Director : Stanley Kubrick(Movies)

Choose any critic and give him any three movies of Stanley Kubrick after The Killing(1956),I am sure no movie critic can give less than 8 out of 10 to any of his movies and for fans his movies are like bamboo jungles,if even one tree catch fire,the whole jungle will be burned within hours,that’s the effect of his movie.

So I chose three of his movies:2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining.

How can a man create a Science fiction like 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968),and turn himslef into a genre in which portrayal of sex and violence is still best in art of cinema A Clockwork Orange(1973).Having turned down directing a sequel to The Exorcist (1973), Kubrick made his own horror film: The Shining (1980).So his talent didn’t care about the genre at all and he produced these classicals.

2001: A Space Odyssey:He made this science fiction before man captured the Moon(in 1969).His imagination as a director was so big and realistic but he was so ahead of his time nobody ever thought of space station and all the technologies he had shown in that movie.Even the super computer thing come from this movie only.Man vs Computer conflict is also first used in wide way in this movie.The film has a memorable soundtrack.

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times opined that it was “The picture that science fiction fans of every age and in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future…it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film.”

Kubrick won his only Oscar for visual effect for this movie .

There is no dialogue at all for the entirety of both the first and last 20 minutes or so of the film; the total narrative of these sections is carried entirely by images, actions, sound effects, a great deal of music and two title cards.

It’s not a movie but a life time experience for me.

A Clockwork Orange :In Britain, charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and later volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society’s crime problem… but not all goes to plan.Looks like a simple plot but remember again it’s Kubrick once again.He turn this Alex a ultra violent ans sensual young man whom you will not forget whole of your life.The film tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique.

The film also holds the record in the Guinness World Records for being the first movie in media history using the Dolby Sound system.

The film’s central moral question , is the definition of “Goodness”.Actor Heath Ledger’s interpretation of the Joker in the Batman film The Dark Knight was in its initial formative stages influenced by the character of Alex DeLarge.

Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.

The Shinning: This film tells the story of a writer, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who accepts the job of the winter caretaker at a hotel that always gets snowed in during the winter. Jack’s son shares psychic abilities with the hotel’s chef who calls it “shining”. They can see things in the future or past, such as the ghosts of murdered people in the hotel. As the hotel becomes snowbound, Jack Torrance becomes influenced by the ghosts in the haunted hotel, descending into madness and trying to murder his wife and son.

Many have speculated on whether there really were ghosts in the film and Kubrick’s smart use of mirrors. It has been noted that every time Jack sees a ghost there is a mirror present.

The Shining gave rise to the legend of Kubrick as a megalomanic perfectionist. Reportedly, he demanded hundreds of takes of certain scenes (approximately 1.3 million feet of film was shot).

Warner Brothers has developed a whole site dedicated on Kubrick http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com/ .

Some interesting things about Kubrick:-

-Kubrick kept the original negatives for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in his garage, and prior to his death, made his own final 70mm cut of the film, which was released on Warner Bros. DVD, after which he burned the negatives.

-Stanley resigned from directing One Eyed Jacks (1961) early in the production phase, due to his clashes with Marlon Brando, who argued constantly with Stanley about the direction of both himself and the film.

-Stanley shot 1.3 million feet of film while making The Shining (1980), and used less than 1% of it for the final 142 minute print.

-Stanley was hired by Look Magazine when he was 16 years old, after submitting a photograph of a news vendor the day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt died.

-Stanley’s favorite film was The Godfather (1972), and he told his close friend Michael Herr it was “the greatest film ever made.”

-Stanley was an avid chess player and would often play against actors working on his films.

-Stanley was interested in jazz, and had a brief career as a drummer in his 20s.

-Stanley angered Jack Nicholson so much with his repeated takes during The Shining (1980) that Nicholson refused to ever work with him again.During the filming, at one point, Crothers broke down crying, asking “What do you want, Mr. Kubrick?”

-Bathroom (all of his films feature a scene that takes place in a bathroom)

Kubrick’s dislike of his early film Fear and Desire (1953) is well known. He went out of his way to buy all the prints of it so no one else could see it.

And the last fact about him

-Stanley died 666 days before 2001.(666 is devil sign in Omen)