Kubrick's Best?

A Clockwork Orange

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Yes, but only twice all the way through. I've seen 'bits' of it a few more times but, my God, that film's a snoozefest. Possibly his most boring film (for me, of course) after 2001.

Of course, it doesn't help that I don't usually like those 'swords and sandals' (as I believe they're called) kind of films. Sparticus, Gladiator, Ben Hur, I don't like any of them and never have.

Maybe it's something to do with sand?

als.....and swords.

OK, so every film with Drew Barrymore and sand is boring too? I need a list of movies which are actually considered decent by most people which you like too. Please.

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OK, I didn't say sand was boring. I was saying, with my tongue firmly in my cheek, that maybe there was something about sand which puts me off a film. Damn it man, there's sand in Jaws and I'm pretty sure you know I love that film.

A list of movies which are actually considered decent by most people that I like too? I may just do that for you. Not sure what's decent though? Are we excluding 'greats' and 'classics' because they're better than decent? That reads a little sarcastic to me, but I assure you that's not the case.

Lastly, of course a film with Drew Barrymore and sand wouldn't be boring. I've already said that I didn't mean sand was boring and, secondly, If you look at my dvd collection, you'll see that I own a Ben Stiller film?!? Do you think I'd have that were it not for Drew Barrymore? It's Ben Stiller for God's sake. I also have Boys On The Side (where she stars with Satan), two Adam Sandler films (although I really like 50 First Dates) and, believe me, I handle 'boring' far better than I do 'annoying'.

Decent = Good or better, but don't knock yourself out. Start with baby steps.

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The Killing (1956) is terrific film noir with an outstanding cast of finely drawn, well developed characters. It’s the best thing Kubrick ever did.

Dr. Strangelove (1964) was his very different second-best film, again due to a strong script and imaginative casting. It hooked me from its opening credits.

Paths of Glory (1957), another fine film with an outstanding cast.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) was a good film, although not near the caliber of the previous three, but much, much better than Platoon and Heartbreak Ridge (although a film that opens with the old country song “Sea of Heartbreak” can’t be all bad). Even if a little overdone, it caught the spirit of basic training and the confusion of war. I especially liked the final scene—“M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E.” That’s the army I remember.

Spartacus (1960) was a hammy Hollywood film with a cast a studio bookkeeper would love, but not bad by the standards of that time.

Never cared for Lolita (although James Mason was always good in any role)

Didn’t care for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). I liked the opening with the apes and enjoyed the jump to the space-docking but the only thing that occasionally woke me through the rest of the film and HAL’s oh so monotonous “voice” was the great soundtrack of classical music. Kubrick later said of the film “if it stimulates, however inchoately, [the viewer’s] mythological and religious yearnings and impulses, then it has succeeded.” That pretty much explains why I didn’t like it. (Silent Running in 1972, which Kubrick didn’t direct, was much, much better.)

As for A Clockwork Orange (1971), again the only thing I remember is the classical soundtrack.

Barry Lyndon (1975) was one long snooze, a dispassionate look at a passionate age.

I’ve never cared much for Stephen King nor—at that time—Jack Nicholson, so although I’ve caught bits and pieces of scenes of The Shining (1980) I’ve never cared enough to sit through an entire screening. (Before you start throwing stones, even King didn’t like Kubrick’s version of his book.)

Never saw Eyes Wide Shut and likely never will, because I don’t like Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman, and by then it had been many years since Kubrick had made a film that interested me.

Guilty!

Whenever Kubrick's name is mentioned, I immediately feel guilty. Like I'm supposed to like his films. And for the most part, I don't. I'm with rufnek -- Barry Lyndon is one long snoozefest for me. I'm completely and utterly detached emotionally.

Eyes Wide Shut -- oh my, how I hated that movie.

I don't like Spielberg's A.I. and we all know he said it was his "Kubrick" film.

The only film I can sit through is Dr. Strangelove and I love sand movies, , so I remember loving Spartacus as a kid. Of course, Kubrick didn't like Spartacus (thought I read that somewhere).

2001 is as dense as hell. I even read the book that came out afterward to try to understand the film and it confused me even more. I was really young at the time, though, and wonder what the film would mean to me now. I love the HAL sequence, though.

It's always seemed to me that if you're truly exploring human nature then the audience should be able to recognize that. That's always been my problem with Kubrick -- I don't get what some of his films are trying to say about human nature. It's like I don't recognize these people....so maybe you're right, it's that "over the top" execution in his films that goes right over my head.

