Hey folks, Harry here... And while I would like to introduce this as a nice intro about the history of Kubrick and his life and work... I can't. I have to put forth a statement that I will not be buying the upcoming KUBRICK BOX SET because of Warners' refusal to release EYES WIDE SHUT as it was originally meant to be seen. What... are they afraid the KUBRICK box set will fall into children's hands? It is a $100 plus box set of KUBRICK films... anyone that is buying it can buy PORN on DVD too! This is a set for KUBRICK-philes... not general consumption... that's what the last set was... this is for the collectors and the aficionados. Read on... sounds like a great fest, but... sigh...
hey harry...
got to see both 2001 and Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures at the Virginia Theater in Champaign. I have nothing to add to the bizarrely written review already up of 2001 but my encouragement to anyone out there to GO AND SEE THIS PRINT IF IT IS AT ALL POSSIBLE! 2001 has never looked so good.
Anyway...I saw the documentary by Jan Harlan, who worked with Kubrick for over 30 years and produced The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, and is currently executive producing A.I.
This is a really beautiful documentary. It doesn't go into too much detail about Kubrick's working methods, details about production or all that. It's main focus is to shatter the image of Kubrick as a sullen loner who held the world in contempt. It incorporates interviews from many different people, from Christiane Kubrick to Woody Allen (who had never actually spoken to Kubrick). It really is a wonderful documentary for anyone who is interested in Kubrick as a person and refuses to believe the trash most journalists printed about him while he was alive.
Unfortunately, this documentary will not be realeased theatrically. But Jan Harlan, after the film said that it would be a part of the new Stanley Kubrick collection that Warner Brothers' is releasing on DVD and (presumably) VHS.
After the showing, Jan Harlan, Keir Dullea, and Frederick Ordway came out to discuss the Kubrick, 2001, and anything else thrown at them. It was quite interesting and had everything but Arthur C. Clarke from the night before. The topic of Eyes Wide Shut came up and Ebert went on a small rant about the MPAA and Jan Harlan spoke briefly about the difficult position he was put in, having to choose between digitally covering up sections of the orgy, cutting the film after Kubrick had died, or not releasing it in the United States. But in the end he opted for the digital cover up. He also said that the DVD version that will be released in the United States with the Stanley Kubrick collection will have the digital figures in the film. Sorry folks, an executive from Warner Brothers was at the screening and she said this is company policy.
But overall, a great afternoon of film and some great insight into the dear, departed Stanley.
c_b_fofep
Next we have SHANE, come back Shane, come Back! Uh... ummm... sorry. Anyway, Shane actually got to ask Jan Harlan some questions about the origins of A.I. and what level of involvement Kubrick had with what Spielberg ultimately will be bringing to the screen. As well as a fantastic look at the evening... Enjoy....
Loads of hitherto unseen images of Stanley Kubrick came through from Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures during its Thursday North American premiere at the Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival. Most of them involved home films and photographs, all revealing him to be—as the recent testimonials of have told us—a dedicated family man. Life in Pictures is an in-family project, produced and directed by Kubrick’s oft-executive producer and brother-in-law (and Ebert Festival attendee) Jan Harlan, and it’s an inoffensive homemade paean. Every interview subject, from Steven Spielberg, Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Alex Cox, Alexander Singer, Nicole Kidman, Mathew Modine, Shelley Duvall, Keir Dullea, Terry Semel, Brian Aldiss, Arthur C. Clarke, Christiane Kubrick, Harlan, and narrator Tom Cruise all wax nostalgic and longing about the Enigma, and it all feels like conjecture. And for a artist who’s become a myth, that alone is actually satisfying.
Still, it has a hell-be-damn attitude with long-held Kubrickian secret sanctities, especially the unmade projects like Aryan Papers (which apparently was not made because of its similarities between Schindler’s List, as had been previously denied), and—of course—A.I. (of which, there are storyboards and Spielberg anecdotes in the movie). The epiphany LiP strikes upon, which other Kubrick bios like Vincent LoBrutto’s Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, Fredric Raphael’s Eyes Wide Open, and Michael Herr’s Kubrick just couldn’t break the puzzle of, is the explanation of the Napoleon: the genius who somehow went awry. And it’s all there: the roots of Kubrick’s domineering dehumanization themes, his complete and searing indictment of human nature that haunted all his work: it’s all there. Kubrick was a control freak inasmuch as he realized that it was emotion that corrupted the didactic and logical, and as Harlan said, "Stanley’s greatest fear was making an error [as grave as Napoleon’s]." Balancing between the loving father at home and the chess-master on set, Life in Pictures makes the cruel and petty family portraits in The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut now look timid and less domineering; as if a loving father were exercising fears of his own nature and feelings towards his beloved on screen. Impersonal artist indeed.
