He’s been dead for four years. He created only 16 films for distribution and there will never be another film by Stanley Kubrick. With each passing year, more and more people realize what film artists have known since the 1960’s... he was and remains unique among the handful of unique filmmakers in the 20th century. As one director recently mused: I look at the history of cinema and I see it divided into “before Kubrick” and “after Kubrick”. He transformed the role of music from a mood and emotion heightening component to the role of a character in the film. He created photography and its love of lighting beyond the eye of any other filmmaker. He made production and costume design a signature of each frame. His sense of editing cannot be taught. He was unique and in that he influenced the few important filmmakers that surrounded him.

So few films? It doesn’t matter. It may have taken him 4 to 8 years to create a work, but each film encompasses more beauty than most directors could achieve in a lifetime. And each of his films becomes a new film with each new viewing.

The high mark list begins with:
Paths of Glory
followed by
Spartacus
Lolita
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket
Eyes Wide Shut

There is much to say about these films. Each was released to a critical uproar. Some were wildly popular and made much at the box office. None of them ever lost money. One of them still sits alone as a cinematic work of art and a popular movie. 2001: A Space Odyssey is not a science-fiction film, or a drama, or a documentary... it’s in a genre of its own, a vision of the future and its roots. The design and technical achievements of this film still stand alone today, even when compared with the computer-game wizardry of George Lucas and his cartoons and the expensive faux films of Spielberg.

Kubrick was also unique in that he had complete control of his films right down to their distribution, and advertising. He had a remarkable relationship with one of the hardest-nosed, profit-driven studios in Hollywood: Warner Bros. Throughout his life and career, he looked to them as if they were a Renaissance patron and that’s how they treated him. He got whatever he wanted. He was their one Master – for which they wanted recognition. He was also a profitable one. Like Picasso, he showed how art and success and money mix – by living and breathing it 24 hours a day.

It’s bad that he’s gone. It’s good that he lived. His envious critics are forgotten as all critics are. His imitators are ignored. In today’s empowered lowest-common denominator where everyone is an artist... his work is a treasure.

 

©2003 Arthur Meiselman For more commentary and articles by Arthur Meiselman, check the Archives.   Arthur Meiselman is a writer, telomeres hunter, and zingaro. He’s also the director of the Talos Ensemble

 

 

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