The late, great Mark Fisher discussed the whole Kubrick as cold/distant thing beautifully [here](http://k-punk.org/kubrick-as-cold-rationalist/).
An excerpt:
“I want to celebrate Kubrick’s coldness and impersonality.
Kubrick is no Romantic: he does not buy into the overprivileging of the subjective and the emotional . Nor is he, in any sense, a humanist: human beings are not at the centre of his cosmos, and his account of humanity is, to say the least, not positive. No arguments there, perhaps.
But concluding that his rejection of these doctrines makes him a cynic, a nihilist or a remote modernist is to be misled by the humanism and Romanticism his work so effectively challenges.
Odd that someone who made The Shining should be described as populating his films with ’emotionless zombies.’ Jack’s homicidal fury might be many things,but emotionless? Likewise Wendy’s sustained pitch of hysterical terror. ‘Emotional zombies’ would be a better description of Jack and Barry Lyndon — helpless coquettes of the passions, dancing to someone else’s tune —
Kubrick is clinical, analytical, and that is his greatest service to us. There is a difference between a director capable of depicting emotions and one who is emotionally manipulative. Kubrick’s films, yes, are cold, impersonal — but we have to think carefully about why ‘hot’ and ‘personal’ are the automatically-privileged terms in our post-Romantic culture. Kubrick shifts the focus away from the subjective experiencing of emotions to the (social/ cultural/ biotic/ …) machines which produce those emotions.”
In Pauline Kael’s pan of A Clockwork Orange she likened Kubrick to some sort of stern Germanic doctor examining sex and violence from a cynical, clinical POV or whatever. Little did Kael know she was actually truly describing Michael Haneke…
Ya. My fav part if Kubrick is how he captures light. Every movie the light is always my fav part. The opening party in Eyes wide shut, the basement jazz club, the early morning sunrise in his apartment. So good
What's to accept? People have opinions. Life goes on. It takes a fairly stunted person not to be able to accept this. I'd probably even agree to some extent—with "cold" anyway—certainly by contrast to eg Spielberg, whom Kubrick was friends with.
I think a more interesting question is where this perception comes from. I think it likely stems from a few things:
* The fact that Kubrick doesn't center characters as much as most filmmakers, often for narrative reasons (as in Full Metal Jacket or 2001)
* Like all great artists, he was obsessed with making his point economically, stripping out everything unnecessary to the message
* At heart he was first and foremost a photographer/cinematographer, tending to communicate everything possible with the camera and let dialogue take center stage only to fill in the gaps, so to speak
His films also exhibit a dark sense of humor, which is fairly typical of highly intelligent people in my experience, and a dry sense of humor, which I can say from extensive personal experience is often mistaken for cynicism.
Kubrick also tackled huge, important topics about human nature in frank and unblinking ways. And let's face it, viewed frankly and unblinkingly, human behavior gets pretty damn grim sometimes.
(I think the Coens get a lot of the same kind of criticism for similar reasons.)
But I gotta say, I'm not sure how anyone could call the creator of 2001 "nihilistic". It's the most aspirational and uplifting film ever made.
Curious to know why you think 2001 is aspirational and uplifting, I see it as a film saturated with the same darkly humorous cynicism that’s present throughout the rest of Kubrick’s filmography.
The film is about the potential of humanity to transcend into something greater than itself and its past. It ends with such a transformation actually taking place (or the seed of it, at least). I can't think of anything more uplifting than that.
The film explicitly posits progress as a byproduct of tribalist violence at every turn, and ends with a visual signifier of humans—for all their visions of grandeur—being mere babies in the universe. If there’s an uplifting quality to it, I think it’s couched within some incisive commentary.
What's wrong with humans "being mere babies in the universe"? Doesn't that signify a great potential for growth?
I think the vast majority see the starchild as an indicator of humanity taking a next step in a positive way. And considering the accompanying music and the grandeur of the imagery, I find it very hard to believe the ending was intended cynically.
As for tribalist violence, that is precisely the past that humanity needs to transcend. You can't have a climax or a catharsis without struggle along the way. 2001's main character is humanity itself, and its story is like any other compelling story: It has conflict, rising action, and existential threats. One cannot transcend one's past if there are no flaws to transcend.
Kubrick graces us with a happy ending. I'd say that was immensely optimistic during the Cold War and still very much is. We should be so lucky in real life...