Kubrick, imo, is brilliant in his technique; I just don't seem to understand his characters or some of his stories.

Kubrick is all about how the Powers That Be work together to dehumanize humankind. Whether it's the soldiers in Paths of Glory, the educational system's and parent's lack of control of the droogs and later the government's "curing" of Alex in A Clockwork Orange, the humans acting almost as automatons in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove when confronted with incredible circumstances affecting the future of humanity, the recruits going through basic training in Full Metal Jacket, the slaves being trained to kill themselves in Spartacus, etc., all the films reflect how man is turned by man into something almost resembling machine.

That's probably why many people "feel" cold while watching a Kubrick film. However, Kubrick films really tend to engage my emotions very strongly. I cry like a baby at the end of Paths of Glory and a few times during Spartacus. The first time I got done watching Full Metal Jacket, I felt emotionally spent and almost physically sick. Everything around me seemed to get all dark and foggy; I almost believed that I had instantaneously developed a brain tumor. Films like Barry Lyndon and The Shining do seem the coldest Kubricks to me, but Barry Lyndon has an ironic narrator and a truly ironic ending which added layers to the film so that now I don't feel nearly as rebuffed by the film as I did initially. I've related the story here before about how I saw a sneak preview of The Shining with my brother, and we were very disappointed in how one-note the thing was. It went on and on to a changed frozen conclusion which really put us off, but now I can accept it for the pleasures found along the way, and I can almost forgive Nicholson for being so over-the-top almost from the get-go.

I believe that many people decide that they just don't get Kubrick so they watch his films once (or less) and just chalk it up as something which they "don't get". I feel though that Kubrick is just holding up a mirror to society to show them many of the unpleasant things which are there in humanity but hidden just under the surface. Many people may not want to see them or accept them as actual human traits but I find Kubrick to be ultimately honest about his characters and their human faults, so that's why he's one of my fave directors. Well, that and the fact that he can make unique films which I find VERY entertaining, probably because I'm really just a sick puppy.

Mark, I'm exactly as you describe. Someone who watches a Kubrick film once and walks away. Maybe I should revisit them if they are about what you say they are (I do understand what you're saying.)

What did you think of Eyes Wide Shut?

I think that Eyes Wide Shut is a lesser Kubrick, but I still like it. I remember in the theatre that the couple behind us complained out loud about wanting to get their money back partway through it.The beginning does seem extended and somewhat banal, but it has to be because the rest of the film gets bizarre and labyrinthine, and it's the contrast between the seemingly-boring everyday life of a marriage and the tantalizing desire to stray outside of the vows which propels the film. To me, it truly is a dream which turns into a nightmare, so Kubrick is able to tell his unique (there's that Kubrickian adjective again) version of a marriage almost undone by fantasies and chasing after dreams. I hope I don't sound sexist here, but the orgy scene I found fascinating. The music, sound, sets, costumes, camerawork and just the sheer audacity of the thing knocked me out of my socks. I'll admit that I wouldn't have thought so much of the flick if that mini-movie hadn't occurred.

Even so, I can understand that as a straightforward entertainment, it could easily fail the test for many film watchers. However, one plus I find about it is that the women in the film, for the most part, are shown to be very giving and protective, and they save the Cruise character's butt several times. I hope this can balance out any sexism which somebody might find in the film. I didn't find it sexist because of what I just said, plus I just found it to have a very attractive female cast. After all, it's the Cruise character who comes off as the Idiot in the film and needs to learn his lesson.

2001: A Space Odyssey, no question. Easily Kubrick's best, one of the finest cinematic achievements ever, and a personal favorite that will stay with me always.

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Dr. Strangelove

But The Shining and A Clockwork Orange are the runner-ups

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The first Kubrick movie I saw was Clockwork Orange and it stirred my intellectual emporium. When I saw the following TV program about Kubrick I could not resist writing this prose-poem.-Ron Price, Tasmania
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KUBRICK’S BOXES

I watched with fascination the ABC2 program on 17 May 2009 at 8:30 p.m. “Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes.” Kubrick died in the last month of my 30 year full-time teaching career, in March 1999, and he left behind 1000 boxes in his mansion in England. This one hour program gives viewers a close-up of Kubrick’s creative process by its study of the contents of these boxes. We also get a biographic adventure into the mystery, the obsession and the genius of this cinematic legend.

