Siskel & Ebert Review The Films of... Stanley Kubrick

[Music] [Applause] when the news of the Unexpected death of Stanley cubic arrived there was a sense of shock in the film world where cubic was generally considered a grand Grand Master here he is directing the shiny which he began filming in 1978 don't look at your hands Dan don't look at your hands when you come around keep it low come on slowly slowly slowly keep coming when he died last March he had just finished work on Eyes Wide Shut which would be his last film and he left the legacy of other movies that have survived the test of time to become familiar Classics after some early work his career really took off with the killing in 1957 the story of a racetrack robbery get your hands up all of you now one move out of anyone of you and I'm going to start firing then came P of Glory with Kirk Douglas as a World War I French officer who loses his faith in the cause I apologize sir for not telling you sooner that you're a degenerate sadistic old man and you can go to hell before I apologize to you now or ever again my Stanley kubri film on video is his superb 19 57 anti-war Masterpiece PA of Glory Stein Kirk Douglas in the story of French soldiers in World War I sent on a suicide mission just so some general might get an extra star the troops position is hopeless as Douglas leads them into massive German artillery fire later after the troops have rebelled and are Court marshal for doing it and are scheduled to be executed Kirk Douglas is stunned at their fate and you see Colonel troops are like children just as a child wants his father to be firm troops crave discipline nice see and one way to maintain discipline is to shoot a man now and then may I ask do you sincerely believe all the things you've just said that was Adolf Mau as the general PA of Glory is a near Perfect film masterfully directed and quite shocking for its time I think in the rawness of his language it's 30 years old it seems So Fresh So Very Fresh when you see it now in the wild contradictions expressed by its officers it's a great companion piece to see along with full metal jacket and Doctor Strange Love on when it comes to films about war and warriors Stanley kubric is a master he knows what he's doing spus an epic that kubri said he didn't like but audiences [Music] did it's Lawrence Olivier as an evil Roman Tyrant confronting Kirk Douglas the leader of a slave revolt in a scene from Spartacus from 1960 and along with Lawrence of Arabia Spartacus is considered a thinking man's Epic film The Story of a Roman slave played by Douglas who wants freedom for his brothers in bondage this film had been chopped by sensors before its original release some of its original negatives were destroyed but now it has been lovingly restored to its original length by the same experts who saved Lawrence of Arabia and when I first saw this movie at age 14 I like the battle scenes more than the love story singing again it now as a 45-year-old just the opposite reaction preferring the genuinely romantic scenes between KT Douglas and Jean Simmons as the slave who loves him why don't you kiss me this is the first time I was ever going to have a baby [Music] composer Alex North has contributed a sweet melody for their love [Music] affair also most entertaining Peter hustoff an Oscar winner for his supporting performance as the droll conniving slave dealer who buys Spartacus 11 mil through this disastrous Heat and the cost of hiring an escort Ru us the battle scenes as Spartacus leaves the slaves against the Roman army are justifiably famous director Stanley kubri then just 31 years old displaying here an eye for [Music] spectacle one controversial scene that was cut from the original release of the movie and is now restored is the infamous oysters and snails scene with the bisexual Roman nobleman Cris Lawrence Olivier inquiring about the sexual preferences of a slave played by Tony Curtis because Olivier is dead Anthony Hopkins from Silence of the Lambs dubbed Olivia's voice in this scene do you eat oysters when I have the master do you eat snails no master do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral and the eating of snails to be immoral no master of course [Music] not it is all a matter of taste isn't it Spartacus does hold up upon second viewing and in comparison with today's movies with scenes like that it seems so much more adult with mature actors playing fully grown men and women with wit and passion and ideas and sometimes even a world weary attitude toward life today it seems we're watching mostly boys girls and I do recommend strongly seeing Spartacus again didn't you that impress you um I liked it I think it's a good epic but not a great epic it's not up there with Lawrence of I tell you what I liked oliv I lik Kirk Douglas uh I like Charles lton and I really enjoyed Peter hustoff who steals the movie just as he did 30 years ago every one of his scenes as a little Jewel the thing that I really liked I think admired the most about this movie that you wouldn't find today is it doesn't end in total victory for Sparticus ends with the victory of his idea that slavery is wrong and that's a bittersweet ending it's all the audience is going to get instead of the triumphant hero in a very simple-minded Victory I think there's another thing the the age it seems I'd have to go back and check it but the age of the players and The Way They Carried themselves seems to be so much more adult yeah than today today it would be cast with young you know young vigorous Sylvester Stallone arold Schwarzenegger Battle of death and that sort of thing it would seem more of a kid show than an adult show I was I was I was happy to see it again the controversial Lolita with James Mason in love with a Nim fet I don't want you around them they're nasty minded boys this version of Lolita is lightweight in my opinion introducing and then teasing its Scandal of subject matter only to end abruptly unfortunately for its director Adrien ly his film is going to be compared with the work of one of the true masters of the cinema Stanley kuer whose own brilliant version of Lolita was released back in 1962 this version of Lita is more straightforward clinical and less disturbing I guess pedestrian is the word I'm looking for Adrien lines Lolita will open theatrically next week in Los Angeles and will air on Showtime beginning August 2nd rent the kubri version is my recommendation I thought six days ago and well it was fantastic uh kubric Lolita is not one of his best films and this film although I think it also falls short of the novel I think makes a more sincere effort to be true to novikov's Vision than curi does curic I think pulls away from the subject matter and tries to displace it into a more acceptable Arena this movie is absolutely about the subject of sexual Obsession as it goes both ways between these two people and I think that it is probably not correct to say it ends abruptly I think it ends where it has to end with this Revelation about Lolita's true feelings and I think that the that reveals the real subject of the novel which is how men men are absolutely controlled by their own delusions about themselves and about their romances I remember something that Lou M told me when he made pretty baby a film that touches into the same area and Mr M said that he said you know I think young girls know everything he said and then they spend the rest of their lives being taught to forget it well lolia knows a lot more than Humbert Humper does in this movie and in the novel that's for sure all right but what I'm saying is mil's idea that he expressed to me is provocative and this film doesn't come close to touching any of that think it does touch it I don't think it's a successful film but I think it is a very sincere film and I think it's a more faithful adaptation actually well the kubri film is Haunting in my opinion this film is not the classic black comedy Doctor Strange Love of Peter sers in three roles and George C Scott as a gum chewing General the bomb Demetri the hydrogen bomb is Dr Strange Love the 1963 film that remains one of the benchmarks of modern movie history of film so outrageous in this betrayal of nuclear war that even today it's quoted and referred to as an example of a whole mindset here's Sterling Hayden as the paranoid General Jack D Ripper I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration communist indoctrination communist subversion and the international communist conspiracy to sap and imp purify all of our precious bodily fluids and who could ever forget the movie shocking climax with bomber pilot slim Pickin actually riding an hbomb down to its Target I looked at the laser dis version of Doctor Strange Love the other night and I was struck All Over Again by how daring and how modern this movie is I think you could make a good cause that Strange Love is one of the few movies that really has been influential in our Times by its portrayal of a cold war