Stanley Kubrick is widely regarded as one of the most important filmmakers of all time. His oeuvre is a shining example of a critically and financially successful career. One of the main reasons why his collection of films is so highly regarded is that Kubrick was an eclectic filmmaker. As Steven Spielberg once noted “He never made the same picture twice. Every picture is a different genre, a different story, a different period, a different risk.” It was, in fact, the controversial aspects of his pictures that first brought him to the public eye. His films generally dealt with risqué and sensitive themes, themes that most of the Hollywood pictures of that time wouldn’t touch. This paper looks at and defines the larger themes and focus of Kubrick’s films.
Stanley Kubrick was born in New York in 1928. He began his professional career as a photographer, then began working on documentaries and eventually moved on to feature filmmaking. From a commercial point of view, Kubrick’s career started slowly. Kubrick’s first feature was Fear and Desire (1953), which he directed at the age of 25. The film faired poorly and Kubrick was forced back into documentaries in order to raise funds for his feature film ambitions (Kubrick was in fact so displeased with his first feature that he did all he could to remove the film from general circulation.) His next film was Killer’s Kiss (1955). This film like, Fear and Desire, failed to find an audience and failed to generate any profit. It was with his third feature, The Killing (1956) a noir caper film that Kubrick first came to public notice. The films screenplay penned by pulp writer Jim Thompson, has proven to be a major influence on the crime/caper film genre, most notably Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992).
In all three of his first features, Kubrick was positioning himself within the filmmaking world. Prior to The Killing, producers were reluctant to work with the young filmmaker. His first three features were all made on relatively small budgets. Path of Glory (1957) would be his first big budget film, as well as his first critical success. It is also seen by many critics of his work to be the first feature, wherein, Kubrick criticizes society. The film’s anti-war message is one of the first examples of Kubrick’s political nature.
After Paths of Glory, Kubrick would continue to direct critically successful films throughout the rest of his career, but it’s the more controversial films of his that are of most interest. Even on his seemingly more traditional work, Kubrick was different in his approach. Kubrick came on as a director on Spartacus (1960) after the original director had fallen out of favor with the producers. Although Kubrick joint the production in a later stage, the themes and focus of the film are relevant to the rest of his oeuvre, as much of Spartacus focuses on a reaction to extreme social conditioning, as well as the conflicted and hierarchical nature of society.
Lolita (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964) would further demonstrate the filmmaker’s talents and highlight his range of subject matter. Lolita, in particular, had challenging subject matter. With Lolita, he regained full control over his film, as with Spartacus he had been working under the direct influence of the studio. Both Lolita and Dr. Strangelove reiterate the themes present in his earlier films, those of the power of social conditioning and the conflict-driven nature of society. In fact Dr. Strangelove serves more as a parody of warfare, fear and social conditioning.
His next film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) would establish Kubrick as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. As previously mentioned, Kubrick’s films are determined by conflict, whether it be internal or external, character-driven or plot-driven. Much of his work features a dystopian view of society. In brief, Kubrick was largely pessimistic towards humanity and its interactions, and was wary of the dehumanization that comes with industrialization, a theme largely present in 2001, but also in his next feature, A Clockwork Orange (1971). His concern for the dehumanization that comes with industrialization is most clearly evident in the first part of the opening montage of 2001, where Neanderthal man first discovers tools (the bone of a dead animal) and uses it against itself. The bone symbolizes the start of industrialization. The sentient computer HAL 9000 symbolizes where industrialization and dehumanization can lead.
2001 and Clockwork mark the apex of Kubrick’s filmmaking career. It is in these two features that Kubrick’s themes are most prevalent, conflict and social conditioning: what defines humanity, what makes us good and in turn what makes us evil. Kubrick was greatly influenced and inspired by the duality of man and nature. Clockwork, therefore, might be the greatest example to work with in order to demonstrate Kubrick’s themes. As Clockwork demonstrated the paradoxical nature of good and evil within humanity, it also, like Spartacus focused on the powers and more deliberately the dangers, of social conditioning. Clockwork is a dystopian fairytale; it presents a conceivable future, which Kubrick believed we could be heading towards.
His next film Barry Lyndon (1975) like the majority of his films, served as a study of external conflict/warfare and its corrosive influence on humanity. Kubrick followed this period-drama with a modern psychological horror classic, The Shining (1980). The Shining is about internal conflict, ironically made in the hardest part of Kubrick’s career, the film has much to do with writers block. It was with my first viewing of The Shining that I first became aware of the massive transformations Kubrick’s characters undergo (in this case his protagonist unravels into complete insanity.) In The Shining the scene where Shelley Duvall’s character first reads her husbands (Jack Torrance) ramblings and is caught in the act, is pivotal as it goes on to demonstrate Jack’s transformation from a loving family man to a deranged lunatic. Kubrick was quoted as saying this of his protagonist’s transformation “There’s something inherently wrong with the human personality. There’s an evil side to it. ”
His last two films, Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) are equally as powerful and expressive as the rest of his films. In Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick’s overall focus is on the transformation of the soldiers (the boot camp): the transformation from man to killer. In focusing much of the film around this idea, Kubrick is showing the complete loss of humanity that comes preparing for something as violent as war. One of the clearest examples of the dehumanization can be seen in the first part of Full Metal Jacket through Private Pyle’s transformation. Private Pyle transformation proves so intense it leads to the murder of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.
In Eyes Wide Shut he explores a similar theme of power and hierarchy as he had in Barry Lyndon. The greatest difference in theme between the two films is that Eyes Wide Shut serves as a contemporary critique on the destructive nature of wealth, power and the dehumanization that comes with it.
Kubrick’s films often include a dystopian view of society. His characters undergo transformations often more akin to a metamorphosis, examples of this complete metamorphosis include Alex Delarge in Clockwork and Jack Torrance in The Shining. In Kubrick’s ouevre beginning with Paths of Glory and concluding with his last feature, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), his characters are under massive pressure, and therefore become conflicted, how his characters resolve their conflicts, or don’t, tends to be the plot of Kubrick’s films.
His themes all exemplify his worries about society on the brink and the overall fragility of the human condition. In essence much of his work is both nihilistic and existentialist. Kubrick’s films might seem overly pessimistic and his themes might come across as cynical, but throughout his oeuvre it can be seen that one of the fundamental messages behind his work, is that cause has effect. Moreover that duality is a fundamental part of humanity (one cannot be good without possessing the power to be evil, one cannot love without hating, one cannot desire without fear.) As Kubrick was once noted saying “We are capable of the greatest good and the greatest evil, and the problem is that we often can’t distinguish between them when it suits our purpose”
It is only when understanding Kubrick’s themes that his real filmmaking aspirations become apparent. Kubrick can therefore be regarded not only as a filmmaker but also as a philosopher. His obsessive and perfectionist nature only further validated his need to be heard and seen as he chose to be.
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