The Shining filming location
Garbanzola
OK, I know some of the exteriors for The Shining were shot
at the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, Oregon. But does
anyone know where the hedge maze is? Is it still in existence?
I tried the Internet Movie Database, but the locations listings
were pretty vague.
Pete
BillyBond
>From: garba...@aol.com (Garbanzola)
>OK, I know some of the exteriors for The Shining were shot
>at the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood, Oregon. But does
>anyone know where the hedge maze is?
Only the aerial shots were filmed at Timberline Lodge; the building, the maze,
etc., were all constructed at a studio in England. I assume that, like almost
all sets, they were soon torn down.
Bill Warren
Garbanzola
BillyBond wrote :
>Only the aerial shots were filmed at Timberline Lodge; the building, the
>maze,
>etc., were all constructed at a studio in England. I assume that, like
>almost
>all sets, they were soon torn down.
Are you sure about that? If you look at the first shot
of Wendy and Danny walking out to the entrance of
the maze, you'll see that "The Overlook" is right next
to it. That certainly doesn't look like a set to me.
Pete
Mike Derukee
I'm pretty sure that the exteriors were shot at a resort in New
Hampshire called the Balsams. I could be wrong, but that's what I
always heard.
Their website has pictures...
Scott
Garbanzola wrote:
> Are you sure about that? If you look at the first shot
> of Wendy and Danny walking out to the entrance of
> the maze, you'll see that "The Overlook" is right next
> to it. That certainly doesn't look like a set to me.
It would seem to likely be the case if it is true that Kubrick has not
set foot out of England since 1961.
Michael Brooke
Garbanzola <garba...@aol.com> wrote:
> BillyBond wrote :
>
> >Only the aerial shots were filmed at Timberline Lodge; the building, the
> >maze,
> >etc., were all constructed at a studio in England. I assume that, like
> >almost
> >all sets, they were soon torn down.
>
> Are you sure about that? If you look at the first shot
> of Wendy and Danny walking out to the entrance of
> the maze, you'll see that "The Overlook" is right next
> to it. That certainly doesn't look like a set to me.
It was. Elstree Studios have (or had) huge sound stages, and absolutely
every single dramatic scene in 'The Shining' was shot there (Kubrick not
only didn't leave England, he didn't even need to travel more than ten
miles from his home!). As Bill said, the only material not shot at
Elstree was the aerial footage and some exterior long shots that didn't
feature any actors, which were shot by second-unit cameramen to
Kubrick's specifications.
And the hedge maze was definitely a studio set. In fact, three maze
sets were used - the first one was shot outdoors at a place called
Radlett Aerodrome, while the other two (the wintry sets) were built at
Elstree - the first was an elaborate construction designed for the
scenes set inside the maze, while the second was a partial construction
built in front of a mock-up of the hotel's facade, which was used for
the shots where people move from the hotel to the maze.
Kubrick is such a control freak that he very very rarely ventures
outside the studio if he can possibly help it - even scenes that you'd
swear were shot on location (the opening scenes of '2001', for instance)
were shot in the studio. 'A Clockwork Orange' is probably the only
major exception over the last thirty years (and that was only because
the budget was restricted because of its likely X rating).
Michael
----------------------------------------------------------------
JAN SVANKMAJER - ALCHEMIST OF THE SURREAL
http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank
a lavish tribute to the cinema's wildest imagination
----------------------------------------------------------------
Adam Free
See I thought the building was in Banff National Park in Alberta Canada,
well it certainly looks like it...
BillyBond
>From: garba...@aol.com (Garbanzola)
>
>BillyBond wrote :
>
>>Only the aerial shots were filmed at Timberline Lodge; the building, the
>>maze,
>>etc., were all constructed at a studio in England. I assume that, like
>>almost
>>all sets, they were soon torn down.
>
>Are you sure about that?
Yup.
Bill Warren
BillyBond
>From: j...@ultranet.com (Mike Derukee)
>
>I'm pretty sure that the exteriors were shot at a resort in New
>Hampshire called the Balsams. I could be wrong, but that's what I
>always heard.
No, the aerial exteriors are definitely of the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in
Oregon; the ground-level exteriors were a set -- a large, elaborate set to be
sure -- built at the studio in England.
The >interiors< are modeled on (but much larger than) the interior of the
Ahwanee Lodge in Yosemite Valley.
Bill Warren
BillyBond
>From: Scott <*abwe...@idt.net>
>It would seem to likely be the case if it is true that Kubrick has not
>set foot out of England since 1961.
Not true. He hasn't set one foot outside England to FILM anything since then,
but he's been to the U.S. several times.
Bill Warren
BillyBond
>From: "Adam Free" <ad...@tko.ca>
>See I thought the building was in Banff National Park in Alberta Canada,
>well it certainly looks like it...
Actually, that was the >second< place considered for exteriors, and for the TV
movie remake, it is the location the studio tried to get King and Garris to
accept.
In the 1920s and 1930s, a lot of buildings went up in remote spots in the U.S.
and Canada; in the U.S., the CCC's (Civilian Construction? Conservation? Corps)
were responsible for building a lot of these things, and they worked from the
designs of only a handful of architects. I would not be surprised if those
architects also contributed to the designs of a lot of Canadian buildings that
went up around then.
Bill Warren
Boyd Campbell
Speaking of Kubrick, does anybody know how much film
he's exposed in the making of Eyes Wide Shut? It seems
he's been working on it for an awfully long time.
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BihgPoppah
Actually, I heard he just called a lot of the actors back to re-film a bunch of
the movie... so expect even l;onger delays...
Michael Brooke
<kei...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Speaking of Kubrick, does anybody know how much film
> > he's exposed in the making of Eyes Wide Shut?
Given that while most normal directors tend to shoot brief cutaways from
different angles, Kubrick insists on shooting entire scenes from every
single camera angle that he might want (and several dozen takes of each
angle on top of that), I suspect the answer is "a lot". Nothing that
I've heard about the 'Eyes Wide Shut' shoot suggests that his working
methods are any different from previous films, but the sheer length of
the shooting suggests that he's probably broken a few records.
> > It seems
> > he's been working on it for an awfully long time.
>
> I think he's still CASTING the damned movie. We ought to start an EWS
> completion pool.
Well, unless he changes his mind about the casting *again*, he's
probably got past that stage. Harvey Keitel was replaced by Sydney
Pollack and Jennifer Jason Leigh was replaced by some Swedish actress
whose name escapes me - in both cases after substantial amounts of
footage had been shot.
I *think* it's still shooting, despite having wrapped at least once (and
even then it had broken 'Lawrence of Arabia's record for the longest
shoot ever for a major studio production).
Michael Brooke
BillyBond <bill...@aol.com> wrote:
I hate to contradict you <g>, but large chunks of 'Barry Lyndon' were
shot in Ireland. Kubrick was deeply reluctant to film there, but he
couldn't find any suitable locations in England.
But you're right about him making several US trips - though these are
extremely infrequent and slow (hmmm... where have I heard those
adjectives before?) as he refuses to fly.
Rufus T. Firefly
Boyd Campbell wrote:
>
> Speaking of Kubrick, does anybody know how much film
> he's been working on it for an awfully long time.
Lately he called Jennifer Jason Lee for a couple of reshoots, but since
she was already involved in another movie, she refused. Kubrick, in
turn, decided to cut all her scenes out and cast another acress in the
role. Well, this in turn called for several reshoots of the scenes with
the new acress and Tom Cruise, who was called back to London...
I'm waiting for Cruise to refuse to come back to England one day and for
Kubrick to cut his scenes out, cast James Spader and do the necessary 12
months reshoot...
Oh, and another suprise news - Kubrick announced last week that EWS will
not be ready for a Chrismas release.
Eyes Wide Shut 2000?
R.
Michael Brooke
Rufus T. Firefly <cha...@stgambit.gda.pl> wrote:
> Boyd Campbell wrote:
> >
> > Speaking of Kubrick, does anybody know how much film
> > he's exposed in the making of Eyes Wide Shut? It seems
> > he's been working on it for an awfully long time.
>
> Lately he called Jennifer Jason Lee for a couple of reshoots, but since
> she was already involved in another movie, she refused.
She didn't *refuse* as such - but she did point out that she was
shooting another film (the new Cronenberg, incidentally), and so Kubrick
would have to wait. Kubrick didn't want to wait, so he fired her.
> Kubrick, in
> turn, decided to cut all her scenes out and cast another acress in the
> role. Well, this in turn called for several reshoots of the scenes with
> the new acress and Tom Cruise, who was called back to London...
The latest news (trade press last week) is that the film is *still*
shooting, and yet another new actor has joined the cast (I can't
remember who: he's in 'Dharma & Greg').
>
> I'm waiting for Cruise to refuse to come back to England one day and for
> Kubrick to cut his scenes out, cast James Spader and do the necessary 12
> months reshoot...
Or he could always fall back on the Luis Bunuel method of casting two
different performers in the same part (as he did on 'That Obscure Object
of Desire' when Carole Bouquet walked out).
> Oh, and another suprise news - Kubrick announced last week that EWS will
> not be ready for a Chrismas release.
Warner Bros (and just about anyone with any sense of realism) assumed
that a long time ago, but they continued to announce a Christmas release
date because they hadn't been told anything else.
I suppose when the film started shooting way back in 1996 Christmas 1998
looked pretty reasonable!
Ronald J. Whalen
> > Oh, and another suprise news - Kubrick announced last week that EWS will
> > not be ready for a Chrismas release.
>
> Warner Bros (and just about anyone with any sense of realism) assumed
> that a long time ago, but they continued to announce a Christmas release
> date because they hadn't been told anything else.
>
> I suppose when the film started shooting way back in 1996 Christmas 1998
> looked pretty reasonable!
>
I wonder if Eyes Wide Shut will ever be finished. Somebody say it might
be like Truman Capote's last novel, a novel Capote kept working on and
working on until he died before he could finish the film. I wonder what
will happen if Kubrick dies before he's finished filming the movie ?
Will the movie simply be shelved or will they hire somebody else to
replace Kubrick to shoot the missing scenes or will the just release
it as it is ?
Chuck Vollers
Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>Can God die?
>
>Martin
Can Kubrick make a film so big even he cannot lift it?
Chuck
Francis P. Denon
> Well, unless he changes his mind about the casting *again*, he's
> probably got past that stage. Harvey Keitel was replaced by Sydney
> Pollack and Jennifer Jason Leigh was replaced by some Swedish actress
> whose name escapes me - in both cases after substantial amounts of
> footage had been shot.
Jennifer Jason Leigh was replaced by swedish actress Marie Richardson.
FP Denon
Michael Brooke
Phil Noir <phil...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Michael Brooke wrote:
>
> > I can't help wondering that maybe there's an underlying reason behind
> > the insanely protracted shooting schedule of 'Eyes Wide Shut' - because
> > if Kubrick really knew what he was doing, I can't believe he'd have
> > taken so long on a film that by all accounts is not particularly
> > large-scale in terms of conception.
>
> The large canvass is between one's ears, not extras in togas. Think big.
Yes, but come on - eighteen months? At the rate he's going he'll beat
David Lynch on 'Eraserhead' pretty soon (Lynch took about two years to
shoot it) - but that wasn't a continuous full-time shoot.
I once watched the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki on set. His crew set
up the shot, he rehearsed the actors, he shot the scene. One take. The
whole process from setup to shot took about an hour and a half. And
throughout I never got anything other than the impression that he knew
*exactly* what he wanted (and Kaurismäki's best films have an almost
gem-like perfection).
Kubrick, by contrast, seems chronically incapable of making up his mind.
I can understand a TV commercial with the Duchess of York requiring over
a hundred takes, because she's not an actress - but Jack Nicholson
apparently had a very hard time on 'The Shining' because he was used to
getting it right first time. I suspect that one of the reasons his
performance is so weirdly dislocated in the film (and I'm not convinced
this was entirely intentional) is the fact that he's all too visibly
uncomfortable with Kubrick's working methods.
It just seems as though he's so fanatically obsessed by the small
details that he forgets the overall impression - and at least his last
three films are seriously flawed because of it. I watched them as
impressive technical achievements - but when it comes to *caring* about
them in the way I care about, say, a Renoir film, I just couldn't.
Obviously, I'm going to be first in the queue to see 'Eyes Wide Shut'
when (and if) it opens - but my hopes aren't particularly high, as I'm
convinced that the same working practices that he seems to be pushing to
unexplored new extremes on this new film have damaged many of his
others.
chris markle
Michael Brooke wrote:
>
<snipped because of netscape's idiocy>
> I trust that was a joke - but what is it about Kubrick that he inspires
> such fanaticism? He's not *that* good - in fact, if he hadn't made
> 'Paths of Glory', 'Dr.Strangelove' or '2001', he'd be distinctly
> second-division.
>
> Nothing he's done in the past 25 years has really been worth the
> agonisingly long wait, and the rule seems to be that the longer the
> wait, the more disappointing the film ('The Shining' and 'Full Metal
> Jacket' being cases in point).
>
> I can't help wondering that maybe there's an underlying reason behind
> the insanely protracted shooting schedule of 'Eyes Wide Shut' - because
> if Kubrick really knew what he was doing, I can't believe he'd have
> taken so long on a film that by all accounts is not particularly
> large-scale in terms of conception.
>
> Michael
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> JAN SVANKMAJER - ALCHEMIST OF THE SURREAL
> http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank
> a lavish tribute to the cinema's wildest imagination
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
this captures my opinion of kubrick, quite neatly.
*true* genius isn't agonized and protracted - it flows
from some unknown source as freely as a stream...or
it doesn't happen at all. i think the portrayal of
motzart - in "Amadeus" - captures this phenomena nicely
(regardless of how accurately it portrays motzart's *real*
life). it is probably because kubrick makes such a drama
out of the production itself that some fans (with arrested
development) treat him as some great master.
Phil Noir
Michael Brooke wrote:
> Kubrick, by contrast, seems chronically incapable of making up his mind.
> I can understand a TV commercial with the Duchess of York requiring over
> a hundred takes, because she's not an actress - but Jack Nicholson
> apparently had a very hard time on 'The Shining' because he was used to
> getting it right first time. I suspect that one of the reasons his
> performance is so weirdly dislocated in the film (and I'm not convinced
> this was entirely intentional) is the fact that he's all too visibly
> uncomfortable with Kubrick's working methods.
We differ here; practically everything Kubrick does is intentional, and
Nicholson hit a full range of notes (including but not limited to
self-parody) in The Shining. His unnatural style perfectly suits a films
whose theme is the unnatural.
As for the numerous takes, why should one director's style apply to all?
I don't recall anyone taking Fred Zinneman to task for similar behavior,
and he didn't offer much in the way of suggestions, either -- just "do
it again, do it different." One of the director's tasks is to be an
arbiter of good taste in a performance. How he gets from point A to
point B is of no real importance to the finished product.
I recall Dustin Hoffman's comments from last night's AFI show where he
spoke of being exhausted during a scene in Midnight Cowboy, and
Schleshinger kept pushing until his (Hoffman's) hands started to shake.
Consequently it's the most memorable scene in the film.
Glenna, the Portmann
In article <3587F8...@earthlink.net>,
>> Kubrick, by contrast, seems chronically incapable
>> of making up his mind.
>We differ here
Don't waste your time on this murky troll.
>and Nicholson hit a full range of
>notes (including but not limited to self-parody)
>in The Shining.
Nicholson's a great movie presence (though not that
versatile an actor). THE SHINING was a failure,
but not his fault.
>
>As for the numerous takes, why should one director's
>style apply to all? I don't recall anyone taking Fred
>Zinneman to task for similar behavior,
Fred Zinneman is no Kubrick, so forget that comparison.
The number of takes means nothing, though I subscribe
to the philosophy that you can usually get what you
need in 3 or 4. If you're still not sure, change
the angle and try again.
Acting is such a competitive occupation nowadays,
that most actors will give you their best by at least
the first half-dozen times. Unfortunately, because of
technical requirements and coverage (yuk), scenes
are usually done from three or four angles, with
three or four printed takes per angle, plus rehearsals,
inserts, and misc novelty shots, which means an
actor is saying the same lines in a scene about 50
times under normal circumstances.
Kubrick is much more anal and picturesque so 100
takes isn't really that much more than standard;
plus, he's trying to saturate the actor's mind with
repetition in the hope of jarring loose a slag of
unconscious serendipity.
>I recall Dustin Hoffman's comments from last night's
>AFI show where he spoke of being exhausted during a
>scene in Midnight Cowboy, and Schleshinger kept pushing
>until his (Hoffman's) hands started to shake.
>Consequently it's the most memorable scene in the film.
I like the story about MARATHON MAN (a mediocre film)
where Hoffman showed up without having slept for days
to look the part in a scene. Olivier told him to
"try acting."
Gordon Dahlquist
On 17 Jun 1998, Glenna, the Portmann wrote:
> The number of takes means nothing, though I subscribe
> to the philosophy that you can usually get what you
> need in 3 or 4. If you're still not sure, change
> the angle and try again.
>
> Acting is such a competitive occupation nowadays,
> that most actors will give you their best by at least
> the first half-dozen times. Unfortunately, because of
> technical requirements and coverage (yuk), scenes
> are usually done from three or four angles, with
> three or four printed takes per angle, plus rehearsals,
> inserts, and misc novelty shots, which means an
> actor is saying the same lines in a scene about 50
> times under normal circumstances.
But this isn't exactly what kubrick's doing. The one statement kubrick's
made, several times, in reference to the multiple-takes things, is that
often actors "don't fully have their lines", or don't fully understand
what they need to do in the scene, that is, in such a way as to allow them
to be instinctive and inventive within a prescribed series of words and
actions. In general, he's also only using one or two camera set-ups, so
the point of the multiple takes is to focus a more concentrated attention
on the given scene. To my mind, it's a more theatrical-minded approach to
acting, where the performance is built between the actor and director, in
rehearsal, compared to a standard film approach, where the actor's
arriving with the performance more or less "done".
> Kubrick is much more anal and picturesque so 100
> takes isn't really that much more than standard;
> plus, he's trying to saturate the actor's mind with
> repetition in the hope of jarring loose a slag of
> unconscious serendipity.
