How exactly does Kubrick "not show enough contempt" in "A Clockwork Orange"? The seeming glorification of Alex mostly stems from the fact that Alex is narrating the story and wants us to feel sorry for him. However, Kubrick is quite the angry "god" during the rape scene if you ask me, and when the Droogs brutalize Alex, I don't think there's a shred of anything other than contempt for them.

Ted: I think your reading of "A Clockwork Orange" is absolutely legit. My parenthetical reference was to the highly publicized "copycat" incidents in Great Britain that so horrified Kubrick he withdrew "Clockwork Orange" from distribution there (on film or video) for the rest of his life. Some audiences laughed and cheered for Alex -- as if it were "Natural Born Killers" or something. But is that the film's fault, or theirs? That's been at the center of the (continuing) debate about the moral vision of "Clockwork Orange" since 1971. Me, I'm ambivalent about it... and, truth be told, I think that's exactly what Kubrick was getting at. Not sure he completely pulled it off, but I think that's what he was going for. Crime rates do tend to be low in police states, societies in which there is little individual freedom, and Kubrick was critiquing brainwashing as much as he was critiquing (and, inevitably, contributing to) pop-culture ultra-violence....

"And if someone is dead or in pain, he always says to himself: 'Better you than me.'"

Good grief, did he not watch the movie?

SPOILER WARNING:

What about when Barry's son died? What about Barry's reaction to the death of Captain Grogan?

"No matter how far we go into the future, into space, toward the stars, we will never break with our first and violent world."

Ok, then explain the Starchild and going "beyond the infinite." Sure seemed like a "break" to me.

I just don't buy that Kubrick hated humanity. He seemed angered by limits we willingly impose on ourselves, but that shouldn't be read as hate.

Paths of Glory alone should put to rest the idea that Kubrick hate humans. And Mudede's reading of 2001 is one of the most boneheaded misinterpretations I've heard in a long time. Okay, not that long, since Bush recently referenced The Quiet American in DEFENSE of American's involvement in Vietnam.

As for A Clockwork Orange, as horrifying as the rape scene is, it's also funny, which makes it more horrifying. And sympathy for Alex, whether at the hands of the Droogs or at the hands of the state, is still sympathy. That's what makes the movie so challenging and disturbing.

Jim, you must be reading my mind or something when it comes to some of your recent posts. First, I engage in a heated debate with several coworkers about the merits of being interested in classic and foreign films, and lo and behold, two days later a similar post emerges on your blog.

And now this is truly spooky, for in the past few weeks I have been revisiting Kubrick's works, specifically "Paths of Glory" (a longtime favourite), "2001", "Full Metal Jacket" and "Barry Lyndon".

Now, I do not consider Kubrick the greatest director of all-time, and for a longtime I considered myself someone who would be of the opinion that he was overrated. But his work is so generous and rich it begs to be revisited and reconsidered, and in doing so, I have altered my opinion and (while I still am not as rapturous about Kubrick as you and many others are) I now consider him one of the most important filmmakers of the 20th century.

The cliche of "Kubrick the cold" and "Kubrick the misanthrope" is one that has lived for far too long, a sort-of shorthand for pigeonholing directors that is as useless and unproductive in understanding the work of a master director as the similarly trotted-out cliches of "Hitchcock the manipulative" or "Spielberg the sentimental".

There is a difference between someone who hates humanity, who sees nothing but negativity emerging from our collective efforts, and someone who, through their art, reminds us of our flaws, and of the recurring patterns in which we make errors in judgement or behaviour ("Lolita", "A Clockwork Orange"), fall victim to the systems we have created for ourselves ("2001", "Dr. Strangelove, "Paths of Glory"), are subject to cruel twists of fate that may be beyond our grasp and control ("The Shining", "The Killing") or some combination of all of the above ("Barry Lyndon").

I am perhaps in the minority in believing that Kubrick peaked in his early years, when his mature, cynical (yet profoundly humanist) worldview meshed with a leanness in narrative and an economy of ideas. Therefore, I consider his three masterpieces to be "Dr. Strangelove", "Paths of Glory" and "The Killing". "Spartacus" is something of a knock-off job, "Lolita" a somewhat flawed adaptation, "Full Metal Jacket" and "Eyes Wide Shut" seem misguided at first, but have both greatly improved for me upon recent viewings. Nevertheless, with the latter two films, we can see a slight waning in Kubrick's control over his narrative...they are both still remarkably engrossing (as all of Kubrick's films are...he truly was a master of the medium), but the power of the opening 45 minutes in "Full Metal Jacket" and the odyssey-like sexual journey of Tom Cruise in "Eyes Wide Shut" aren't quite enough for me to ignore the absence of some sort of unifying idea about their respective subject matter. "The Shining", for me, is Kubrick's one true failure...as technically brilliant as it is, the broad acting by both Nicholson and Duvall has always taken me out of the true horror of the story, and has diminished Kubrick's portrayal of domesticity run amok.

