← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · xmetalhead
Thread ID: 11856 | Posts: 31 | Started: 2004-01-12
2004-01-12 15:48 | User Profile
Whatever your opinion of this man and whether or not he was a Jew, these following Kubrick films are THE best I've ever seen. I've recently viewed all listed here:
[B]"2001: A Space Odyssey"- [/B] I would call this the greatest movie ever made in history. If you're into Nietzsche/Zoroastrianism, a fanatic for special effect '60's style (well before Star Wars came out), love the art of astronomy, or even a Christian trying to know how the other half thinks, this is THE definitive motion picture. The vision and scope of this movie is mind-blowing along with it's dark satire of the human condition with a final hope for "superman" rebirth and condemnation of blind obedience to superstitions.
[B]"Barry Lyndon"-[/B]this 18th Century period film is awesome, the story loosely based on a real life Irish rogue who seems mostly aloof and naive. Ultimately it's a rags-to-riches-back-to-rags for Barry who is quite an amoral man. Kubirck loves to explore and exploit the dark side that lies within ever human, and tends to show how it leads to nowhere. Nihilistic? The story engages and holds you. The film uses nothing but natural sets and natural light, perfect period costumes, and is probably one of the most visually stunning movies I've ever seen.
[B]"A Clockwork Orange"---[/B]This one is undeniably a dark, vicious, satire of the human need to conform to the society at large or face a life of pain, misery, and suffering......but which is really worse? The original novel, in the final chapter, has main character Alex getting married and having kids. This chapter was left out of the American release of the book, which Kubrick preferred.
I had viewed these films in years past, but since I'm older and hopefully wiser now, I've stunned myself with how much interpretation I had missed in these films when orginally viewed. Guess my attention span is better now; something definitely required if you're to view any of the movies listed above.
I'm going to re-view "Dr Strangelove" and "Full Metal Jacket" in the coming days.
[I]"What do you want for your birthday?" Dr Haywood Floyd "A [COLOR=DarkRed]bush[/COLOR]-baby"-His daughter 2001: A Space Odyssey[/I]
Eerrrieee, I'd say! Bush's baby was definitely President in real life 2001.
2004-01-12 17:45 | User Profile
New and Improved, thanks for the double-feature recommendation. I'm all over that one. I'm sure I'm going to "Love" "Dr Strangelove...or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb". Especially in light of today's events and with the power-mad zionist fanatics currently residing in DC.
As for the AmRen conference; I'm seriously considering it, but haven't made final decision yet.
2004-01-12 18:39 | User Profile
For the older folks who would like something a little less sci-fi-esque, get Kubrick's "The Killing", b&w made in 1956.
2004-01-12 19:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]Whatever your opinion of this man and whether or not he was a Jew, these following Kubrick films are THE best I've ever seen. I've recently viewed all listed here:[/QUOTE] I noticed the omission of [I][B]Full Metal Jacket[/B][/I], as sleazy and dishonest film as ever made. Kubrick carefully followed and enhanced the basic dictates of his tribe.
From my book:[QUOTE]A Vietnamese physician who grew up during the war and came to the United States in 1975 wrote of his reaction when watching American movies of the war. Admitting that the average American never cared for the Vietnamese, Dr. Toan Truong did confess to sympathy for the Ron Kovics, the paraplegic of Born on the Fourth of July. However, what remained in his mind were the Vietnamese wailing for their relatives buried alive in the Tet offensive and the civilians shelled by the North Vietnamese on Highway 1 leading toward Hue in 1975. One would like to ask what he thought of American attempts in the movie industry to appear evenhanded. [COLOR=Red]In [I][B]Full Metal Jacket [/B] [/I] there was a scene where all of twenty bodies were found and attributed to the massacre by the North Vietnamese. Then in true American fashion the director, Stanley Kubrick, a Jew, proceeded to pursue his ghoulish fantasies that only Americans were capable of depravities. [/COLOR] Then Dr. Toan Truong remembered the restrictions on ammunition for South Vietnamese forces during the final fight in 1975 when no resupply was forthcoming due to the United States Congress. After visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for the American dead in Washington D.C. and computing that one for Vietnamese soldiers would be twenty times larger, Dr. Truong inscribed in the guest book: "Thank you all for fighting for my country. We will never forget your sacrifice". [/QUOTE] The basic dishonesty of the American media, the Safers and Kubricks, can only be explained by their adherence to the more vile concepts of their tribe. The slaughters of the communists should be minimized or lied about. In no way should they be trusted.