I think this is only part of it. Particularly from the shining on, I
think he's developing a way of working - which his use of small crews and
relatively simple shoots allows to remain economical - that drift more
towards an extended, more theatrical focus on the actors' process. But I
agree that the multiple-takes thing means little, other than - and I say
this because it seems to be developing over the course of several films -
a slightly different habit of working.
Gary Couzens
chris markle wrote in message
>this captures my opinion of kubrick, quite neatly.
>*true* genius isn't agonized and protracted - it flows
>from some unknown source as freely as a stream...or
>it doesn't happen at all. i think the portrayal of
>motzart - in "Amadeus" - captures this phenomena nicely
>(regardless of how accurately it portrays motzart's *real*
>life). it is probably because kubrick makes such a drama
>out of the production itself that some fans (with arrested
>development) treat him as some great master.
Regardless of whether we think Kubrick is a genius or not, that's more than
a little dubious. Anyone who engages in any creative activity (such as
painting, writing or music, not just film-making) would dispute your
definition.
In most cases, simplicity and seeming effortlessness is *much* harder than
tortuousness and complexity - it takes a lot of work and practice and
learned technique. As far as writing goes (I know more about that than
painting or music), I agree with whoever said that you have to write about a
million words before you can say you've learned to write. Anyone who
produces work "as freely as a stream" has almost certainly undergone a
similar apprenticeship.
Gary Couzens
Martin Koolhoven
Phil Noir wrote:
> We differ here; practically everything Kubrick does is intentional,
But not al his decisions are the right ones. Jacks acting isn't such a
succes, for instance.
> and
> Nicholson hit a full range of notes (including but not limited to
> self-parody) in The Shining. His unnatural style perfectly suits a
> films
> whose theme is the unnatural.
This is offcourse a fan talking straight what is crooked.
> As for the numerous takes, why should one director's style apply to
> all?
> I don't recall anyone taking Fred Zinneman to task for similar
> behavior,
> and he didn't offer much in the way of suggestions, either -- just "do
>
> it again, do it different." One of the director's tasks is to be an
> arbiter of good taste in a performance. How he gets from point A to
> point B is of no real importance to the finished product.
The thing is that the way he does things determs what B will look like.
>
>
> I recall Dustin Hoffman's comments from last night's AFI show where he
>
> spoke of being exhausted during a scene in Midnight Cowboy, and
> Schleshinger kept pushing until his (Hoffman's) hands started to
> shake.
> Consequently it's the most memorable scene in the film.
what's your point?
martin
Martin Koolhoven
Glenna, the Portmann wrote:
> The number of takes means nothing, though I subscribe
> to the philosophy that you can usually get what you
> need in 3 or 4. If you're still not sure, change
> the angle and try again.
What the hell has the angle to do with it?
Martin
Glenna Portmann
In article <35882A86...@xs4all.nl>,
Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
The angle is the audience's conscience.
Phil Noir
Phil Noir wrote:
> > Nicholson hit a full range of notes (including but not limited to
> > self-parody) in The Shining. His unnatural style perfectly suits a
> > films whose theme is the unnatural.
Martin Koolhoven wrote:
> But not al his [Kubrick's] decisions are the right ones. Jacks acting isn't such a
> succes, for instance.
> This is offcourse a fan talking straight what is crooked.
Syntax aside, this is a non-issue. Obviously, you thought Nicholson was
innapropriate for the part. I responded differently. You can't qualify
why he wasn't "successful" in the role.
> > One of the director's tasks is to be an
> > arbiter of good taste in a performance. How he gets from point A to
> > point B is of no real importance to the finished product. (Phil)
> The thing is that the way he does things determs what B will look like.
I am unsure of what you are getting at here.
> > I recall Dustin Hoffman's comments from last night's AFI show where he
> > spoke of being exhausted during a scene in Midnight Cowboy, and
> > Schleshinger kept pushing until his (Hoffman's) hands started to
> > shake. Consequently it's the most memorable scene in the film. (Phil)
> what's your point? (martin)
Simple. Repeated takes, experimentation and even exhaustion *can*
contribute to a performance well-worth reaching for, one which never
would've arrived at take two.
Glenna Portmann
In article <1daskes.1f1...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>The fundamental problem with Kubrick's last three films
>is that I really didn't care about Redmond
>Barry, Jack Torrance or Private Joker, because I got
>the impression that Kubrick didn't either.
So it isn't his excessive perfectionism that's at fault,
but his sentiments. What a murky troll you've created.
>
>Michael
>(who loved seeing his other post being described as
>"a murky troll" merely for daring to voice the opinion
>that Kubrick isn't quite as mind-blowingly wonderful
>as he and his less critical fans would like to
>think!)
More murk. Bigger troll.
Glenna Portmann
In article <358852C1...@xs4all.nl>,
Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>sense). If you're doing a shot and after 4 or 5 takes
>you still don't think the scene is working, I doubt
>that changing a camera-angle will solve the problem.
Try it, it works.
David Culpepper
Gordon Dahlquist wrote:
All those things that Mr. Dahlquist wrote...
ACTION-hats off in a bow from the waist, nice post.
BTW, are you related to Jon Dahlquist?, the designer of the wonderful DQ-10
speakers?
Tobasco
David Culpepper
Troll or not... look at the really nice posts from Philnoir and Mark Ervin
(and others) on this issue. Bring the Huns and Vandals on, I say, we are
not without ability here. The day that this ng cannot withstand intelligent
(negative) criticism of an SK work is the day I'll leave and not return.
And just to remain OT, Glenna, the rest...
I practice an art called Sumi-e. I paint with ink on a sheet of rice paper.
If I hesitate in the course of a stroke, I risk tearing the paper with the
very force of the brush. The stroke must be continuous, without hesitation,
without self-consciousness. The image I paint must be in the now (a quick
nod to Richard Alpert). This moment. No second chances. This is what
Kurosawa means when he says that "the old way is impractical to the new man
".
The art of SK is different, and yet, and yet...
Let's go again, let's go again...
Each take, a moment in time, all to itself. What was Jack thinking of in
all those takes at the bar with Lloyd?
The take may be "perfect" according to some pre-conceived notion of what is
required. But SK knows better. The first take may be the very take that is
needed. But why not see the 37th take too??? The cutting floor of the
editing room is where a film is made (or unmade). A film is a system, an
organic whole, a living thing in itself. The 7th take of Cruise may be the
perfect match with the 14th take of Kidman in a given scene. Whereas the
vice versa may be perfect for another director. And some bottom-line
Hollywood producer may want a lot less.
But I want a Stanley Kubrick movie.
I don't mind if SK tears a thousand sheets of rice paper (you should see my
corner), I want to see the one that dosen't tear.
To SK: please take your time Kubrick-san, I'm still out here.
Tobasco
Michael Brooke
Gary Couzens <gjco...@btinternet.com> wrote:
I agree - and in any case 'Amadeus' is hardly a paragon of historical
accuracy, so I'd be very suspicious of anyone who cited it as a reliable
reference!
But sticking to your musical metaphor, it cuts both ways: Mozart and
Schubert generally found writing music to be very easy, and could turn
out marvellously fluid work at amazing speeds (though as Gary says,
having extensive musical training and being child prodigies certainly
helped). Beethoven, who in no way is a lesser talent (but who didn't
start as young as the other two), found it very difficult: his notebooks
show countless examples of reworkings and crossings-out (and this has
nothing to do with his deafness).
But even if we stick Kubrick in the Beethoven camp, I'm still not
convinced. If you really need a hundred takes, then that strongly
suggests that there's something wrong with the basic material. And you
can argue this point all you want, but nothing is going to shake me from
my belief that 'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and especially 'Full Metal
Jacket' were not worth the wait: they all have marvellous things in them
(which is why I've seen them all at least three times each), but are
very far from the flawless masterpieces that Kubrick presumably
intended.
Then again, I think obsessive perfectionism on the Kubrick model is
ultimately self-defeating: I was talking about this point with the
Canadian film-maker Guy Maddin a couple of weeks or so ago, and he said
that he *liked* mistakes and flaws: they humanised the work in question
and made it much more approachable. One of my favourite films this
year, Lars Von Trier's 'The Kingdom II', is by Kubrickian standards a
disaster: the continuity is a joke, there are jump-cuts galore, and some
shots are blatantly out of focus. But none of this matters, as the
human element comes across so powerfully. The fundamental problem with
Kubrick's last three films is that I really didn't care about Redmond
Barry, Jack Torrance or Private Joker, because I got the impression that
Kubrick didn't either.
Michael
Martin Koolhoven
Glenna Portmann wrote:
> In article <35882A86...@xs4all.nl>,
> Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> >Glenna, the Portmann wrote:
> >
> >> The number of takes means nothing, though I subscribe
> >> to the philosophy that you can usually get what you
> >> need in 3 or 4. If you're still not sure, change
> >> the angle and try again.
> >
> >
> >What the hell has the angle to do with it?
>
> The angle is the audience's conscience.
Beautifully spoken (though it doesn't make much sense). If you're doing
a shot and after 4 or 5 takes you still don't think the scene is
working, I doubt that changing a camera-angle will solve the problem.
Martin
Gary Couzens
Michael Brooke wrote in message
<1daskes.1f1...@everyman.demon.co.uk>...
<snip>
>But even if we stick Kubrick in the Beethoven camp, I'm still not
>convinced. If you really need a hundred takes, then that strongly
>suggests that there's something wrong with the basic material. And you
>can argue this point all you want, but nothing is going to shake me from
>my belief that 'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and especially 'Full Metal
>Jacket' were not worth the wait: they all have marvellous things in them
>(which is why I've seen them all at least three times each), but are
>very far from the flawless masterpieces that Kubrick presumably
>intended.
>
>Then again, I think obsessive perfectionism on the Kubrick model is
>ultimately self-defeating: I was talking about this point with the
>Canadian film-maker Guy Maddin a couple of weeks or so ago, and he said
>that he *liked* mistakes and flaws: they humanised the work in question
>and made it much more approachable. One of my favourite films this
>year, Lars Von Trier's 'The Kingdom II', is by Kubrickian standards a
>disaster: the continuity is a joke, there are jump-cuts galore, and some
>shots are blatantly out of focus. But none of this matters, as the
>human element comes across so powerfully.
It's interesting that, despite all Kubrick's perfectionism, there are still
some notable continuity errors in his films! Two examples:
The Shining - The opening overhead shot of the hotel has a car park where
the maze should be.
Barry Lyndon - in the scene where Barry's two sons are doing their homework
(which ends in a fight for reasons I can't remember), the writing on the
page in the older son's book changes position from shot to shot.
I hope he's not reading this: he might want to go back and re-edit these two
films...
Gary Couzens
r...@adelphia.net
>But even if we stick Kubrick in the Beethoven camp, I'm still not
>convinced. If you really need a hundred takes, then that strongly
>suggests that there's something wrong with the basic material. And you
>can argue this point all you want, but nothing is going to shake me from
>my belief that 'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and especially 'Full Metal
>Jacket' were not worth the wait: they all have marvellous things in them
>(which is why I've seen them all at least three times each), but are
>very far from the flawless masterpieces that Kubrick presumably
>intended.
agreed......
tho like you say "marvelous things"
there are more amazing/unforgetable things in all three movies than
you can shake a stick at....... i still wouldn't give any of them
better than 3 stars but bits and pieces of all 3 of them are as
unforgettable and brilliant as anything done since Barry Lyndon came
out........
it's very odd......
did ANY of these 3 take as long as Wide Shut is taking?
>
>Then again, I think obsessive perfectionism on the Kubrick model is
>ultimately self-defeating: I was talking about this point with the
he should turn into fassbinder and confuse the hell out of people....
turn out 7 films in one year or something :)
>Canadian film-maker Guy Maddin a couple of weeks or so ago, and he said
>that he *liked* mistakes and flaws: they humanised the work in question
>and made it much more approachable. One of my favourite films this
>year, Lars Von Trier's 'The Kingdom II', is by Kubrickian standards a
AHH!! glad to here someone i respect rave about it :)
me and my brother are waiting on pins and needles till we can see part
2...... glad to hear it is good........ (did you like it as much or
more that part 1?)
speaking of Fasbinder....... Lars seems to be the closest thing to the
mid 70's model fassbinder...... between all the film and tv work he is
churning out.......
>disaster: the continuity is a joke, there are jump-cuts galore, and some
>shots are blatantly out of focus. But none of this matters, as the
>human element comes across so powerfully. The fundamental problem with
>Kubrick's last three films is that I really didn't care about Redmond
>Barry, Jack Torrance or Private Joker, because I got the impression that
>Kubrick didn't either.
actually save Douglas in Paths and Spartacus..... two films that don;t
really count as kubrick anyways......
when do you care about any Kubrick character?
that's sort of the point isn't it?
tho with Barry it seems a mistake....... and with The Shining its a
different film than the novel... and a worse one because of it...
tho still unforgetable......
Geoffrey Alexander
Glenna Portmann <nos...@no.spax> wrote in article
<6m9o25$t...@nntp02.primenet.com>...
> In article <1daskes.1f1...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>
> >The fundamental problem with Kubrick's last three films
> >is that I really didn't care about Redmond
> >Barry, Jack Torrance or Private Joker, because I got
> >the impression that Kubrick didn't either.
>
>
> So it isn't his excessive perfectionism that's at fault,
> but his sentiments. What a murky troll you've created.
>
> >
> >Michael
> >(who loved seeing his other post being described as
> >"a murky troll" merely for daring to voice the opinion
> >that Kubrick isn't quite as mind-blowingly wonderful
> >as he and his less critical fans would like to
> >think!)
>
>
> More murk. Bigger troll.
>
If you start making sense like this Glenna I won't want to sleep with you.
Nicely put.
g.
Martin Koolhoven
Phil Noir wrote:
> Martin Koolhoven wrote:
>
> > But not al his [Kubrick's] decisions are the right ones. Jacks
> acting isn't such a
> > succes, for instance.
> > This is offcourse a fan talking straight what is crooked.
>
> Syntax aside, this is a non-issue. Obviously, you thought Nicholson
> was
> innapropriate for the part. I responded differently. You can't qualify
>
> why he wasn't "successful" in the role.
Actually I think Jack was cast perfectly. I think it was the director
that failed.Jack's performance was so over the top as Nicholson can go
sometimes when he isn't directed properly.
>
>
> > > One of the director's tasks is to be an
> > > arbiter of good taste in a performance. How he gets from point A
> to
> > > point B is of no real importance to the finished product. (Phil)
>
> > The thing is that the way he does things determs what B will look
> like.
>
> I am unsure of what you are getting at here.
That the way a directer tries to go somewere does matter. When you see
the film it doesn't matter anymore, but that's the world upside
down.When a film is made it is going to make a hell of difference how he
tries to go from A to B, since it will determ what B will be like.
>
>
> > > I recall Dustin Hoffman's comments from last night's AFI show
> where he
> > > spoke of being exhausted during a scene in Midnight Cowboy, and
> > > Schleshinger kept pushing until his (Hoffman's) hands started to
> > > shake. Consequently it's the most memorable scene in the film.
> (Phil)
>
> > what's your point? (martin)
>
> Simple. Repeated takes, experimentation and even exhaustion *can*
> contribute to a performance well-worth reaching for, one which never
> would've arrived at take two.
True, for scenes like you described. When it becomes something that
happens evry shot you take, you have a problem.
Martin
Michael Brooke
Phil Noir <phil...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Martin Koolhoven wrote:
>
> > what's your point? (martin)
>
> Simple. Repeated takes, experimentation and even exhaustion *can*
> contribute to a performance well-worth reaching for, one which never
> would've arrived at take two.
Yes, but the converse is also true (and overwhelmingly so in the case of
Kubrick's "recent" work) - a massive number of takes completely saps the
film of any real human qualities and turns it into a perfectly-crafted
but cold and unsympathetic monstrosity.
Kubrick's later work is certainly impressive, but if I actually want to
feel some kind of genuine pleasure I'll stick with the likes of 'Paths
of Glory' and 'Lolita'. I recently watched 'Full Metal Jacket' again
for the first time in a decade or so, and it was a painful experience: I
don't think I've ever seen a film with so many zombie characters that
didn't have the words "living dead" in the title. Of course, the
subject of dehumanisation is Kubrick's point - but he's done it before,
and much better, back in the days before he became the ultimate auteur
recluse.
Michael Brooke
David Culpepper <dc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Troll or not... look at the really nice posts from Philnoir and Mark Ervin
> (and others) on this issue. Bring the Huns and Vandals on, I say, we are
> not without ability here. The day that this ng cannot withstand intelligent
> (negative) criticism of an SK work is the day I'll leave and not return.
Well, so far the response to my negative (and I hope intelligent)
criticism of Kubrick's late work has been to repeatedly describe it as
"a murky troll" (which I assure you it isn't), to call me a Hun and a
Vandal (Why? Because I've seen one hell of a lot of genuine cinematic
masterpieces and don't think Kubrick's late work measures up to them?),
and to indulge in nit-picking pedantry rather than attempting to tackle
the wider issues.
And these are that Kubrick's post-'Clockwork Orange' work is so
hermetically sealed in its own little world that it completely fails to
engage with any normal audience (i.e. one not fanatically and
uncritically loyal to Kubrick as a matter of course, which seems to
include most of the posters in this thread). Much like Pavlov's dogs,
the increasingly lengthy wait between films makes us believe that they
must be worth waiting for, that all these reports of hundreds of takes
must mean that the films are going to be earth-shattering masterpieces
when Kubrick eventually allows them to emerge.
But on the evidence of the last three films, that's simply not true.
'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and 'Full Metal Jacket' are exactly the
kind of films you'd expect from someone who has shut himself up in his
own little world for far too long. I remember coming out of a preview
screening of 'Full Metal Jacket' in 1987 and thinking "was that it?"
I remember giving the 119-minute version of 'The Shining' the benefit of
the doubt for years until I finally saw the 144-minute version - I'd
conned myself into thinking that the film's massive flaws were probably
because the international version had been cut, ignoring the fact that
Kubrick had cut it himself (incidentally, if he's such a perfectionist,
how come Anne Jackson and Tony Burton are still listed in the opening
credits of a version of 'The Shining' that no longer features them?).
