Do you know whose birthday it is today? Well, it's mine, but it also just so happens to be
GW's favorite director's birthday. Who is that? You could click on the link and find out for yourself, orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I could just tell you that it's Stanley Kubrick. (edit: turns out the title kind of gave it away huh!) Yes, I have the same birthday as mother fucking Stanley Kubrick: this means that I am destined for greatness.
So I figured to celebrate his (and my) birthday, I would sit at home and write an article about, you know, his movies and stuff, instead of going out and doing mushrooms or something.
Stanley Kubrick was born 80 years ago today in New York, and blah blah blah, you can read his biography
here. Basically: when he turned thirteen, his dad gave him a camera. He started taking lots of pictures and eventually got hired by Look Magazine as an "apprentice photographer." I'm not entirely sure what that is, but whatever. Eventually he moved into film, and used his savings to make the short documentary
Day of the Fight. A series of other short documentary projects eventually led him to making his first feature length movie,
Fear and Desire. Despite being an apparently shitty movie, Fear and Desire led Kubrick to bigger and better projects, which brings us to where he is today. Uh, dead. Wait, I don't think that's what I meant to say.
Anyway! I think it's safe to say that Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest directors
of all time, ever, for real. His influence is widespread: many modern directors, including The Coen Brothers, claim that Kubrick, or one of his movies, has influenced them. Remember Heath Ledger? Remember how his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight almost singlehandedly caused it to break
all kinds of records? Do you know how he prepared for that role? Apparently he lived in a hotel room for a month and watched
A Clockwork Orange. (Well... more or less). If you look for it, you can find Kubrick's influence practically everywhere in film.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen all of Kubrick's movies, but I have seen most of them. I wanted to say, "but I've seen the ones that count," but that's a stupid thing to say because
every one of his movies "counts." That's not something you can say about a lot of directors. Even David Lynch, my personal favorite director, made
Dune. Stanley Kubrick has
never made a bad movie in his career. I haven't seen
Killer's Kiss, but from what I've heard, it's pretty good at worst. PRETTY GOOD AT WORST, and I'm pretty sure that's his worst movie.
So let's talk about his movies. I was originally going to go through every one of his movies and talk about them, but not only is that too time consuming, I haven't even seen all of them. Also, it's my birthday and I want to go out and celebrate. I already wrote up something about Paths of Glory, so I'll leave that in, but I think everybody already knows enough about every other Kubrick movie anyway.
Paths of Glory (1957)
IMDb ProfileThere are two parts of this movie that really stick out to me (and probably to most people): the execution scene, and pub scene at the end. The execution scene deals with three French soldiers, each of whom have been picked from their respective platoons (or company or whatever, I've pretty much erased all MILITARY MUMBO-JUMBO BULLSHIT from my memory over the past two years) to be executed as an "example" to their platoons for not following orders (which were to attack another base or something; the platoons didn't follow orders because attacking that base was literally a suicide mission and the guy who ordered the attack was insane). The three men are tied to posts at the end of a long road facing a building (it's the French army headquarters or some shit, I don't really know what it is specifically). The man in the middle is crying like a little baby. The man on the right is stoic, aware of what is coming and not showing his fear. As if this isn't fucked up as it is, the man on the left got punched in the face the night before and suffered from a concussion or something. So he's unconscious, and he and his stretcher have been propped up against the pole. And a guard comes by and slaps him in the face so that he can be awake when he's shot. What the fuck! POWERFUL SCENE go check it out.
There's also the pub scene at the end of the movie, where a bunch of French soldiers listen to some German girl sing. It's kind of a strange way to end the movie, really. We just saw these guys get executed even though they certainly didn't deserve it, and now we're at a pub, listening to a German girl singing, not understanding what she's saying and yet still being moved by it. I always thought that this ending was meant to allow for a moment of reflection on what has happened throughout the course of this movie. And just like the soldiers don't understand what she's saying, nobody really understands how what just happens could be allowed to happen.
I wish I could talk about his other movies, but I don't have the time right now to do so, and I want to finish this topic TODAY, since, you know, it's Kubrick's birthday. So let me leave you with a few more things to know about Kubrick.
For one thing, Kubrick, from what I can tell, seemed to be a big fan of symmetry, and that's part of the beauty of his movies. All of his movies, to me, are largely visual experiences, more so than most movies. Just look at a lot of his movies and you'll notice that in a lot of shots, both sides of the frame are equally balanced. The execution scene in Paths of Glory, for example: in one shot, there's the three poles; one the middle, and one on either side of it. There's also the shot of the three men walking to the poles, with a long line of soldiers on either side of them. This is another way in which Kubrick has influenced movies today. Remember the ending of
There Will Be Blood? Remember when the camera is aimed down the two bowling lanes? You can't tell me that Paul Thomas Anderson is not a fan of Kubrick (note: he is). Granted, Kubrick isn't the first person to use symmetry, but it was so significant to his style that you can't deny his influence in making it popular.
There's plenty more I could say about Kubrick but I think I'll leave it at that for now. Tell me what you think about Kubrick, his style of movie making, and his influence on modern movies. And, of course, don't forget to wish him a happy birthday!
Gaming World Forums
Guess who's turning 80 today! Hint: It's Stanley Kubrick.