The only real truth about Kubrick...

[©brad]

I heard Kubrick's an asshole who doesn't pay well. During The Killing when he wasn't famous his crew worked for practically nothing and when he made money off the film he didnt give them anything. cheap bastard.

no doubt a filthy rumour proliferated by kubrick haters. the killing was made in 1956, and was no doubt a low-budget film. from what i know as his career progressed most of his budgets went to getting the top crews and camera equipment.

[USTopGun47]

LoL oh yeah... I mean look at how many takes he would make them do for each scene...not the typical 5-10 but about 100.  Really.  Hehe funny how he would play chess with pompous actors to show them their place.  He's definetly got a rough NYC mentality about him.  Hard guy, ohh yeah.

[Henry Hill]

...is that he loved this movie





Navin R. Johnson: I was born a poor black child.

[modage]

thought someone might find this interesting...

What films/filmmakers impressed Kubrick
"There are very few directors, about whom you'd say you automatically have to see everything they do. I'd put Fellini, Bergman and David Lean at the head of my first list, and Truffaut at the head of the next level."

Stanley Kubrick (1966)

*******
"He watched The Godfather again [...] and was reluctantly suggesting for the 10th time that it was possibly the greatest movie ever made and certainly the best cast"

Michael Herr (1999) writing in Vanity Fair.

*******
In 1963 he was asked by the US publication Cinema to compile a list of his favourite films They were:

I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini, 1953),
Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1958),
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941),
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948),
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931),
Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1945),
La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961),
The Bank Dick (W.C. Fields, 1940),
Roxie Hart (William Wellman, 1942),
Hell's Angels (Howard Hughes, 1930).

Q: Have the works of certain directors, or pictures, been milestones for you?

SK: "I believe Bergman, De Sica, and Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don't just sit wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over and over and over again in their films, and they themselves write or have original material written for them."

Kubrick was known to be a fan of the German director Max Ophuls, "Highest of all I would rate Max Ophuls, who for me possessed every possible quality. He has an exceptional flair for sniffing out good subjects, and he got the most out of them. He was also a marvellous director of actors." and his use of tracking is especially reminiscent of Ophuls work - "I particularly admired his fluid camera techniques." Compare the barracks scene of Hartman in Full Metal Jacket with Peter Ustinov Circus master in Lola Montes (1955).

on Elia Kazan: "without question the best director we have in America. And he's capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses."

In later decades it was reported that he was also very fond of Kieslowski's Dekalog (1) series of films contributing a forward to the published screen plays as well as reportedly lending a copy to Frederic Raphael when they began their collaboration on the script of Eyes Wide Shut. He said of Krzysztof Kieslowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz: "it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatise their ideas rather than just talking about them [...] They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart."

Katharina Kubrick-Hobbs was asked on amk about her father's favourite films, she responded:

"...he loved FILM, period.

Obviously the "great" film directors that this group knows so well were also appreciated by Stanley. He watched them all. Even bad films have good moments,or interesting shots in them.

But there does seem to be a weird desire from people to "list" things.The best, the worst. greatest,most boring etc.etc.

For the record, I happen to know that he liked:

Closely Observed Trains (Jiri Menzel, 1966)
An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)
The Fireman's Ball (Milos Forman, 1967)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang , 1926)
Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
White Men Can't Jump (Ron Shelton, 1992)
Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau,1946)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Dog-day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet , 1975)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
Abigail's Party (Mike Leigh, 1979)
Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme , 1991)

and I know that he hated "The Wizard of Oz" Ha Ha!
Don't go analysing yourself to death over this half remembered list. He liked movies on their own terms."

David Lynch also talks about Eraserhead being one of Kubrick's favourite films in Lynch On Lynch. Apparently he met some people from Lucasfilm when The Elephant Man was being shot and was told by them that Kubrick had screened Eraserhead for them.

Another film Kubrick was reported to have admired was Michael Moore's Roger & Me and Jan Harlan added Tarkovsky's Solaris , Carlos Saura's Blood Wedding and Edgar Reitz's Heimat to this ever growing list.

[modage]

also...

What was the favourite Kubrick movie of other notable directors?
The French magazine Positif recently asked directors about the Stanley Kubrick film that meant the most to them. The favourites were as followed
1 : 2001: A Space Odyssey
2 : Paths of glory
3 : Dr Strangelove / A Clockwork Orange
5 : Barry Lyndon
6 : Full metal Jacket
7 : Lolita
8 : The Killing
9 : The Shining
10 : Spartacus / Killer's Kiss

The poll was conducted before the release of Eyes Wide Shut. Pascal Ferran saw it because she dubbed it into French and two other quoted it without seeing it. "No answer" means that either they didn't answer the question or said something like "it's too difficult to pick one". it doesn't necessarily mean they don't like SK's movies.

