Stanley Kubrick (top photo ©Warner Brothers) was born on July 26, 1928 in New York, USA.
Since his childhood, Stanley Kubrick showed interest in a wide range of subjects, from mythology to chess, from jazz to photography and cinema. All this interfered with his studies, which ended with low grades after high school. In later years, he remembered the school in a negative way, believing that it was ineffective in stimulating critical thinking and the students’ interest.
One of the positive aspects of Stanley Kubrick’s school career is linked to the chance of being a photographer for his high school. After his studies, for a while he worked as a photographer also earning some money as a chess player participating in local tournaments.
In 1949, a work as a photographer connected to a boxing match with Walter Cartier gave Stanley Kubrick the idea for a short film, which he self-produced in 1951. In the following years he shot some more short films that had some success, convincing him to abandon his work as a photographer. In 1953 he shot, also taking care of production, editing and photography, his first feature film, “Fear and Desire”, which wasn’t successful. Kubrick himself, years later, criticized his work but it was useful for him to learn the job.
After another couple of movies that received good comments from critics but little success from the public, Stanley Kubrick found greater satisfaction with “Paths of Glory” (1957), with Kirk Douglas as a protagonist but also as a producer. In 1959, a new collaboration between the two of them led to the production of “Spartacus” but Kubrick had limited control and this left him dissatisfied despite the success and the 4 Academy Awards.
At that point, Stanley Kubrick decided to commit only with projects that he could fully control. This was established in a contract with Warner Bros. which gave him control over all aspects of the move that got produced.
The 1962 movie “Lolita” was inspired by the book of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov, who also wrote the original screenplay, later considerably modified. The movie was also the first collaboration with actor Peter Sellers, one of the very few Stanley Kubrick allowed to improvise on set. For this movie Kubrick had to comply with the demands of censorship.
The 1963 movie “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” is a very dark comedy that saw another collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers for a very strong satire on everything that was around the cold war of the time.
The 1969 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” took four years, also to create special effects that at the time were cutting-edge. A masterpiece science fiction and not only that, it was written together with the writer Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote in parallel the novel of the same name.
The 1971 movie “A Clockwork Orange” was a great success but was also a major source of controversy for the levels of violence shown. Between bans, censorship and even threats against Stanley Kubrick, for many years the movie had various distribution problems.
With his 1975 movie “Barry Lyndon”, Stanley Kubrick once again changed genre by choosing a historical setting in the 18th century. It was controversial from the point of view of the reactions, with divisions among critics and the public.
The 1980 movie “Shining”, based on a novel by Stephen King, is a horror with both supernatural and psychological elements that was distributed in different versions with different editings. Stephen King wasn’t very happy with that adaptation, but the movie was very successful.
Stanley Kubrick returned for the last time to the theme of war with his 1987 movie “Full Metal Jacket”, which shows in particular the director’s antimilitarism. In this case, violence is connected to war and in some countries some scenes were censored.
The last movie by Stanley Kubrick was “Eyes Wide Shut”, released posthumously, a psychological drama that for once suffered some complaints not for scenes of violence but for some full nudity moments. There’s some doubt about the fact that it was completed but if something is missing it’s just final refining.
Stanley Kubrick died of a heart attack on March 7, 1999. He already had in mind a new project that was later carried out by Steven Spielberg. The movie “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” was released in 2001.
Stanley Kubrick is remembered as an extraordinary director, maniacal in his precision, able to create movies of any genre with great aesthetic sense, great care for music and innovations of various kinds. He left an extraordinary legacy for the whole world of cinema.
