THE KUBRICK PARTS OF THE PETER SELLERS DOC

INCREDIBLE NEWLY UNEARTHED KUBRICK MATERIAL FROM 1980!

Kubrick fanatics, today we've hit gold. UNBELIEVABLE new material, never before seen, from a Japanese documentary that never got completed. All new interview (over the phone with Stanley, but it's definitely him) and tons of paranormal discussion. FASCINATING!

KUBRICK NEWS IN BRIEF ~ FEB 3, 2018

Sometimes you'll find tidbits of Kubrick-related ephemera in the strangest places. For instance, in Daniel Raim's documentary Harold and Lillian, A Hollywood Love Story! This doc "tells the story of husband-and-wife team Harold and Lillian Michelson, who brought their talents as storyboard artist and film researcher, respectively, to numerous Hollywood classics including The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and The Graduate, and working with such master filmmakers as Hitchcock, Spielberg, and Kubrick." How does Kubrick fit into this one? Well, a quick look at the poster, above, provides a pretty good clue!

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I full realize that "unboxing" videos are, in many ways, symptomatic of what's gone wrong with the Internet, social media, and late-Capitalist decline in recent years, but just try and keep from drooling when the lucky so-and-so's in the video below "unbox" Taschen's limited edition (and sold-out) 'Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Film Never Made'...

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Den of Geek has an extended examination of the great Clockwork Orange Ban myth... the real facts of the case, how the myth surrounding it began, and how that myth evolved into a big part of what solidified Clockwork Orange's 'street cred' as a legendary "dangerous movie".

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Criterion's latest version of The Killing gets top marks in this Christopher Aguiar review. I particularly liked this insight into the film:

The Killing often operates as a film about making movies. Johnny Clay is Kubrick in this reading. Both assemble teams, both decide on an end-goal and both craft a plan to get from point A to point B. Much like filmmaking, Clay needs his counterparts to pull their own weight. His wrestler friend has to instigate the bar brawl, Cook Jr. has to ensure that every door remains open. Without their collaboration, Clay cannot carry out his heist. Without the collaboration of his actors and writers, Kubrick cannot assemble his story. As aforementioned, it is the small unconsidered details that can derail a heist. The same can be said about filmmaking. You consider all the variables, but then it may rain on set – at that point, your period of filmmaking for the day is, effectively, over.

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Someone over at the Ultimate Guitar website's forum decided to do the sort of thing I've been doing at Kubrick U for a while now, and assembled a collection of music videos that reference the films of Stanley Kubrick. Their list features such diverse artists as Kanye West and Lady Gaga to Blur and Guns and Roses. One that was new to me was this one for "Time is Running Out" by neo-prog band Muse. Enjoy!

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In this article for the Daily Trojan, British directorial phenomenon Edgar Wright cites "his parents’ favorite filmmakers as vital to his creative upbringing, specifically choreographer Busby Berkeley and directors Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick." It's enough to make this would-be filmmaker feel really, really old and past my due date.

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In a recent article for The Drive, entitled 'Autonomous Cars and the Great Failure to Communicate', Eric Adams explores how "Aviation can help carmakers learn to talk to drivers, but they'd be better off asking Stanley Kubrick." After going over some of the mistakes that current industry leaders are making in this area, Adams explains how his own...

...gold-standard reference has actually become—in all seriousness—Stanley Kubrick. Go watch 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968 and look at the control panels of the separate spacecraft used to reach orbit, fly to the Moon, translate across the lunar surface, and, later in the film, operate the extravehicular activity pods. Those aren’t the whimsical riffs of a 60s set designer; they’re thought-out projections of what human-machine interfaces would be like in a more advanced technological society, envisioned by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay. Some are more complicated than others, but the gist is the same: The system does the thinking and tells the operator what he or she needs to know. Take that left-hand screen (below) with the automatic landing guides and replace it with a big green arrow, and it could be the next semi-autonomous Cadillac.

