Well, I finally made it! The Toronto edition of the world-renowned
Kubrick Exhibit, which can be visited until the end of January at the beautiful
TIFF Bell/Lightbox building in the heart of Toronto's bustling entertainment district.
I'm no photographer, unfortunately, so you'll have to excuse the roughness of the photographs below. They frankly fail to capture the magnificent splendor on display at this massive collection of unparalleled cinematic delights. Even so, I'm going to keep my comments to a minimum, letting the props and artifacts from Stanley Kubrick's movies do most of the talking for themselves.
I hope you enjoy my report at least a fraction as much as I enjoyed assembling it for your perusal, and I urge any of you reading this, if at all possible, to make your way down to the Kubrick Exhibit and take it in for yourselves.
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Here I am at the threshold, kissing a giant Star Child poster, waiting for the doors to open with my buddy Spider-Man, who accompanied me on this journey and took this photo...
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| SMOOCH! |
And here's my ticket...
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| A BARGAIN AT TWICE THE PRICE |
The TIFF gift-shop was nicely stocked with Kubrick-related knick-knacks, from which I selected Taschen's legendary
Stanley Kubrick Archives. I'll have an in-depth review of this incredible book in the near future. Keep watching this space!
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| AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES |
Stan the Man's chair, which every Kubrick fan has surely seen in photographs before. And there it was, in the flesh... or splinters, so to speak.
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| NICE! |
Before checking out the exhibit proper, Spidey and I snuck into the back section ans spied this selection of Kubrick's clapboards.
The first official item on the exhibit schedule? Kubrick's
Oscar for
2001's special effects and his
Career Gold Lion from the Venice Film Festival
for his full body of work.
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| NOT REPLICAS - THE REAL DEAL |
Next, fittingly, is his favorite chess set, which he carried with him from film to film, playing everyone from
Scatman Crothers to
George C. Scott.
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| IF THESE PAWNS COULD ONLY TALK |
And now, we get into the films.
THE EARLY YEARS
Sorry for how blurry these are. We see here a script from
Fear and Desire, as well as reviews, ads and other press clippings from
Fear and Desire,
Killer's Kiss and
Paths of Glory. I hereby apologize for failing to get any usable images from their section on
The Killing.
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| FEAR AND DESIRE EPHEMERA |
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| INCORPORATING MINOTAUR PRODUCTIONS |
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| MORE AD COPY |
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| INVENTIVE USE OF SANDBAGS FOR THE PATHS OF GLORY EXHIBIT |
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| SCRIPTS WITH HAND-WRITTEN REVISIONS |
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| THE ORIGINAL POSTER |
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| METICULOUS PLANNING |
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| A CLOSER DETAIL |
SPARTACUS
Even though Kubrick thought of his work on
Spartacus as a that of a hired gun, it still stands out as the very best of the sword and sandal epics of the day. It gave new meaning to the term "costume drama", setting a standard for that particular genre that wouldn't be beat until... perhaps
Barry Lyndon?
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| ROMAN SPLENDOR AND THE STYLISH SENATE |
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| BEAUTIFUL COLORFUL STORYBOARDS |
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| ORGANIZING THE CORPSES OF AFTERMATH |
LOLITA
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| NELSON RIDDLE'S SCORE PLAYS ON |
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| WHITE VINYL AND PINK PAPER |
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| EVEN THE WORKING SCRIPTS WERE PINK |
DR. STRANGELOVE
OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING
AND LOVE THE BOMB
The centerpiece of the Strangelove Room was this beautiful scale model reproduction of Ken Adams' fantastic War Room set. And that light above it sure looks familiar, too, don't it?
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| SPIDEY GOES IN FOR A CLOSE-UP |
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| "RED ALERT" BY PETER GEORGE |
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| INSIDE THE WAR ROOM MODEL |
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| THE INFAMOUS SURVIVAL KIT |
Even though it was filmed, Kubrick eventually decided to scrap the custard pie fight between the various leadership factions of the American military due to a number of factors. I think he made the right decision - obviously, seeing as Strangelove comes as close to perfection as any film before or since. Anyway, if nothing else, we at least got a very cute photo of Stanley's wife,
Christiane, out of it.
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| THE LOVELY CHRISTIANE K. COCKS A CREAM PIE |
Here's an artifact that really stuck with me. It's an invitation and program for a special preview screening of Dr. Strangelove that was to be held on November 22nd, 1963. Try to guess why this event had to be cancelled (and certain sections of the film, altered).
Platoon got all the glory, awards and box office at the time, but these days, it's Full Metal Jacket that stands out as the best of Hollywood's late-80's wave of films exploring the war in Vietnam.
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| THE "BORN TO KILL" HELMET |
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| MILITARY ISSUE BUNK BED SET |
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| MORE UNUSED AIRBRUSH PROMO ART |
EYES WIDE SHUT
Second only to Clockwork Orange in terms of controversy, Eyes Wide Shut is also probably the biggest tragedy in the Kubrick oeuvre. That's because, apologists be damned, the film was UNFINISHED at the time of Kubrick's demise. We'll have time to explore my theories about that - as well as other people's theories - in future articles for this blog. For now, here a few snapshots...
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| CREEPY SEXY GORGEOUS DANGER |
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| THOSE LEGENDARY CEREMONIAL MASKS |
THE INFINITE COATROOM
In this, the final room of the main section of the Kubrick Exhibit, you could sit and listen to a rotating sample of music and audio samples while a sequence of wall-sized images scrolled across the walls both facing and behind you.
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| STERLING HAYDEN |
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| MORE PATENTED KUBRICK CRAZY STARE SHOTS |
THE FOURTH FLOOR:
UNFINISHED PROJECTS AND EQUIPMENT
Too big to be contained on a single floor, the Kubrick Exhibit actually spilled over into the TIFF Bell/Lightbox building's fourth floor library, with special sections relating to Kubrick's early years as a staff photographer for LOOK Magazine, his early documentary work, his unfinished projects and abandoned marketing campaigns.
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| A SELECTION OF KUBRICK'S LENSES |
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| KUBRICK'S OLD PHOTO EQUIPMENT |
See
this recent post for a potential reason why these posters for Eyes Wide Shut were scrapped in favor of the "purple mirror" motif that they eventually rolled with.
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| WITH THEIR DEAD EYES |
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| THE ABANDONED "IT SUCKS" TAG LINE |
For Kubrick, research was key. This hutch contained only a sampling of the hundreds of books he read in preparation for his abandoned
Napoleon film project. Directly beneath is a photo of the card catalog system which Kubrick used to keep track of where Napoleon was and what he was doing on literally
every day of his life.
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| READING DOES A BODY GOOD |
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| A LIFE IN DAYS |
And that's it! Unfortunately, the pics I took of the exhibits on
The Aryan Papers and early production sketches for
A.I. didn't turn out very well at all, so I haven't included them here. Considering how crappy some of the pics I did use are, you can imagine how bad those were for me to decide not to run them. If I go back again - a distinct possibility - I might try again. In the meantime, I urge you to visit the Kubrick Exhibit and see for yourselves what all the fuss is about.
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