The meticulous maverick
By Vikramdeep Johal

AFTER Orson Welles, he was perhaps the most European all American film-makers. Individualastic, unconventional and provocative, Stanley Kubrick never took orders from anybody and usually got involved in his projects to a paranoiac extent. In a career spanning nearly half a century, this erratic genius made just a dozen films, including milestones like Paths of Glory, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange and a almost never failed to raise a storm or two for various reasons.

The multi-talented Kubrick loved to handle various aspects of the film-making process, be it direction, screenplay wrting or production. Believe it or not, he co-produced, wrote, photographed, directed and edited his first feature films—Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer’s Kiss (1955). Son of a doctor who had a keen interest in photograophy, Kubrick was initially employed as a staff photographer for Look magazine. In 1951, he embarked on a career in films with a couple of 35 mm documentary shorts.

His arrival on the film scene took place at a time when American cinema was passing through a turbulent phase. The Communist blacklisting along with the rise of television as a medium of entertaiment were the factors wrecking havoc in the industry.

Also, the famous trinity of directors from the Golden Age—John Ford, Frank Capra and Howard Hawks—was beginning to fade with advancing age. Kubrick was one of the young breed of film makers who came to Hollywood’s rescue and infused dynamism and vigour into it.

His versatility is further revealed by the wide range of themes he exoplored in his films. 2001: A Space Odyssey was a mystic, futuristic space fantasy, Spartacus was based on the slave revolt in Rome, circa 73 BC; The Killing was a noirish suspense thriller about a robbery gone wrong. He also filmed Nabokov’s notorious novel Lolita, the story of a middle-aged man’s love for a teenage girl. Whether Verdun or Vietnam, Caesar’s Rome or a futuristic London, the creative artist within Kubrick soared, as if on a magic carpet, across different worlds and times to confront unsettling human issues.

His first masterpiece was the anti-war film Paths of Glory (1957). A cynical portrait of war, it brought Kubrick to the forefront as a talented director. This was followed by the spectacular epic, Spartacus, a work as competently crafted as Benhur and The Ten Command-ments, yet possessing sensitivity and depth usually not seen in such films.

In the early sixties, Kubrick moved to Great Britain and came up with a quirky but topical black comedy named Dr. Strangelove. The story, about a crazed US Air Force general who is determined to save the world personally from an imagined Communist takeover and who nearly starts World War III in the process, was a product of the frightening Cold War era when the nuclear threat was looming large over the world. A unique apocalyptic satire, Dr. Strangelove provided much food for global thought and is quite relevant even today.

2001: A Space Odyssey was undoubtedly the piece de resistance of his career. In collaboration with Arthur C.Clarke, Kubrick produced a landmark film in the science fiction genre, making use of advanced techniques in cinematography and stereophonic sound.

Technically a mind-blowing film, 2001 was an ambitious venture that spanned man’s past, present and his future in relation to the entire universe. It was a film much ahead of its time. Its special effects still hold good alongside the best of today’s hightech movies.

Ecletic to the core, he next took Anthony Burgess’ novel A Clockwork Orange and turned it into a hell-raising film. A socio-political allegory about a futuristic society where gangs of young punks run amok and peaceful citizens are imprisoned in their homes, it was loaded with shocking sex and violence and received more brickbats than bouquets. Kubrick was criticised for resorting to repulsive sensationalism.

Upon being showered with allegations that the film was inspiring copycat gang violence, he was forced to withdraw it from distribution in Britain. It was nevertheless a daring and thought -provoking work that eloquently expressed the inhumanity and barbarism of the modern civilized world.

Kubrick’s creative output dwindled greatly after A Clockwork Orange. Barry Lyndon (1975), a ponderous period piece based on William Thackeray’s novel, was not well received. The Shining, which starred Jack Nicholson, also met with a similar fate. It seemed that he had reached the point of self-exhastion but still he made a powerful comeback with Full Metal Jacket (1987), a disturbing drama about young US Marines struggling for survival in the Vietnam war. The better part of his last years was spent in seclusion in rural England. His swansong, a romantic comedy Eyes Wide Shut, with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, is slated for a July release.

Actor never found it easy working with this domineering perfectionist. In the works of Malcolm McDowell, who played the antihero in A Clock work Orange, "If Kubrick had’nt been a film director, he would have been a General Chief of Staff of the US Armed Forces. No matter what it is—even if it is a question of buying a shampoo— it goes through him. He just likes total control." According to George C. Scott, who worked under him in Dr Strangelove, he was "an incredibly, depressingly serious man, with a wild sense of humour. But paranoid".

Kubrick’s films usually had low entertainment value and also lacked sustained narrativity. However, they were technically flawless, with rivetting imagery and strong socio-political comment. Although he carried his artistic freedom perhaps too far at times, one cannot question his love (obsession) for cinema. As he himself said,"Man in the 20th century has been cast adrift in a ruderless boat on an uncharttered sea. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed." Cinema and Kubrick were inseparable. Franz Kafka once said, "a book ought to be an axe to break up the frozen sea within us." It can be said that Kubrick’s pessimistic films often manged to fulfil that purpose. In his own presumptous and inconsistent way, this visionary enfant terrible created a lasting impression on world cinema.