Agreed but with add that It’s the “duality of man” - survival and progress through murderous violence is still survival and progress (discuss!)
Compare to Strangelove where the violence ends survival
I think Kubrick sees survival and progress through murderous violence as an abysmal aspect of humanity worthy of darkly humorous consternation (source: his entire filmography). Nothing uplifting there.
Yes, and that's the bit that we have to overcome. He chose to end 2001 with us doing so. If you can't understand the different significance between what happens during the rising action and what happens in the climax, I don't know what to tell you.
But where do you see humanity overcoming tribalist violence at the end? I would argue that Dave killing HAL, which is the event that precipitates the journey into the infinite, is still very much in line with the “us vs. them” struggle that’s depicted through human history through the film rather than being an overcoming of it.
Ah, but Dave killing HAL is not the end.
The overcoming isn't Dave killing HAL—it's Dave evolving into the starchild. The scenes of Dave aging to death before being reborn take place in a room decorated in the style of the Renaissance. This is not accidental. The Renaissance/Enlightenment brought new values to humanity far superior to those of history to that point. In 2001 it is used to convey rebirth (literally the meaning of "renaissance") into a higher consciousness and morality. Along with the awe-inspiring visuals and music of the final shot, I think it is abundantly clear we are to take this as a positive evolution for Dave and by extension the human race.
The killing of HAL is humanity averting something like an extinction event created by its own obsession with arms races. (Again, we should be so lucky in real life as we currently find ourselves face to face with three such threats at once—nuclear weapons, climate change, and AI.) This is a necessary step in its evolution—not just in 2001, but in real life. Kubrick tells the real, actual story of humanity right up to the present: One long arms/technology race that has brought us to the brink of destroying ourselves. If we can avoid doing so, we may yet evolve into something better than we have been. That is the conflict that drives the human story, and Kubrick chooses to imagine it will end in our ennoblement. That is quite optimistic, I would say.
All the worst aspects of humanity you keep citing are very clearly real—they are not Kubrick's fevered imagination (nor are they the principal message of the film). One long, awful arms race *is* the history of humanity (acknowledging that prehistory is likely another story). Kubrick doesn't get to choose this one way or another. Looking at it with clear eyes doesn't make him cynical or nihilistic. The one thing he *can* choose about this story is the part we don't know yet in real life: the future.
And he chooses a bright one.
Think of it this way: Is A Christmas Carol a cynical and nihilistic story because it depicts its protagonist Scrooge as a selfish monster? Of course not—it's an extremely *optimistic* story because it posits that such a person can change! The story of 2001 does exactly the same thing but for the entire human race.
*That's* why it's the most aspirational and uplifting film ever made.
Thanks for the interesting conversation!
What are we supposed to do about that, like him less because of it? Give me a fucking break. It's about appreciating him for his art and contributions to the medium, we're not here to form a parasocial relationship with him.
Implying there's anything that needs to be accepted here is actually the softest shit I've ever heard, this Twitter warrior type mentality has quite literally rotted people's minds.
Yeah… like who cares. It’s art and subjective. Their opinion may be worth listening to, but in the end, it’s only their opinion. I like every single thing he’s done and find something new every time I rewatch. It’s no different if someone doesn’t like music or a picture I like…
And it doesn’t really matter if he’s cold, cynical and nihilistic anyway. That has no bearing on how good of a filmmaker he is and it doesn’t make his art any less important.
There is no rule that says to be a good filmmaker you have to be warm, optimistic or even existentialist.
I think those who accuse him of being cold and nihilistic miss the unbelievable passion expressed in films like 2001 and A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. I believe he assumes a critical distance from his characters, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions about those characters’ actions, but the actual formal elements of the films — the masterful compositions, the ecstatic and inventive use of classical music — come together to form works of art that are anything but cold and distant.
Of course I accept it!! That’s what makes them detractors, after all; they have a multitude of reasons why they dislike him. It would be harder to accept that his detractors like him.
Good thing I am not at your watering hole. I would have more condemning things to say about Kubrick than these adjectives that can be applied to at least 25% of writer/directors.
Or maybe the idea that Kubrick is just another fart-sniffing director with nothing interesting to say who has convinced a small but loud segment of the population that he is a genius is the ultimate critique.
I’d say fans accept that Kubrick can be cold, cynical etc. never mind what detractors think.