Inevitably, the long version turned out to be exactly the same film, but
longer: its virtues were as obvious as ever (I can watch that Steadicam
work for ever), but its vices were just as pronounced.
The problem is that the films are simply not deep or profound enough to
justify the immense expenditure of time, effort and money and the weight
of expectation that builds up around them. I think Kubrick has done an
amazing self-marketing job to make people *think* that his films are
automatically going to be earth-shattering masterpieces, but the simple
fact remains that they fall down in rather too many crucial areas to
ever be truly satisfying to me.
Let's take a film (or series of films) that Kubrick himself admires: the
'Dekalog' cycle by Krzysztof Kieslowski. These films hit me on an
emotional and intellectual level in a way that Kubrick's "recent" work
doesn't come anywhere near. Kubrick himself highlights their qualities
when he writes about how "you never see the ideas coming and don't
realise until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart."
And that's the problem I have with Kubrick - I *do* see the ideas coming
(because they're laid out like chess pieces right at the start of the
films), and they don't get anywhere near my heart. My brain, yes. My
eyes, absolutely yes. My ears, yes (if nothing else, I have Kubrick to
thank indirectly for a truly astonishing series of concerts by the great
Hungarian avant-garde composer György Ligeti that recently came to an
end). But my heart, no.
And he used to be able to do this: I did care about Dax, Lolita, even
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. But as the years went on and Kubrick cut
himself off from the real world more and more, his characters have
become caricatures. I don't necessarily buy all Stephen King's
criticisms of 'The Shining', but a major problem I had right from the
start is that Jack Torrance is an obvious nutter right from the start of
Kubrick's film (just look at his body language in the interview) - so
there's no suspense, or any sense of tragedy when he goes over the edge:
we've seen it coming a mile off.
Similarly, it's a great tribute to Kubrick that 'Barry Lyndon' is so
watchable when its characters rarely emerge from the deep freeze. Ryan
O'Neal has been much criticised for his uncharismatic performance, but I
honestly wonder if *anyone* could have survived Kubrick's working
methods and delivered anything that an audience could empathise with.
For all his unusual interest in marketing his films, he doesn't seem to
care about his audience.
Someone once wrote a fan letter to Kieslowski saying that his films made
her realise that there is such a thing as a human soul. I can imagine
many other great film-makers receiving similar tributes - but can you
imagine any sane person saying that about Kubrick's work?
Daniel Booth
In article <1datcrm.pv...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> Phil Noir <phil...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Martin Koolhoven wrote:
> >
>
> > > what's your point? (martin)
> >
> > Simple. Repeated takes, experimentation and even exhaustion *can*
> > contribute to a performance well-worth reaching for, one which never
> > would've arrived at take two.
>
> Yes, but the converse is also true (and overwhelmingly so in the case of
> Kubrick's "recent" work) - a massive number of takes completely saps the
> film of any real human qualities and turns it into a perfectly-crafted
> but cold and unsympathetic monstrosity.
You're assuming that SK calls for repeated takes in a quest for technical
perfection and this is simply not the case. Of all the reasons he shoots
and reshoots, what we usually think of as perfect craftsmanship, in the
David Lean sense, is probably Kubrick's least concern--I'm talking about
his penchant for lots of takes, remember, not his general perfectionism.
He says he only shoots a high number of takes when the actors don't know
their lines well enough to lose themselves in the performance, and I think
that's part of it, but what he really seems to mean is that they don't
lose themselves enough for him to accurately judge whether the scene
itself needs more work. And once that point *has* been reached, he has
been known to re-write, rehearse for days without a crew, change
locations, change actors, or any combination of the above.
It doesn't bother me whether we all agree on the relative success of his
working methods, but I think it's important to clarify how different these
methods are from those of other directors--and how luxurious. The closest
analogy to what he's going, outside of a professional theatre company
working up a new play (read David Rubin's book on the creation of RSC's
"Nicholas Nickleby"), would be Chaplin's working methods throughout the
silent era and especially "City Lights". Watch Brownlow and Gill's
"Unknown Chaplin", as Gordon Dahlquist has also pointed out, and I think
you'll get a pretty fair idea of what Kubrick's set must be like, and why
Cruise, Kidman et.al. continue to swear by him.
Tim Fulmer
I would have to agree that Kubrick's work as a whole has become more
mediocre with each picture that he's made after Clockwork Orange. At
the same time, these very pictures--BL, TS, FMJ, and EWS--have benefited
tremendously from simply being associated in the public's mind with the
the great reclusive director who created 2001.
Mediocre in what way? well, choice of material, for the most part. In
particular, it was quite surprising, to me at least, to find him doing a
Vietnam picture, this genre being so recently over-worked in both the
late Seventies and late Eighties. Kubrick wanted to get in his
cinematic two cents worth, I suppose, and the results were admittedly
disappointing: bland, uninspired acting; overly minimalistic script; and
most of all, a truly hackneyed theme, that training for war is a
progressive process of dehumanization.
But much of the above is forgiven, of course, because FMJ is a Kubrick
film, by god, and it's therefore safe to assume that if Kubrick directed
it's got to be brilliant no matter what, and all of the aesthetic vices
are in fact virtues, you've just got look more closely.
Same with The Shining--in my opinion, another attempt to re-work an
already over-worked genre and furthermore with a script based on a novel
written by the king of all hack writers. Even here the results were
mixed: although the photography, use of Penderecki on the soundtrack,
and production design all combined to produce some truly impressive
atmospherics, the acting was incredibly uneven (and unemotional), and
the story really only gets by on its mysterious symbolic circularity.
Jack's never really left the Overlook, he's *always been there! Wow!
Kubrick's films seem to work, for me at least, beautifully only as
fascinating symbol puzzles, and if one approaches them primarily in this
way, they do offer a lot upon multiple viewings. Otherwise, forget it.
He never has emerged from the hermetically sealed deep-freeze.
Kubrick is one of my very favorite directors, and I'd wager I've watched
his movies as much as many of the people around here, but all of my
viewings have not transformed me into a Kubrick toady. The man's work
has its limitations, no doubt about it, and devoting an amk thread or
two to a close ananlysis of Kubrick's cinematic "problems" might not be
a bad thing actually. . . .
Joseph Markley
Daniel Booth wrote:
> Watch Brownlow and Gill's
> "Unknown Chaplin", as Gordon Dahlquist has also pointed out, and I think
> you'll get a pretty fair idea of what Kubrick's set must be like, and why
> Cruise, Kidman et.al. continue to swear by him.
Bravo -- an exercise which will enlighten anyone drawn into this rather murky
discussion.
Joe Markley
Alexandria, Virginia
Joseph Markley
chris markle wrote:
> *true* genius isn't agonized and protracted - it flows
> from some unknown source as freely as a stream...or
> it doesn't happen at all. i think the portrayal of
> motzart - in "Amadeus" - captures this phenomena nicely...
True genius isn't determined by how the work comes but by what comes. True,
the music flowed (generally speaking) from Mozart and Schubert; but Beethoven
often agonized protractedly, with brillant results.
Joe Markley
Alexandria, Virginia
r...@adelphia.net
On Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:36:35 -0500, Tim Fulmer <ful...@rice.edu>
wrote:
>Same with The Shining--in my opinion, another attempt to re-work an
>already over-worked genre and furthermore with a script based on a novel
>written by the king of all hack writers.
no offence but the novel is better than anything kubrick has ever
done...... but may be unfilmable as the weber version seemed to
proove...
>Kubrick's films seem to work, for me at least, beautifully only as
>fascinating symbol puzzles, and if one approaches them primarily in this
>way, they do offer a lot upon multiple viewings. Otherwise, forget it.
>He never has emerged from the hermetically sealed deep-freeze.
like i said earlier... isn't that sort of the point?
do we chide francis bacon (the painter) or fritz lang for their own
overiding atmosphere?
the whole concept of a good filmmaker always making the same film over
and over again sort of got started when talking about Kubrick.....
so he's a deep freeze..... lets move on..... :)
Michael Brooke
Tim Fulmer <ful...@rice.edu> wrote:
> I would have to agree that Kubrick's work as a whole has become more
> mediocre with each picture that he's made after Clockwork Orange. At
> the same time, these very pictures--BL, TS, FMJ, and EWS--have benefited
> tremendously from simply being associated in the public's mind with the
> the great reclusive director who created 2001.
>
[four paragraphs that I pretty much agree with 100% snipped]
>
> Kubrick is one of my very favorite directors, and I'd wager I've watched
> his movies as much as many of the people around here, but all of my
> viewings have not transformed me into a Kubrick toady. The man's work
> has its limitations, no doubt about it, and devoting an amk thread or
> two to a close ananlysis of Kubrick's cinematic "problems" might not be
> a bad thing actually. . . .
Ironically enough, a similar debate is happening here in Britain, where
many of the new intake of Labour MPs are being accused of slavishly
accepting everything that the government says and does without uttering
even the faintest note of criticism. They deny that they're toadying -
but they are: in fact, one MP, a certain Helen Brinton, has asked the
Prime Minister Tony Blair so many fawning questions (along the lines of
"Would the Prime Minister agree that he's a completely wonderful human
being and can do absolutely no wrong?") that one columnist claimed that
a new unit of measurement should be introduced called the Brinton, which
measures the degrees of slavish crawling and the absence of any reasoned
judgement.
I found it fascinating that my slightly negative criticisms of Kubrick's
recent work (and they were only slightly negative - in every post I
think I mentioned that the films were hugely impressive on a certain
level) was denounced as a "murky troll". It's almost as if the mere
fact that I think that Kubrick is less than absolutely perfect is
cast-iron evidence that there's something wrong with me.
Let's look at the facts: I've seen every Kubrick film from 'Killer's
Kiss' onwards (how many a.m.k regulars can claim that?), and of those,
'Spartacus' is the only one I've seen just once (I was lucky enough to
see it in 70mm on one of the biggest screens in Europe, and that's the
memory I'd like to retain). Most of the others I've seen at least three
times, and I've seen 'Lolita', 'Dr.Strangelove' and 'The Shining' at
least twice that number. And whatever my misgivings about 'Eyes Wide
Shut', you can be sure that I'm going to be one of the first in the
queue to see it, if only because that's my usual practice when trying to
avoid the hype merchants.
In other words, I am a huge admirer of Kubrick's work - but that
certainly doesn't mean I think it's perfect. I'm very conscious of the
fact that I find the late work deeply unsatisfying on all sorts of
levels: aesthetic qualities aside, the subject-matter ultimately boils
down to something rather trite and banal (this is particularly true of
'Full Metal Jacket', a film that was simply not necessary: there are
plenty of other Vietnam films, and plenty of Kubrick films that make
virtually identical points about war and its dehumanising effects).
At his very best, up to and including 'A Clockwork Orange', Kubrick
makes you *think* - with 'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and 'Full Metal
Jacket' he merely leaves you with virtuoso set-pieces and not a lot
else. The films are immensely pleasurable to watch (this is
particularly true of 'The Shining'), but by the end they left me
unsatisfied: because he only seems to be interested in what his
characters *do* rather than what they *are*, we never get inside their
heads.
The Danish film-maker Lars Von Trier started out as an imperialist
film-maker in the Kubrick mould: obsessed with technology and an
all-consuming faith in his own abilities (he gave some of the most
arrogant interviews I think I've ever read!), he made three films ('The
Element of Crime', 'Epidemic' and 'Europa') that had a stunningly
realised surface but were ultimately just as hollow and empty as
Kubrick's last three films. What's interesting here is that Von Trier
actually realised this - and changed his style completely: 'The
Kingdom', 'Breaking the Waves' and (by all accounts) 'Idiots' are shot
with a hand-held camera, continuity goes flying out of the window, and
many of the shots are quite blatantly out of focus. Does it matter? If
you're a technical perfectionist, undoubtedly yes. But in terms of
whether it affects the emotional truth of the films, the answer is an
equally definite no: Von Trier's later films are infinitely more
involving pieces of work on every level.
And the reason I brought up Von Trier is that it seems to me that his
recent style is not dissimilar to that of 'A Clockwork Orange'. There,
the likelihood of an X rating on both sides of the Atlantic forced
Kubrick to work on his lowest budget since the 1950s - shooting rapidly
on location, often using a hand-held camera. There's much more genuine
spontaneity at work, and much more evidence of a natural film-making
talent. Pauline Kael, in her despairing review of 'Barry Lyndon' (her
description of it as "a masterpiece in every insignificant detail" seems
to me to be spot on), wished that Kubrick would come back to America,
"working fast on modern subjects - maybe even doing something tacky, for
the hell of it." And there's a lot to be said for tackiness - sometimes
it reveals the artist far more clearly than an epic attempt at achieving
an unachievable perfection.
Michael
chris markle
Gary Couzens wrote:
>
> chris markle wrote in message
>
> >this captures my opinion of kubrick, quite neatly.
> >from some unknown source as freely as a stream...or
> >it doesn't happen at all. i think the portrayal of
> >(regardless of how accurately it portrays motzart's *real*
> >life). it is probably because kubrick makes such a drama
> >out of the production itself that some fans (with arrested
> >development) treat him as some great master.
>
> Regardless of whether we think Kubrick is a genius or not, that's more than
> a little dubious. Anyone who engages in any creative activity (such as
> painting, writing or music, not just film-making) would dispute your
> definition.
>
> In most cases, simplicity and seeming effortlessness is *much* harder than
> tortuousness and complexity - it takes a lot of work and practice and
> learned technique. As far as writing goes (I know more about that than
> painting or music), I agree with whoever said that you have to write about a
> million words before you can say you've learned to write. Anyone who
> produces work "as freely as a stream" has almost certainly undergone a
> similar apprenticeship.
>
i didn't mean to imply that being a genius ( a true genius, not
some crowd-crowned poseur) eliminates the necessity for hard work.
what it does is give the artist a very clear image in his mind
of what he wants to achieve. certainly even the most gifted
artist must hone his craft, but his gift is god given (for lack
of a better term) not the product of hard work.
Tim Fulmer
>Michael Brooke wrote:
<snip>
> And the reason I brought up Von Trier is that it seems to me that his
> recent style is not dissimilar to that of 'A Clockwork Orange'. There,
> the likelihood of an X rating on both sides of the Atlantic forced
> Kubrick to work on his lowest budget since the 1950s - shooting rapidly
> on location, often using a hand-held camera. There's much more genuine
> spontaneity at work, and much more evidence of a natural film-making
> talent. Pauline Kael, in her despairing review of 'Barry Lyndon' (her
> description of it as "a masterpiece in every insignificant detail" seems
> to me to be spot on), wished that Kubrick would come back to America,
> "working fast on modern subjects - maybe even doing something tacky, for
> the hell of it." And there's a lot to be said for tackiness - sometimes
> it reveals the artist far more clearly than an epic attempt at achieving
> an unachievable perfection.
>
> Michael
But what is this perfectionism exactly? These long intervals between
pictures are not spent working on the same movie, after all. If memory
serves correctly, the cameras actually started rolling on the EWS set
last fall sometime. So what what the hell was he doing between '87-'96?
As far as I know, he was trying out a lot of other projects, some of
which he abandoned for various reasons before finally settling on EWS.
His perfectionism may be more a matter of picking through a lot of
projects to find the best one and less a matter of an excessive number
of takes.
As for your Pauline Kael quote, I agree with it. Barry Lyndon is quite
insignificant thematically and of little relevance to the present age,
but so what? I'd still have to admit it's visually striking--of course
maybe that's why Alcott got the Oscar and Kubrick didn't. Anyhow,
casting Ryan O'Neal in that part might have sunk that picture from the
beginning.
Regarding BL, I recall reading somewhere that Scorsese is a huge fan of
that picture and that when he set about filming Age of Innocence, he
always kept BL in the back of his mind. Unfortunately, he kept it in
his mind too much of the time, as Age of Innocence is the sole Scorsese
picture that's as lifeless and over-studied as a Kubrick piece.
As for doing something tacky, The Shining could be read as a tacky piece
of horror camp. With every additional viewing I find TS more and more
humorous. Nicholson's over the top performance, Duvall's stereotypical
weak female role, and the odd only child with supernatural powers. But
none of this matters, apparently, because on top of this trite storyline
Kubrick layers on a web of symbols, gratuitous references to his
previous movies, and an unsuspected circular narrative arc that's
supposed to make us all exclaim, "Wow! brilliant work," rather than
"What a muddled, pretentious piece of auteurism." Don't get me wrong,
Kubrick's not a hack, but he's been moving in that direction since the
late Sixties. If he makes another picture after EWS it might finally
seal his fate as a director who peaked midway in his career before
making a superfluous series of self-parodies.
Glenna Veritas Portmann
In article <1datczr.1ov...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>And these are that Kubrick's post-'Clockwork Orange'
>work is so hermetically sealed in its own little world
>that it completely fails to engage with any normal
>audience... Much like Pavlov's dogs,
There you go, murking again. The 'Kubrick is
hermetically sealed' argument surfaced among the
mainstream critics when FMJ was released and all
you're doing is repeating a dumb argument which
ignores the specifics of the works.
Many great artists isolated themselves against
society. Picasso never left Europe and rarely his
own compounds (except to chase girls and eat).
Joyce wrote about Dublin without returning for
decades. Proust wrote a 7,000-word novel about
Paris in a cork-lined bedroom.
If you want to criticize Kubrick, don't bother with
recycled platitudes from the mainstream press.
Discuss specifics from the works themselves.
>the increasingly lengthy wait between films makes us
>believe that they must be worth waiting for, that all
>these reports of hundreds of takes must mean that the
>films are going to be earth-shattering masterpieces
Who cares what people are waiting for, how long it
takes, or how many zig-zags he goes through. Please
stop murking.
>'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and
>'Full Metal Jacket' are exactly the kind of films
>you'd expect from someone who has shut himself up
>in his own little world for far too long.
We know. Stop murking.
>
>I remember giving the 119-minute version of 'The
>Shining' the benefit of the doubt for years until I
>finally saw the 144-minute version - I'd conned myself
>into thinking
Your murky subjective reactions carry no weight
in this forum.
>
>The problem is that the films are simply not deep
>or profound enough to justify the immense expenditure
>of time, effort and money and the weight
>of expectation that builds up around them.