That leaves the three films that came in the middle of Kubrick's career: "2001", "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon". Of the three, I think perhaps "A Clockwork Orange" is the one film in which we can see a little bit of Kubrick's disdain, not toward humanity as a whole, but rather to certain individuals (the treatment of Alex's parents and of his teacher is so caricatured that, as in "The Shining", it diminishes the ways in which the film shows the consequences of losing one's free will). I agree with almost all of what you say about "Barry Lyndon", even though it is not one of my personal favourite films, I was amazed by the ways in which Kubrick uses the zoom lens to once again show characters trapped...this time, trapped by history and fate. Very often, Kubrick will begin on a close-up that makes the audience intimate participants in the action, only to zoom backwards, diminishing the characters, almost into a still-life painting, dwarfed by their surroundings. Is this anti-human? I suppose if one views the removal of "character identification" in a film as anti-human, then yes. But only inattentive viewers who don't understand how to interpret what Kubrick is saying CINEMATICALLY would think that Kubrick is being as dismissive toward humanity as fate is.

"2001" is the film I have re-visited the most recently, and although I still don't consider it the masterpiece many do (there are times, I believe, when Kubrick lingers on his effects shots past the point of any narrative OR poetic purpose), I was amazed by how much richer it seemed to me than it had in the past...and more importantly, how I could no longer accept the assumptions I had held about the film since viewing it several years ago (i.e. "the space scenes set to the Strauss waltz are breathtaking, the vision of the future is startlingly accurate, but the human characters are dull and lifeless").

What struck me most about "2001" in this latest viewing is that, in this film and perhaps his entire body of work, Stanley Kubrick really does view humans as animals...bound by their nature, yet noble, complex, occasionally very funny, and above all fascinating to observe. Perhaps some people view this outlook on humanity (which you, quite accurately I believe, described as God-like) as a negative view...I simply regard it as neutral (and quite accurate).

When I first saw "2001" as a young twelve year-old, I found the ape sequence understandably tedious, and that initial impression unfortunately stayed with me when I revisited the film every several years. With this latest viewing, however, I finally understood how integral the ape sequence is to the entire film (and, when I was able to see how EVERY single scene, and moment, in the opening ape sequence tells us something about the way we began, and the way we developed our nature, the opening twenty-five minutes didn't seem tedious at all, but quite lean). When the apes fight over the rights to a pond, my mind wandered to the current conflicts in Iraq, in Israel, and all throughout the world and throughout human history. That is not to belittle the tragic loss of human life that is occurring in those places, but merely to understand that Kubrick is showing that we, as a species, have been repeating the same patterns since the prehistoric era. The monolith spurs humanity toward a step forward in evolution, just as it laters encourages curiousity in exploring outer space. I personally find the thesis of "2001" to be both profound and somewhat simplistic, but for the first time I saw how Kubrick integrates his philosophy into the actions of the humans on board the Discovery.

It has become cliche to suggest that Kubrick wasn't interested in the human characters in "2001", and that anything involving them is merely a prelude to the transcendence of the Stargate sequence and the mind-blowing nature of the final passages. But, as with the cliche of Kubrick the misanthrope, this one falls apart upon further scrutiny.

The scenes involving Dr. Heywood are indeed bland, more serving to advance the story (and show off some of the film's predictions of future technology) than to further Kubrick's view of humanity. But once we arrive on the Discovery, Kubrick again returns to his portrayal of humans as the most advanced of animals with the startling sequence of astronaut Poole jogging around the ship. To an impatient viewer, this may seem like more tedium, but I began to see what Kubrick was getting at: where at first he showed us the Dawn of Man with godlike detachment and curiosity, now he is showing us the mechanical Death of Man, doomed alone in outer space and reduced to a routine of tedium, like a caged hamster running around his wheel. The key is in the music, which is both peaceful and ominous (particularly ominous when Kubrick cuts from his tracking shot of the jogging Poole to the first appearance of Hal, watching Poole with the same godlike detachment that Kubrick is). After a brief interlude in which Kubrick lets a reporter handle the exposition of where the Discovery is going and what Hal's function is, the music returns, with scenes of Bowman playing chess and of Poole receiving a birthday greeting from his parents. The music serves to rob the greeting of any genuine emotion, but that is exactly Kubrick's point: humanity has, through their astounding intelligence and evolution, created a world of technology that serves to drain the life out of humanity! (It's as ironic a development as humanity's nuclear inventions destroying the Earth in "Dr. Strangelove"). "2001" is not lamenting our loss, merely chronicling it as a nature film might chronicle the extinction of an exotic animal. Of course, the Stargate sequence and the final appearance of the monolith (and the starchild) point to a more optimistic development, a rebirth if you will, but for the most part, Kubrick has shown us humans drained of their vitality.

