Stanley Kubrick
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In November of 2012, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art hosted the first ever exhibition of director Stanley Kubrick’s career. I went with a good friend of mine—a fellow aspiring director—to marvel at the artifacts of Kubrick’s work up close. We got to see models of the iconic war room set of 1964’s DR.…
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Notable Festivals: Venice After his permanent relocation to England in the mid-1960’s, director Stanley Kubrick began accumulating a reputation in the media as an eccentric recluse. He valued his privacy as well as time it took to perfect his vision on a given work, which the newspapers regularly embellished as the controlling nature of a…
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The experience of the Vietnam War had soured America on the prospect of warfare, mostly because the widespread adoption of television allowed the war to be broadcast into the homes of every family— punctuating their supper with gunfire, explosions and the anguished cries of wounded men. Kubrick felt a desire to make a war film…
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Many films lay claim to the title of “scariest movie of all time”, but only a select handful can truly call themselves as such. Of this elite group, you’ll find movies about demons, ghosts, serial killers, and zombies, but there is one film that defies easy explanation—whose horror derives from its very inability to articulate…
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Academy Award Wins: Best Cinematography, Best Costumes, Best Production Design, Best Score Director Stanley Kubrick made a career out of confounding expectations. Each work in his filmography belongs firmly within its genre, yet at the same time also acts as a blatant subversion of said genre. PATHS OF GLORY (1957) turned the romantic war epic…
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The human race is inherently violent—one only needs to pull up CNN at any given moment to see the proof. The building blocks of society are laid on a foundation of violence—the land on which our cities sit was either taken by force or successfully defended against those who wished to take it by force.…
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Academy Award Wins: Best Special Visual EffectsInducted into the National Film Registy: 1991 A few days ago we celebrated the forty-fifth anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic moon landing, an event that captured the imagination of the entire world and heralded the arrival of a Space Age that, regrettably, has yet to fully materialize. We haven’t…
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Academy Award Win: Best Visual EffectsInducted into National Film Registry: 1989 The second half of the twentieth century was marked by a profound existential malaise brought about by the rise of the atomic bomb and its ability to throw the world into a nuclear holocaust at the drop of a hat. The Cold War transcended…
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Notable Festivals: Venice The exhausting production experience of 1960’s SPARTACUS left its young director, Stanley Kubrick, in a state of profound disenchantment. He found that he could not peacefully work within the rigid demands and expectations of the American studio system, which understandably poses a fundamental problem to an artist who simultaneously values complete control…
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Notable Festivals: BerlinaleAcademy Award Wins: Best Supporting Actor, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume DesignInducted into the Criterion Collection: 2001 Inducted into the National Film Registry: 2017 A filmmaker’s development happens gradually, over the course of a lifetime. His or her aesthetic is informed by a series of experiences, experiments, and ideas that coalesce…
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Notable Festivals: BerlinaleInducted into the National Film Registry in 1992Inducted into the Criterion Collection in 2010 The war film has long been a staple of cinema, from 1930’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT to 1998’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Almost every major war in human history has been depicted in some form onscreen, yet the…
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Inducted into the Criterion Collection: 2011 The release of 1955’s independently-produced KILLER’S KISS made a small splash in film circles, gaining its young director, Stanley Kubrick, a modest amount of attention in the process. An upcoming young television producer named James B. Harris found his own attention particularly captivated by this bold new voice in…