mindset that is so rigid and so bureaucratic that it has no interest in the human reality of War Roger I think it's I've often called it my favorite film of all time it's the one I love to see as much as any film ever made and I think that just to comment on what we're talking about in uh Full Metal Jacket I think when you start to compare against that greatness I think that's influencing you I think Full Metal Jacket is very strong in other words you don't think it's as good as Doctor Strange Love uh I think very few I think probably no films are 30 years is a generation and so maybe a whole new generation of film Growers needs to be introduced to the greatness of Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strange Love are how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb the 1964 Cold War satire about America's nuclear defense system run ack and when I'm asked to name my all-time favorite movie not necessarily the greatest movie of all time but just my personal favorite movie this is the one I pick and it's been restored by kubric and it's glorious with the great Peter sers in a triple role first as a British officer mandre confronting a renegade American General Jack D Ripper played by Sterling Hayden who has ordered a first strike nuclear attack on Russia I friend ask you for the key and the recall Cod have you gotten hand sir I told you to take it easy group Captain there's nothing anybody can do about this thing now I'm the only person who knows the three-letter code group the order to attack naturally triggers a crisis in the pentagon's war room where the President murkin muffley also played by Peter sers tries to Plate the Russian Premier kiss off in a classic phone call well let me finish Demetri let me finish Dimitri well listen how do you think I feel about it can you imagine how I feel about it Demitri why do you think I'm calling you just to say hello of course I like to speak to you of course I like to say hello lurking in the shadows is sell's third character the demented German theorist do Strange Love who relishes the prospect of a nuclear Holocaust so he can build a race of Supermen with lots of women around of course it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to Foster and imp Parts the required principles of leadership and tradition fabulous the movie today seems as fresh and as pointed as when I was first released when I saw it as a college kid technology run a mock bureaucracy run and Peter sers at the center of it all a great film lovingly restored you must catch it theaters especially if you haven't seen it before Oh It's a Wonderful film and it's not dated it's fresh it could play today it could have come out today and we were talking earlier about that great uh set in the Vampire movie here is another movie with another great set the war room Ken Adam is the set the way that that war room that circle of light and that map showing those bombers going toward Russia the way that plays is so much uh of an underpinning to the effect of the entire movie and then just one funny performance after another how many movies after 30 years have given us two catchphrases precious bodily fluids and perverts uh prevert how did I get that wrong I want to see a lot of movies there's a little movie theater there and we've had some of our friends offer to send us movies which I and I love to watch movies we love to watch movies too Mr President and when we saw you saying that on NBC news we decided that of course it was our duty as Citizens and film critics to suggest some movies we think you your family and guests would enjoy screening in that convenient White House theater and first of all it is great to have a movie fan in the White House and this is probably a game a lot of people can play what films would you want the president and his guests to screen Roger and I each made our own independent choices each for reasons we're going to explain and the first two revolve around the very presidential issue of leadership gone wrong my choice and it's an obvious but I think it's a great one Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strange Love or how I learn to stop worrying and love the bomb one of of my favorite scenes as Russia is under threat of nuclear attack from the United States occurs in the Pentagon war room as a fight breaks out between the Russian Ambassador dedesi played by Peter Bull and the gungho American General Buck tureson played by George C Scott gentlemen you can't fight in here this is the war room that's one of the greatest lines of dialogue in any film now of course President Clinton has seen this film but I'm sure that if he were to see it again in the white house with the Chiefs of Staff sitting around him I'm sure it would take on a real immediacy because among the many many comic points this film makes is that technology has a way of dominating its creators build it and they will come to use it I also hope that the White House staff invests in a laser disc machine so if they don't see this film on 35 millimeter I hope that the president and his guests can see Strange Love in the great new disc that Stanley kubri himself has supervised this film has never looked better than at home and Roger I will buy the White House a laser disc machine if it is not in the American budget I think that's very generous of Eugene but it's a great disc that kubri did I would pay half of it but I can see it's something you want to do for yourself so I won't get we'll go 5050 the scene I thought you were going to show is the one where the president has to get on the phone to the head of the Russian government and say we made a little mistake there are some missiles coming your way okay and one of the hilarious War Room monologues in his 1964 classic Dr strangel here's the situation the United States has mistakenly launched it arsenal of B-52 bombers at the Soviet Union at first it seems there's no way to get them back and it's up to the timid American president mkin muffley played by Peter sers to call the Russian premere and explain whoops what happened here's Peter sers at his best one of our base commanders he had a sort of well he went a little funny in the head you know just a little funny and uh he went and did a silly thing well I'll tell you what he did he ordered his Planes to attack your country that scene makes me laugh and think at the same time there have been a lot of famous phone call scenes in the movies none better than that and when I see that scene and laugh out loud every time I also realize how much I miss Peter sers one of our greatest comic talents dead now almost 12 years why do you think I'm calling you just to say hello of course I like to speak to you of course I like to say hello not now but anytime Dimitri I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened the Visionary 2001 A Space Odyssey generally considered one of the best films of the century is undoubtedly the single greatest outer space film ever made it's Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey he made it between 1966 and 1968 for $10 million the most money ever spent there then on a science fiction film at least up to that time it's hard to describe really the impact of 2001 we really hadn't ever seen anything like it before the story took us back to the dawn of man with Apes our predecessors discovering how to use primitive tools all the way up to the year 2001 with man using more sophisticated tools spaceships to try and unlock the mysteries of the universe a lot of people say they have trouble getting the meaning or message of 2001 but I think you can get simply enough out of the picture by experiencing the Majesty of space flight the feeling of longing for another world of venturing into and encountering the unknown it's the single best vision of space ever to come out of the movies in fact don't take my word for it get this a couple of months ago I happened to be flying to Cincinnati I was seated next to Neil Armstrong the astronaut the first man to walk on the moon Armstrong told me that of all the space movies he liked 2000 and one the best that it did a remarkable job of communicating what living and traveling through otter space is actually like what a remarkable impressive compliment for a great movie that must be the best review that Stanley cubic ever got for 2001 and you know of all the people in the world if they were sitting next to Neil Armstrong they would ask him what it was like to walk on the Moon it took you to ask him what he thought about 2001 but I think I know what you were getting at because the amazing thing about 2001 which is now more than 12 years old is that it is fixed forever in my imagination I think in the imaginations of a lot of people who have seen it what we think outer space looks like now a lot of places we've never been I've never been to Australia I've never been to the South Pole and I've never been to outer space but I think I know what all those places look like because of the