New Wave Cinema 2.0: The Films of Stanley Kubrick

English: “Copyright by Warner Bros. Inc.”, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By Geoff Carter

In The New Wave 2.0 series, The Pen in Hand Blog will be examining the work of this era’s most provocative and influential filmmakers, artists whose filmic stylings and compelling narratives have stretched the boundaries of modern cinema. Referencing Francois Truffaut’s definition of an auteur, these pieces will be looking at writer/directors whose singular visions have transcended conventional filmmaking and expanded the boundaries of cinematic expression. This week, The Pen in Blog will be examining the precisely contrived but perfectly expressive cinematic universe of Stanley Kubrick.

A Perfect World: The Films of Stanley Kubrick

He is one of—if not the most—widely respected filmmakers of his generation. His films have become touchstones of pop culture as well as milestones in cinema innovation. The space ballet in 2001: A Space Odyssey or a Jack Nicholson’s rampaging Jack Torrance crooning “Here’s Johnny” in The Shining or Slim Pickens riding an atomic bomb to its destination in the darkly comic Dr Strangelove? These moments transcend the cinematic experience, winnowing their way into the hallowed annals of pop culture.

Yet Kubrick’s films were not about box office profits or record attendance or being summer blockbusters. They stand today as some of the purest examples of narrative cinema ever created. As a director, Kubrick was known for his remarkable craftsmanship, his remarkably painstaking attention to detail, and some of the most provocative and beautifully rendered footage ever recorded on film. He was always at the forefront of cutting-edge technology. For the historical period piece Barry Lyndon, Kubrick utilized the NASA Zeiss lens to film scenes entirely by candlelight, creating the realistic tone and feel of the age. Nearly every cell of Barry Lyndon is framed like a classical eighteenth-century painting, evoking a sense of beauty and order that is belied by the manipulations and treacheries of the titular character.

The space ballet sequences in 2001: A Space Odyssey was a remarkable piece of pre-CGI filmmaking, completely astounding for its time. Using large very detailed models of the spacecraft and filming them in static and moving shots and subsequently matting—sometimes multiple times—Kubrick was able to attain some of his outstanding effects. To attain the effect of weightlessness and artificial gravity, he used combined techniques of gigantic, rotating sets and using clever combinations of glass and wires to attain zero gravity effects. In short, Kubrick used no groundbreaking technology for 2001: he merely used what was available—but he used it more effectively.

Besides 2001, Kubrick delved into another science-fiction story with the satirical futuristic film A Clockwork Orange. Never one to feel constrained by convention, Kubrick also worked in film noir, horror, war movies, comedy, and—albeit they were a tad skewed—love stories. The one commonality in all his films is his willingness to let the image and soundtrack tell the story. In an interview , PJ Harvey once said of Kubrick, “something about […] what is not said in his films…there’s so much space, so many things that are silent – and somehow, in that space and silence everything becomes clear.”

This sentiment is especially evident in films like The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange. While Kubrick was a devotee of the written word and an expert screenwriter, his films are—as Harvey averred—notable as much for what is not said as what is said. In The Shining, when Danny (Danny Lloyd) is exploring the haunted Overlook Hotel on his Big Wheel—shown in a magnificently choreographed tracking shot using the Steadicam—his horrific realizations of what is happening there are not expressed verbally but through Kubrick’s masterful visual direction. The accompanying soundtrack of the sound of the Big Wheel’s tires as silenced by the carpets as Danny drives over them emphasizes the emptiness and vastness of the hotel—and the evil—Danny faces.

The spooky twin girls that suddenly appear at the end of an hotel corridor, asking Danny to play, and who just as suddenly are transformed into mangled corpses, and the blood gushing from the opening elevators and the women in room 237 are visual evidence of the evil exemplified in The Overlook. There is never a verbal explanation of what happened there; there doesn’t have to be. Kubrick maintained that he likens his movies to music, that a popular song can have the same effect on a physician as it can on a common laborer. He intended his films to reach the audience on a primal emotional level, eschewing critical interpretations and meanings behind his films for the more immediate and visceral reaction of his audience.

The satirical quality in some of his films, including Dr. Strangelove, Lolita, and A Clockwork Orange play on these visceral qualities of unfairness and absurdity. Any audience member recognizes that Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as a paragon of spoiled youth. His incarceration and subsequent “reform” at the hands of the authorities, and his subsequent helplessness—victimization—because of the abrogation of his violent instincts is beyond ironic. The very tools society uses to neuter Alex’s violent tendencies raise him to the level of a victim—a martyr to individualism.

Dr. Strangelove, a full-throated satire of Fail-Safe and other nuclear age apocalypse movies, also relies on the comic absurdity of a Colonel Kong (Slim Pickens) determined to deliver his nuclear bomb to the Russians, or an American general bemoaning the insidious qualities of fluoride in drinking water, or protests about fighting in the war room. In Kubrick’s hands, the satire and black comedy—not unlike a Beatles song—is a missile that hits all targets.

Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut, and Full Metal Jacket all carry a distinct Kubrick flavor. There is much that is not said in his films—not unlike our own realities—but much that can be gleaned from what we observe. Kubrick also is a master of using popular music as a means of furthering his narratives. The Beethoven piece used during the fast-motion sex scene in A Clockwork Orange or the use of the Blue Danube Waltz during the space ballet in 2001 work in beautiful counterpoint to the narrative and the visuals.

In short, Stanley Kubrick brings a sensibility to his films that goes beyond storytelling and narrative in the usual sense. Through the use of silence, sparse dialogue, and a stubborn refusal to attribute any more meaning to his films than what is apparent, Kubrick has created filmic universes that move beyond the normal scope of images moving at twenty-four frames per second. His vision flows further, deeper, and more incisively than any dialogue. He is a master craftsman and stubborn visionary who refuses to limit his imagination with conventions.

He speaks clearly, brilliantly, and beautifully with all the tools at his disposal.