What's All This Then?
This site is edited by Coudal Partners, a design, advertising and interactive studio in Chicago, as an ongoing experiment in web publishing, design and commerce. [Next]
What's All This Then?
Thanks for visiting. If browsing around here while at work has had a negative effect on your productivity we're sorry but imagine what it's done to ours. [Hide]
Monday Edition
This is our studio site. Among lots of other things, we run Field Notes Brand,
go there right now and spend lots of money. Thanks.
Coudal Partners
fresh signals categorical archives
Stuff About Stanley Kubrick
Grab our blended RSS feed here.
"... the single 'eye' in blazing red was played by one of Nikon's most extreme lenses, its 8mm f/8 fisheye. But how did they add the glow? Simple - they used the camera's very own red filter (R60) which screws on to the back of the lens. Then they simply shone a light through it."
Lego Shining.
A letter from one of my heroes to another.
Tomer Hanuka's posters for The Man Who Fell to Earth. Check more of his amazing work, including a whole set of Kubrick film posters. OMG Strangelove.
"You've Reached the Office of Stuart Ullman." By George Jenne. Via TOH, of course.
Pablo Ferro: A Career Retrospective, Part 1, excellent interview from Art of the Title.
RIP Douglas Rain, Stratford Festival pioneer and voice of HAL.
"There is a set of scratches in 2001: A Space Odyssey that are not on the film, but in the film." Perhaps just a small thing but big props to Philippe Theophanidis, for getting to the bottom of it, and discovering lots of other awesome stuff along the way.
"Maybe he could come over here and give me a quarter of a million dollar tutorial?" Stanley Kubrick at home, talking about MS-DOS in 1984. Via John Gruber.
Apparently, Kubrick's Burning Secret script has been uncovered. Withholding judgment for the moment.
"The mysterious nature of the interview clip itself, a piece of the footage gathered in 1980 for a never-released Japanese documentary, suits the nature of the revelation." Stanley Kubrick on the ending of 2001.
Danny and his Finger, by Jay Stephens.
Aha! Exactly as we suspected. "Ned Price offered to show me some reels from a print made from the original 70-mm camera negative, and they were amazing, He told me that in 1999 Warners had made interpositives from the original camera negative, which Vince Roth had very carefully repaired, but they never had the funding to take the next step to make an internegative and strike new prints." Christopher Nolan restores 2001: A Space Odyssey. Can. Not. Wait.
For the first time since the original release, this 70mm print was struck from new printing elements. Stunning trailer for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
2001: The Way Kubrick Intended. Side by side, the 2007 Blu-Ray versus an unrestored print from an original neg.
"And so very early in the production, we hit a speed limit that we introduced." Full Of Stars, an excerpt from Michael Benson's Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, which has just been published, and just purchased too.
2001's influence on pop culture, by Vikram Murthi.
"Good parables explain themselves." Among the Stars, Ebert's writing about 2001, by MZS.
2001: A Space Odyssey at fifty. WB announces a new "unrestored" 70mm print which will play at select theaters starting in May. "For the first time since the original release, this 70mm print was struck from new printing elements made from the original camera negative. This is a true photochemical film recreation. There are no digital tricks, remastered effects, or revisionist edits." Boom.
Stanley Kubrick memorabilia from the collection of his assistant Emilio D'Alessandro up for auction at Aste Bolaffi. Tons of interesting, and some odd, stuff in these lots. Thanks for the heads up Todd.
Stanley Kubrick died on this day in 1999.
Waiting for a Miracle: a Survey of Stanley Kubrick's Unrealized Projects, by Filippo Ulivieri. Lots of really interesting bits here. "There are only two great books ever written on war, Night Drop and The Iliad. We're going to do Night Drop."
Newsday film critic called 2001: A Space Odyssey a "bizarre" failure when he first reviewed it in April 1968. Then Stanley Kubrick convinced him to watch it again.
Barry Lyndon is coming to Criterion.
"Two weeks after I finished with everything, he and I were talking. He asked me what I thought about human beings. I said one thing about human beings is that everything that is mechanical, that is invented, is very sexual." Art of the Title chats with Pablo Ferro about Kubrick and the credit sequence from Dr. Strangelove.
2001: A Space Odyssey Howard Johnsons 1968 Children's Menu. Find tons more about our all-time favorite filmmaker in our big, messy archive of Stuff about Stanley Kubrick.
Print ad for the Hedstrom Trail Cycle from 1974. You know where you've seen that before.
Mondo's Kubrick collection.
Local NYC note I wish I was there for. "Sometime this Thursday, a 20-by-40-foot movie screen will be delivered to the stage of the Kings Theatre on Flatbush Avenue, where it will be hung and fastened 27 feet in the air. Then, on Saturday April 8, around 8 p.m., the 50-piece Wordless Music Orchestra, complete with a grand piano and harpsichord, will take the stage. And as they perform the score for Stanley Kubrick's 1975 masterpiece, Barry Lyndon, while the movie plays on the screen, the 3,000-seat Kings will be once again transformed into the grand picture palace it was when it opened in September of 1929."
There's a replica of the otherworldly bedroom from 2001: A Space Odyssey in a downtown LA warehouse.
Interiors: Stanley Kubrick. Visuals and analysis of floor plans from 2001, Clockwork, and The Shining. Thanks Phil.
Relink. How Stanley Kubrick Became Stanley Kubrick: A Short Documentary Narrated by the Filmmaker.
"On a snowy London evening in the early 1970s, when the roads were unusually hazardous, a minicab driver named Emilio D"Alessandro was the only fellow willing to transport an unusual movie prop: a cumbersome Modernist sculpture of a phallus. That object, which he delivered to a film set in good, if not record, time, is familiar to anyone who's seen Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange." Review and trailer for new doc, S is for Stanley. Thanks James.
Happy Birthday Hal 9000 "who became operational January 12, 1992, at the HAL labs in Urbana, Illinois." Via Nick Sherman.
Fantastic post from Modernism in Metro-Land. Bolshy Flatblock: The Buildings of A Clockwork Orange.
SK talks about The Shining in a 1980 interview conducted by Michel Ciment. Includes a really interesting section on the primacy of narrative in film and novels. Thanks Jeff.
"Rare announcement poster for what would become Dr. Strangelove. This version opens with Aliens coming to earth after the nuclear apocalypse." Aliens?
See also, Stanley Kubrick's letter to projectionists showing Barry Lyndon.
Frequently misattributed as a Big Wheel.
Open the pod bay doors Hall. "Dave" by Friff.
Dave and Frank from 2001, at 1/6th scale. Want.
In 1966, writer Jeremy Bernstein sat down with director Stanly Kubrick for a series of tape recorded conversations. These interviews took place during the filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
"It's quite interesting to see the back and forth between two creative geniuses like Stanley Kubrick and Saul Bass working on the movie poster of The Shining.
SK's top ten films. The Bank Dick!
"My father's artistic works are his unimpeachable defense!" Stanley Kubrick's daughter writes open letter to moon landing conspiracy theorists.
Stanley Kubrick and Me: Designing the Poster for A Clockwork Orange. Jonathan Jones of artist Philip Castle, who also painted the helmet on the FMJ poster. Thanks Marshall.
Trailer for The Corridor by Day Dreaming with Stanley Kubrick. Just watch.
"July 9: Spent much of afternoon teaching Stanley how to use the slide rule. He's fascinated." Relink, because its awesome. Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey diary.
"If you're going to make a tree, for instance, you have to copy a real tree. No one can 'make up' a tree because every tree has an inherent logic in the way it branches. And I've discovered that no one can make up a rock. I found that out in Paths of Glory. We had to copy rocks, but every rock also has an inherent logic you're not aware of until you see a fake rock. Every detail looks right, but something's wrong." The complete Stanley Kubrick Rolling Stone interview from 1987.
Fernando Reza's posters for a 2014 Stanley Kubrick gallery show.
2001: A Picasso Odyssey, by Bhautik Joshi. He has re-rendered scenes from the film in the style of Picasso and they're beautiful. His previous effort was Blade Runner in the style of Van Gogh. More at The Professional Dork.
20 great minutes. Lewis Bondl's Stanley Kubrick- The Cinematic Experience.
Shining360 by Claire Hentschker is a 30-minute audio-visual experiment for virtual reality derived from the physical space within Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining.
"Stop Dave. I'm afraid... my mind is going." Via Ged.
A dozen television homages to The Shining, including of course, this classic.
Stanley Kubrick's personal, marked-up copy of Stephen King's novel, The Shining.
Tracking shots in Kubrick films.
Sadly, an as-yet-unproduced vinyl of Stanley Kubrick by Evil Corp. See also, this and this.
23 photos from the set of Dr. Strangelove. Thanks Ron.
2001 in 569 Gifs. Especially, this one. Via Buzz.
A 30-minute documentary on Kubrick cinematographer and camera operator, John Alcott, who took over on 2001 after Geoffrey Unsworth left and shot Barry Lyndon: Six Kinds of Light. Via No Film School.
RIP Sir Ken Adam. Here's a piece on his the Adam's influential set designer's collaborations Stanley Kubrick. The Guardian on his career in pictures. Via John Gruber.
Grady Twins vinyls.
"Joe Dunton, who owned one of the major camera rental facilities in London and worked very closely with Kubrick, takes us on a tour of Kubrick's lens collection."
Geektastic old article written by Douglas Trumbull for American Cinematographer on the special effects challenges in 2001.
Instructions concerning the preparation and presentation of Stanley Kubrick's French Toast, by Chris Okum.
"In The 2001 File, Frayling places Lange's work within the context of the time and also looks at how his science-fiction designs have influenced real designs of the present – even five decades on, the designs for 2001 appear remarkably modern." Ordered.
"Fifty years ago this week, six astronauts posed on the moon for a selfie-ish photograph next to a newly uncovered three million-year old alien artifact, a towering sheer black monolith, one that was about to set us on course for an encounter with the infinite." Gerry Flahive on 2001.
The Barry Lyndon archives, in pictures. See "Key Worries - List 1."
Revisited today on the way to something else. Christian Annyas' excellent visual post on Stanley Kubrick's typography.
"It's a terrifying film because all the candlelit beauty is nothing but a veil over the worst cruelty." Scorsese on Barry Lyndon.
For JC, Kubrick movie posters using only Futura. Via Fubiz.
The Shiner, Mad Magazine's 1981 parody of The Shining, by Larry Siegel and Angelo Torres.
"Far from a hive of scum and villany, 2001: A Space Odyssey's Clavius Base might well have been the first visual reference for Mos Eisley." Views From a Ridge.
View from the Overlook: Crafting The Shining. A 30-minute documentary, directed by Gary Leva, that was originally produced for the Special Edition DVD of The Shining.
Kubrick + Beethoven. Nice mash-up.
Quick piece in New Scientist on The Making of 2001 includes a cool cutaway painting of The Discovery.
"Split over two parts and recorded off the wall from the projection of the rare 35mm reel, the promo reel features some alternate takes not used in the final cut." Nice find. Stanley Kubrick narrates a "promo reel" for Dr. Strangelove.
Joshua Warren's list of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films, for Criterion. Quite an eclectic group, via K.