And how unrealistic are they, really? Watching the film again, what I had always viewed as stiff, emotionless acting on the part of Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood struck me as a perfect rendering of people who are so bored of their routine and the tedium around them that they fail to notice the impending danger of Hal, or grasp the importance of their mission. This does not mean that they are not fully human...Bowman demonstrates both fear and sympathy when he is forced to dismantle Hal. But Kubrick is showing us the ways in which our advances have served to create a world of tedium and routine. Is this anti-human or profoundly pessimistic? Perhaps some could view it that way, and certainly Mr. Mudede seems to have. But the more I see of Kubrick (and his films simply MUST be seen at least four or five times, over a period of several years), the more I understand that he is not a misanthrope (or if he is, it doesn't manifest itself in his work), but rather a chronicler of the human experience who simply views humanity as bound by its impulses (as opposed to, say, Steven Spielberg, another great director, whose films chronicle characters forced to break out of their habits in order to confront a greater threat).

And, as Spielberg himself said in an interview following Kubrick's death, if one is ever in doubt about Kubrick's feelings toward humanity, rent "Paths of Glory", and pay particular attention to the beauty, the sadness and the hope that are all embodied in the German girl singing in front of the tavern full of French troops. In the final analysis, that may be the greatest argument against Kubrick the misanthrope that anyone could produce.

Now that you mention "Natural Born Killers", I feel the need to respond:

I know you truly despise this film for its apparent betrayal of "content" for "style", and that's perfectly fine. I have my own problems with the film, mostly with the prison sequences which overstay their welcomes, but overall, I think it's a flawed masterpiece, and a superior film to A Clockwork Orange. The alleged hypocrisy so many people have attacked the film for just isn't really there if you watch it properly. The entire film is supposed to be a projection of the thoughts within two demented killers who can see their life only as a glossy, overproduced TV production. In many ways, it pays to view it as more of a work of music than film, because it careens so oddly to make its point through what FEELS right for the film rather than what makes complete sense. I also believe that the alternation between the scenes where Mickey and Mallory seem to come across as heroes, and the attack of Wayne Gale's sleaze is an intentional part of the film's structure. Stone seems to want the viewer to notice the disturbing juxtaposition, and apply it to our attitudes of how we viewed the earlier scenes. And indeed, there is an enormous amount of genuinely fun sensation that plays off the killers' minds. And the film IS misanthropic, but in an important way. We see no positively portrayed characters in the film (except perhaps the Indian, although I strongly think that's Stone's attempt at satire on political correctness. Either way he doesn't pull that part off well), but that's just a way of showing how the thought process of killing, and of finding enjoyment of that killing, are part of the same lobe. The fact that lots of people (including a disturbing amount of murderers) can't see this just goes to show the danger of ambiguity.

You are free to feel appalled at my defense of this seemingly reprehensible trash, but so be it. I don't expect to change your mind in any way, but I still feel the need to say what I've felt.

(Oh, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High is so sickeningly reprehensible that NBK could never hope to coming close to its levels of hypocrisy, but that's another post entirely.)

Being from Seattle you must know that The Stranger prides itself on being anti-establishment. If a movie gets mostly positive reviews, they hate it. If it gets a lot of bad press, they defend it. I stopped reading The Stranger years ago when I realized that their opinions were derived only from being as shocking and different as possible. They typically hate all movies and theatre and feel the need to tell us in the most ironic, smarty pants way possible. But, then again, this is the way I feel about Seattle Weekly and all the other "alternative" newspapers around.

Speaking of boneheaded movie criticism, you might want to check out James Bowman's latest column for the September issue of "The American Spectator" (yes it still exists). In it he argues that Antonioni and Bergman, along with Fellini and Kurosawa are responsible for destroying film. The argument, so far as I can understand it, is that instead of movies being enjoyable trash, they tried to turn it into art, and helped sever the connection between film and reality. This led to all sorts of self-indulgence which ruined cinema. It also has to do with Bowman's pet theory about the decline of heroism (he is the author of a book called 'Honor: A History'). According to Bowman there is a decline in Hollywood cinema from the true American heroes we see in "Sergeant York," "The Sands of Iwo Jima," "High Noon" and "The Searchers," to the "cool" hero of "The Big Sleep," "a Fistful of Dollars" and "Bullitt" to the comic book hero of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Not only is the last stage an insufficiently inspiring form of heroism, but also his appearance is somehow Bergman and Antonioni's fault. This piece may be worse than the Clive James review of Philip Lopate discussed last year.

