Kubrick's Next Successful And Controversial Film example essay topic

'I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself. ' (Stanley Kubrick) As one of the most widely acclaimed and influential directors of the postwar era, Stanley Kubrick enjoyed a reputation and a standing unique among the filmmakers of his day. He had a brilliant career with relatively few films. An outsider, he worked beyond the confines of Hollywood, which he disliked, maintaining complete control of his projects and making movies according to his own ideas and time constraints. To him, filmmaking was a form of art and unlike Hollywood, not a business.

Working in a vast range of styles from dark comedy to horror to crime to drama, Kubrick was an enigma, living and creating in almost total seclusion, far away from the watchful eye of the media. His films were a reflection of his obsessive nature, perfectionist masterpieces that remain among the most thoughtful and visionary motion pictures ever made. Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26, 1928 in the Bronx. In 1942, while still in high school, he initially had an interest in photography, which his father 2 introduced. Stanley father, Jacques Kubrick, spend his life as a physician. His first brush with fame occurred when Look magazine published one of his early photographs of a newspaper seller overwhelmed by the headlines announcing the death of President Roosevelt.

Shortly there after, Kubrick started work at Look magazine as an apprentice photographer. In 1946 he became a reporter for the magazine and traveled across the United States and Europe. While a student at Columbia University, Kubrick became interested in filmmaking and attended the Museum of Modern Art showings regularly. To supplement his income, he played chess for money in Greenwich Village. In 1951 at the age of twenty, Kubrick and a school friend, Alfred Singer used their life savings to finance his first film, Day of the Fight, a sixteen-minute documentary on boxer Walter Cartier. This short film was later purchased by RKO for its This Is America series and played in theaters in New York.

Encouraged by his success, Kubrick quit his job at Look and pursued filmmaking full-time. Soon, RKO assigned him to head a short film for their documentary series Pa the Screen liner. The title, Flying Padre was a nine-minute film highlighting Fred Stadt mueller, a priest who piloted a small plane around his four hundred mile New 3 Mexico parish. After this he filmed other documentaries, including his first color film The Seafarers. Kubrick, with the aid of friends and relatives, raised $13,000 to finance his first feature film, the war story Fear and Desire. The film was silent at first with the dialogue dubbed in later.

It never made back its initial investment. Then in 1955, he directed his second feature film, the gangland melodrama Killer's Kiss. This film was more successful and was sold to United Artists. In 1956, Kubrick directed his first studio picture, The Killing with a screenplay by Jim Thompson. This was his first artistic success and it brought him to the attention of MGM production head Dore Share.

In 1957, Kubrick hot Paths of Glory, which was rejected by many studios until Kirk Douglas decided to star in the film. This led to a much-needed financing deal with United Artists. The film won considerable critical acclaim and promoted Kubrick's reputation as a rising talent. In 1958, Marlon Brando hired him as director for his Western One Eyed Jacks. Kubrick resented Brando's constant intervening in his work and he left the film forfeiting $100,000. In 1959, Kubrick became director of Spartacus.

He took the job even though he had no influence on screenplay, production and distribution. Spartacus is Kubrick's first commercial success. The most costly film produced at that time, with a budget of $12 million, it proved to be a major hit 4 and won several Oscars and a Golden Globe for best film. Spartacus remains his only all-Hollywood production. In 1961, Kubrick shot Lolita, based on Nabakov's book of the same name, about a man's infatuation with his teenage d stepdaughter.

Due to a number of legal and financial difficulties, the film was shot in England. The film was another commercial success, although the critics didn't like it. Because of this experience, Kubrick created his own production company located in England where he chose to live and work after the film's completion. He next turned to his first undisputed masterpiece, the 1964 Cold War-era black comedy Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This film was an adaptation of Peter Georges novel Red Alert starring Peter Sellers in three different roles. Critics praised the film one of the funniest film created.

With that, the film received Oscar nominations for best director and best picture. In 1965, Kubrick began production on what was to become his crowning achievement, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Inspired equally by the story The Sentinel and the three questions "Where do I come from? Who am I? And Where am I going?" this 1968 film is a complex reflection on man's instinctive desire for 5 violence. What Kubrick seems to be suggesting is that all human progress is linked to the satisfying of these instincts.

When these are repressed, as in the society of 2001, man wastes away. Kubrick, through this film, points out how powerless human thought becomes. This film quickly emerged as a landmark in motion picture history, growing in status to become recognized as one of the greatest and most thought-provoking movies ever released. It was his only film to win him his first and only personal Oscar, not for directing but for visual effects. Kubrick's next successful and controversial film was A Clockwork Orange. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess.

This film is a satiric essay on crime and punishment set in a violent future world, the film initially scored an "X" rating in the United States but proved surprisingly popular regardless, even capturing several Oscar nominations. The film caused a uproar in Britain after several copycat crimes were committed which were blamed on the picture's influence, including a brutal gang rape mirroring a scene in the film. The film was pulled from distribution by Kubrick in Britain and not shown again until the year 2000. In 1975, he directed the costume drama Barry Lyndon. Though unspectacular in Kubrick's terms, this film was praised for its visual cinematic 6 quality and won four Oscars. Unfortunately, it never achieved critical or commercial success.

With the intervals between films getting longer, Kubrick emerged five years later to direct The Shining, an adaptation of a horror novel by author Stephen King. While one of his greatest popular success, the critics again disliked the film. It has however been considered on of Kubrick's most intimate works. Disappointed by the presses criticism, he spent five years away from the set planning his next movie. The result was Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket a Vietnam War drama, which scored highly with the audiences and critics alike.

It was immediately acclaimed as the best war movie ever made. The film was more about the intricacies and complexities surrounding the human condition in a state of turmoil then about the Vietnam War. The movie was a hit with both the critics and the audiences. Despite the film's success however, Kubrick again went into hibernation.

Two planned projects, AI and the Aryan Papers failed to progress beyond the pre-production stage. Finally, in 1996 Kubrick began work on his last film, Eyes Wide Shut from Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novel Dream Story. It is somewhat ironic that Kubrick's last film was based on a novel written shortly before he was born and one that had influenced him through out much of his career. He had wanted to make a film 7 based on this story since 1968. This is a haunting story about a couple overwhelmed by sexual obsession and jealousy. It was not initially well received, but second and third viewings revealed more about the hidden contexts within the plot.

Perhaps this film can be best summed up by the review from Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post who noted, "Eyes Wide Shut turns out to be the dirtiest movie of 1958. Boasting far more eroticism in its ad campaign than it ever shows on screen, Kubrick's 13th and last film is actually sad, rather than bad". It seems strange that almost all of his movies were successful with the moviegoers but received less than favorable reviews from the critics. Stanley Kubrick died on March 7, 1999, in his sleep of a heart attack just five days after the final cut at Warner Brothers never seeing the film released. I personally agree that he has followed his cinematic dreams with relentless passion, regardless of time, money or commercial success. His perfectionist traits were as well known as his reclusive and highly private life.

He has given all of us one of the cinema's most challenging, diverse and altogether brilliant legacies. In many viewers eyes his films and him self will never be forgotten. 8 Reference: Ankeny, Jason. Stanley Kubrick Biography.

Yahoo! Movies. 5 May 2001. web Michel. Kubrick and the Fantastic. Trans. Gilbert Adair.

Growing family. com Network. 30 Apr. 2001. web network / kubrick 263 kf. htm " Stanley Kubrick Biography". Cosmopolis. 23 April 2001 web "Stanley Kubrick and His Films". Essortment. com.

23 Apr. 2001. web rr vd. htm.