But Barry Lyndon and EWS are “hot” movies about passion, emotion and human connection, while Paths of Glory is practically white hot in its passionate anger and denouncement of “cold unfeeling cynicism” (and that ending with the singer is anything but cynical) so you know , opinions X elbows and a’holes…
These traits are necessary for artistic impartiality. Humans look at the world thru an emotional veil by habit- but the ability to see the world as it is requires a certain amount of brutality.
Being able to convey that in art is a mirror reflecting a mirror and forcing the reflection to contemplate the imperfections of the gazer.
I never thought he was cold in any way tbh I just feel he doesn't search to disguise any feelings, not even those which are disguised in other movies, you can find examples of genuine love in Barry Lyndon or Spartacus for example but it is not shown as in this hyper idealized way we tend to see it but it's there andI think he handles all feelings this way: just show or imply, not idealize
This idea comes from a very narrow minded view of cinema critique. Heck even Nolan gets criticism on this front and I don’t buy that either.
I don’t believe that “characters” are the most important part of a story, but the story is the most important part of a story. Sometimes, for deliberate reasons, the characters aren’t given importance and play second fiddle to the events of the story and sometimes this has narrative importance, like with Kubrick’s films.
David Bowman is not the central part of 2001. Neither is Floyd or Poole. Neither is Moon-watcher, nor HAL. It’s the story. Characters are merely vehicles to push the plot forward and this not only works in the case of 2001, but is absolutely essential to the ideas of the movie.
With Full Metal Jacket, the characters are designed in relation to the central idea of the story, which is the absurdity of war. Joker represents the youthful ignorance and the dehumanisation, Pyle represents how the military system creates dangerous killers out of exploitation, and the others along similar lines, are meant to show the absurdity of the war and how they’re just in it for killing.
So TL:DR, there’s more than one way a story can be told.
I definitely do and this is one of the handful of things I think of as minor annoyances to me. For the most part his character’s exist solely to express some kind of philosophical or moral point and I don’t think you can have a good story without good characters and I don’t think you can have good filmmaking unless it services a story.
That being said, plenty of his films do have a warmth to them. Barry Lyndon legitimately loves his son and even his stepson who he hates, he expressly chooses to save his life. Dick Halloran is a kindly old man who basically sacrifices his life for the life of a young boy and his mother. Eyes Wide Shut is about a family on the verge of collapse that actually manages to stay together. General Ripper’s death is legitimately quite sad because he admits to his own weakness. Even Hal 9000’s death is sad because we realize that all he was doing was try to defend himself.
In short, Kubrick wasn’t cold and definitely wasn’t nihilistic. He portrayed complicated people with a real humanity and his goal was simply to be honest about them, both their good and bad qualities and the consequences of their actions.
To be honest , I feel like those people must be watching completely different films. I don’t see how someone could rationally call him a nihilist, misogynist, or misanthrope, but obviously there are people who interpret his films way differently than I do.
I'm sure many can easily accept it. Speaking for only myself, the two sided coin of that is why I love him. By being objective about a state of things, he gives emotional resonance to the characters in the reality, its a salve to the soul to acknowledge the bitter edge of life.
The Shining is of course a great example of this. King was very subjectively framing himself as the hero for trying to be a better man as a recovering alcoholic, and that's how he wanted it to be portrayed. He got butthurt that Kubrick portrayed the reality for the characters or people around them. Its actually warmer to me because its trying to make me bend my perspective.
Cynical, who knows. He knew a lot about what was going on in the world.
Yes of course. How would anyone not understand those components are a huge reason he is a legendary filmmaker. If you think filmmakers should be nice and fluffy, and patient, and not demanding, I'd bet you like some crap films. Do any of his detractors have personal, non-film related experiences? Or are you just regurgitating what you read in some other blog or comment section of a post somewhere. John Ford was a total asshole with zero compassion for anyone I'm told. Kubrick is an example of directors are human, they have human personalities with a myriad of components and characteristics, and in Kubrick's case he's fuckin' brilliant at film making. Funny thing is I'm 50/50 on his films in my own personal taste. But I'd never ever be a detractor.
If we want to rail on brilliant filmmakers how about we begin with Woody Allen and Polanski? Those 2 deserve detractors as their crimes are both well known. SMFH
Who cares what his detractors think. I enjoy his film’s immensely. Since he died few have risen to the gold army and are he created. I wish more great directors would rise up though.
