Stanley Kubrick's Longtime Producer Trashes 'Room 237' and Lists 'Eyes Wide Shut' As His Favorite Kubrick Film

Jan Harlan acted as a

researcher and producer for director Stanley Kubrick for over thirty years,

contributing to such iconic films as “A Clockwork Orange,” “Barry Lyndon,” “The

Shining,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Eyes Wide Shut.” Harlan

is one of three jury members on the docket of this year’s Bermuda

International Film Festival, which began on March 21. Last week, BIFF

hosted a panel discussion featuring Harlan as the main subject where he

discussed the art of filmmaking for festival attendees, filmmakers and students.

Before the panel, Harlan sat

down with Indiewire to discuss his work with Kubrick, including the in-depth

exhibit that he’s helped put together, and to offer some advice to young

filmmakers. Check out the accompanying video of the panel after the text

Q&A for more insights from Harlan.

Tell me about how you first started working with Stanley

Kubrick.

I have known Kubrick since I

was at school. He was married to my sister when I was very young. So I came to

know him very well. It was after “Dr. Strangelove” that he came back

from England to New York. It was much later in ’69 when he invited me to join

him to go to Romania on “Napoleon,” that was his big project and his

great project. So my wife and I and our baby we came to England, and thought OK

we’ll stay there for 6 months and then go to Romania. But then MGM pulled out

of the project. But we got along very well. I liked him and he liked me and he

asked me to stay.

One of the first things we

did together was get the rights to “Eyes Wide Shut.” It’s called

“Traumnovelle” and he was very much in love with that story, but it

proved to be just too difficult, so he dropped it. He had already a contract

with Warner Brothers ready to go and he pulled out. He chewed over it for thirty

years. When he finally made it he really considered it his greatest

contribution to the art of filmmaking. Many people wouldn’t agree with him but

that doesn’t really matter. Then came “A Clockwork Orange.” That was

my first job as an assistant. I learned the basics of the business, but my responsibility

was never what you see on the screen.

So were you a film fan before you started working

with him?

Always. I was absolutely. I

knew many, many movies. Anyway from “Barry Lyndon” onward I did what

I always do, negotiating and trying to get things. But since every film is

different it’s a very exciting life. Because you can’t compare “Barry

Lyndon” with “The Shining” or “Full Metal Jacket” or “Eyes

Wide Shut” there all totally different requirements. “Eyes Wide

Shut” was a great last experience to work with this man who was so

enormously critical of himself. It took forever to do.

I know that he didn’t want to be just another “mediocre”

filmmaker. He wanted them to last.

He had to be happy with it.

Lasting or not lasting was not on his mind. Also will the critics or the

audience like it? There’s nothing you can do about that. He had to like it.

Once he liked it that’s all he could do. And you just have to hope that many

people go with you and generally speaking enough people did. So his films were

a success.

Do you have a particular favorite?

I think it’s “Eyes Wide

Shut’ but I’m not objective because it may very well be because it was the last

time I worked with him, it was the last experience that’s imprinted on my mind.

And we talked also about “Traumnovelle” for over thirty years, you

know on and off. There was one point when he though of doing it as a black and

white, very cheap art house movie with Woody Allen in the lead. With Woody

Allen playing a straight, Jewish, American doctor in New York. What he liked is

universal; it’s a universal truth about the total destruction of jealousy and

sexual fantasy where everybody in the audience is an expert. So it’s a tricky

one. But anyway he wanted it in New York and he wasn’t happy with the script

and so he abandoned it and then “The Shining” was a walk in the park

in comparison, because it’s easy, you can do whatever you like. Nothing has to

make sense, it doesn’t matter you can do what you like.

Did you see “Room 237”?

Ah, so idiotic. Of course I

did. There’s nothing to like. It’s just dumb. I mean [the filmmaker] obviously

waited until Kubrick died. This happened to him in many cases, also this whole

story about him doing a fake moon landing. This was only possible after he was

dead. People come like worms; they creep out and take advantage of a guy who

can’t sue from the grave. At any rate, I don’t worry about things like that.