A few of the many interviews Justin Bozung has conducted while assembling an oral history of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Stanley Kubrick Civil War screenplay from 1956, The Downslope to be filmed.
Relink for fun. Howard Johnson's 2001: A Space Odyssey kid's menu. Find tons more about our all-time favorite filmmaker in our big, messy archive of Stuff about Stanley Kubrick.
Kubrick on Disney.
Kubrick's letter to Barry Lyndon projectionists (and check out the stationery.)
"When, at last, something happens which you know is worth filming, that is the time to decide how to shoot it. It is almost but not quite true to say that when something really exciting and worthwhile is happening, it doesn't matter how you shoot it." Kubrick on Barry Lyndon.
Omnibus post from Cinephilia on Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.
Cameron Beyl's five-part, three-hour Directors Series study of Kubrick's life and work.
Oh yeah. A Complete Guide to the Lenses Used by Stanley Kubrick. Wonderful, film-nerdelicious video featuring Joe Dunton BSC. Via Kottke.
Steve Jobs versus HAL 9000.
Adam Savage painstakingly builds a model of the Overlook Hotel maze from The Shining. Via John Gruber.
Relink. The Museum of the City of New York's collection contains 129 of Stanley Kubrick's photo assignments for Look Magazine, encompassing more than 15,000 individual images, the vast majority of them never published.
"Kubrick's irony was playful but pointed. 'The most important parts of a film,' he said, 'are the mysterious parts-- beyond the reach of reason and language.'" From John Hofsess's 1976 NYT review of Barry Lyndon. Via Kubrick is God. Check the photo there. Fab.
Polaroids from the set of The Shining, shot by Continuity Supervisor June Randall. Via Meredith Frost.
"September 7. Stanley quite happy: 'We're in fantastic shape.' He has made up a 100 item questionnaire about our astronauts, e.g. do they sleep in their pajamas, what do they eat for breakfast, etc." Excerpts from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Diary.
"I've been watching 2001: A Space Odyessy regularly for four decades, but it wasn't until a few years ago I started thinking about touching it, and then over the holidays I decided to make my move." Soderbergh on the film and his re-edit.
Illustrator Robert McCall and 2001.
Relink. 29 year old British illustrator Brian Sanders was one of two artists hired in 1966 to cover the shooting of 2001. Check his illustrations from the set.
The historic Stanley Hotel is hosting a public competition to design a 61,500 square foot hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Via Colossal.
"We are badly in need of a mad computer expert..."
BBC Radio 4's 2001: A Space Odyssey Special, to coincide with the UK re-release of the film.
"I think my favorite scene was where I'm dismantling HAL's brain. It reminded me a bit of a famous movie and also play called Of Mice and Men when Lenny is speaking with George regarding their plans to start a farm." Keir Dullea's AMA.
The only known list of Stanley Kubrick's favorite films, made in 1963.
1980 interview with Scatman Crothers, in which he discusses his experience filming The Shining.
We knew this already but it's great to see it all cut together, Red: A Kubrick Supercut, edited by Rshi Kaneria.
"...by 2001 the picture will have been forgotten" Bell Labs Memo, 1965, in regards to consulting on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Ridley Scott to produce a series as a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey. No comment. Except to say it is to be adapted from the Clarke novel by Stuart Beattie, who wrote Pirates of the Caribbean.
Local note for Toronto, Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition is at the Tiff Bell Lightbox until the end of January. Highly, highly recommended.
Well worth a relink, 1949: Chicago by Stanley Kubrick, for Look Magazine. Thanks Marshall.
Shining vinyls from Evil. Via The Overlook.
Bartosz Kosowski's Lolita poster for the Kubrick art show in San Francisco. Via WATC.
2001 in 60 seconds, as a speedrun.
Relink. Arrested Motion has some samples from Kubrick - An Art Show Tribute, plus this one by Bartosz Kosowski. The show is currently showing at Art Spoke in San Francisco and looks great.
SyFy announces a six-part adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End. Yay.
Alex North's unused music score for 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Kubrick, an art show tribute featuring work by over 60 different artists. Via Laughing Squid.
Click thru the images of this new Folio Society edition of A Clockwork Orange, illustrated by Ben Jones. Nice. Via 50 Watts.
A view of the The Overlook Hotel facade that was built on the backlot of Elstree Studios. Cool.
Open Culture takes a stroll through our Stuff About Kubrick archives. Thanks for that.
Local note. The Music Box Theater's Son Of 70mm Film Festival starts July 11th and features Lawrence of Arabia, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, World and 2001. If it's the same beautiful print of 2001 they showed last time, it's mandatory viewing, especially if you've never seen it projected.
Hardcover, 4 volumes, monolith shaped metallic box, 7.8 x 17.3 in., 1386 pages. The Making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a collector's edition from Taschen, due in July. Thanks Richard.
2001: A Space Odyssey -- A Look Behind the Future. A cornball, but still totally wonderful, "making of" film.
Relink for a Friday, Riding the Subway with Stanley Kubrick.
Stanley Kubrick answers a question. From Zen Pencils, where Gavin Aung Than takes inspirational quotes from famous people and adapts them into cartoons. Thanks Ronn.
Somebody make a batch of these please.
The Mondo 237 Collection. Now those are some handsome sweaters. I think I prefer the button-down.
Kubrick's type and titles stripped down and surveyed by Christian Annyas.
I'm sort of difficult to buy presents for. But not always.
"Then one evening I passed the bookshelf, glanced at the paperback still patiently waiting on the shelf, and picked it up. I started reading the book and finished it in one sitting." Kubrick Country, by Penelope Houston, Saturday Review, December 1971. An interview coinciding with the release of Clockwork. Via Cinephilia.
"Split over two parts and recorded off the wall from the projection of the rare 35mm reel, the promo reel features some alternate takes not used in the final cut." Nice find. Stanley Kubrick narrates a "promo reel" for Dr. Strangelove. Via Cinephilia and Beyond.
"...doing the proverbial 'really good' science-fiction movie." Fifty years ago today, Stanley Kubrick wrote Arthur C. Clarke a letter. Thanks Andrew.
The origins of Eyes Wide Shut and other matters can be found in Stanley et Anthony: a correspondence between Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Burgess. Thanks Peter.
Serge Kaganski's epic article from 1999, Kubrick L'Odyssée d'un Solitaire has been digitized and posted in its entirety, and it is fabulous and worth a nice long look for the images alone. Here's a pretty mediocre machine translation of the text. Thanks Coop.
"Caution: Explosive Bolts" Typeset In The Future on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Great analysis, I'm looking forward to more posts from Dave Addey on this new site. Bookmarked, via Daring Fireball.
Relink. In the comic-book pages of 2001, two sorts of genius collided, by Noel Murray.
Steven Heller on Pablo Ferro's work on the Strangelove title sequence.
"Just tell Stanley that New York does not see anything funny about the end of the world!" Notes from The War Room, screenwriter Terry Southern on Strangelove.
Lego Strangelove.
Steve Karras on Sir Ken Adam, the original Bond designer. Also see this great V&A film on Adam and his design of The War Room in Strangelove. Highly recommended.
Strangelove review including a handy "name to sexual connotation or reference chart."
Frenetic, long-form Strangelove trailer and/or highlight reel.
Related to today's main image. I can't believe it's been so long since we made this film featuring America's greatest President.
"If you're going to make a tree, for instance, you have to copy a real tree. No one can 'make up' a tree because every tree has an inherent logic in the way it branches. And I've discovered that no one can make up a rock. I found that out in Paths of Glory. We had to copy rocks, but every rock also has an inherent logic you're not aware of until you see a fake rock. Every detail looks right, but something's wrong." The complete Stanley Kubrick Rolling Stone interview from 1987. Thanks David.
Stanley Kubrick at five.
Philip Castle on designing posters for Stanley Kubrick.
Christian Annyas asks, "It's become common knowledge that Stanley Kubrick was a Futura fan. But did he use it very often?" Here's all the type isolated and in context.
"The point isn't that either man's style is superior to the other. It's that they're so completely incompatible, so utterly at odds with one another, that it staggers the imagination that one man would be tasked to adapt and continue the work of the other." For more on Kirby's 2001 see an excerpt from The Weirdest Sc-Fi Comic Ever Made. by Julian Darius.
Related to the last, 2001: A Space Odyssey Howard Johnsons 1968 Children's Menu. Find tons more about our all-time favorite filmmaker in our big, messy archive of stuff about Stanley Kubrick.
Adventures in Licensing. A superb piece by Noel Murray on the Jack Kirby adaptation of 2001 for a Marvel Treasury Edition comic book in 1976.
Strangelove opening credits by Pablo Ferro.
Jeremy Bernstein conducted the most thorough interview Stanley Kubrick ever gave. A terrific hour and 15 minutes of audio from November 27th, 1965. Maria Popova has some background on the interview which took place while 2001 was being shot. Thanks to Ronn Kilby.
InstaKubrick.
How has no one here posted this yet? The "Continental Breakfast" sketch from Key & Peele.
Jake Gallagher for ACL on costume designer Hardy Amies and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Great collection of photos from the Shining shoot. I love the "Building the Overlook" shot.
"Stanley Kubrick insisted that a feature film can be constructed from six to eight 'non-submersible units'." Stanley Kubrick: Thoughts On Narrative from Diary Of A Screenwriter.
8-Bit Shining, via The Overlook.
The Aliens That Almost Were by Simone Odino. A great, illustrated piece at 2001 Italia on Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's research on how to depict extra-terrestials on film. Via Daring Fireball.
Incapable of error.
Jagger, Beatles, Clockwork.
Inside the Making of Dr. Strangelove.
"I spent weeks being chased through fields by bloody bulls. I was going crazy but this was Stanley's character - with all his fears and anxieties he was relentless." Brilliant set designer Ken Adam shares some memories of Stanley Kubrick with Vincent Dowd.
Rent the Barry Lyndon lens. Thanks Ronn.
"Either you care, or you don't. There's no in-between. And if you care, then go all of the way."
An interview with Christiane Kubrick, by Todd Gilchrist.
What films he watched and loved, plus one of my favorite photos, by Dmitri Kasterine.
Stanley Kubrick, Cinephile, by Nick Wrigley for BFI.
Dear Mr. Bergman... A letter from SK from 1960.
"A Clockwork Orange is my current favourite. I was very predisposed against the film. After seeing it, I realize it is the only movie about what the modern world really means." —Luis Buñuel and others on SK.
Dear Mr Clarke...
Mark Englert's widescreen art inspired by the films of Stanley Kubrick, at Gallery 1988.
Another fun project from Matt Round, The Shine-O-Matic. Oh yeah. See also Matt's Jellytext.
Staircases To Nowhere: Making Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, from The Elstree Project, oral histories from London's iconic soundstage.
A video tour of the just-closed Stanley Kubrick Exhibit at LACMA. Thanks Ronn.
For JC, Tested has a great set of pictures from the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Television interview with Arthur C. Clarke from 1968 about 2001: A Space Odyssey. Via Cinephilea.
Regarding today's main feature, John Coulthart points us to 2001: The Album, Volume Two.
