Square Eyes; Citizen Kubrick… July 7, 2008
Posted by John Hodson in : Television, Square Eyes , trackbackFans of the film genius, the reclusive, the enigmatic, the elusive unto death (and beyond) Stanley Kubrick are in for a treat with the UK digital channel More4’s screening of a special season of films and documentaries dedicated to the great man, during the second half of July.
As well as screenings of seven of Kubrick’s movies (Barry Lyndon, Paths of Glory, Lolita, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Killer’s Kiss, The Killing & The Shining) the season features two rarely seen early career short documentaries; Day of The Fight (1951) and from the same year Flying Padre.
The season also includes a brand new documentary, part of C4’s True Stories strand; Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes, plus four ‘bitesize’ Kubrick shorts, Stanley Kubrick’s Small Boxes, presumably culled from the same filming sessions as their longer parent, on both Channel 4 and More 4, in the 3 Minute Wonder slot.
To promote the season Channel 4 has filmed a quite astounding promo, which was recently reported in The Guardian newspaper thus:
Channel 4 has painstakingly recreated the set of Stanley Kubrick horror film The Shining, complete with look-a-likes of the crew and cast members including Shelley Duvall, for a TV ad to promote a More 4 season of the director’s films.
The 65-second promotional spot has been filmed as a one-take tracking shot through the recreation of The Shining set.
Viewers get Kubrick’s point of view as he walks through the set, ending up in his director’s chair as the crew prepare to shoot the famous scene of Danny Torrance, the son of Duvall and Jack Nicholson’s characters, riding round and round the deserted corridors of the Overlook Hotel.
The promo, filmed as a single tracking shot with a cast of 55 actors, was meticulously researched to “remain as faithful as possible to the period in which it was shot and the culture of the British studio in the late 1970s”.
Channel 4 Creative Services, the broadcaster’s in-house creative resource, cast people who resembled Kubrick’s own crew including his script lady, assistant director and director of production, John Alcott, who also worked on films including 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange with the director.
Look-a-likes were also found for Duvall, Danny Lloyd, who played Danny Torrance, and the twin girls who appear fleetingly in the film.
Most of the equipment that appears in the promotional clip was actually used in the filming of The Shining.
Many of the props that appear, including the tricycle and Kubrick’s script, were produced for the promotional clip based on photos or sketches from the late director’s archives.
The spot, which was shot over two days at London’s Bray Studios, was filmed using a 25mm Cooke lens – a favourite of Kubrick’s.
The promo can be seen currently on C4 and More4, and on The Guardian website here.
The Citizen Kubrick season (a title More4 initially coined for the season, from Jon Ronson’s original Guardian article, but look to have dropped), starts on Monday July 14. The schedule:
3 Minute Wonder: Stanley Kubrick’s Small Boxes; 14 July, 11:50am - 11:55am, Channel 4. Also 14 July, 1:05pm - 1:10pm, More4. Think Kubrick - Showing as part of More 4’s Stanley Kubrick season, the first of four short films concerning the late director. Members of Kubrick’s audience relate their fondest memories of his films.
3 Minute Wonder: Stanley Kubrick’s Small Boxes; 14 July, 11:55am - 12:00pm, Channel 4. Also 15 July, 1:05pm - 1:10pm, More4. Showing as part of More4’s Stanley Kubrick season, the second of four short films concerning the late director. Inspired by an actual callsheet from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, this film reconstructs the production meeting that took place prior to the callsheet being issued.
True Stories: Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes (2008); 15 July, 10:00pm - 11:05pm, More4. A biography of a remarkably talented man as seen though the rich collection of material he left behind. Stanley Kubrick’s films were landmark events – majestic, memorable and richly researched. But, as the years went by, the time between films grew longer and longer, and less and less was seen of the director. What on earth was he doing?
Two years after Kubrick’s death, Jon Ronson was invited to the director’s estate to explore the hundreds of boxes the legendary film director had collected during his decades at Childwick Manor in Hertfordshire. He’s been returning ever since, and the story of Kubrick and the archive, now housed at University of the Arts London, is revealed in this fascinating documentary.
Ronson asks: is it possible to get to understand such a man – and his extraordinary working methods – by looking through the hundreds of boxes he left behind?
Day of the Fight (1951): 15 July, 11.05pm, More4. Documentary short. A day in the life of a middleweight Irish boxer named Walter Cartier, particularly the day of his bout with black middleweight Bobby James.
3 Minute Wonder: Stanley Kubrick’s Small Boxes; 16 July, 1:05pm - 1:10pm, More4. Showing as part of More 4’s Stanley Kubrick season, the third of four short films concerning the late director. This film features a sequence of references to his most iconic works.
Barry Lyndon (1975); 16 July, 11pm, More4. Kubrick’s oeuvre was never more lavish, ravishing or brilliantly eccentric than in his 18th Century story of pugnacious Irish chancer Barry Lyndon, a man with a talent for money and appearances, but with a crippling lack of love in his heart.
Barry Lyndon was a box office flop on its first release. Perhaps after the spacey future pyschedelia of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the teen malcontent of A Clockwork Orange, this painterly adaptation of an obscure picaresque novel was a leap too far for contemporary audiences. Nevertheless, it’s a tour de force, with the director pushing the limits of film technology to realise his singular vision, developing new camera lenses to tell this 18th Century cautionary tale with only natural, available light.
3 Minute Wonder: Stanley Kubrick’s Small Boxes; 17 July, 1:05pm - 1:10pm, More4. Overlook - Showing as part of More4’s Stanley Kubrick season, the last of the four short films concerning the late director. An exploration of the ghostly continuity photos from The Shining.