2004-01-12 19:38 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]I noticed the omission of [I][B]Full Metal Jacket[/B][/I], as sleazy and dishonest film ever made. Kubrick carefully followed and enhanced the basic dictates of his tribe.
From my book: The basic dishonesty of the American media, the Safers and Kubricks, can only be explained by their adherence to the more vile concepts of their tribe. The slaughters of the communists should be minimized or lied about. In no way should they be trusted.[/QUOTE]
Edward, I certainly acknowledge that Kubrick's films have an amoral, godless outlook on the human race, which led me to believe him of jewish origins. Thanks for clarifying it. You know, every online biography that I've come across for Kubrick lacks any indication of his jewish ancestry. I mean, Stanley's father's name was "Jack"! However, I still find some of his movies to be artistically phenomenal....masterpieces, if you will. 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially.
2004-01-13 02:07 | User Profile
Just an aside here to say Full Metal Jacket is developed from the Vietnam war book called Short Timers. It's a good read.
2004-01-13 07:22 | User Profile
I would watch Dr. Strangelove again, but I'm afraid it would affect my precious bodily fluids.
2004-01-13 07:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=edward gibbon]I noticed the omission of [I][B]Full Metal Jacket[/B][/I], as sleazy and dishonest film as ever made. Kubrick carefully followed and enhanced the basic dictates of his tribe.
From my book: The basic dishonesty of the American media, the Safers and Kubricks, can only be explained by their adherence to the more vile concepts of their tribe. The slaughters of the communists should be minimized or lied about. In no way should they be trusted.[/QUOTE] Excellent post, and factual points.. Thanks......
2004-01-13 12:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=N.B. Forrest]I would watch Dr. Strangelove again, but I'm afraid it would affect my precious bodily fluids.[/QUOTE]
"fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face" - General Jack D.Ripper
2004-01-15 07:10 | User Profile
I saw Doctor Strangelove years ago. The satire left me cold; the only part that moved me was the mission of the bomber crew. Slim Pickens on the bomb was the best part of the film -- he tried to save himself when the bombay doors opened, but when he failed he went to his death enjoying the ride.
2004-01-15 19:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Just an aside here to say Full Metal Jacket is developed from the Vietnam war book called Short Timers. It's a good read.[/QUOTE]
I read Hasford's book about 15 years ago and from what I remember it was indeed a good book.
2004-01-16 17:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Stanley]I saw Doctor Strangelove years ago. The satire left me cold; the only part that moved me was the mission of the bomber crew. Slim Pickens on the bomb was the best part of the film -- he tried to save himself when the bombay doors opened, but when he failed he went to his death enjoying the ride.[/QUOTE] Read Yggdrasil's review of Dr. Strangelove. He had a similar reaction to yours (he saw it when it first came out) but got a lot more enjoyment, and insight, from watching the movie again a few years ago.
2004-01-20 02:57 | User Profile
X:
Thanks. I had no idea BL was Kubrick. Entertaining if ruthlessly amoral flick (though B does get his comeuppance). The only Ryan O'Neal film I can stomach.
2004-01-20 14:15 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Campion Moore Boru]X:
Thanks. I had no idea BL was Kubrick. Entertaining if ruthlessly amoral flick (though B does get his comeuppance). The only Ryan O'Neal film I can stomach.[/QUOTE]
Campion, I thought "Barry Lyndon" quite a tragic character in Kubrick's masterpiece film. Kubrick always delves into man's most corrupt and darkest parts that lie within us all and makes us look at it full on....but I think he also fairly shows the consequences of such actions. The last shot of Lyndon is a freeze frame, forever freezing him in time.