Justin Morrow on Stanley Kubrick's script and production notes for Napoleon Thanks Ronn.
Relink for a hump day smile, a collection of nice Kubrick cinemagraphs. Via Matt Zoller Seitz.
Kubrick and Brando and how they were almost collaborators on One-Eyed Jacks. Via Kottke and Gruber.
Thirteen splendid minutes on Stanley Kubrick from the Dutch television series Stardust.
"Though it's labelled 'the fourth landspeeder' on a technical drawing, the small pod-like vehicle near the Mos Eisley cantina has a more interesting backstory to it."
The Making of Dr. Strangelove, parts one and two.
Stanley Kubrick's Filmography animated by Martin Woutisseth.
Fantasticky pribeh o lete an Jupiter, 1970 2001 poster by Dobroslav Foll.
"I was falling about laughing most of the time... there are ideas espoused in the movie that I know to be total balderdash." Leon Vitali, an assistant to Stanley Kubrick, on Room 237.
The proprietor of The Overlook Hotel, Lee Unkrich, chats with Bilge Ebiri about his Shining obsession.
"Stanley was fond of titles in search of screenplays." Stanley Kubrick's Unmade Film About Jazz in the Third Reich, by James Hughes.
"What (the theories expressed in Room 237) lacked was a 'neurophenomenological' overview to make them comprehensible on the level Kubrick intended. The movie was no less than 'a primitive gateway to an entirely different mode of cognition beyond the limitations of speech and the written alphabet,' McLeod told me." Inside the Crowded Cult of The Shining Theorists.
New Calumet Baking Powder poster for Room 237.
Stanley Kubrick - A Filmography.
Inside Dr. Strangelove, the documentary by David Naylor.
"One project under consideration was a film set during the American Civil War, following Col. John S. Mosby who seeks justice after Custer hangs his men. A script was co-written by Kubrick and Civil War historian Shelby Foote..." Kevin Jagernauth on The Lost & Unmade Projects of Stanley Kubrick.
Photographs of and by Stanley Kubrick, collected by Daniel Benneworth-Gray. Lovely.
Related. "Tony Frewin was Kubrick's assistant from 1965 until the director died (and beyond). I called him up for a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Kubrick's Napoleonic vortex." A Lot of Work, Very Little Actual Movie, by Alex Godfrey.
Crap. Spielberg Developing Kubrick's Napoleon script as a tv miniseries.
Images from the Spartacus title sequence by Saul Bass. The original photos are up for auction.
Jeremy Bernstein on playing chess with Kubrick.
"...always wanted to discuss with you the possibility of doing the proverbial 'really good' science-fiction movie." SK to Arthur C. Clarke, at Letters of Note.
An amazing frame from Jack Kirby's adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
If you went to the original London premiere of 2001: A Space Oddyssey in 1968 you would have been handed this printed program. It's historically significant for Kubrick freaks like ourselves and it's a great piece of design. Make sure to click on "contact sheets" to see the original document.
Doing a little research for tonight's 70mm screening and tomorrow's recording of The Talk Show, here's a draft 2001 script.
The Shining dress, spotted at Fashion Week.
Room 237 trailer. Just watch.
Related to the last. "In late 1963 for the film's finale Director Stanley Kubrick spent almost two weeks shooting a War Room custard-pie fight at Stage B Shepperton but the result was later deleted from the final cut. These stills give us a glimpse of what this 'cut scene' may have looked like." The pie-fight was in Terry Southern's first draft of the script too.
"It is closed for the winter." Yesterday, The Overlook Hotel posted the script pages for the deleted original ending of The Shining.
Related to the last. "As we say in English, 'We're in deep shit.'" Stanley Kubrick: The Moon Landing, Gavin Rothery gathers the segments of William Karel's excellent satire all in one place.
The Ultimate Trip.
HAL 9000 Life-Size Replica, supposedly built from studio blueprints and currently out of stock. Thanks Darren.
Plumbing Stanley Kubrick is a long, rambling memoir full of surprises, by Ian Watson, who
worked for two years with Kubrick on story development for the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Via Cinephilia & Beyond.
"Does IBM know that one of the main themes of the story is a psychotic computer? I don't want to get anyone in trouble, and I don't want them to feel they have been swindled. Please give me the exact status of things with IBM. Best regards, Stanley."
Hardy Amies was the costume designer for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and has produced a short documentary on the collaboration. Thanks Nalden.
Related to the last. From a 1963 documentary with Arthur C. Clarke, why Kubrick used "Daisy" for HAL's death in 2001. Plus find lots more in our Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archives.
Kubrick with camera.
Archivist Richard Daniels introduces some of the treasures from The Shining in the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London.
From Weegee to NASA. Things Anne Thompson learned at the Kubrick LACMA Exhibit. I saw the show in Amsterdam. Highly recommended.
Stanley Kubrick sets up a shot of the Hedge Maze model on the Lobby set of The Shining.
"I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed." Be a bit more specific with the Strangelove Slide Rule, a nuclear bomb effects computer from John Walker.
"In early 1963 Arthur Fellig, better known to time, tide and memory as Weegee, journeyed to Shepperton Studios in Merrie England to document, however briefly, the production of Stanley Kubrick's mirth-encrusted exploration of human dread, Dr. Strangelove." Terrific candid shots.
"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." A lovely edit inspired by this Kubrick quote by SomersetVII.
"A famous Kubrick sentence is, 'Never try to explain something that you don't understand yourself.' If you make such a film, then just go all the way. And he did." As The Shining is rereleased in the UK, Kubrick's producer Jan Harlan discusses the genesis of this 'symphony in schizophrenia.'
JC, think you need to take a trip to Los Angeles.
Related to the last, Staircases to Nowhere: Making Stanley Kubrick's The Shining features interviews with crew members. Via The Overlook Hotel, of course.
"Hacking down the door with an axe was easy - all Jack had to do was make the wood crack well." Kate Abbott interviews Jan Harlan and Joe Turkel who played Lloyd, on the making of The Shining.
Ten minutes of film-techiness about Barry Lyndon.
These images from 1985's The Complete Airbrush and Photo-Retouching Manual by Peter Owen & John Sutcliffe are of particular interest to fans of The Shining. Via The Overlook Hotel, of course.
"And it's not just a matter of noticing things other people miss, because that can be done by anyone who's perceptive; it's a matter of noticing things that the director included to indicate his true, undisclosed intention. In other words, it's not an interpretive reading — it's an inflexible, clandestine reality that matters way more than anything else. And it's usually insane." Chuck Klosterman reviews Room 237 for Grantland.
Related to the last. I gave myself a present and finally got Antony Hare's beautiful portrait of SK framed. Antony describes his work as "illustrating the meeting point between portraiture and caricature." It's an apt description for a series of faces that are not "cartoony" in the traditional sense but yet manage to capture the essence of the subject in just a few bold and dramatic strokes.
Related to the last, you knew Unkrich was the caretaker at The Overlook Hotel didn't you?
"I've seen this cog-eyed image on fly-posters in Colombia, on t-shirts in Turkey, and put to a variety of uses in Canada, Los Angeles and New York." Design as Virus, by John Coulthart. David Pelham's cover for Clockwork Orange.
Lego Strangelove. Via Kottke.
"I know I'm not the first person to put a laugh track on The Shining, but I couldn't resist doing my own version of it." Via Boing Boing.
Two Kubricks and a Malick. Film Comment's Best Films Never Made.
"I wish they had made trading cards for The Shining. Since they didn't, I made my own."
"With one unedited pull-back shot, minimal but effective acting, a few sentences of voice-over, some great production design, and a cold, creepy soundtrack, we're quickly initiated into the look, themes and content of the rest of the film, and all in a little over 2 minutes." Deconstructing Clockwork, by Simon Powell.
JC might want to check this out.
Stanley Kubrick: One-Point Perspective. Fun supercut on symmetry in his films.
Stanley Kubrick's first film, Fear and Desire is finally being released on Blu-ray in October.
"...an ardent perfectionist that made the films he wanted, on his terms." A thoughtful, illustrated post from Creative Market on Kubrick.
How 2001: A Space Odyssey might be advertised if it were released in 2012. Thanks Mark.
An Italian article on the 50mm f/0,7 lens used by Kubrick on Barry Lyndon. Here's the machine translation and also the definitive American Cinematographer article by Ed DiGiulio on the same subject. Via Daring Fireball.
Seen individually around the internet, here are 30 Stanley Kubrick Cinemagraphs all in one place.
Daniel Gray's A Stanley Kubrick Reader. Great list.
Kubrick's Napoleon, a lot of work, very little actual movie. Alex Godfrey chats with Tony Frewin, SK's assistant from 1965 until the director died.
The elevator of blood from The Shining trailer, recreated with RealFlow & Lightwave. Yowza.
"Stanley Kubrick was a friend of mine, insofar as people like Stanley have friends, and as if there are any people like Stanley now. Famously reclusive, as I'm sure you've heard, he was in fact a complete failure as a recluse, unless you believe that a recluse is simply someone who seldom leaves his house." That's the lede from Michael Herr's 1999 Vanity Fair article on SK, which is worth a relink for many reasons, not the least of which is the terrific photo that kicks it off.
When Clockwork was released in the USA in 1972, this tabloid newspaper, The Orange Times, was presented to audiences. It would make a fine companion piece to the original cinema program from the 1968 London premiere of 2001.
How did Heywood Floyd's pen come to be floating in mid-air? Answers to that and a slew of questions about 2001 plus The HAL transcripts and lots more from The Underview.
Pavel Klushantsev's 1957 film, Road to the Stars, without which some claim, SK might never have made 2001. I'm not buying the 'shot-for-shot' argument but the film is nothing but magnificent.
Neil Hall went Looking for Stanley and photographed Kubrick's film locations."His choices enabled him to turn the mundane into the sublime - a collection of disparate corners of Britain united by one filmmaker's vision."
"I'd like to hear it Hal... play it for me."
You all know about The Overlook Hotel, right? It's a great collection of Shining media and ephemera and Lee Unkrich, film director from Pixar, is the caretaker.
Related to the last, or maybe this one
"The still photographer on The Shining, Murray Close, took a wonderful picture of Stanley standing in front of the smoldering remains, and he had a wonderful smile on his face. I saw a print of that, but Murray was forbidden to have that picture published." Kubrick's Wonderful, Forbidden Smile, from Michael Heilemann. I think this is now my favorite photo of SK ever.
The Banal and the Bizarre, a Kubrick design compendium, from Flavorwire.
Happy Birthday SK.
Frank Kozik's porcelain Ludwig Van Bust. Via This Isn't Happiness.
Regarding printed film programs. If you went to the original London premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968 you would have been handed this printed program. It's historically significant for Kubrick freaks like ourselves and it's a great piece of design. Make sure to click on "contact sheets" to see the original document.
A clip from Once Upon A Time: A Clockwork Orange, the documentary written by Michael Ciment. It's screening this month in London as part of Clockwork's 50th anniversary. Via Richard Daniels of the Kubrick Archive.
Related to the last: Stanley Kubrick, Deserving of Worship.
Shooting 2001, an excellent collection of black and white production stills.
