Stanley Kubrick's Boxes

As part of the Kubrick Season on More4 this month, Jon Ronson presented (and directed) Stanley Kubrick's Boxes on 15th July, a True Stories documentary about Kubrick's archives. Ronson examined the boxes (designed to Kubrick's specifications) containing the director's notes, photographs, and props in situ at Childwickbury Manor, near St Albans, before they were transferred to the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts in London. The programme includes a short Lolita screen test featuring Sue Lyon, and footage filmed by Vivian Kubrick on the set of Full Metal Jacket.

The Kubrick Files

Today, The Sunday Telegraph (UK) newspaper's Home & Living section has a four-page supplement called The Kubrick Files. It includes extracts from Kubrick's correspondence, taken from the Stanley Kubrick Archive.

Stanley Kubrick Season

More4, a UK digital TV channel owned by Channel 4, will show a season of Kubrick's films this month, as well as a new documentary about his archives on 15th July. (This is the third Kubrick season organised by Channel 4: the first was broadcast in June 1996, and the second in September 1999.)

2008: A Film Odyssey

The Barbican in London will present an exhibition of Kubrick artefacts early next year (21st to 27th February 2008). Archive material has previously been shown in Germany, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy. The exhibits are on loan from the Archive at the University of the Arts.

Stanley Kubrick Archive

I went to the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts in London yesterday. The Archive was donated by Kubrick's widow earlier this year, and is currently being catalogued.

I had a great surprise: I found that I am actually part of the archive! In one of the boxes is my list of Kubrick's Look photographs, printed out from my website.

On Kubrick

James Naremore's On Kubrick is a substantial new study of the director's feature films. Each film (excluding Spartacus, omitted on the [quite specious] grounds that it is not an auteurist work) is given approximately twenty pages of analysis, within six rather broad chapters.

Naremore strikes a largely successful balance between production history, narrative description, criticism, and theory. He does include un-necessarily long dialogue extracts; however, for the most part, there is minimal exposition, and his analysis is always fascinating and often original. (Many books on Kubrick, unlike Naremore's, are either overly theoretical [Michel Chion, Thomas Allen Nelson, Mario Falsetto] or overly descriptive [Norman Kagan, Gene D Phillips].)

Do we really need another guide to Kubrick's films? There have been a plethora either written or revised since his death in 1999 [Alison Castle, Paul Duncan, James Howard, David Hughes, etc.], though Naremore's is justified because of his archival research. He quotes from screenplay drafts and correspondence, uncovering new information regarding Kubrick's dealings with studios and censors.

The book's photographs are apparently screen-grabs rather than production stills, and are consequently rather murky. There is even a fuzzy screen-grab from a bootleg copy of Fear & Desire, even though a clearer production still of the same shot exists. Ironically, given the book's title, there are no images of Kubrick himself. But why would a BFI book be unable to obtain official Kubrick/film photographs from Warner?

Spartacus is omitted from Naremore's consideration, though AI is included. While Kubrick planned AI for much of the early 1990s, arguably little of his original vision remains in the final Steven Spielberg film, so why Naremore includes it yet excludes Spartacus [begun by Anthony Mann, though taken over by Kubrick] is a mystery. Naremore incorrectly states that A Clockwork Orange was banned by the BBFC; in fact, they passed it uncut for adult audiences. Also, his discussion of Eyes Wide Shut is marred slightly by his misunderstanding of the film's post-production: he wrongly claims that it was Kubrick himself, not the studio, who removed the Bhagavad Gita from the soundtrack and digitally censored the orgy sequence.

Kubrick on DVD

Two Kubrick films, Lolita and Barry Lyndon, are being released on DVD by Warner. They are released concurrently with the Directors Series Kubrick box set. Quite why they have been reissued is unclear, though, because their specifications are exactly the same as the versions released in 2001. (The only difference is in the packaging: the new versions have lost the "STANLEY KUBRICK COLLECTION" branding.)

Warner Directors Series: Kubrick

A Kubrick DVD box set is being released by Warner, featuring Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the documentary A Life In Pictures.

This set is part of the Warner Directors Series, and features double-disc editions of each Kubrick film, with extras such as commentaries and documentaries. Previously, Warner released a Kubrick Collection DVD set in 1999 (with Dr Strangelove, Lolita, and Barry Lyndon, but without Eyes Wide Shut or A Life In Pictures). They then remastered the Kubrick Collection set (and added Eyes Wide Shut and A Life In Pictures) in 2001, again on DVD.

