Stanley Kubrick: films and directorial style

Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick: An Analysis of His Life and Work

Biography

Stanley Kubrick, who many would describe as one of the greatest filmmakers every, was born in 1928 in the Bronx, New York. Believe it or not many would say that Kubrick was not a born writer or filmmaker, but rather one that was made. This is the result of some less than spectacular early attempts at writing and filmmaking. Though Kubrick did believe that college might be beneficial at some point in his life, he was actually not able to get into college due to his tremendously bad grades in high school (SK-TMF 1). His passions while young included "jazz drumming, chess and photography" (SK-TMF 1). Considered a "non-brilliant student," it took some time for Kubrick to begin pursing his real dream ... filmmaking (SK-TMF 1).

Kubrick made his first film at the age of 23 in 1951 (Gerrhig 12). The film master used his savings to finance his first film, which was only 16 minutes long (SK-TMF 1). The film was a documentary of Walter Cartier, a boxer. The film, called "Day of the Fight" was purchased by RKO and played in New York at Paramount Theaters (Falsetto 71). The film was moderately well received at best, though Kubrick did not realize at the time how "good life could be" and how much success he would realize in the very near future (Falsetto, 72).

His next work was a documentary called Flying Padres, which was only 9 minutes long (SK-TMF 1). The documentary featured Father Fred Stadtmueller, a priest who was a member of a Piper club. Kubrick seemed particularly concerned with expressing the state and life of ordinary and everyday people in these early short films. His early experiences in life lent themselves to these explorations of the life and times of ordinary people.

As Kubrick was growing in his filmmaking career, he typically acted as a director, cinematographer, and editor (SK-TMF 1). He even at times acted as his own soundman (SK-TMF 1). As such he was often very busy, and seen by many as eccentric and even obsessed with filmmaking because of his unusual manner and extremely busy schedule (Falsetto 71). .

Popular Films

Kubrick went on to make many popular films including "A Clockwork Orange," which was a surrealistic thriller about a future society, and "Doctor Strangelove," an eccentric yet realistic movie which portrayed the cold war resulting in the end of the world. While many of Kubrick's movies were seen as comedies or preposterous, they could very easily be seen as reality.

Kubrick is often seen as a very private man, not forthcoming in interviews, not always consistently the most financially successful yet the stories he tended to spin and the technical ways that he portrayed films and produced films were considered influential in the world of theatre.

Another popular movie of Kubrick's was "2001: A Space Odyssey." This movie in particular is often considered one of the "greatest films ever made" and also a "landmark in cinema history" (SK-TMF 1; Sharrett 61). This movie was one of the most accurate with regard to the vision. Kubrick had a lot of foresight when creating this movie. In hindsight it was accurate with regard to where the space program was and where technology was going. It may have been optimistic, however Kubrick managed to dig really deep into issues such as "who are we" and "what is our origin" and "where are we going" (Sharrett 61). The movie rolled from pre-historic man to the astronaut Dave discovering that the things were full of stars. The movie takes kind of an unusual twist, but perhaps this was Kubrick's synopsis or evaluation of life in general. Very few things can be perceived as normal, rather most things in life tend to take an odd twist (Sharrett 61).

Kubrick is often considered a filmmaker that was obsessed with finding the meaning that fills the individual soul, though he may have been a skeptic deep at heart, unconvinced that there was any one solution to what exactly made man tick (Sharrett 61).

Critical Analysis

The movie "Full Metal Jacket" is considered another one of Kubrick's great successes, along with other films including "2001: A Space Odyssey." The film was shot over a period of just months, and was made for a "meager $17 million dollars" (SK-TMF 1). The movie is an effort to show the dehumanizing and violent training marines went through prior to their shipment overseas. It demonstrates the appropriateness of the military training individuals received in preparation for the horrors they would see overseas, but is also an easy reason to also see why the individuals going through this training are seen as less human as time progresses (Falsetto 71).

Full Metal Jacket was a follow up to the "Shining" (Falsetto 22). The film is considered by man, "emotionally distanced, ironic and unsentimental" (Falsetto 71). The film's primary concern is with the "irrationality of war" (Falsetto 72), Kubrick takes an abstract view of war, and concentrates on the experienced of soldiers in Vietnam. The primary aim of the film however is to examine how war or other conflicts may impact human behavior in either a good or bad manner (Falsetto 72).

The film explores the point-of-view from first person, and uses filmmaking techniques including "deep focus composition, camera movement, rhythmical editing and narrative structure" (Falsetto 72). These techniques were not foreign to Kubrick who was used to embracing many different film methods in order to portray his tale correctly. Kubrick is well-known in this film for using many images in this film to blend reality with fiction, and present aspects of reality in a stylized and highly organized manner (Falsetto 73).

Anderegg suggests that in Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick was "ostensibly structured in line with the combat-film paradigm" and powerfully projected the "symbolic satires of the genre being imitated" (11). The authors suggests that the film was meant to in part explain how individuals lose their own identity when they become members of a group, and suggests that film portrays men forming a type of male bonding that transforms into a violent "ejection of the feminine" (Anderegg, 11).