Kubrick Since Kubrick

It is with the small ache of separate parts that I rewatch this footage of the director in the final couple of years of his life. In part, because it dispels compellingly the portrait so messily painted by the press of Kubrick the ‘recluse, the misanthrope, the phobic, the paranoid, the museum piece.’ His mythical designation was nothing more than a gluttonous bite from tabloids on a director who had ‘chosen to keep silence in a society that is deafeningly noisy.’ From recordings of him and commentaries I’ve read from long time collaborators and friends, it seems he was a desperately shy man. Barry Lyndon actor Leon Vitali has spoken of how Kubrick kept what he called his ‘actor’s kit’ – a small box which held a little comb and other things to help make him look presentable. You will notice in the clip his awkward shuffle before the camera and how he frequently shifts his glasses over his nose. Kubrick, who otherwise dressed like a ‘cottager’, now wears uncharacteristically, a blazer and button down shirt. Without any intention of condescension, I think his manner and bearing bring about a sensitivity, even a vulnerability. I’ve often humoured myself thinking of the vast number of takes he might have shot before finally landing on the one we see now. 

The hardest thing about filmmaking, Kubrick begins quite surprisingly, is ‘getting out of the car.’ I wonder whether this was because of the dreadful burdens that awaited him in the studios, sets, and sound stages, or really, because it was a daily departure from his greatest friend and driver of 30 years, Emilio D’Alessandro. I suspect it’s likely a mixture of both. Soon after, Kubrick says playfully that making a film is ‘like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car’ – though Kubrick’s Napoleonic War epic was never realised, it might be argued that his cinematic output was one of Tolstoyan proportions. In terms of his grip on genre, he really was a jack of all trades and master of some. 

D.W. Griffith, who lends his name to the award, has lately been reassessed on the basis of his  beliefs. His 1915 film ‘Birth of a Nation’ made groundbreaking technical and stylistic advancements, but unashamedly lauded the KKK. Kubrick is quick to caution the turbulent career of Griffith. Though he was capable of ‘transforming Nickelodeon novelties into art forms’, Kubrick warns that ‘he was always ready to fly too high.’ With a portfolio of 500 films, it’s fair to say that Griffith cast his net far and wide. Although we are left with just 13 feature films from 1952-1999, Kubrick also travelled far: from the cosmic dreamscapes of 2001 to the blue lit bedroom of Eyes Wide Shut, he saw scale and intimacy unlike any other director. 

The director finishes his acceptance speech with a final remark on the Griffith – Icarus comparison:

‘I have compared Griffith’s career to the Icarus myth, but at the same time I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be ‘don’t try to fly too high’, or whether it might also be, forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.’

It satisfies me enormously that Kubrick, a man so tiringly associated with myth, skews this legend into a brilliant picture of his process and humour. Biographer Paul Joyce says fittingly, that ‘he’s not serious, he’s not joking, he’s a bit of both.’ Twenty five years after his death, we need to stop seeing Kubrick as a miserly old man fingering reels of film in his darkened editing studio, and begin to watch him as we’ve watched his films – with sensitivity.  

Photo ©:

“It’s Nice That”, 2019

Kubrick’s 1998 Directors Guild of America D.W. Griffith Award Acceptance Speech ©Tyler Bickle Channel Returns