The films in this new Directors Series Kubrick set are also being released on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. These releases mark the first availability of Eyes Wide Shut and The Shining in widescreen on any video format, though unfortunately their aspect ratio is 1.78:1 rather than the theatrical ratio 1.85:1. Also, the original mono soundtracks of Full Metal Jacket, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange are not included.

Kubrick in high-definition

Five of Kubrick's films are being released in high-definition on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray by Warner.

Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and 2001: A Space Odyssey make their HD-DVD/Blu-Ray debuts, and the Full Metal Jacket HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs replace those released last year. (Spartacus was released on HD-DVD earlier this year.) All discs feature new bonus material, including commentaries and documentaries.

Unfortunately, every film is presented in 5.1 surround sound, which means that the original mono soundtracks of The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket are not included. (The mono versions were released on DVD in 1999; 2001 was originally released in six-track stereo, and Eyes Wide Shut was originally released in 5.1 surround sound.) These releases, and the concurrent DVD versions, mark the first availability of Eyes Wide Shut and The Shining in widescreen on any video format, though unfortunately their aspect ratio is 1.78:1 rather than the original 1.85:1.

Kubrick exhibition in Rome

The Kubrick exhibition, previously held in Germany, Australia, Belgium, and Switzerland, will open in Italy on 5th October, appearing at Rome's Palazzo delle Esposizioni until 6th January 2008.

Kubrick exhibition in Switzerland

The Kubrick exhibition, previously held in Germany, Australia, and Belgium, will open in Zurich, Switzerland, later this month. It now has a new official website, stanleykubrick.ch.

It will be on show at SihlCity's Kulturhaus Papiersaal centre, Zurich, from 26th April until 2nd September. It will then move to Italy in October.

Spartacus in high-definition

Spartacus is the second Kubrick film to be released on HD-DVD, after Full Metal Jacket. The good news is that, unlike Full Metal Jacket, the HD-DVD version preserves the film's original aspect ratio (2.21:1). The HD-DVD 5.1 soundtrack is also reasonably faithful to the original, as theatrical prints had six-channel sound (again, unlike Full Metal Jacket, transferred from mono to 5.1). There are no extras on the disc at all - surprising given the plethora on Criterion's DVD, especially considering Criterion subsequently licensed their extras to Universal for DVD.

Colour Me Kubrick

The film Colour Me Kubrick is a comedy about Alan Conway (played by John Malkovich), a conman who spent several years in the 1990s pretending to be Stanley Kubrick. It was surprisingly easy for Conway to use Kubrick's name whenever he wanted a free meal or a sexual favour. He met men in bars, introduced himself as Kubrick, promised them acting roles, and seduced them.

Alan Conway died in 1999 (as did Kubrick), and this film is based on a newspaper interview he gave after his con was discovered. The credits call it "A true...ish story", and with such limited source material it's not surprising that they invented much of the plot themselves.

The poster tagline is clumsy: "They wanted something for nothing. He gave them nothing for something". The only original music is an overly literal song by Bryan Adams: "I'm not the man you think I am...". The cast-list reads like a roll-call of mediocre 1980s British TV: Honor Blackman, Peter Bowles, Leslie Phillips, Robert Powell, and the appalling 'comedian' Jim Davidson.

The running-time is less than ninety minutes. The repetitive plot features Conway meeting people, schmoozing them, then moving on to someone else. The film relies entirely on John Malkovich's performance, though it gives him nothing to work with as there's no depth to the character.

The script was written by Anthony Frewin, one of Kubrick's personal assistants (who also wrote the book Are We Alone?). The director, Brian W Cook, was Kubrick's assistant director. Maybe they think that, by portraying Conway as a sleazy opportunist, they are avenging Conway on Kubrick's behalf. But the result is simply exploitative.

Alan Conway's story is a fascinating one. It's amazing that he could pass himself off as Kubrick for so long, and although he was motivated by financial and sexual gain, there are presumably also some psychological reasons for his actions. Whatever they may be, there are no insights about them in this film, only cheap laughs. It's pretty tasteless to make a comedy about Conway - the man was mentally unbalanced, after all.

Colour Me Kubrick has no theatrical or video distribution in either the US or UK. It's hard to see it, but it's not hard to see why. Conway was interviewed by Channel 4 for a short documentary called The Man Who Would Be Kubrick (4/9/1999) - it lasts for less than fifteen minutes, but it tells us more about Conway than Colour Me Kubrick manages.

Willing To Be Lucky

An exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York (mcny.org), Willing To Be Lucky, presents photographic images of New Yorkers from the 1940s and 1950s, taken from the archives of Look magazine.