2001: The Making of a Myth, a documentary full of interviews of people involved in the production.
Kyle Lambert's Toy Shining. Thanks Jay.
Well, hello Stanley.
"When, at last, something happens which you know is worth filming, that is the time to decide how to shoot it. It is almost but not quite true to say that when something really exciting and worthwhile is happening, it doesn't matter how you shoot it." Kubrick on Barry Lyndon, from Kubrick by Michel Ciment.
Yowza. Riding the Subway with Stanley Kubrick. A series of photos from 1946. Thanks Marshall.
Related to the last, ONE: A Space Odyssey.
The 2001: A Space Odyssey Lego sets that never existed. But definitely should have.
Open Culture on Stanley Kubrick's Very First Films.
Related to the last. The definitive article on the making of 2001 is from Cinefex Magazine. The special effects and modeling work was done before reliable motion-control even existed and some wireframe animations on the Discovery's control screens were shot using real wire. Unfortunately the text of the piece is not available online, but surprisingly, backorders of Issue 85 from April 2001 are still available.
44 years ago today 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered at the Uptown Theater in DC. Indiewire posts a few things you might not have known about the film. Thomas E. Brown looks into pre- and post-premiere edits, and here's the sweet printed program that accompanied the initial UK release.
Related to the last. My favorite "Hollywood" Chair.
A great interview with cinematographer John Alcott about shooting Barry Lyndon, the script, Jim Emerson on the opening shot and our big archive category, Stuff About Stanley Kubrick.
"He was so protective of it, because he hated it." Paul Mazursky talks about working on Stanley Kubrick's first feature Fear and Desire. Via The Daily Mubi.
Stanley Kubrick and Sue Lyon on the set of Lolita.
A synchronized collage of every zoom shot in The Shining, by Ian Kammer. Via Catherine Grant.
Local note for the Twin Cities. March 28th Strangelove screening.
Related to the last. A necktie, Lego and LiteBrite. All courtesy of The Overlook Hotel.
Good idea Andrew. Modular floor tiles based on the carpet in The Shining.
Volto points out that our link to this in the Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archive is dead again, so here's a new one. When Vivian Kubrick was 17, her father allowed her to film a documentary on the making of The Shining. Thanks for that.
"Here, on the anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's death — March 7, 1999, at the age of 70 — Life presents rare and unpublished photos from the Spartacus set by Life's J.R. Eyerman." Via The Daily Mubi.
A wonderful photo of Stanley Kubrick standing on the set of the hedge maze during production of The Shining. From The Overlook Hotel, a collection of Shining ephemera, including this British tv spot. Via The Daily Mubi.
Twig the Enhancer. Just one of a list of Titles in Search of a Script, complied by Stanley Kubrick and posted by Lists of Note.
"Viddy well the stuff of obsessions, O my brothers" Kubrick, cover design and electronic music in one convenient 12-inch package." Lots of links and observations inspired by A Clockwork Orange: The Complete Original Score.
One more. "...every time you see a gang walking along in slow-motion, a speeded-up party scene, a slow pan out from a closeup of a face, a torture scene set to cheerful music, the chances are it was plundered from Kubrick's original." The Droog Rides Again, by Steve Rose.
While we're on Clockwork, here's a helpful Nadsat Dictionary.
Josie & the Pussycats in A Clockwork Orange. Brilliant.
"But before running through our evening checklist, I wanted to confirm a time for the Newsweek shoot. Stanley didn't look up from his desk, 'Tell them I'll take the picture. And I'll need their specs.'" How Stanley Kubrick Shot His Own Newsweek Cover.
Slim on the bomb. Via Old Hollywood.
"'I think it's my most... skillful film,' Stanley Kubrick stated in his calm, equanimous voice, the day after screening the first assembly of A Clockwork Orange." Mike Kaplan tells the story of being there in 1971.
Related. David Hudson for Mubi on Room 237. Dig the poster. Plus, here's the official site.
"...a compelling work of art that acts as a kind of mirror, especially for thoughtful people, who see aspects of themselves that are among the most precious things they have experienced... That's in the best sense. In some cases it might also be a paranoia that they want to expurgate in some way." Director Rodney Ascher on Room 237, a new feature documentary aiming to decipher Kubrick's The Shining.
The Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts in London.
Bowie2001: remixes of David Bowie songs set to a remixed cut of 2001. Thanks Henry.
Happy Birthday HAL.
A lovingly assembled homage, A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey, by Richard Vezina. Great editing and sound design. Bravo.
Joe Donaldson's hand-drawn and computer-animated homage to 2001.
"In six days God created the heavens and the earth. On the seventh day, Stanley Kubrick sent everything back for modifications." So begins
Dark Side of The Moon, William Karel's French mockumentary on Kubrick faking the moon landings. Bookmark to watch in its entirety if you haven't seen it. Great ominous tone to the whole thing.
"The movie is so completely absorbed in its own problems, its use of color and space, its fanatical devotion to science-fiction detail, that it is somewhere between hypnotic and immensely boring." Renata Adler's 1968 NYT review of 2001.
The red handwriting is Kubrick's. Great find Shaun.
Happy birthday Terry Gilliam. Here he is talking about Spielberg and Kubrick. Via Shaun Usher.
Caution Weightless Condition.
Related to the last. "I could have used a few more superlatives." Updated and expanded, Volto von Libro has collected some great stuff surrounding Stanley Kubrick's interview with Jeremy Bernstein from 1966. First there's the interview itself, roughly 75 minutes of audio. Plus Bernstein's New Yorker profile of SK from November, 1966. An auction sheet offering the text of the profile, marked up by SK and finally a great personal memoir of the time from Bernstein.
Nine part audio interview with Stanley Kubrick from 1966. Via Maria Popova.
Movie Geeks United's Episode 5 of The Kubrick Podcast Series, "Redrum." The first four episodes are here.
Jason Munn's Strangelove poster. Lovely.
"A similar scene between two horror classics, The Phantom Carriage (1921) and The Shining (1980). Stanley Kubrick paid a homage to Victor Sjöström's classic creating one the most memorable moments in film history." Wow, that's news to me.
2011: A Space Adventure."This is not a sequel to 2001 : A Space Odyssey but some kind of tribute." Nice work by a small team. Great track by Karreo too.
One more. Video of a conversation with Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan on Napoleon, from the BFI.
Related. DC's Six things to do with Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon.
Related to the last. Found in Anthony Burgess' archive of papers, his script for Kubrick's unmade Napoleon and his own adaptation of Clockwork for film. Thanks Luke. Tons more stuff about SK.
From Shaun Usher, "On this day, 40 years ago, Stanley Kubrick wrote this proposal for his doomed Napoleon biopic."
Photos by Jack Torrance? Stunning photos, shot and "aged" by William Anthony, who writes, "I had a great time photographing The Overlook Hotel as Jack in 1921. I hope to make a trip to The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite to do the same with interiors someday." Can't wait for that. Via Maria Popova.
A clip of the quick 2001 scene from the most recent episode of Community.
For JC, @hal9000_.
The world's largest solid block of acrylic was originally made for SK's 2001 A Space Odyssey, "but was rejected by the director in favour of the now famous black basalt monolith." Via Swiss Cheese and Bullets.
Relink for Coop. "Thus Spake Zarathustra," the music from the title sequence of 2001 A Space Odyssey performed by a school orchestra. If this doesn't get your Thursday started right, nothing will.
"But where to place the logo? It was keeping him awake at night." Steve Jobs and Apple through the prism of 2001. By Simon Clement.
Valentina D'Efilippo deconstructs The Shining by employing graphic visualization techniques. So nice. Via Manuel Lima.
Federico to Stanley.
Borey Lyndon by Mort Drucker for Mad.
The main Overlook Ball image on our site today came from this great repository of promotional images, Stanley Kubrick -Deserving of Worship. For example, check this, perhaps my favorite picture of SK anywhere.
Here's a very detailed account by Wendy Carlos of how exactly Kubrick got HAL to sound lobotomized in 2001.
Clockwork newspaper props.
Trailer for Kubrick's The Killing. Via VSL.
Stuff About Stanley Kubrick, on his birthday.
Letters of Note says Happy Birthday (83) to Stanley Kubrick today with a group of his correspondences.
"Songs written by author Anthony Burgess for a musical version of his novel A Clockwork Orange are to be performed in the UK for the first time." Hmm. Thanks Luke.
Rob Ager's film on Stanley Kubrick's use of "MC Escher-style spatial patterns" and architectural impossibilities to disorient viewers in The Shining. Just great.
The complete text of Stanley Kubrick's Playboy interview from 1968.
The Shining in neon. So great. Be sure to check out the rest of Pop Art by Mr Whaite.
He's not the only connection between 2001 and Tree of Life but he is a pretty important one, Phelim O'Neill interviews Douglas Trumbull.
Another A.V. Club link: FotA Dan Telfer visits the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood outside of Portland, used for a handful of exterior shots in The Shining.
Every word from Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange was used in this ad for a New Zealand bookstore chain, re-recreating a familiar image from Kubrick's film.
Matthew Modine's Full Metal Jacket Diary arrived in the mail just now and it's gorgeous, especially this signed and numbered photo print. Just about the best kick I ever started.
"Dear Mr. Bergman," SK at 31, writes a fan letter.
A wonderful set of photos collected by Tom Gauld, Kubrick On Set.
Fun. Movies In Frames tackle 2001 today. "One movie - four frames. That's it." Here's the whole batch. Thanks Andrew Huff.
The final word on the great aspect ratio debate of 2011: Stanley Kubrick's letter to Barry Lyndon projectionists (and check out the stationery.)
Love these vintage mock ads for 2001 by Justin Van Genderen. HAL 9000 and Pan Am. Via Super Punch.
We're Kubrick obsessed, so when a new edition of Barry Lyndon is released, of course we argue about aspect ratio. Lots more, including gorgeous screen-caps from Gary Tooze.
"If you could do your dream project, what would it be?" Comic artist Kevin Colden answers with a set of pages adapting A Clockwork Orange. Via David Hudson's big Kubrick and Controversy post at Mubi this morning.
Related. Sellers as President Merkin Muffley doing a bunch of English accents. Related Redux: Our greatest President appeared in this political tv spot we did during the last Primary campaign.
Andrew Bargeron's Alex & Droogs comic cover.
"We've found our Alex." Malcolm McDowell and Leon Vitali talk about Clockwork. Via Gruber.
Local note for LA. The Shining, in a cemetery. Thanks Marsh.
Long, fascinating Frieze interview with Max Mathews, who passed away last month. The "father of computer music," Mathews shares his enthusiasm and career including a bit about 2001 and HAL singing "Daisy." Via Mubi.
Paul Maher Jr. uncovers a brief conversation between Terrence Malick and the great Jean Renoir that occurred while Malick was an AFI student in the 70s.
An interview with conspiracy theorist Jay Weidner about, among many other things, how NASA and a Saturn-worshiping cult was responsible for Stanley Kubrick's murder. Thanks(?) Henry.
Related. Lolita, Italian One-Sheet and other film posters.