movies I've seen and 2001 by cubric establishes a standard of Excellence before that you could get away with a lot of schlock in science fiction movies but after that remarkable special effects achievement the the picture was fixed in our minds of outer space the Stars the surface of the Moon in such a way that any other movie after that was going to have to spend at least as much money and have at least as much knowhow in order to match that vision and there was another standard that 2001 set and I think that is for its intellectual content I think that you can debate what that little slab that the astronauts fine means you can debate that at all you want one thing you can't debate is the intellectual emotional thrust of the picture which is going out there moving on mankind moving on this need this desire and properly so to find out what is beyond to increase our intelligence that's all in 2001 what a rich experience it is to think about and to feel viscerally that kind of desire to move on through the world I think that's the essence of Science Fiction films we want to be put out there we want to travel and see things we haven't seen before and that was a movie that was so in other words it was really great at both areas that science fiction is involved in the hardware and also the ideas the the vision right our video pick this week focuses on one of the greatest films of all time Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey now from March the 10th to 15th the University of Illinois at arbana will hold a cyberfest to celebrate one of the movies key anniversaries I am a h 9,000 computer I became operational at the H plant in Arana Illinois on the 12th of January 1992 how's birthday is an occasion for a weeklong festival devoted to 2001 and the subject of artificial intelligence to prepare for cyberfest I called arthury Clark the author of the original story and screenplay at his home in Sri Lanka well you know 2001 is certainly the best science fiction movie ever made and as you probably know it was voted um one of the greatest 10 films of all time in that poll that's taken every 10 years by S and sound magazine in London it's considered one of the the top 10 films of all time but so many other science fiction films have not followed that lead there has not been a film since 2001 with the same kind of vision or ambition of course 2001 s films for about a decade you until the technology caught up with it and then we had uh you know Star Wars and and so forth uh which are um you know I guess space westerns great fun I enjoy them but you're perhaps right in saying that no one's ever attempted to follow the lead created by 200 one the whole third Act of 2001 is such a Visionary leap into the unknown how did you get away with that you and curi in in in making a a film with an ending that is so poetic and and provocative and unconventional Stanley deserved all the credit for that I just gave him some ideas and inputs and the credit go to Stanley and his amazing special effects team led by Douglas Trumble uh and one beavers the star child the last shot in the film as the star child or at least 2001 fans Now call it the star child I I don't know if that was really what you called it but the Starchild turns and looks at the audience what is the Starchild asking is and what can we how can we respond I would say that the implication is that the future is wide open it's up to us what we do about it our destiny is at least to some extent under our own control but of course at the time a lot of people didn't get it and one of the remarks I remember hearing after the premiere was from a senior MGM executive saying despar well that's the end of the standy cuber but it sure wasn't the original reviews were generally negative but audiences came and stayed in today 2001 A Space Odyssey is seen more than ever as one of the great Visionary films of modern time the drama of the moment I'm about to show you is as dramatic I will submit as any in the history of film again I go to Stanley kubri and to the critical moment in his 2001 Space Odyssey from 1968 in which in the greatest jump cut in movie history A Primitive man's weapon a bone becomes another weapon a satellite carrying [Applause] bombs [Music] [Laughter] [Music] I think the proper response to that scene has always been wow and in that scene I think kuer cuts across human history so that a million years from now someone writing about the history of the Earth would include both that bone and that satellite as significant events and cut out a whole lot that's gone on in between that's humbling that's wow I'm not sure though that it's drama because it seems to me that drama involves dialogue and people I mean that would have been my assumption in choosing for this category maybe you've kind of stretched the category a little bit but Roger I thought of drama as an emotional moment that wasn't somebody knocking somebody out or something like that in action or a Chase I mean you know that sequence you you probably remember where you were when you first saw that I sure do I was in the theater the film that exploded my mind about what a film could be came a year after college in 1968 Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey in terms of sound and images and story construction this film is a groundbreaker I treasure two moments first the end of the key opening sequence the dawn of man sequence when the Apes discover that a bone is a tool that can have many [Music] uses [Applause] and then comes one of the greatest edits in the history of the cinema that's a great political and sociological statement done in a classic Visual and for sheer drama who can foret the film's final shot before the intermission that's how the film was first shown with an intermission when we find out before the American astronauts do that the halil 9000 computer can think for itself and is EAS dropping on their conversation about it well as far as I know no 9,000 computers have been disconnected well no 9,000 computers ever found out before that's not what I mean well I'm not so sure what he'd think about it I think the film embodies the essence of Stanley Kubrick's films all of them The Duality of Man for creation and for Destruction and you can see it in the Clockwork Orange going farther back pths the glory most recently in his Vietnam film full jacket and when I saw 2001 in 1968 well it didn't make me want to be a movie critic I was thinking of being a lawyer at the time but it certainly opened my eyes to the potential of film as film and you know the problem is just looking at those scenes again right now yes 20 years later there are no directors working with that kind of vision not even cubric really nobody who wants to redefine what a movie is and redefine what a movie can do all of the so-called Giants in Hollywood today are so trapped in narrative you'd think they were back in the 30s or the 40s again tell a story get the right star get the right Chemistry Between Two stars there are no stars in this movie and there's no chemistry there's just such an enormous Vision that when you sit there you're just transfixed as you look up at the screen I want to tell you a sad story I was once asked what movie prop would I most like to have I said the monolith in 2001 I talked to Stanley Kubrick about getting it you know what he told me what doesn't exist MGM in London threw it away for storage space none of the props gone it really is too bad because Ted Turner owns MGM now so if he had the monolith he could probably colorize it pink and use it as a desk now we have a couple of recommendations involving the promise and threat of technology and my choice well you've just seen a famous scene from it Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey another film for the president and His White House screening room and you know if he's reelected Bill Clinton actually could be president in the year 2001 I'll be it only for the first 19 days the movie is a meditation in four short short stories about how mankind has and may evolve through technological leaps forward now what I propose that the president look at this film I'm sure youve seen it before this time with the eyes of an Explorer he is the captain of the ship of state of course he's seen 2001 but never with the opportunity to be inspired by it and act on an inspiration the film's ending also offers a real choice for the president doing things the old way does he want to end up as an old sclerotic old man in a fancy room or does he aspire to the rebirth as a star baby I know he has never inhaled but I would like to see our president get high Naturally by simply screening 2001 all alone in a dark room and then maybe with the head of NASA or the Surgeon General with him dream the big dream gentlemen and this is a film that inspires you to dream A Clockwork Orange about a future Society where mind control does battle with violence one example of a movie that has achieved cult video status we're told is