Help - Kubrick ref in A Life in Pictures
Carl A. Lineberry
snippet of B&W home movie footage in the Napoleon section of "A Life
in Pictures," Stanley Kubrick says the following, in a jovial tone:
"Napoleon is still in his grave, waiting to be brought back to life. I
wonder what Napoleon would think of Lou [Lew?] Wasserman and David
Picker -- whether he would like to have them passing judgment on his
life..."
I'm afraid this reference/joke is lost on me -- who are Wasserman and
Picker, and to what is Kubrick referring?
Thanks in advance for any help,
Carl A. Lineberry
______
My e-mail address is dakril at smart-click.net
Tom Sutpen
of the Board of MCA (the then-parent company of Universal Pictures) and Head of
Production at United Artists Pictures. Both men were major Hollywood players
with more than a fleeting reputation for ruthlessness and low show business
cunning (Wasserman was already in his third decade as a legend among moguls in
this regard; Bonaparte wouldn't have stood a chance in any negotiation with
him).
What is Kubrick referring to? Beats me. Perhaps it was a general
commentary on the piratical tendencies of Hollywood (from a man who had unusual
praise for the place in 1958) and he used two excellent examples to illustrate
his point. I don't know.
"Napoleon" was supposed to be an MGM release, which means If he'd stayed
with the picture, he would have had to deal with their new Vice President in
Charge of Production, James T. Aubrey, maybe the most interesting motion
picture executive in history and a man who would almost certainly have driven
Kubrick to some form of Homicidal rage (Sam Peckinpah looked into having Aubrey
killed by professionals after he butchered "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid"). An
artist's reputation, and a deal, meant nothing to him. "Napoleon" would have
been destroyed if he'd made it for MGM.
Tom Sutpen
"Cinema is Truth, 24 times a second."-- Jean-Luc Godard
"Movies lie 24 times a second." -- Brian DePalma
"Kill Ugly Cinema!" -- Tom Sutpen
Carl A. Lineberry
> Lew Wasserman and David Picker were at that time, respectively, Chairman
> of the Board of MCA (the then-parent company of Universal Pictures) and Head of
> Production at United Artists Pictures. Both men were major Hollywood players
> with more than a fleeting reputation for ruthlessness...
Aha, so _that's_ who they are. Thanks very much for the information!
> What is Kubrick referring to? Beats me. Perhaps it was a general
> commentary on the piratical tendencies of Hollywood (from a man who had unusual
> praise for the place in 1958) and he used two excellent examples to illustrate
> his point. I don't know.
That sounds logical -- perhaps Kubrick meant he wondered what Napoleon
would think of having "the _likes_ of" Wasserman and Picker passing
judgment on his life...?
But, given who they were, the "passing judgment" part seems to suggest
they might've been pitched "Napoleon" and maybe passed on it? Or,
surely these are not the "backers" to whom Jan Harlan refers (in ALiP)
when he says they "got scared and pulled out" after the release and
box office failure of "Waterloo"?
For that matter, I assumed the footage in question was shot when
"Napoleon" was still a live, viable project -- perhaps that's wrong,
and the clip/statement comes from _after_ "Waterloo" and the project's
subsequent collapse? If so, Kubrick's first sentence (about Napoleon
still being in his grave, waiting to be brought back) would make more
sense.
Anybody else have any information or thoughts, here?
> "Napoleon" was supposed to be an MGM release, which means If he'd stayed
> with the picture, he would have had to deal with their new Vice President in
> Charge of Production, James T. Aubrey, maybe the most interesting motion
> picture executive in history and a man who would almost certainly have driven
> Kubrick to some form of Homicidal rage (Sam Peckinpah looked into having Aubrey
> killed by professionals after he butchered "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid"). An
> artist's reputation, and a deal, meant nothing to him. "Napoleon" would have
> been destroyed if he'd made it for MGM.
Well, there's an interesting thought -- if "Napoleon" _had_ gone into
production, Kubrick might've been forced to _act_ out "Clockwork
Orange" as Alex, rather than film the Burgess novel... ;-)
Thanks again for your help,
Carl A. Lineberry
______
my e-mail address is dakril at smart-click.net
David Sticher
>
> (Sam Peckinpah looked into having Aubrey
> killed by professionals after he butchered "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid")
I like the sound of this one!