We know about the expectation. Say something specific
about the films.
>I think Kubrick has done an amazing self-marketing job
>to make people *think* that his films are
>automatically going to be earth-shattering
>masterpieces,
Wake me up when you climb out of your marketing murk.
>but the simple fact remains that they fall down in
>rather too many crucial areas to ever be truly
>satisfying to me.
zzzzz
>
>And he used to be able to do this: I did care about
>Dax, Lolita, even Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. But
>as the years went on and Kubrick cut himself off from
>the real world more and more, his characters have
>become caricatures.
Maybe you're onto something, but you have yet to show
any specific support from the works themselves.
You're covered in murk.
>but a major problem I had right from the
>start is that Jack Torrance is an obvious nutter
>right from the start of Kubrick's film ... so
>there's no suspense, or any sense of tragedy when he
>goes over the edge: we've seen it coming a mile off.
This generic babble can be found in the Leonard
Maltin blurb on THE SHINING. Say something new.
>
>Ryan O'Neal has been much criticised for his
>uncharismatic performance, but I honestly wonder if
>*anyone* could have survived Kubrick's working
>methods and delivered anything that an audience
>could empathise with.
Who cares about his working methods? Stop murking.
>For all his unusual interest in marketing his films,
>he doesn't seem to care about his audience.
murk
>
>Michael
murkael
Michael Brooke
<cine...@hknet.com> wrote:
> Michael Brooke wrote:
> >
> > Ironically enough, a similar debate is happening here in Britain, where
> > many of the new intake of Labour MPs are being accused of slavishly
> > accepting everything that the government says and does without uttering
> > even the faintest note of criticism.
>
> The analogy is patently absurd.
Why? We're dealing with two people in a position of considerable power,
both subject to repeated criticism from people who "just don't
understand what they're doing", but who are passionately defended by a
cabal of members of an exclusive club that largely exists to promote
their virtues. What's so "patently absurd" about that? I admit I'm not
a regular reader of alt.movies.kubrick, but casual dippings-in over a
period of over three years have rather tended to support Tim Fulmer's
description.
>
> > I found it fascinating that my slightly negative criticisms of Kubrick's
> > recent work (and they were only slightly negative - in every post I
> > think I mentioned that the films were hugely impressive on a certain
> > level) was denounced as a "murky troll". It's almost as if the mere
> > fact that I think that Kubrick is less than absolutely perfect is
> > cast-iron evidence that there's something wrong with me.
>
> No, yet again your interpretation is incorrect. It is not your negative
> comments are unwelcome, or that criticisms of Kubrick's work is
> unwelcome, on the contrary it will always meet fair discussion here
> from most quarters. The point is that so many of the conclusions
> on which you base your criticisms are false, and what you sometimes
> say are, for example, *indisputable facts*, are exa ctly NOT indisputable
> facts.
I really really hate to bring this up in public (ha ha), but the last
time you resorted to personal abuse concerning the subject of "facts",
you ended up with a rather impressive amount of egg on your face. In
fact, I've only just made the connection, and had you not tried the same
kind of abuse in exactly the same tone both here and in another recent
posting, I might not have done so!
Those who don't have long memories probably won't know what I'm talking
about, but in February 1997 or thereabouts there was a discussion round
these parts about something or other connected with the likely release
date of 'Eyes Wide Shut' (I forget the exact context). Anyway, my
contribution to this discussion pointed out, in defiance of loads of
dates being bandied around, that the chances were pretty high that 'Eyes
Wide Shut' would overrun its schedule and that no-one really knew when
it would be released.
A not particularly controversial opinion, I thought, but it sparked off
a hilariously abusive tirade from you, accusing me of not having the
faintest idea what I was talking about, saying that you had it on very
good authority that 'Eyes Wide Shut' would finish shooting in March 1997
and be in cinemas by Christmas 1997, and that Kubrick would then get
'A.I.' shot and in the can and in cinemas by the year 2000 (!!!). And
you then concluded what I imagine you thought was an epic demolition of
my statement with a recommendation to read the Kubrick newsgroup more
often, as though it was some kind of fount of holy writ with a direct
line to Kubrick (my sources were rather more prosaic: trade press,
professional journalists, British film industry insiders, a Warner Bros
employee - complete nobodies, really, compared with the all-seeing
all-knowing alt.movies.kubrick crowd).
Well, I laughed out loud even at the time, and vowed to lie low and get
even with you when, as confidently predicted, 'Eyes Wide Shut' failed to
live up to your predictions (though I note that my original comment is
as accurate now as it was then!). I'll be fair - you did have the good
grace to apologise to me in private e-mail, and I freely acknowledge
that, but I trust you'll understand why any accusations from you
regarding "facts" tend to be greeted with just the merest smidgen of
scepticism at this end.
>
> > In other words, I am a huge admirer of Kubrick's work - but that
> > certainly doesn't mean I think it's perfect.
>
> No-one's saying it is, even though I agree that Dr Strangelove and
> Barry Lyndon are, IMHO, slightly perfect films. ;-}
Define "slightly perfect", especially in the context of 'Barry Lyndon'.
And, having defined it, tell us why this kind of "slight perfection" is
necessarily a good and desirable thing.
In fact, I was reading an interview with György Ligeti the other day, in
which he said that in several of his pieces (including the Requiem, so
memorably used in '2001') he deliberately writes music that is
unplayably difficult: the 20-voice canon from the Requiem is notated
meticulously, but cannot realistically be performed to that degree of
accuracy because the singer will be surrounded by other singers
performing different (often very different) parts, which inevitably will
mean that pitches and rhythms become blurred. And Ligeti freely
acknowledges that the emotive power of the piece comes from these
imperfections: they're a crucial part of the overall plan.
I'd love to think Kubrick works on this principle - but can you think of
any examples? (This isn't a loaded question, by the way!)
>
> I'm very conscious of the
> > fact that I find the late work deeply unsatisfying on all sorts of
> > levels: aesthetic qualities aside, the subject-matter ultimately boils
> > down to something rather trite and banal (this is particularly true of
> > 'Full Metal Jacket', a film that was simply not necessary:
>
> This demonstrates my point. FMJ's subject matter is anything but
> banal. You have clearly missed a number of extensive threads on
> the subject over the past several months.
I have indeed, because I normally only subscribe to alt.cult-movies,
which is how I got into this in the first place!
> Not necessary? Name a
> film that was necessary -- I can't think of a one.
By "unnecessary", I mean that it tells us nothing about Vietnam that
hasn't already been said by other film-makers and writers, it tells us
nothing about war's dehumanising effects that hasn't been explored in
such films as 'Paths of Glory', and 'Spartacus', and it tells us very
little about Kubrick that we didn't already know.
True, artists have every right to plough the same furrow - but when
Kubrick only produces a film once in a blue moon, you will forgive my
disappointment when the furrow turns out to be somewhat familiar. If
'Full Metal Jacket' was one of several films over the past eighteen
years, I'd probably be a bit more tolerant - but as it's his *only* film
in eighteen years, it feels decidedly thin.
> > At his very best, up to and including 'A Clockwork Orange', Kubrick
> > makes you *think* - with 'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and 'Full Metal
> > Jacket' he merely leaves you with virtuoso set-pieces and not a lot
> > else.
>
> Sorry but this is incorrect Michael -- and I apologise for not having time
> to substantiate my argument.
Well, I'll substantiate mine. By "think", I mean a film whose images
and ideas lodge themselves into my brain for months afterwards, turning
into ever more intricate permutations and combinations and
possibilities, and urging me to see them again to try out differing
interpretations. From my point of view - so you're hardly in a position
to tell me how "correct" this is - I get this from Kubrick's earlier
films, but I don't from the last three. In fact, though I hate to say
it, even 'A Clockwork Orange' all too frequently plays like a
picture-book accompaniment to a philosophically far richer novel: it
adds very little to Burgess's original besides Malcolm McDowell's
extraordinary performance.
> Your being unsatisfied is fine; no-one should feel obliged to enjoy
> any movie, let alone any of Kubricks, but because you don't see
> something does not mean it is not there; and because they do not
> satisfy you does not mean they do not have qualities which are
> capable of satisfying others.
Yes, but how many others? Much as I like holding minority opinions, I
certainly don't with these particular films - in fact, the critics I've
been leafing through earlier today (David Thomson, Pauline Kael, Geoff
Andrew) are far more vitriolic about the Warner films and about
Kubrick's work in general than I would ever be. I suspect I rate the
1956-71 work as highly as you do - which is why I've been so
disappointed by what came afterwards.
> Well, EWS may well make all your wishes come true. It might be a
> thoroughly modern tacky film. But I can't help wondering that even
> if it is, you might somehow manage to overlook much of whatever
> else it has to offer.
This rather depends on what it has to offer! But by "tacky", I suspect
Pauline Kael meant something fast and relatively low-budget, and 'Eyes
Wide Shut' hardly fits that description! In fact, Oliver Stone's
'U-Turn' is the best recent example I can think of where a film-maker
who normally tackles Big Meaty Subjects in a suitably epic style decided
to let his hair down and just have fun. Not entirely coincidentally, it
turned out to be the most entertaining film he'd made in years!
> As for Kael, one might equally regard her as a critic who manages to
> dwell at length only on insignificant detail.
One might easily, and I can cite countless examples where I absolutely
disagree with her. But in this case she and I are as one (if memory
serves - I haven't read the review for years - she was pretty accurate
about 'The Shining' as well, particularly in terms of its virtuoso
technique being such that she wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt
for far longer than she would have done with many other films).
Phil Noir
Michael Brooke wrote:
>...attempting to tackle the wider issues....
> hermetically sealed in its own little world that it completely fails to
> engage with any normal audience (i.e. one not fanatically and
> uncritically loyal to Kubrick as a matter of course, which seems to
> include most of the posters in this thread).
Your asessment does not open the possibility that Kubrick admirers have
any critical faculties whatsoever, we just love his films because his
name is on them. I would be the first to admit that Barry Lyndon and
Full Metal Jacket left me wanting, though not for the reasons you cite,
and I would still call them strongly engaging films.
On the issue of Clockwork Orange, I think you are completely wrong; I
feel it is possibly his strongest work (outside of 2001) specifically
because of the "hermetically sealed" world he created, the way the theme
is presented and carried through to the final frame. Quite to the
contrary I would not say the actingis robotic, it is stylized (I daresay
Brechtian) and complimentary to the organic whole of the film.
> (incidentally, if he's such a perfectionist,
> how come Anne Jackson and Tony Burton are still listed in the opening
> credits of a version of 'The Shining' that no longer features them?).
Ask SAG.
> The problem is that the films are simply not deep or profound enough to
> justify the immense expenditure of time, effort and money and the weight
> of expectation that builds up around them.
This is highly speculative, since you don't truly know the reason why
Kubrick operates in his methodology, and completely subjective criteria
to measure a film's value. All that counts is how you perceive the film.
Your expectations cannot be the concern of the filmmaker -- unless
perhaps he is a corporate hack like Schumaker who readily agrees to
eliminate plot and character in order to facilitate more screen time
that will generate toy sales for Batman action figures.
For example, depsite the (highly public) critical reaction (of the
industry) to the time and money expended on Waterworld, I went to the
theatre desirious of a good film, and it was bad -- not because of the
time and money spent, no I would say depsite that. It was bad because
the screenplay was muddled, and any subsequent actions could not have
made it one iota better.
> And that's the problem I have with Kubrick - I *do* see the ideas coming
> (because they're laid out like chess pieces right at the start of the
> films), and they don't get anywhere near my heart.
This is the only valid criticism you have made, I respect it. However I
do not see the filmgoing experience as one so narrowly defined. Bunuel,
for a perfect example does nothing for my heart but amazing things for
my head; that is more than enough. Cinema Paradiso did nothing for my
head but certainly got to my heart (and tear ducts); that was an equally
fulfilling moment in the dark. Would you apply the same heart/mind
dichotomy to literature? Where does Pynchon or Burroughs fit in? Not
with Hugo or Twain or Chandler or even Stan Lee, but they all occupy my
shelves and fulfill different needs.
>a major problem I had right from the
> start [of the Shining] is that Jack Torrance is an obvious nutter right from the start of Kubrick's film (just look at his body language in the interview) - so
> there's no suspense, or any sense of tragedy when he goes over the edge:
> we've seen it coming a mile off.
I was relieved that Kubrick chose to bypass the traditional (and
hackneyed) character arc (decent dad becomes evil dad) that King infused
in Jack Torrance. To me the real suspense was whether or not the scrap
of humanity in Jack (it is there, you just have to look deeper) could
resist the Overlook's evil. He is of course the perfect target and the
kicker was that Jack is *already* fulfilling a predestined course, in
effect rendering our expectations null. Almost the opposite of Clockwork
Orange, if you will.
> For all his unusual interest in marketing his films, he doesn't seem to
> care about his audience.
To the artist, the is a wholly secondary concern. Don't take it so
personally, Mike.
> Someone once wrote a fan letter to Kieslowski saying that his films made
> her realise that there is such a thing as a human soul. I can imagine
> many other great film-makers receiving similar tributes - but can you
> imagine any sane person saying that about Kubrick's work?
How patronizing. Do you allow for the possibility that Kubrick (and his
admirers) think differently? He is not the same man would made Paths of
Glory, after all, and I for one am glad for it.
Phil Noir
Glenna, the Portmann wrote:
> I like the story about MARATHON MAN (a mediocre film)
> where Hoffman showed up without having slept for days
> to look the part in a scene. Olivier told him to
> "try acting."
I am fond of this story too, but in the long run they meet in the
middle. Oliver steps down, Hoffman steps up.
Phil Noir
Martin Koolhoven wrote:
> > Repeated takes, experimentation and even exhaustion *can*
> > contribute to a performance well-worth reaching for, one which never
> > would've arrived at take two. (Phil)
> True, for scenes like you described. When it becomes something that
> happens evry shot you take, you have a problem.
The only problem here, as Derek pointed out is that a few amk'rs have
not spent enough time in production to qualify what they *think* is the
problem.
Michael Brooke
Tim Fulmer <ful...@rice.edu> wrote:
> But what is this perfectionism exactly? These long intervals between
> pictures are not spent working on the same movie, after all. If memory
> serves correctly, the cameras actually started rolling on the EWS set
> last fall sometime.
Give or take a year - "last fall" suggests 1997!
> So what what the hell was he doing between '87-'96?
> As far as I know, he was trying out a lot of other projects, some of
> which he abandoned for various reasons before finally settling on EWS.
I don't think anyone's seriously suggesting that he's been working on
'Eyes Wide Shut' for eleven years - but he has, indisputably, been
working on it for an unusually long time even by his standards
(considering that it's not, by all accounts, a '2001'-style special
effects epic).
> His perfectionism may be more a matter of picking through a lot of
> projects to find the best one and less a matter of an excessive number
> of takes.
I think this "excessive number of takes" thing has been blown up out of
all proportion - but it's undeniably the case that 'Eyes Wide Shut' now
holds the record for the longest shoot ever for a big-budget major
studio film. In fact, if he carries on much longer he'll be nudging the
two-year shoot on 'Eraserhead' (which went on to undergo nearly three
years of post-production!). So clearly the "perfectionism" allegations
aren't based on thin air (and they're backed up by lots of anecdotal
evidence from his previous films!).
>
> As for your Pauline Kael quote, I agree with it. Barry Lyndon is quite
> insignificant thematically and of little relevance to the present age,
> but so what? I'd still have to admit it's visually striking--of course
> maybe that's why Alcott got the Oscar and Kubrick didn't.
Strictly speaking, Kubrick should have done, much as he did with regard
to the special effects on '2001'. All his DPs acknowledge that he
basically calls the shots with regard to the photography, which may
explain why John Alcott's non-Kubrick filmography isn't all that
dazzling. Kubrick, after all, was a professional photographer for
several years, so there's no doubt he knows his way around a camera!
> Anyhow,
> casting Ryan O'Neal in that part might have sunk that picture from the
> beginning.
I'm not sure: under the circumstances I don't think *anyone* could have
done much with the part given the way Kubrick approached it. After all,
there are several highly distinguished actors in there, but on a first
viewing I didn't even recognise Patrick Magee and Steven Berkoff: their
performances were so low-key that they might as well have been played by
anyone!
[An intriguing parallel with '2001' springs to mind: I'm sure lots of
people agree that Douglas Rain's performance as HAL was by far the most
affecting in that particular film, but does anyone think the same thing
about Michael Hordern's narration in 'Barry Lyndon'? There are times
when I feel that he's the one person who I would miss if he was replaced
by someone else!]
> Regarding BL, I recall reading somewhere that Scorsese is a huge fan of
> that picture and that when he set about filming Age of Innocence, he
> always kept BL in the back of his mind.
Actually, I'd heard it was 'The Leopard' - which Scorsese has always
championed as one of his favourite films, and which certainly seems to
have a more obvious stylistic influence over 'The Age of Innocence'.
There's no question that Scorsese has seen 'Barry Lyndon', though -
probably several times!
> Unfortunately, he kept it in
> his mind too much of the time, as Age of Innocence is the sole Scorsese
> picture that's as lifeless and over-studied as a Kubrick piece.
I rather liked it, but I haven't seen it since its original release.
With some films, I decide almost when leaving the cinema that I'm never
going to see them again, just in case my positive impression gets
eroded!
> As for doing something tacky, The Shining could be read as a tacky piece
> of horror camp. With every additional viewing I find TS more and more
> humorous. Nicholson's over the top performance, Duvall's stereotypical
> weak female role, and the odd only child with supernatural powers.
I get the impression that Kubrick isn't that familiar with (or
comfortable with) the horror genre, which is why he fell back on these
stock clichés. Which is a great pity, as there are some superb
set-pieces along the way.
> But
> none of this matters, apparently, because on top of this trite storyline
> Kubrick layers on a web of symbols, gratuitous references to his
> previous movies, and an unsuspected circular narrative arc that's
> supposed to make us all exclaim, "Wow! brilliant work," rather than
> "What a muddled, pretentious piece of auteurism."