Stanley coer A Clockwork Orange made in 1971 four years before Rocky Horror Kubrick's film and I think is one of his greatest is a mind-bending journey into the ultra violent near future anticipating a punk Revolution where violent kids run wild in the streets and in this scene in their own private clubs Malcolm McDow plays the music lovering leader of the [Music] pack and it was like for a moment oh my brothers some great bird had flown Into The Milk Bar and I felt all the malany little hairs on my plot standing endwise and the Shivers crawling up like slow malany lizards and then down again because I knew what she said it was a bit from the Glorious nth by Ludwig [Music] Van what happens in this film is mcdal is captured by the police and treated with visual shock therapy seeing a a whole bunch of violent images sort of like what we go through Roger when we see the Friday the 13th series and the result is a pacified dehumanized Mal McDow now is this what we want as a society is this the future we're going to get whether we want it or not A Clockwork Orange deals with those individual versus society issues and it does so with Unforgettable images in fact and I think this is key they're some of the same Punk images that we see today you know I looked at the film again on video only last night and one of the most amazing things to me was the opening sequence where Malcolm McDow and his friends are running wild through the city with their clubs beating up on people and things and I was reminded of the opening shots of Sid and Nancy The Rock movie that came out this year in which the Sex Pistols Sid Vicious is doing exactly the same thing another thing I felt last night you know when this movie came out I had a lot of reservations about it based upon the fact that I felt it had all head and no heart and I still feel that way about the film that this is a cerebral exercise not an emotional exercise but the sad thing is in the last 15 years violence in our society has become so pervasive so much more so even than a 1971 that by now I was able in looking at the film or maybe because I'm older I was able to share some of Cub's own Detachment more than the first time I saw this this is a Visionary film it can be viewed as simply a cool thing a punk thing but I think that the power of this film for adults to rent is that it is visionary and as current as it was in 1971 and of course nobody ever questioned cu's filmm he's a great director the next performance that Oscar overlooked really astounds me it's one of the finest performances of the 70s Malcolm McDow and Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange it's about a society of the future trying to control violence McDow plays a futuristic Street Punk who enjoys kicking the stuffing out of old men and roughing up women now what's remarkable about McDow in A Clockwork Orange is his range of emotion from a domineering gang leader to a whimpering brainwash victim of Mind Control first we see him as the gang leader beating his buddies into submission [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I had not could from Power demonstrated to power implied that's what's coming up here now after slashing his buddies gang leader McDow now takes quiet control of his henchmen watch mcdow's face here it almost becomes a menacing death mask well now we're back to where we were yes just like before and all forgotten right right right right after some painful brain conditioning mcdow's personality is transformed he returns home from prison only to find that his parents have taken in another son to replace him mcdal would normally get angry but he's been programmed to get sick whenever he feels a violent urge coming on how do you do Joe find the room comfortable do you no complaints I've heard about you I know what you've done breaking the Arts of your poor grieving parents so you're back eh you're back to make life a misery for your lovely parents once more is that it will Over My Dead Cops you will because you see they've let me be more like a son to them than like a lodger don't go figh in here boys a terrific performance but I think I know why this performance was ignored by Oscar in any film by Stanley kubri pictures like 2001 of Space Odyssey Barry Lyndon it's the film and Kubrick's direction of it not the actor that is the star mcdal was overshadowed by kubri the director and Oscar in the process ended up ignoring an impressive piece of acting you know you're absolutely right and it's true of critics too with a director like cubrick who controls every aspect of his film totally from beginning to end we say Stanley cubric 2001 think quick who starred in it little hard to remember isn't it Gary Lockwood And kir Delay right but we were just thinking of it you think of it as a cubric film The other director like that that I can think of is Alfred Hitchcock who was so much in control of the whole production that even though he uses some of Hollywood's top Stars they don't necessarily win their Oscar nominations for Hitchcock film people think of oh that was Hitchcock's film that wasn't Carrie Grant or that wasn't ingred Bergman you're right uh one of the things that McDonald does in the film is so well is simply survive it he's got a lot to do in the picture he Stomps on people he gets stomped on himself uh he almost is drowned in one sequence it's a remarkable physical piece of acting he's in virtually every scene a a superior performance Mary Lyndon based on ther's novel about a petty little man who lives against the backdrop of tumultuous times in Europe [ __ ] your pistols Gentlemen The Shining with Jack Nicholson slowly going mad during a Long snowbound Winter damn Soul just a glass of beer hi Lloyd and Full Metal Jacket which begins with basic training and then takes his characters to [Music] Vietnam our next preview trailer is for Full Metal Jacket the new Vietnam film by Stanley cubrick who is generally considered to be one of the greatest living directors and certainly one of the great perfectionists among filmmakers cubrick makes his films in complete secrecy he shot this Vietnam movie entirely on sound stages in England and he supervises every aspect of his release and that includes personally directing his trailers so this Coming Attraction trailer is not by an ad agency not by marketing experts it's by Stanley cubrick himself the enemy has very deceitfully taken advantage to the Tet ceased fire launch an offensive all over the country in Saigon the United States Embassy has been overrun by Suicide squads Kon is standing by to be overrun we also have reports that a division of NVA has occupied all of the city of wh south of the perfume River strategic terms Charlie's cut the country in half the civilian press are about to wet their pants and and we've heard even kronites going to say the war is now unwinable sir does this mean that an Margaret's not coming whose side are you on son our side sir don't you love your country yes sir then how about getting with the program why don't you jump on the team and come on in for the big win yes sir son all I've ever asked of my Marines is to obey my orders as they would the word of God we are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every go is an American trying to get out It's A Hard Ball World son we got to keep our heads until this piece craze blows [Music] over Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket looking at Full Metal Jacket I had a couple of very strong Impressions to begin with it looks like the film is apparently a comedy a sardonic satirical black comedy in the tradition of Cub's Masterpiece Doctor Strange Love Now I didn't know that until I saw this trailer if you'd asked me I would have guessed this movie was a drama in the second place this is a very strong piece of film making it plays on its own as an effective short film it somehow gives me confidence that this is going to be a good movie and it made me curious to see it so this trailer did its job oh it did its job beautifully first of all it starts out very solemnly about Vietnam and I think boy is this going to be better than platoon I don't know it could it's kubric it's going to be better than plon then it starts to have some funny stuff in there I said oh my God he's really going to make fun or have fun with Vietnam he had fun with blowing up the world in strange was brilliant this could be brilliant too let me see the picture well I guess if a customer is sitting there saying let me see the picture the trailer has word coming up next few films have been more eagerly awaited this summer than Full Metal Jacket the Vietnam epic by Stanley curi and few films I'm afraid will be more disappointing this isn't a bad film but it's not a great film and in the recent history of movies about Vietnam full metal jacket is too little and too late it invites comparison with platoon and I'm afraid It suffers by that comparison the movie tells the story of a group of infantrymen from basic training