Kubrick's The Shining in 30 seconds - and re-enacted by bunnies

[Store Hadji]

This is nuts! I love it.

The Shining

[Glenn Anders]

Most amusing, Hadji. Thank you.

For some even nuttier details about the actual film, if you have not already read it, you might try Macresarf1's Epinion:

http://www0.epinions.com/content_107498016388

Glenn

[Tony]

I like this animated version better than Kubrick's (which so missed the mood of the book) as it is shorter and therefore a waste of less time; read the book for a great horror experience- it's a profoundly unsettling read. Kubrick had no concept of horror- zero- but he remains one of my favourite directors- for The Killing, Paths of Glory, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and the first hour of Full Metal Jacket. But horror? Forget it: he was too intellectual.

:angry: :O :p

[Store Hadji]

I thought Stephen King's book was great up until the ending, which I found absurd and ludicrous. Oh well.

For me Kubrick nailed emotional suspense in Eyes Wide Shut, even in the censored US version (though I prefer the uncensored EU release.)

[Tony]

Store: I thought Eyes was great when it came out; have you watched it lately? It seems he made one movie too many: it seems quite flat,esp. compared to his masterpieces.

[Store Hadji]

Oh piffle. I have watched it recently and think its his BEST film.

So there. :p

[Roger Ryan]

I'm of the impression that all of Kubrick's films (at least the ones following "Spartacus") are satires, some are just more blatantly funny than others. "Eyes Wide Shut" is pretty much Kubrick's iciest satire. Here's a link to an analysis that looks at the film in a new light and underlines why I think it's a good one:

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0096.html

[tonyw]

:) Thanks Roger. This is one of the best articles on EWS to have appeared. It complements James Naremore's recent Film Quarterly article on Kubrick and the Grotesque. Yes, Kubrick was a satirist in a very ironic and clinical manner since he wished to disavow the usual mechanism of audience identification as Thomas Allan Nelson points out in his KUBRICK: THROUGH A FILM ARTIST'S MAZE.

But, in case, somebody posts a warning that we are getting off the track of the subject of this site, let us consider some Welles parallels. Both director attempted satire in several ways within their work. Kubrick and Welles were familiar with "film noiir" conventions but used them creatively. CITIZEN KANE might be viewed in terms of the Progressive era depictions of big business in the work of Theodore Dreiser and the later fiction of Sinclair Lewis but stylistically and thematically moves beyond them. Kubrick appears fascinated by naturalist discourses as early as DAY OF THE FIGHT with its connections to naturalist boxing literature of Jack London and EWS is no less "naturalist" in terms of Dr. Bill's "primeval regression" with his "war face" as seen in the zoom in during the taxi sequence.

Both Kubrick and Welles differed in many ways but both took an artiistically oppositional approach to the mainstream cultural and political stuctures of their era. But Kubrick was far more fortunate in gaining that supportive "kingdom" that Jeanne Moreau states poignantly at the conclusion of THE ORSON WELLES STORY that Welles never gained. However, he continued to struggle as the "humble grocer" working constantly on his various projects to the end.

A discussion of the similariities and differences between these two great talents would be most instructive.

[Tony]

That's an interesting article, Roger. I recall Raphael said to Kubrick that relationships between men and women had changed since Schnitzler wrote the novella, and Kubrick replied "You think so?".

Personally, I'm enamoured with the ideas in Eyes Wide Shut; I just think the execution is somewhat lacking in energy and depth. It's not that I''ve never thought about Kubrick: I've been a fan of his since my dad took me to 2001 in 1968, and I have several books on him and all the dvds; heck, I even bought the Playboy for his interview. This doen't mean I think my judgement is 'correct', but it is, at the least, informed, and not, I hope, mere "piffle".

Sorry, but this film leaves me cold, and not in an interesting way; perhaps if he'd lived to put the final touches on it, it might have been stronger, but I doubt it. Perhaps if he'd had better actors in the leads, or if he'd adopted more of Raphael's ideas (The Raphael book "Eyes Wide Open" is a fascinating portrait of Kubrick, and has a lot of info on their script collaboration for "Eyes".)

But compared to Paths or Strangelove or Clockwork, this picture pales.

And that's my "piffle" on "Eyes"!

As for parallels/contrasts with Welles, both were fiercely uncompromising, but Kubrick's pictures made millions, and Welles's never made substantial profits. Still, Kubrick ended up making only about a dozen films, just like Welles, which is really weird. It seems to me that if Welles had had the financing, for sure we'd have, at the least, Wind, Quixote, Dreamers, Big Brass Ring, Lear and Cradle. But Kubrick had the financing and stopped for 13 years: go figure.

For me, they remain the two most interesting and adult American filmakers, ever.

[Glenn Anders]

I'm happy to report that I'm fully with Tony on this one. For whatever reason, EYES WIDE SHUT strikes me, after a brilliant opening, as pretty turgid. I can't believe that he would not have pulled this version for re-editing, as he did for THE SHINING, had he seen it on a screen before an audience.

Pass the piffle, Tony.

I won't force upon you my review of EYES WIDE SHUT, but it may be useful to point out that Stephen Shainberg recently brought out a film with Nicole Kidman, FUR, which appears to attempt a recreation of the emotional dilemma in EWS, from a female point of view. The style and tone of the two films are remarkably similar.