'The Shining' seems to be by far the most contentious film in his entire
output, and I'm really not surprised. It's certainly my personal
favourite out of the last three, and I've seen it several times, but
there are times when I swing towards your view of it, and times when I
actually think it's rather good, though the same nagging doubts that I
felt when I first saw it at the age of fifteen or so have never gone
away.
Interestingly enough, David Thomson, one of Kubrick's harshest critics,
really goes out on a limb for it. He writes: "'The Shining', for me,
is Kubrick's one great film, so rich and comic that it offsets his
several large failures. The elements of horror story have been turned
into a study of isolation, space, and the susceptible imagination of a
man who lacks the skills to be a writer. 'The Shining' is about
intuitive imitations, good or bad, and it has an intriguingly detached
view of its story's apparent moral situation. Perhaps Jack Torrance is
a monster, a dad run amok; perhaps family is the suffocation that anyone
should dread. The film is very funny (especially as Nicholson goes over
his edge), serenely frightening, and endlessly interesting. For the
Overlook Hotel is not just a great set, but a museum of movies waiting
for ghostly inhabitants."
I think this is the source of its appeal for me: the concept and setting
are far more intriguing than the central story, and I can watch those
Steadicam rides round the hotel and the maze for ever. But I keep
getting jerked out of these pleasant reveries by the constant reminders
that I'm watching a narrative, and a decidedly trite one at that. If
Kubrick disliked the novel so much, as he strongly hinted, why did he
bother adapting it in the first place? In fact, why is he, almost alone
among directors of his stature, so reliant on literary source material
as a source of inspiration?
> Don't get me wrong,
> Kubrick's not a hack, but he's been moving in that direction since the
> late Sixties. If he makes another picture after EWS it might finally
> seal his fate as a director who peaked midway in his career before
> making a superfluous series of self-parodies.
Then again, 'Eyes Wide Shut' might turn out to be his first really great
film in nearly thirty years. Who knows? Maybe the break will have done
him the world of good. (But if he takes another twelve years, he'll be
83 when his next film comes out!)
Michael Brooke
Glenna Veritas Portmann <notr...@no.trolls> wrote:
> In article <1datczr.1ov...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>
>
>
>
> >And these are that Kubrick's post-'Clockwork Orange'
> >work is so hermetically sealed in its own little world
> >that it completely fails to engage with any normal
> >audience... Much like Pavlov's dogs,
>
>
> There you go, murking again.
I'd dearly love to know what exactly you mean by "murking", but I have a
horrible feeling you'd tell me!
> The 'Kubrick is
> hermetically sealed' argument surfaced among the
> mainstream critics when FMJ was released and all
> you're doing is repeating a dumb argument which
> ignores the specifics of the works.
Not at all - I've raised several specific issues. Why, for example, has
Kubrick apparently lost all interest in his characters other than as
blank ciphers for whatever point he's trying to make? (compare 'Full
Metal Jacket' with 'Paths of Glory'; 'Barry Lyndon' with 'Spartacus' -
which Kubrick largely disowns, though there's more to be proud of there
than there is with many of the later films). Why have his films become
suffused in this stultifying coldness that was absolutely appropriate
for '2001' (where, famously, a machine is by far the most sympathetic
character), but looks weirdly out of place in 'Barry Lyndon' and 'The
Shining' (and which contrasts totally with films like 'The Killing' and
'Lolita')? Why, when he has always shown an unusual interest in the
marketing and commercial success of his films, are the films themselves
so perversely alienating? (This is particularly true of 'Barry Lyndon'
and 'Full Metal Jacket', less so of 'The Shining')
> Many great artists isolated themselves against
> society. Picasso never left Europe and rarely his
> own compounds (except to chase girls and eat).
> Joyce wrote about Dublin without returning for
> decades. Proust wrote a 7,000-word novel about
> Paris in a cork-lined bedroom.
All true - but citing Joyce, Proust and Picasso rather underlines the
fact that Kubrick's last three films are nowhere near that level. 'Barry
Lyndon' is not 'A la recherche du temps perdu', 'The Shining' is not
'Ulysses', and 'Full Metal Jacket' certainly isn't 'Guernica', either in
terms of aims or achievement. Nor are they anything like as impressive
as Kubrick's earlier work, which really does deserve its lofty
reputation.
I've never for a moment denied that it's possible to produce great work
in isolation, but the problem I have with Kubrick is that it seems that
the more isolated he becomes, the less "great" his work seems to be. I
obviously have no idea whether this is a simple cause-and-effect
situation, because Kubrick isn't prolific enough for such a comparison
to stand up - but I can't help but wonder if Jack Torrance is an
(unintentional?) metaphor for Kubrick himself, as the artist in
isolation who's reduced to endlessly repeating himself with increasingly
limited variations (which would certainly add an extra dimension to 'The
Shining', and God knows it can do with one!).
> If you want to criticize Kubrick, don't bother with
> recycled platitudes from the mainstream press.
I'm not - these are my own opinions, formed largely as a result of
seeing Kubrick's work in reverse: starting with 'The Shining' and for
the most part working backwards, then watching the later work again to
see if I'd missed anything from my initial viewing. (I thoroughly
recommend this method with any artist whose work is visibly declining
into self-parody: I tried something similar with Walerian Borowczyk to
great effect, and I can think of plenty of other artists that I should
have done the same thing with!).
Those who work for the mainstream press review the films at the time
they review them because it's their job. I've been "reviewing" the
films in a far more literal sense, because over the past fifteen years
or so I've been watching them repeatedly while trying to come up with a
plausible reason *why* I find Kubrick's last three films so unsatisfying
in comparison with his earlier work. And I'm certainly not alone - over
the years I've come across countless people (critics and ordinary
viewers) who feel more or less exactly the same way about Kubrick's late
work in terms of instinctive disappointment, but who come up with
fascinatingly different explanations for this disappointment.
It's not that the films are boring, because they aren't (in fact, I'm
always amazed at just how watchable 'Barry Lyndon' is considering its
length and its lack of much in the way of conventional dramatic
tension). It's not that Kubrick has nothing to say, because that's
obviously not true. But there is something about the earlier films that
he's never been able to recapture, and maybe the fact that he *didn't*
have more or less unlimited freedom back then was ultimately an asset,
however unlikely this may have seemed at the time.
> >the increasingly lengthy wait between films makes us
> >believe that they must be worth waiting for, that all
> >these reports of hundreds of takes must mean that the
> >films are going to be earth-shattering masterpieces
>
>
>
> Who cares what people are waiting for, how long it
> takes, or how many zig-zags he goes through.
It's a perfectly natural human reaction. If someone takes an
exceptionally long time to start a new piece of work, and if the
emergence of that new work from the start of its creation is also taking
an exceptionally long time, accompanied by lots of metaphorical
crossings-out and rethinks, then of course there's going to be an
unusual amount of interest in it!
After all, to answer your question directly, you wouldn't bother reading
this thread if you didn't care about what people are waiting for, would
you? And to recycle your own analogy, James Joyce recognised this when
he published extracts from "work in progress", which became 'Finnegans
Wake', and invited friends and colleagues to criticise it, though I
can't see Kubrick doing anything remotely similar (has any film-maker?)
I've cut the rest of your post because it was rude, silly, and offered
absolutely no insights into anything in particular, least of all
Kubrick's work. I've also re-read your recent postings in this thread
and have yet to notice a single example of you practicing what you're
preaching with regard to supplying specific examples.
In fact, if we're talking "murk", some of your more elliptical comments
deserve a gold medal in that department!
Michael
(or "murkael", if you prefer).
David Culpepper
Michael Brooke wrote
>
>to call me a Hun and a
>Vandal (Why?
You can only be one, not both.
>And these are that Kubrick's post-'Clockwork Orange' work is so
>hermetically sealed in its own little world that it completely fails to
>engage with any normal audience (i.e. one not fanatically and
>uncritically loyal to Kubrick as a matter of course, which seems to
>include most of the posters in this thread).
> Much like Pavlov's dogs,
>the increasingly lengthy wait between films makes us believe that they
>must be worth waiting for, that all these reports of hundreds of takes
>must mean that the films are going to be earth-shattering masterpieces
>when Kubrick eventually allows them to emerge.
>
In other words, SK is consciously manipulating us with reports of his work
habits? He's not being too successful with me in that respect. I don't
care about his work habits. I don't care how many takes he does. I don't
care if Keitel's patience runs out and he leaves the project. I am not a
film professional in any way, I have a cursory interest in SK's work
routines simply because I find the man interesting and a kindred soul in
certain ways of accomplishing a task. I've been able to translate some of
SK's work methods into my own workplace. As an adherent of Deming, I do
emphasize process but I am hardly so confused as to be unable to distinguish
between process and product.
Neither am I interested in "earth-shattering" artistic phenomenon.
Stravinsky's Firebird and The Rite of Spring were quite revolutionary and
shocking in their day. The composer went on to do other more mature, less
"phenomenal" work throughout his career. Many critics were PO'd at him for
not leading the vanguard of this new music through the 20th century. He
didn't really care much about what the public was clamoring for. After the
ninth (the Solti, Zach.) , Ludwig Van went into the final string quartets;
challenging, subtle and not intended to be earth-shakers in the way of the
Symphonies. Perhaps you don't care for Quartets 11-16? Perhaps someday,
you will.
>I remember coming out of a preview
>screening of 'Full Metal Jacket' in 1987 and thinking "was that it?"
>
So, that's what you thought, huh? Tell me, what is your opinion of the
clouds today?
>(incidentally, if he's such a perfectionist, ...).
It sounds like you have a problem with the hype surrounding SK. Which is
more of a personal problem (yours) than anything else.
>but its vices were just as pronounced.
>
Please break this out in a dedicated post.
>The problem is that the films are simply not deep or profound enough to
>justify the immense expenditure of time, effort and money and the weight
>of expectation that builds up around them
Are you a stockholder in Time-Warner-Turner? If so, pls post this to your
meetings, otherwise it's absurd.
>And that's the problem I have with Kubrick - I *do* see the ideas coming
>(because they're laid out like chess pieces right at the start of the
>films), and they don't get anywhere near my heart. My brain, yes. My
>eyes, absolutely yes. My ears, yes ...But my heart, no.
>
Have you considered that it may be your heart and not the film?
>And he used to be able to do this: I did care about Dax, Lolita, even
>Group Captain Lionel Mandrake.
And this is your bias. OK, I don't mind. You have to care about the
characters. You think Danny should maybe be taken to a doctor.
>But as the years went on and Kubrick cut
>himself off from the real world more and more,
And I take it you live in this "real world"? To take your inference to a
logical conclusion...exactly how would you like the world to be? In this
world of yours...would artists be allowed to grow, mature and actually
create something that you do not understand? What would be the penalty for
exceeding your comprehension? Pls refer to the Ludwig Van comment I made
earlier.
>
>Someone once wrote a fan letter to Kieslowski saying that his films made
>her realise that there is such a thing as a human soul. I can imagine
>many other great film-makers receiving similar tributes - but can you
>imagine any sane person saying that about Kubrick's work?
>
I like Kieslowski, but I do not accept the Judaeo-Christian concept of a
seperate, identifiable and eternal soul (I quite realize the point you are
making). Sanity is a legal term. Face it, you prefer films that speak to
your emotional nature. SK's latter films obviously speak a language that
your "heart" has yet to learn.
Tobasco
Glenna V. Portmann, mon dieu
In article <1dauc9p.12e...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>Glenna Veritas Portmann <notr...@no.trolls> wrote:
>
>> In article <1datczr.1ov...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
>> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>>
>
>I'd dearly love to know what exactly you mean
>by "murking", but I have a
>horrible feeling you'd tell me!
You have yet to give an example of any specific
scenes in any Kubrick movies to advance any
specific claims about his "decline."
I also think he's declined, but you haven't offered
any specific reasons why.
All I can glean from your prolixity is that
you think Kubrick is out-of-touch with his
audience (thank god) and overly concerned with
marketing.
Start citing specific scenes, or analyze Spielborg.
>
>> The 'Kubrick is
>> hermetically sealed' argument surfaced among the
>> mainstream critics when FMJ was released and all
>> you're doing is repeating a dumb argument which
>> ignores the specifics of the works.
>
>Why, for example, has Kubrick apparently lost all
>interest in his characters other than as
>blank ciphers for whatever point he's trying to
>make?
Again, you don't cite specific scenes from his
films, you make a murky statement like "Kubrick
lost all interest in his characters other than
as blank ciphers." This is murky generalized
rhetorical garbage. Please get it out of this
newsgroup or show us an example with a specific
reference to a specific scene.
>Why have his films become suffused in this
>stultifying coldness that was absolutely appropriate
>for '2001'
Stop generalizing and cite some specific examples,
Mr. Murkeal.
>he has always shown an unusual interest in the
>marketing and commercial success of his films, are
>the films themselves so perversely alienating?
The quintessence of murk. Stop worrying about
marketing and audience alientation and cite some
specific scenes to attempt to validate any of your
so-called assertions.
>> Many great artists isolated themselves against
>> society. Picasso never left Europe and rarely his
>> own compounds (except to chase girls and eat).
>> Joyce wrote about Dublin without returning for
>> decades. Proust wrote a 7,000-page novel about
>> Paris in a cork-lined bedroom.
>
>
>All true - but citing Joyce, Proust and Picasso
>rather underlines the fact that Kubrick's last
>three films are nowhere near that level.
Again, I feel sorry for all the people on a.m.k
who have to listen to your generalized murk,
with no specific examples to back it up. You
seem to think that if you say something like
"Kubrick's films are nowhere near that level,"
it's true because it sounds good.
>
>I've never for a moment denied that it's possible
>to produce great work in isolation, but the problem
>I have with Kubrick is that it seems that
>the more isolated he becomes, the less "great" his
>work seems to be.
Please cite specific examples and stop dripping
generalized diarrhetic murk.
>I obviously have no idea whether this is a simple
>cause-and-effect situation,
That's obvious, please wipe away your murk
so we can get some sleep.
>
>> If you want to criticize Kubrick, don't bother with
>> recycled platitudes from the mainstream press.
>
>I'm not - these are my own opinions, formed largely as
>a result of seeing Kubrick's work in reverse:
Please cite specific examples and stop with your
murky excuses.
>I'm certainly not alone - over the years I've come
>across countless people (critics and ordinary
>viewers) who feel more or less exactly the same
>way
Stop hiding under the skirts of the murky mediocre
and cite some specific examples from specific scenes.
>
>Michael
>(or "murkael", if you prefer).
Finally, some common sense (however murky).
Phil Noir
Michael Brooke wrote:
>With 'Full Metal Jacket', not only did you have to wait seven years
> for it, it was also by definition set against Kubrick's previous output.
> We know what Kubrick *can* do at his best, so when his first film in
> seven years falls distinctly short of expectations, you're obviously
> going to be disappointed in a way that you wouldn't have been if 'Cinema
> Paradiso' hadn't delivered. I completely agree with you that one
> shouldn't *normally* define the film-going experience so narrowly, but
> Kubrick is a rather special case here.
I think perhaps your might be confusing "expectation" with
"anticipation." I am anticipating EWS like no other film in recent
memory, I have zero expectations for it. Yes, it's possible to be that
objective.
BTW my apologies on the Clockwork comments, obviously I misread your
post too quickly. It's almost a relief [;)] that you enjoy it!
Michael Brooke
Phil Noir <phil...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Michael Brooke wrote:
> >...attempting to tackle the wider issues....
> > And these are that Kubrick's post-'Clockwork Orange' work is so
> > hermetically sealed in its own little world that it completely fails to
> > engage with any normal audience (i.e. one not fanatically and
> > uncritically loyal to Kubrick as a matter of course, which seems to
> > include most of the posters in this thread).
>
>
> On the issue of Clockwork Orange, I think you are completely wrong;
Completely wrong about what? I didn't *mention* 'A Clockwork Orange'
except in the phrase "post-'Clockwork Orange', by which I meant "the
films made after but NOT INCLUDING 'A Clockwork Orange'". "Post" means
"after" in my book.
Which is not to say that I think it's as good as you do (as a passionate
fan of the novel since my early teens, I tend to side with Anthony
Burgess's criticisms), but I do think it's one of his better films - and
I've said so many times elsewhere.
> I
> feel it is possibly his strongest work (outside of 2001) specifically
> because of the "hermetically sealed" world he created, the way the theme
> is presented and carried through to the final frame. Quite to the
> contrary I would not say the actingis robotic, it is stylized (I daresay
> Brechtian) and complimentary to the organic whole of the film.
Actually, I don't think 'A Clockwork Orange' suffers anything like as
much from the isolation that afflicts his later work. The relatively
low budget and the extensive location work made it far more recognisable
(especially to a native Londoner: I recognised many of the locations!),
and despite the stylisation the characters are far more convincing as
human beings than they are in his later films (and I don't just mean
Malcolm McDowell's Alex, though this is one of the strongest
performances in any Kubrick film). It also undoubtedly helps that it's
based on stronger source material: Burgess's novel is far richer than
the Thackeray, King or Hasford works that he went on to adapt (of
course, this isn't always an advantage, but I think it was in this
case).
>
> > The problem is that the films are simply not deep or profound enough to
> > justify the immense expenditure of time, effort and money and the weight
> > of expectation that builds up around them.
>
> This is highly speculative, since you don't truly know the reason why
> Kubrick operates in his methodology, and completely subjective criteria
> to measure a film's value. All that counts is how you perceive the film.
> Your expectations cannot be the concern of the filmmaker.
This is certainly true of many film-makers, but with Kubrick it's
unavoidable, because the ever-increasing gaps between his films
inevitably boosts such expectations. And these expectations are, I
think, a crucial part of the whole Kubrick mystique, and I'm sure he's
well aware of it, whether or not he consciously exploits it.
I remember when 'The Shining' came out, and every aspect of the film's
marketing (absolutely controlled by Kubrick, needless to say) implied
that it would be the most petrifying horror film ever made. The final
film was something rather different: an often uneasy fusion of art movie
and schlock horror that's alternately fascinating and frustrating.
Expectations are unavoidable. Do you honestly have no expectations
concerning 'Eyes Wide Shut'? And do you honestly think that Kubrick has
no idea at all about the way he's built up these expectations?