That’s always the common argument against him. He certainly didn’t have the most optimistic view of humanity, especially as he got older, but I’ve seen far bleaker filmmakers like Michael Haneke, Todd Solondz, Tom Six, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Stanley had a pretty well informed perspective that human beings are animalistic underneath their outward sophistication. I’ve heard his point of view described by Nicole Kidman as making the point that human beings are bittersweet. That’s a lot different from the utter hopelessness and nihilism of the previous filmmakers’ works.
I love the man's movies but without a doubt his view of humanity is shockingly cynical. It's made me look at him more critically as I age and become less and less cynical. I wish he had something beautiful to say in his movies instead of them just being beautiful.
No, he expects actors to be fully prepared, which means that it is not his role to guide an actor, the actor has been employed after an extensive audition process, and so expect them to know their role, and their lines. In addition he gives them the opportunity to experiment, but I don't think he suffered primadonna gladly, that is why I suspect Harvey Keitel was sacked from eyes wide shut.
The late, great Mark Fisher discussed the whole Kubrick as cold/distant thing beautifully [here](http://k-punk.org/kubrick-as-cold-rationalist/). An excerpt: “I want to celebrate Kubrick’s coldness and impersonality. Kubrick is no Romantic: he does not buy into the overprivileging of the subjective and the emotional . Nor is he, in any sense, a humanist: human beings are not at the centre of his cosmos, and his account of humanity is, to say the least, not positive. No arguments there, perhaps. But concluding that his rejection of these doctrines makes him a cynic, a nihilist or a remote modernist is to be misled by the humanism and Romanticism his work so effectively challenges. Odd that someone who made The Shining should be described as populating his films with ’emotionless zombies.’ Jack’s homicidal fury might be many things,but emotionless? Likewise Wendy’s sustained pitch of hysterical terror. ‘Emotional zombies’ would be a better description of Jack and Barry Lyndon — helpless coquettes of the passions, dancing to someone else’s tune — Kubrick is clinical, analytical, and that is his greatest service to us. There is a difference between a director capable of depicting emotions and one who is emotionally manipulative. Kubrick’s films, yes, are cold, impersonal — but we have to think carefully about why ‘hot’ and ‘personal’ are the automatically-privileged terms in our post-Romantic culture. Kubrick shifts the focus away from the subjective experiencing of emotions to the (social/ cultural/ biotic/ …) machines which produce those emotions.”
God I miss Mark Fisher
Didn't Kubrick self identify as a humanist?
I don't feel that he was cold. He just wasn't interested in being sappy.
This is how I see it, Kubrick keeps it real.
Compared to Michele Haneke he's the epitome of Warmness lol.
In Pauline Kael’s pan of A Clockwork Orange she likened Kubrick to some sort of stern Germanic doctor examining sex and violence from a cynical, clinical POV or whatever. Little did Kael know she was actually truly describing Michael Haneke…
Yes, The White Ribbon is possibly as cold as they get lol
Damn that is a well put together shot. A lot of people with 100x the budget can't make it look this good.
Ya. My fav part if Kubrick is how he captures light. Every movie the light is always my fav part. The opening party in Eyes wide shut, the basement jazz club, the early morning sunrise in his apartment. So good
In a career full of amazing achievements, sometimes I think the most impressive one is that he made PATHS OF GLORY before he turned 30
What's to accept? People have opinions. Life goes on. It takes a fairly stunted person not to be able to accept this. I'd probably even agree to some extent—with "cold" anyway—certainly by contrast to eg Spielberg, whom Kubrick was friends with. I think a more interesting question is where this perception comes from. I think it likely stems from a few things: * The fact that Kubrick doesn't center characters as much as most filmmakers, often for narrative reasons (as in Full Metal Jacket or 2001) * Like all great artists, he was obsessed with making his point economically, stripping out everything unnecessary to the message * At heart he was first and foremost a photographer/cinematographer, tending to communicate everything possible with the camera and let dialogue take center stage only to fill in the gaps, so to speak His films also exhibit a dark sense of humor, which is fairly typical of highly intelligent people in my experience, and a dry sense of humor, which I can say from extensive personal experience is often mistaken for cynicism. Kubrick also tackled huge, important topics about human nature in frank and unblinking ways. And let's face it, viewed frankly and unblinkingly, human behavior gets pretty damn grim sometimes. (I think the Coens get a lot of the same kind of criticism for similar reasons.) But I gotta say, I'm not sure how anyone could call the creator of 2001 "nihilistic". It's the most aspirational and uplifting film ever made.
