The best director in the history of the medium? Sure. The most remarkable series of films ever made? Yeah, that can be argued. Yet behind these now almost mythical creations was a man from the Bronx who took photos for Look Magazine and parlayed that into an onscreen vision that spanned from noir fisticuffs to naked orgies in a countryside estate.
A noted perfectionist, few worked as hard or as diligently to make cinema into an art as anyone ever has. Behind the myth there are numerous collaborators, researchers and participants who helped bring his vision to life.
What these collections do best is humanize the almost saintly figure of Stanley Kubrick. These aren't simply icons to be simply paraded and worshiped, these are ways of seeing the process that helped bring these works to our lives, the false corridors traveled to get to where we end up. One sees the model for the 2001 set not as a cheat or a spoiled magic trick but as a testament to ingenuity, tenacity and, frankly, chutzpah.
Collected here are a few snippets from the exhibit, a smattering of elements from his extensive archives that have spent a decade or so traveling all over the world. If cinema is a religion, these are our holy texts, and any cinephile will revel in this truly extraordinary celebration of the master's work. We also have interviews with Kubrick's widow Christianne, his brother-in-law/collaborator Jan Harlan, and TIFF's Jesse Wente, who helped bring the show to the city.
Christiane Kubrick
Actor, Paths of Glory, wife to Stanley Kubrick for over 40 years
What do you think is most misunderstood about Stanley Kubrick?
I think the fact that he was considered to be a lonely, morose, hermit. The opposite is true.
Thanks to many of the elements that have come out after this exhibit, in his private life he seemed incredibly warm.
He was!
Did you play chess with him?
No, immediately when I saw him play, I thought never play chess with him.
His last film was of course the surreal vision of New York that he created on a soundstage for Eyes Wide Shut. What did New York still mean to him towards the end, particularly while making that film?
He felt very much like a New Yorker, [yet] not thinking "I'm a New Yorker!”
He was very adaptable. He only wanted to live in a country where they speak English, and he loved England and immediately took to it. He liked not living above the shop, which you do in Hollywood. Everybody says “how are you doing”, and it's kind of like being in boarding school.
With (the unfinished Holocaust film) THE ARYAN PAPERS he was exploring a bit of his family roots. How much the Holocaust and his Jewish identity shaped his filmmaking?
Whenever the topic came up in any old way, he'd say, "I think I'm a Jew".
So it was not necessarily something he spent a long time identifying with?
No. He knew about it and that was the end of that. It wasn't a problem. He realized it's a huge problem and to that extent we had that in common, that we don't like our background, it fills us with fear. So, that's something.
As an artist yourself, obviously you see the films through the eyes of a painter. Are there particular moments that you think might be overshadowed by some of the bigger moments? The smaller, but still beautiful moments in his filmmaking that mean more to you in some ways?
I know the films too well. I can't tell. I like them all. They get terribly intermixed with personal memories of what happened when and such and all of the difficulties.
I'm a horrible audience, really. I like all of his films, but I wouldn't want me as an audience because I'm too close.
Forced to pick one moment, what's your favourite?
I don't have a favourite. The favourite for personal reasons would be Barry Lyndon, because I like the painter trundling around and painting and that's fun, and of course Glory for the obvious reasons, but I like all of his films.
As do many of us!
[laughs]
Jan Harlan
Actor, Producer, Brother-in-law to Stanley Kubrick
One of the most astonishing things in this exchibit is the letter where you tell Stanley about your discovery of the Steadicam.
Yes, I remember that well. It's very exciting to see that.
One of the things about the myth of Kubrick is that he did everything himself, that he was a singular artist and that everything was to his precision. As one of his principal collaborators, could you talk about breaking down the myth of what Stanley was?
Of course, he was the filmmaker. He decided everything. But I for example suggested music, a lot of music, but he decided which one to use. I didn't make the choice.
He said "I like that, go and look for more like that." It was a sideline of my job. I loved it. It was wonderful.
We were few people and everybody had to do everything a little bit, depending on what your inclination was. So he was very open to suggestions. But he decided. He was the boss. There was no arguing.
It is easy to mythologize what he did. To see it as somebody who was making things that no other director could do in the sense that we look back on these works as almost masterpieces in the way that we look at Da Vinci. As somebody who knew him so well, could you talk about the struggles, about how he saw his films?
Take a typical case, which is Barry Lyndon. At that time, the film speed was 100 ASA, you couldn't push it. It became very grainy. The fastest lens was F2, so you are limited. How do you get the atmosphere of the 18th century on the screen? It was impossible. Therefore you get silly pictures with a candlestick where there is so much fill light the whole thing is meaningless.
He wanted to get the Gainsborough atmosphere onto the screen. We found this F0.7 lens [the famous NASA lens from Zeiss]. It didn't work on the film camera. We had to change the BNC to take this lens.
This lens had a real problem. There's no depth of field on the 0.7. It's horrible, it's very difficult.
But he succeeded in getting really an exposure just with candles. And he got this atmosphere on to the screen. Today, you don't need it anymore. Today, you have 1.2 is a standard set and you have 3000 ASA in film. Anyway, now you have digital and the whole thing is no longer necessary, but that's one case where he was struggling and fighting to get something on to the screen.
The Steadicam you mentioned is fantastic for obviously avoiding tracks, you run up stairs, you follow the little guy on his wheel, that's just wonderful.
That's an incredibly important point - He was not afraid of new technology, new film technology, the issue was a story that technology was used to tell the story. So how would he have felt about shooting on digital?
I think he definitely would have used it. No doubt about it, he would have used it. It's there. It's there to remain.
