The mischievous son of a middle-class American family, fond of chess and cinema, became one of the most important directors of world cinema. In his 60-year career, he made many films reflecting his original cinematic technique.
(July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) He was born on July 26, 1928, in New York, as the first child of Sadie Gertrude Kubrick and Jacob Leonard Kubrick's family. Although his family has Jewish roots in Poland and Austria, Kubrick grew up not affiliated with any religion and stated in interviews that he was an atheist when his film career began.
School life
Although Stanley was praised by his teachers for being intelligent, his grades were low. His father sent him to California with his uncle in 1940 to improve his academic success. But as a result of later tests, we see that his teachers were right because Kubrick is thought to have an IQ of 190-200.
After staying with his uncle for a year, he returned to New York in 1941 and continued his education in the Bronx. After seeing Stanley's demeanor and grades change, his father introduced him to a passion he couldn't let go of for the rest of his life: chess. When Kubrick begins his film career, he will use chess both to connect with the actors and to provide aesthetics in his films.
Kubrick graduated from high school in 1945 with a 67 GPA. Kubrick, who condemned the American education system for the rest of his life and said that he did not learn anything from school, also says that he skipped school and went to the cinema every chance he got.
A year after meeting chess, his father gives him a life-changing gift: a camera. Stanley started amateur photography at the age of 13 and turned his photographs into print in the darkroom of a friend's house. Stanley Kubrick, who began touring New York after school and taking photos, sold a few photos to Look magazine. He officially began working for the magazine at the age of 17, after befriending the newspaper's staff.
Adding to the money he received from the magazine, he earned from the chess matches he played with foreigners in Central Park, and with the help of his friend Alexander Singer, he entered the film industry with $1,500. He made 3 short documentaries with his savings. The first was a 16-minute black-and-white boxing documentary called Day of the Fight.
Debut Film
Although it was his first film, it was appreciated by film critics. Kubrick followed up his first film with the documentaries Flying Padre and The Seafarers. He attracted the attention of investors and was invited to California. After negotiations, he decided to stay in California and shoot his first feature film, Fear and Desire.
Kubrick, who married his high school sweetheart Toba Metz in 1948, always got into arguments during Fear and Desire. The couple's relationship ended before filming was complete when Stanley neglected his wife to make the movie perfect.
Stanley Kubrick's Fear and Desire
Kubrick began raising money for Fear and Desire from the moment he set foot in California. The film, which started with a budget of $45,000, increased its budget to $53,000 after five weeks of shooting with a crew of 14. In the 1953 film, a group of soldiers, warplanes crashing into the enemy forest and trying to escape from that forest is told.
Although the film was unsuccessful in terms of revenue and did not win its budget, it received good reviews. The New York Times reports that Stanley Kubrick presented "death and fear with a realistic eye from the soldiers' point of view." But Kubrick is ashamed of the film for the rest of his life, and he tries with all his might to find and hide all the copies of the film found.
Although the film did not make any money for the studio, when the producers were satisfied with Kubrick's artistic vision, he also produced Killer's Kiss in 1955 and The Killing in 1956. The Killing, released a year later by Kubrick, who married Ruth Sobotka, whom he met on the set of Killer's Kiss, is considered by most film reviewers to be the director's best film to date. Bringing a breath of fresh air to heist films, Kubrick also inspired directors who would make crime films after him. Quentin Tarantino says his biggest inspiration for Reservoir Dogs was Stanley Kubrick's The Killing.
In 1957, he rolled up his sleeves for Paths of Glory, his third collaboration with producer James B. Harris. Kubrick, who caught the attention of bosses at MGM, the biggest movie studio of the time, thanks to The Killing, is asked to be a movie star for his new movie. It is learned that one of the biggest stars of the 1940s and 50s was also a fan of Kubrick's previous films: Kirk Douglas. Filmed in Munich, the film depicts a division of the French army undertaking a so-called 'suicide mission' during World War I.
The film received positive reviews from most film critics. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther of Kubrick's unconcealed, realistic black-and-white war film:
“Kubrick successfully reexamines the emotions of war, death, and fear, and even rectifies previous shortcomings. He uses the camera without hesitation to show the harsh realities of war. I'd like to use the term "the new Orson Welles" for Mr. Kubrick, but Kubrick is a better film director than Orson Welles, from his storytelling to his use of music and visual interpretation. And it will get better.”
Spartacus
Kubrick divorced his wife and married Christiane Harlan, to whom he would remain married to until his death in 1958. Douglas, on the other hand, appeared in front of the camera for the film adaptation of an epic story in which star actors came together. The name of the movie, which started shooting in 1959, was Spartacus (Spartacus). Kubrick thought this movie was just for Kirk Douglas' career. But he would also be one of the main protagonists of this movie.
Douglas, who disagreed with the film's director, Anthony Mann, on many issues, told the studio: "Either he goes or I." he rests. Unable to afford to lose a star like Kirk Douglas, the studio fires the director. Douglas wants Stanley Kubrick, with whom he worked before, to take over the film. The entire crew is worried when Kubrick accepts the offer and arrives on set. They thought the young Kubrick, known as the indie and small-film man, wouldn't be able to handle this epic big-budget movie starring Laurence Olivier.
But Kubrick not only gets through the movie, but he also takes over the duties of the entire crew. Kubrick, who always uses the camera himself during the shoot, tells the cinematographer Russel Metty that he mishandles the camera and steals his job whenever he gets a chance. Stanley Kubrick's answer is, 'Sit down and do nothing'. Kubrick showed his genius once again because that year's Oscar for Best Cinematography would go to Spartacus' Russell Metty.