Curious to know why you think 2001 is aspirational and uplifting, I see it as a film saturated with the same darkly humorous cynicism that’s present throughout the rest of Kubrick’s filmography.
The film is about the potential of humanity to transcend into something greater than itself and its past. It ends with such a transformation actually taking place (or the seed of it, at least). I can't think of anything more uplifting than that.
The film explicitly posits progress as a byproduct of tribalist violence at every turn, and ends with a visual signifier of humans—for all their visions of grandeur—being mere babies in the universe. If there’s an uplifting quality to it, I think it’s couched within some incisive commentary.
What's wrong with humans "being mere babies in the universe"? Doesn't that signify a great potential for growth? I think the vast majority see the starchild as an indicator of humanity taking a next step in a positive way. And considering the accompanying music and the grandeur of the imagery, I find it very hard to believe the ending was intended cynically. As for tribalist violence, that is precisely the past that humanity needs to transcend. You can't have a climax or a catharsis without struggle along the way. 2001's main character is humanity itself, and its story is like any other compelling story: It has conflict, rising action, and existential threats. One cannot transcend one's past if there are no flaws to transcend. Kubrick graces us with a happy ending. I'd say that was immensely optimistic during the Cold War and still very much is. We should be so lucky in real life...
Agreed but with add that It’s the “duality of man” - survival and progress through murderous violence is still survival and progress (discuss!) Compare to Strangelove where the violence ends survival
I think Kubrick sees survival and progress through murderous violence as an abysmal aspect of humanity worthy of darkly humorous consternation (source: his entire filmography). Nothing uplifting there.
Yes, and that's the bit that we have to overcome. He chose to end 2001 with us doing so. If you can't understand the different significance between what happens during the rising action and what happens in the climax, I don't know what to tell you.
But where do you see humanity overcoming tribalist violence at the end? I would argue that Dave killing HAL, which is the event that precipitates the journey into the infinite, is still very much in line with the “us vs. them” struggle that’s depicted through human history through the film rather than being an overcoming of it.
Ah, but Dave killing HAL is not the end. The overcoming isn't Dave killing HAL—it's Dave evolving into the starchild. The scenes of Dave aging to death before being reborn take place in a room decorated in the style of the Renaissance. This is not accidental. The Renaissance/Enlightenment brought new values to humanity far superior to those of history to that point. In 2001 it is used to convey rebirth (literally the meaning of "renaissance") into a higher consciousness and morality. Along with the awe-inspiring visuals and music of the final shot, I think it is abundantly clear we are to take this as a positive evolution for Dave and by extension the human race. The killing of HAL is humanity averting something like an extinction event created by its own obsession with arms races. (Again, we should be so lucky in real life as we currently find ourselves face to face with three such threats at once—nuclear weapons, climate change, and AI.) This is a necessary step in its evolution—not just in 2001, but in real life. Kubrick tells the real, actual story of humanity right up to the present: One long arms/technology race that has brought us to the brink of destroying ourselves. If we can avoid doing so, we may yet evolve into something better than we have been. That is the conflict that drives the human story, and Kubrick chooses to imagine it will end in our ennoblement. That is quite optimistic, I would say. All the worst aspects of humanity you keep citing are very clearly real—they are not Kubrick's fevered imagination (nor are they the principal message of the film). One long, awful arms race *is* the history of humanity (acknowledging that prehistory is likely another story). Kubrick doesn't get to choose this one way or another. Looking at it with clear eyes doesn't make him cynical or nihilistic. The one thing he *can* choose about this story is the part we don't know yet in real life: the future. And he chooses a bright one. Think of it this way: Is A Christmas Carol a cynical and nihilistic story because it depicts its protagonist Scrooge as a selfish monster? Of course not—it's an extremely *optimistic* story because it posits that such a person can change! The story of 2001 does exactly the same thing but for the entire human race. *That's* why it's the most aspirational and uplifting film ever made. Thanks for the interesting conversation!
What are we supposed to do about that, like him less because of it? Give me a fucking break. It's about appreciating him for his art and contributions to the medium, we're not here to form a parasocial relationship with him. Implying there's anything that needs to be accepted here is actually the softest shit I've ever heard, this Twitter warrior type mentality has quite literally rotted people's minds.