Sure there's hatred in Stanley Kubrick films, from one character to another, but the camera never once hates the character, you never hear the film maker's voice fill with rage at humanity. One could if they wanted to compile all of the moments in these films and not include anything else and have a good argument as Mudede character does. He claims to have seen "Paths of Glory" which is all about saving three people. Has he seen "A.I.". Spielberg directed it, sure, but Kubrick conceived it and handed it to Spielberg to capture the heart and love that he knew his style of film making could not capture. Is that really hatred to humanity?

Ted: I've written at some length about "NBK" on CinePad, so I won't rehash that here. But if I had to focus on the two main things I think make "NBK" so bad, it's the humorlessness and leaden attempts at "satire." (I excerpted the parody-movie sequence that Stone cut from Tarantino's script to show that I believe Stone actually made the hypocritical Hollywood rebel-hero-worshipping exploitation movie the script was parodying.) Then there's the Native American, and the racist attitude: "Oh my god, we killed an Indian." If only they hadn't killed the Mystical Indian! They felt bad about that.

But, wow, I would like to hear your take on "Fast Times" sometime!

Corey: The Stranger started publishing in Seattle during the years I had moved away. When I came back in 1994, I'd heard about it and I picked it up semi-regularly and I was really embarrassed that it passed for an "alternative paper" in my hometown. It seemed to me like a generic college paper put out by people who were too old to be in college and didn't know that they were. (Too old, and still in college.) It definitely has a conventional "anti-establishment" attitude that's common to all "alternative" papers, but I think the core attitude is closer to plain, old-fashioned Philistinism: smug, conventional, not very bright. (Yeah, I know: How do I really feel?)

I have picked it up occasionally since 1995, but I've rarely found anything much to read -- except that I enjoy Andy Wright's movie stuff. I'm not familiar with any of the other bylines. A friend e-mailed me a link to this Kubrick piece, and I thought it reflected some pretty common (and pedestrian) misconceptions about Kubrick, so I thought it might be worth a post.

partisan: That was a 1980 issue of "The American Spectator," right?

Jesus, you're posting like a madman lately. Give me a chance to catch up.

This has been a great discussion so far but to get back to Barry Lyndon for the moment. The duel scene, which is fresh in my head as I just wrote about it on my blog in the past three weeks, is a beautiful example of Kubrick's humanity as exemplified through the character of Redmond, now Barry Lyndon. It is to my mind one of the most extraordinary sequences in all of film history.

SPOILERS
When Barry fires his gun into the ground after Lord Bullingdon has misfired on his first attempt he is doing two things: One, he is implicitly apologizing to Bullingdon for their combatative relationship and saying now "Let's bury the hatchett" and two, he is showing love and concern for Bullindon's mother, if not Bullingdon himself, by refusing to shoot him.

As I stated in my piece on the subject, Barry goes through the entire film doing the wrong thing, then atoning and doing the right thing. He could let his commander perish in fire but doesn't. He could spy on a fellow kinsman but doesn't. He could shoot Bullindon, but doesn't. In one situation after another he shows his humanity. SPOILERS END

And that humanity comes from Kubrick. I think a lot of the backlash against a perceived lack of emotion with Kubrick started with Pauline Kael who commented that after 2001 Kubrick became HAL9000. Her "joke" was meant to associate with him the coldness and sterility of a computer but as Kubrick himself pointed out (and you reminded us) HAL is the most human character in the story. Perhaps Kael was unwittingly complimenting Kubrick after all.

This seems like a case of someone blurring the lines between Kubrick and his characters.

And anyone who calls Hitchcock a master of anything is mistaken.

The phrase “Kubrick hates humans” reminds me of other similarly thoughtless, repeated claims like “(insert group here) hates America.” And I think both claims come from the same train of thought. Usually those who are blamed for “hating America” are the ones critiquing the current government. Al Franken wrote in one of his books (and he may have been quoting someone else, I forget) that this whole notion could be compared to the way children view their parents versus the way adults view their parents. Children think their parents are infallible Gods incapable of doing wrong, and directly relate their love for their parents with this belief. Adults eventually come to realize that their parents are human like anyone else and have faults, and that their love for their parents exists independently of whether or not their parents are perfect. Franken uses this analogy to show how some people can’t separate criticism of America from emotional attachment, so they see people who critique America as people who “hate America.” Meanwhile, those who are critical of America are actually critical independently from (or because of ) their emotions towards the country. The same could be said for Kubrick – I’d argue he views humanity from an adult perspective – that is, he realizes humans aren’t perfect and realizes that humans have fault, and isn’t afraid to critique mankind. This comes off to those who view humanity as perfect and infallible as a form of hatred – they view the act of critical analysis as an attack, despite the fact that critical analysis can exist independently of emotional feelings, and also despite the fact that Kubrick’s critical analysis, as shown in his films, is sometimes negative and sometimes positive.

