30/ What documentaries are there about Kubrick?



Making The Shining - Vivian Kubrick (1)

UK BBC2, 1980

(show as part of the "Arena" series of arts programmes)

Available in the US with the DVD release of The Shining Inevitably a subjective account of the director at work by his 18 year old daughter, who in true Kubrick fashion, operated all the camera and the sound equipment herself and filmed some 60 hours of material for a 25 minute programme. Making The Shining is a kind of miracle, in that it is an intimate, almost fly-on-the-wall portrait of the famously 'publicity shy' director at work, certainly more revealing than most portraits of directors at work this reviewer has seen. On first viewing, it seems slight and even quite slap-dash; the lack of any guiding narration, for instance, contributes to a sense of disorientation, giving the impression that what we are watching is nothing more than a series of unconnected incidents. It is only on subsequent viewings that Vivian's non-didactic approach to documentary making starts to bear fruit, the informality of her approach preserving truths about the film making process that a more structured documentary would have discarded. Vivian's free-roving, hand-held camera captures some candid moments in the filming, and these are combined with some equally revealing interviews of the cast and crew members, conducted in a more traditional and formal set-up by Leon Vitali and Ian Johnstone (although unfortunately Stanley Kubrick is not interviewed). All these factors elevate Making The Shining far above the crop of bland studio-made electronic press releases that accompany the opening of the majority of contemporary films. It's no Hearts of Darkness, but Making The Shining is one of the better documentaries about the film making process you are likely to see. Also well worth checking out is Vivan's charming director's commentary on the DVD of the Shining. RM





The Invisible Man - Paul Joyce

UK Channel 4, 1997

Running Time 49 mins approx

Not available in the US This is, in parts, an informative and well-made portrait of Stanley Kubrick. Notable especially for its excellent picture research - (it even has a clip from Fear and Desire) and first-hand interviews with Ken Adam, Garrett Brown, Michael Herr and Malcolm McDowell. Where The Invisible Man falls down on occasions is its tendency to name-check all the clichés about Kubrick's perfectionism and his misanthropy, evidenced by the negative impressions of disgruntled ex-colleagues. The programme isn't always honest editorially in the way it manipulates the footage to fit in with its agenda, for instance it quotes part of the Shelley Duvall interview in Making The Shining when she talks about how she often resented Kubrick, but cuts off her concluding remarks that she learned more on this film than on all her other productions, and ended up respecting and liking him. Joyce recently said of his film: "I'm sure parts of it were upsetting and, in retrospect overstepped the mark." . (1) The sole analytical voice is provided by film critic David Thompson, who's commentary - apart from one nice observation where he compares Jack's physical appearance in the Shining with Kubrick's - is haughty in tone and less that inspiring in content, especially when he speculates somewhat condescendingly upon the character of Kubrick the man - who he obviously does not know. Consequently Paul Joyce's film loses focus towards the end, becoming a succession of talking heads talking up the Kubrick myth of difficult tyrant and proffering mostly disparaging remarks about the man himself. This does not make for an objective let alone insightful study of the director and his work. In its introduction, The Invisible Man trumpets Kubrick as one of the most important artist of the 20th Century, but by its conclusion the programme's sympathies seem to have allied themselves with those who say that the end did not justify the means, thus creating a yawning paradox which Joyce's film sadly does not address.





The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick & Eyes wide Shut - Paul Joyce

