Kubrick films, a ranking of (Spoilers)

[coyotegoth]

This is a list of my favorite Kubrick films (not counting Killer's Kiss or Fear and Desire, which I haven't seen), in descending order of favor:



2001: A Space Odyssey (this film, and Citizen Kane, showed me what cinema could truly be; I’ve seen it at LEAST 50 times. The fact that it introduced me to Clarke’s work is no small benefit, either.)

Dr Strangelove (agonized over only giving this second place. A true masterwork. Sellers is even more brilliant than in Lolita, although the rest of the cast match him.)

Barry Lyndon (I’ll always wonder what this would have been like had Kubrick made it circa 1965, with Albert Finney or- even better- Peter O’ Toole. Simply a phenomenal control of tone and incident, as well as a sublime look and sound and feel (I’ll always wonder what Kubrick’s Napoleon film would have been like; this film, set in a similar period, makes me wonder all the more.) Michael Hordern could not be better as the narrator.)

Lolita (I’d forgotten just how entertaining- and how daring: remember Peter Sellers enthusing about getting beaten up by his girlfriend during judo lessons?- this movie is, even though censorship issues forced the removal of Nabokov’s darker underpinnings. I snickered at the butterflies on the wall at the office at Camp Climax. I personally think of this as Kubrick’s Mike Nichols movie. Also, special mention to James Mason; sometimes, I like to imagine him doing the voice of HAL in 2001.)

The Killing (another tough sequencing choice; The Killing’s brilliant structure *just* gives it the edge. As a B- noir, not so very far below The Maltese Falcon and Touch of Evil.)

Paths of Glory (a truly unflinching look at injustice and war.)

Full Metal Jacket (The first half is a masterpiece; the second half… what can you say about a Vietnam movie where you can literally see the actors’ breath misting in certain shots?)

Spartacus (“Die, die, my darling!” “Get up, you Thracian dog!” Yeah, I rather tend to believe Kubrick when he says he had no script control. That said, the Romans are all fun to watch (except John Gavin, a drip as Julius Caesar; Rex Harrison’s Caesar in Cleopatra would have mopped the floor with this snotnose. Special mention to Woody Strode a BMF and a half as one of the gladiators.)

The Shining (as a black comedy about the effect of writer’s block on a marriage, lots of fun. As a horror movie, not so great, although I love the ball rolling up to Danny, and the twin girls (an image Kubrick probably nicked, perhaps unknowingly, from a Diane Arbus photo (they knew each other in the 50s, when he was a photographer for Look). Love the Steadicam following Danny on his Big Wheel.)

Eyes Wide Shut (ehh. Every Kubrick film tends to go through a period of reappraisal… this one is still in the pot, I guess. Tom Cruise surprisingly good; Nicole Kidman, in the film far too little, is much better.)

A Clockwork Orange (I once coined what I called “The Reifenstahl rule”: “Simply because you have a cinematic vision, it doesn’t mean you have a moral vision.” I watched this for the first time in- 20 years? 25?- recently, and shut it off halfway through; a MUCH more intense version of the reappraisal Fight Club gets from me nowadays. Brilliant editing and camera work; intentionally distancing acting (except, of course, for Alex); an ending in which a murderer and rapist is ready to continue with more of the same. One can only imagine Gene Kelly’s reaction- supposedly, when Malcolm McDowell introduced himself at a party, Kelly cut him dead. And so it goes.)

Comments

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Trust me, I doubt Killer's Kiss will displace any of the higher-ranked Kubricks on the list. It's kind of lame. Haven't seen Fear and Desire. Love almost everything else unreservedly, with the usual caveats for Spartacus, which is still a kick-ass costume epic but not a kick-ass Kubrick film.

Many people whose opinions I respect loathe Clockwork; for me it's the top Kubrick, with 2001 a close second and Paths of Glory a close third.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Cinematically- in terms of its editing and camerawork- it may possibly be his greatest film (and did get him a Best Director nomination, as well as a Best Picture one). It's a uniquely confounding film (I've always wondered exactly what was behind his pulling it from release in Great Britain- not least because he continued to be fine with showing it in the US).

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

His family was getting death threats. Also, the movie shows how fun and easy it is for a young thug to break into a remote British country house. Kubrick lived in a remote British country house.

I completely sympathize with all the charges thrown at it over the years; it's merrily rapey at times, and a lot of people are not up for that even a little bit. My take on it has always been that it takes the point of view of a sociopath, which isn't the same as endorsing that point of view. People looking for the victims to be humanized were looking to the wrong director. For Kubrick, a few raped and murdered people are as nothing compared to the atrocity of the government trying to control thought. The movie is highly debatable and worth debating. I've also always thought that the movie's most sympathetic character, and the one who gets to deliver the moral of the story, is the chaplain. 'Choice... He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, the fear of physical pain drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.'

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I honestly think that this is one of those cases where presenting a point of view nonjudgementally- as one might in a biography of Manson or Hitler- almost constitutes a positive endorsement of that point of view. Alex's worldview is so strikingly negative, and the character is [presented in such an energetic and charismatic fashion (As opposed to, say, the extremely detached presentation of a Barry Lyndon), that- particularly in a world where virtually everyone else is distorted as a character to the point of being halfway to Monty Python (the chaplain and the writer's wife being possible exceptions), that we can't help but feel that his is the only true viewpoint in the movie. Also, while I do agree that there is a certain amount of discussion of free will happening in the movie, I honestly don't know that that's what a viewer would take away from watching it.

(It's always interested me that the movie- even more than the book- seems to geared around a narrative irony: that while Alex seems to be the one free character in a world of droogs and victims, he's actually being exchanged from one system of control to another throughout the entire movie. From being "leader" of his droogs, who can- and do- stomp him if he goes against their wishes (I'm speaking here of the milk bottle, not the beating at the horse trough), to the police, to the Ludovico technique... when Alex says "I was cured, all right," at the end, it's an even darker irony than it may seem: he'll almost certainly go through the whole process again, until he's too old to lead a gang.)

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

This is funny (I Think) but my Kubrick list would run in almost the exact opposite order.

I loved Clockwork Orange when I read the book as a kid in Jr HS and I thought Kubrick was spot on in the move. I saw it a few months ago and I never realized how much it predicted some elements of cyber culture. I thought he gt a bad rap for Eyes Wide Shut although I found both Cruise and Kidman a bit tedious.

I'd rank Lolita pretty high. Ir thik given the era, he kept the story as cogent as one could without explicit depiction of pedophilia.

Stangelove, I might lose point here but I wonder how much of this might be gendered? Almost every Kubrick fan I know who rates Stangelove highly is a guy. Not saying there aren't women who don't like it but I'd love to do a survey and see how it breaks down. I find it to be a hodgepodge, clumsy and heavy handed.

I like 2001 but for me it's more of a period piece; a relic that left behind some magnificent graphic images and a couple of pop culture references.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Strange but true: roughly 80% of the people I know who passionately defend Dr Strangelove are men; roughly 80% of the people I know who passionately defend A Clockwork Orange are women. Not sure of gender breakdown on defenders of any of his other films.