> For example, depsite the (highly public) critical reaction (of the
> industry) to the time and money expended on Waterworld, I went to the
> theatre desirious of a good film, and it was bad -- not because of the
> time and money spent, no I would say depsite that. It was bad because
> the screenplay was muddled, and any subsequent actions could not have
> made it one iota better.
I really don't see what you're getting at. 'Waterworld' ran way over
budget because of major logistical and technical problems and poor
organisation (largely deriving from a script that wasn't finished when
shooting began!), while I don't doubt for one second that 'Eyes Wide
Shut' is totally under control on that score - any overruns are entirely
intentional on Kubrick's part. In any case, apart from speculation as
to the exact reasons as to why the filming is taking so long, there is
no negative critical reaction that I'm aware of - though, as I said, I'd
love to be a fly on the wall of some recent meetings at Warner Bros!
> > And that's the problem I have with Kubrick - I *do* see the ideas coming
> > (because they're laid out like chess pieces right at the start of the
> > films), and they don't get anywhere near my heart.
>
> This is the only valid criticism you have made, I respect it. However I
> do not see the filmgoing experience as one so narrowly defined. Bunuel,
> for a perfect example does nothing for my heart but amazing things for
> my head; that is more than enough. Cinema Paradiso did nothing for my
> head but certainly got to my heart (and tear ducts); that was an equally
> fulfilling moment in the dark. Would you apply the same heart/mind
> dichotomy to literature? Where does Pynchon or Burroughs fit in? Not
> with Hugo or Twain or Chandler or even Stan Lee, but they all occupy my
> shelves and fulfill different needs.
Again, this comes back to expectations, and the sheer weight placed on
Kubrick's films as a result of the long delay between them. If you only
make one film every five years or so, which has been about Kubrick's
average for the past thirty years, and if you set yourself up as this
great reclusive genius who only makes films when he's ready and who only
releases them when he thinks he's got them absolutely right, then you
can't compare the end results with something like 'Cinema Paradiso'
(which started out as a rather low-key Italian film that didn't do very
well at the domestic box office and which took about two years to really
establish its international reputation).
With 'Cinema Paradiso', at least if you saw it back in 1989,
expectations would have been nonexistent: there was nothing to fall back
on. With 'Full Metal Jacket', not only did you have to wait seven years
for it, it was also by definition set against Kubrick's previous output.
We know what Kubrick *can* do at his best, so when his first film in
seven years falls distinctly short of expectations, you're obviously
going to be disappointed in a way that you wouldn't have been if 'Cinema
Paradiso' hadn't delivered. I completely agree with you that one
shouldn't *normally* define the film-going experience so narrowly, but
Kubrick is a rather special case here.
Michael
r...@adelphia.net
On Thu, 18 Jun 1998 14:35:42 -0700, Phil Noir <phil...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
>I was relieved that Kubrick chose to bypass the traditional (and
>hackneyed) character arc (decent dad becomes evil dad) that King infused
>in Jack Torrance. To me the real suspense was whether or not the scrap
this may be the stupidest thing i have ever read.
>of humanity in Jack (it is there, you just have to look deeper) could
>resist the Overlook's evil. He is of course the perfect target and the
>kicker was that Jack is *already* fulfilling a predestined course, in
like that's not even more hackneyed???
it almost ruins the movie.... :)
plays like a really bad hammer House of Horror episode directed by
peter sadsy...
egads...
remember i like the film alot......
i lean towards its being unfilmable (the novel that is.)
the main parts of the book are jack and the papers/photo's/history and
Danny and his invisible "friend" neither of which is filmable....
tho even accepting that.....the biggest mistake was that Jack is nuts
from the get go.... so the movie is basically over.......
r...@adelphia.net
>Then again, 'Eyes Wide Shut' might turn out to be his first really great
>film in nearly thirty years. Who knows? Maybe the break will have done
>him the world of good. (But if he takes another twelve years, he'll be
>83 when his next film comes out!)
i for one am hoping it will.....
the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
hard to confirm if Raphael is really involved in the script or if
Kubrick is just using that 1972 novel/earlier screenplay....)
if Frederic is REALLY working on the screenplay then this has a chance
to be kubricks best film ever........ time will tell......
ps-my favorite quote/rumor in regards to EWS :)-
"Kubrick, apparantly, insisted on being driven from hertfordshire
every day at 35mph!!! That's a LONG drive...."
scott tobias
Glenna V. Portmann, mon dieu wrote:
>
> In article <1dauc9p.12e...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> >Glenna Veritas Portmann <notr...@no.trolls> wrote:
> >
> >> In article <1datczr.1ov...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> >> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> >>
> >
> >I'd dearly love to know what exactly you mean
> >by "murking", but I have a
> >horrible feeling you'd tell me!
>
> scenes in any Kubrick movies to advance any
> specific claims about his "decline."
>
> I also think he's declined, but you haven't offered
> any specific reasons why.
>
> All I can glean from your prolixity is that
> you think Kubrick is out-of-touch with his
> audience (thank god) and overly concerned with
> marketing.
>
> Start citing specific scenes, or analyze Spielborg.
>
> >
> >> hermetically sealed' argument surfaced among the
> >> mainstream critics when FMJ was released and all
> >> you're doing is repeating a dumb argument which
> >> ignores the specifics of the works.
> >
>
> >interest in his characters other than as
> >blank ciphers for whatever point he's trying to
> >make?
>
> films, you make a murky statement like "Kubrick
> rhetorical garbage. Please get it out of this
> newsgroup or show us an example with a specific
> reference to a specific scene.
>
> >stultifying coldness that was absolutely appropriate
> >for '2001'
>
> Mr. Murkeal.
>
> >marketing and commercial success of his films, are
> >the films themselves so perversely alienating?
>
> marketing and audience alientation and cite some
> specific scenes to attempt to validate any of your
> so-called assertions.
>
> >> society. Picasso never left Europe and rarely his
> >> own compounds (except to chase girls and eat).
> >> Joyce wrote about Dublin without returning for
> >> Paris in a cork-lined bedroom.
> >
> >
>
> >All true - but citing Joyce, Proust and Picasso
> >rather underlines the fact that Kubrick's last
> >three films are nowhere near that level.
>
> who have to listen to your generalized murk,
> with no specific examples to back it up. You
> seem to think that if you say something like
> "Kubrick's films are nowhere near that level,"
> it's true because it sounds good.
>
> >
> >to produce great work in isolation, but the problem
> >I have with Kubrick is that it seems that
> >the more isolated he becomes, the less "great" his
> >work seems to be.
>
> generalized diarrhetic murk.
>
> >cause-and-effect situation,
>
> so we can get some sleep.
>
> >
> >> recycled platitudes from the mainstream press.
> >
>
> >I'm not - these are my own opinions, formed largely as
> >a result of seeing Kubrick's work in reverse:
>
> murky excuses.
>
> >across countless people (critics and ordinary
> >viewers) who feel more or less exactly the same
> >way
>
> and cite some specific examples from specific scenes.
>
> >
> >(or "murkael", if you prefer).
>
So basically -- and correct me if I'm wrong, Glenna -- Michael could
lose his "murk" status by citing specific examples from specific scenes
from specific films? Maybe you need to re-state this another six or
seven times, because I don't know if you've made it clear enough.
Scott
terry roberts
I have my own theory on this one. Personally, I don't think any director
can be judged on any one of his (or her) films. Some people make one
great movie (Tobe Hooper, for example) and then toddle off to do junk.
Some seem to make every other movie great. Some never make any good
movies, no matter how hard they try. Some made bad movies because they
like to (Troma).
SK is a great director, based on some of his work. Some is not so good.
It happens. However, if you want the truth the reason this is so hyped in
the first place is because it has been so long since his last film that I
think everyone suspected he had hung up his hat because he had "lost it."
I think he knows that, and I have a hunch he may suspect that himself, and
as long as he can keep this movie from being completed, the longer he can
dodge the answer. This is based on no fact or hersay, but think about it
yourself for a moment. If he blows this, then the public at large will
give him a lot of grief for not quitting while he was ahead. And this
way, even if it comes out badly, it won't appear to be his fault. People
will try to blame the movie's failure on the actors who couldn't work up
to his par.
terry roberts
I find it odd that all criticisms of SK seem to come back to that other SK
we all know and love (or loathe, or both, in my case) Stephen King. I am
not sure I understand this, and I admit I am not a huge fan of that book
(good, yes, but not great...) but I think what SK (the director) did to it
was not in its best interests. The movie looked good, but sadly the
people in it never once convinced me of anything that was supposed to be
going on. I was never drawn in. And on that level the movie failed.
My point is lost in all that, I fear. It was a middling movie based on a
slightly above middling book, and where the page held my interest, the
film grabbed it only once or twice.
Ronald J. Whalen
> > Ironically enough, a similar debate is happening here in Britain,
where
> > > many of the new intake of Labour MPs are being accused of slavishly
> > > accepting everything that the government says and does without uttering
> > > even the faintest note of criticism.
> >
> > The analogy is patently absurd.
>
> Why? We're dealing with two people in a position of considerable power,
> both subject to repeated criticism from people who "just don't
> understand what they're doing", but who are passionately defended by a
> cabal of members of an exclusive club that largely exists to promote
> their virtues.
Having a member of an exclusive club to largely promote one's own
virtues is the thesis of a club which is chauvinestic and snobbish.
> What's so "patently absurd" about that? I admit I'm not
> a regular reader of alt.movies.kubrick, but casual dippings-in over a
> period of over three years have rather tended to support Tim Fulmer's
> description.
>
Could you please tell me what Tim Fulmer's description was ?
> >
> > > I found it fascinating that my slightly negative criticisms of Kubrick's
> > > recent work (and they were only slightly negative - in every post I
> > > think I mentioned that the films were hugely impressive on a certain
> > > level) was denounced as a "murky troll".
What was your criticisms of Kubrick's work ? If you don't like Kubrick's
work and have a beef with him, then don't visit the newsgroup. But, on
the other hand if you find Kubrick's work flawed but worthwhile watching
material, then who gives a care about the people who call you a "murky
troll" ? Screw them...they're the real trolls and snobs.
I myself once wrote a lengthy piece damning A CLOCKWORK ORANGE as
Kubrick's worst film. I called it sexist, ugly, mean, sick, dumb and
said that Kubrick's message in the film was that we should all love
murders and rapists and killers. After posting my opinions about the
film, somebody asked me if I was trolling and told me I was a f***ing
idiot.
I couldn't understand this. I mean I was only just expressing my opinion
about a movie ? Is that such a crime ? I mean I'm not the first or only
person to dislike A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The original person's post whom I
responded to also thought A CLOCKWORK ORANGE was a manipulative mean
piece of work from a jerk like Kubrick.
Yeah, that right. Kubrick's a something of a jerk. After all are we
really supposedy to take Stanley Kubrick as a filmmaker seriously and
respect his work when his message in his various movies is that we
should stop dehumanization comes off as hipocrisy from a person who puts
his actors and actress threw all damnation by abusing them, having them
leave the seat in tears and having them do take after take after take
after take ? It seems to me as evidence from both real life and his
movies that Kubrick loves, maybe even worships dehumanization and
violence.
>
> This rather depends on what it has to offer! But by "tacky", I suspect
> Pauline Kael meant something fast and relatively low-budget, and 'Eyes
> Wide Shut' hardly fits that description! In fact, Oliver Stone's
> 'U-Turn' is the best recent example I can think of where a film-maker
> who normally tackles Big Meaty Subjects in a suitably epic style decided
> to let his hair down and just have fun. Not entirely coincidentally, it
> turned out to be the most entertaining film he'd made in years!
Not for me. Yeah, U-Turn was not Stone's usual crazy looney tunes
government-conspiracy work but it was also dull, boring, dumb,
predictable and cliched as heck. I admired Stone for taking a
new subject matter but I wish he had done it with more originality.
Ronald J. Whalen
Glenna Veritas Portmann wrote:
>
> In article <1datczr.1ov...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>
> >work is so hermetically sealed in its own little world
> >that it completely fails to engage with any normal
>
> hermetically sealed' argument surfaced among the
> mainstream critics when FMJ was released and all
> you're doing is repeating a dumb argument which
> ignores the specifics of the works.
>
The fellow isn't murking. Sure I don't agree with his opinions (U-Turn
was Stone's most entertaining film ever? NO WAY! A change of pace from
Stone ? Yes!) but he seems the only person here to take Kubrick and give
him his well-deserved, long-earned commpuence, payment, punishment, and
deliverance a.k.a. a good swift kick in the bottom...this seems to have
disturped you people who've gone and maybe been hypnotized by the fact
that Kubrick can do no wrong and really is God. Kubrick isn't God.
Has Kubrick's work declined since A CLOCKWORK ORANGE ? Not really,
I hated A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The first time I saw it, I walked out
finding I couldn't stand any more. Later, I saw the rest on Cable and
after that had a long hard drink of water wishing I had never watched
the rest of that ugly piece of male piggish pathetic up-date of 1984.
Is Kubrick's work heremetically sealed ? Unknown. To some people it is
and to some people it isn't. Kubrick is one of those filmmaker who
belong on a list of people like Tim Burton, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam,
and John Boorman whose films and work....I'm sorry if I sound like a
complete total jack-off because of this remark but over the years after
hearing various reactions to these people's films, I must say that all
the above filmmakers' works are movies people either get or don't get.
Michael Brooke
Ronald J. Whalen <rjwh...@cti-md.com> wrote:
> If you don't like Kubrick's
> work and have a beef with him, then don't visit the newsgroup.
Actually, I *don't* visit the newsgroup - I haven't subscribed to
alt.movies.kubrick in three years or so!
Every recent Kubrick discussion I've been taking part in has been
crossposted to alt.cult-movies (in fact, some spin-offs are only posted
there - and, for all I know, some spin-offs only appear in
alt.movies.kubrick!)
Michael Brooke
Ronald J. Whalen <rjwh...@cti-md.com> wrote:
> Is Kubrick's work heremetically sealed ? Unknown. To some people it is
> and to some people it isn't. Kubrick is one of those filmmaker who
> belong on a list of people like Tim Burton, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam,
> and John Boorman whose films and work....
You might be in for a pleasant surprise with the new Boorman - not only
is it comfortably his best film since 'Deliverance', it's also by far
his most entertaining. Sadly, 'The General' dropped dead at the box
office over here, despite pretty well across-the board rave reviews.
Michael Brooke
David Culpepper <dc...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> After the
> ninth (the Solti, Zach.) , Ludwig Van went into the final string quartets;
> challenging, subtle and not intended to be earth-shakers in the way of the
> Symphonies. Perhaps you don't care for Quartets 11-16? Perhaps someday,
> you will.
I can certainly see what you're getting at (though I'd prefer it if you
didn't jump to sweeping and erroneous conclusions about opinions that I
have never expressed on Usenet and of which you therefore cannot
possibly be aware), apart from the slight problem that your metaphorical
analogy appears to be asking me to accept with a straight face that 'The
Shining' can be compared with a late Beethoven string quartet.
'The Shining' certainly has more depth than many of its detractors would
have it - but it's not the film that springs immediately to mind when I
think of the words "challenging" and "subtle". *Especially* not the
latter!
Patrick J. Larkin
thats the reason kubrick scrapped the pulp that king wrote and used his
own ideas. and by seeing the ludicrous mini-series (wings guy with
croquet mallet, ha!) we can understand why kubrick totally scrapped it.
judging by every other king adaptation, all of his books are unfilmable
schlock (with the exceptions being his non-horror short stories: Stand
by Me and The Shawshank Redemption)
its NOT Stephen King's 'The Shining'...its Kubrick's 'The Shining'
--
Patrick J. Larkin
http://www.lehigh.edu/~pjl2/kubrick
________________________________________________________________
Patrick J. Larkin
Ronald J. Whalen wrote:
>
> > > Ironically enough, a similar debate is happening here in Britain,
> where
> > > > many of the new intake of Labour MPs are being accused of slavishly
> > > > accepting everything that the government says and does without uttering
> > > > even the faintest note of criticism.
> > >
> > > The analogy is patently absurd.
> >
> > Why? We're dealing with two people in a position of considerable power,
> > both subject to repeated criticism from people who "just don't
> > understand what they're doing", but who are passionately defended by a
> > cabal of members of an exclusive club that largely exists to promote
> > their virtues.
>
> virtues is the thesis of a club which is chauvinestic and snobbish.
>
> > a regular reader of alt.movies.kubrick, but casual dippings-in over a
> > period of over three years have rather tended to support Tim Fulmer's
> > description.
> >
>
>
> > >
> > > > recent work (and they were only slightly negative - in every post I
> > > > think I mentioned that the films were hugely impressive on a certain
> > > > level) was denounced as a "murky troll".
>
> work and have a beef with him, then don't visit the newsgroup. But, on
> the other hand if you find Kubrick's work flawed but worthwhile watching
> material, then who gives a care about the people who call you a "murky
> troll" ? Screw them...they're the real trolls and snobs.
> I myself once wrote a lengthy piece damning A CLOCKWORK ORANGE as
> Kubrick's worst film. I called it sexist, ugly, mean, sick, dumb and
> said that Kubrick's message in the film was that we should all love
> murders and rapists and killers.
Ronie: You are unmercifully flamed becasue your view of ACO is
completely wrong. Kubrick in now way say that "we should LOVE"
murderers. that is ridiculous and your lack of depth of thought is the
most repugnant thing in your posts.
> After posting my opinions about the
> film, somebody asked me if I was trolling and told me I was a f***ing
> idiot.
> I couldn't understand this. I mean I was only just expressing my opinion
> about a movie ? Is that such a crime ? I mean I'm not the first or only
> person to dislike A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The original person's post whom I
> responded to also thought A CLOCKWORK ORANGE was a manipulative mean
> piece of work from a jerk like Kubrick.
You are the FIRST person to distill the meaning of ACO to such a single
gut reaction rather than THINK about the meaning of free-will and
freddom of choice.
> Yeah, that right. Kubrick's a something of a jerk. After all are we
> really supposedy to take Stanley Kubrick as a filmmaker seriously and
> respect his work when his message in his various movies is that we
> should stop dehumanization comes off as hipocrisy from a person who puts
> his actors and actress threw all damnation by abusing them, having them
> leave the seat in tears and having them do take after take after take
> after take ? It seems to me as evidence from both real life and his
> movies that Kubrick loves, maybe even worships dehumanization and
> violence.