right through to a fatal firefight with an enemy sniper and of course there's no way we can see that story and not be reminded of platoon which is a stronger and more confident movie Full Metal Jacket Stars Lee iry is a tough profane Marine drill instructor who is so single-minded in his Devotion to the core that he's actually capable of making a speech like this anybody know who Lee Harvey oswal was private snowball sir he shot Kennedy sir that's right and do you know how far away he was Sir it was pretty far from that book's depository building sir all right knock it off 250 ft he was 250 ft away and shooting at a moving Target hwal got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only 6 seconds and scored two hits including a head shot do any of you people know where these individuals learned how to shoot private Joker sir in the Marines sir and the Marines outstanding those individuals showed what one motivated Marine in his rifle can do that haunting face belongs to one of the recruits who's just about to go over the edge once they're in Vietnam one of the other Marines is assigned Duty as a journalist and learns the propaganda ropes Search and Destroy um we have a new directive from MAF on this in the future in place of Search and Destroy substitute the phrase sweep and clear sweep and clear got it got it very catchy that's Matthew Modine as the wouldbe journalist there a lot of the second half of the film was given over to a firefight in the city of whey where snipers pinned down the Americans while cameramen film the story for the evening news he you Jo Wayne is this me hey startch the cameras this is Vietnam the movie yeah Joker can beat John way I'll be a horse dhg rock can be a rock I'll be an Margaret animal mother can be a rabbit Buffalo I'll be General kuster who will be the Indian hey we'll let the cooks play the Indian some of those scenes especially the first two might make you think the Full Metal Jacket resembles the dark irony of Stanley cuck's classic 1963 anti-war film Doctor Strange Love but you'd only be about half right there is irony in this movie and satire and comedy but there was also way too much routine war footage age the opening scenes and basic training recycle material we've seen before all except for a brilliant performance by Vincent Doo as a pudgy weakling who the Marines turn into a psychopath that was him we saw looking up at the camera in that earlier scene and there is more recycling at the end of the film which is devoted to that firefight in the ruins of a burning City a sequence that was shot on a giant set and looks like it and reminded me more of World War II war movies than of the special war in Vietnam we expect an original master piece from Stanley cubic every time out and this time I'm afraid it's a not a bad movie but it's not original and it's not a masterpiece oh I think it's very original and very close to being a masterpiece I mean first of all I think that the stuff that we see the training sequences are absolutely startling even though this is familiar material I think that that that image that we got of that guy is explosive and I'll never forget it second the fighting here uh is a is a different kind of fighting than in platoon it's City fighting and it looks different and it's a whole different war and he's playing this film I think at a whole another level platoon was about embracing the soldier and giving the soldier credit for this crazy world that he was in this fighting to me is about the mixture of of joy in fighting and the absolute fear of being killed in the sense of when there's this guy called animal who charges I was so excited for him and it's the guy I supposed to hate and then when I see a sniper go on an American and kubri has his camera push in I feel for the first time people getting attacked I think visually this is is the strongest movie I've seen in a long time I first of all I didn't think it was that visually exciting except for a few specific shots that were really great but secondly let's talk about that very sequence you're talking about one of the guy's friends is wounded and he's out there uh Under Fire and the other one says I'm going to go get him and he runs out blasting with his machine gun to try to rescue him then later later later later the others come up behind and we can clearly see where the sniper is then when you get to that reverse shot and he pushes in that is a cliche Gene I mean I when saw that push I was so disappointed in cuic this whole sequence is taken right out of absolutely routine Grade B Republic World War II war movies of guys running out there to try to save their and somebody El I have never felt a kill in a movie quite like that not in Apocalypse Now not in the deer hter not like that well then in that case you're going to love the Late Show because they have kills like that every night and black and white starring John Wayne staring midnight but they don't have movies like this film full I disagree and I disagree particularly about the part that you like well that's just one scene I like the whole film it's full of great scenes full metal jacket but you know the real uh buried subject here is our disagreement about full metal jacket and I would be very surprised if you like that movie in 30 years as much as you like this one today I don't think it's going to hold up that well it's not one of his great films in the in the world of films is made today Full Metal Jacket is a film to recommend Full Metal Jacket is a very very fine film my opinion is the Full Metal Jacket is not curi at the top of his Forum which we've just seen here Roger it is not as good as those two films which are among the greatest films ever made but for you on this show to give thumbs down to Full Metal Jacket I think is a gross mistake I think it is a film worth I think I'm trying to put the movie in a context and I'm trying to tell people that it is not as good and this is the show where you give Benji the hund a positive review it's 90 minutes long only has about 100 words of dialogue it's about a dog in the wilderness beautiful photography those cute little cougar C which you mentioned the magnific of the other animals the adventures the the little kittens crossing the stream the very shot you pointed out this movie is a movie that kids would really enjoy you know what they Roger my rebuttal of this film is you wrapping yourself in in the flag of children and I'm saying go see the Black Stallion instead there's a film with Little D so much better on I'm not wrapping myself in the flag of children you're wrapping yourself in the flag of the sophisticated film CRI seen at all no boredom boredom with that any child is going to be bored by this movie and indeed I found the nature of Photography to be very interesting myself now Jean that's totally unfair because you realize that these reviews are relative Benji the 100 is not onethird the film one tenth the film that the cubic film is but you know that the same thing happens that you review films within context so it's not fair for you to compare those two reviews and you know it and you should be ashamed of yourself and what's amazing about all those films is that they don't get old I mean his films really seem to exist in our memories and the images remained sharp even after all these years he's a master of style a perfectionist a man who never made a movie casually or just for box office gain there died in England last Sunday one of the great free spirits of the movie Stanley cubrick for the last 35 years since the success of Doctor Strange Love he marched to the sound of his own drum making the movies he wanted to make the way he wanted to make them in his own good time he made at least four films that are generally considered masterpieces and one at least that will live as long as people project images onto screens that one would be 2001 of Space Odyssey the great Visionary 1968 film about man the toolmaker which begins with the first tool using apes and then continues with the tools that would allow us to escape even the planet of our birth another of his widely hailed works is A Clockwork Orange a film I've never admired as much as most people do its images have entered into the general imagination though especially Malcolm McDow is a violent Vandal being brainwashed into harmlessness you've proved to be the oldest Ultraviolence and killing is wrong wrong and terribly wrong and of course Dr Strange Love is among the great sardonic screen comedies said at the height of the Cold War it made dark comedy out of the possibility of nuclear war Cub's other great anti-war film was PA of Glory in 1957 with Kurt Douglas as a French lawyer who finds himself commanding an infantry regiment in the brutal trench warfare of World War [Applause] I Stanley curi was one of a kind a towering figure who made films almost by hand burnishing every detail like a loving Craftsman at the time of his death he had just finished the erotic