Fun, animated tribute to Stanley Kubrick remixing elements from his films, by Martin Woutisseth. Via Kirstin Butler who found it at Kuriositas.
Valentina D'efilippo uses "graphic visualization techniques to deconstruct a film in order to visualize its internal structure." And that film is The Shining. Splendid, via Mr. Dawes.
Tangentially related to the last. Well, of course Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings. Haven't you ever seen The Shining?
"...deftly channeling both 1750 and 1975."
A great find from Hold Back Tomorrow. A sweet promotional button from the theatrical release of Barry Lyndon.
A newly restored Clockwork print, the premiere of Once Upon a Time... Clockwork Orange, a new film by Antoine de Gaudemar, and lots of ancillary panels and appearances are scheduled as part of Cannes 2011 Classics Program.
Yep, ToL dinosaur confirmed.
Realted to the last. Kubrick et le Web, a sweet companion site to the Paris exhibition. Imagery collected, with the thumbnails organized by color. Our SK Archives get a mention in the credits.
Highlights from Stanley Kubrick, The Exhibition at La Cinémathèque Française.
We're helping to kickstart Adam Rackoff and Matthew Modine's Full Metal Jacket Diary App and you should too.
There is something lovely and historic about the fact that this set of images for 2001: A Space Odyssey are black and white and formatted for distribution to newspapers.
A conversation with Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan on Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made? From the BFI.
Related. Hand-tinted lobby cards for 2001: A Space Odyssey. A very odd effect. Plus Futura. (Bold, not Extra Bold.)
Set of Lolita hand-tinted lobby cards from 1962. Love this one.
SK's script for Napoleon, reviewed.
Related to the last. DC's Six things to do with Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. Via The Daily Mubi.
"Tony Frewin was Kubrick's assistant from 1965 until the director died (and beyond). I called him up for a first-hand account of what it was like to be in Kubrick's Napoleonic vortex." A Lot of Work, Very Little Actual Movie, by Alex Godfrey.
Immersive Cocoon 2011. "This spec teaser reveals an evolution in computing interaction, within a setting inspired by the penultimate scene from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey." Wow, with Keir Dullea and everything. Super clean. An admirable job. But something tells me SK would have been furious seeing this and that leaves me feeling uneasy.
Viktor Hertz's collection of Stanley Kubrick pictogram movie posters.
Related to the last, Stanley Kubrick, at the Crossroads of a Work. Dig in.
Local note for Paris. Opening tonight, Stanley Kubrick Exhibition at La Cinémathèque. Merci everyone.
Overlook Hotel, July 4th Ball, 1921. From a post by our March Guest Editor, Jim Hughes, on Silver-Gelatin Prints.
The opposite of SD's earlier post, The Shining Gets a Laugh Track.
English country homes that starred in Kubrick films. Via Movie City News.
SK letters and private correspondences. Via Letters of Note.
Twelve years ago today Stanley Kubrick died.
Selected portraits of Stanley Kubrick, collected by Daniel Gray.
Kubrick Napoleon documentary planned.
"I immersed myself in 2001: A Space Odyssey for a week, watching the film twice along with all the 'making of' footage and documentaries, researching concept art and posters online, and doing a bunch of sketching. I wanted the poster to have a subtle touch, hit the theme of the film, yet still have a Signalnoise flavor."
The Overlook Hotel Kids' Placemat by Shane Parker. Thanks Tracie.
Notes on Alex North's unused score for 2001. Thanks Henry.
"VHS." Foam, plexiglass, latex paint. 2 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet. Monolithic art by David Herbert. Thanks for the link to Bryan Von Reuter.
Related to the last, self-portrait.
The Visions of Stanley Kubrick - The Shining. Great two-part feature from the BluRay with Spielberg, Jack, Kaminski, Pollock, etc. Must see.
Related to the last, "Good afternoon... Gentlemen..."
Happy Birthday HAL 9000.
"3. It's impossible to tell you what I'm going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made." A couple Letters of Note, first one from Audrey Hepburn to Stanley Kubrick and then, a draft of a letter from SK about Napoleon.
A few people have written to ask about the Kubrick portrait on my office wall that they spied during The Big Web Show last week. It's a prized possession, a framed illustration by Antony Hare printed in velvety black at 2880 dpi on FineArt paper.
The Siruca Open Source Pictogram Project. Via the DDC.
As we thought, regarding the 17 minutes of recently "found" 2001 footage, Warner Home Video "has no plans to expand or revise Mr. Kubrick's vision." In other news, Penguin Classics has decided not to publish all the commas removed from Humboldt's Gift by Mr. Bellow while he was originally revising the manuscript. Via John Gruber.
Related to last: In case you missed it, seventeen minutes of lost footage from 2001 have been found.
"Why has this film already infuriated and confused so many audiences?" Ebert on 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968.
Starting this week, Movie Geeks United presents an eight-episode podcast set, The Kubrick Series.
Yowza. A big set of beautiful very high resolution promotional photos for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
SK.
Some great Barry Lyndon ephemera and observations from Little Augery including a sweet promotional line drawing of a dueling pistol by who knows who for who knows what. Plus, some nice side by side comparisons of film frames and paintings by Hogarth, Thackeray and Watteau.
"I don't know how many times they shot the blood in the elevator. Somebody told me they had been shooting that ever since the shoot first started the year before. They shot it three times while I was there. About every ten days they would shoot it again..." Jane Hu asks, Is the Trailer for The Shining the Actual Film?
A Stanley Kubrick Reader from Swiss Cheese and Bullets. I'd add Cinefex Magazine Issue 85 from April 2001. It's probably the best behind-the-sfx look at 2001 anywhere and the SK geek on your list will flip for it. Guaranteed.
Alex Trochut's new cover for the Penguin edition of A Clockwork Orange.
Lego Shining. Thanks Super Punch.
With "zero points of articulation" this is about the least amount of action an action figure can have, an yet I am strangely drawn to it. Thanks Scott.
Jonathan Adler's Barocco Futurism, an interior design project for Kohler, based on 2001.
So you know. Nadsat Dictionary.
Donald Duck keeps his troops in line in Full Metal Disney.
Local note for LA. The rarely screened Academy 70mm print of 2001 will be shown Friday night at The Egyptian as a part of Big-Screen Odyssey: The Films of Stanley Kubrick. Sigh. Via David Hudson.
A teaser and proof of concept for special effects icon Douglas Trumbull's work-in-progress, a documentary on the making of 2001. (#2 under 'All Videos') Thanks to Filippo from L'archivio definitivo su Stanley Kubrick.
The Kubrick photo collection from his time working as a photographer for Look is heading to Venice. More info here. Thanks Henry.
After Stanley, Jon Ronson chats with Christiane Kubrick for The Guardian. Via TMN.
"...and I thought to myself: there's a picture here." Dmitri Kasterine on getting my very favorite picture of Stanley Kubrick. Thanks to Templeton for the heads up.
The A.V. Club's regular feature Scenic Routes this week looks at 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Kubrick at Nerd Boyfriend currently and previously. Thanks Shelly.
Typographic 2001 poster and a load of other great illustration and design work by Richard Perez. Via Bobby Solomon.
Happy birthday Mr. Kubrick. Via A Conversation on Cool. Tons of cool to chat about today in our big, messy Stuff About SK archive.
"I directed two of these short form pieces to accompany History Channel's show '1968.' It was fun, they allowed me to choose my own subject so I went with Keir Dullea, star of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He had us to his home and we made this little piece." Director Sean Dunne. Thanks a bunch to Volto von Libro.
"Like all visionaries, he spoke the truth. And no matter how comfortable we think we are with the truth, it always comes as a profound shock when we're forced to meet it face-to-face." Scorsese on Kubrick.
Kubrick concept art and storyboards. Uneven but important collection from various places. Via io9 and Bram.
Abstract: "In Stanley Kubrick's motion picture 2001: A Space Odyssey, Heywood Floyd, chairman of the National Council of Astronautics (NCA), orchestrates a false flag alien artifact discovery. The alleged discovery of a black monolith buried 40 feet below the surface of the moon is in fact staged by Dr. Floyd and fellow members of the NCA as justification for the continued support of the NCA's monolith-chasing missions, including the Discovery mission to Jupiter." This is a new one to me, Joe Bisdin's theory on 2001. Also, "Heywood Floyd is an anagram for defy holy wood."
Wave Of Mutilation, The Shining skateboard deck by Kevin Tong. Via Super Punch.
He always had an eye for an interesting composition. Check the photo credit. Via Things.
Toilets in space requires special training. Like many other things, Stanley Kubrick foresaw this in 2001, and passengers are advised to read instructions before use.
Lost (and found) Stanley Kubrick/Jim Thompson treatment will feature Scarlett Johansson, Midget Monkey Girl.
A custom Mego figure, Jack Torrance! Thanks to John at Super Punch.
The Monolith Action Figure. "May cause strange magnetic fields, action figure evolution, seeing things filled with stars, and/or more (or it might just sit on your desk doing nothing)." Thanks Jamie.
Phineas writes, "Mr Coudal, the internet told me to give this to you."
"Some shots you might need a couple of thousand, and then some CGI. Although I don't think he would have automatically thought, 'Let's CGI everything.'" Vice's interview with Tony Frewin about Kubrick's Napoleon. Thanks Henry.
Youtube clips from great '80s BBC sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, starring Leonard Rossiter. As JC will tell you, Rossiter appears in 2001 and Barry Lyndon.
Every couple months someone sends me a link to a post somewhere about how Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings. Today, Discovery's Robert Lamb takes up the issue after touching down at our favorite conspiracy essay ever, Secrets of The Shining. Thanks John.
Rob Sharp on Kubrick and Napoleon.
Thus Spake Zarathustra, the music to the title sequence of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as played by a local school orchestra. Fantastic. Thanks a million to Mr. Dawes.
Related to the last. Video of Anthony Burgess and Malcolm McDowell discussing A Clockwork Orange.
"Spell a thing to the eye, that most crass and obvious of organs, and behold – a revelation." Fueilleton quoting Anthony Burgess from 1972 on how A Clockwork Orange has or has not changed his life.
Henry passes along some insider info on why there's been a delay in releasing an HD version of Barry Lyndon.
"If he had a computer at that time, you wouldn't care, but you know he has been waiting three weeks for this mountain fog or whatever." Kottke quotes Lars von Trier on Barry Lyndon. From the new book Screen Epiphanies.
Related to the last. John Coulthart's Alex in the Chelsea Drug Store.
Exhibtion poster for Taming Light: Stanley Kubrick by illustrator Martin Ansin. Here's the site for the exhibtion. Via John Gruber.
JC, in case you missed it, there's a small section in this New Yorker profile of James Cameron about him hanging out with Kubrick, explaining how he'd done the effects in True Lies.
The required texts regarding the making of 2001, this and this.
A look at Taschen's sweet new book, Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made. (Translate) Here's the publisher's description and forward. More to come.
As predicted. How Stanley Kubrick's editing conveys a horrifying supernatural vision in The Shining, by Adam Polselli.
Think JC might want to use a few of these.