UK Channel 4, September 5 1999

Running Time 49 mins approx

Not available in the US The Last Movie: Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut compliments and greatly enhances Paul Joyce's previous documentary about Kubrick (discussed above). In this film however there is not so much time devoted to Kubrick's films with the exception of Eyes Wide Shut, for it is a documentary about Stanley Kubrick the person. It almost goes without saying that "The Last Movie" is a vastly superior effort to its predecessor - it is probably the best documentary ever made about Stanley Kubrick. The is due to largely to the unprecedented access Joyce and his filmcrew negotiated with the Kubrick family. Viewers could see inside Childwick Bury for the first time (the driveway, the entrance, the garden, some corridors, a projection room and the family kitchen). There are candid interviews with Kubrick's wife Christaine and two of their three daughters, Katharina and Anya. (Vivian was absent, as she lives in the US). There are also interviews with a number of SK's collaborators, notably Brian Aldiss, Ian Watson, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman Sidney Pollack, Sara Maitland, Candia McWilliam Terry Semel and Jan Harlan . All the interviewees were revealing in their own way and many talked movingly about their memories of Stanley and their reaction to his death. Many rumours that have dogged Kubrick fans for years were cleared up. (2) A minor quibble was that Joyce used visual and audio gimmicks to illustrate his some of the points made, for instance the sound of a helicopter came over the soundtrack when Cruise talked about arriving by helicopter to meet Kubrick. On the whole these additions were unnecessary and distracting. Undoubtedly Joyce's real coup was gaining the co-operation and trust of the Kubrick family to participate in the film but the sensitively he employs in both conducting and editing the interviews must be commended also. The last shot was of Kubrick's grave in his favourite spot in the garden of his home. A simple grave, with no headstone, a pile of pebbled stones in the shade of some trees. RM, ME, FQ Notes

(1) Paul Joyce quoted in Time Out Magazine (back) (2) See questions: 12 Why was Clockwork Orange banned, and queston 15: AI true and false rumours. (back) (3) There was an interesting debate on amk as to whether the released film was Vivian's or Stanley's cut. This came about because of remarks its commissioning editor, Alan Yentob, made to introduce a recent showing on BBC2. vajman (vajman) wrote:

> At the beginning of the showing last Saturday, Alan Yentob, told us that

> there were in fact two different versions of "Making The Shining". One that

> Stanley had edited and one edited by his daughter.



I was the assistant editor who worked with Vivian on this. What Alan Yentob meant was that we showed him two possible versions, one of which was the way Stanley wanted it. Stanley was not involved in the actual editing of the documentary at all: only to tell Vivian which scenes he didn't like, and thus [what] he'd like her to take out. He also wanted us to put in at least one extra clip of the Shining. Vivian was furious, and the idea of showing Alan the two versions (there weren't two separate versions: we simply said 'or do you prefer it this way?' and took out the 'offending' scenes.) Alan did indeed prefer Vivian's version (there was one scene that showed Stanley directing which I thought showed him in a very good light), but I'm afraid his memory is wrong. He and Vivian did NOT win the argument and it was Stanley's version that went out! > The reason for this was that Stanley felt that his daughter had

> included too much material of Stanley in her version. No: the exact reverse of the truth. He had us remove quite a lot of himself at work. He let us keep only those scenes that showed him at his fiercest! > Alan Yentob was shown the two versions of the film and asked to choose

> which one to broadcast on Arena. He was not told whose cut was whose.

> He chose Vivian's. What happened to the other cut is not known. Are

> there in fact two versions of this film being shown around the world? No. As I say, there was only one documentary, though it is just possible that the deleted scenes still exist in a film can somewhere, and that will almost certainly be the Kubrick family home, and thus totally inaccessible. And the same will apply to all the out-takes. About 40 hours worth if I remember rightly! GS (back)







31/ - What directors did Kubrick try to support, and what advice did he offer to young filmmakers?

He tried to set Peter Weir (Picknick at Hanging Rock, Witness, The Truman Show) up with an adaptation of The Thorn Birds, and he was hoping that he would direct the film version of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two. When Mike Hodges ( Get Carter, A Prayer for the Dying, Black Rainbow) was having trouble with Warner Brothers executives over one of his films in the seventies he mysteriously found his path cleared one day. He managed to trace this back to a call which Kubrick had personally made to Warners after hearing of Mike's problems. Kubrick seemed to have power over Warners top brass that was largely based on sheer force of personality. Kubrick was he was known to donate film stock to the National and London International Film School.. Andrew Mollo and Kevin Brownlow

