Remembering Kubrick

By Steve Evans

I remember exactly where I was 20 years ago today when I learned that Stanley Kubrick had died. First order of business was to phone in a bogus illness at the office and squander a sick day. I spent the balance of that morning and afternoon watching Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, his four greatest films. Over the remainder of that week I watched the rest of his films, developed a newfound appreciation for the artistry of Barry Lyndon, discovered some interesting symbols and subtext in The Shining, and marveled at how the man managed to make such a sly and gleefully perverse film of Nabokov’s unfilmable novel, Lolita, considering the censorship restrictions of the day. I watched The Killing for the umpteenth time, once again shaking my head at how Tarantino shamelessly lifted the non-linear plot structure and adapted it for use in his film Reservoir Dogs. In-between these screenings, I endured a dial-up Internet connection to glean any information I could find about Kubrick’s swansong, Eyes Wide Shut, which would be released four months after his death. He made only 13 films in a career spanning 45 years, mainly because he spent years making them. The man was meticulous.

The world was a more interesting place when Kubrick was alive, making films and cultivating an air of mystery about his methods. I believed then as now that wherever he was at any given time, he was always the smartest guy in the room. His films positively pulsate with intelligence, with trenchant observations on the human condition. The jackals of bourgeois sensibility often criticized Kubrick for what they perceived as a cold misanthropy in his work. Nonsense. No intelligent man would devote so much time and obsession to the perfection of his life’s work – and then share it with millions – unless he had a passionate concern for the fate of humanity. If there is a connective thread woven throughout his films, it is this: every single one of them follows a protagonist whose fate is impacted by the random insanity of a world beyond his comprehension or control.

Existential fatalism is the dominant theme in all of Kubrick, except one film that turns the idea upside down: A Clockwork Orange. This is the only Kubrick film (and it is his best film) where the antihero gets his life back, albeit through a pitch-black paradox. Here, the film itself is a meditation on free will raging against the forces of fate in a dystopian future where everyone is unpleasant. The protagonist loses his freedom of choice due to government brainwashing only to regain free will through that most ironic of choices, an attempted suicide. “I was cured alright.”

Stanley Kubrick. July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999. Irreplaceable. Sorely missed.

Cinema Uprising copyright © 2019 by Steve Evans. All rights reserved.