Un Ronie...those actors CHOOSE to work with Kubrick! Its not like
friggin jury duty. The only person I recall in tears is Shelly Duvall
who was too busy being envious of the attention of Nicholsons attentions
on set.... Kubrick got Duvall to do her ultimae performance...for her.
The rest of the above paragraph is so insanely cobbled together, I won't
bother responding...
>
> >
> > This rather depends on what it has to offer! But by "tacky", I suspect
> > Pauline Kael meant something fast and relatively low-budget, and 'Eyes
> > Wide Shut' hardly fits that description! In fact, Oliver Stone's
> > 'U-Turn' is the best recent example I can think of where a film-maker
> > who normally tackles Big Meaty Subjects in a suitably epic style decided
> > to let his hair down and just have fun. Not entirely coincidentally, it
> > turned out to be the most entertaining film he'd made in years!
>
> Not for me. Yeah, U-Turn was not Stone's usual crazy looney tunes
> government-conspiracy work but it was also dull, boring, dumb,
> predictable and cliched as heck. I admired Stone for taking a
> new subject matter but I wish he had done it with more originality.
This coming from someone who openly admitted to paying $7, with full
faculties, to seeing _Hope Floats_. Try the new Gilliam film, I'd love
to see your sheltered suburban reaction to THAT film! bwaaaaa haaaaa
haaaaa!!!
Pentti J Lajunen
mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) writes:
[clip]
> I remember giving the 119-minute version of 'The Shining' the benefit of
> the doubt for years until I finally saw the 144-minute version - I'd
> conned myself into thinking that the film's massive flaws were probably
> because the international version had been cut, ignoring the fact that
> Kubrick had cut it himself
Just a little question: why was The Shining cut down?
I find it strange considering the infamous Kubrick's perfectionism.
Or maybe I should ask why those 20+ minutes were left in the
North-American release, because I found the short version much better?
Tim Fulmer
>cine...@hknet.com wrote:
>
> >
> > > Tim Fulmer <ful...@rice.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > I would have to agree that Kubrick's work as a whole has become more
> > > mediocre with each picture that he's made after Clockwork Orange. At
> > > the same time, these very pictures--BL, TS, FMJ, and EWS--have benefited
> > > tremendously from simply being associated in the public's mind with the
> > > the great reclusive director who created 2001.
>
> And that doesn't make any sense to you? Had they failed to live up to
> >any< of those expectations, then your surprise might be understandable,
> however in all cases -- with the exception of the yet to be released EWS --
> the films have acquitted themselves rather well, and on repeated viewings
> have consistently managed to yield additional information.
>
I don't know what crimes Kubrick's films were ever charged with that
they must then be acquitted. You my miss point entirely, I believe.
I'm stating this--that in Kubrick's total output, there is a clean
"break" between A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.
I'll explain. The three movies which preceded Barry Lyndon--DS, 2001,
and ACO--are truly original works of cinema, thematically and
technically. Furthermore, I believe that Kubrick's reputation as a
great filmmaker rests entirely and only on those three movies.
The next three Kubrick installments read as genre pieces and nothing
more--a costume drama, a horror flick, and a Vietnam war movie. Perhaps
that sounds overly glib and cynical, but I think not. All three works
were based on second-rate source material. Instead of Southern, Clarke,
and Burgess, we get Thackaray, King, and Hasford. The latter group is
certainly second rate compared to the material he could've chosen from
those respective genres. Had he chosen, say, Laurence Sterne, H.P.
Lovecraft, and Ron Kovic, he might have actually found material through
which he could fashion some original cinema. . .
Anyhow, as it stands Kubrick then takes this material and spends years
trying to rework it into something more than second rate, but with
marginal success. All of the technical prowess is there, however, and
so his movies become works of formal perfection, nothing more. And
although this is something of an achievement, it's nothing like the
achievement of, say, ACO or DS.
In this respect, then, it seems Kubrick's perfectionism is completely
misguided. He puts tremendous effort into perfecting what is already
mediocre, apparently believing that he'll arrive at some ultimate
masterpiece. He's tried this three times now with disappointing
results, IMO, and unfortunately it's starting to look like he's doing
number four with EWS. . . .
Michael Brooke
Patrick J. Larkin <pj...@lehigh.edu> wrote:
> r...@adelphia.net wrote:
> >
> > remember i like the film alot......
> >
> > i lean towards its being unfilmable (the novel that is.)
> >
> > the main parts of the book are jack and the papers/photo's/history and
> > Danny and his invisible "friend" neither of which is filmable....
> >
> > tho even accepting that.....the biggest mistake was that Jack is nuts
> > from the get go.... so the movie is basically over.......
>
>
> thats the reason kubrick scrapped the pulp that king wrote and used his
> own ideas. and by seeing the ludicrous mini-series (wings guy with
> croquet mallet, ha!) we can understand why kubrick totally scrapped it.
He didn't "totally scrap it" - Kubrick's 'The Shining' has numerous
points in common with King's novel, which I think is a far more
impressive piece of work than you make out (have you actually read it,
or are you merely going by the TV miniseries?). Kubrick changed a fair
bit in terms of the structure and surface elements (swapping the topiary
animals for the more visually logical hedge maze), but the film's basic
narrative and most of the major set-pieces clearly originate in the
book.
In fact, Kubrick said that one of the few really major changes to the
basic narrative - the fate of Hallorann - was made specifically because
he wanted to confuse and disorientate people who had read the book! Far
from "totally scrapping" it, this sounds to me as though he's very much
acknowledging its existence.
> judging by every other king adaptation, all of his books are unfilmable
> schlock (with the exceptions being his non-horror short stories: Stand
> by Me and The Shawshank Redemption)
As I know only too well from my own experience, making sweeping
statements like "*every* other King adaptation" is asking for trouble.
I will of course politely assume that you genuinely have seen every
Stephen King adaptation (and, ideally, that you've read all the novels
they were adapted from), but this begs the question of why you're
lumping 'Carrie', 'Salem's Lot' and 'Misery' in with the other films
based on his work.
King's work, like that of many novelists who don't think in terms of
neat cinematic narratives that can be presented in two hours, doesn't
translate particularly well to film - and it's probably not a
coincidence that the most successful adaptations tend to be derived from
the shorter work ('Carrie' and 'Misery' in particular are not that much
longer than the novellas - not short stories - that 'Stand By Me' and
'The Shawshank Redeption' were based on). But dismissing it as
"unfilmable schlock" in the face of copious evidence to the contrary is
just silly - personally, I think at least six halfway decent adaptations
is the kind of track record that many novelists would envy!
> its NOT Stephen King's 'The Shining'...its Kubrick's 'The Shining'
Yes, but you can't just separate and eliminate the original novel as
easily as you make out. Shakespeare at least had the advantage that
most of the work he adapted (he, like Kubrick, seemed to prefer
adaptations to original work) has faded over the centuries - or is only
recalled because it formed the basis of the Shakespeare version, and
only Shakespeare scholars bother to read it these days.
You can just about stretch that analogy to cover the likes of 'Clean
Break', 'Red Alert' and 'The Short-Timers' (to name three relatively
obscure novels that Kubrick adapted), but when we come to the likes of
'Lolita', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'The Shining', things get a lot
messier. Like it or not, they're very well-known novels by highly
distinctive writers, they're all in print, and still widely available.
In other words, though Kubrick obviously takes the final responsibility
for the film, the fact that there's a lot of King's novel in it coupled
with the fact that King's novel hasn't exactly disappeared into the
background, means that your attempt to separate the two becomes a lot
messier. Like it or not, Kubrick's 'The Shining' *is* King's 'The
Shining' - at least in parts.
Michael
Pentti J Lajunen
Tim Fulmer <ful...@rice.edu> writes:
> Mediocre in what way? well, choice of material, for the most part. In
> particular, it was quite surprising, to me at least, to find him doing a
> Vietnam picture, this genre being so recently over-worked in both the
> late Seventies and late Eighties. Kubrick wanted to get in his
> cinematic two cents worth, I suppose, and the results were admittedly
> disappointing: bland, uninspired acting; overly minimalistic script; and
> most of all, a truly hackneyed theme, that training for war is a
> progressive process of dehumanization.
Maybe he started FMJ early 70's but was so slow that The Deer Hunter,
Apocalypse Now, Platoon and a bunch of rambos beat him... :-)
Patrick J. Larkin
Michael Brooke wrote:
>
> Patrick J. Larkin <pj...@lehigh.edu> wrote:
>
> > r...@adelphia.net wrote:
> > >
> > > remember i like the film alot......
> > >
> > > i lean towards its being unfilmable (the novel that is.)
> > >
> > > the main parts of the book are jack and the papers/photo's/history and
> > > Danny and his invisible "friend" neither of which is filmable....
> > >
> > > tho even accepting that.....the biggest mistake was that Jack is nuts
> > > from the get go.... so the movie is basically over.......
> >
> >
> > thats the reason kubrick scrapped the pulp that king wrote and used his
> > own ideas. and by seeing the ludicrous mini-series (wings guy with
> > croquet mallet, ha!) we can understand why kubrick totally scrapped it.
>
> He didn't "totally scrap it" - Kubrick's 'The Shining' has numerous
> points in common with King's novel, which I think is a far more
> impressive piece of work than you make out (have you actually read it,
> or are you merely going by the TV miniseries?). Kubrick changed a fair
> bit in terms of the structure and surface elements (swapping the topiary
> animals for the more visually logical hedge maze), but the film's basic
> narrative and most of the major set-pieces clearly originate in the
> book.
>
Kings ending was derived and stupid. The croquet mallet was silly and
the topiary garden ludicrous. The hedge maze was a crucial invention of
Kubrick's.
> In fact, Kubrick said that one of the few really major changes to the
> basic narrative - the fate of Hallorann - was made specifically because
> he wanted to confuse and disorientate people who had read the book! Far
> from "totally scrapping" it, this sounds to me as though he's very much
> acknowledging its existence.
>
> > judging by every other king adaptation, all of his books are unfilmable
> > schlock (with the exceptions being his non-horror short stories: Stand
> > by Me and The Shawshank Redemption)
>
> As I know only too well from my own experience, making sweeping
> statements like "*every* other King adaptation" is asking for trouble.
> I will of course politely assume that you genuinely have seen every
> Stephen King adaptation (and, ideally, that you've read all the novels
> they were adapted from), but this begs the question of why you're
> lumping 'Carrie', 'Salem's Lot' and 'Misery' in with the other films
> based on his work.
>
OK. I'll give you 'Carrie' and 'Misery' but thats IT. King used to
write interesting horror books, like Carrie, The Stand, and Shining.
His later works reeked of crap.
> King's work, like that of many novelists who don't think in terms of
> neat cinematic narratives that can be presented in two hours, doesn't
> translate particularly well to film - and it's probably not a
> coincidence that the most successful adaptations tend to be derived from
> the shorter work ('Carrie' and 'Misery' in particular are not that much
> longer than the novellas - not short stories - that 'Stand By Me' and
> 'The Shawshank Redeption' were based on). But dismissing it as
> "unfilmable schlock" in the face of copious evidence to the contrary is
> just silly - personally, I think at least six halfway decent adaptations
> is the kind of track record that many novelists would envy!
>
Thats not the problem. The problem is that as a writer, King is lame.
His later work is terrible (ie Pet Semetary, Christine). His discovery
of a word processor accelerated his total hack status.
> > its NOT Stephen King's 'The Shining'...its Kubrick's 'The Shining'
>
> Yes, but you can't just separate and eliminate the original novel as
> easily as you make out. Shakespeare at least had the advantage that
> most of the work he adapted (he, like Kubrick, seemed to prefer
> adaptations to original work) has faded over the centuries - or is only
> recalled because it formed the basis of the Shakespeare version, and
> only Shakespeare scholars bother to read it these days.
>
> You can just about stretch that analogy to cover the likes of 'Clean
> Break', 'Red Alert' and 'The Short-Timers' (to name three relatively
> obscure novels that Kubrick adapted), but when we come to the likes of
> 'Lolita', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'The Shining', things get a lot
> messier. Like it or not, they're very well-known novels by highly
> distinctive writers, they're all in print, and still widely available.
Lumping Kings hack-work in with Nabakov and Burgess is a crime.
>
> In other words, though Kubrick obviously takes the final responsibility
> for the film, the fact that there's a lot of King's novel in it coupled
> with the fact that King's novel hasn't exactly disappeared into the
> background, means that your attempt to separate the two becomes a lot
> messier. Like it or not, Kubrick's 'The Shining' *is* King's 'The
> Shining' - at least in parts.
King was pissed becasue Kubrick had the audacity to hack his novel (no
pun intended). King WANTED the works separated. Kubrick wanted the
works separated. Kubrick would only sing the film rights back over to
King if he promised not to discuss Kubrick's rendition.
King is more financially established but what King fails to realize is
that Kubrick, as an artist, is levels above.
Michael Brooke
Pentti J Lajunen <plaj...@trumpetti.hut.fi> wrote:
>
> Just a little question: why was The Shining cut down?
> I find it strange considering the infamous Kubrick's perfectionism.
> Or maybe I should ask why those 20+ minutes were left in the
> North-American release, because I found the short version much better?
'The Shining' was actually cut twice - from 146 to 144 minutes shortly
after the world premiere, and then from 144 to 119 minutes for the
international release. I've never seen the 146-minute version (has
anyone?), but the cut sounds pretty logical: it apparently consisted of
a short coda where Wendy and Danny are visited in hospital by the hotel
manager. By all accounts, this occurred immediately after the close-up
of the photo, and if that's the case, I think Kubrick was probably right
to remove it: the photo close-up is an absolutely logical final shot.
So logical, in fact, that I don't know why Kubrick had the final scene
in there in the first place!
The additional cuts were made for the film's international release. The
British Film Institute's Monthly Film Bulletin, which described all 17
cuts in some detail (I actually posted this some time ago, though it
doesn't seem to be on my hard drive any more - try Dejanews), gave the
following explanation:
"After playing to generally bad reviews and erratic box-office in
America, the film was preview-tested before its opening in London, and a
further twenty-five minutes were cut".
Looking down the MFB's list, there's not much that would make a really
significant difference to one's appreciation of the film. In the long
version, we establish that Jack is a former alcoholic who broke his
son's arm at a much earlier stage, but this information is repeated
later on in scenes that are in both versions.
Most of the other cuts make virtually no difference - Ullman the manager
showing off the hedge maze, for example - while the only major
additional scenes concern Hallorann's attempts to get to the hotel, most
of which have been cut. Again, the removal of these scenes doesn't
change the overall effect of the film to any significant extent, apart
from emphasising just how far Hallorann has to travel and how much
effort he has to put in.
The MFB speculated that the fact that many of the cuts were to scenes of
the Torrances watching television removed "a significant motif in the
film, to do with popular culture and communication", but this doesn't
come across particularly strongly in the full version. One can, of
course, establish a link between "the shining" and with television and
radio transmissions, but Kubrick doesn't make very much of this in the
long version - or at least not enough to suggest that it's "a
significant motif".
Michael Brooke
Patrick J. Larkin <pj...@lehigh.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > thats the reason kubrick scrapped the pulp that king wrote and used his
> > > own ideas. and by seeing the ludicrous mini-series (wings guy with
> > > croquet mallet, ha!) we can understand why kubrick totally scrapped it.
> >
> > He didn't "totally scrap it" - Kubrick's 'The Shining' has numerous
> > points in common with King's novel, which I think is a far more
> > impressive piece of work than you make out (have you actually read it,
> > or are you merely going by the TV miniseries?). Kubrick changed a fair
> > bit in terms of the structure and surface elements (swapping the topiary
> > animals for the more visually logical hedge maze), but the film's basic
> > narrative and most of the major set-pieces clearly originate in the
> > book.
> >
>
> Kings ending was derived and stupid. The croquet mallet was silly and
> the topiary garden ludicrous.
Actually, the topiary animals worked pretty well in the book - but I can
see why Kubrick thought they wouldn't translate well to the screen (I
haven't seen the TV miniseries). Similarly, the ending works much more
convincingly on the page. Conversely, I suspect the hedge maze wouldn't
have worked anything like so well in the novel - it's an overwhelmingly
visual and spatial concept.
> The hedge maze was a crucial invention of
> Kubrick's.
>
Yes, which is why I singled it out. But my original point still stands:
you claimed that Kubrick "totally scrapped" the novel, but even the most
cursory comparison of the film and the novel gives the lie to that.
> >
>
> Thats not the problem. The problem is that as a writer, King is lame.
> His later work is terrible (ie Pet Semetary, Christine). His discovery
> of a word processor accelerated his total hack status.
'Pet Sematary' is anything but terrible. The film adaptation is an
abomination (even more so because King wrote the screenplay), but the
original novel is on a far higher plane: the schlocky elements are
counterbalanced with a serious study of grief and loss. I was always
under the impression that it was regarded as one of the high points in
the King canon, and that's certainly where I'd put it.
> >
> > You can just about stretch that analogy to cover the likes of 'Clean
> > Break', 'Red Alert' and 'The Short-Timers' (to name three relatively
> > obscure novels that Kubrick adapted), but when we come to the likes of
> > 'Lolita', 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'The Shining', things get a lot
> > messier. Like it or not, they're very well-known novels by highly
> > distinctive writers, they're all in print, and still widely available.
>
> Lumping Kings hack-work in with Nabakov and Burgess is a crime.
Look at what I wrote. I didn't claim that 'The Shining' was a great
work of literature (I don't think it is) - I said that it was "a very
well-known novel by a highly distinctive writer". Like it or not,
King's work is extremely well-known, and his style is instantly
recognisable. Since when has being accurate been a crime?
> Kubrick would only sing the film rights back over to
> King if he promised not to discuss Kubrick's rendition.
Don't you just love tiny little typos that end up completely changing
the entire meaning of the original sentence? I wish I had a recording
of Kubrick's musical rendition of the rights contract to 'The Shining',
though I can see why he asked King not to discuss it!
> King is more financially established but what King fails to realize is
> that Kubrick, as an artist, is levels above.
