Watch: Stanley Kubrick on Why Films Should be More Like Commercials
On what would have been his 90th birthday, we're highlighting this video that shares Stanley Kubrick's thoughts on a number of thought-provoking topics.
Stanley Kubrick was born in the Bronx on July 26, 1928, and in his 70 years on this planet, made 13 feature films, many of which are considered among the best ever made. In honor of his birthday today, we share this video from MUST SEE FILMS that features the director's thoughts on, well, many subjects.
Check the video out below, along with a few videos featuring little-seen footage, such as the documentary his daughter made during the production of The Shining.
On What Makes a Movie Disappointing
"Movies are not disappointing because they're disappointing visually. They're disappointing because they're boring and there's nothing about them that really gets to you or gets to your imagination."
"Movies are not disappointing because they're disappointing visually. They're disappointing because they're boring."
A "Cinema of the Mind"
Kubrick discussed blending the ideal of the silent film (what he considered the more effective sort of cinematic storytelling and the modern TV commercial into something new): "Is there ever going to be a way to connect the structure of a silent movie with the quick presentation of the ideal of a TV commercial? Maybe a poet has to do it because I don't know, a novelist will never do it, a playwright will never do it, and if you're not a writer, you'll probably never do it, but somewhere, somebody has to be able to take the wonderful, economical structure, possibility of the silent movie with the tremendous power that a good TV commercial can generate on a topic in 30 seconds...I still think this would be the most exciting thing that happened since whoever it was that cut the first two films together and realized you could have editing...You really need, like, a sort of editing of the mind, which hasn't happened. Just tell a story in a different way." The original theatrical trailer for A Clockwork Orange is certainly, in its way, reminiscent (and prescient, given the time) of modern TV spots:
Kubrick on TV Commercials
He continues: "With the editing, photography and...you know I mean eight frame cuts just beautiful and you realize in 30 seconds they've created an impression of something rather complex, and I haven't done it that no one else has...the ultimate way of telling its own story would have more to do with TV commercials than it does to the way they are presently told, the economy of statement and the kind of visual poetry...you get it with what they're doing."
Kubrick On Set
This is not to say that Stanley Kubrick, at 90 years old, would today be directing beer commercials (he had plenty of time to do that while he was alive, and subsequently chose not to.) What it does mean however, is that the master director was always looking for ways to express ideas cinematically, as his 1960 essay "Words and Movies" from Sight and Sound made clear. He was forever pushing the bounds of what film could do, and doing different things with each of his films, even though, compared to some other directors, he made comparatively few.
Below is a relatively little seen documentary about the making of The Shining, during which the legendary filmmaker is not only heard, but seen at work. It's a treat.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkq12a
In the past few weeks, an original screenplay of his from the 1950s has been unearthed, this one for The Burning Secret, a legendary unproduced film (of which there are almost as many as there were his finished films.) One hopes that the screenplay will come to light, but even if it doesn't, it's certain that this consummate filmmaker's words and movies will continue to exercise their quietly profound magic on the world.
Happy birthday, Stanley, from all of us at No Film School!
Source: MUST SEE FILMS