"I could have used a few more superlatives." Updated and expanded, Volto von Libro has collected some great stuff surrounding Stanley Kubrick's interview with Jeremy Bernstein from 1966. First there's the interview itself, roughly 75 minutes of audio. Plus Bernstein's New Yorker profile of SK from November, 1966. An auction sheet offering the text of the profile, marked up by SK and finally a great personal memoir of the time from Bernstein. All mandatory reading and thankfully placed in our Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archives.
"I could have used a few more superlatives." Updated and expanded, Volto von Libro has collected some great stuff surrounding Stanley Kubrick's interview with Jeremy Bernstein from 1966. First there's the interview itself, roughly 75 minutes of audio. Plus Bernstein's New Yorker profile of SK from November, 1966. An auction sheet offering the text of the profile, marked up by SK and finally a great personal memoir of the time from Bernstein. All mandatory reading and thankfully placed in our Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archives.
Jeff Dawson for the Times Online on the greatest movie never made, Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon. Via John Gruber.
"Stanley Kubrick was nothing if not meticulous." Thanks Matt.
"There is no other way to do it. Repeat. No other way." Related to the last. A storyboard from from The Shining annotated by SK and that frame from the film.
Related to The Archive post below, Sean Dunne also directed this short interview with Keir Dullea about working on 2001. "He had us to his home and we made a little piece."
Dueling trailers. A Boy And His Dog versus A Clockwork Orange. Thanks for the tip Andrew.
There is sacrilege and then there is Sacrilege. Jason Aaron's 2001 music video Salivate on my Heart is the latter. JC, definitely don't watch this one.
The opening of 2001 as played by a middle school orchestra. JC, it's probably best if you skip this one.
Dan Park's Stanley Kubrick.
Lots more on EWS at ten by Jamie Stuart.
Ten years on, Todd Raviotta updates his excellent personal essay on Eyes Wide Shut which includes a telling quote from SK, "Critical opinion on my films has always been salvaged by what I would call subsequent critical opinion."
Short profile of actor Gary Lockwood (2001's Frank Poole) contains some interesting trivia about the film's premiere. I suspect some of it is completely made up.
They Were Collaborators #566.
SK's rarely seen Fear and Desire.
A 13 minute segment on Kubrick from the Dutch television show "Stardust" full of interesting bits and anecdotes.
"...a film meant to be watched both forwards and backwards. The human mind may find ways of playing it backwards subconsciously. Tricks are used to play with your memory of standard cinema convention."
Long, sprawling essay on physical cosmologies of The Shining.
John Gruber has the scoop on Stanley Kubrick: The Napoleon Film, a new book due out this summer.
Sight & Sound's March cover story on Barry Lyndon, From Romance To Ritual. Local note for London, The BFI Kubrick screening schedule.
If you can stand the ads, The FirstPost has a nice "picturebook" of Kubrick images. Thanks Zach.
"For his largest Manhattan property -- the Bowery Hotel, in the East Village -- Mr. MacPherson turned to an even more surprising source: Stanley Kubrick's The Shining." Hotel designs With cinematic flavor. Thanks Matt.
Graffiti of the year.
Matthew Modine on Stanley Kubrick and making FMJ.
Heads up Kubrickians. The HAL Project is so great it goes right to the top of our list of things we wish we had thought of. Via Daring Fireball.
Chris at Mentalfloss posts about a set of cool Kubrick remixes and also tosses in a nice link to our obsessional archive of Stuff About SK. Thanks for that.
Rose writes to remind us to sing Happy Birthday to HAL 9000 today. Thanks for that.
The story of Stanley Kubrick's unmade Aryan Papers will be told through an art installation at the BFI. Via Mr. Hudson who has moved from Greencine to IFC's The Daily and we, of course, follow.
Kottke produces Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Chicken Cordon Bleu Danube cut.
If you haven't the patience to watch Stanley Kubrick's Boxes online, the documentary will be shown on the on the Sundance Channel Monday night (Dec. 15) at 8PM Chicago time.
Google is hosting millions of photographs from the LIFE Magazine and John Gruber did the required first search on "Kubrick," yielding amazing results, like this beauty.
Lined & Unlined on Spaces and Storytelling in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
"In 1980, Stanley Kubrick came to the Timberline Lodge to film one of the all-time great horror classics, The Shining. In the film, Jack Nicholson slowly loses his grasp on reality and loses himself in a hallucination of a 1920s era ball. Twenty-Eight years later, Nike Sportswear and Fantastic Fest have joined forces to recreate the very same ball at the very same lodge." Come Play With Us.
Ludwig Van Bust By Frank Kozik. Awesome. Thanks for the tip Phineas. Cha-ching.
A short video interview with Ken Adams, designer of the Dr. Strangelove. war room set. Adam's sketch is here, as a part of Cold War Modern, Design 1945-1970, at the V&A. Via John Gruber.
Here's what you're looking for John. In Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove, Kristan Horton imitates the movie with everyday items.
In honor of Richard Wright, the famous syncing of Pink Floyd's Echoes with 2001.
Perhaps a little high falutin' for this early in the day but a little culture never hurt anyone. Stanley Kubrick films and Beethoven Symphonies.
Related to the last. Aren't they an attractive family?
Forever and ever.
The Shining (with robots). Silly, but fun. Thanks Mike.
Typographic Research, a site by a class at Parsons, taught by Rob Giampietro.
Our interview with Armen Antranikian, director of the short film Kubrick, which aired last month as part of Channel 4's Kubrick Season.
The Shining, with robots.
The complete Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. Thanks Roy.
Ten minutes of the BBC documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. Awesome. Thanks Ian and Ryan,
Reader John Pierce is not sure where he found this photo from the set of 2001 but we're sure glad he sent it to us.
Local note for London. During July, The University of the Arts presents selections from their huge archive of Kubrick's personal production and research material. Thanks David.
The Telegraph's Kubrick Files. Via Mr. Fireball, who will also be in Columbus tonight.
"I've spent the past three hours on my knees on the floor working out the enclosed review ad slots. I think they make sense and should look very strong with nice, chunky bold type or its equivalent." From a letter from Stanley Kubrick to an ad executive, about Clockwork promotion.
Browsing our own Stuff About Stanley Kubrick Archives in anticipation for tonight's 70mm screening of 2001 in Columbus.
When Clockwork was released in the USA in 1972, this tabloid newspaper, The Orange Times, was presented to audiences. It would make a fine companion piece to the original cinema program from the 1968 London premiere of 2001.
"Is it possible to get to understand such a man - and his extraordinary working methods - by looking through the hundreds of boxes he left behind?" We'll find out on the 15th with the premiere of Jon Ronson's new documentary, Citizen Kubrick.
Channel 4 recreates The Shining to promote its Kubrick season. Something about this feels sort of creepy. Creepy but good. Thanks LBD.
Road trip anyone? July 10 through August 22, The Wexner Center for the Arts presents a Kubrick Retrospective in Columbus. 2001 will be screened in 70mm. Thanks Andrew.
"By take 50 or 60 you start being in this Zen-like state which is really pleasurable because you have it wired." From a section about shooting The Shining in an interview with Garrett Brown, inventor of the Steadicam.
Director Tony Kaye talks about Stanley Kubrick, from a new short film by Armen Antranikian to debut on the BBC later this month. Here's the trailer for Kubrick.
How Stanley Kubrick's editing conveys a horrifying supernatural vision in The Shining by Adam Polselli.
"Since the light source and the camera lens are precisely aligned on a common axis, the foreground subject exactly 'fits' its own shadow, covering it completely." Front projection tech in 2001, from American Cinematographer.
"...all of a sudden, this mythic work of art became Earthborn. That transition is probably my favorite moment of 2001 now: it's Kubrick deflating the hot air balloon." A perceptive essay by Jamie Stuart on watching 2001 in various formats and under various circumstances.
HAL9000 desktop wallpaper.
What A Clockwork Orange might have been, including Mick Jagger as Alex.
Brian Eno on Barry Lyndon, his favorite film. Thanks Henry.
Loving montage work, described as a tribute to the greatest filmmaker of all time. Thanks Peter.
For future reference, a nice set of stills from 2001.
The Man Who Would Be Kubrick.
"Exploding diaphanous nebulosities." Douglas Trumbull talks about the special effects and early conceptual artwork for 2001. Via GreenCine Daily.
Portion of a Stanley Kubrick audio interview talking about his early days. Part 1, Part 2. From the 2001 Bluray DVD extras. Mandatory viewing.
Achewood vs. Kubrick.
Jason Kottke, Pablo Ferro, Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick.
Thanks to everyone who wrote in and helped us replenish our Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archives yesterday. Here's one more. In Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove, Kristan Horton imitates the film with everyday items.
"I had to see." Gruber matches the shot to the aforementioned storyboard instructions.
OK, linked long ago, but worth another peek. For the seemingly large area where "graphic designers" and "Kubrick fans" overlap on a Venn diagram. Thanks GP. Prize on the way.
"I know how it is, Baby. Tell you what you do. You just start your countdown, and old Bucky'll be back here before you can say... Blast Off!"
"There is no other way to do it. Repeat. There is no other way." Fabulous find. A Shining storyboard frame with Kubrick's very specific notes. Thanks Anne. Prize on the way. Photo by Nick Poteri.
Main titles from Lolita, sumptuous music by Nelson Riddle.
June, 1968 Popular Science Magazine feature on the making of 2001. Also, Popular Mechanics on the same subject from April of 67.
The 2001 Spacesuit Restoration Project.
29 year old British illustrator Brian Sanders was on the 2001 set in 1966 and he had his sketchbook with him.
New Iconwerk site from Stefan Dziallas. Lovely. Especially "Pretty inspired by..." Via Chris Glass.
"...overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." From "The Nine Billion Names of God." Edward Rothstein on faith and Arthur C. Clarke. Thanks William.
Arthur C. Clarke has died at age 90. Here's a bit from his diary, written while working on 2001.
"Dawn of Man" from 2001 in Lego.
A nice compendium of links to various reflections on Stanley Kubrick from people who worked for and with him. Thanks Marshall.
Kubrickonia.
Still related to the last. our best guess is Aldo Novarese's 1952 Microgramma Bold Extended is the primary font in the HAL data screens. Ten years later, Novarese reworked the idea into the more popular Eurostile.
Related to the last, we did an experimental homage to the HAL data screens in a client project. You can see a bit of it at the beginning of our film Close Enough.
The Ministry of Type has some fun with HAL's data screens from 2001. The definitive tech article (Cinefex 85) recounts how they were created. Each individual screen had a corresponding, 16mm projector hidden across from it on the set.
Ten minutes of film-techiness about Barry Lyndon.
Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures. Jan Harlan's documentary in its entirety. Jack Nicholson, "Everybody pretty much acknowledges he's the man, and I still feel that underrates him."
The Seafarers, Stanley Kubrick's third film and first in color. A dry but interesting (at least to SK geeks) work-for-hire effort from 1953. Rarely seen.
"There is a silence. 'Tony,' I say, 'can I look through the boxes?' I've been coming to the Kubrick house a couple of times a month ever since." Citizen Kubrick by Jon Ronson. A relink suggested by Jeevs and also an excuse to link our big Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archive.
