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!

ON STANLEY KUBRICK: A FORCE OF NATURE

Thanks to 'The Stanley Kubrick Appreciation Society', we all now get to see the video of a talk given in 2001 at the University of Oklahoma Department of Film and Video Studies by Joseph Turkel, one of the few actors to have scored a Stanley Kubrick Hat Trick, having appeared in a bit part in The Killing, a co-starring role in Paths of Glory, and a pivotal part in The Shining. 

On Youtube, it's been chopped into five pieces, but some kind soul has combined all the parts into a single video and made it available as a single video on the superior platform, Vimeo. Watch it there, or see it here, embedded, below...

 

On Stanley Kubrick A Force of Nature from Next Wednesday on Vimeo.

KUBRICK NEWS IN BRIEF ~ NOV 17, 2017

Bloody Disgusting reports on a new line of vinyl collectibles being put out by Funko featuring four figurines based on characters from The Shining. My favorite? Frozen Jack! Find out more at the link!

***

This summer, in advance of a concert given in Ottawa featuring some of the most iconic pieces of music used in Kubrick's films, the Ottawa Citizen newspaper interviewed our ubiquitous friend and Kubrick estate spokesman Jan Harlan, and even though the concert is long done with, the interview is well worth revisiting. It begins:

Q: What was Stanley Kubrick’s taste in music like? What enthusiasm did he have for music outside of the role that it played in his films?
A: As a young man he was a drummer in a band. He certainly knew how to distinguish — music as a possible pillar to support the structure of a film is one thing, music for pure enjoyment is another. Two great works he loved very much were never considered for one of his films: The Brahms Requiem and the Schubert Quintet in C.

If that's the kind of behind the scenes Kubrickeana that you just can't get enough of, then by all means keep on reading.

***

In this article about the BBC's 100 Best Comedies of All Time (in which Kubrick's Strangelove comes in 2nd after Wilder's Some Like It Hot), Toronto Star movie critic Peter Howell discusses the ways in which movie critics frequently (and unfairly, in his opinion) get a bad rap when it comes to their capacity to appreciate comedy. It's worth checking out for Howell's brief insights into the nature of the laughs generated by Kubrick's jet black satire.

***

The title of this Gizmodo article says it all: These Original Artworks From the Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey Are Spectacular.

***

With the successful release in recent months of IT in theaters and Gerald's Game on Netflix, certain media have taken to discussing what it takes to make a truly great cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's writing, with Kubrick's The Shining frequently popping up as an example of said greatness (and, occasionally, as a failure, but that's mostly from King himself). Scott Tobias' piece for the Hamilton Spectator, titled The Secrets to Making a Great Stephen King Adaptation is a pretty good example of the genre.

***

So apparently someone made an incredibly cool game not-so-loosely based on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and apparently, according to this stellar review at least, it's fucking amazing. It's called 2000:1 (Two Thousand to One): A Space Felony, or: How I Came to Value My Life and MURDER Mercilessly. Can you beat that for a Kubrickean title!? Nope. You can't. Check out this video preview, then visit the links above for more information about gameplay, etc. This thing looks good enough to drag me back into gaming, which is something I haven't indulged in for almost a decade now.

***

Those of you who are fascinated by Kubrick's early work as a "boy wonder" photographer for LOOK Magazine are definitely going to want to check out Philippe D. Mather’s recent book Stanley Kubrick at LOOK Magazine: Authorship and Genre in Photojournalism and Film. It features recently uncovered images from 1946, when Kubrick was only 16, which portray his beloved New York as a paradoxical place of beauty and ugliness, darkness and light.

***

Were you aware that, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, during the scene where Dave Bowman and the HAL 9000 computer play a friendly game of chess... HAL appears to cheat? Of course, if you're reading this blog, it's more than likely that you ARE aware of this fact. Furthermore, it's probably more than likely that you're also aware of the myriad theories as to why Kubrick included this little tidbit in his film. Just in case you're not already fully aware of the speculation surrounding this brief moment in 2001, SyFy.com lays it all out for you. They also provide a link to this delightful, new-to-me New York Review of Books article by Jeremy Bernstein--the guy who produced one of the best Kubrick interviews ever, and was smart enough to record it and KEEP his recording--about precisely how clever Kubrick could get when it came to chess.

***

And, finally for this edition of KNIB, we say goodbye to character actor Barry Dennen, who played Bill Watson in Kubrick's version of The Shining, but who will most likely be better remembered for his passionate and iconic portrayal of Pontius Pilate, both on Broadway and in the film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. He was 79 years old.

SUE LYON: THEN AND THEN AND NOW

I recently ran across this brief interview with the unforgettable Sue Lyon, titular star of Kubrick's version of Nabokov's novel Lolita, conducted in Europe during an international roadshow tour for the movie, which would go on to become a worldwide box office hit. Something I learned from this exchange is that Lyon at one time had a seven year contract with Harris-Kubrick Productions.

This video set me off in search of more recent interviews, and I came across this one, titled "In Search of Lolita", conducted with a French TV channel in 1987, by which time Lyon hadn't made a film since Lewis Teague's Alligator, seven years previous. Her memories of James Mason are particularly warm and lovely. Not so her experience with the reporter who once asked if her brother had committed suicide because she'd performed in such a controversial film.

And... that's it, unfortunately. The above video appears to be the most recent video of Sue Lyon available, and she's sworn off interviews entirely, whether on video or in print. The most recent photograph I could find of her is a paparazzi shot from 2010, dug up by Stumptown Blogger.

The story attached to this video is not a happy one, unfortunately. I certainly hope that she's found some measure of peace and contentment.