Thriller Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruz and Nicole Kidman it opens this summer you know one of the things people forget about cubber is that he made these movies the very early ones like the killing were real close to the ground Thrills had a lot of emotional weight to them and where film art not a heavy portentous way and Matt you think back to the movie we talked about earlier Lock Stock Two Smoking Barrels it probably lifs a lot in this movie about an elaborate racetrack theft that doesn't quite work out you know in a way in the late 40s with movies like fear and desire which he kind of suppressed in The Killing he was sort of like the Scorsese of that time he financed those movies himself he made him real close to the ground like you said uh he was operating outside the studio system at a time when that simply wasn't done and he has always operated completely as a lone wolf he's a real independent too and he's really changed the face of movie history I mean one of the things about Clockwork Orange a movie that actually has a great performance Mal mow maybe the last great performance in a cubc film CH basically ended adult movies in this country because newspapers stopped taking ads because that movie was so controversial and violent and combined violence and sex in a unusual way I think okay well now let's turn to cu's final film Eyes Wide Shut which stars Tom Cruz and the C Kidman has a wealthy Manhattan doctor and his wife they lead a comfortable life that seems happy enough but unfilled needs are boiling away beneath the surface and one night Stoned on pot they get into an argument you've never been jealous about me have you no I haven't and why haven't you ever been jealous about me well I don't know Alice maybe because you're my wife maybe because you're the mother of my child and I know you would never be unfaithful to me their argument escalates she inflames him with her sexual fantasies and he leaves the house and enters on an odyssey that takes him into a sexual underworld to a secret private orgy that an old friend tells him about remove your clothes please uh remove your clothes or would you like us to do it for you after he returns at dawn from the orgy he finds his wife in the middle of a nightmare and and she describes it to him but that's not the end is it no why don't you tell me the rest of it one of the film's best qualities is the way it gives screen time and waight to the supporting performances watch the way here that Sydney poik dominates this scene as a rich man who asked the doctor to look after a date who has overdosed I can't thank you enough for this you uh I'm glad and Bill I probably oh I know I don't have to mention this but this is just between us okay I wide shup plays almost like a dream Odyssey through a series of erotically charged scenes all five of us will be back to discuss what we think about it after this my number four film is Eyes Wide Shut Stanley Kubrick's last which was released in July of 1999 and it stars Tom Cruz and Nicole Kidman as a happily married couple who realize thanks to a conversation that begins very casually just how fragile the bond between them actually is this sets Cruz's character off on a real Odyssey the key stop of his journey is a Long Island Mansion where a bizarre secret ceremony is underway I think a lot of people were looking at eyes wide shot from the wrong angle it's not to be taken literally it's Manhattan as you'd experience it in a dream where Everything feels familiar rest but very strange and I think eyes watch shut is a profound film about love sex and Trust in a marriage of learning to take things day by day and either accepting or ignoring whatever unpleasant truths come along it's also a film I cherish because it puts you in the authoritative hands of an old Master with a style that flies in the face of every modern convention it does and you know people put it up to this test of reality as if that means anything I know I got email from people saying well you could see that there was an English sign in the window of one of the stores or it wasn't really shot in there's no Street in Manhattan that's that narrow or it doesn't have any traffic of course there isn't you know I got news for them rear window wasn't shot in a real city either I mean the whole point is that you elevate the material with your style into something special otherwise just go out and and visit New York if that's what you want exactly exactly and there are all kinds of clues in the film as to that in a way um because you really take a journey inside Tom Cruz's mind in a way in this wonderful sense of sexuality and guilt and uh uh unpleasant discoveries and uh the journey the marriage has to take all building up to the last line which is a beauty yes it is welcome back to the special program devoted to a discussion of Eyes Wide Shut Stanley Cub's final film it's a long film 159 minutes but cuic makes it spellbinding right up until the end which however resolves things a little bit too conventionally for my taste instead of sending the Cru character on a sexual Odyssey which is kind of what we expected from the advanced rumors it sends him on a how he never quite gets involved everything in the film The saturated Sideshow colors the edgy music the costumes the ritual it all adds up to a nightmare vision of a man whose jealousy takes him right up to the edge I think this is a very good film Michael what do you think well I would uh I'd be a little more extreme I guess I I think it's one of Kubrick's best works and one of the reasons I think that is because I looked at most of them to do a long piece on I'd rank it among his four or five I four or five best Dan what did you think about ice white sh and that's something very very important I think to say about intimacy and honesty in in in marriage or any relationship I mean You' have Nicole Kidman who's very open with her fantasies of what she thinks about sex and her needs Tom Cruz is her husband he's not only not being honest with her he's in self-denial about his own fantasies and needs and so this creates the disequilibrium that sets the story in motion so the rest of the movie is a very giant convoluted plot to get Cruz to the point where he can be back to equilibrium with his wife I mean that's the whole journey this whole Odyssey of the film I have never seen anything quite like this still on the same token it's a kubric film and it has all the kubric trapping so it's kind of a mading mix wonderful images but uh detached drama you know if you can get by that I think it's a fine film Jonathan well I was both had the advantage and the disadvantage of having read Arthur schnitzler's Nolla TR Noel before I saw the film and was amazed at how close an adaptation it is I'm really eager to see this film again because I had some trouble getting used to Tom Cruz in relation to this he seems to be kind of a caricature he seemed to be a thinner character than the others whereas I thought Nicole Kidman and Sydney Pollock were both quite extraordinary Ray Pride I think that uh Cruz's journey through nighttime New York is kind of an illustration of the very common question what are you thinking and he probably shouldn't have asked because the things he's going to discover in these Adventures are things he probably never imagined he would see and in a way because of its dreamy form like he's always interrupted when he thinks he's about to discover something it's like a dream it's like Kus interruptus interruptus because of that dreamy form it becomes kind of a a masterpiece of sexual intimacy in the sense that people get so close to each other but when you reach a certain distance you don't get inside them you get Beyond them and uh it's infuriating one's own dreams but here it's pretty hypnotic well the thing is though I thought Cruz was fine in the film and I think he helps it to a degree because I think he is a figure whom the audience does kind of fixate on he's um he's one of those way more powerful than kubric I mean you know people are going to be going to see this film probably more often because of Tom Cruz and because of but that's not necessarily bad because because Cruz did did give lend his power to it and I think it's it's used in his movie star Persona is used in a kind of interesting way I was very surprised that I thought Cruz was a little bit more successful not a little bit that he was more successful as a cubric protagonist than uh Jack Nicholson in The Shining who's one of my very all-time favorite actors but who I don't think leads you into the maze quite as effectively one one of the things that works because it's Tom Tom Cruz is that everyone in the film relates to him sexually even the drunks on the Street who uh try a little gay bashing every single character in this movie looks at him in a particular way we kept hearing it was going to be an adult film it was going to be a really steamy film and I think a lot of people expected it to get the nc17 rating uh