I think Stanley Kubrick is one of the most fascinating directors. I've often felt a detachment from Kubrick in relation to some of his characters but it always seemed more like boredom and less like hatred. In fact I don't think I ever remember feeling that Kubrick hated any of his characters. Kubrick has some very fervent admirers who defend his every move, so I feel more inclined to agree with Corey, that Mudede wrote this piece just to disagree with the popular sentiment. My personal feelings on Kubrick are quite varied. I think "2001" is one of the 10 or 15 best movies ever made, I think "The Shining" is the greatest of all horror movies, and I think "Barry Lyndon" is probably the most beautiful movie ever made. However, I felt little connection to Barry Lyndon the character, Kubrick seemed too far back in his "God-like" detatchment to make me care. I was bored almost to tears any time George C. Scott and/or Peter Sellers weren't on screen in "Dr. Strangelove". "A Clockwork Orange" has some of the most cartoonish/horrible acting I've ever witnessed (it seems like Kubrick told everyone but Malcolm McDowell to act like they were Looney Tunes). "Full Metal Jacket" is half of a great movie, but when R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio exit, the movie loses everything interesting about it. I'm still not sure how I feel about "The Killing", because it has an interesting story but felt it moved like mollasses sitting on a table instead of a boulder rolling down a hill like it should have. Regardless of how I feel about most of his work (I could write pages about each movie, but this is your blog not mine), it can't be denied that Kubrick is one of the handful of most important directors in the history of movies, and he will be debated for many more years.

P.S. Jim, you didn't like "Natural Born Killers"? Why did you wait till now to say something about it?

No, it's the current issue, on sale now!

Jim: Sorry to go off topic, but I don't agree with your view of the "racist attitude" in NBK. Mickey and Mallory are shocked after the accidental murder of the Indian not because he was "The Mystical Indian" but because he was the only one who was kind to them and gave them a sanctuary. Wouldn't you think that Mallory would be very grateful for that sort of kindness after being treated so horribly all her life? So when Mickey shoots him, she is furious because Mickey has killed "a good person" (as she defines it).

And the sitcom sequence, much criticized, was a daring (and in my opinion successful) attempt to show us blatantly what there actually is that we watch on TV so often without quite noticing it. Also, NBK isn't just a satire. It lets you bathe in pop culture and imagery to give you a sensory overload comparable to Mickey and Mallory's disillusionment.

Stanley Kubrick is overrated because he can't be rated.

If you are going to complain about 2001: A Space Odyssey, you might as well complain that your Yogi is broken when your meditations don't work.

Remember in City Slickers when Palance says to Billy Crystal: "I shit bigger than you."?

That was great.

Awful, ignorant article about Kubrick.

Kick ass retrospective, however! Dah! I wish I still lived in the Northwest.

Jim,

If idiotic articles about Kubrick cause you to write MORE posts on Kubrick, then I'll lead the search.

Kubrick: "a profoundly moral filmmaker"

This needs to be repeated until it becomes a cliche.

Thank you for writing this. It's been bugging me for days, but I've not gotten around to writing anything even attempting a serious rebuttal. And have I forgotten Joker echoing the Pyle's line at the end or did Mudede misremember and misquote?

I enjoy The Stranger as a good bus read and occasionally it pleases me, although almost never the review staff. I've managed over time to gain a certain affection for Lindy West's wacky reviews for things (especially after her review of The Wicker Man remake), but those are nearly all cheap shots at movies the staff is sure will be bad.

My appreciation of Mudede is more ironic. There used to be a whole staff of critics there and they would all write the most pretentious college student attempts at "deep views" of movies. Now, there is only Mudede who can be counted on for the reviews that read something like this (and I am making this one up), "Camus wrote that in order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist. It is with this in mind that one must view the events of Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd..."

Of course, this line of logic (or generally, illogic) often leads him to strange and interesting, usually absurd, views of movies. In this case, however, it seems to have led him to the same place it led so many others whose readings were too lazy or superficial, so I'm glad someone was able to take the time to pick apart the argument.

One of the controversial decisions in regard to A Clockwork Orange was his ignoring the 21st chapter that had been cut by the American publisher.

(spoiler) In it, Alex resumes his old ways awkwardly, no longer finding it satisfying as his puberty winds down. He has a Dinner with Andre type encounter with one of his old droogs, now married, and Alex begins to yearn and dream of settling down with a wife and son. (end spoiler)

Kubrick wrote the script with the American edition in mind, but was eventually made aware of the 21st chapter. He dismissed it as being an unconvincing happy ending. Burgess said it was the point of the whole book: An individual can use his will to choose to be good, and in his optimistic opinion there is an inclination to do so. It's a little like the difference between the endings of Infernal Affairs and The Departed. The 21 chapters clearly separate into three distinctive acts, each beginning with the line "What's it going to be then, eh? (Burgess constant reminder of the freedom of choice).