Over this past weekend, I re-viewed Kubrick's brilliant horror movie [B]"The Shining"[/B] and was blown away. Nobody sets the mood like Kubrick. The massive and empty Overlook Hotel is a reflection of the emptiness that lies within Jack Torrence(Nicholson). Kubrick's cynical depiction of family life. Supernatural themes. The filming techniques which elevate the suspense. The ending in the snowy labryinth where the son Danny bactracks his footprints and makes his father walk in his footsteps until Jack is frozen in time. The father walks in the footsteps of the son instead of the other way around. The labryinth, or maze reflecting the different paths that Jack and Danny are on in life where Danny finds life, Jack finds his own demise, lost in life's complications and self-destructing. Also, I was very surprised that in red-white bathroom scene with Jack and the ghost Grady, two White men both use the word n!gger. I understand Stephen King was not happy with Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of his novel. Well, I say that Kubrick's version is better but I know that's quite debatable. I'd like to hear the opinions of others here.
2004-01-20 21:24 | User Profile
x: I lack qualification to express on this, but absolutely agree and appreciate what you say, having seen all these.
Did he leave a film unfinished that Polanski took up? Someone here (wintermute?) mentioned that a while back.
2004-01-21 23:01 | User Profile
The Shining is one of the scariest movies of all time. I love just about everything in it: the long shot of their car moving through the majestic Rockies; the scene where the the man who hires Nicholson tries to hide his nervousness as he tells him about the previous murders. Kubrick's genius is manifest in making the brightly-lit, cavernous interiors of the hotel terrifying: when the little boy pedals his Big Wheel down those silent, endless hallways - the camera right on his tail, giving the viewer an almost palpable feeling of the malevolent presense stalking him - the tension is tremendous. And the bathroom scene with the English ghost - great in every respect. That actor (I forget his name) gave a truly brilliant performance - cosmic evil just oozes from him as he goads Nicholson to murder his family with that quiet, servile Englishness. Simply chilling. Another eerie scene is when Shelley Duvall sees the male ghost sitting on the edge of his bed with that thing in the brown animal suit kneeling before him.....I don't know what it's symbolic of, but it's as creepy as hell for some reason.
Two of my other horror favorites are Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls. Night is great because I love any film in which the characters use their brains & resourcefulness to struggle against impossible odds. The personal conflict, paranoia, claustrophobia & sheer terror which builds as the collection of desperate strangers barricade themselves into the house to fight off the flesh-eating corpses is outstanding (the only thing I don't like is the Strong, Tough Buck Nigra takin' charge and slapping the cowardly white fool around. That must have been one of the first instances of that sort of garbage in film). And I think the grim ending is perfect, too: sometimes the good guys don't win.
2004-01-22 01:47 | User Profile
X:
In full agreement. King's novels have always struck me as juvenile, overwrought, and padded by hundreds of pages of filler. His short stories are good however.
I need to read Ygg's other commentaries on Kubrick, but my impression of him was that he was what is char'd as a "self-hating" jew- i.e. he exposed the tribe in his films in a derogatory light. Of course he doesnt bash one over the head with it, but the symbolism is there for those reflecting on the films.
Your interp. of the Shining is refreshing, I'll have to rent it again. I really was blown away by Eyes Wide Shut. I found it a thoroughly anti-semitic film, thinly veiled.
2004-01-22 10:03 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Leveller]"fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face" - General Jack D.Ripper[/QUOTE]
I really relate to Ripper - women sense my strength and long for my essence.
I wish!
Anyway, here are my two cents on Kubrick.
First, the man was first and foremost an artist, although he was certainly a Jewish artist. I think that he wanted to make his mark in every major film genre, and so he made the greatest Sci Fi movie ever (2001), the greatest horror film ever (The Shining), perhaps the greatest historical drama ever (Barry Lyndon), and one of the better war films (Full Metal Jacket - although reasonable minds certainly disagree about that one.