Woody Allen :  Paths Of Glory  
Robert Altman :  No Answer  
Gianni Amelio :  Paths Of Glory  
Théo Angelopoulos :  No Answer  
Marco Bellochio:  No Answer  
John Boorman :  All  
Catherine Breillat :  Lolita  
Jane Campion :  Paths Of Glory, Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining  
Claude Chabrol :  Lolita, Full Metal Jacket  
Francis Ford Coppola :  Dr Strangelove
Alain Corneau :  The Killing  
Michel Deville :  The Shining , Full Metal Jacket  
Carlos Diegues:  Killer's Kiss  
Stanley Donen :  2001: A Space Odyssey  
Bruno Dumont :  Barry Lyndon  
Clint Eastwood :  Paths Of Glory  
Atom Egoyan :  HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey  
Pascal Ferran :  Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut  
William Friedkin :  Paths Of Glory, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Killing, Full Metal Jacket (First 40 Minutes)  
Rol De Heer :  2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr Strangelove
Jean-Pierre Jeunet :  A Clockwork Orange
Pierre Jolivet :  Paths Of Glory  
Philip Kaufman :  A Clockwork Orange
Elia Kazan :  No Answer  
Irvin Keshner :  2001: A Space Odyssey
Emir Kusturika :  2001: A Space Odyssey  
Patrice Leconte :  Paths Of Glory  
Mike Leigh :  2001: A Space Odyssey  
Richard Lester :  2001: A Space Odyssey  
Sidney Lumet :  2001: A Space Odyssey, Paths Of Glory  
Dusan Makavejev :  The Shining, Spartacus, Paths Of Glory, Dr Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey  
Mario Martone :  2001: A Space Odyssey
Laetitia Masson :  The Killing, Lolita, Full Metal Jacket  
Claude Miller :  Barry Lyndon
Gaspar Noé :  2001: A Space Odyssey
Marcel Ophuls :  Lolita  
Lucian Pintillie :  2001: A Space Odyssey  
Roman Polanski :  A Clockwork Orange
Sydney Pollack :  Dr Strangelove, Barry Lyndon  
Alain Resnais :  2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket
Arturo Ripstein :  Paths Of Glory
Fransesco Rosi :  Dr Strangelove  
Claude Sautet :  2001: A Space Odyssey  
Jerry Schatzberg :  Paths Of Glory  
Martin Scorsese :  Barry Lyndon
Oliver Stone :  Dr Strangelove
Bertrand Tavernier :  No Answer  
Paolo and  
Vittorio Taviani :  Paths Of Glory

[ono]

What kind of person (director OR otherwise really) gives no answer?  Rhetorical question, obviously.

[Pubrick]

i think that's been posted before.

anyway, Michael Deville and Pascal Ferran must be geniuses. and props go to scorsese for not being afraid to name a piece of work that overlapped with his own career.

[©brad]

dude, i wish 30 legendary filmmakers would rank mywork.

and white men can't jump is classic. hah.

[modage]

dude, i wish 30 legendary filmmakers would rank mywork.

and white men can't jump is classic. hah.

haha i know.  its like 'which one of these is not like the other?'  

[ono]

anyway, Michael Deville and Pascal Ferran must be geniuses.

Why do you say that?

and white men can't jump is classic. hah.

Agreed.  Whether you were being sarcastic or not.  Not in the "man, that's a work of art" sense, but in the "we goin' sizzler!" and "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" sense.  "My man John Keats said that!"  It's just a great, fun, definitely rewatchable movie.

[Pubrick]

Why do you say that?

for acknowledging his "later" works.

[Jeremy Blackman]

What's with William Friedkin only liking "the first 40 minutes" of Full Metal Jacket?

[©brad]

i know. that's what most ppl who don't know much about kubrick/movies say though.   (i actually heard that a lot when i took freshman intro. to cinema)

[Weak2ndAct]

Wow.  That Friedkin quote really points out how juvenile and narrow-minded he is.  That's something you say at the first year of film school, of if you're a guy who listened to an audio commentary and thinks they're a film scholar-- not if you directed the fucking French Connection or The Exorcist.  What a tool.

[SmellyBoobFungus]

What's with William Friedkin only liking "the first 40 minutes" of Full Metal Jacket?

c'mon fellas, dont be silly. be careful about throwing the word tool around. you could merely be misinterpretating a couple words that is completely distorting your view of a director. maybe he liked the movie altogether, but just thought the boot camp was more impactful. i sure did.