The exhibition includes a section devoted to Stanley Kubrick, who was a Look photographer in New York before he became a film director. It opened on 21st October, and closes on 3rd January 2007.

Kubrick exhibition in Belgium

The Kubrick exhibition, previously held in Germany and Australia, has moved to Ghent in Belgium. It is on show at the city's Caermersklooster from 5th October this year until 7th January 2007.

This post is from Brussels airport in Belgium, as I'm leaving the country after going to the absolutely amazing Kubrick exhibition here. The city of Ghent is charming, with its cobbled streets and Gothic churches.

I went to the exhibition with my friend and fellow Kubrick obsessive, Fili (of archiviokubrick.it), which was the best possible way to see it. It features various props from each of Kubrick's films, including iconic items such as the typewriter from The Shining and the 'starchild' from 2001. There are also pages from Kubrick's notebooks and scripts, and hundreds of previously unseen Kubrick photos.

Full Metal Jacket in high-definition

Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket is one of a handful of films released by Warner in the new high-definition DVD formats. A HD-DVD version was released in May, and a Blu-Ray version appeared last week.

High-definition offers increased picture resolution and fewer compression artefacts, though the film has sadly been reformatted specifically to suit home cinema equipment. The HD-DVD and Blu-Ray versions are both framed at 1.78:1, the HDTV standard ratio; furthermore, their soundtracks are 5.1 surround, also the standard format for home cinema.

To me, this is an unfortunate compromise. Full Metal Jacket was originally released theatrically at 1.85:1 with mono sound. Before 2001, all Warner laserdisc, VHS and DVD versions were 1.33:1 unmatted, in mono, which was Kubrick's favoured video format.

When Warner remastered A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket in 2001, they produced 5.1 surround mixes (optional for A Clockwork Orange, thankfully), though at least they kept the images 1.33:1 unmatted. Not uncoincidentally, the remastering took place after Kubrick's death.

Now, however, the new high-definition versions have no fidelity to Kubrick's intentions at all, and are instead formatted with home cinema audiences in mind. Just because people buy a 16:9 HDTV, every film shouldn't have to be exactly the same ratio. Just because people have 5.1 surround speakers, films shouldn't have to utilise all of them.

The easiest solution would have been for HDTV to have adopted the 1.85:1 theatrical ratio as a standard, instead of the almost-but-not-quite-the-same 1.77:1. Because the two ratios are different, films are being cropped to fit HDTV.

The problem was the same when the CRT TV ratio was set at 1.33:1 - ever-so-slightly different from the Academy theatrical standard 1.37:1. This means that the thousands of old films shown theatrically in Academy (basically, almost every film before the mid-1950s) has to be ever-so-slightly cropped for VHS and DVD.

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray offer improved picture quality, though the version of Full Metal Jacket that most closely match Kubrick's own intentions is the unremastered Warners DVD from 1999.

Depth Of Field

There have been analyses of Kubrick's entire career by individual writers, and isolated studies of his individual films, though Depth Of Field (edited by Geoffrey Cocks, James Diedrick, and Glenn Perusek) presents, for the first time, an anthology of Kubrick's films and themes by a broad range of different authors.

In his essay The Pumpkinification Of Stanley K, Frederic Raphael punctuates extended classical allusions with occasional references to his disappointment upon viewing Eyes Wide Shut, the film he co-wrote. He is unrepentant regarding the criticism he received for his self-serving memoir, Eyes Wide Open.

There are essays on Kubrick's antihumanism (Subjected Wills, by Pat J Gehrke and GL Ercolini; 2001: A Cold Descent, by Mark Crispin Miller), though are they really necessary? It would have been more radical to reassess this traditional view and present a humanist interpretation instead. In particular, with so much literature on 2001, a more original reading of the film is surely required. Kubrick's Armies (by Glenn Perusek) analyses several of his war films, and includes extracts from his unpublished Napoleon screenplay, though films such as Dr Strangelove also deserve (yet do not receive) individual chapters.

The most bizarre essay is Death By Typewriter, in which Geoffrey Cocks homes in on tiny, insignificant details in order to demonstrate (unsuccessfully) that The Shining is actually a metaphor for the Holocaust. His line of reasoning makes irrational connections between unconnected facts, and he demonstrates an obsessional interest in trivial minutiae (for some unclear reason, he wants us to realise that the number seven recurs throughout the film, in increasingly obscure and unlikely manifestations). Hilariously, he suggests that, in A Clockwork Orange, the line "You see that shoe?" is a deliberate echo of "You see that, Jew?". His essay includes a rare reprint of one of Kubrick's Look photos (twin girls, plausibly inspiring the twins in The Shining), though its connection to the Holocaust is tenuous.