Kubrick gave them assistance on the film It Happened Here ******* In 1966 Hollis Albert, (1) remarked of Kubrick's approach to filmmaking: "He thinks it is possible to learn more from film that "deals with other things, like documentaries, a few moments in crazy avant-garde movies, and TV commercials, even if they're things that only happen to work for five seconds." Kubrick gave advice to novice filmmakers in an interview with Joseph Gemelis in 1969. JG

If you were nineteen and starting out again, would you go to film school? SK

The best education in film is to make one. I would advise any neophyte director to try to make a film by himself. A three-minute short will teach him a lot. I know that all the things I did at the beginning were, in microcosm, the things I'm doing now as a director and producer. There are a lot of non-creative aspects to filmmaking which have to be overcome, and you will experience them all when you make even the simplest film: business, organization, taxes, etc., etc. It is rare to be able to have an uncluttered, artistic environment when you make a film, and being able to accept this is essential. The point to stress is that anyone seriously interested in making a film should find as much money as he can as quickly as he can and go out and do it. And this is no longer as difficult as it once was. When I began making movies as an independent in the early 1950s I received a fair amount of publicity because I was something of a freak in an industry dominated by a handful of huge studios. Everyone was amazed that it could be done at all. But anyone can make a movie who has a little knowledge of cameras and tape recorders, a lot of ambition and -- hopefully -- talent. It's gotten down to the pencil and paper level. We're really on the threshold of a revolutionary new era in film. FQ, RM, ME Note:

Quotations taken from Hollis Albert's article in the New York Times, "'2001': Offbeat Director In Outer Space," available online at New York Times' Kubrick archive (back)







32/ - What was Kubrick's screenwriting style?

"The screenplay is the most uncommunicative form of writing ever devised." Stanley Kubrick - quoted in Jerome Agel's Making of 2001 ******* Here a few remarks Kubrick made about writing a screenplay: "[it] is a very different thing than writing a novel or an original story. A good story is a kind of a miracle, [...] When you can write a book like that, you've really done something. On the other hand, writing the screenplay of the book is much more of a logical process -- something between writing and breaking a code. It does not require the inspiration or the invention of the novelist. I'm not saying it's easy to write a good screenplay. It certainly isn't, and a lot of fine novels have been ruined in the process. " "Thinking of the visual conception of a scene at the script stage can be a trap that straitjackets the scene. I find it more profitable to just try to get the most interesting and truthful business going to support the scene and then see if there's a way to make it interesting photographically. There's nothing worse than arbitrarily setting up some sort of visual thing that really doesn't belong as part of the scene" "Writers tend to approach the creation of a drama too mush in terms of words, failing to realize the greatest force they have is the mood and feeling they can produce in the audience through the actor." "However serious your intentions may be, and however important you think are the ideas of the story, the enormous cost of a movie makes it necessary to reach the largest potential audience for that story, in order to give your backers their best chance to get their money back and hopefully make a profit. No one will disagree that a good story is an essential starting point for accomplishing this. But another thing, too, the stronger the story, the more chances you can take with everything else. I think Dr. Strangelove is a good example of this. It was based on a very good suspense novel, Red Alert, written by Peter George, a former RAF navigator. The ideas of the story and all its suspense were still there even when it was completely changed into black comedy." "I enjoy working with someone I find stimulating. One of the most fruitful and enjoyable collaborations I have had was with Arthur C. Clarke in writing the story of 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the paradoxes of movie writing is that, with a few notable exceptions, writers who can really write are not interested in working on film scripts. They quite correctly regard their important work as being done for publication. I wrote the screenplay for Barry Lyndon alone. The first draft took three or four months but, as with all my films, the subsequent writing process never really stopped. What you have written and is yet unfilmed is inevitably affected by what has been filmed. New problems of content or dramatic weight reveal themselves. Rehearsing a scene can also cause script changes. However carefully you think about a scene, and however clearly you believe you have visualized it, it's never the same when you finally see it played. Sometimes a totally new idea comes up out of the blue, during a rehearsal, or even during actual shooting, which is simply too good to ignore. This can necessitate the new scene being worked out with the actors right then and there. As long as the actors know the objectives of the scene, and understand their characters, this is less difficult and much quicker to do than you might imagine." Kirk Douglas, obviously piqued at Kubrick's very public dismissals of Spartacus pithily remarked: "Stanley is not a writer. He has always functioned better if he got a good writer and worked with him as an editor. He was great a developing a concept. [...] but that's not the same as writing a script. I have a copy of the terrible script of Paths of Glory that he wrote to make it more commercial. If we had shot that script Stanley might still be living in an apartment in Brooklyn instead of a castle in England." Sources

