KUBRICK AND THE BEATLES: APPENDIX

On Thursday, September 3rd, 2015, this blog ran a story entitled Kubrick, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, about how The Beatles almost starred in The Lord of the Rings, how The Rolling Stones wanted to appear in A Clockwork Orange, and how Kubrick was tapped by both bands to direct these projects.

Well, it turns out there is yet another, albeit smaller, connection between the Fab Four and Stan the Man, and it's been hidden from view since 1967. It involves the now legendary photograph used as the album cover for Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which features a massive collage of life-sized cutouts of people chosen by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison (but not Ringo for some reason).

Take a look at this:

Looks familiar, right? But look again... it's a photograph from the same shoot from which the cover of Sgt Pepper's was taken, but the band is positioned differently, which exposes some of the collage members who ended up obscured on the final image.

And to whom does that menacing, grimacing face positioned directly above John Lennon's head belong? Why, it's none other than early Kubrick favorite, Timothy Carey! And the image itself is taken from the scene in Kubrick's The Killing (1956) in which Carey's character, the incredibly-named Nikki Arcane, is first introduced!

You may have noticed that there are a couple more differences between the above photo and the final album cover image. In fact, there are seven missing people from the final shot, including five faces that ended up airbrushed out or obscured by band members, one that was printed but left out of the collage at the last second (Hitler), and one that was called for, but never printed (Jesus). To learn more about this fascinating bit of historical trivia, check out this article on FeelNumb.com.

MUST WATCH! KUBRICK'S SECRET MOVIE REVEALED!

From the video description:

Here is some undeniable proof that Stanley Kubrick ghost-directed the 1979 feature film "Being There" using his power among the Hollywood elite. 5 months of investigation were necessary to unveil this mystery and its darker meaning. PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO, HELP ME EXPOSE THE TRUTH!

This particular creation surpasses the so-called "Kubrick Confession video" examined in an earlier post on this very page by leaps and freaking bounds. One really needs to watch this video in its entirety -- to its final, compelling seconds -- to be able to grasp the full meaning of the information and hard-won wisdom its creator now so selflessly seeks to share with the world.

KUBRICK MOVIE BOX OFFICE RANKINGS (ADJUSTED)

	Movie (Year)		Adjusted Domestic Box Office (Millions)	Box Office Rank By Year		Oscar Nom / Win
	2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)		$348.30	3rd of 1968		04 / 01
	A Clockwork Orange (1971)		$184.30	7th of 1972		04 / 00
	Spartacus (1960)		$287.40	3rd of 1960		06 / 04
	Barry Lyndon (1975)		$80.40	18th of 1975		07 / 04
	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)		$95.00	14th of 1964		04 / 00
	The Shining (1980)		$137.20	10th of 1980		00 / 00
	Lolita (1962)		$107.20	16th of 1962		01 / 00
	Full Metal Jacket (1987)		$96.60	23rd of 1987		01 / 00
	Eyes Wide Shut (1999)		$89.30	26th of 1999		00 / 00
	Paths of Glory (1957)		$38.20	68th in 1958		00 / 00
	The Killings (1956)		$10.60	Not in Top 109		00 / 00
	Killer's Kiss (1955)		$.80	Not in Top100		00 / 00
	Fear and Desire (1953)		$.80	Not in Top 150		00 / 00

OBNOXIOUS KUBRICK INTERVIEW VIDEO HOAX

Considering the subject matter that I enjoy writing about in my blogs, the Daily Dirt Diaspora and the Useless Eater -- and taking into account the occasionally outré nature of some of my own speculations regarding elements of Stanley Kubrick's oeuvre -- I suppose it would be hypocritical of me to simply ignore the recent release of a video allegedly shot by "filmmaker T. Patrick Murray" in 1999 and kept hidden from the public until 15 years after Kubrick's death, which purports to contain the legendary auteur's confession to having faked the moon landing(s) at the behest of the United States government.

I do, however, refuse to waste too much of my dwindling time on this most lazy, easily refutable, and contemptible of hoax videos. For, despite the fact that it represents both a symptom and an end result of a certain virulent strain of the affliction known as Kubrick Obsession, and therefore falls under the purview of this blog's rubric, it is a weak effort, lacking in subtlety, and insufficiently innovative, subversive, or formally intriguing to merit much scrutiny.