I don't suppose you know where I could read more about this?
- Dave
Boaz
> Tom Sutpen wrote:
>
> > Lew Wasserman and David Picker were at that time, respectively, Chairman
> > of the Board of MCA (the then-parent company of Universal Pictures) and Head of
> > Production at United Artists Pictures. Both men were major Hollywood players
> > with more than a fleeting reputation for ruthlessness...
>
> Aha, so _that's_ who they are. Thanks very much for the information!
>
>
> > What is Kubrick referring to? Beats me. Perhaps it was a general
> > commentary on the piratical tendencies of Hollywood (from a man who had unusual
> > praise for the place in 1958) and he used two excellent examples to illustrate
> > his point. I don't know.
>
> That sounds logical -- perhaps Kubrick meant he wondered what Napoleon
> would think of having "the _likes_ of" Wasserman and Picker passing
> judgment on his life...?
I think he meant "the pot calling the kettle black."
Wasserman was also Kirk Douglas' agent. That should tell you
something. Wasserman also owned MCA, which in the late '50s merged
with Universal Pictures, which made Wasserman Chairman of
Universal/MCA. It was probably because of Wasserman running Universal
and representing Douglas that Douglas took the "Spartacus" project to
Universal, and probably why there were the power struggles that
occurred during production, including control over story and content,
and why Kubrick always felt afterwards that he was nothing more than
"the highest paid member of the crew," as he has said in interviews.
> But, given who they were, the "passing judgment" part seems to suggest
> they might've been pitched "Napoleon" and maybe passed on it? Or,
> surely these are not the "backers" to whom Jan Harlan refers (in ALiP)
> when he says they "got scared and pulled out" after the release and
> box office failure of "Waterloo"?
I think it was a reference similar to the above statements I made on
Wasserman and MCA.
Also, David Picker was the person Kubrick and Jim Harris had to deal
with in order to get financing for "The Killing" and "Paths of Glory."
There was a problem there where Picker kept claiming that TK was not
making money, so neither could Kubrick nor Harris receive any of the
profits they had deferred their salaries for. It wasn't until they
sold off the rights to both films, thus forfieting their chances to
receive their percentages in perpetuity, that UA "suddenly" found
themselves in the black with them. And by that time Kubrick and Harris
were out of the loop. The only upshot to that is that now Harris and
Kubrick had money to buy the rights to "Lolita."
> For that matter, I assumed the footage in question was shot when
> "Napoleon" was still a live, viable project -- perhaps that's wrong,
> and the clip/statement comes from _after_ "Waterloo" and the project's
> subsequent collapse? If so, Kubrick's first sentence (about Napoleon
> still being in his grave, waiting to be brought back) would make more
> sense.
It also could be that it was one of the more interesting comments
Kubrick had to say about Napoleon in trying to put him in a modern
context.
> Anybody else have any information or thoughts, here?
>
> > "Napoleon" was supposed to be an MGM release, which means If he'd stayed
> > with the picture, he would have had to deal with their new Vice President in
> > Charge of Production, James T. Aubrey, maybe the most interesting motion
> > picture executive in history and a man who would almost certainly have driven
> > Kubrick to some form of Homicidal rage (Sam Peckinpah looked into having Aubrey
> > killed by professionals after he butchered "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid"). An
> > artist's reputation, and a deal, meant nothing to him. "Napoleon" would have
> > been destroyed if he'd made it for MGM.
And Aubrey was appointed that position by the new owner of MGM: Kirk
Kerkorian, businessman extrordinaire, self-made millionaire, Las Vegas
wheeler-dealer, who didn't give one shit about movies and who spent
most of his ownership of MGM gutting and sacking its resources so he
could build his MGM Grand Hotel in Vegas. Aubrey came from a network
television background, so he was only interested in the bottom line
and movies with budgets similar to those in MGM's TV shows. (I'm
surprised Kubrick didn't make a reference comparing Kerkorian with
Napoleon.) If you check out MGM's output in the '70s you'll see that
it was radically different from the MGM in the '50s and '60s. Most of
the features were contemporary, modestly budgeted drudgery, just about
all forgettable. There were also the "That's Entertainment," parts 1,
2 and 3, in which ageing stars who were once under contract there (and
still alive--e.g., Liza Minnelli speaking on behalf of her parents,
Judy Garland and Vincent Minnelli) walk down dilapidated backlot
streets at MGM and wax eloquently over its heyday as a powerhouse of
great movies (walking down Andy Hardy's street, which makes Skid Row
look appealing), and then we are treated to footage of some of MGM's
best musicals, and we sit there wishing we could see these things in
their entirety instead of this self-promoting piece of embalmed crap.