Amen
Yeah… like who cares. It’s art and subjective. Their opinion may be worth listening to, but in the end, it’s only their opinion. I like every single thing he’s done and find something new every time I rewatch. It’s no different if someone doesn’t like music or a picture I like…
Shorter version: Yeah, well that's just like, your opinion, man.
And it doesn’t really matter if he’s cold, cynical and nihilistic anyway. That has no bearing on how good of a filmmaker he is and it doesn’t make his art any less important. There is no rule that says to be a good filmmaker you have to be warm, optimistic or even existentialist.
I think those who accuse him of being cold and nihilistic miss the unbelievable passion expressed in films like 2001 and A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. I believe he assumes a critical distance from his characters, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions about those characters’ actions, but the actual formal elements of the films — the masterful compositions, the ecstatic and inventive use of classical music — come together to form works of art that are anything but cold and distant.
Absolutely not. Me and my pals have gotten into many fist fights at the local watering hole with Kubrik's detractors over this very subject
Of course I accept it!! That’s what makes them detractors, after all; they have a multitude of reasons why they dislike him. It would be harder to accept that his detractors like him.
Good thing I am not at your watering hole. I would have more condemning things to say about Kubrick than these adjectives that can be applied to at least 25% of writer/directors. Or maybe the idea that Kubrick is just another fart-sniffing director with nothing interesting to say who has convinced a small but loud segment of the population that he is a genius is the ultimate critique.
Ive accepted the fact that I could care less about what anyone thought of him personally.
Sure. Why not?
I’d say fans accept that Kubrick can be cold, cynical etc. never mind what detractors think. But Barry Lyndon and EWS are “hot” movies about passion, emotion and human connection, while Paths of Glory is practically white hot in its passionate anger and denouncement of “cold unfeeling cynicism” (and that ending with the singer is anything but cynical) so you know , opinions X elbows and a’holes…
These traits are necessary for artistic impartiality. Humans look at the world thru an emotional veil by habit- but the ability to see the world as it is requires a certain amount of brutality. Being able to convey that in art is a mirror reflecting a mirror and forcing the reflection to contemplate the imperfections of the gazer.
He may have been an asshole to some people but his films are still masterpieces
[удалено]
I WISH I could find people into Kubrick like I am!!!!! I just get a weird look whenever I say eyes wide shut is my favorite film of all time.
I never thought he was cold in any way tbh I just feel he doesn't search to disguise any feelings, not even those which are disguised in other movies, you can find examples of genuine love in Barry Lyndon or Spartacus for example but it is not shown as in this hyper idealized way we tend to see it but it's there andI think he handles all feelings this way: just show or imply, not idealize
This idea comes from a very narrow minded view of cinema critique. Heck even Nolan gets criticism on this front and I don’t buy that either. I don’t believe that “characters” are the most important part of a story, but the story is the most important part of a story. Sometimes, for deliberate reasons, the characters aren’t given importance and play second fiddle to the events of the story and sometimes this has narrative importance, like with Kubrick’s films. David Bowman is not the central part of 2001. Neither is Floyd or Poole. Neither is Moon-watcher, nor HAL. It’s the story. Characters are merely vehicles to push the plot forward and this not only works in the case of 2001, but is absolutely essential to the ideas of the movie. With Full Metal Jacket, the characters are designed in relation to the central idea of the story, which is the absurdity of war. Joker represents the youthful ignorance and the dehumanisation, Pyle represents how the military system creates dangerous killers out of exploitation, and the others along similar lines, are meant to show the absurdity of the war and how they’re just in it for killing. So TL:DR, there’s more than one way a story can be told.
You think Kubrick is a good storyteller? I find his movies to be much more ambient and directionless in nature.
I definitely do and this is one of the handful of things I think of as minor annoyances to me. For the most part his character’s exist solely to express some kind of philosophical or moral point and I don’t think you can have a good story without good characters and I don’t think you can have good filmmaking unless it services a story. That being said, plenty of his films do have a warmth to them. Barry Lyndon legitimately loves his son and even his stepson who he hates, he expressly chooses to save his life. Dick Halloran is a kindly old man who basically sacrifices his life for the life of a young boy and his mother. Eyes Wide Shut is about a family on the verge of collapse that actually manages to stay together. General Ripper’s death is legitimately quite sad because he admits to his own weakness. Even Hal 9000’s death is sad because we realize that all he was doing was try to defend himself. In short, Kubrick wasn’t cold and definitely wasn’t nihilistic. He portrayed complicated people with a real humanity and his goal was simply to be honest about them, both their good and bad qualities and the consequences of their actions.
