Stanley Kubrick’s name evokes cinema, perfection, symmetry and depth, which is why the Kubrick brand is so strong that it has been cited and recognized as one of the great influences of 20th-century cinema.
However, although no one doubts his talent, Stanley Kubrick aroused anger, tiredness and distress during filming.
- Thousands of stories and legends have helped soften your brand.
- Some are still trying to understand the filmmaker’s films in search of hidden clues that hide the truth.
- Do we even think his death is related to controversy?(1999).
The image of the cursed and tormented genius has been nourished for many years. In this article, we suggest that you briefly review his biography and filmography, which consists of several genres.
On July 26, 1928, Stanley Kubrick was born in the Bronx, New York. Although he grew up in a wealthy Jewish family, Kubrick has always considered he is an atheist.
In his childhood he showed a great interest in chess, jazz and photography, three fans that decisively marked his professional future.
In addition, chess, for Kubrick, was much more than just entertainment, this has given you some ability to think before putting an idea into practice.
The filmmaker saw some similarities to film management in chess: for Kubrick, failures allowed to observe, analyze and act. This way, there’s always a better move and we can’t leave everything to chance.
Such was his name that, in several of his films, we found direct and indirect references to this game. A good example of this is seen in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, when Frank plays chess against the HAL 9000 computer.
“You sit in front of the board and suddenly your heart is turned, your hand shakes as you take the piece and move it. But what chess tells you is that you have to sit calmly and wonder if this move is really a good idea or if there are better?. ??? Stanley Kubrick?
In his college life Stanley Kubrick did not stand out as a good student, otherwise he missed classes and his grades were very low, however, he is known to be an extremely intelligent young man, his interest in photography led him Do you want to work for the magazine?Look at 16.
The leap to cinema will come in the early 1950s with his first documentary:?The day of the fight? (1951). Then he decided to quit his job as a photographer and devote himself to his first feature film, “Fear and Desire?”(Fear and Desire, 1953).
The film was not a success and Kubrick himself decided to remove all copies of the market for its poor quality.
At the time, Kubrick met the woman who would become his wife until his death, Germany’s Christiane Kubrick, whom he had already married twice.
After several film noir films, the absolute recognition came with?Glory Made of Blood? (1957). It is a war film starring Kirk Douglas, with which Kubrick received critical acclaim.
From its first steps, Kubrick’s firm partnered with perfection and absolute control over his films. Besides, did the filmmaker have to master all aspects: production, direction, distribution?
In one way or another, many have associated this fact with his passion for chess. The reputation of perfectionist, authoritarian and obsessive did not wait.
Stanley Kubrick himself was in charge of reminding the press that he just wanted his work to be as he had imagined, he wanted everything to work out, and it shouldn’t be a negative thing.
After the applause received with “Gloria Made of Blood”, the 60 came loaded with headlines for the filmmaker:?Spartacus? (1960), the first film in which it had a big budget;
Despite his growing fame, it was not easy to get an interview with the filmmaker, nor did he appear in public places.
He left the United States to settle in the English field and acquired a somewhat negative reputation; was classified as cold, misogynistic, misanthrope, authoritarian, etc.
His perfectionism made him forget the aliens of ?2001: A Space Odyssey?For not finding a realistic way to present them (and we thank you very much), they never appear explicitly on screen and remain in the viewer’s imagination.
Journalist Michael Herr published the book? Kubrick? (2000), in which he demystifies these ideas and shows a more human image of the filmmaker, although he still presents him as a very particular character with a very particular view of cinema.
However, Kubrick knew what he wanted and what his films should be like, so he faced censorship with titles like “Clockwork Orange?”(1971), and broke the patterns while filming a film with natural light:?Barry Lyndon? (1975).
For him, if we wanted to reflect the lives of these 18th-century men, we would have to delve into that time. Is that why Kubrick decided to run? Barry Lyndon? Light candles inside and use the decoration of the time. His meticulousness led him to explore new forms and techniques of filming.
In 1980, the genius frightened us with “The Shining”, a film inspired by Stephen King’s eponymous work, however, filming was not easy and controversy with the protagonist, Shelley Duvall, further contributed to creating this image. uncompromising and cold director.
Kubrick’s image was always wrapped in an aura of mystery, wasn’t it easy to photograph either?Mechanical orange? For the lead actor, Malcom McDowell, who fractured his ribs and suffered a corneal injury.
Kubrick’s productivity began to decline in the late 1980s, following the release of “The Shining”. It took seven years for the release of his next film, “Born to Kill?”(1987), a feature film with which he repeated the genus, explored in Sangue’s “Gliria Feita”.
In several of the filmmaker’s films there is a lot of symbolism, symbols that sometimes want to convey relevant information.
When the 2001 film A Space Odyssey was premiered, special effects and cinema ungone a truly radical change, how many films of the time remember for such realistic and incredible special effects?And all this barely a year after man’s arrival on the moon. .
Thus, a legend began to emerge stating that Kubrick had filmed the man’s arrival on the moon. They said the images viewed on television were nothing more than a montage.
For many, the director has left a series of subliminal messages confirming this theory. For example, the scene of? The Shining ?, where Danny saw a sweater with a space rocket that reads as follows: Apollo 11, USA.
Moreover, the rumor became even more relevant with the release, in the 2000s, of the false documentary “Operation Moon”, which confirmed this theory. There were those who regarded the documentary as true and, as a result, the spread of the rumor arose.
In 2016, the filmmaker’s own daughter, Vivian Kubrick, was in charge of dementing the allegations via Twitter.
He also recalled that his father had several problems with the U. S. government because of his controversial films How could Kubrick help those who censored his creations?
But the conspiracies don’t stop there. We can find many theories that claim that Kubrick belonged to a secret society, it is true that, politically, he was quite controversial and skeptical about democracy.
Many saw him in his last film, “Eyes Tightly Closed?”(1999), a way to unmask these secret societies that dominate the world, and have always pointed as a death sentence for the director.
The truth is that Kubrick died without seeing the release of his film on March 7, 1999. The cause of death was a heart attack; The filmmaker was 70 years old and was buried without following any religious rite, in the garden of his home, next to his favorite tree at a private funeral.
In any case, the legacy he has left and his great talent for cinema are undeniable. Some films were left on paper and never made, such as “Napoleon”, and even a pornographic film called “Blue Movie”.
Although he never won an Oscar as a director, he received the statuette for best special effects with “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Controversial, original, neurotic or genius? Stanley Kubrick left us some of the most interesting titles in film history.
“If you can write or think, you can shoot it,” Stanley Kubrick?