But this crap cost very little to produce, and it made a fortune at
theaters for people hungry for the "good old days," when "they knew
how to make movies then."
(I know a lot of people who post here hate Ted Turner, but if it
hadn't been for Turner buying the MGM library there might not be a lot
of the older titles available on video right now; they might have
ended up in the incinerator. That's how Kerkorian felt about the
movies, so why would his yes-man Aubrey be any different.)
Isn't there now available a "director's cut" of "Pat Garrett and Billy
the Kid"?
Boaz
gh
wrote:
An amusing side note here: Jim Aubrey's nickname within the industry was
"The Smiling Cobra".
GH
--
Tom Sutpen
*****
There's an interesting account of it in Marshall Fine's 1991 biography,
"Bloody Sam: The Life and Films of Sam Peckinpah". The short version is this:
When Peckinpah learned that Aubrey had a second team of editors working on an
alternate cut of "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid", he went beserk.
It wasn't the first time Aubrey had driven Peckinpah to this point during
the movie's arduous production, merely the most lethal. Aubrey, driven by a
perversity few men ever know, had decided early on to sabotage this picture in
every conceivable way, and he made good on his resolution. For instance, when
Peckinpah informed MGM at a certain point during shooting that the picture was
ten days ahead of schedule, Aubrey proceeded to chop twelve days off, leaving
the company officially two days behind. Stuff like that.
Peckinpah's deal with MGM allowed him to prepare his own cut and for that
cut to be screened before the studio made any changes. Aubrey, knowing no
filmmaker had the time or the cash on hand to fight out a multi-year lawsuit
decided, of his own accord (and because he'd been getting away with stuff like
this for the last four years), to simply violate the agreement. He had a
duplicate work-print struck, assembled a team of editors, and went about
butchering the film into almost total incoherence. If you've seen the version
MGM released in 1973, you'd conclude it was certainly one of Peckinpah's worst
films. It literally makes no sense. Aubrey had his editors chop out whole
sequences, reorder the remaining scenes in a less than linear fashion, anything
to render the movie a mess. And he did it deliberately. Of that there's no
dispute.
Sam Peckinpah learned of this and sprang into action (even though he
didn't yet know the full extent of what Aubrey was doing to his movie). Now,
most filmmaker's would probably want a lawyer to achieve satisfaction in the
matter. Peckinpah wanted Emilio Fernandez. Who's that, you say? Emilio
Fernandez was a Mexican filmmaker of some renown (the one film of his which
I've seen, "The Pearl" is a masterpiece); more importantly, he was a close
friend of Peckinpah's who'd made his singular mark on American cinema when he
played General Mapache in "The Wild Bunch" (he also played a small role in "Pat
Garrett & Billy the Kid"). Fernandez had an awful lot of contacts in the
Mexican underworld and was one of those guys who could get you whatever you
needed for the right price, or as a favor. Well, Peckinpah needed James Aubrey
dead. Cold and stiff. He sounded out a journalist (of all people) on the
possibility of having Fernandez hire a couple of pistoleros to fly up
first-class from God knows where and blast a few holes in The Smiling Cobra
himself. It was only when the journalist (who was also a friend of Peckinpah's)
demurred at being an accessory before the fact of murder that Peckinpah finally
dropped the idea.
Whether Sam Peckinpah was in his cups or not when he desired to have
Aubrey removed from his immortal soul, he needn't have bothered. Kirk Kerkorian
would decide, within two years, to toss ol' Jungle Jim over the side. After
that, Aubrey's career was deader than Louis B. Mayer.