I honestly don't know which ending would have worked better in the film. The style is so different.

I think it's worth noting that Mudede is a writer with two indie films to his credit, both nominated for Grand Jury prizes at Sundance during their retrospective years: Police Beat (2005) and Zoo (2007).

That may or may not impact the relevance or truthiness of anything he says, but people unfamiliar with The Stranger or Mudede's work should know that he approaches film from the perspective of a writer and philosopher.

His IMDB page

If we are going to oversimplify all of Kubrick's films with a single sentence, I believe that I have a better one than "Kubrick is a misanthrope," and one that is in keeping with using a single line from one of a director's films to understand that entire director's career, as we do when we say that all of Renoir's characters have their reasons or that Ford prefers myth to fact. The line is from Barry Lyndon: "Barry was one of those born clever enough at gaining a fortune, but incapable of keeping one, for the qualities and energies which lead a man to achieve the first are often the very cause of his ruin in the latter case." I see Kubrick illustrating the theme of great talent and virtue turning into vice throughout Kubrick's films, certainly in Barry Lyndon, but also in, for instance, the way that when Private Pyle ultimately develops into an ideal soldier only to turn those talents against the ends to which they were supposed to be developed, or that the HAL9000's flawlessness causes him to malfunction when he is programmed to mislead Poole and Bowman. Or, in Dr. Strangelove, how Mutually Assured Destruction, theoretically put in place to keep peace between the U.S. and Russia, ends up destroying the world. I also think it's telling about us that the most seemingly absurd demonstration of this is the one that was most directly taken from real life.

Granted, as with all generalizations, mine can only be so useful, but I think it is a lot more useful than "Kubrick is a misanthrope." Maybe there is some truth in that--some might think it was unfair for him to demonstrate all human development as the advancement of weapons with a single cut in 2001, but I think that the rest of the film makes up for it. 2001 always seemed like a very hopeful film to me, one that acknowledged our deficiencies with the dawn of man sequence and this famous cut, or with HAL's malfunctioning, but that was primarily about our potential.

I also wouldn't call Barry Lyndon a misanthropic film, even though the main character (or many of the other characters) aren't all necessarily likeable. (After all, even Lord Bullingdon has his reasons.) My one comment is that the narration, Ryan O'Neal's detached performance, and the epilogue all contribute to a fatalism in the film that I've never quite known what to make of. The best explanation I can think of is that Kubrick wants us to challenge this fatalistic outlook, but I will have to put more thought in the next viewing.

As for Hitchcock being the master of suspense--certainly he was good at creating suspense, and used suspense as part of his style, but 1) he is not the only director to have done so, and 2) I don't think that the final point of any of his best movies, or even his lesser movies, is suspense. Moreover, I would like to see someone put together any kind of a meaningful argument that the primary reason we would watch, say, "Under Capricorn" or "Vertigo" would be for suspense.

By the way, is the title of this post a reference to the glorious musical recreation of schizophrenia known as "The Beach Boys Love You?"

Will: I couldn't decide if the headline was a reference to "The Beach Boys Love You" or Spike Lee's "She Hate Me." (insert winking/smiling emoticon here)

I have a real fondness for "Under Capricorn" -- glad you reminded me of it. I think the fatalism you describe in "Barry Lyndon" comes from two (inseparable) things: 1) the story's set in the past-tense (not just the distant past), and narrated in the third-person; 2) the titles, and the narrator, often use foreshadowing -- or even just tell us what's going to happen before it happens. In the case of the Part I and Part II titles, that means giving away the arc of the story from the beginning to Intermission; and then from Intermission to the end. All this is set up before you get to the end of the first shot.

Because it's told this way, the movie has a sense of fate (or fatalism) to it, like a Greek tragedy in the form of a picaresque comedy about an ignoble Irish rascal. Or, as I've described it, a movie about a man trying to become the master of his fate, the captain of his destiny -- and endlessly frustrated because he's a character trapped in the frames of a Stanley Kubrick movie. The overwhelming feeling that Barry's fate is foreordained, emphasizes both the comedy and fatalism in Barry's story. But character is destiny: His finest moment is also his downfall, and that's a particularly touching conceit. It's almost as if Barry finally ascends to true nobility and falls from "rank and title" social grace in the same instant.

Like "A Clockwork Orange," it's also a philosophical essay about free will -- but from an extremely different angle.

The Stranger film staff is a great purveyor of misinformation. When the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was playing in Seattle recently, a Stranger critic (I will withhold her name to be polite) referred to it as "the archetypal Spaghetti Western."

I've seen Police Beat, but not Zoo. Aside from having beautiful cinematography of all around Seattle, only partially marred by the overused and ugly color bleaching/computer coloring that's so popular with all the young kids these day, it's basically the movie one should expect from someone who writes reviews that read like the parody I wrote of his. I'm forced to guess it was largely praised by critics and judges who write similarly.