A tee for the Kubrick fan, You have a Long Distance Call From HAL Dr. Floyd.
Looks like JC and KG should be making a trip to Rome to see the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the Palazzo Delle Esposizoni.
Kubrick: A Marketing Odyssey by Mike Kaplan for The Guardian.
Discovered this evening, just in time to see 2001 projected, complete with an intermission.
"Neutral," a poster with notes, by Experimental Jetset. The quote about Kubrick and typography mentioned can be found in this Guardian article.
WNK recommends James Naremore's new book On Kubrick as "masterful." Cha-ching.
A few photos from the Clockwork Orange set. Thanks Dean.
"...events and situations that are most meaningful to people are those in which they are actually involved--and I'm convinced that this sense of personal involvement derives in large part from visual perception." Before they met and wrote Strangelove together, Terry Southern interviewed Stanley Kubrick for Esquire in 1962.
Looking through a box of stuff I found my copy of the best, most in-depth article anywhere on the technical aspects of making 2001. It is, unfortunately not online. But, you can still order the back-issue of Cinefex 85 for fifteen dollars. Required reading.
What's cut from the "final" edit of The Shining.
Jamie Stuart writes to confirm that the announced Kubrick DVDs are new HD transfers as Leon Vitali outlined in his interview with Jamie in the Reeler. Also, it's possible that the shorter European edit of The Shining may be included, as it was SK's final edit. Thanks for the info.
Ollie writes, "The most disturbing thing about this new DVD set is that it will be released in the 'original theatrical aspect ratio.' While this sounds like a very good thing, it is not in line with Kubrick's wishes." See this interview with SK's assistant Leon Vitali and also question 11 in the Visual Memory FAQ. A thorny problem.
New Kubrick DVD releases announced. Via Daring Fireball. Arrgh. The packaging is terrible. Where does that typeface for the 2001 come from? More importantly, are these new transfers? Who supervised? From what neg? Sheesh, the 2001 sleeve gives me a bad feeling about the whole thing. Hope I'm wrong. Bet I'm not. (The last "special editions," released in 2001, were a total disaster.)
Tangentially Kubrick related: spent some time today in Estes Park, Colorado at The Stanley Hotel, which was the inspiration for The Shining and was where Stephen King wrote it over a five month period.
Making of Strangelove doc, in five parts. Thanks Cyrus, prize on the way.
Homero montando la bomba atómica. Thanks Jeremy, prize on the way.
The real doomsday machine. Thanks Matthew, prize on the way.
Before Terry Southern got involved there was this script for Strangelove which includes the pie-fight and "is framed as a film within a film, made by extraterrestrials, no less." Thanks Dan, prize on the way.
Strangelove Slide Rule, a nuclear bomb effects computer. Thanks Sean, prize on the way.
New Scientist on The Real Dr. Strangelove. Thanks David, prize on the way.
Seminal Image #314. Peace is our profession. Thanks Andrew, prize on the way.
A detailed technical comparison of the various Strangelove DVD releases. Thanks Scott, your prize is on the way.
Two Special Lenses for Barry Lyndon or "How the stringent demands of a purist-perfectionist film-maker led to the development of two valuable new cinematographic tools." A great first-hand film tech piece.
Scans from Jack Kirby's '70s adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey for Marvel Comics. Via Mefi.
A goofy but admirable re-enactment of a highly profane scene from Full Metal Jacket by Brandon Hardesty. Thanks Hanan.
"...he used to walk around the set with an Arriflex tube and just change lenses, look around, down, up, move away, move around. Once he found his first shot, he knew he could build the scene from that point." Stanley Kubrick actor and associate Leon Vitali looks back on 30 years of Barry Lyndon. in an exclusive interview in The Reeler.
"In six days God created the heaven and the earth. On the seventh day, Stanley Kubrick sent everything back for modifications." Dark Side of the Moon. Exceptionally well-crafted crackpottery parody. From Mr. Huff.
From the "people who like this sort of thing will find this exactly the sort of thing they like" department. 10,000 words on the editing and "missing" trims from 2001, A Taste of Blue Food by Thomas E, Brown and Phil Vendy.
Brendan Dawes describes his Swap Meat Exclusive, The 2001 Cinema Redux Print, as "the entire film, represented in a new visual form, a kind of cinematic DNA."
Underman's explanations of some of the wholly convincing yet baffling scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey. An excellent read for Kubrick and film-tech geeks alike.
"The machine made no reply. It had nothing to say." Doing research on something imminent, I came across this transcription of a pre-production (1965) script for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Note the presence of a "Narrator" and the long, expository section at the end.
Extended clip from a Channel 4 documentary on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Must find the complete show.
"The revelation was that this enormous work, this celluloid thing, was made up of minutiae, and I could suddenly see it all, as though finally rubbing my fingers across the rough stone tiles of a mosaic I had only previously seen from afar." Michael Koresky on watching 2001, first on VHS and then projected.
Thanks to William N. Kilarjian for joining the list of Executive Producers on our current film project, 72° and also for giving us a heads-up on a new book of essays entitled Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays by Robert Kolker. Cha-ching.
Heidi writes of her Cakework Orange, "When Malcolm McDowell attended a film festival in my small town last autumn, I made a dark chocolate cake saturated with cointreau, glazed with dark chocolate and topped with candied orange clockwork gears."
Daring Fireball makes note of The Kubrick Rubric, otherwise known as CRM114. Not content with John scooping us on anything SK-related, I found this illustration.
Filmmaker Mag on an odd mashup of Full Metal Jacket sound bites with a cheezy '80s back-beat. Apparently this comes from a surprising source.
"A voice-over spares you the cumbersome business of telling the necessary facts of the story through expositional dialogue scenes which can become very tiresome and frequently unconvincing?" SK on Barry Lyndon.
Perhaps SK heard this synthesized computer speech demonstration from 1963, especially the section about 30% of the way in. From a 1979 LP, First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival.
One Space Odyssey. Only perfect. Via John, whose wife gave him this most excellent book on the exact same day my wife gave it to me.
Darryl Mason's excellent article from 2000 on Stanley Kubrick's unmade Napoleon. A little effort can still find the incredible screenplay online. Napolean to Tallyrand, "What you are talking about is a gamble on moderation -- when I gamble, I prefer to gamble on force." Yowza.
In Clarke's novel of 2001, the Monolith is waiting on Iapetus, one of Saturn's distant moons. Well it turns out that this is "not one of the normal 'moons' of Saturn -- but is actually a 900-mile-wide, manufactured, ancient world-sized spaceship." Excellent Kubrick related crackpottishness but, of course, not the only example. Via Mefi.
Film of SK at the 1968 premiere of 2001: A Space Oddyssey. I believe this is the same night that a sweet printed program was distributed to the audience.
Oh yeah, Bittercinema's set of various images, promo pix and posters from 2001. How cool is this? Via the Goof.
"What if he's selling all our material to East European science fiction writers?" Ian Watson's Plumbing Stanley Kubrick, the complete memoir, previously excerpted in Playboy.
Apparently SK commissioned a film treatment from noir pulp novelist Jim Thompson in the late 1950s called Lunatic at Large. It may yet be put in front of a camera. [reg req] Thanks Kevin.
"In 1984 Stanley Kubrick placed an ad in Variety requesting audition tapes from unknown actors for his next movie, Full Metal Jacket. This is allegedly one of those tapes." The emphasis is on 'allegedly,' but it's glorious either way. Via Mefi.
Related to the last. A great film-tech interview with John Alcott on SK and Barry Lyndon.
NPR story on the 'Toynbee Tiles' Mystery with a 2001 connection in Philly. If I were investigating, I'd question Gruber first.
Bubblegumfink's Clockwork Orange trading cards. Ha. Here's the pack wrap. Next up, maybe this?
"Even today, people come up to me and tell me how gripping it was when I refused to open the pod-bay doors." Interview with HAL 9000.
"To this day, however, Stanley Kubrick's brilliant work on the Apollo missions remains both unsurpassed and - regrettably - uncredited."
Regarding yesterday's post on 'The Cult of Kubrick,' the man's obsession with detail is not lost on his fans. For example, this quick thread, sparked by a flag hanging in the background of the room where Dr. Floyd addresses the meeting about the situation on Clavius, in 2001.
"By remaining intensely private and secretive on the fringes of an industry built upon public exposure, the notion of Kubrick-as-auteur fostered a 'cult of personality' by his very refusal to exploit the limelight occupied more comfortably by other prominent directors." Long-winded but frequently insightful dissertation on The Cult of Kubrick.
Visiting the Traverse City Film Festival at the end of the month seems like a very good idea. You up for a trip John?
To go along with Day of the Fight, the very early Stanley Kubrick project, recently found online, we also note The Flyng Padre from 1951. Tons more in our Stuff About Stanley Kubrick archive including this Chicago photo assignment, completed just before he started on these films.
Can't post a string of SK links without this. If you went to the original London premiere of 2001: A Space Oddyssey in 1968 you would have been handed this printed program. It's historically significant for Kubrick freaks like ourselves and it's a great piece of design. (Make sure to click on "contact sheets" to see the original document). Let us know if you ever see it on eBay. We won't stop bidding until it is ours.
As opposed to the last, a very unKubrickian trailer for Lolita.
The Trailer.
While we're at it, here's Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, in a short, relatively recent interview about the making of 2001.
The man at the premiere of 2001, talking about other life in the universe. Via GCD.
Kubrick A to Z at Visual Memory, which also houses the holiest of relics, the original cinema program for 2001 from 1968. Via Morning News.
"Will all the Stanley Kubricks please be quiet and eat their lunch." Colour Me Kubrick (trailer doesn't seem to work on the main page, but does on the "Videos" tab). More info, in English, here.
The First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival was held August 25, 1978 as part of the Personal Computing show. Of particular note to SK fans is the very last track, recorded in 1963. Thanks to Mark Simonson.
Gen. Jack D. Ripper was right: Children at Risk From High Fluoride Levels . Via AdFreak.
Shooting script from A Clockwork Orange, a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick. September 7, 1970.
Making the guess that the Pennsylvania Tourism Office is, for some strange, convoluted reason, trying to cash in on that Shining parody edit from a few months back. Either that, or they've just got some interesting ideas for viral vids (either way, it's working, because there's the link, right?)
Saatchi's inside joke targeted towards the seemingly large area where "graphic designers" and "Kubrick fans" overlap on a venn diagram, thanks Kottke and Jamie.
"Stanley not only rigged set-ups; he also cropped his pics to make them more dramatic. His pleasure was the systematic defeat of commonplace expectations..." Frederic Raphael's Guardian review of a new book of Stanley Kubrick's photography, Drama and Shadows. Via GCD.
Continuing with this recent trend of re-edited films, here is Jeff Yorkes' particularly clever "2002", a music vid using "2001" cut to Mellow's "Fantastic." Make sure to also check out the "Citizen Kane" and "Misery" music vids.
Roland writes to tell us about the publication of a book detailing the discarded prologue to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
"One of the most extraordinary collections in film history is coming to London. The extensive archives of Stanley Kubrick, maverick director of 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, are to be housed at the capital's University of the Arts from next summer."