Kubrick quotes in an interview with Michel Ciment's available to read online at The Kubrick Site. Kirk Douglas quote from his autobiography "The Ragman's Son"







33/ - What was Kubrick's dispute with Punch magazine about?

The following letter appeared in the Tuesday edition of The Times Of London: [...] The story begins in August 1998 when Punch published an article about Kubrick in its "Lowdown" column. In the main, the article did not differ from many others published over the years by journalists who felt at liberty to take pot-shots, in print, at a man they knew was unlikely to reply. But this alleged that he was clinically insane. The words used were "we're hearing stories that suggest Kubrick is even more insane than psychiatrists have led us to believe..." Unfortunately for Punch, English law is designed to protect people from such unfunny and blatantly defamatory statements. With Stanley, we consulted Keith Schilling, a libel specialist; Stanley decided to sue Punch Ltd for libel. It in turn decided to defend the claim. As any barrack-room lawyer knows, there are limited defences to a libel action. One is "truth", but Punch could not begin to prove that Stanley was clinically insane, so instead filed a defence claiming that he was autocratic, eccentric and difficult to work with. It based this defence on a hundred or so stories from a variety of newspaper articles and poorly researched books which fell a long way short of a proper defence. Punch and its Editor at no time showed any remorse. On the contrary, the magazine took to reproducing Stanley's solicitor's letters and seemed to be hell-bent on fighting the case in the full glare of publicity. James Steen, the Editor of Punch, was quoted as saying that the article was a "silly gossip story and if Kubrick wants to push his way through a mob of photographers every day on his way to court, we'll see him there". None of the above would have been particularly worthy of comment but for the fact that on March 4 this year Stanley applied at a High Court hearing for Punch's defence to be struck out. This was on the basis that it was without legal foundation. The hearing was held in private, so little from it is likely to be made public. The gist of Stanley's argument was that Punch had published a defamatory article which meant what it said: namely, that he was clinically insane, and that the magazine's defence was hopeless and irrelevant. Mr Justice Popplewell, after a brief hearing, left the publishers and Editor of Punch in no doubt about his views, even though the hearing was a procedural one, not the actual trial on the merits. In short, Punch's defences of justification and fair comment were struck out. Costs were awarded against Punch and Steen and an order made that they would have 21 days to reconsider their position and to file an alternative defence. In practice, Punch had no alternative defence: the game was up and Kubrick had won his case. Punch and its solicitors seemed to have thought that Stanley's distaste for personal publicity would have convinced him to drop the action once they had set up a wafer-thin defence. In this they were wrong. Under English law, the death of a plaintiff in a libel action brings an end to his case. Given that one cannot libel the dead, Stanley's lawsuit is now at an end. In our last conversation with Stanley, a colleague and I told him that Punch's defence had been shot down and that it was only a question of time before the defendants caved in. He was delighted, mentioning it to friends and family. All he had really wanted from Punch was reasonable: an apology and payment of his costs. Any damages would have gone to charity. To this day, the journalists at Punch have treated the whole affair as a trifling matter driven by lawyers, but never once apologised for grossly offensive remarks. On the contrary, in the first issue of Punch after Stanley's death, it misleadingly suggested that it had a defence which would have been heard later this year, failing to mention that its defence had been struck out. This action was brought on behalf of those who feel that privacy and reputation are valuable. Stanley explained it beautifully: "Rick, I have grandchildren." To them I say: whatever Punch may have written (and no doubt may write again), this is what happened. In the matter of Stanley Kubrick v James Steen and Punch Ltd, Stanley Kubrick won and Punch lost.











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