Stanley Kubrick: Bad Director

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Let’s get this out of the way up front: Stanley Kubrick sucks.

I have nothing against the man personally, mind you, I’m sure he was a kind, if not timid, man. I just hate his movies. They are long, plodding affairs featuring unremarkable, one-dimensional characters, dialogue about as rich as your average bachelor party porno, and featuring a heavy-handed, process-oriented style that induces narcolepsy.

There is no doubt that Kubrick created some visually stunning films – that he broke new ground in both content and process. I understand his use of a non-linear narrative in “The Killing” (1956) was unheard of at the time. I know that his use of special effects in “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) was groundbreaking. I also appreciate the way he pioneered the use of music in film. I give him kudos for all of that achievement.

And on that level alone – one could argue that he’s a noteworthy and influential director.

But that’s not why I go to movies. I watch movies for the story. And Kubrick was a terrible storyteller.

Let’s consider the film most critics consider his classic: “2001.” I have forced myself to watch this yawn inspiring thud of a movie on three occasions. I appreciate the realistic space setting, the incredible special effects (still impressive even by today’s standards), and stunning cinematography. I even admire the way Kubrick’s film rightly predicts things like flat-screened computers, the use of credit cards, and portable mini TVs.

But the film sucks.

While I understand Kubrick’s goal in using limited dialogue is to illustrate space as a giant vacuum of silence – he failed to recognize that dialogue is crucial to creating character and propelling the plot (although there really isn’t a plot in “2001” to propel). And that’s the great failing of “2001” – it delivers neither character nor plot. The viewer doesn’t care about the people on the screen and the plot is simply a philosophical musing.

The action in the movie is primarily watching a bunch of astronauts eat lunch, exercise, and play chess. Generally, at this point in the movie, you wish you had more popcorn and start to wonder if you might be able to catch a “Price is Right” rerun on the Game Show Network.

I’ve read the glowing reviews and critical analysis of “2001” where they throw around phrases like: “Its unrivaled integration of musical and visual composition, its daring paucity of dialogue and washes of silence, its astonishingly creative psychedelic sequence and its still-gorgeous pre-digital special effects.” (Salon.com) and “Part space opera, part cinematic symphony and part horror story, the film is a shape-shifting painting.” (Arizona Daily Star).

Blah, blah, blah.

Yet in Roger Ebert’s fawning review he actual writes (without irony, mind you): “This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention.” Exactly! Perfectly and wonderfully put, Roger. However, you misinterpreted what that telling observation meant.

It meant the movie sucked.
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Flame bait. Not interested.
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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I think he is far from "sucking".

Although, I do have to agree with the film 2001. I think it's nothing more then a pretentious art film. There is no substance for me. It looked visual stunning and as an art film it is beautiful...but as an actual film is below medicore.
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Suspect's Reviews



Originally Posted by Holden Pike
Flame bait. Not interested.
It's not flame bait. It's simply an opinion and a worthy topic of discussion.

I think Kubrick is overrated. Not just on "2001" -- the terrible "Eyes Wide Shut," the mediocre "Full Metal Jacket" and the long, flawed and overwrought "The Shining" and "A Clockwork Orange."



No, saying right off the bat somebody sucks isn't asking for a flame war at all. It's an engraved invitation to a level-headed dialogue over differing opinions, I'm sure.

Either way, I'm out.



Originally Posted by Holden Pike
No, saying right off the bat somebody sucks isn't asking for a flame war at all. It's an engraved invitation to a level-headed dialogue over differing opinions, I'm sure.

Either way, I'm out.
It isn't personal against anyone here. It's about a dead director.



I need about ten pages and ten hours to respond here.

Kubrick, suck? I'm sorry but on the basis of Full Metal Jacket alone he defies that label. Sucks? Hardly.
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"Full Metal Jacket" may be his worst movie (although I'd vote for "Eyes Wide Shut"). The characters are nearly indistinguishable. The movie plays like Vietnam ancedotes rather than a full-length feature film.

By the mid-point, the movie has lost its way.

"Platoon," Apoc Now," and "Deer Hunter" are far superior Vietnam War movies in every way.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Originally Posted by Dark Party
"Full Metal Jacket" may be his worst movie (although I'd vote for "Eyes Wide Shut"). The characters are nearly indistinguishable. The movie plays like Vietnam ancedotes rather than a full-length feature film.

