DIRECTION - STANLEY KUBRICK
Stanley Kubrick
For this research I looked at interviews from the NY Times, The Rolling Stones article (1987, interview with Stanley Kubrick) and watched a documentary on Sky art (2018, The Directors, Stanley Kubrick) There are three other films that I have watched that he has directed also asides from 'Full metal jacket' (I also didn't know that he directed) they are, Spartacus, The Shining and The Clockwork Orange, I will use these as references also in my blog.
I looked back over the films that I have seen but whilst researching deeper I learnt a lot more about his directorial approach and style.
Kubrick was born in the Bronx in 1928, as he got older he became a a keen photographer, when his father bought him his first camera, it was a heavy Graflix, which was so heavy he only could take pictures from a low angle as he couldn't lift it up to eye level, this would became a trait that would influence Kubrick's style in the future of his film making.
A DOP on set of 'The Shining' (1980) using low level steady cam
His first job was a photographer for NY Look Magazine in 1945 at the age of 17, it was at this job when he became aware that his love for photography will turn into the love of film making because he realised that taking multiple shots of one image can end up telling a story.
He was at NY look that he landed his first big assignment to document a 'Day of the fight' of boxer Walter Cartier (1951), it was then he decided that he wanted to turn his images into a documentary, this would cost himself and his family $2000 - Kubrick was getting the eye as a director.
An image from 'The day of the fight' (1951)
After his second documentary ' Flying Padre'- Kubrick and his family raised another $10,000 so that he could make his own movie, this was to be his first feature film 'fear and desire' (1953) an existential war movie, it was a movie that Kubrick was said to be embarrassed about but would later be known as masterpiece.
Kubrick took on all aspects of the film he was the writer, producer, director, lighting engineer, administrator, make-up man- prop man, unit chauffeur and editor, he likes to be in control of his pictures throughout his career but didn't always get the opportunity do so on other peoples films, this would anger Kubrick, as it was after he directed Spartacus (1960) that he vowed that he would never again relinquish control of any aspect of his films. Kubrick was asked to direct Spartacus after the actor Kirk Douglas had a falling out with the original director, Anthony Mann.
In an interview with the NY Times (1963) Kubrick stated that he had no control the script, he was used to filming things his own way and in his own style.
Spartacus was the highest budgeted film of its time and was well received.
Kubrick on set of Spartacus (1960)
Kubrick always concentrated on the journey of one character in his films and changing the clique dialogue within his scenes, he was able to show the audience what the character was seeing and thinking without the audience seeing the obvious in shots, for example in his film in the clip below from his film 'The Killing' (1954) a violent killing takes place, but as an audience we don't see the physical violence but we see images that suggest a brutal act of killing, also the actors who play dead in the scene was said to be the most convincing dead people of films from that time, this was down to physical placement and framing as well as the acting.
The heist scene from 'The Killing' (1954)
Kubrick like filming in natural light and filmed a lot of his interior material with a Reiss panner 50mm which in his film 'Barry Lyndon' (1975) made his characters almost look like they were oil paintings.
Left is a still from Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' (1975) and left a oil portrait
How can Kubrick's work influence my own project?
Having learned more about Kubrick I came to see that he has a lot of great insights to the art of directing and he could be a great influence to my directing approach, these are in many aspects of my project.
The film that was my inspiration for me to learn about him 'Full metal jacket' had some visual element that I wanted to explore more but once I got into looking further at his work I saw certain traits that could really be useful.
Just like Kubrick, I enjoy doing lots of jobs on my own production; Writing, directing, producing and editing, because when I have a vision I know how I want it to be executed and sometimes translating the vision to someone else (I feel) could be a risk if it wasn't done right.
In an interview with The Rolling Stones magazine (1987), Kubrick talked about how he cast for the drill instructor in The full metal jacket - he did a group casting and whoever shouted the most bizarre insults got the part.
I remembered in the last unit 'Script to Screen' I interviewed Simon Ellis and he cast the same way for his gang members in his film 'Soft'.
For this project, I am not doing a group casting but it is something that I will defiantly consider in the future as I feel it is a good approach to get authentic performances, has been proven by both Kubrick and Ellis.
My recreation for 'The hurt locker' is going to be based in England instead of America. Kubrick (when filmed 'Full metal jacket') filmed outside of London because he found the perfect location on a British gas site that was due to be demolished, they offered Kubrick the location for a low fee if he would arrange the demolition of the site, Kubrick wanted the site in a state of a war zone so he was more than happy to take on the challenge, for one week his set crew laid charges and came in with a wrecking ball, Kubrick explains " I wanted the set to be authentic and to get a set built in a studio would of cost millions and the rubble would have to look so realistic that it would be time-consuming" Kubrick liked to work with natural elements and realistic aesthetics and I myself am taking this on board within my production when choosing my location, such as the odd stone building that is in Vinters park, that could be a war-torn building as long as I get the correct props.
I can also use natural light as Kubrick also likes to use.
Kubrick has been known as 'a control freak director' but Kubrick explained in an interview (TRS magazine 1987) that he just likes to be prepared after I read a statement from this interview I wanted to have the same influence over my actors.
Tim Cahill asks Kubrick;
T.C - I've heard rumours that you'll do a hundred takes for one scene.
S.K - It happens when actors are unprepared. you cannot act without knowing the dialogue. if actors have to think about the words, they can't work on the emotion. So you end up doing thirty takes of something. And still you can see the concentration in their eyes; they don't know their lines. So you just shoot it and shoot it and hope you can get something out of it in pieces. Now, if the actor is a nice guy, he goes home, he says "Stanley's such a perfectionist, he does a hundred takes on every scene". So my thirty takes to become a hundred. Lee Ermey (Drill Sgt) averaged eight or nine takes because he spent every spare second with a dialogue coach, sometimes we would only do three takes.
I have taken this approach with me actors to after reading this interview, in regards to preparing my actors. I sent them both the script and scene and asked them to learn them inside out I also asked questions about their characters, i did them by giving them a scenario and asking them 'How would your character react to this', my approach to this was very well received by my actors, I got some good feedback for doing this.
Editing.
Kubrick also talks about editing - he said that there are 3 equal aspects of film making; the writing, slogging through the actual shooting and the editing.
He makes an interesting observation and quoted Poduvkin, to the effect that editing is the only unique art form in film, everything else comes from something else. Writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from theatre, and cinematography comes from photography. Editing is unique to film. you can see something from different points of view almost simultaneously, and it creates a new experience.
This has really got me thinking about the editing process and about taking more time handling the little details of my shots, i am excited about experimenting with cuts and close-ups as well; when I watched 'The Shining' again I saw that Kubrick holds a close-up on one person for a long time and together with sound he can really create tension for the audience, this is something I want to do in my edit and for my storyboard.
The Shining was the first Horror film that Kubrick directed and it changed the genre conventions of horror films for the foreseeable future, for example, his use of specific colours in each shot, having certain sounds for parts of the film when something was about to happen, long pauses on empty spaces and many more.
I will look at my scene's now and see what colours that I would like to use because colours are a symbol of things that are to come or a mood.
Kubrick uses a certain sound for either a character of interest or if something was about to happen - I will certainly be looking at this for my sound design in my edit.
Kubrick helped shape contemporary cinema and he has been such an interesting director to research, I will defiantly look at his other work as I feel he has a lot to offer me in regards to inside knowledge of the art of film.
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