As a poet-writer who has been collecting printed matter rather than photos, in files rather than boxes for most of his life, at least since the late 1950 and early 1960s--and now in my computer directory as well—I could not help but draw parallels with my own work. No genius I, although I have always liked what is probably the most famous line uttered by the inventor Thomas Alva Edison, namely, that “genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” If further explanation of the meaning of this quote is required Edison provided it by completing the quotation thus: "I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident. They came by work."-Ron Price with thanks to an internet site, 26 May 2009.

Some, of course, are born with
certain powers and gifts and we
could call this genius......Others,
of course, must strive with infinite
pains and still others who accept
their life with radiant acquiescence—
receive confirmations of the spirit
as He called them.1 And yes, they
come, they do come, part of that
mystical element in life as others
would call it. Thank you, Stanley,
for your example of persistence,
of dedication, of an obsession
which created truly wonderful
experiences for billions around
our globe—and may you now,
perhaps, in some world of light
continue in unearthly mansions
what was found in your earthly
one and which will now inspire
generations, many not yet born.2

1 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p.126.
2 This prose-poem, originally written for several internet sites associated with cinema, Stanley Kubrick and creativity, had an obvious relevance--as it evolved--to a recent exchange of emails with an old friend Arini Beaumaris, now the secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia, Inc., and so I sent it to her for her possible pleasure.

Ron Price
26 May 2009

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married for 48 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, a writer and editor for 16, and a Baha'i for 56(in 2015)

All his films are great... duh. I take that back. All his films are great except for Full Metal Jacket... which is very good.

Last semester when I was teaching British Literature, I showed the kids Barry Lyndon, which is my favorite film of his. I wasn't quite sure how they would respond to it, but they instantly loved it (on the whole). From the moment Barry Lyndon didn't look hard enough for the ribbon they were hooked.

I explained to them how it was meant to be cold and distant and they really picked up on it, but they were an advanced class. They loved captain Quinn and Lord Bullingworth.

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And yet Kubrick's very first film The Killing is about a bunch of outsiders taking on the establishment in a daring race track robbery. They are brought down not by Powers that Be, but because of the chaos of their own gang and other criminals. Paths of Glory is based on the French military command shifting the blame for their battlefield blunders, but the film's focus is on the humanity of the infantrymen put on trial and the frontline officer trying to defend them. If the movie truly were cold and distancing, would you cry at the end? Dr. Strangelove shows the Powers that Be as bumbling idiots vs. the dedication and improvisation of one bomber crew determined to reach its target. Plus the doomsday is not put into play by the Powers that Be, but by one lone individual madman. In Full Metal Jacket, the least capable Marine, Gomer, brings down the tough Gunny, the "Power that Be," in one violent move.

The problem with that statement that it implies Kubrick is unique and that all the other great actors are not holding up mirrors to society. So what are the other great directors doing? On the other hand, if others also hold up mirrors to society in their films, Kubrick is really not that unique, just maybe harder to understand than most.

As for the cold isolated Barry Lyndon, I prefer the impassioned, more lifelike Tom Jones.

I own Tom Jones and it's in my top 100. I don't own Barry Lyndon and it isn't. Feel free to cherry pick as much as you like. I believe that the Powers That Be had already beaten down the gang in The Killing before the movie even started, whether it's Criminal Justice or your wife. In Paths of Glory, the military brass certainly get their own way even if there's humanity amid the BS. Are you saying that General Ripper is responsible for the Doomsday Device detonation even though only the Soviets Powers That Be know about it? By your way of thinking, the ingenious bomber crew is just as much responsible for the End of the World. In the Big Picture of Full Metal Jacket, Gunnery Sgt. Hartman is a small fry compared to the entire American Military Complex, but he did his best for many years to turn his men into killers and he succeede all too well.

Of course there are other directors who hold up that mirror. It's just that few seem to divide audiences so much with the majority loving him and watching his films repeatedly while a vocal minority hates him and is almost repelled by his flicks.

Of course the majority love him, that's why Hollywood's making so many intelligent, dare I say it, intellectual films these days. Oh, the money they make.

I'm confused. Are you saying that Kubrick is intellectual? The people who greenlight Hollywood movies know nothing of cinema history. They're too busy counting their money from Third-World sweatshops and donut shops.