Apart from the film crew, the cast also expressed their displeasure at Kubrick's on-set attitude and harsh directives. Kirk Douglas, who put Stanley in the director's chair of the movie, was one of them. He tells Kubrick that he has an idea for a scene. 'Your idea is stupid,' Kubrick replies. However, Douglas insisted that the scene be shot. And that scene is engraved in the history of cinema as the 'I Am Spartacus' scene. In interviews after the movie, Douglas stated that Stanley was a talented but rude director and would never work with him again.
The fights that broke out on the set, the fact that it was the biggest budget movie shot in America, and that a director, who was only 31 years old, was handling such a movie, could not damage the success of the movie. The film, which received 6 Oscar nominations and 4 Oscar awards, made Kubrick known as a director who is now capable of doing anything.
Reaching Kubrick after watching Spartacus, Marlon Brando tells him that he wants him to shoot his next movie. Brando, who is going to make a Western for the first time, decides to direct the movie himself when he can't agree with Kubrick on the One-Eyed Jacks movie.
When the oppressive side of Hollywood and the smug attitude of the producers who want to control every frame of the film dominated, Kubrick decides to shoot his films in England with his producing partner Harris. And in 1962, Lolita is released. Lolita is the first film Stanley Kubrick made in England.
On the set of Lolita, Kubrick is influenced by an actor named Peter Sellers. He gives the actor who catches his attention a privilege he has never given anyone in any of his previous films: He lets him improvise. The film adapts Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel for the big screen, depicting a middle-aged professor's obsession with a 12-year-old girl. Due to the sexual elements underlying the film, Kubrick was forced to censor his film by removing certain scenes. Kubrick made a comedy movie with Lolita for the first time, albeit with black humor elements, and divided the film reviewers into two and was deemed unsuccessful in terms of revenue. On top of that, everyone thinks that Kubrick will step back a few years and come back with a quieter film. But as he always does, Kubrick will do the opposite of what everyone expects of him.
Kubrick's 'Bomb'
Dr. Strangelove
Just two years after Lolita, Kubrick hits the screen with Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love is back with The Bomb. At first, Kubrick wants to talk about the Cold War and the nuclear war crisis in the 1950s in a serious tone. But he thinks that being a critical parody of the movie can change people's point of view and make a better movie like this. And of course, he casts Peter Sellers in the movie. In fact, Kubrick, who was very pleased with Peter Sellers' improvisation and acting, gave Sellers three different characters to play in the movie.
At that time, since the war had just ended, comedy on the subject of "nuclear" was not welcomed by film critics and movie audiences. However, the movie received enough positive reviews, and years later, it was selected as the 3rd best comedy movie in the history of cinema in the list prepared by the American Film Institute (AFI). Dr. As a result of Strangelove's successful income due to its subject, all doors were opened to Kubrick again. And Kubrick broke those doors and made his biggest contribution to the history of cinema with his next film.
Stanley Kubrick's One-Oscar Award
1968: A Kubrick's Adventure
Influenced by the work of sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke, Kubrick meets with Clarke. As a result of the meeting, he decides to write an original story with the author. Clarke both writes the novel of this new story and helps Kubrick with the movie script. After five years of hard research and shooting by Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey is released. The film has many parallel story elements, from monkeys that made it to civilization, to astronauts exploring a 'monolith' on the moon, to humans experiencing a rebirth.
Examining NASA rockets for scenes set in space and space shuttles, Kubrick is accused of filming everything in the studio of NASA headquarters in 1969, when American astronauts became the first people to set foot on the moon. Although the film was not liked by the majority when it first came out, it gained a cult fan base over time, countless books have been written about it, and it has made an impact in every science-fiction film that has come after it. The groundbreaking film with its special effects also earned Kubrick his first and only Oscar in this category with 2001: A Space Odyssey. While Steven Spielberg commented on this movie as 'Big Bang in the cinema'; Pauline Kael, one of the famous critics of the period, called the film 'the most amateur film in history' and 'the movie that leads to stupidity in every frame'.
In 1971, Kubrick would shake up the cinema world with a movie that would cause more controversy than Lolita. Kubrick will alienate most viewers by adapting A Clockwork Orange, the Anthony Burgess novel of the same name, for the big screen. Set in a utopian world, the film is about sex, violence, and rebellion.
After the release of A Clockwork Orange, he is under great stress after the threats he and his family have received, and he decides to wait four years.
Turning down The Exorcist and its sequel, Stanley Kubrick decides to make his own horror movie with Jack Nicholson. Films Stephen King's The Shining, of the same name, is about Jack Torrence and his family's journey into insanity, who agrees to babysit the Overlook Hotel behind closed doors in winter.
After a break of seven years, he returns to the big screen in 1987, this time with Full Metal Jacket, which shows the transformation of a peaceful soldier in the Vietnam War.
After Full Metal Jacket in 1987, none of the films he wanted to make reached a reality, and Stanley Kubrick tried to develop his projects for 12 years without making a film. In the sentence Martin Scorsese said about Kubrick, he emphasized that no matter how long he did not shoot a film, he did not go out of his mind. Scorsese said, "One of Kubrick's films is worth 10 of everyone else."
In 1999, Eyes Wide Shut was released, starring the married couple of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It entered the Guinness Book of Records as the longest film shoot with 400 days. Kubrick's years of searching for the perfect did not return empty-handed. He died of a heart attack in his sleep two days after he had the team and his family watch the finished version of the movie. He said it was his best movie before he died and that he found it 'perfect'.