Coldness and seriousness in Kubrick’s films

Stanley Kubrick – A Life in Pictures (2001) – Jan Harlan
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Saturday evening the Belgian TV station Canvas aired Stanley Kubrick – A Life in Pictures, a 2001 documentary film by Jan Harlan (Kubrick’s executive producer and brother-in-law) on the life of Stanley Kubrick. The documentary made me realize why I like Kubrick only moderately.

Stanley Kubrick is a universally acclaimed director. His filmography includes Eyes Wide Shut (1999), The Shining (1980), Barry Lyndon (1975), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Lolita (1962). Of these my favourites are A Clockwork Orange (because of the subject matter), The Shining (because it’s a horror film), Eyes Wide Shut (because its slowness teased me and because of its erotic subject matter) and Barry Lyndon (I don’t know why, I saw it when I was in my teens and I have fond memories of it since). Kubrick liked classical music. A lot. He used works from composers such as Strauss, Ligeti, Khatchaturian, Beethoven, Shostakovich and many others.

Are Kubrick’s films cold and unemotional?

“This is perhaps the most often-stated criticism of Kubrick’s work. … While, ironically, Kubrick’s films abound with scenes of emotional extremity and “outrageous” performances, such as: Jack Nicholson in The Shining; George C. Scott in Dr Strangelove; Patrick Magee in A Clockwork Orange, etc. it’s much more common for critics to cite Kubrick’s “icy distance” from his “cold, unemotional characters” as the defining characteristic of his work.” —http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index4.html [Oct 2006]

Are Kubrick’s films playful or serious?

Serious, dead serious. And that and their coldness and unemotionalism are the two main reasons that I like Kubrick only a moderately. He is just as serious and unemotional as most high modernists. If I compare his work to two other directors born in 1928, the other two win: Nicolas Roeg and Marco Ferreri; although I must say that towards the end of the documentary I grew increasingly curious about who Kubrick actually was, what made him choose the subjects he chose, why this interest in human sordidness and why did he abhor the feelgood feeling we all sometimes enjoy in film.

Stanley Kubrick eschews sentimentalism and the “feelgood”. He favors image over discourse or narrative, and his images have the immediacy and crispness and autonomy one associates with an Imagist aesthetic. —http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0092.html [Oct 2006]

It was mentioned in the documentary that Kubrick made films about things (machines, bombs, space ships, etc…) not about humans.

It was also mentioned that Kubrick had the final cut or director’s cut to the extent that he was able to withdraw A Clockwork Orange from distribution after a wave of copycat crimes. No other director had that control over his films.

I Am the Upsetter: The Story of Lee “Scratch” Perry

I Am the Upsetter: The Story of Lee “Scratch” Perry: Golden Years (2005) – Lee “Scratch” Perry
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This came out in 2005, it is the first important Perry compilation since the 1997 Arkology box set. It is chronologically ordered and features singles that were previously only available on very hard-to-find and expensive vinyl originals.

For the first time ever Lee Perry’s golden years – from his groundbreaking 1968 single “I Am The Upsetter” to the final tracks that emerged from his fabled Black Ark studio – are documented, in this lavishly illustrated four disc set. Three of the discs focus on productions from 1968 to 1971, from 1972 to 1974, and 1975 to 1978 with the fourth disc focusing on dub and instrumental recordings from 1974 to 1978. Each disc features the top tunes from that period and include little known gems that have previously been the preserve of the serious collector. 88 tracks in all from such artists as U Roy, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Max Romero, Augustus Pablo, Dillinger, The Mighty Diamonds, and many more. –from the publisher

Of boredom and interestingness

In defense of interestingness.

A week ago I reported on Harry’s ironically titled ‘Boring Art Films’ blog-a-thon. Harry specifies ironically because he does not believe that the type of contemplative cinema he refers to is indeed boring. Others may find these films boring, we think they are interesting.