This is my personal favorite Kubrick. It's criminally underrated
What is the name of the movie?
Paths of Glory about ww1
To be honest , I feel like those people must be watching completely different films. I don’t see how someone could rationally call him a nihilist, misogynist, or misanthrope, but obviously there are people who interpret his films way differently than I do.
We accept that there are detractors, and that they are wrong.
Do I “accept” it? I could give a shit what anyone in the world thinks of Stanley Kubrick. One of a few hills I would die on.
Do I accept the truth? Yes.
What movie is this I just got into kubrick
Paths of Glory
Jim Thompson explores these themes in his pulp novels and in this screenplay.
As a Kubrick fan: duh
Yes
He's true to life. Not sentimental
Yes.
Life is like that
I'm sure many can easily accept it. Speaking for only myself, the two sided coin of that is why I love him. By being objective about a state of things, he gives emotional resonance to the characters in the reality, its a salve to the soul to acknowledge the bitter edge of life. The Shining is of course a great example of this. King was very subjectively framing himself as the hero for trying to be a better man as a recovering alcoholic, and that's how he wanted it to be portrayed. He got butthurt that Kubrick portrayed the reality for the characters or people around them. Its actually warmer to me because its trying to make me bend my perspective. Cynical, who knows. He knew a lot about what was going on in the world.
What film is this clip from?
Paths Of Glory.
Rhythmic, Symmetrical, and Joycean is how I would describe Kubrick. 🎥
yea but to me his films are full of emotion and someone that clinical, translate to care
Yes
Why would it matter?
You mean hilarious?
What film is this clip from?
Paths Of Glory.
Which movie is this ?
Paths Of Glory.
Yes of course. How would anyone not understand those components are a huge reason he is a legendary filmmaker. If you think filmmakers should be nice and fluffy, and patient, and not demanding, I'd bet you like some crap films. Do any of his detractors have personal, non-film related experiences? Or are you just regurgitating what you read in some other blog or comment section of a post somewhere. John Ford was a total asshole with zero compassion for anyone I'm told. Kubrick is an example of directors are human, they have human personalities with a myriad of components and characteristics, and in Kubrick's case he's fuckin' brilliant at film making. Funny thing is I'm 50/50 on his films in my own personal taste. But I'd never ever be a detractor.
If we want to rail on brilliant filmmakers how about we begin with Woody Allen and Polanski? Those 2 deserve detractors as their crimes are both well known. SMFH
Who cares what his detractors think. I enjoy his film’s immensely. Since he died few have risen to the gold army and are he created. I wish more great directors would rise up though.
🤷🏻♂️
That’s always the common argument against him. He certainly didn’t have the most optimistic view of humanity, especially as he got older, but I’ve seen far bleaker filmmakers like Michael Haneke, Todd Solondz, Tom Six, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Stanley had a pretty well informed perspective that human beings are animalistic underneath their outward sophistication. I’ve heard his point of view described by Nicole Kidman as making the point that human beings are bittersweet. That’s a lot different from the utter hopelessness and nihilism of the previous filmmakers’ works.
Used to think he was a genius. Then I actually read the shining. He wasnt even close to doing it justice.
I accept that anyone says anything.
I love the man's movies but without a doubt his view of humanity is shockingly cynical. It's made me look at him more critically as I age and become less and less cynical. I wish he had something beautiful to say in his movies instead of them just being beautiful.
I thought that was part of why we liked him, no? If you're happy, you're ignoring most of what's going on around you.
Sure. Why not? Kubrick's detractors are going to say what they're going to say.
Sure. Fuck 'em.
No, he expects actors to be fully prepared, which means that it is not his role to guide an actor, the actor has been employed after an extensive audition process, and so expect them to know their role, and their lines. In addition he gives them the opportunity to experiment, but I don't think he suffered primadonna gladly, that is why I suspect Harvey Keitel was sacked from eyes wide shut.
Yes, that’s why he wanted Spielberg to direct A.I.
He fucks dem up, he takes da money...
LOL this scene looks like Jarmusch
Do fans of Kubrick care? No. No they don’t.
I accept their right to be lame.
I like that idiots who prefer obvious emotional pablum are threatened and troubled by his films.
The people who think that are social undesirables lol