By the mid-point, the movie has lost its way.

"Platoon," Apoc Now," and "Deer Hunter" are far superior Vietnam War movies in every way.
Get platoon off that list, yuck.

I like all of Kubricks film, with the exception of 2001. To say FMJ is his worst film is inane.



Originally Posted by TheUsualSuspect
Get platoon off that list, yuck.

I like all of Kubricks film, with the exception of 2001. To say FMJ is his worst film is inane.
I have to agree, you may not like his style (which is obvious) but to say he is a bad filmmaker (which you all but acknowledge isn't true) is just opinion disguised as fact. What about Peter Greenaway? I know If you hate Kubrick you must loath Greenaway.

Full Metal Jacket was the only film a vet relative of mine has to watch alone, tell him it is unrealistic.



Originally Posted by Othelo
I have to agree, you may not like his style (which is obvious) but to say he is a bad filmmaker (which you all but acknowledge isn't true) is just opinion disguised as fact. What about Peter Greenaway? I know If you hate Kubrick you must loath Greenaway.

Full Metal Jacket was the only film a vet relative of mine has to watch alone, tell him it is unrealistic.
I didn't say it was unrealistic. I just said I didn't think it was a good movie. I can acknowledge that Kubrick was an innovator and a visual genius while criticizing him for sloppy storytelling and an inability to capture character.



Originally Posted by Dark Party
Let’s get this out of the way up front: Stanley Kubrick sucks.
Nonsense!

I have nothing against the man personally, mind you, I’m sure he was a kind, if not timid, man. I just hate his movies. They are long, plodding affairs featuring unremarkable, one-dimensional characters, dialogue about as rich as your average bachelor party porno, and featuring a heavy-handed, process-oriented style that induces narcolepsy.
They're also some of the most psychologically and philosophically complex films ever made, not to mention wildly innovative and often simply beautiful in their visual style and structural organization. Yeah, most of his films hang their hat on something other than witty dialogue (though I'd put the script of Dr. Strangelove against anything ever made), and he never pandered to audiences with sort of broadly drawn 'characters' that appeal to the lowest common denominator, but characters like Col. Dax, Jack Torrance, Joker, Alex DeLarge and even H.A.L. 9000 are hardly 'one dimensional' - and anyone who thinks they are is a mental midget.

But that’s not why I go to movies. I watch movies for the story. And Kubrick was a terrible storyteller.
How so? Because he didn't insult the audience by answering the questions he raised? Were you perhaps looking for someone kneeling over a headstone or a nice, triumphal parade to provide you with closure and a reminder that it was all worth it? Perhaps their just weren't enough explosions for you...

While I understand Kubrick’s goal in using limited dialogue is to illustrate space as a giant vacuum of silence
That was certainly one reason Kubrick chose sparse dialogue, but certainly not the only one. He was also concerned with the paradoxical isolation of sentience - the very intelligence which makes us aware of just how alone we are - as well as with the idea that the distance between 'the dawn of man' and the present is really not so great: the tools have gotten a little better, but the communication hasn't improved all that much.

he failed to recognize that dialogue is crucial to creating character and propelling the plot (although there really isn’t a plot in “2001” to propel).
2001 is the cinema of ideas - it's not centrally concerned with characters, it's concerned with mythic archetypes and the Nietzschean transcendence of that which has gone before. If you're looking for "characters" you're missing the point entirely, and trying to make film fit in an arbritrarily defined box. Maybe formalist cinema isn't your thing - that doesn't mean it 'sucks.'

The viewer doesn’t care about the people on the screen and the plot is simply a philosophical musing.
So is The Seventh Seal, so are most of the films of directors from Godard to Wong Kar-Wai, so, for that matter, is Raging Bull.

The action in the movie is primarily watching a bunch of astronauts eat lunch, exercise, and play chess. Generally, at this point in the movie, you wish you had more popcorn and start to wonder if you might be able to catch a “Price is Right” rerun on the Game Show Network.
Yeah! Where are the Ewoks? I feel cheated!