By the way, it's interesting to me that you picked up on his recurring animal hatred (from his review of March of the Penguins, "The only animal worth making a documentary about is the human.")

To continue the Kubrick debate, I'm firmly on the side that the overpraised 21st chapter of Burgess's novel doesn't work very well in the book, but would have stopped the movie dead in its tracks with its appended epilogue feeling that works better in novels than movies anyway.

Noteworthy, I think, that Mudede makes only passing reference to A Clockwork Orange, as it is one of the most explicitly pro-human movies of all time. As best I can tell, a snarky reference to the sexual violence of that film is intended to fill the void where a real argument would be if the goal of the piece were to present a challenging examination of Kubrick's perspective.

Alex: Thanks for that thoughtful, substantive post. I think it's apt to say that Kubrick takes "the long view" of humanity's place in the universe -- in every way.

I saw "2001" (at Seattle's Cinerama Theater, on a BIG screen) when I was 11 and wasn't bored for a second -- nor in any of my umpteen viewings since. (When I got my big HDTV, I put it on just to "test" the equipment and wound up watching the whole thing AGAIN.) "The Dawn of Man" is really a rather quick, straight-ahead narrative. You're right that Kubrick emphasizes the mundane in the space technology stuff -- the routine nature of space travel to the space station, the moon base, aboard the Discovery; the use of corporate logos; the bland, reserved dialog, etc. -- and that's part of what makes it, then and now, feel so real. (That and, of course, the SFX, which still look as good or better than any CGI I've ever seen. The miniatures are fantastic.) "2001" (like most of Kubrick's movies after "Strangelove") is wide open to interpretation. Mine (capsule version) is that it's a movie about the evolution of the human species -- from ancient primates to the Star Child.

"2001" is one of the most influential movie experiences of my life. But for the reasons I've described elsewhere, it vies with "Barry Lyndon" for my personal favorite.

If you can find the 1980 ('81?) Film Comment cover article on "The Shining" by Richard T. Jameson, I'm pretty sure it will turn your head around about "The Shining." Kubrick's films often seem like "failures" when you first see them (and, as you say, they reward repeated viewings), but I've found that's usually because they're not the movies I expected them to be (or thought they were) the first time around. You gotta step back and take "the long view" of them!

Martin, Neil: To paraphrase Martin Short in "The Big Picture": "I don't know Mudede. I don't know his work." I'm just writing about the specific things he said in this Kubrick story.

But that is interesting about the animal thing. I kind of want to see "Zoo" (though I think the Peter Greenaway movie by that title would be hard to beat!). My understanding is that it was a "poetic" or "non-judgmental" or even "sympathetic" documentary (as I recall some of the adjectives that were tossed around) concerning sexual congress between humans and horses, which was made after a news story about a man in the Northwest who died after having sex of some kind with a horse, and who was part of a subculture of men who like to do that. I hope the film's attitude isn't to be disgusted at the horses.

So, "The only animal worth making a documentary about is the human"? I don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds like a pretty narrow view of life on this planet to me. My problem with "March of the Penguins" was that it shamelessly attributed human emotions and characteristics to animals -- showing ignorance both of what it means to be human and what it means to be a penguin. After all, humans are the only species that scientifically studies other species, and we do understand some things about the differences.

As hostile as I may come across, I find much fascinating about Mudede. In between the goofy sophomore philosophy revelations and trite, presumably deadline driven examinations of celebrated directors, he does say some interesting things. Police Beat, as it goes, features some of both, but unfortunately, in my opinion leaned too much of the former style. Like you, I have Zoo in my Netflix saved queue and hope that the buzz is correct, as I'd like to see a movie that I like in the way that the film's admirers seem to have liked this one.

I didn't intend a specific comment in using the March of the Penguins comment, except that it had raised some amount of the ire of animal lovers... more than film lovers, who should have been at least as offended at the arbitrary limitation of what our beloved medium ought to be used for.

Is this the article? Not that I'm endorsing this seeming copyright violation, but I'll probably read it when I get the chance anyway. In all honesty, The Shining is one of two Kubrick movies (the other is Killer's Kiss) that I've never quite been able to take a shine to and I'm always interested in new perspectives that might lend me a better understanding or appreciation.

Is Kubrick misanthropic? I vote for yes, though really only from 2001 onward. Up to Lolita, maybe Dr. Strangelove, he was certainly a hard-boiled humanist. As he progressed as a filmmaker I feel that he outgrew humanity and conventional moral attitudes.

In short, 2001 is the model in which all his other films are cast. It's man evolving from ape, to machine-like industrial product, to star child.

A Clockwork Orange: a libertarian treatise. Take away the star child (Alex)'s freedom he devolves to a previous machine stage and forced to celebrate the diseased pro-social values of the machine age such as compassion and altruism.