Let me quote a passage:

"'What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own.' --Diane Arbus.

---------------

"A number of forms of symbolism are invoked in FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS. My mother's experience might be seen part of that symbolism.

"During the late 1930's, my mother acquired a full length "Hudson Bay Seal" coat (possibly not seal at all), which was very much a status symbol in Northeastern Ohio then, and clothed in it from nearly head to toe, she led our winter expeditions, trudging through the snow, to Shea's Movie Theater of a Wednesday night. I sense it was her armor against a few of the insular dames of the community who considered her an ignorant foreigner. The coat had to be kept grandly in a refrigerated vault during summer, but after the War, a sign of more people having cars, maybe, she had it cut down into a cape, which became my first wife's property upon my mother's death.

"[I can still feel the touch of it, as we plowed our way along Vine Street, our breathing visibly meeting in front of us.]

"My mother was, thus, part of a history which began in North America, when in the 1500's, European explorers began trading hatchets or elaborate but inefficient matchlock rifles to the Indians for seal and muskrat pelts, and that history has become a subject of controversy over the past forty years. In a tertiary way, Stephen Shainberg and Erin Cressida Wilson's film deals with the controversy, too. In fact, if FUR is "an imaginary portrait," the picture, by being too faint in execution, may miss its great chance for relevance.

--------------

"In considering FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS, I am drawn to an observation which David Thomson, distinguished critic for The Independent :p, makes about Nicole Kidman in his fanciful critical biography of the beautiful, talented Australian movie star: "Work consumes her, she admits to wanting to give over everything to it, to being 'skinless' as an actress." [p. 104]

"Thomson is talking about Nicole Kidman's work as an unfulfilled wife in Stanley Kubrick's last film, EYES WIDE SHUT. Based on an Arthur Schnitzler novel, Traumovelle, the picture turned out to be more about a guilty husband, played by Miss Kidman's own husband at the time, Tom Cruise, than the actress -- though as much or more footage was shot by Kubrick of her.

"The experience seems to have been an emotional, physical and artistic frustration -- and in time, after being dumped by Mr. Cruise, an artistic release for Miss Kidman, as well.

"Working on EYES WIDE SHUT for over two years led her to do a remarkable turn in an adaptation of another Schnitzler play (the basis for the famous Max Ophuls' 1950 film, LA RONDE), on both London and New York stage. The adaptation was called The Blue Room, and Miss Kidman played, sometimes in the nude, all the roles that women assume in Western Society.

"Now, eight years later, comes FUR, which is almost the female mirror image of EYES WIDE SHUT, and a film which explores cinematically the themes of The Blue Room, in a surrealistic fashion. . . ."

---------------

Enough. But here is the URL for the entire review:

http://www1.epinions.com/content_288531910276

Unfortunately, FUR: AN IMAGINARY PORTRAIT OF DIANE ARBUS, with much less anticipation than EYES WIDE SHUT, sank like a drowned rat.

The films do make an interesting comparison, and that points up some of the problems Welles had with his later movies, also.

Glenn

[Tony]

Well, the Apocalypse is here. :angry: Glenn agrees with me.

"the distinguished critic, David Thomson". Yes- but distinguished for what? :laugh:

Seriously, Glenn: the only part of my post I might revise is where I said "better actors": I think Kidman is quite good an actress, but wrong for her role in Eyes; Cruise was wrong for sure. He appears even less an actor now than he did then. Perhaps being married to her covered up his deficiencies somewhat.

Nevertheless, there's something seriously wrong, not only with Eyes, but all of Kubrick's pictures past "Clockwork". Ryan O'neal is wrong for Barry Lyndon, but I still like much of that picture. Weird though how he was arrested the other day for assaulting his son with a firearm (the same son 2 of whose teeth O'neal had previously knocked out), just as Barry Lyndon beat his son and lost his place in society. Disquieting in a similar way to the creepy similarities to the relationships of Nicole and Tom and their characters in Eyes. Metal Jacket seems to be bifurcated at the point where Dinofrio's character kills himself, and the film goes downhill. The Shining is very weak to me, though I know many like it.

I just compare these very flawed films to The Killing, Paths, Lolita, Strangelove, 2001 and Clockwork, and I see a filmaker ahead of the times, with the times, and finally, behind the times.

Whereas Welles is always outside of the times! No Joke!
Welles is, at his best, never dated, always now. Even a minor work, such as "Fountain of Youth, seems ever fresh.

[Store Hadji]

In interviews Kubrick defended O'Neal's casting and performance as "perfect." Weird how totally subjective such things can be. I'll mention how great I thought O'Neal was in Paper Moon and decline any further comment.

[Tony]

He WAS great in Paper Moon! Also he was really good in The Big Bounce, his first film (though the mike curb music sucks).

[rizibo]

Welles is quoted as saying that "Kubrick is a giant". Does anyone know where this is quoted?

[Tony]

That's from his 1967 Playboy interview with Kenneth Tynan; that interview is reprinted in the Welles interview book. I think the exact quote is: "Among the new directors, Kubrick seems to me a giant." This was before 2001, and just after lolita and Strangelove.