Film is going out, there's no question about it. I'm not saying maybe totally. For example, he was a great believer in front projection and in moving front projection. I could easily see provided you still have a lab that develops 65 mm, that you do 70mm fine grain or front projection plates, and then you do digital photography, but this is all theory, because he is no longer with us.
As a producer of some of this films, are you pleased to see, would you rather see a 35mm struck print of the film, or would you rather see a pristine 4k master?
If it's a very good negative which is clean, I'd very much like to see a 35 mm print, but it becomes more and more theoretical. Do I prefer the new mix on digital to a clapped out print which is yellow and scratched? I prefer the digital.
But some don't and you know that's the fetish for film.
Yeah, well, that's right, but it becomes cinematheque material soon, that's what it is.
Of all of the films, is there one moment that really still strike home to you that might not be as appreciated as some?
Yes. It's because it's the last film. It's Eyes Wide Shut, definitely, which he considered his greatest contribution to the art of filmmaking. Definitely that.
There are many scenes which are hard to understand, people have to go a second time, which is hard to do. If they didn't like it the first time, they are not willing to go a second time, so that's a real problem.
The biggest problem with Eyes Wide Shut is that you have to see it twice. That's a disadvantage, I admit that. But hey, that's how it is!
Jesse Wente
Director of Film Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox
I know how much seeing this means to me. If you can put it into words, what does this mean to you?
Probably the same thing, I think.
It's difficult for me to remember a time when I didn't love Stanley Kubrick movies. I came to them probably about a younger age and the first one I saw was The Killing. I watched it on TVOntario, on “Saturday Night at the Movies”, a double bill of The Killing and the Burt Lancaster picture The Killers.
I wore that tape out. It was the construction, it was the fracture, it was what they did to cinema, all of that stuff.
From that moment on, I really tried to find as many of them as I could. In those days, it was more difficult. I didn't see 2001 until I saw it at the Cinesphere at Ontario Place. Right away I would have seen Dr. Strangelove which made me go “oh my god, this guy is my hero”. Here's a movie sort of about sex, but my parents don't know about it, it doesn't matter to them, and Peter Sellers, it's all of that.
And getting upset at the Coca Cola company.
Exactly. For me, this is what the [TIFF Bell Lightbox] building's here for. This is why I do what I do.
If you'd asked the 12 year old me about this, he would have told you to get lost, there's no chance.
That's what it means for me. I love this stuff, and I hope, I'd like to share it with other people and I think people will love it too.
There's a danger, especially with someone like Kubrick, to treat him almost like a saint, that these are basically saintly artifacts.
Sure.
At its best, what you also see is that this was a man who made this work, that this was the one who struggled, who had ideas that went places and didn't, there are titles for STRANGELOVE that are shit.
Yeah, like scratched out, like he'll do these scribbles, he's written something and then scratched it out. You can see the questioning.
When you can see the hammering on the sculpture, you can recognize the hand of the creator.
When I go see a painting, I like to get up close and see how the paint was put on the canvas. What's fascinating about a guy like Kubrick is he didn't really allow us to see that when he was alive. He didn't give a lot of interviews. Even now, actually, everyone who's interested has all read the exact same interviews he gave, he never gave answers.
People would ask him what 2001 is about and he was not interested in providing that answer to us. He was far more interested in what you thought 2001was about.
So much of what we now understand about Kubrick is because this show opened 10 years ago. The access to the archives, and the fact that he went through to see the process, [in order] to see the man behind the vision, a man who didn't really want to show himself to us.
That's what's ultimately extraordinary about it. Yes, he's a deity for film geeks, but he's also, he was a family guy, trying to make his art in the English countryside.
Kubrick's only Oscar (for best Visual Effects for 2001), and his Golden Lion from Venice (he won one for both Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut
Famously, Kubrick was a chessmaster, and would play for money in order to fund some of his early productions. The image of a chessboard shows up in many of his films, from the pay-to-play club in Killers Kiss through to the patterning on the bomb dropped at the end of Strangelove
A certificate showing Kubrick's share in the Minotaur Production Company that would produce Killer's Kiss in 1956
The net loss on Killer's Kiss
Original artwork and newpaper clipping for Killer's Kiss. Kubrick directed, wrote, produced and did cinematography on the film
Costumes and storyboards from Spartacus
Moral objection letters to SK for Lolita
Letter from Sue Lyon to SK
SK and Peter Sellars, Lolita
SK's title brainstorming for Doctor Srangelove
Model of Doctor Srangelove "War room" set
Storyboards and set photography from Doctor Srangelove
The "starchild" from 2001
Reverse angle of The "starchild" from 2001
Original Ape Mask (designed by Stuart Freeborn) from 2001
Ape Costume and Monolith from 2001
Model of "Discovery" from 2001
2001 space suit
HAL 9000 prop, 2001
Set decoration from Clockwork Orange "Milk Bar"
Costume from Clockwork Orange
Alex's iconic turntable from Clockwork Orange
More set decoration from Clockwork Orange "Milk Bar"
Costumes from Barry Lyndon
The Apollo sweater from The Shining
Twins costumes,
SK and Jack,
Door, carpet,
Typewriter, The Shining
Props from Full Metal Jacket
Copter model, Full Metal Jacket
Tom Cruise's Costume, Eyes Wide Shut
The F0.7 lens developed by NASA for photographing the "dark side" of the moon, modified and used by Kubrick to shoot by candlelight for Barry Lyndon
Kubrick's Mitchell BNC camera with the F0.7 lens attached
A collection of Sk's lenses
Research card catalogue for the aborted Napoleon film
Production coordination for aborted Aryan Papers film
Production design conceptual painting, A.I.