but I was talking the other day to Terry siml the chairman of Warner Brothers who simply said we're not in the business of nc7 and that both he and curi he said wanted an R rating for this film and Yan harand the executive producer of the film and Tom Cruz both told me that cubrick himself approved of the idea of using these digital figures who stand between us and the action kind of the Austin Powers shot where you can't quite see what's going on behind them and as a result we have these 65 seconds in the middle of the film that are not quite as cubric would have preferred in a different world well what's infuriating in a way is that you know if there had been an axe murder in that uh in that Scene It would have gotten an our rating With the blessings and that's what I mean it just seems like such a a strange sense of priorities theing thing about it is Roger that if you took the film that kubric originally envisioned without the digital stuff you could put it on Late Night HBO as is right now and we can't get that version released in theaters around the country but the real tragedy is these digital smudges are preventing us from having the same Revelation is the character he's been fantasizing about things that his wife may have done or that she might do with another man and and suddenly he's confronted with the fleshy reality of all these things so movies like happiness for example were released without a rating at all and this movie could have been released uh unrated except Warner Brothers wasn't willing to do that and so we get really a fairly minor change in the movie and we still get the idea but it just seems like it's ging it's 65 seconds not a big deal but here's something else it aesthetically doesn't work for me because you're in Cruz's eyes here is a guy who is looking at stuff and he you can't see what he's looking at and it seems wrong it there's something not right about it you get intellectually but it has no cinematic or emotional Force which is what he's built through all the way up to the film for an hour 20 minutes audience aesthetic flaw it's it's a flaw and it does not correspond with Cruz's Natural Curiosity to go around the implanted figures to see what's going on nor does it make the film more moral or I think more acceptable it's um you you can see what's kind of happening and uh and you know it's there it's dirtier it's dirtier to have it half glimpsed goad what you imagine is always worse a dream into an annoying nightmare okay and now a movie coming up on cable Stanley kubri was the most private of filmmakers hardly ever graning interviews so a new documentary about his life and work is of special interest it's called sandley cubric Al life in pictures it debuts June 12th on Cinemax and it will be part of a cubric collection that will be released the same day on DVD and video it was produced by kuri's brother-in-law John Harland who was the executive producer of his last four films Harland has access to rare family footage nobody ever accuses him of being playful well he was playful like on The Adams Family kind of playful very little footage exists of kubric at work but we do see what's available here he is on Full Metal Jacket fellow directors like Sydney Pollock Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg speculate about their brilliant colleague as a film maker you know for me he was a conceptual illustrator of The Human Condition Stanley kubri was a grandmas a perfectionist who made extraordinary demands on his cast and Crews his work excited intense interest among film lovers and the documentary covers all of his films plus legendary projects that were never made like Napoleon the Aryan papers an AI which was taken over by Spielberg and comes out later this summer AI was in development for years by the legendary director Stanley kubri who passed it on to Steven Spielberg but still gets a credit and the dedication in the future global warming has flooded many cities but the United States still prospers thanks to its lead in developing intelligent robots called meccas Francis o Conor and Sam Robards play a couple whose son is in a coma the husband brings home a cute little Mecca named David as a consolation but at first his wife is enraged I'll return him to cyberonics first thing in the morning it's gone good I mean Henry did you see his face his he's so real he's not no he's not David is played by Haley Joel Osman from the six sense who proves once again he's one of the best young actors in movie history Little David looks real but he's a machine inside and yet he desperately wants to belong [Music] [Laughter] [Laughter] David is read Pinocchio and he thinks that somewhere there's a blue fairy who will transform him into a real boy he goes on a quest with Joe a jiggalo Mecca played by Jude Law is Blue Fairy Mecca Orga man or woman woman woman I know women they sometimes ask for me by name it's uncanny the way AI mirrors the structure of Kubrick's famous 2001 man events a new tool the tool makes a Visionary Journey possible and then mysterious creatures create a familiar environment to study the traveler who in this case is the tool instead of the tools makers the film is filled with visual wonders and astonishing special effects I'm giving a thumbs up for sure and yet somehow AI like David doesn't have a heart it wants us to care about a character who's essentially let's face it just a computer program the test of any artificial intelligence is when the computer convinces you it's human when David spends 2,000 years on hold I was looking at a computer glitch not a little boy well I like this movie a lot but I think the problem is that it tries to have a heart when it shouldn't to be more honest probably the Kubrick's original vision and I think Spielberg does try to respect that there's a certain chilliness and starkness to the story but not without you know I don't want to give away too much here but then he has to go for that Golden Glow moment at the end toward the end and I thought I know what you mean yeah because kubri I think would have been a little more AR stringent he was kind sometimes charged with not having a heart in his movies that it was all brain but I think in this case what we're talking about is an artificial brain and there's a little bit of a problem in the the fact that this little boy isn't a real little boy and he's never going to be a little boy and we know that and he doesn't and so we're not on the same page there are moments early on where I thought this might be like a horror movie on the level of The Shining that this kid wasn't quite wired in the right way and that he was going to go psycho and that might have been interesting as well but there was a moment in this movie that where it should have ended and it didn't and it kept going and I thought that that diminished it also there's some inconsistencies with the characters I mean the little boy is supposed to be the only one who of these meccas who has the ability to love but the other ones do seem to have a lot of emotions Jude Law his character of Joe doesn't have that love imprint but he does seem to have the cynicism microchip they made us too smart too quick and too many this is a wild movie there are some frightening scenes in here and some as you mentioned some great visuals I mean some of the best effects I've ever seen where we see something like New York City half underwater and it really looks like New York City's underwater you know I want to go back a little bit to what you said about the end of the movie I think it kind of goes off the a little bit with that strange fantasy about his hang up with a blue faery and yet I don't want to get hung up on that because this is a movie that has some amazing things in it and as I was sitting there there was a time maybe at about the hour and a half mark when I thought this is the best movie of the year I think that maybe you know it just it it should have been a little more true to its original impetus and not Tred to get into the sentimental stuff but still our disappointment is based on it's a very good movie yeah I mean the fact that I think we're both a little bit disappointed but we like it a lot is because we thought it could have been a masterpiece the late Stanley Kubrick worked for 15 years on AI and then shared his vision with Steven Spielberg he wrote and directed this film infusing it with probably more sentimentality than kubic would have found in this message of men Machin and machines that are almost men the story is set in a future Escape where global warming has drowned the coastlines survival depends on population limits robots called meccas take the place of humans in the workforce and Technology is racing out of control William hert plays a professor with a startling plan to create a robot child programmed to love its owner a couple who sick child has been frozen until he can be cured as a robot to their empty nest Haley Jill Osman is outstanding as the eerily disarming Mecca boy