 

I’m guessing, by the way, that it’s likely that when Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos unveil the control panels for their own spacecraft at SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively, they’ll look more like a Kubrick creation than, say, the overwhelmingly complex Space Shuttle of yore—simple, clean, with necessary data, sure, but not incomprehensible boatloads of it.

It's a thought provoking article that should appeal to techies of every stripe, Kubrick fan or no. 

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As part of his brisk review of the 1972 giallo Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, critic Matthew Lickona goes off on an extended Kubrick-related tangent:

A bit of serendipity: last week, I happened upon Jon Ronson’s short documentary Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes, about the years he spent sifting through the director’s dizzying, even terrifying collection of research material, fan letters, memos, etc. Kubrick was famous for being incredibly exacting, for maintaining a level of precision and care that made every frame matter. But it cost him: Waterloo came out and flopped while he was still in pre-production on his Napoleon epic, and the spooked studios killed the project. (The reams of research material for that one were eventually transformed into a book, subtitled The Greatest Movie Never Made*.) The same thing happened with his planned Holocaust movie — Spielberg made Schindler’s List in the time it took Kubrick to do his research. And Full Metal Jacket famously got beaten to the punch by Platoon. There’s much to admire in The Shining. But there’s also much to enjoy in this brisk, brusque, bloody, bawdy Italian cheapie.

*See above for the unboxing of the book in question.

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Witness 23 minutes of gameplay demo from Lust for Darkness, a videogame that's being called "Eyes Wide Shut meets HP Lovecraft" by some reviewers.

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In the context of an interview about his most recent turn as the Devil in American Satan, Malcolm McDowell continues to use his public appearances as a chance to explore his evolving feelings re: his relationship with Kubrick, particularly about how things went down after they finished working on Clockwork Orange together:

McDowell is aware he still gets recognized for his most iconic character, that of Alex, a sadistic gang leader in 1971’s “A Clockwork Orange”. Still, nearly 50 years later, McDowell is grateful for the chance to take on one of Hollywood’s most recognizable bad boys. 

“… I have to say I’m more than thrilled that I did it all those years ago with a great director who was an amazing co-conspirator if you like,” he explained. “It was great fun working with [director] Stanley [Kubrick], and I really loved him. We produced an incredible piece of work that’s there for all time… It defines my career... which is fine! And listen, I’m very happy to have an iconic movie. It’s a great piece of work. And I’m very proud of it. And it opened many doors for me.” 

While McDowell considered Kubrick to be a wonderful collaborator, their friendship would ultimately dissolve. McDowell wouldn't give specific details on what caused the relationship to crumble, but he admitted they never stayed in touch after an incident tore them apart. Kubrick died in 1999 at age 70. 

“We fell out and I think this is something I regret,” admitted McDowell. “My pride prevented me from picking up the phone and just saying, ‘Hi Stan, how are you doing?’ It was silly, really… I was really pissed with him, I thought what he did to me was really an injustice… I felt very injured by him and I was really annoyed for many, many years. But you know what? I made a mistake… And I had my wife begging me to call him, but I went, ‘Nope, he can call me! Why can’t he call? Why should it always be me?’ But you know, that’s so stupid. That kind of pig-headed… I admit it. I was wrong.” 

When Kubrick died in his home in England, McDowell didn’t know how to cope with the news. 

“The family then reached out,” he said. “And I was very glad to go see them. 

“Christiane, his widow, took me to where he’s buried in the back garden basically. And I burst into tears. And I realized, it all came out. The thing that I buried and stuffed inside me. And I realized what an idiot I’ve been… Unfortunately, I can’t change it now, but at least I realized how stupid I was.”

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AV Club discusses Ridley Scott discussing Bladerunner's debt(s) to Stanley Kubrick, in specific re: the "eye shine" exhibited by Replicants, and in a major casting decision... but it's all in the WiReD video, above, so you don't really need to click through to learn more.

