Dr. Strangelove (1964) – 35mm Show Reel
Another month, another Kubrick rarity unearthed, it seems as if the 50th anniversary and the renewed interest in the film is paying radioactive dividends. This is quite a find for we complestests, as this showreel features alternative takes and glimpses of missing scenes from the final picture, with the added bonus of narration from the legendary man himself – here’s part one;
A rather stilted delivery from Stanley don’t you think? Must be a temp track to cut the images to whilst he sourced a professional to replace the audio. I’m assuming that this is the type of extended peek that were (and indeed are) used to shop round for distributors at trade fairs and conferences, rather than designed for being seen by the general public. Anyway, here’s part two;
Or maybe it’s something he cut together for studio executives or th marketing department to give them inspiration for the publicity campaign? So many questions, so little time. I’ve also sourced perhaps the most illuminating and instructive essay on Eyes Wide Shut yet published, it’s a piece which comes closest to penetrating that enigmas numerous & mysterious layers – enjoy….
Kubrick Restrospective, London Barbican
Yes, yes I know – another bloody Kubrick post. I’ll try not to bore you too much but this is a simple matter of timing – from last Thursday to this week the London Barbican was hosting a full retrospective of Kubrick’s work, accompanied by an exhibition of props, press clippings and other miscellanea on loan from the Kubrick estate. It strikes me as a precursor of the full Kubrick Estate Exhibition which has ran in Frankfurt and Rome over the past few years and is due to come to London later this year before heading off to the states. I think I might pop along, if I’ve got nothing better to do of course. The full retrospective was great as it has finally given me the opportunity to see the two films of Kubrick’s that I’ve not seen on the big screen, and a chance to catch the underrated ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ again with a Q&A with producer and Kubrick brother in law Jan Harlan.
The exhibition really wasn’t an exhibition, more of a small collection of materials used to bump up the foyer entrance to the cinema. Nevertheless for yours truly it was of course fascinating, with some real artefacts from Stan’s career, photos of which I’ve attached above. The gem was the typewritten pages of ‘All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy‘ which was fantastic to see, and I quite liked the periodicals from ‘Orange’.
I don’t have the time or inclination to draft full reviews so I’ll just throw a couple of paragraphs up on each film, with some initial thoughts on seeing it on the big screen.
‘Eyes Wide Shut‘ – was of course Kubrick’s last film, released shortly after his death in 1999 and was widely regarded as a failure and a ‘minor’ Kubrick. Par for the course, I’ve seen a slow reversal of this opinion over the past few years as once again Kubrick shows himself to be light years ahead of his peers and a number of positive reconsiderations of the film have been published.
A psychosexual drama on love and marriage, trust and deception and the necessary ‘masks’ we wear in our public and private lives? A prophecy on the increasing sexualisation of our society, stemming from the then (current) internet porn explosion? A voyeuristic examination of sexual jealousy? All or none of the above? This is a film that I watch about once a year and always get something new out of it – and no, that’s not due to the notorious ‘orgy’ scene. Why is it set at Christmas, a time of expectation and imagination which leads to there being a Christmas tree in almost every shot? How much of it is actually real and not a dream, Bill’s revenge fantasy steming from Alice’s confession in the bedroom? What is exactly going on in that scene toward the end with Bill and Ziegler in the Pool Room? Heck, I don’t know. I do think the film is a little too long (Shock, Gasp, hold the front page – Minty critical of Kubrick Shock!! Film at 11.00) but still find it fascinating and this is from someone who really didn’t like it, didn’t get it when he first saw it on its initial release.
Harlan was a gracious speaker and got the biggest laugh when he explained that ‘Stanley always wanted Tom Cruise for the part of the frustrated Bill Harford as he…he is the biggest loser <big laugh>……meaning that it would be interesting to invert Cruise’s image as a handsome alpha male and thwart him from every reaching his sexual goal and avenge his wife’s confession’. He took us through the films 25 years gestation – Kubrick became interested in the ‘Traumnovelle‘ back in the early 1970’s and struggled with the film for decades. He made the excellent point that something like ‘The Shining’ is easy in comparison – it has a linear plot and the events are pretty evident. ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ on the other hand is more difficult, and how you invest the themes in the story, plot and characters is so much more difficult.
‘Spartacus‘ – The final sentimental moment of Spartacus has never rung true as a real ‘Kubrick’ and some of the dialogue is clunky, but this is still the best of the cycle of Hollywood ‘epics’ which ran throughout the mid-50’s to the late 60’s. I don’t really have much to say about it – it was never my favourite film and there is not a great deal in it that particulalrly grabs me. I guess the epic battles are pretty good for the time, and it’s amusing to see the Roman forces being moved around the canvas of the screen like a chessboard as we all know that Kubrick was a superb chess player don’t we?
The best story I’ve heard in relation to ‘Spartacus’ is more than likely a great urban myth – well, it sounds like an urban myth but even if its true, it’s funny. One of Kirk Douglas sons – not Michael – was performing some stand-up comedy at a club in LA. He was not going down well and being constantly heckled by the audience. In desperation, finally losing the plot he suddenly yelled ‘Look, do you know who I am, I’m Kirk Douglas Son!!’ to which one of the hecklers stood up and said ‘No, I’m Kirk Douglas son‘, then another got up and said, ‘No, I’m Kirk Douglas som’, then another, and another….
‘Full Metal Jacket‘ – People tend to criticise Full Metal Jacket due to its aloof central character and that perennial bane of Kubrick – that it is cold and unengaging. Well, I’m not sure what war movie needs to be warm and funny but maybe that’s just me. It’s a film with a structure that is very carefully constructed showing the dehumanisation of the recruits in the first section and a series of vignettes of the war in the second, both of which punctuated with a cathartic shooting (Um, spoliers, obviously). This was excellent on the big screen, the horrendous Sgt. Hartman’s treatment of the recruits is by turns shocking and funny, and the final sequences in the bombed out city looked terrific on the big screen.
I could go into one about the Lacan references on the duality of man and again how that informs the structure of the film – two halves, man killed in the first half, woman in the second, the duality of soldier versus civilian being blurred in ‘nam, it being one of the first films I can recall to illuminate the militaries corruption of language – ‘Search & Destroy’ changed to ‘Sweep and Clear’ but I’ll just leave you with this outstanding sequence.
Minty's Menagerie 
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