Paths of Glory (1957); 17 July, 11:55am, More4. A story designed to make the blood boil: blameless French soldiers carry the can for their superiors’ mistakes after a botched WWI assault. A work of genius from Kubrick, with a brilliant performance from Kirk Douglas.
Paths Of Glory was the first time Stanley Kubrick got to work with a major star - and in the late 1950s, stars didn’t come any more major than Kirk Douglas. He championed this ‘hard to sell’ anti-war film to the Hollywood studios, and bankrolled the 28-year-old tyro director who, with his growing reputation, still had it all to prove in Hollywood. And with his indignant performance Douglas provides an emotional counterbalance to Kubrick’s chilly, conceptual style.
Flying Padre (1951); 18 July, 12.55pm, More4. Documentary short. Two days in the life of priest Father Fred Stadtmuller whose New Mexico parish is so large he can only spread goodness and light among his flock with the aid of a mono-plane.
Lolita (1962); 18 July, 9pm, More4. Kubrick’s controversial and deeply ironic black comedy stars James Mason as a middle aged professor obsessed with a precociously sexual minor. Adapted by Nabokov from his own novel
In filming a book derided at the time as paedophiliac pornography, Kubrick put both his artistic and commercial reputation on the line, but the result is a sophisticated and moving tragi-comedy riddled with queasy wit.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); 19 July, 1.30pm, More4. We know what the year 2001 looks like now, and it didn’t look much like Kubrick’s vision. But 2001: A Space Odyssey itself still looks immaculate. Spectacular, trailblazing and philosophical, it’s an undisputed masterpiece.
Kubrick, cinema’s chilliest genius, abandons conventional narrative here and presents a succession of beautifully-composed sketches on the theme of evolution, death and rebirth linked by the mystical presence of a large black monolith.
Killer’s Kiss (1955); 21 July, 11.30pm, More4. Stanley Kubrick’s stylish second feature, shot on a shoestring but a clear indication of the great things to come. Intricately plotted, it tells the story of a has-been boxer who falls for a beautiful broad with a violent boyfriend.
With three documentaries and one self-buried feature under his belt, Kubrick wrote, directed, co-produced and edited this film noir for just $75,000. The result might be primitive by the meticulous standards the director would later apply, but it remains an inventive evocation of time and place with some spectacularly sinister visual flourishes.
The Killing (1956); 23 July, 12.05am, More4. Tightly plotted heist-goes-wrong thriller with which established the reputation of legendary director Stanley Kubrick. Sterling Hayden stars as an icy ex-con masterminding a robbery at a race track. His meticulous plan is to create a distraction by shooting the favourite horse during a race, muscle into the course’s counting house and flee with the wedge before you can say “and they’re under starter’s orders.”
The Shining (1980); 25 July, 9pm, More4. Stanley Kubrick’s atmospheric adaptation of a Stephen King tale. Jack Nicholson stars, in maniacal, terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick’s Gothic chiller. Aspiring-writer Jack Torrance (Nicholson) accepts a job as a caretaker at the Overlook Hotel during an icy Oregon winter so he can write his book. But the hotel has a macabre history that soon begins to worm its way into the present through the medium of his psychic son, Danny.
There are some reports of More4 also screening the 1953 documentary The Seafarers, Kubrick’s first colour feature which for 40 years was thought lost, but sadly this appears to have been removed from the More4 schedules. Keep your eyes open just in case there’s a change of heart and it is in fact screened on the night of Tuesday, July 15.
Stanley Kubrick’s archive is now housed at the University of the Arts London.
Comments»
Thanks for that John: this all sounds utterly magnificent - Channel 4 has a history of doing Stanley well - there was a rather brave documentary about Clockwork Orange and its withdrawal in the UK, made when SK was alive and which he also tried to ban! And since his death C4 have made two more. This season seems exemplary and it will be fascinating to see how the new documentary differs from the more official and conventional film, A Life in Pictures, currently in the latest DVD boxset. The only absentee is Fear and Desire - a truly terrible film but obviously a must-see for completists and for its crude anticipation of Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket.
Probably being greedy here, but I just wish these were being broadcast in High Definition; it’s quite odd, with HD one of the big pitches in the sales of AV equipment, that so little HD content is actually broadcast in the UK.
Looking forward to Ronson’s documentary too - thanks for posting Adrian.
The documentaries Adrian mentions - one centred on 2001, one on CLOCKWORK ORANGE and one on EYES WIDE SHUT - are all included on the recent Special Editions of those films. One documentary has never been repeated - STANLEY KUBRICK: THE INVISIBLE MAN, which kicked off the first ever C4 Kubrick season - but, whilst it was good at the time, there is little ground not covered better elsewhere. Here’s hoping that the “Boxes” docs turn up on the likely Special Ediitons of LOLITA and BARRY LYNDON.
“Thanks for that John: this all sounds utterly magnificent - Channel 4 has a history of doing Stanley well - there was a rather brave documentary about Clockwork Orange and its withdrawal in the UK, made when SK was alive and which he also tried to ban! “
I remember the legal wrangles over that at the time, and I think C4 decided to fall back on a “fair use” interpretation of the 1988 Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act.
It was by no means an open and shut case (”fair use” is a notoriously tricky area when it comes to otherwise copyrighted moving-image material), but C4 presumably gambled that Warner Bros wouldn’t force the issue by taking them to court. And they didn’t.