Kubrick is the master

[michaelfilm]

Stanley Kubrick has in fact put himself in the highest graces of film by being one of very few directors to make a flawless movie. Barry Lyndon is not my favorite film by Kubrick but it should be studied by every aspiring moviemaker because it has every aspect of film displayed perfectly. It does not have to be liked, it just has to be respected as an absolute thing of beauty.[/u]

[Duck Sauce]

Stanley Kubrick has in fact put himself in the highest graces of film by being one of very few directors to make a flawless movie. Barry Lyndon is not my favorite film by Kubrick but it should be studied by every aspiring moviemaker because it has every aspect of film displayed perfectly. It does not have to be liked, it just has to be respected as an absolute thing of beauty.[/u]

Isnt it a flaw if somebody doesnt like it? I mean, there has to be a reason, or are you speaking from a purely technical stand point? All movies have flaws, thats what make them special.

[Jeremy Blackman]

All movies have flaws, thats what make them special.

But can't, for example, unflawed originality be special? Or might someone percieve it as a flaw because it doesn't conform to established rules or the conventions they've seen before?

[budgie]

All movies have flaws, thats what make them special.

But can't, for example, unflawed originality be special? Or might someone percieve it as a flaw because it doesn't conform to established rules or the conventions they've seen before?

Jeremy, 'unflawed originality' is so fucking lazy. And why must you insist on privileging the text, as though everyone is wrong not to see what you see in a Kubrick film?

I'm really interested in your justification of the implication that Kubrick did something people hadn't seen before. Didn't he just play with conventions of identification?

[Pubrick]

wah wah wah

is ur new beau sucking the life out of u? or is it the other way round..

[Cecil]

yes, kubrick is the master. flawed or not, that is irrelevant

[Gold Trumpet]

what is this topic even about?
The first post seems like a reply to another.
and then there are claims that are confusing, especially being to a first post that doesn't even seem like one.

~rougerum

[Jeremy Blackman]

Jeremy, 'unflawed originality' is so fucking lazy. And why must you insist on privileging the text, as though everyone is wrong not to see what you see in a Kubrick film? I'm really interested in your justification of the implication that Kubrick did something people hadn't seen before. Didn't he just play with conventions of identification?

I'm sure I'm being lazy... if I weren't prepared to be lazy, I wouldn't make such ridiculously large claims. Originality has to exist, though, doesn't it? And maybe "flawed" is a completely irrelevant word here. Duck Sauce's comment that flaws make a movie special questions the definition of "flawed"... I think the most reasonable meaning we can apply is something that fails at what it tries to do, if you can even tell what it's trying to do. I think Kubrick was more or less successful in what he was trying to do, which was at least a form of originality. Isn't his "playing with conventions" original? Can't context produce originality?

[Gold Trumpet]

Originality does not really exist with films, because if something was really original, it would break outside the barriers of its given art and create an entirely new one. That's the argument Kubrick himself gave on the idea filmmakers could be original. His playing with conventions of stories was also not original either. Citizen Kane, which took everything learned in filmmaking from the beginnings to then, did play with conventions of a normal story as well. In the early scene of the men in the dark room discussing the life of Kane and what it meant, they are shot so shadows go over their face. It was a typical shot though, besides that fact, because of course it was playing with conventions in a different way. There are many other examples in the film, but playing with conventions is almost as old as the conventions themselves. i recently did a research paper on the role of women in silent film, and there were women filmmakers who were playing with conventions in the early 1900 nickelodean shorts popular at the time in the 1910s.

~rougerum

[Sigur Rós]

What's all that silly talk about "flaws" being part of perfection? Kubrick is the master I dont see any flaws

[xerxes]

well, he's not the master of me!

...

[Sigur Rós]

well, he's not the master of me!

...

No i'm your master

[phil marlowe]

No movies are flawless in the sense that they can't be interresting for everybody. A movie like Barry Lyndon is considered flawless by some people, but is in fact flawed in the way that it bores alot of other people.

Movies Like Mulholland Drive and Magnolia are flawless to me because I like everything about them, but is flawed to alot of people who find them weird or uninterresting.

[budgie]

1.Isn't his "playing with conventions" original?  2.Can't context produce originality?

1. But my problem is that it's possible to say that he didn't play with conventions (I'm talking in terms of spectatorship, rather than genre) as it's possible to read his movies as entirely conventional - eg. being frightened by The Shining, where on my last viewing I read it as a satire rather than a horror movie, and I think you could go with Platoon as a straight war narrative that is simply more removed emotionally but still plays with identification in the same way as others of the genre. My point being that yes I can get an 'original' way of reading The Shining and you can see Platoon as playing with emotional response in a 'new' way, but isn't that our doing? Therefore...

2. Exactly!

But anyway, this seems to have been cleared up by everyone else (and hurrah GT for mentioning silent movies, which it seems some people should watch more of).

P, please stop taking my refusal to worship at the Shrine as a personal insult. I accept that, since he's shaken up a lot of people (though I'm not sure to what effect), Kubrick is a master, but as for The Master... naaahhh.

[bonanzataz]

I think what's trying to be said by some is that Kubrick's movies seem flawless. When I watch one, I feel like he has complete control over EVERYTHING that's going on and his presence is felt throughout all of his films (moreso his stuff post-Strangelove). He knows how to create atmosphere and he knows how to set up amazing shots that totally overlook any flaw of the film. It's really about how he uses techniques than telling a story, because a lot of the time the techniques are so amazing and awe-inspiring that the plot doesn't even matter. Case in point, I only have a sense of what the fuck is going on at the end of 2001. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me or a lot of other people that have seen it. But you DO understand the importance and grandeur of what you're seeing that what is going on EXACTLY doesn't really matter. You have a sense of what's happening, and, for me, that's all I need.