Second, the man made those films primarily for his fellow Jews. They're filled with allusions to Jewish folktales, Kabbalistic and Talmudic references. That in itself drives me nuts, because here we have an "American" filmaker making "American" films containing messages that only a tiny part of the population is clued in to. Artificial Intelligence (Kubrick started it but didn't finish it as he died in the making) would have been the most obvious Kabbalistic film. That film was an allegory to what Orthodox Jews believe happened with us - like the robots who inherited the world after the passing of the human race, humanity itself was made by "lesser gods" for their own purposes that we can only dimly guess at. There's a line where the male prostitute robot asks "why do you suppose you scream "oh, god, oh, god during sex." I forgot the lime, but it's a clear allusion to these Kabbalistic notions. The old scientist robot in the end says with tragic emotion to the protaganist something like "we're now removed even another step from ultimate reality." That's exactly how Orthodox Jews see our world - several steps removed from the First Cause. But most of us wouldn't even pick up on the allusions.
As I said, that really pi$$es me off. I want a national film industry making art that fits in with my traditions, and isn't a cryptogram for aliens. (Have you seen Carpenter's "They Live?" He takes this metaphor of Hollywood belonging to "aliens" and makes it literal!)
Third, I agree with Ygg that the messages are basically Zionist and neo-conservative. The message in Barry Lyndon, IMHO, came when the narrator intones something to the effect that the drive, talent and ambition that carries a man to the top of society are the very ones that ensure his fall. That, I submit, is a profoundly neo-con message - the the group cohesion and instinctive ability to engage in coordinated veiled attacks brought Jews in America to power, but they'll also cause their fall in the future. Think Ginsberg's Fatal Embrace.
Raymond Barry was an Irishman and a Catholic, which made him a despised outsider to 17th century English society. But he overcame all of those handicaps through his enormous intelligence, solidarity with his cryptic Irish gambling mentor, and ruthless cunning. However, after he "made it" with the English wife and country estate and all, these same qualities led to his inability to consolidate his position in English society, and ultimately to his financial ruin and his utter rejection by that same society. Just to drive the point home, one of the final scenes is the erstwhile Barry Lyndon - once again the shanty Irishman but much worse for the wear - is emigrating to America, not unlike American Jews who had pulled a similar trick in the Pale of Settlemen - a message I'm certain most of them picked up on. Like the neo-cons after him, Kubrick is saying to his fellow Tribesmen, "you made it, you have the place in the Hamptons and the sex-bombshell shiktsa wife that you met at Yale, now accept that you made it and act like responsible rulers and knock off the culture destruction and Communist agitation already!"
Fourth, Kubrick's thinking was profoundly Darwinist, and Darwinian themes are evident in all of his films. Ygg covered all of this very well in his reviews (Evolution wasn't just a theme in 2001, it's what the whole movie was about), but I'd venture to add a couple of points.
In Strangelove, Dr. Strangelove (IMHO based on Edward Teller, as Ygg suggests) advises the President to select survivors based on intelligence. He tells General Bucky that of course that would include the military (even though they're not intelligent) and it would exclude ugly women and would include really attractive women. I respectfully suggest that this means that Jewish male college professors would be disproportionately represented in the underground bomb shelter complex with harems of beautiful shiksas - and no Maddy Albright types "jew-rapping" them as a nebbish acquaintace of mine says of his Jewish girlfriend. It's a Jewish adolescent fantasy, and one I'm sure that most Jews picked up on. It's part of the "aryanizing" drive that Jews naturally engage in. Jews want to be the superrace, but they want to keep their high IQ's while shedding their physical handicaps (think Betty Friedan - what a mutt!)
In Full Metal Jacket, an officer confronts the protaganist (Matthew Modine) about his wearing on his field uniform a peace symbol and (I think) a skull or something really nasty like "kill them all and let God sort them out." I don't remember exactly, but the protaganist answers something to the effect that "I believe in the dual nature of man." That, I respectfully submit, sorta says it all. Man is designed to love his own and hate his enemies (Kieth) and that line places Kubrick waaaay far beyond the pale of any PeeCee neo-Marxist social engineering nebisshes. Kubrick really is a Darwinist, and that must have just scared the bejeesus out of his fellow Tribesmen who had long since staked their entire wad on the Marxist notion that social relations determine consciousness and that people can be re-made and rendered harmless to Jews through the institution of proper education. Kubrick took every opportunity he could to explode that illusion (Clockwork being the most on point).