hardwired to love on command David is eventually abandoned in the Woods by his family he meets up with jiggalo Joe a love Mecca now reduced to hustling he expressed is the bitter truth about the Mecca fith and you are alone now only because they tired of you the story of David is the real heart of this movie but you know I think that's the problem because David after all no matter how cute he is no matter that he is played by Haley Joel Osman is nevertheless a robot and not a real little boy the humans in this movie are his family these people who bring him home who invest in him who love him and then abandon him what is their story what is their motivation I think that's maybe where felberg should have focused nevertheless AI is a wondrous movie to behold with Incredible special effects it's a good movie I'm recommending it I give it three stars kubric was called a recluse but we Glimpse his warm and Lively family life and his friends who gathered often on his estate outside of London where he prepared his films one meticulous shot at a time since kubri never publicly revealed his Secrets or analyzed his thoughts this is a valuable portrait of a great man that plays June 12th on Cinemax well I found it ironic and disappointing that such a brilliant groundbreaking filmmaker would be the subject of such a plotting straightforward documentary that goes on and on and on it's too long for one thing and that's what I found disappointing and maybe because there isn't a lot of footage available there's nothing new there and yeah they have access to a lot of things and some of that's interesting but the talking heads are not saying anything that tells I think they're saying a lot of for example Woody Allen had to see 2001 three times before he realized that he liked it but I think that people are so hungry for information about kuri that I'm very happy that all of this stuff is in there and I think it more or less contains the sum total of everything they could find about this man but Roger as a documentary is that make it an effective piece of film making no they just throw everything out there so yes he's a would you rather have seen it or not have seen it I would rather it would be an hour and a half instead of two and a half hours and as a documentary I can't recommend it I want to give up moment of it because I want to know about that information well because you're a huge fan of Kubrick and that's great if people love his work they might want to see this but if you're not a fan of Cu she's going to watch it anyway so then you can say that about any movie I don't think it's an effective piece of film making in and of itself okay Jonathan what's the first attribute you think of when you think of Stanley curiy I think of intelligence uh it's funny I often think of each of his films as being like about the inside of her brain about a system that sort of starts working and then starts breaking down and you know people's often say he was cold but for me it's just that what's difficult is that the emotions are twisted so you have to like follow them through a maze but they're never cold they're just uh elusive Michael well I think of uh two words that keep popping up in its titles fear and desire Killer's kiss strange love that kind of that kind of tension that you see in all those films Between Love and Death Sex and and murder between the two the creative side of life and the destructive side of life he was a he was a filmmaker who was a great perfectionist who was a a master of images and a master of a certain kind of exaggerated performance style but he also dealt with very large issues he grappled with the Eternal he was he was not a simplistic or simple director and uh and that's one of the best things about him Dan Stanley kuer has been called The Howard Hughes of Cinema because he was such a recluse I prefer to think of him as the Frank Sinatra of Cinema because he always did everything his way I mean let's face it here's a guy who would be tirelessly putting together the thing the way he wanted to nobody interfered with him you couldn't go back to any kubric film and feel rebirthed regenerated because here you're in the presence of somebody who genuinely stood for what the heart and the soul of the Cinematic art really was MH Ray in relating to Kubrick's heart and mind I think of the quote from his collaborator Michael her who co-wrote Full Metal Jacket who said that merciless is not the same as pitiless but I would also think about his painstaking preparations he would make to prevent a movie from divulging all its secrets on a single viewing these are films that need to be seen a few times before you start really getting at the nice smart things underneath uh he made very complex films you know when you called him uh the Frank anatra of Cinema because he did things his way in a way he kind of represented something to all of us because he was over there on his Estate in England he was far from Hollywood he owned his own cameras his own editing equipment his own sound and he worked entirely according to his own schedule it's kind of inspiring at a time when everybody else seems to be marching to the drums of Commerce and promotion or when young screenwriters are being taught that 12 weeks is too long to spend on Crafting a screenplay he'd spent 12 weeks on a single scene if he needed to Michael well he believed in movie making as an art and he was not ashamed to call himself an artist and he was he was a proud perfectionist someone who really wanted to get it right his Legend was of the guy who would shoot not just 20 or 30 takes but 50 takes 60 takes 100 takes who would keep on going and and put his actors through grueling Paces until they got it right until they got it perfectly until until they got the art and the power and the passion that he wanted yeah but at the same time he was really a kind of like experimental personal filmmaker which I think uh and in fact he represents one of the rare cases in film history where there's a meeting point between this kind of traditional the small personal experimental film and the big Studio film as well he somehow managed to put them together and something else Michael said which was interesting in looking at the contrast between killer and kiss or fear and desire or for that matter Clockwork and orange the organic and the Machine the titles themselves show a contrast between the controlling idea and the organic idea the key to his success as a filmmaker in a in a collaborative sense not just the aure sense is that he was the ruthless General everyone wanted to march with mhm he got everyone on his side and no matter what happened he expected his cast and crew to keep up with his standard yet he was uh able to inspire a lot of loyalty so that somebody like Cruz was able to take three years out of his career to make this film and still speak fondly he was a general that people were willing to take army pay from basically but you know I think the Press has given him a bad rep when they keeps I mean everybody talks about him being asocial and a recluse he didn't like to talk to de press but he had friends he was a family man he communicated with people all the time and I want to go around the table and ask you guys which one you would recommend and what people should look for right I would say the steady cam rushing through the Carters the haunted hotel and The [Music] Shining Dam Roger I was a teenager traumatized by the x-rated Clockwork [Music] Orange joh rosenbom well I think I'd recommend the killing specifically for all these wonderful Noir actors that car arrives about 5:00 that Parks directly in front of the main entrance to the clubhouse two men stay in it one at the wheel the other at a machine gun and the turret Michael Wilmington a must SE for movie lovers is the great Visionary science fiction epic 2001 of space out of SE and that a wonderful way that he luzes technology in the blue danu docking scene and as for myself I just looked at doct Strange Love again last week it's a comedy that holds up and still has its satiric Edge after all these years and the thing I like best about it this time was George C Scott's facial expressions in the war room now it appears that the order called for the planes to um attack their targets inside Russia thanks very much guys for joining me today I think it was a good discussion we give it five positive votes five people like the movie all of us want to see it again before we write our [Music] [Music] [Music] review [Music] F know I be happy to know that you I was [Music] [Music] sing [Music]

Channel: Vanilla Skynet

Views: 57,798

Keywords: siskel, Ebert, Kubrick, eyes Wide Shut, Dr strange love, strangelove, full metal jacket, clockwork Orange, 2001, space Odyssey, Chicago, critics, review, paths of glory, Spartacus, compilation, sneak previews, at the movies, Roeper, Elvis Mitchell, Scorsese

Id: KnpuWym7KEU

Length: 75min 27sec (4527 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023