LiP has the Kubrick enigma to unravel, and does so with something that’s never been granted: authorization. Considering how the most thorough film of Kubrick available is the twenty minute "The Making of The Shining," the two hour documentary—which includes behind the scenes footage of the Kubrick oeuvre—is an ogry for Kubrick freaks, bringing cultimation to the open floodgates of Kubrick literature that has ensued with his death. Past the family footage, there’s a small bit of unseen Lolita footage showing Humbert taking a mid-coital glance at a picture of Lolita (no pie fight Dr. Stranglove sequence, though). But still, it’s made by loving family members, whose negative comments don’t extend beyond the matter-of-fact "he was obsessive" or "Shelly Duvall didn’t have a good experience on Shining" (LiP skims over Kubrick’s first two wives). But it’s not swill marketing or family propaganda by any means; it’s perfectly natural and indicative from the loving and tight-knit family portrayed. Stanley Kubrick: A Biography is the comprehensive bio, Eyes Wide Open is the self-aggrandizing contrarian bio, Kubrick is the unflinchingly honest and loving bio—but LiP is the biography that feels like the most impression-making and genuine feeling.
LiP, according to Harlan, will not be released theatrically, but will instead accompany the new Kubrick Collection (seeing as it was two hours, I assume it would have its own DVD? Bonus?). For those fans who (deservedly) complained about the poor transfers of the initial Kubrick Collection, Harlan promised that Warners "has poured a fortune into cleaning up these films. A fortune." Then: the point was brought up about the censored/not censored version of Eyes Wide Shut for the collection. As Harlan talked with impotent confusion about the postmortem process with the MPAA ("If Stanley were alive, it would have been as simple as going back to the editing bay"), he then had to admit it: Eyes Wide Shut still will be released in its "edited" version when the new Kubrick collection is release on June 12. When asked why, Harlan turned over to a Warner Bros. marketing executive, who explained the corporate thought process: "We as a company do not put out NC-17 movies." At which point, Ebert promptly stated, "Alright; now it’s time for my rant," and promptly threw himself into his A-rating diatribe.
(Now for my personal rant: I feel sorry for the woman who had to let that unconvincing corporate excuse crawl out of her mouth in a room full of rabid cineastes, but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, I CANNOT THINK OF ANYTHING MORE SPINELESS THAN SELF-CENSORING TO PLACATE TO REACTIONARY POLICITIANS WHO PREY ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND SCAPEGOAT ART! YOU’D THINK THAT SOUTH PARK PROVED THE IRRELEVANCE AND THE HYPOICRISIES BEHIND THE MOTION-FUCKING-PICTURE-FUCKING-ASSOCIATION-FUCKING-OF-FUCKING-AMERICA—NO, THE ARBITRARY "VOLUNTARY" SYSTEM STILL EXISTS BECAUSE OF THE CRIPPLING COMMERCIAL CRUTCH NEEDED FOR THE MOTION PICTURE ARTFORM. CONSISTENCY? REASON? ABHORRENCE TO VIOLENCE INSTEAD OF SEX? NAW. FREDDIE GOT FINGERED’S UMBILICAL SWINGIN’ BABY AND TOMCATS’EDIBLE CANCEROUS TESTICLE ARE INNOCENT IMAGERY IN THE FACE OF AN ORGY FOR THE MPAA!…and the sad fact is that Kubrick could have been the iconoclast to have taken on the MPAA, when—between EWS and South Park—reason and logic had it at its weakest.)
One person was brave enough to ask Harlan about the futures of the Napoleon and Aryan Papers screenplays (i.e., if they could be adapted by another director à la Orson Welles and The Big Brass Ring). On Napoleon, Harlan stressed that the only reason the movie was initially aborted was because of the financial failure of Waterloo (1970), and assumed that the proper format for it would be a television mini-series—possibly 8-10 hours in length. (He also revealed that one of Kubrick’s favorite movie was the Edgar Reitz’s 1984 German mini-series Heimat — Eine Deutsche Chronik.) On Aryan Papers, Harlan was cryptic but inviting: "Aryan Papers is a Warner Bros. property. Any one who would want to direct it would have to approach Warner Bros."
Afterward, I talked to Jan Harlan:
I found a Napoleon screenplay on eBay. Do you know if this is authentic or not?
Well, there was one—actually, it is not correct, because it shouldn’t be online. But I don’t think it was on eBay. It was on a Sweedish website.
How involved are you in the production of A.I. as executive producer?
I was very much involved in the beginning, because I had all the material. I was not involved once they started shooting.
So for example, you aren’t involved in the website happenings?
No, no.
How much is Kubrick vested in the movie? You said there were his storyboards involved.
Oh!, very much so. He had over 1,000 drawings.
Did he do much work on the screenplay?
Oh, absolutely. He worked with others as well. We had a completed screenplay. But I then read Steven Spielberg’s screenplay which was based on that, and Steven made fantastic changes and really great improvements. Kubrick would have been the first to applaud—no doubt about that.
The screenplay credits: Spielberg was credited as "written by," while Brian Aldiss is given credit for the short story. The "screen story" credit goes to someone else.
…Yes! To Ian Watson! Ian Watson was closely involved with Stanley Kubrick on doing the first draft.
Like Diane Johnson with The Shining?
Correct.
Closing the Kubrick portion of the festival (it still goes until Sunday), I had a swirl of faith in the average moviegoer. Kubrick was a man who frankly accosted his audience’s nature with a God’s eye view, whose cruel insight was just too true, who walked the razor’s edge of avante-garde inaccessibility ("He was always walking on thin-ice," said Harlan)—and I was surrounded by a sold-out crowds who absorbed these pristine examples of film as much as I was. I’ve always assumed the artist maxim would be more true for Kubrick than the majority of other great artists: death would add to his reverence. Life in Pictures kinda makes me wish he were alive to see, though.
—Shane
