planned establishing shots in those films are too goodthey are too precise, too calculated and any deviation thereof feels to the viewer as a regression. Furthermore, static cuts in which the camera does not move at all are in my opinion serve only to remove the viewer from the illusion, as he realizes that the given scene is nothing but what the director wants it to be.

I have the same opinion of Copalla as well, and I feel that the flaws in Apocalypse Now are analogous to those in 2001: the planned set pieces are so choreographed, so meticulously designed that they lose their organic verisimilitude.

As a result, I found Strangelove to be Kubrick's most well-rounded piece, as it avoids the eccentricities I have mentioned. I was initially inclined to say the same about Eyes Wide Shut, but one a second viewing I was inclined to refine my position. Eyes certainly has less of a heavy-handed approach as Jacket, et. al, but it still heavy handed enough to be unsettling (the natural lighting is simply too natural).

This essay was certainly not intended to be an indictment of Kubrick or his work, and I would state my position in the following manner: perhaps the work of Kubrick and even Copalla are simply different art formsthey are not films but a series of paintings linked together by music and sound. The aforementioned films are not light on cellulose but oil and canvas, and Kubrick and Copalla are more Pollocks and Michaelangelos than Caperas and Hitchcocks.

Learn more about this author, Kevin Morris.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.