Finally, I would also venture a guess that, as alluded to above, most of Kubrick's fellow Tribesmen "got" the message and some of them took them to heart. Ygg correctly, I think, makes the connection between "Clockwork Orange" and the abrupt one-eighty the IP did on promoting the classics on gentile young. I also suspect that "Barry Lyndon" and "FMJ" were formative experiences for the former Trotskyites who became neo-cons like Horowitz and company. That's of course just speculation, nevery having had the chance to gaze into the soul of a Jewish Trotskyite, but it seems clear that Kubrick's influence has been profound indeed.
Walter
2004-01-22 12:44 | User Profile
NB - ditto on The Shining.
It's the greatest horror film ever made.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, Wendy. I'm just gonna bash your f**king brains out!"
Great line delivered in a way only the great Jack Nicholson ever could.
Kubrick had a way of getting those sorts of dead-on performances from his actors.
Kubrick was a genius, no doubt.
What did you think of Full Metal Jacket? I think that Kubrick missed the mark on that one, but others say it's the greatest war film ever made.
Walter
2004-01-23 00:25 | User Profile
Walter,
I've never seen Full Metal Jacket. Wanted to for a long time.
On the subject of war movies, what did you think of Saving Private Ryan? My own feelings are mixed: I thought the brutally realistic gore was very good at bringing home the cost of war (although that scene with the mortally-wounded medic crying for his mother as his buddies tried in vain to save him made even me wince). Of course, I loathed Spielboig's inevitable injection of jeww agitprop throughout: the cringing coward "Kraut" begging for his life after shooting the medic; the jew jewily taunting the captured Germans; and perhaps worst of all, the aged Ryan visiting the grave of Hanks' character - Spielboig making sure one of the very few Star of David headstones was right next to it.....
Ah, now that's the subtlety we've come to expect from that particular cinematic Shecky......
2004-01-23 14:57 | User Profile
My thoughts on Stanley Kubrick.
Pioneered a new sort of film, the truly malicious black comedy played perfectly straight. In an era [50s/60s] when filmmakers, amped up on McLuhan and the French critics, began cramming their movies with often-pointless movement [best exemplified by the horrible zoom-lens shot] and the average number of edits in a feature film began climbing and climbing, Kubrick went the other direction: long single takes, static compositions, deliberately slow dolly-ins and zooms; framing his actors in cavernous sets and landscapes; and generally eschewing [I]slam-bang [/I] for [I]somewhat hypnotic[/I]. And when his characters fall to pieces or explode, the camera never flinches, it remains as fixed as a microscope lens on a petri dish. This isn't necessarily 'realistic' but it is a pretty intense artificiality.
As far as content goes, well, the man was deeply misanthropic. Generations of eggheads have assured themselves that Kubrick was laughing along with them at culture and social institutions when it seems pretty evident he was including them among the boobs he derided. His most slavish imitators today are the Coen brothers, yet everything Kubrick got right - they get wrong. Kubrick's contempt for the audience was at least honestly acquired and deeply felt; the Coens' smirky superiority complex was picked up in college watching Kubrick movies. There's a difference.
That's not to say that everything he did was gold. FULL METAL JACKET is a schizophrenic mess; the first half, with R Lee Ermey, is hilarious and scary at the same time, but the authenticity of these scenes is due wholly to Ermey, who keeps up a brilliantly profane tirade for about 45 minutes. Once they get to Vietnam, it plays like a war movie made in England by English academics eager to render judgments on America, but not eager enough to ever actually set foot in either America or Vietnam to do so....which was the case, as Kubrick relocated to the UK in the early 60s and never shot a foot of film outside it for the rest of his life. It also features some of the worst dialogue and directing yet seen in a war movie. (The scene where Joker first stands off with Animal Mother is an embarassment.) SPARTACUS - where he was a hired hand - is just [I]Hollywood-widescreen-epic boring[/I], and those papier-mache rocks and plastic foliage used in many 'outdoor' night scenes are laughable, given the budget of the thing.
