Second one up... Trevor Scholtens' take on STANLEY KUBRICK.
--Raymond
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Stanley Kubrick: Auteur
by Trevor Scholtens
Stanley Kubrick is one of the most
influential, skilled, and arguably the all-around filmmakers to ever live. He
has left a huge legacy behind him, but he started in New York City on July 26th,
1928 when he was born. Kubrick grew up in the Bronx with his father, Jacques, a
doctor, his mother, Sadie, a stay at home mom, and his younger sister, Barbara.
When he was in school, Stanley wasn’t a traditionally good student at all. He
would often skip class, was a social recluse, and was viewed as an
underachiever. He was considered by many to be intelligent, but his grades
ranked at the bottom of his class. He never valued school, or even a formal
education that much, once saying “I have never learned anything at school, and
I never read a book for pleasure until I was 19.” He applied to many colleges
by the end of high school, but none accepted him. As a kid, Kubrick wanted to
become a professional novelist or a Major League baseball player. Since he
never seemed to value academics, he played the drums for his high school’s jazz
band, and took many pictures with a camera that his father gave him. He was a
very skilled photographer and eventually sold some of his shots to Look magazine at the age of sixteen.
About one year later, he was hired as a freelance photographer for the magazine
(Stanley Kubrick Bio).
In 1950, Kubrick created a photo
essay about boxing and used his savings to make his first documentary short, Day of The Fight. He made two other
documentaries, Flying Padre and The Seafarers, and then had family
members invest in his first narrative film, Fear
and Desire. The movie was shown in a few art-house theaters in New York.
The movie is considered to be one of the first independent films due to him
making it without a studio behind it. He then made two low-budget crime
thrillers, Killer’s Kiss in 1955 and The Killing in 1956, and they were well
received critically and financially. By 1957 Kubrick was able to make a film
for a major studio, so he made Paths of
Glory, a remarkable antiwar film that starred Kirk Douglas (About Kubrick).
Kubrick became better known when he directed the historical
epic, Spartacus, in 1960 also
starring Kirk Douglas. Spartacus was
nominated for six Academy Awards and won four. Kubrick moved to the United
Kingdom in order to make his provocative 1962 film, Lolita, based on the controversial novel by Vladimir Nabokov of the
same name. He remained in the United Kingdom for the rest of his life and
career as a filmmaker. Stanley then received his first Academy Award nomination
for best director, best writing, and best picture in 1964 for his hilarious
political satire, Dr Strangelove or: How
I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The film that really brought
him into the public’s eyes was the utterly incredible and cosmic epic 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968. The film
was extremely critically acclaimed and earned four Academy Award nominations
and won Kubrick the award for best special effects, the only Oscar he will have
ever won (Stanley Kubrick Bio).
His success continued throughout the 1970’s with films
like the shocking yet dazzling A
Clockwork Orange in 1971, the historical fictional drama Barry Lyndon in 1975. Stanley then made
the terrifying horror film The Shining
in 1980, and the chilling Vietnam War film, Full
Metal Jacket in 1987. His final film came twelve years later and was the
surreal Eyes Wide Shut. He finished
his final cut of the film and died of a heart attack in his sleep on March 7,
1999. He was 70 years old (Stanley Kubrick Bio).
One reason why Stanley Kubrick is
considered an auteur is because he has a very distinct and skillful visual
style. His most distinct visual trait is his use of nearly perfect symmetry in
almost all of his films. The way Kubrick sets up and films many of his shots
makes them look close to perfectly symmetrical. Many of his films use this
impressive technique to draw the audience in to whatever is going on because it
is very interesting, and perhaps beautiful, to look at (The “One-Point
Perspective” in Stanley Kubrick’s Works).
Another visual trademark of Kubrick
is his long tracking shots. Every single film of his has at least one uncut
tracking shot that usually lasts for a while. These long tracking shots are
impressive in their execution and usually show the atmosphere of the current
scene very well. The shot is usually the camera pulling back while a character
is walking forward facing the camera (Stanley Kubrick’s Legendary Film
Techniques).