Beyond the central performer's physical resemblance to Kubrick, this video is, in fact, offensively amateurish, particularly in its first incarnation, with its incredibly annoying habit of constantly cutting away from the interview to present us with random clips from Kubrick films. No wonder its creators have subsequently released numerous "new and improved" edits, in an effort to make their product more palatable to its intended audience: the easily distracted, the lowest common denominators, the vigilant citizens and Alex Jones fanboys of the "conspiritard" crowd. 

And so, if you are more intrigued than I, and as such wish to delve more deeply into this video's creation, its release, the public reaction to it and any other such topics, I suggest you make use of Google and search elsewhere for insights. If you find anything particularly interesting that I might have overlooked, kindly point it out in the comments section of this post.

In the meantime, here is a Youtube version of the interview minus all those annoying clips and interruptions. It gets particularly amusing towards the end, when "T. Patrick Murray" gets so annoyed at his "Stanley" for failing to recall why Apollo 12 was a worse failure than Apollo 13 (because nobody watched it!) that he starts yelling in frustration, at which point a clearly flustered Kubrick grovels a shame-faced apology. And if you need any further evidence than this that the video in question is a hoax... well then you don't know much about Stanley Kubrick.

STANLEY AND THE BROTHERS SCOTT

[EDITED TO REMOVE THE
INCREDIBLY ANNOYING SELF-LAUNCHING VIDEO, 
WHICH YOU CAN STILL FIND AT 
THE LINKED-TO ARTICLE BELOW, REGARDLESS]

During the course of a Hollywood Reporter Director's Roundtable consisting of David O. Russell, Tom Hooper, Quentin Tarantino, Danny Boyle, Alejandro G. Inarritu and Ridley Scott, the ALIEN director offered a small degree of elaboration on a film industry legend of long standing involving Blade Runner, The Shining, and Stanley Kubrick's uncredited addition to what would go on to become arguably the second most influential science fiction film in cinematic history after his own 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In the article accompanying the above video, Scott explains:

I had finished Blade Runner, and it was a disaster. My investors were giving me a really hard time, saying "You can't end the film with picking up a piece of origami, looking at the girl, walk in the elevator, nod, and bingo that's it." I said, "It's called a film noir." And they said, "What's a film noir?" That was a big problem. And he said, "We have to test this with an uplifting ending, where they will go off into the wilderness together." I said, "Well if they go off into a beautiful wilderness, why do they live in this dystopian environment?"
By then I had talked to Stanley a few times. I said, "I know you shot the hell out of The Shining, can I have some of the stuff?" So at the end of the film in Blade Runner, that's Stanley Kubrick's footage.

The full Director Roundtable will air on "Close Up With The Hollywood Reporter" on Sunday, Jan 3, at 11 a.m. ET on Sundance TV, and it's allegedly "rich with discussions about the work of Stanley Kubrick", so be sure to check it out when it airs, or later on, via various online video platforms where it will surely be widely available, considering the caliber of the assembled talent.

***

Ridley isn't the only Scott brother to be tight with Stanley Kubrick. Current KubrickU favorite Guillermo del Toro recently tweeted that he'd "heard that 1 shot in Barry Lyndon was done (following very specific instructions) by none other than a very young Tony Scott!" To which Cinephilia & Beyond helpfully replied with an excerpt from an October, 2012 conversation between Tom Cruise and Terry Semel in Interview Magazine:

CRUISE: He did not want to be a celebrity. You know, [the late director] Tony Scott worked on Barry Lyndon. He was in art school at the time. Tony told me that he wrote down the exact longitude and latitude of where Stanley wanted the camera, the exact height of the camera, and the time, to get the shot that Stanley wanted. Tony said he sat there for a couple of weeks trying to get the right light. Stanley really loved the Scott brothers. I've had long conversations about this with both Tony and Ridley. Stanley was a director who did not let people borrow or rent his lens. He never gave his Apollo lens to anyone. But when Ridley was having a really difficult time with the end of Blade Runner [1982], Stanley gave Ridley footage that he had shot but didn't use for the opening of The Shining. He was offering to let him use it for Blade Runner. That's how highly Stanley thought of them.

The rest of that short interview is very much worth reading, by the way. And, finally, here, dear reader, is a shot of the shot that Tony Scott worked so hard to help shoot:

BEN WHEATLEY'S HIGH-RISE IS COMING... AND IT FEELS LIKE KUBRICK

At least a little bit, don't you think? Here, watch and decide for yourself. I get a distinct Clockwork Orange meets Eyes Wide Shut vibe.