On the other hand, most of the time he hit the bullseye, and his best pictures deserve all the praise that gets heaped on them. So many unforgettable scenes. Group Capt. Mandrake feeding the .50-cal belt to Gen. Ripper ("Mandrake, were you ever a prisoner of war?" [I]Well, yes Jack as a matter of fact I was. [/I] "Did they torture you?" [I]Yes Jack, I was tortured by the Japanese...not a pretty story. [/I] "Well, what happened?" [I]Well, they got me on the old Rangoon railway in '42....[/I] "No, I mean: when they tortured you, did you talk?" [I]Talk? No, I don't think they wanted me to talk, Jack. Torture was just their way of....having a bit of fun, the swines.[/I]); Alex the Droog going to the "movies" with his "doctors"; Timothy Carey smashing the roach in his cell and grinning, "Now you got the edge on him"; Jack Nicholson, clearly crazy long before he even gets to the Overlook, already seething barely-masked dementia on the car ride up (" See? It's OK, Wendy. He [I]saw it on the television[/I]!" - and, of course, a little later, [U]completely[/U] bull-goose looney: "[I]Little pigs! Little pigs! [/I] Let me in!"); just about [I]any [/I] scene in 2001 -still more authentically 'futuristic' than any CGI extravaganza since. One unforgettable setpiece after another.
I don't think you can put together a resume like that by accident. A few clunkers notwithstanding, Kubrick is one case where the hype is justified.
2004-01-23 15:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=TexasAnarch]x: I lack qualification to express on this, but absolutely agree and appreciate what you say, having seen all these.
Did he leave a film unfinished that Polanski took up? Someone here (wintermute?) mentioned that a while back.[/QUOTE]
Texas Anarch, I don't know about Polanski taking up an unfinished Kubrick film, but I know that Steven Spielberg finished a creative idea that Kubrick had which ended up being produced and released as [B]"AI: Artificial Intelligence". [/B] I have no opinion on this film, although I did see it. I think if Kubrick had realized this picture himself, no doubt it would have been a masterpiece, but that sniveling Spielberg is no Kubrick and his interpretation of "AI" left me indifferent.
Walter Yannis, NB Forrest, and Il Ragno: excellent posts. I value the insight and thoughts you have about Kubrick. Like I said in my original post, I've seen mostly all of SK's films in the past, but when seeing them again years later, I'm much more tuned into the message and also the art. I guess after seeing so much of the mindless garbage from Hollywood (which I'm nowadays boycotting) a filmmaker like Stanley Kubrick stands part and parcel on his own as a man who valued quality, subtlety, substance and aestheticism more than any other director/producer/screenplay writer. I'm not knocking other great filmmakers; there's plenty of them. I just think Stanley Kubrick, like Alfred Hitchkock, just stands out more.
2004-01-23 19:56 | User Profile
Ah yes, Full Metal Jacket. A really good movie and a really bad movie shown back-to-back. IR's right, Ermey carries the whole first half of the movie on his shoulders for sure. Matthew Modine as Joker was pretty miscast, as I just couldn't take him seriously a'tall. I went out and read the book on which FMJ was based ("The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hasford) and it made the movie seem taught and well-scripted by comparison. The book was just weird and confusing, though maybe that was the point.
Still, it's worth a look-see, N.B. even if the last half is lacking.
No spoilers, but the recent video of those poor Iraqi peasants/freedom fighters/evildoers (aren't they all considered the same now?) getting blown to bits by 30mm Apache rounds did disturbingly remind me of a certain chopper crewman in the flick.
Oh yeah. SPR sucked, for all the reasons N.B. outlines. The historical attention to detail was there, but I knew it was gonna be a downhill ride when the close-up Star of David shot was thrown in, maybe a little too obviously. Spielberg did make a mistake by showing a wide shot of Arlington at the very beginning, where we see an absolute field of crosses and that lonely little star all by itself. I always think of that when some whiny Jewish group or other kvetches about the U.S. "not doing enough" to help the poor Jewbies during the "good" war, whether it's turning away shiploads of Jew "refugees" or not bombing concentration camps. By the way, can y'all imagine the outcry if the 8th Air Force had actually done the latter? The Band of Brothers miniseries on HBO (I think) that tried to capitalize on the movie's popularity was even worse, and I didn't even see the one where the 101st liberates a "death camp." I can only imagine...