The book provides a useful opportunity to explore Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, in more detail, reassessing its initial critical response. Tim Kreider does this most successfully in the final chapter, Introducing Sociology. (Most of Kubrick's films received mixed reviews on first release, only to be re-evaluated as masterpieces several years later - now Eyes Wide Shut is due for a similar reassessment.) Kreider, and other Depth Of Field writers, makes isolated references to Eyes Wide Shut as a dream film, though an extended analysis of its dream-logic has yet to be published.

Stanley Kubrick signature

Words can't describe how exciting this is: a genuine Stanley Kubrick signature (on a Christmas card, circa 1978), of which I'm now the very proud owner.

Drama & Shadows

Rainer Crone, the author of the German book Still Moving Pictures, has now written an English-language book on the same topic: Drama & Shadows. Both are studies of Kubrick's brief career as a Look magazine photographer.

Kubrick worked for Look between 1945-1950, though his published images have never been comprehensively catalogued. I can confidently say that the list of Kubrick's photos on my website is the most extensive list so far produced, though it is still not definitive.

Still Moving Pictures was useful because it reprinted some of Kubrick's best Look photo-essays exactly as they originally appeared in the magazine, including a complete bibliography listing the magazine's headlines and dates of publication.

Crone's new book, Drama & Shadows, is partly better and partly worse than the old one. It's better because, rather than reprinting previously-published images, it features Kubrick's contact-sheets, which have never been published before. However, it doesn't include a proper bibliography, so it's not clear which photo-essays these contact-sheets relate to.

So, as a collection of previously-unpublished images by Kubrick, Drama & Shadows is excellent. The images are beautifully printed, though the text is too heavy on theory but too light on bibliographic context.

Are We Alone?

Kubrick's former personal assistant, Anthony Frewin, has written a book called Are We Alone?: The Stanley Kubrick Extra-Terrestrial Interviews.

Kubrick's original intention, when filming 2001: A Space Odyssey, was to begin it with a prologue in which the world's leading scientists discussed the film's cosmological themes. To this end, he sent Roger Caras around the world with a 35mm movie camera, to interview various scientists.

In the end, Kubrick did not use the interviews in the finished film, and they have subsequently been lost. All that survives is a written transcript of each interview, and it is these transcripts that constitute the bulk of Frewin's new book.

The link between the interviews and Kubrick himself is rather tangential. He commissioned them, though he had nothing to do with the filming of them. (This hardly justifies Frewin's subtitle.)

The interview transcripts have already been published, albeit in an edited form, in Jerome Agel's out-of-print The Making Of Kubrick's 2001, a fact that Frewin only mentions in the briefest possible way in his bibliography. Also, most of Frewin's introduction has previously been published (as 2001: The Prologue That Nearly Was) in the Frankfurt Kubrick exhibition catalogue.

Are We Alone? does include about fifteen previously unseen Kubrick photos, so it's not completely pointless, though its text is neither original nor interesting.

Ken Adam

Christopher Frayling has written an excellent new book about Ken Adam, who worked as a designer for Kubrick on Dr Strangelove and Barry Lyndon.

The book really is fantastic. There are photos of Kubrick taken by Adam, and photos of Adam taken by Kubrick. Amazingly, Adam says that "a few years ago" he was taken to the British Film Institure archive in London where he watched the custard-pie-fight epilogue from Dr Strangelove! This sequence, which Kubrick removed from the film at the last minute, has always been considered lost or destroyed, though Frayling's book appears to confirm for the first time ever that the scene still exists on film.

Incidentally, the title of this book is not completely clear. The front cover and spine call it Ken Adam: The Art Of Production Design, but inside it's titled Ken Adam & The Art Of Production Design.

Full Metal Jacket Diary

Matthew Modine, star of Full Metal Jacket, has published a journal about the making of the film, Full Metal Diary. There are several previously-unseen Kubrick photos, and transcripts of conversations between Modine and Kubrick. It's limited to 20,000 copies, and has groovy metal covers (a 'full metal jacket', geddit?).

The best parts of the book (i.e. the Kubrick parts) were actually available a while ago from stanleykubrick.de as a PDF download (titled Full Metal Dairy!).

Kubrick exhibition

The German Kubrick exhibition has now arrived at Melbourne, Australia. It will open at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image on 24th November, closing on 29th January 2006.

Sight & Sound reply

Last month, I wrote to Sight & Sound about Kubrick's appearances in his own films. This month, Gene Phillips (author of Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey and editor of Stanley Kubrick Interviews) has replied.