THAT ONE TIME GEORGE "MAD MAX" MILLER ALMOST MET KUBRICK

The HitFix interview series Motion [Captured] features a couple of interview video segments with George Miller talking about everything from Fury Road to Babe the Pig, and at one time, the talk turns Kubrickean. Here is that part of the exchange...

The rest of the page is also worth checking out for Kubrick fans, as author Drew McWeeny describes some off-the-record chatting the two did about their favorite Kubrick films (Clockwork, Barry Lyndon) and why James Cameron now actually LIKES Eyes Wide Shut (the answer isn't too terribly shocking). 

MILLION DOLLAR EXTREME RIFFS ON 2001

I may be working with the Million Dollar Extreme guys (a terrifyingly subversive comedy collective from Providence, I think) as an illustrator in the near future, so I've been checking out all their videos on Youtube (as should you be, too). I'd been skipping this one for some reason, but today, I went back and checked it out... and LOOK what I found.

SHINING REFERENCE IN RICK AND MORTY

ANOTHER KUBRICK FIRST

According to this Jamaica Observer article, "it has now been documented that the world's earliest public example of an inter-racial kiss was in a Granada Television Play of the Week broadcast in June 1962, titled You in Your Small Corner. The kiss was between Jamaican actor Lloyd Reckord and Elizabeth MacLennan. The film was based on the play written by the Cambridge educated Jamaican Barry Reckord, brother of the lead actor."

However... "In 1955, the Stanley Kubrick film Killer's Kiss featured a kiss between a white woman, Irene Kane and Jamaican-born Frank Silvera who had very light skin and was not actually playing a black character in the film. It is doubtful much of the audience at the time would have been aware he was of African descent."

Interesting, no?

STREEP ACCEPTS KUBRICK HONOUR AT BRITANNIA AWARDS

One of this generation's finest actors, Meryl Streep, was chosen to receive this year's Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Film at the Britannia Awards ceremony.

The actress in turn praised the “irascibly brilliant Stephen Frears” and said he follows the tradition of people like Kubrick, who was a transformative artist. She said the previous Kubrick recipients were notable and she was “honored to join this distinguished group of men and … (pause) men.”

Heheh... cheeky.

MATT BERRY DOES KUBRICK IN TOAST OF LONDON'S LATEST EPISODE

Stanley Kubrick is all over the latest episode of Matt Berry's hilarious low-budget "theatre folk" comedy Toast of London. Check out the entire episode, below.

BEAUTIFUL NEW SHINING ANIMATED GIF

KUBRICK AT THE BACK - PETER WEBBER BUYS STANLEY'S BELOVED MERCEDES

CinephiliaBeyond.org brings us this interview with director Peter Webber in which he discusses his past work, including Girl With Pearl Earring, his upcoming work, including the documentary 10 Billion, and his habit of collecting cinematic memorabilia, including his recent purchase of Stanley Kubrick's 1984 Mercedes 500 SEL. The story of how this legendary vehicle came into Webber's possession may sound eerily familiar to readers of the KubrickU blog...

So, you bought Stanley Kubrick’s Mercedes. As far as film memorabilia is concerned, that’s more or less the Holy Grail. How did you get your hands on it? Who’s been its owner since Kubrick died?
WEBBER: It’s actually a kind of a Twitter story. You know how you can have various searches saved on Twitter? Well, one of the searches I saved was Kubrick. Every now and again when I’m bored I go up to see what Kubrick tweets have come up. I’m a big fan and I did this one day, and a tweet came up saying Stanley Kubrick’s car was for sale. I looked into it and, sure enough, it was someone who claimed to be selling Kubrick’s last car, this Mercedes, and I thought this must have been over since the ad had been up for a while. Especially when I looked at the price, which, for a second hand car in London, wasn’t expensive. So I got in touch with the guy because it looked as if it was still available, and he said someone else was interested in it. But because I lived in London, I was able to get up there straight away. It was as simple as that—the Internet led me to the car. I met the guy, who used to be an agent himself, and was a friend of the person who had bought it from Kubrick, he showed me all this documentation, and I scanned some of this stuff—especially the letter from the dealership to Stanley Kubrick. I made an offer then and there, which he accepted, I gave him a deposit, I had to go off to France that weekend, I came back from France, paid the rest and drove the car away. There we go. Very simple story.

Hey! That's exactly how I write this blog! Only I use Google News alerts instead of Twitter ones.

THE RED DRUM GETAWAY - A FANTASTIC KUBRICK/HITCHCOCK MASHUP

The Red Drum Getaway from Gump on Vimeo.