A.I. was just awful. I kept waiting for it to end (which it never did).
2004-01-23 22:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE]A.I. was just awful. I kept waiting for it to end (which it never did).[/QUOTE]
I've always been somewhat suspicious of AI. I just don't believe the official story that it was a Kubrick project he handed off to his good friend St Steven (especially since these stories all 'broke' after Kubrick was a bit too dead to contest the details). Nothing about the original Aldiss story seems very Kubricky, and it's not like he had an affinity or special rapport with child actors - the kid in THE SHINING was there in the King bestseller, one couldn't very well discard him on the second rewrite.
But mainly I can't see Kubrick entrusting any projects he [I]cared [/I] about to Spielberg because Spielberg was/is the embodiment of everything he hated about Hollywood - technical wizardry in the employ of corporate media, crafting cliche into propaganda. It's more likely to my jaded sensibility that Spielberg helped Kubrick, who was one of the last of the Autonomous Directors: working slowly, methodically, reshooting and re-reshooting footage, releasing two or three pictures per decade (and balance sheets and happy endings be damned). Guys like that don't often get work these days when $100 million budgets are the norm, regardless of their reputations. (Look at Coppola, a hack now going on two decades.) So maybe Spielberg went to bat on Kubrick's behalf and mau-mau'd a few green lights on his behalf, and Kubrick, sensing a powerful fanboy in his midst, offered him a property he had no intention of rever making himself. Regardless, the damn thing went on and on and on (as did MINORITY REPORT, yet another desecration of a Philip Dick story whose climax hinged on the type of movie-of-the-week cliche that might've spawned from Homer Simpson on his couch in between swigs of Duff: [I]"You mean all this time he was being set up by the [B]one [/B] person he trusted???"[/I] I watched in utter disbelief as a $150 million dollar enterprise began as BLADE RUNNER and ended as an episode of friggin' MANNIX, or CANNON.)
2004-01-26 14:56 | User Profile
Il Ragno: I'm surprised you call Coppola a "hack." I thought that Apocalypse Now was one of the best films I've ever seen.
Please elucidate, or great one!!!
Walter
2004-01-26 16:51 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Il Ragno: I'm surprised you call Coppola a "hack." I thought that Apocalypse Now was one of the best films I've ever seen.
Please elucidate, or great one!!!
Walter[/QUOTE]
Has to be because Coppola broke omerta with Godfather I and II.
Or because Godfather III appeared to be the product of a hack.
2004-01-26 17:23 | User Profile
[QUOTE=weisbrot]Has to be because Coppola broke omerta with Godfather I and II.
Or because Godfather III appeared to be the product of a hack.[/QUOTE]
I agree that GFIII sucked big time.
But Apocalypse Now? Great, great film.
I also know that Ragman broke omerta, and that's why my boys are gonna take'em out the back'n . . . ya get da pictcha.
Walter
2004-01-28 02:23 | User Profile
Walter:
Sorry for the delay, I was out of town.
Coppola a hack? Well, yes, but it's not the putdown it seems to be. Absolutely, Coppola in the 70s crafted a handful of the greatest movies ever made. But the tilt the business took in the 80s....towards the teen-oriented, sci-fi/shoot-em-up, special-effects blockbuster....plus his own string of colossal misfires and failures at the box office (ONE FROM THE HEART, RUMBLEFISH, etc) led Coppola to take what's seemed like an endless string of for-hire jobs that could've easily been assigned to any faceless quasi-talent fresh out of episodic tv or rock videos without in any way measurably altering the final product. PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, JACK, DRACULA, GODFATHER 3, THE RAINMAKER, THE COTTON CLUB....these were [I]godawful [/I] movies. Even his 'personal projects' - things like TUCKER - tend to be very very underwhelming. They have their moments but overall hardly seem worth the bother.
Did the industry crush the spirit out of him? Absolutely, that's what any System is designed to do to The Individual. Is he the captain of his own fate? Nobody is in Hollywood but the agents and the lawyers; certainly no creative artist ever is, which is why all Coppola's greatest work came bunched together in the period when he had the greatest clout and momentum. Once his ship listed, it's basically drifted in dead calm ever since.