Kubrick also was very well known for
his meticulous way of filming and directing his actors. Kubrick was famous for
being a perfectionist when it came to his movies. He wanted every detail to
reflect how he envisioned the film. His symmetrical shots are carefully and
impressively made already, but he would often take charge of every small
detail, even props in the background, so that it coincided with what he wanted.
He was also very controlling of his actors. He would make his actors only say
what was written in the script and very rarely let them improvise. His blocking
was exact and would shoot multiple takes of every shot so that he could use the
perfect one. He was famous for being very hard to work with as a director, but
very effective. All of his actors gave extremely well done performances, even
earning Peter Sellers an Oscar nomination for best actor in Dr Strangelove and Peter Ustinov a win
for his supporting role in Spartacus.
One theme that Kubrick often
explored was the dark side of mankind. His films all have a form of crime or
moral ambiguity committed by at least one main character. He would often
include deaths and breaches of trust amongst the characters in his stories. His
focus on humanity’s more sinister subjects made his films compelling, yet
challenging for his viewers to watch.
One film that shows his traits as an
auteur extremely well is 2001: A Space
Odyssey. The film has many shots that are symmetrical and beautiful to look
at. The “stargate” sequence has a lot of shots of colors of light that are
reflective and gorgeous. He uses long tracking shots for many scenes involving
the astronauts on spaceships. One example is when an astronaut is running laps
around the interior of the circular spacecraft and it lasts for a long time.
The camera stays on him the entire time and the whole scene is uncut. Kubrick’s
perfectionism is shown through his realistic ape suits and spaceships for the
movie. He consulted NASA to help him create realistic looking designs for his
spaceships which he spent a long time designing. His effects for the sequences
in space were amazingly realistic today even with the limitations of 1960’s
effects. The film explores humanity’s dark side by showing a scene that shows
the first tool ever made by man to be used as a weapon to murder an enemy.
Another film that expresses Stanley
Kubrick’s qualities as an auteur is A
Clockwork Orange. The film, again, uses a lot of symmetrical and well put
together shots in it. An example of this would be in the opening shot when you
see the Korova Milk Bar. Everything in the shot is symmetrical and impressively
put together. He uses many tracking shots, including the scene where Alex browses
a record shop. The scene is a continuous take through an elaborate record shop
of Alex walking to the camera. He also took control of many things in the movie
to make it more real. He actually instructed actors to harm the main actor in
one scene and they broke some of the main actor’s ribs. His exploration of
human darkness is shown by having the main character, Alex, being a rapist and
murderer. He is a despicable human being, but he is still presented in a
sympathetic light when bad things happen to him.
One more film that illustrates his
traits as an auteur is The Shining.
His shots are extremely symmetrical, again, especially in the scene where Danny
meets the Grady twins for the first time. He uses many long tracking shots in
many scenes in the hedge maze, but more notably in the scene where Danny rides
his bike through the hotel and the camera follows him for a long time without
cutting. He was very controlling of his actors with this movie. He made Shelly
Duvall walk up stairs 127 times and verbally abused her to get the paranoid,
scared performance he wanted from her. The film explores the dark side of the
human race by having the story basically about one man’s descent into murderous
madness.
Stanley Kubrick made only thirteen
films in his lifetime and his influence and legacy even live on today. In my
opinion, all of his films are astonishing and continue to this day to be
inspiring and legendary. There are not many directors that this can be said
about. He is an auteur because a Stanley Kubrick film is unmatched in its
greatness and is easily recognizable as his own. He made films to the best of
his abilities because he loved to make his movies and his passion showed on the
screen with his masterpieces of modern cinema. He made his mark on the film
world and it will never go away. Kubrick once said, “One man writes a novel.
One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film” (About
Kubrick), and that is exactly what this one man did.
Works Cited
Stanley
Kubrick Bio: http://www.biography.com/people/stanley-kubrick-9369672#final-years
About
Kubrick: http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com
The
“One-Point Perspective” in Stanley Kubrick’s Works: http://filmmakermagazine.com/85083-the-one-point-perspective-in-stanley-kubricks-work/#.VIUyrGcytEM
Stanley
Kubrick’s Legendary Film Techniques: http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/stanley-kubrick-film-techniques.html
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