I’ve read the glowing reviews and critical analysis of “2001” where they throw around phrases like: “Its unrivaled integration of musical and visual composition, its daring paucity of dialogue and washes of silence, its astonishingly creative psychedelic sequence and its still-gorgeous pre-digital special effects.” (Salon.com) and “Part space opera, part cinematic symphony and part horror story, the film is a shape-shifting painting.” (Arizona Daily Star).
That pretty much sounds right to me. You object to these evaluations because...



Originally Posted by Dark Party

"Platoon," Apoc Now," and "Deer Hunter" are far superior Vietnam War movies in every way.
Whoa! Back dat ass up!

You criticize 2001 for its sparse dialogue, minimal characterization and substitution of a philosophical journey for a story-driven plot then turn around and praise Apocalypse Now?



Originally Posted by Officer 663
Whoa! Back dat ass up!

You criticize 2001 for its sparse dialogue, minimal characterization and substitution of a philosophical journey for a story-driven plot then turn around and praise Apocalypse Now?
Yeah that made me go HU? as well.



OK I feel almost up to taking this on now.

All of the things you mention are stylistic not qualitative. The "quality" of Kubrick's films is indisputable. What you seem to be having trouble with are his narratives or as you say, lack thereof.

There are so many different ways to develop character, plot and all the other substantive things that make up film. Kubrick used the mood of the piece to dictate many of these general themes. Kubrick's "moods" ranged from wonder to fear to horror to absurd comedy. Each film reflects the mood of the subject matter but does so with a subtlety that most people just don't get.

The reasons his films are so powerful are because of their realism, not the hyper realism of cinema verte, but a subtle realism. 2001 was "boring" because space travel is supposed to be routine by 2001. When is the last time a seasoned traveler boarded a plane with excitement? The only character who seemed truly human was HAL the supposedly homicidal computer, it was purposeful that this is so. Humans had been reduced, not complimented by the technology they created. The lack of character development WAS character development taken as a whole. It was saying that we had become boring S***s, our humanity willingly stolen bu the technology we created.

Full Metal Jacket worked in much the same way. They were all charachtures yes, but deservedly so. Marine training and many of the men who enlist are chosen for their pliability. R. Lee's shouting, snarling DI enunciating every word of venom that comes through his mouth, done purposefully. He is on one level a robot, a hardened man who trains men to die. To feel for these men and display anything other than this guise would be fatal to his purpose. To make him any more deep would strip the power from the overall story. To draw him in, to make him more human and give him reason destroys the mood of the piece, not to mention his Raison D'ętre. Joker again seems to be the only one who resists homogenization, and even in the end as he delivers the final voice over his stilted delivery still betrays a sliver of humanity. Lacking these contrasts it just would have been another hackneyed war film.

I could go on but I hope this makes the point. Although Kubrick's films seem not to develop plot or character it is the films themselves that exemplify both. The film is the story and the character, its whole far more than the sum of its parts.



I don't object to philosophical movies -- just poorly constructed ones like "Full Metal Jacket."

Francis Ford is a much better filmmaker than Kubrick.



Coppola's films are certainly more accessible and conventionally entertaining - but they lack the cerebral wonder that is so appealing in Kubrick's work.

You know the old 'different strokes for different folks' addage? You might want to reference it every once in a while.



Originally Posted by Dark Party
I don't object to philosophical movies -- just poorly constructed ones like "Full Metal Jacket."

Francis Ford is a much better filmmaker than Kubrick.
Poorly constructed? You couldn't get more straight forward, please explain.



Originally Posted by Officer 663
Coppola's films are certainly more accessible and conventionally entertaining - but they lack the cerebral wonder that is so appealing in Kubrick's work.

You know the old 'different strokes for different folks' addage? You might want to reference it every once in a while.
That was my original general point. You may not LIKE his films but calling them crap is a stretch at best. You look for certain things in film, my palate is more varied I guess.

So what do you think about Greenaway? Lynch? If you have problems with Kubrick you must have the same or similar gripes about the two of them. Indulge me please?



The Fabulous Sausage Man
You're complaining about the lack of character development in 2001? You remind me of the guy from RT that said Ran's cinematography was overrated because the camera doesn't move enough. It's entirely irrelevant because the point is they're supposed to be dehumanised. Same with the construction of the Full Metal Jacket - it was Kubrick's intention to have an "exploded narrative".

Besides, not all films are about characters. As you watch more, you realise that character devlopment isn't always necassary. Some use characters as a way of exploring themes.