The funny thing is I'm not sure Coppola wouldn't refer to [I]himself [/I] as a hack these days....albeit a slick and professional one. I also think that's why he seldom directs any longer, preferring to stay on the executive-producer side of the business.
And it goes without saying that he deserves harsh condemnation for reviving and nurturing the career of perverted child-molester Victor Salva, defending/promoting him at every opportunity and exec'ing both his 'comeback' films (Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2). Some might find it bitterly ironic that the visionary who created the most indelible family saga of his generation could ever champion a loathsome [I]predator [/I] upon families, but....even when it's the greatest movie you've ever seen, it's [I]still [/I] only a movie, and the people who made it are just as prone to let you down - or even repulse you - as anybody in the real world might.
2004-02-08 06:51 | User Profile
So, I guess Kubrick is now considered a "Righteous Jew?" Ok, ok, so he made some interesting films. But let's not forget the White men who [u]created[/u] film, such as: [url=http://www.edisonhouse.org/music.htm]Thomas Edison[/url], [url=http://www.holonet.khm.de/visual_alchemy/lumiere-x.html]The Lumière Brothers[/url], [url=http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank/biog/melies/melies.html]George Méliès[/url], [url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000428/]D.W. Griffith[/url], [url=http://www.busterkeaton.com/]Buster Keaton[/url], and [url=http://www.sloppyfilms.com/murnau/]F.W. Murnau[/url].
2004-02-08 07:09 | User Profile
Dunno from [I]righteous[/I], but he was an [I]interestingly weird [/I] Jew. Like Bobby Fischer is.
2004-02-08 07:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]Walter:
Sorry for the delay, I was out of town.
Coppola a hack? Well, yes, but it's not the putdown it seems to be. Absolutely, Coppola in the 70s crafted a handful of the greatest movies ever made. But the tilt the business took in the 80s....towards the teen-oriented, sci-fi/shoot-em-up, special-effects blockbuster....plus his own string of colossal misfires and failures at the box office (ONE FROM THE HEART, RUMBLEFISH, etc) led Coppola to take what's seemed like an endless string of for-hire jobs that could've easily been assigned to any faceless quasi-talent fresh out of episodic tv or rock videos without in any way measurably altering the final product. PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, JACK, DRACULA, GODFATHER 3, THE RAINMAKER, THE COTTON CLUB....these were [I]godawful [/I] movies. Even his 'personal projects' - things like TUCKER - tend to be very very underwhelming. They have their moments but overall hardly seem worth the bother.
Did the industry crush the spirit out of him? Absolutely, that's what any System is designed to do to The Individual. Is he the captain of his own fate? Nobody is in Hollywood but the agents and the lawyers; certainly no creative artist ever is, which is why all Coppola's greatest work came bunched together in the period when he had the greatest clout and momentum. Once his ship listed, it's basically drifted in dead calm ever since.
The funny thing is I'm not sure Coppola wouldn't refer to [I]himself [/I] as a hack these days....albeit a slick and professional one. I also think that's why he seldom directs any longer, preferring to stay on the executive-producer side of the business.
And it goes without saying that he deserves harsh condemnation for reviving and nurturing the career of perverted child-molester Victor Salva, defending/promoting him at every opportunity and exec'ing both his 'comeback' films (Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2). Some might find it bitterly ironic that the visionary who created the most indelible family saga of his generation could ever champion a loathsome [I]predator [/I] upon families, but....even when it's the greatest movie you've ever seen, it's [I]still [/I] only a movie, and the people who made it are just as prone to let you down - or even repulse you - as anybody in the real world might.[/QUOTE] I read in the past that Coppola was of Jewish heritage, and no I can't recall where, or whether it's true. He also bought a winery in Northern CA. Also, does any one know if John Boorman who personally scraped the money together for the 1981 treasure "Excaliber" is still alive or what... As for D.W. Griffith, any W.N. who has not seen "Birth Of A Nation" should do so. After this movie the tribe hounded D.W. Then came the filth movie "Tolerance", ha.....