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The winner of the 2017 Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award was... Matt Damon. Now, I've got nothing against Matt Damon. I think he's a pretty good actor and I'm sure he's nice, as far as big time Hollywood actors go. But, well, the award is supposed to be given to individuals “upon whose work is stamped the indelible mark of authorship and commitment, and who has lifted the craft to new heights.” Is Matt Damon really the individual who best represents these qualities in 2017? Oh well... considering the fact that past recipients include Robert Downey Jr., George Clooney, Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise, and Tom Hanks... maybe being a nice, handsome guy with the right political opinions and whose filmic output is occasionally slightly thought-provoking and rarely if ever prurient garbage is all it takes.

This, however, brings up a potential avenue for speculation. If YOU had to nominate someone for a Kubrick-related award, who would it be, and why? Answers in the comments section, please!

LEON VITALI: FILMWORKER

An October New Statesman article about FilmWorker, the documentary exploring the intriguing life and times of former actor-turned-Stanley Kubrick's long-time right-hand man, Leon Vitali, begins:

In the early 1970s, Leon Vitali’s face, cherubic but with a hint of insolence, was forever popping up on British TV series like The Fenn Street Gang and Crown Court. Then he fell into Stanley Kubrick’s orbit and everything changed. Not his prospects or his level of celebrity or his skillset (though they changed too) but his entire existence — his purpose in life. 

Kubrick cast Vitali in his 1975 masterpiece Barry Lyndon as Lord Bullingdon, the justifiably enraged stepson of the 18th century cad and chancer played by Ryan O’Neal. Though Vitali was 26 when he played the role, he looks in many scenes like an overgrown child: plump-lipped and babyish. His performance is explosive and thrilling. Once shooting was finished, the actor told Kubrick he wanted to get more involved behind the scenes. Be careful what you wish for and all that.

I have yet to see the documentary myself, but I have long been intrigued by the idea that Kubrick had people in his life that, in a very real and important sense, helped him to be the best, most complete and uncompromising artist that he could be. As the New Statesman review makes clear in this review, Vitali was clearly one of those people, and his contribution to Kubrick's oeuvre--casting Danny both and the Grady twins in The Shining, for example--is vast and, quite possibly, unquantifiable.

More reviews can be found at The Film Stage website, The Daily Beast, and Variety. There doesn't appear to be a trailer yet, but here's a video of Leon and the film's director, Tony Zierra, on the red carpet at the AFI Film Festival:

S IS FOR STANLEY

I still haven't seen it yet, but I figured I might as well post a little something about Italian director Alex Infascelli's recently released documentary S is For Stanley, which takes a look at our favorite iconic filmmaker through the eyes of the man who was his devoted driver and manservant for 30 long years, Emilio D'Alessandro.

So, to begin with, here's the English language trailer:

Pretty cool, right? Sure makes me want to see it!

Our first review comes from the Village Voice, and it's by their new lead cinema critic (and former alt.movies.kubrick netizen!) Bilge Ebiri. His review is essential reading for any Kubrick fan, particularly considering it was written by perhaps the premiere Kubrick admirer currently working in the mainstream entertainment media. It begins:

It isn't every day that you're asked to drive a giant dick across London. But for Emilio D'Alessandro, a young Italian émigré, erstwhile race-car driver, and full-time cabbie, it was just another job: It was December of 1970, a blizzard was on, nobody else was around, and the object — a massive sculpture of a phallus — had to be delivered quickly to a company called Hawk Films on the other side of town. Speedy, careful, and prompt, D'Alessandro got it there safely and on time. The recipient, impressed, offered him a regular job. And that's how Emilio D'Alessandro became Stanley Kubrick's personal chauffeur. 

He was, in truth, more than that.

This is, of course, an understatement. A wonderful part of Ebiri's essay is his eye for how the smallest details from the documentary can be spun out into fairly grand ideas about what lay behind Kubrick's work. It's a positive review, but I would only have expected otherwise from Ebiri if the film had been a hatchet job, which it obviously isn't.