While my favourite director of contemplative cinema or essay films (as Doug Dilliman has called them) is probably Catherine Breillat, I want to take this opportunity to write about a category of films which are boring if viewed from a to z – films which may not be worth to spend the 90 to 120 minutes to watch them – but that are all the more interesting to read about. These are the kind of films I wrote about on my page anti-film. The introduction went as follows:

Anti-film is film that does not respect the rules of film. For example, Andy Warhol, who forces us to watch a sleeping man during five hours, Chris Marker, who makes a film out of filmed photographs, with no moving images and Guy Debord’s Howlings in Favor of de Sade which dispenses with images and narrative altogether. [Jul 2006]

Claiming the aesthetic value of the category anti-film is a further defense of my mini-essays in praise of secondary literature and in praise of the paratext, which takes a meta-approach to the arts stating that films that actually ought to be viewed, books that actually ought to be read are just as interesting to read about.

I mean if you take the title of the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before you Die seriously, you have to exclude the wealth of films which are extremely interesting but boring to watch in their entirety. That’s why I call my filmography 199 films you could read about before you die (2006), replacing the word should by could and see by read about.

Which brings me to my contribution to this blog-a-thon, the 1952 film Howlings in Favor of de Sade[Youtube] by Guy Debord (the man who published a book with a sandpaper cover so that it would destroy other books placed next to it):

Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Howlings in Favor of de Sade) (1952) – Guy Debord
image sourced here.

Instead of using pictures, Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Howlings in Favor of de Sade) consists of black and white film leader in alternation for some 75 minutes. Debord’s voice is heard during the white sequences, while the black sections, often lasting minutes, are silent.

On April 9, 2002, Guy Debord’s films were screened in Paris in the Magic Cinema. Although I stated earlier that my purpose is to showcase films which I wouldn’t dream of seeing in their entirety, I would have been tempted to go to this screening (If I had lived in Paris and if I had known about the event). Not for the qualities of these films but from a tribal/sociological point of view: to see who attends this type of screenings.

Conjugal Love (1947) – Alberto Moravia

Conjugal Love (1947) – Alberto Moravia
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I just finished this short novel by Moravia, my second of his books, the first being The Voyeur, by which I had been impressed. It is to be re-published in English in 2007 and described thus:

Book Description
“A story of love, obsession, and betrayal from “the most important Italian creative writer [of the twentieth] century.”—The Times [London]

When Silvio, a rich Italian dilettante, and his beautiful wife agree to move to the country and forgo sex so that he will have the energy to write a successful novel, something is bound to go wrong: Silvio’s literary ambitions are far too big for his second-rate talent, and his wife Leda is a passionate woman. Antonio, the local barber who comes every morning to shave Silvio, sparks off this dangerously combustible situation when Leda accuses him of trying to molest her. Silvio obstinately refuses to dismiss him, and the quarrel and its shattering consequences put the couple’s love to the test.

Alberto Moravia earned his international reputation with frank, finely-observed stories of love and sex at all levels of society. In this new English translation of Conjugal Love, he explores an imperiled relationship with his customary unadorned style, psychological penetration, and narrative art.

Just as in The Voyeur the main theme of Conjugal Love is a wife unfaithful to her husband. In both cases the husband is the narrator. I identify the narrator with Moravia himself. In real life, Moravia’s wife was unfaithful to him with Klaus Kinski (Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski). Instead of disliking or becoming angry at the unfaithfullness, the narrator gets a perverse pleasure from it reminiscent of candaulism.

Moravia is famous for another novel which bears the name Boredom. Now as you know boredom is a prerogative of the very rich. Poor people don’t have time to be bored, they have to work. In real life, Moravia was born into a wealthy family.

See also: adultery – marriage – Alberto Moravia – 1947 – 1900s literature – Italian literature

Other blogs

Yves Klein… Anthropométries de l’époque bleue (1960, Flash Video 02:27) and Yves Klein réalisant des peintures de feu (1961, Flash Video 09:04). From the Yves Klein Archives, 21, avenue du Maine 75015 Paris. –via GMTPlus9 (-15)

Conversational Reading reports on “Luc Sante writes a nice essay on H.P. Lovecraft.” and “Good point. (about classics in literature) ” —Conversational Reading by Scott Esposito

The Fly (1986) – David Cronenberg

The Fly (1986) – David Cronenberg
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A brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong. A celebration of biological horror, body horror, metamorphoses and the theme of the beauty and the beast. One of David Cronenberg’s mainstream films.