Tell me about the Kubrick exhibit you’ve put

together.

The exhibit is fantastic.

The whole exhibition was created because of the film institute in Frankfurt. We

were very resistant because why Germany? Kubrick really had nothing to do with

Germany; it should have really been New York or London where such an exhibition

should open because these were his two cities. But nobody came from New York

and nobody came from London to this very day. So Frankfurt pushed very hard,

and finally the federal government came and guaranteed certain funding because

they thought that Kubrick – it was irrelevant that he was American or lived in

England, he was a world artist like Picasso or Beethoven, it didn’t matter. He

was a really important artist of his generation. I’m sure it will come back to

America. But it should really come to New York. But nobody wants it.

Is there a lot of the “Napoleon” work in it?

“Napoleon” is very

much presented in that exhibition. And of course there’s this book on

“Napoleon” in the exhibit there’s this Taschen book, I think it’s the

only book made about a film that has never been made!

How come it never came together?

That’s a question for film

studio executives to decide because they have to evaluate, quite rightly, the

cost of doing it versus the potential audience, and I cannot judge this. Right

now we are talking about maybe a television series; that would be the solution,

no doubt.

Especially now since TV is so good.

Absolutely. Television is

now the answer, there’s no doubt about it. Finally it may come into it’s own.

You have a very famous uncle. (Harlan’s uncle was the

infamous Veit Harlan, who directed the Nazi propaganda film “Jew

Suss.”)

Yeah he was, I don’t know

much about him, but he was very famous in Germany. He did some schlock films,

some terrible movies. I can’t tell you much about it I would have to Google it

like you.

But my parents were opera singers, both of them. I grew up with music,

with classical music, that’s my home territory. I like great composers; it was

one of the first things that brought me together with Kubrick because I brought

to him “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” I came for Christmas to England, and

he said to me [of “2001” A Space Odyssey,”] “The music I

don’t really like yet. Do you have anything that is really great, and comes to

an end, and is not too long?” So I brought a whole stack of LP’s and one of

them was “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and he loved it instantly. He was

already taken by the title. It suggests something which is spiritual. He liked

that because his film actually was quite a spiritual film. “2001”

takes a big bow to the unknown or the creator of the universe. Kubrick was not

a religious guy at all, but he was very respectful to life and to the fact that

we know nothing. And we are surrounded by miracles. He was an agnostic.

That was always a sideline

of what I did later, I suggested music. I didn’t choose it, I suggested it. He

knows what he likes; he was very musical himself. He was very interested from

jazz to contemporary to Ligeti, which he used three times. Ligeti in “The

Shining” and Penderecki. “Dies Irae” by Berlioz is an

interesting example because the beginning of the film looks like it’s National

Geographic but it’s the music that tells you there’s something wrong here.

You do a lot of teaching now; what is your biggest

piece of advice that you give to students?

You’ve got to love it.

You’ve got to love what you’re doing because why should anybody else love it if

you don’t yourself? This goes for all of the elements. You’ve got to love your script;

you have to really have passion for wanting to tell a story. It’s a difficult

task because you know many students just have to make a short film as part of

their studies and it’s a big demand.. But on the other hand most of these films

are also not interesting. So it’s tough. I’m not saying it’s easy. You have to

love it and this is something I really love from Kubrick, he would not use

music he didn’t love. Now comes the question of what fits. Let’s talk about

music, what fits? Music fits if the director loves it. Does a Viennese waltz

fit as space music for a futuristic film? Of course it doesn’t. If you love it

enough and that’s what you want to do then it fits. This is artistic freedom,

yeah? Art is not about being realistic. Art is about being real. Big difference.

The video of the panel, which addresses even more

topics, is posted below, courtesy of BIFF and filmmaker Robert Zuill.





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