David finds the Nadsat lexicon from Clockwork. Or, how to chumble like a droog
Kevin relinks Stanley Kubrick's Chicago.
Kevin cites John Malkovich in Colour Me Kubrick.
David points us to Michael Beirut's essay "Stanley Kubrick and the Future of Graphic Design".
John writes, "Just type the magic word "kubrick" into the search field at krusch.com, and be prepared to find out about the many facets of the man mystery kubricks' movies. it includes the remarkable reflections of the 15 year old Margaret Stackhouse on 2001. the entire Krusch FAQ is an asset to any Kubrick maniac." Bill and Leonard both pointed to the Krusch DB too.
Hodaka writes, "Rocked up to Day Two of Rprsnt Design Conference here in Sydney, one of the guest speakers was this guy Pablo Ferro... He's done the titles designs for some of my all-time favourite movies ... Bullit & Dr Strangelove and the list goes on. He also contributed to some of the original trailer promos for A Clockwork Orange."
Fellow Kubrickian John Gruber points us to this fax to The Times by SK, from January 17, 1994.
"Cyberpunk is garage science fiction, so it's not surprising that Pattern Recognition should extend the metaphor to the movies, and posit the existence of a 'Garage Kubrick', a film director turning out cinematic masterpieces somewhere at the other end of an internet link with no more materials than a couple of computers in a curtained room."
We can't do this Kubrick thing without relinking this. Filmbrain has found a link to a PDF of Stanley Kubrick's 1969 Napolean screenplay, including production notes. Napoleon to Tallyrand, "What you are talking about is a gamble on moderation -- when I gamble, I prefer to gamble on force." Sweet Jesus.
JQuinn finds another conspiracy theory, this one involving EWS and the Illuminati and also this link to Wendy Carlos' score for A Clockwork Orange.
Justin points to these hi-res stills, Stanley Kubrick 1929-1999.
Michael, who wrote this piece on The Killing, says, "Subterranean Cinema has scans of the original Mad Magazine parody A Crockwork Lemon. I remember reading this parody as a kid, and it had a lot to do with turning me onto Kubrick!"
Francis wrote this scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey as if it were written by David Mamet and he also sends us a link to this fan-made, theoretical "Kubrick edit" remix of AI.
Jennie writes, "Here's a story written by Ian Watson in 2000 about helping Stanley Kubrick write AI. Fascinating insight into how the man lives and thinks and also a must-bookmark page: each month's TV listings for Kubrick films on cable."
David writes, "I'm willing to bet you've seen this, but who can't benefit from seeing it again: The Shining reenacted in thirty seconds by cartoon bunnies."
Blake writes, "HAL hath no fury."
Jeff points to The greatest movie Stanley Kubrick never made and The Flying Padre.
From Stuart, "During the winter
months of 1983 and 1984, I spent time in London helping Stanley get computerized."
Trevor writes, "Stanley Kubrick involved in the production and direction of the NASA moon landings!?"
There's been a lot of talk about this fun mashup trailer for The Shining. We thought we ought to take a moment to consider perhaps the greatest trailer ever made.
The man himself wasn't much for explaining anything but that didn't stop this crew. Kubrick 2001: The space odyssey explained. Updated and translated. Thanks Brendan.
Zeiss specialty lenses, candlelight and Barry Lyndon. Great filmtech article by Ed DiGiulio from American Cinematographer.
2001. Bill Gibron loves it now and that's all that matters. Via GCD.
The Kubrick Site. Uh huh.
Restored 35mm print of Spartacus tonight at The Siskel.
If you want to be like JC or John Gruber from Daring Fireball, then meet a pretty girl, get married, have some kids and then you might receive this beauty for Father's Day.
The Trib [reg req] on Stanley Kubrick in Chicago taking pictures in 1949. Via Andrew at Gapers Block.
Stop Smiling Q&A with Alison Castle and Anthony Frewin, editor and writer of the just published "The Stanley Kubrick Archives" from Taschen.
Omni Magazine, May 1993. "And when at last, at the end of March 1968, the MGM bosses finally got to see what they'd put their money into - 2001: A Space Odyssey - they couldn't figure out if they were looking at the biggest disaster in MGM's history or at one of the greatest movies ever made."
A famous piece of film history, slowly disappearing. Via Things.
Sheila Johnston talks to Korean director E J Yong about Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. [reg req]
"I flinch at those stories about crazy Stanley." Sean O'Hagan interviews Christiane Kubrick for The Observer.
Great, rambling interview with Terry Southern on co-writing Strangelove and Kubrick. "Stanley's 'writing plan' proved to be a dandy. At five A.M., the car would arrive, a large black Bentley, with a back seat the size of a small train compartment -- two fold-out desk tops, perfect over the-left-shoulder lighting, controlled temperature, dark gray windows. In short, an ideal no-exit writing situation." The result of those sessions.
The sets of "Dr. Strangelove" faithfully recreated using household objects (click through the intro page to get to the features menu). Via Waxy.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. There goes $200. Taschen's new book on Kubrick. "The first book to explore Stanley Kubrickís archive" looks gorgeous, with lots of sketches, designs, etc. Via BB.
"All Stanley Kubricks please be quiet and eat their lunch."
Beethoven's birtHDay comes around like clockwork. In honor, Dooby-Doo, a few posters (especially this one), and the script. Plus a longish, fascinating interview with SK by Michel Ciment during which he says "Unless you want a pop score, I don't see any reason not to avail yourself of the great orchestral music of the past and present. This music may be used in its correct form or synthesized, as was done with the Beethoven for some scenes in A Clockwork Orange. But there doesn't seem to be much point in hiring a composer who, however good he may be, is not a Mozart or a Beethoven..."
"August 19. Writing all day. Two thousand words exploring Jupiter's satellites. Dull work." Arthur Clarke's 2001 Diary. "October 1. Stanley phoned with another ending." Great stuff. Thanks Richard.
Nice summary post by Justin Ouellette about the cinematography of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and the specialty Zeiss lens used in the film. More in an article by Ed DiGiulio from Amercian Cinematographer Magazine. Via JK and Andrew Synowiez.
Glossary of NADSAT Language from A Clockwork Orange. Via Eye of the Goof.
Dr. Seltsam. Found amid tons of good stuff at Kubrick Film Art, part if the comprehensive Kubrick Multimedia Film Guide from Patrick J. Larkin.
Alison Castle previews her forthcoming book, The Stanley Kubrick Archives, from Taschen. Part One of the book is structured as a series of images, "from the opening sequence of Killerís Kiss to the final frames of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrickís complete films will be presented chronologically and wordlessly via frame enlargements. A completely nonverbal experience." Oh boy. Via Green Cine Daily.
Japanese Clockwork Orange poster. Spectacular.
We have lots of the same categories as everyone else in our archives, film, science, etc. And then we have Stuff About Stanely Kubrick. That all started with this entry pointing to the printed prgram from the London premeire of 2001 and it's well worth another peek. Make sure to click on 'contact sheets' to see the original document in context.
Quick note on the Kubrick/Napoleon thing. A couple months ago we hooked up Jon Ronson's excellent piece in the Guardian about being let loose among the director's archive of materials, including a cabinet full of 25,000 index cards, each noting a specific incident in Napoleon's life. Ronson writes, "'Who made up the cards?' I ask. 'Stanley,' answers Tony [an employee at the Kubrick Estate] 'With some assistants.' 'How long did it take?' I ask. 'Years,' says Tony. 'The late 1960s.'"
All work stops immediately. Productivity drains to zero. Hit 'Do Not Disturb' on the phone. Close door. Somebody in LaGrange find Kevin Guilfoile and get him to a computer. Now. Deep breath. Filmbrain has found a link to a PDF of Stanley Kubrick's 1969 Napolean screenplay, including production notes and it took me three damn weeks to stumble across it. Napolean to Tallyrand, "What you are talking about is a gamble on moderation -- when I gamble, I prefer to gamble on force." Sweet Jesus.
Some guys might want Roberto Clemente's bat or William Faulkner's notebook. I want this. Thanks Mike.
Full interview with Joe Dunton: camera, lens and grip supplier to Stanley Kubrick. Great for Kubrick geeks and/or film-tech geeks. Thanks for the note Thomas.
"Two years after his death, Jon Ronson was invited to the Kubrick estate and let loose among the fabled archive." Citizen Kubrick from The Guardian. Required reading. Plus, Envisioning Kubrick an exhibition at the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt. Thanks M.
The coolest thing I've seen in, like, forever. Via K.
How Douglas Trumbull went about generating the "stargate" scenes in '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Martin Kelly has put together this guide for the more technically- challenged among us. Via Incoming Signals
A script has surfaced for Stanley Kubrick's long-planned but never made film biography of Napoleon. There has periodically been talk of someone making the film but more likely we'll see it as a book first.
2001: A Space Odyssey explained with Flash.
There's a new edition of Stanley Kubrick, A Visual Analysis out, the only book of it's kind to have been written with Kubrick's cooperation. Although the book was first published in 1971, Kubrick, just before his death, permitted the use of illustrations from his original film frames to be made for this edition.
2001: A Lego Odyssey.
Combining two of our obsessions: Kubrick and poster art, here's a cool site with lots of promotional art, both domestic and international, from Kubrick's films.
Essential 2001 resource at palantir.net. Thanks to designbivouac.
Digital Bits has a terrific interview with Leon Vitali, Stanley Kubrick's assistant and Warner Bros.' technical consultant on the new Kubrick DVD collection. Lots of interesting light shed here.
Don't watch TV? You can still see the new AI spots here and here.
The New Stanley Kubrick Collection (which hopes to satisfy us Kubrick geeks who were annoyed by the first attempt) is available for preorder at Amazon. Restored picture, digitally remastered sound in Dolby 5.1, and at least a few of the films are now in widescreen. Eyes Wide Shut is the R-rated American version, though, with the dumb pixelated heads in front of the naughty parts. Complete details and tech here.
A look back through our archives reveals an obsession with the work of Stanley Kubrick and 2001: A Space Odyssey. That obsession was fed this weekend by a revealing look into the making of the film in the current Cinefex magazine. This special effects and modeling work was done before reliable motion-control even existed and some wireframe animations on the DiscoveryÌs control screens were shot using real wire. Unfortunately the text of the piece is not available online, but issue 85 is worth every cent of the $9 that it costs at the newsstand.
As Kubrick week continues for no particular reason, here's a cool site with photos and descriptions of shooting locations in every Kubrick film.
"Please make me a real boy." New AI trailer at countingdown.
Stanley Kubrick fans like us were quite disappointed by the much ballyhooed "Kubrick Collection" on DVD. Warner Brothers claims that it was Kubrick's idea to release all his movies in mono and in full-screen format (as opposed to wide screen). A little hard to swallow, but rumor is there's another, fully remastered collection on its way.
Great design at kubrick.org. (I'm going to link this site every time.)
"His love is real, but he is not." Official AI site.
Tease trailer for AI is up.
The official site for A.I., Steven Spielberg's movie from Stanley Kubrick's treatment of the Brian Aldiss story, Supertoys Last All Day Long. Much anticipated here. Much more info at Corona.