See also: metamorphoses – David Cronenberg – 1986

The Bays Are Sere (1888) – Édouard Dujardin

The Bays Are Sere (1888) – Édouard Dujardin
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Edouard Dujardin’s “The Bays are Sere”, first published in 1887, was the first novel written entirely in interior monologue or stream of consciousness. For a long time its impact was dormant, until James Joyce read it in 1903 and subsequently revealed its influence upon him. As a result it was republished to great acclaim in 1924, after which Dujardin wrote “Interior Monologue”, an essay on the origin of this style and how he came to adopt it. This book was freely translated into English by Joyce’s friend Stuart Gilbert and published in 1938 as “We’ll To The Woods No More”. The present completely new translation is faithful to the original and reproduces all Dujardin’s innovations. “Interior Monologue” is translated here for the first time. Edouard Dujardin (1861-1947) was editor of the “Revue Wagerienne”, one of the most influential literary journals in Paris in the 1885. He was a poet and playwright who also wrote on the history of religion. –from the publisher

Édouard Dujardin (1861–1949) was one of the early pioneers of the literary technique stream of consciousness, exemplified in his 1888 novel Les lauriers sont coupés (which remains in print into the 21st century). —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89douard_Dujardin [Oct 2006]

See also: French literature – stream of consciousness – 1888

Metamorphoses

Unknown engraving of Heliades turning into trees

Metamorphoses of any kind have always interested me because of their uncanniness. I recently re-viewed The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) by Roger Corman in which a plant becomes a carnivore, and after it has eaten a number of people, the last buds of the plant open and reveal the faces of the people it has eaten. Voilà, man is crossed with a flower –> metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis is a frightening and intriguing concept which can take many forms: crosses between humans and plants, objects and humans, etc…

A particular variety of metamorphosis is people turning into furniture. So I found two stories in which humans transform into chairs: the French libertine novel Le Sopha, conte moral (1742) by Crébillon fils and Japanese short story The Human Chair (1925) by Edogawa Rampo. In both stories a man becomes a sofa, in the former quite literally so (by a curse), in the latter, a man hides in sofa to feel the persons who sit in him.

Das Gespensterbuch (1569) – Ludwig Lavater

In search of the roots of Tales of the Dead.

Das Gespensterbuch (1569) – Ludwig Lavater
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Image sourced here.

The fullest and most influential work on angels and ghosts in the sixteenth century was Das Gespensterbuch by Ludwig Lavater, first printed in Zurich in 1569. The work was quickly translated into German and then French, Spanish and Italian. The English translation appeared in 1572 with the title, Of Ghostes and Spirites walking by Nyght, and of strange noyses, crackes and sundry forewarninges.

In a conflicting account on Wikipedia, where Gespensterbuch redirects to Tales of the Dead, there is no reference to an anterior version of Gespensterbuch (and maybe there are no similarities, but just the title, I don’t know).

The collection had its origin in Gespensterbuch (lit. “ghost book”), a five-volume anthology of German language ghost stories. The original anthology was published in Leipzig between 1811 and 1815. The stories were compiled by Friedrich August Schulze (1770 – 1849), under the pen name Friedrich Laun, and Johann August Apel (September 17, 1771 – August 9, 1816).

The latter is the one that was used by Byron and company in 1816 to scare and inspire:

On the night of June 16, after Lord Byron, John Polidori and the Shelleys had read aloud from the Tales of the Dead, a collection of horror tales, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary Shelley worked on a tale that would later evolve into Frankenstein. Byron wrote (and quickly abandoned) a fragment of a story, which Polidori used later as the basis for his own tale. [Aug 2006]