Daniel Eagan's review for Film Journal isn't quite so positive, nor is it half as interesting. Calling the film "a low-key effort geared towards cultists", his review concludes on the following note:

It will take a dedicated Kubrick completist to find inspiration in the director's fondness for pets, bad driving habits and poor typing. S Is for Stanley manages the difficult feat of circling around both of its subjects without saying much interesting about either of them.

Glenn Kenny's New York Times review sits happily between Ebiri's enthusiasm and Eagan's dismissive snark. He concludes his short review indicating that, "for Kubrick enthusiasts, this picture will provide a fun and sometimes moving fix."

It is also perhaps worth noting that all three reviews begin with the story of Emilio's delivery of the smooth white wobbling phallus sculpture/murder weapon from Clockwork Orange; obviously a memorable moment from the doc!

Finally, for our Italian speaking friends, here's an interview with the film's director, Alex Infascelli:

KUBRICK REMEMBERED: A BEAUTIFUL NEW KUBRICK DOC

This lovely documentary focuses mostly on Stanley's family life, particularly on his life-long love affair with Christiane. It's quite wonderful, on many levels. A great glimpse into the man's soul.

JON RONSON'S DOCUMENTARY "KUBRICK'S BOXES" (2008)

Thanks to the fine folks at IndieWire for bringing to our attention the fact that Jon Ronson's 49 minute documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes, which first aired in 2008, has finally found its way online. And in glorious Vimeo quality, no less! I've been waiting a while to see it, myself. Watch along with me, why don't you?

75 MINUTES OF BLISS FOR 2001 FANS

Many thanks to our fellow Kubrickophiles over at The Playlist, who pointed out three beautifully-assembled, information-packed video essays by someone named Cinema Tyler that break down in fantastically well researched, nigh-unto microscopic detail three key moments from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

The video series, aptly titled “How Kubrick Made 2001: A Space Odyssey”, is must-watch material. It's like Tyler took a bunch of pages from one of Piers Bizony's multiple landmark books exploring the landmark film's landmark production techniques and brought them to vivid, full color life. 

On Youtube. 

For free. 

And so, without further ado, here are all three videos. 

Enjoy!

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"How Kubrick Made 2001, Part One: The Dawn of Man"

"How Kubrick Made 2001, Part Two: The Floyd Sequence"

"How Kubrick Made 2001, Part Three: The Lunar Surface"

LONG-LOST 20 MIN KUBRICK-NARRATED STRANGELOVE PROMO!

This is just incredible.

The blog Cinephilia And Beyond has amassed an amazing assortment of documents and videos related to Stanley Kubrick's satirical magnum opus, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This includes a never-before-seen-or-heard "promo reel" put together by Kubrick during the production - using some takes that ended up on the cutting room floor - apparently designed to assuage the rattled nerves of the film's (understandably) skittish financial backers.  You have to watch this thing to believe it.

Also, you absolutely have to visit the above link, which is a true treasure trove of Strangelove-related goodies, including multiple versions of the script, color photos of the shoot (some taken by Kubrick himself, others by Peter Sellers!) and more stuff than I can jam into this space without puking in my own mouth out of how jealous I am that I didn't put it together first! Go... just, go!

I'll start you off with the first part of the aforementioned promo reel. You need to go to the above link to see the rest, and check out all the other great stuff they've got.

THE LOST "LOST KUBRICK" DOCUMENTARY, FOUND

Currently being touted on a number of entertainment and cinema blogs is a 20 minute Vimeo documentary about all of Stanley Kubrick's "unmade" films, called Lost Kubrick. The only problem is... they're all dead-linked! They lead to pages that say "video not found" and other such frustrating missives. So, after a little digging around, I managed to find the damn thing on Open Culture (a great site any day of the week, to be sure).

Oh, and it also happened to be on Youtube. So you can watch it here. Enjoy!

PS - The doc is actually kind of slight and fluffy, and certainly not comprehensive in any way. The ultimate online resource for Kubrick's unmade work remains this incredibly thorough, six-page article at IndyWire's superlative blog, The Playlist. Truly a smorgasbord of links and information for the Kubrick fanatic in you!