Actually, back in 1977, Kubrick was the financially-established one (he
made a fortune on the back of 'Lolita', and has lived off that ever
since), while King's work was only just beginning to sell well.
And while your point regarding Kubrick and King may stand up in terms of
their overall output, when it comes to specific comparisons between each
version of 'The Shining', the situation is much less clear-cut. The
novel, like it or not, is rather better than the pulp schlock you're
trying to dismiss it as. The film - again, like it or not - is not
exactly the high point of Kubrick's career. *Both* are flawed.
Martin Koolhoven
Phil Noir wrote:
> Martin Koolhoven wrote:
>
> > > Repeated takes, experimentation and even exhaustion *can*
> > > contribute to a performance well-worth reaching for, one which
> never
> > > would've arrived at take two. (Phil)
>
> > True, for scenes like you described. When it becomes something that
> > happens evry shot you take, you have a problem.
>
> The only problem here, as Derek pointed out is that a few amk'rs have
> not spent enough time in production to qualify what they *think* is
> the
> problem.
I hope you're not refering to me.
Martin
Zach Ralston
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 r...@adelphia.net wrote:
> the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
> he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
What's wrong with Michael Herr?
-zach
"All work and no play makes Zach a dull boy."
Martin Koolhoven
Please clarify 'merk'.
I'm European (continentel)
Martin
Gordon Dahlquist
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 r...@adelphia.net wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:48:19 +0100, mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk
> (Michael Brooke) wrote:
>
> >Then again, 'Eyes Wide Shut' might turn out to be his first really great
> >film in nearly thirty years. Who knows? Maybe the break will have done
> >him the world of good. (But if he takes another twelve years, he'll be
> >83 when his next film comes out!)
>
> i for one am hoping it will.....
>
> the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
> he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
> hard to confirm if Raphael is really involved in the script or if
> Kubrick is just using that 1972 novel/earlier screenplay....)
What? What about michael herr or diane johnson or terry southern? have
you read any of their books? I think they're both quite accomplished,
actually - and excellent choices for their respective projects.
Gordon Dahlquist
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Ronald J. Whalen wrote:
> Glenna Veritas Portmann wrote:
> >
> > In article <1datczr.1ov...@everyman.demon.co.uk>,
> > mic...@everyman.demon.co.uk (Michael Brooke) wrote:
> >
> > >And these are that Kubrick's post-'Clockwork Orange'
> > >work is so hermetically sealed in its own little world
> > >that it completely fails to engage with any normal
> > >audience... Much like Pavlov's dogs,
> >
> > There you go, murking again. The 'Kubrick is
> > hermetically sealed' argument surfaced among the
> > mainstream critics when FMJ was released and all
> > you're doing is repeating a dumb argument which
> > ignores the specifics of the works.
> >
>
> I hated A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The first time I saw it, I walked out
> finding I couldn't stand any more. Later, I saw the rest on Cable and
> after that had a long hard drink of water wishing I had never watched
> the rest of that ugly piece of male piggish pathetic up-date of 1984.
Vintage rjw ... piquant, tangy, sassy ... just missing that aftertaste of
exclamation point for the finish, or should I say the big win.
I, Glenna of Portmann
In article <358A9BBD...@xs4all.nl>,
Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>Please clarify 'merk'.
>I'm European (continentel)
"Murk," as in "murky," -- "thick, muddy, ill-seeming"
(Act V. TAMING OF THE SHREW by Shakespeare)
is when certain amk readers make
general statements about either Kubrick's
omnipotence or his decline, without citing
specific scenes to back up their
premises.
Below are a few recent exchanges; for instance,
the giveaway in the first one is the murky
generalized solipsism of the phrase: "for
whatever point he's trying to make." The
writer of that phrase is just plain lazy.
> >Why, for example, has Kubrick apparently lost
> >all interest in his characters other than as
> >blank ciphers for whatever point he's trying
> >to make?
>
> Again, you don't cite specific scenes from his
> films, you make a murky statement like "Kubrick
> lost all interest in his characters other than
> as blank ciphers." This is murky generalized
> rhetorical garbage.
or:
>Why, since he has always shown an unusual interest
> in the marketing and commercial success of his films,
> > are the films themselves so perversely alienating?
>
> The quintessence of murk. Stop worrying about
> marketing and audience alientation and cite some
> specific scenes to attempt to validate any of your
> so-called assertions.
Here's another, which tries to bolster its murk
by running for cover in a crowd (countless?); also
notice the lazy and oxymoronic phrase: "more or less,
exactly."
Geoffrey Alexander
cine...@hknet.com wrote in article <358945...@hknet.com>...
> Michael Brooke wrote:
> >
> > Tim Fulmer <ful...@rice.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > I would have to agree that Kubrick's work as a whole has become more
> > > mediocre with each picture that he's made after Clockwork Orange. At
> > > the same time, these very pictures--BL, TS, FMJ, and EWS--have
benefited
> > > tremendously from simply being associated in the public's mind with
the
> > > the great reclusive director who created 2001.
>
> And that doesn't make any sense to you? Had they failed to live up to
> >any< of those expectations, then your surprise might be understandable,
> however in all cases -- with the exception of the yet to be released EWS
--
> the films have acquitted themselves rather well, and on repeated viewings
> have consistently managed to yield additional information.
>
> > > viewings have not transformed me into a Kubrick toady. The man's
work
> > > has its limitations, no doubt about it, and devoting an amk thread or
> > > two to a close ananlysis of Kubrick's cinematic "problems" might not
be
> > > a bad thing actually. . . .
>
> Had you spent more time at amk, you would know well that Kubrick's
> mistakes, oversights, weaknesses, are often discussed. There are
> many admirers of his work here, but contrary to what you may have
> surmised, few sycophants.
>
>
> > Ironically enough, a similar debate is happening here in Britain, where
> > many of the new intake of Labour MPs are being accused of slavishly
> > accepting everything that the government says and does without uttering
> > even the faintest note of criticism.
>
> The analogy is patently absurd.
..aside from the fact that AMK >is< happing in the UK as well as anywhere.
What's this "here in Britain", White Man?
>
>
> > I found it fascinating that my slightly negative criticisms of
Kubrick's
> > recent work (and they were only slightly negative - in every post I
> > think I mentioned that the films were hugely impressive on a certain
> > level) was denounced as a "murky troll". It's almost as if the mere
> > fact that I think that Kubrick is less than absolutely perfect is
> > cast-iron evidence that there's something wrong with me.
No. Kubrick is less than perfect. That's why he strives for perfection. Why
we flame you, troll-boy, is for other reasons.
>
> > Let's look at the facts: I've seen every Kubrick film from 'Killer's
> > Kiss' onwards (how many a.m.k regulars can claim that?),
>
> Pretty much all of us, actually. Repeatedly.
There's more than a few of us who have seen every moving picture from "Day
of the Fight" on ("including Fear & Desire") plus more than a few of his
Look Magazine stills, and in the meanwhile know more regarding EWS and AI
than we actually want to. He's STILL, for a few of us, one of the finest
artists of this century.
Your point?
>
> > In other words, I am a huge admirer of Kubrick's work - but that
> > certainly doesn't mean I think it's perfect.
Ok.
So what?
>
> No-one's saying it is, even though I agree that Dr Strangelove and
> Barry Lyndon are, IMHO, slightly perfect films. ;-}
>
>
> I'm very conscious of the
> > fact that I find the late work deeply unsatisfying on all sorts of
> > levels: aesthetic qualities aside, the subject-matter ultimately boils
> > down to something rather trite and banal (this is particularly true of
> > 'Full Metal Jacket', a film that was simply not necessary:
>
> This demonstrates my point. FMJ's subject matter is anything but
> banal. You have clearly missed a number of extensive threads on
> the subject over the past several months. Not necessary? Name a
> film that was necessary -- I can't think of a one.
Was >any <film, book, pr painting ever produced >necessary<? This begs for
a spanking, yeah.....
>
> > At his very best, up to and including 'A Clockwork Orange', Kubrick
> > makes you *think* - with 'Barry Lyndon', 'The Shining' and 'Full Metal
> > Jacket' he merely leaves you with virtuoso set-pieces and not a lot
> > else.
>
> Sorry but this is incorrect Michael -- and I apologise for not having
time
> to substantiate my argument.
I'm sorry that Michael stopped thinking, at some point. He'll come around.
Or not
> > ...Pauline Kael, in her despairing review of 'Barry Lyndon'
..her birthday was today. I spit upon it.
>
> As for Kael, one might equally regard her as a critic who manages to
> dwell at length only on insignificant detail.
>
..or, to be, herself, an insignificant Detail within the Overall of
Criticism.....
g.
Phil Noir
Martin Koolhoven wrote:
> > The only problem here, as Derek pointed out is that a few amk'rs have
> > not spent enough time in production to qualify what they *think* is
> > the problem. (Phil)
> I hope you're not refering to me.
Only if it applies. (insert icon of your choice here)
Michael Brooke
Zach Ralston <zral...@umsis.miami.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 r...@adelphia.net wrote:
>
> > the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
> > he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
>
> What's wrong with Michael Herr?
Or indeed Jim Thompson, Vladimir Nabokov, Terry Southern and Arthur
C.Clarke?
Keith Shockley
Man, what a long thread...
EdWood
Pentti J Lajunen
"Patrick J. Larkin" <pj...@lehigh.edu> writes:
> > As I know only too well from my own experience, making sweeping
> > statements like "*every* other King adaptation" is asking for trouble.
> > I will of course politely assume that you genuinely have seen every
> > Stephen King adaptation (and, ideally, that you've read all the novels
> > they were adapted from), but this begs the question of why you're
> > lumping 'Carrie', 'Salem's Lot' and 'Misery' in with the other films
> > based on his work.
> >
> OK. I'll give you 'Carrie' and 'Misery' but thats IT. King used to
> write interesting horror books, like Carrie, The Stand, and Shining.
> His later works reeked of crap.
Why Cronenberg's 'The Dead Zone' is always forgotten from the list
of good King adaptations? I think its the best of the lot.
r...@adelphia.net
>Zach Ralston <zral...@umsis.miami.edu> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 r...@adelphia.net wrote:
>>
>> > the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
>> > he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
>>
>> What's wrong with Michael Herr?
>
>Or indeed Jim Thompson, Vladimir Nabokov, Terry Southern and Arthur
>C.Clarke?
again aside from southern.... all not really screenwriters and not at
all suited to the medium....... besides nabakov and clarke were both
basically ignored screenplay wise.......
and i like southern as a screenwriter... tho he is nowhere near a
genius in that regards........
don't you think Raphael is by far the best screenwriter he has worked
with michael? just curious....
r...@adelphia.net
On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 12:49:41 -0400, Zach Ralston
<zral...@umsis.miami.edu> wrote:
>
>On Fri, 19 Jun 1998 r...@adelphia.net wrote:
>
>> the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
>> he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
>
>What's wrong with Michael Herr?
i stand corrected.... michael IS brilliant....... tho i still wonder
what his real contribution was......
perhaps a better way of stating it would be that the is the first time
in a while he has had a true SCREENWRITING genius working with
him.....
michael herr has done more voiceover work than screenplays.... :(]
he is a brilliant prose writer tho......
r...@adelphia.net
>
>What? What about michael herr or diane johnson or terry southern? have
>you read any of their books? I think they're both quite accomplished,
>actually - and excellent choices for their respective projects.
>
>
>
again what i said really only applies IF Raphaels contribution to EWS
is more than the 1972 nonel/treatment........ IF he is truly working
on the screenplay then i stand by my statement....
i love Herr..... and like Southern..... not too familiar with Diane
tho.....
r...@adelphia.net
>its NOT Stephen King's 'The Shining'...its Kubrick's 'The Shining'
i never said it wasn't...
in fact i said i love the film..... in bits and pieces.....
its just not the novel at all really.....
still the novel is a much greater work of art imho....... its alot
deeper and complex than the movie... but then that would have to be
the case...
Ronald J. Whalen
> > > the ONLY reason i hold out this hope.... is because for the FIRST time
> > > he has a truly brilliant writer working WITH him.... (tho it's been
> >
> > What's wrong with Michael Herr?
>
> C.Clarke?
>
Kubrick didn't collaborte much with Nabokov, Nabokov did a screenplay
treatement of Lolita but Kubrick didn't use it. Arthur C. Clarke is
one the best science fiction writers ever and really made sci-fi
writing books what they are today and a true visionary and even
Kubrick said that the best writing partner he ever had was Clarke.
Jim Thompson is an excellent novelist and his work on Kubrick films
was very impressive giving them the film-noir drama aspect they needed.
Terry Southern is a wonderful comic satirist who also wrote Easy Rider
and deserves a good deal of credit for the humor in Dr. Strangelove
even though Kubrick downplayed Southern's work on the script.
Ronald J. Whalen
Pentti J Lajunen wrote:
>
> "Patrick J. Larkin" <pj...@lehigh.edu> writes:
>
> > > As I know only too well from my own experience, making sweeping
> > > statements like "*every* other King adaptation" is asking for trouble.
> > > I will of course politely assume that you genuinely have seen every
> > > Stephen King adaptation (and, ideally, that you've read all the novels
> > > they were adapted from), but this begs the question of why you're
> > > lumping 'Carrie', 'Salem's Lot' and 'Misery' in with the other films
> > > based on his work.
> > >
> > OK. I'll give you 'Carrie' and 'Misery' but thats IT. King used to
> > write interesting horror books, like Carrie, The Stand, and Shining.
> > His later works reeked of crap.
>
> of good King adaptations? I think its the best of the lot.
Indeed. The Dead Zone is the best King film made. It keeps the original
book's ideas, characters intact and has a beautiful love story, a scarry
political conspiracy plot. Definitely one of the most under-rated films
of the 1980's. Cronenberg's Dead Zone and remake of The Fly go on my
list of Cronenberg's best work. His later works are disappointing though
his adaption of Naked Lunch was an ambitious film try.
Michael Brooke
§Pentti J Lajunen <plaj...@alpha.hut.fi> wrote:
> "Patrick J. Larkin" <pj...@lehigh.edu> writes:
>
> > > As I know only too well from my own experience, making sweeping
> > > statements like "*every* other King adaptation" is asking for trouble.
> > > I will of course politely assume that you genuinely have seen every
> > > Stephen King adaptation (and, ideally, that you've read all the novels
> > > they were adapted from), but this begs the question of why you're
> > > lumping 'Carrie', 'Salem's Lot' and 'Misery' in with the other films
> > > based on his work.
> > >
> > OK. I'll give you 'Carrie' and 'Misery' but thats IT. King used to
> > write interesting horror books, like Carrie, The Stand, and Shining.
> > His later works reeked of crap.
>
>
> Why Cronenberg's 'The Dead Zone' is always forgotten from the list
> of good King adaptations? I think its the best of the lot.
I've only seen it in dubbed French (!), but on the basis of what I saw
I'm quite prepared to go along with you. So that's at least seven
halfway decent King adaptations - which is getting to the point where
I'd dearly love to know if any other writers can claim that amount!
Michael Brooke
I, Glenna of Portmann <nos...@no.trolls> wrote:
> In article <358A9BBD...@xs4all.nl>,
> Martin Koolhoven <kool...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>
> >Please clarify 'merk'.
> >I'm European (continentel)
>
>
> "Murk," as in "murky," -- "thick, muddy, ill-seeming"
> (Act V. TAMING OF THE SHREW by Shakespeare)
>
> is when certain amk readers make
> general statements about either Kubrick's
> omnipotence or his decline, without citing
> specific scenes to back up their
> premises.
Which I have done. See below. And I am *not* an a.m.k. reader - I
haven't subscribed to the group in years!
> Below are a few recent exchanges; for instance,
> the giveaway in the first one is the murky
> generalized solipsism of the phrase: "for
> whatever point he's trying to make." The
> writer of that phrase is just plain lazy.
>
Not at all. If you're discussing recurring flaws in a body of work (as
opposed to a single work), then unless the artist is making the same
point over and over again (which Kubrick isn't), then by definition
you're going to have to come up with a collective description.
>
> > Stop hiding under the skirts of the murky mediocre
> > and cite some specific examples from specific scenes.
> >
I've supplied numerous examples. In fact, I supplied some yesterday to
counter a sweeping and absurdly contentious statement from your fan
Geoffrey Alexander (another poster who's overfond of misusing the word
"troll"). I also supplied several specific examples to counter another
tirade of generalised and largely unsupported abuse from Patrick
J.Larkin.
But of course, generalised and unsupported abuse of other artists in
order to elevate Kubrick is probably absolutely fine in your neck of the
woods, isn't it? The day I see you criticise messrs. Alexander and
Larkin for *their* "murkiness" is the day I'll start taking your
comments seriously. Or maybe I will when you start supplying specific
counter-examples of your own instead of relying on elliptical and
largely meaningless one-liners.
David Culpepper
Michael Brooke wrote
(though I'd prefer it if you
>didn't jump to sweeping and erroneous conclusions about opinions that I
>have never expressed on Usenet and of which you therefore cannot
>possibly be aware),
I jumped to no conclusions that were not stated in your post, Michael.
Everything I laid out was in direct response to your statements.
>apart from the slight problem that your metaphorical
>analogy appears to be asking me to accept with a straight face that 'The
>Shining' can be compared with a late Beethoven string quartet.
So erudite, such sophistry, such arrogance in your own narcissism. Exactly
what authority shall you refer me to that will unutterably slay my
comparison? With a straight face, of course.
>"subtle". *Especially* not the >latter!
>
Please refer to my post of "logic checks" for a response.
Michael, I do appreciate your criticisms of SK's work here. You, at least,
apply (some) sound techniques of argument and logic in your assertions. I
question your follow-through. I find your posts rife with unsubstantiated
opinion, perhaps a result from tackling the issues in such a broad brush
(and yes, careless) manner. Much of your posting is posited on little more
than Ad Hominem attacks on your perception of the hype machine surrounding
SK. If your problem is with that aspect of SK, I recommend that you
address it specifically, instead of embedding that invective in a criticism
of the man's work.
BTW, how about sharing with us the title of your latest film. The tone of
your criticism would indicate that you have sheperded your career far more
proficiently than SK has his own.
Tobasco