Barry Lyndon: It's not a film about anything. That's the joke. No progression or de-evolution, it all happens within the machine-like universe of high culture. It's absolutely meaningless that Barry Lyndon shoots into the ground to spare Bullington's mother grief. It changes absolutely nothing. His moral behavior has no real effect on anything at all.

The Shining: The monotony of modern life in the machine age causes Jack Torrence to de-evolve back to the ape rather than evolve into a higher form of life. This is to be expected of the truly mediocre.

Full Metal Jacket: Like Barry Lyndon it's about failure to progress. The soldiers are stunted, they've been in civilization too long. They neither progress or degress from the machine age. Nothing happens, any victory is a hollow victory.

Eyes Wide Shut: Ditto. An attempt to progress into the more evolved morality of the star child by violating the pro-social values of marital fidelity. The attempt fails.

Indeed, "misanthropic" is accurate but inadequate.

Jim, long time no post. I'd love to add something to this but don't know where to begin. Just know I'm a huge Kubrick fan (and no, I don't believe he was a misanthrope, cinematically or personally).

But I'd just like to ask, because I personally find it rather frustrating Kubrick didn't live long enough to make more films:

Other than A.I., what would you say is the best "Kubrick movie" out there (an actual existing movie) that wasn't actually directed by Stanley Kubrick?

Assuming you don't find this question overly outlandish, would love to know your recommendations. But I just can't believe that, as influential as he was, there's no up-and-coming directors that aren't cribbing heavily from SK.

STEVE
(Once again, the infamous "Ebert Fan/Medved Defender")

Steve, I would recommend Birth as a film that is dripping with Kubrick influence. It's also a damn fine piece of work.

Jim,

Thanks for referring me to Jameson's article (which, unfortunately, I have not found yet). However, I'd just like to mention that I have in fact seen "The Shining" at least four times, and remain unconvinced that it is a success. In his excellent book "A Cinema of Loneliness", Robert Kolker offers an interesting view of "The Shining" as both a parody of the horror genre and an on-the-level examination of the breakdown of the domestic unit. Kolker's perceptive analysis even points out that, while the Shelley Duvall character turns the tables on the standard patriarchal system, Kubrick won't quite allow her to have an unblemished victory, as she witnesses what appears to be a bizarre act of homosexuality (which is, of course, the ultimate threat to any conservative domestic unit).

I appreciate the deeper meanings of "The Shining", as well as some of its technical prowess. But I can not pretend to enjoy the actual process of watching the film, and in the end, no amount of analysis can change that. That is not to say that I can't ever see myself changing my opinion on "The Shining", merely that several viewings have left me more and more convinced that it doesn't work for me. (Perhaps that's a better phrase to use..."it doesn't work for me"...as opposed to "failure", which implies that Kubrick didn't know what he was going for or wasn't able to achieve it).

Par for the course for Mudede and the Stranger. The movie is incidental, an excuse for sometimes well-written but usually eye-rollingly simple minded stabs at deep thinking, or, failing that, irony, cynicism or cleverness. And kind of arrogant - he doesn't bother giving much support for Kubrick's hatred of humans, he just says it as if his proclamation made it so. Uggh.

As a longtime former Seattle resident and longtime reader of the Stranger, Muede's reviews don't surprise me in the least. The Stranger has a long history of attempting (in a rather crass fashion) to appear cooler than thou. Their film reviewers in particular seem to relish any opportunity to take the contrarian view to everything. Sometimes, this hipster slant yields interesting results. More often than not, it comes across as juvenile snobbery with a broad vocabulary.

The whole "Kubrick hates humans" argument reminds me of the critique that the Coen Brothers hate their own characters. Either view immediately points out that you have missed the very point of the films in the first place. Kubrick doesn't hate humans: Kubrick has a distinct love and appreciation for humanity, but he is fascinated by our self-destructive natures and sometimes absurd results of our logic and intellect.

I recently saw Paths of Glory, Barry Lyndon, and Full Metal Jacket at a retrospective here in Portland, OR, part of the same traveling show that Muede is reviewing. I can say in all honesty I saw absolutely no contempt for humanity, the individual, or the characters in those films. If anything, I saw a deep sadness and a deep empathy.

The idea that anyone could even think of attributing Kurosawa's work to the decline of cinema because it veered away from reality and towards art is itself so far removed from anything like reality that I'm amazed the article wasn't translated from Martian.

Everything you need to know about Mudede's need to pick a provocative thesis and defend it in the face of all evidence to the contrary (in the most highfalutin language possible) can be found in this post and the following comments.

http://kubrickfilms.tripod.com/

Has anyone seen this Kubrick website? There's some good articles particularly on The Shining and Full Metal Jacket.