Ranking: Stanley Kubrick

N/A: The Shining 

I'm not putting this in my ranking as I haven't seen it in a while, in fact this was the first Kubrick film I sort of saw, and I'll admit to not really being that invested through, to the extent the only scenes that really stand out in my memory are the Scatman Crothers exposition scenes, 'All work and no play make Jack a dull boy', and of course that scene which I'm afraid through all the memes and banter is just not that effective for me. I need to watch this again soon though, preferably not alone though, so if around Halloween time anyone fancies checking this out (preferrably a veteran of the film to warn me of the jumpier moments) I'm all yours.

N/A: Eyes Wide Shut

I've watched clips of it, but never the full monty of Kubrick's last film. I will definitely check it out soon, as I'm interested to see what his journey into what seems like particularly kinky and non-censorship territory ends up being like.

N/A: Fear and Desire

Haven't seen his first or his last film. Hey, maybe it'd be a good idea to compare them to in a future post.


9. Full Metal Jacket (4/5)

A game of two halves. The first half is absolutely brilliant stuff, with R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D'Onfrino giving two extremely compelling depictions of Frankenstein and his Monster in the army form, and gives such an alternately darkly comedic, and darkly dark depiction of army training camp life. The second half feels like more standard war stuff. It's not bad, just not as good as the first half, and loses a bit of momentum particularly when it comes down to the finale of 'tracking down sniper' which though well-executed, always leaves me a bit cold. Not a bad film though, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's a must-see for its great first half, and serviceable second half.

8. The Killing (4.5/5)

I guess I went into this one with overly high expectations. I liked it as a sort of early precursor to Reservoir Dogs, I found the criminal underworld explored interesting enough and the heist scene very tense, but in the end I thought it was just a pretty good film noir, nothing more nothing less. Perhaps I need a re-watch. It's a solid film, don't get me wrong, and a great example of Kubrick's early prowess particularly in the shootout scene, or the scene where cuckold George (Elisha Cook Jr.) returns home to exact revenge on his treacherous wife. There is however a terrible voiceover narration by a disembodied voice I didn't take to. Once again, though, I liked the film, I may not have been being enough attention throughout because I didn't watch it in the best of circumstances (i.e. hadn't gotten used to Kubrick well enough), overall though, I liked it, and a re-watch could easily bump this up.

7. Spartacus (4.5/5)

In terms of swords and sandals motion pictures, I prefer Ben-Hur and Gladiator. In terms of Kubrick films it's far from my favourite. It has John Gavin blanding his way through as Julius Caesar. The buildup of the first two acts, fantastic as it is, kind of results in the third act being a slight let-down in some regards (though the ending scene is great). But though I have reservations about it, Spartacus nevertheless is a good old-fashioned historical drama film that fully deserves the iconic reputation of many of its scenes. The Roman Republic is excitingly drawn in great detail, with each gladiator fight involving out titular hero (Kirk Douglas) being as vivid as any of the scenes involving the royal court of Crassus (Laurence Olivier). There are a few dated elements in the screenplay, notably in its depiction of homosexuality, some iffily acted scenes, and it doesn't fully realize the whole atmosphere of the time period as well as say, Ben-Hur, but given the troubled nature of the production I guess I'll have to put it down to time and creative constraints forcing Kubrick to be a little less meticulous than usual. The performances are almost uniformly good among the main principals, with Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov and Jean Simmons giving a great deal of charismatic support to Douglas, and Laurence Olivier completely devouring each co-star he's onscreen with such understated, powerful ferocity. A very, very entertaining that while not the best of its genre, is up there.

6. Barry Lyndon (4.5/5)

I'll be re-watching this soon enough as it'll be showing at the BFI Southbank cinema, and I intend to revisit it in cinematic glory. For the timebeing though:cinematography, costumes, lighting, music, everything on the technical side of things cannot be faulted. 18th Century Ireland may not seem terribly exciting (although having done some of it for my A-Levels I found it fascinating enough), but Kubrick's keen eye and ear do wonders for it. It's both beautiful and yet seeped with such a vibrant, realistic vibe as if you're watching a world of its own, but very much a reflection of the real world, through the Kubrick Spectrum. As for structurally, in terms of plot, it might feel a bit too long and slow at points, but considering the hefty Thackery novel that acts as its inspiration, it's admirable enough in this regard. From the acting standpoint, it's about on the same level of 2001: A Space Odyssey where Kubrick's domineering hand controls them all well enough to make an overall positive impact, however Ryan O'Neal's performance as Raymond Barry Lyndon, while not awful, could've enhanced the film up to 'all-time great' status if placed in the hands of say, Robert Redford, Terrence Stamp, well just be grateful he didn't choose his Napolean project instead, while Barry Lyndon could be utilized as a bit of a blank, bland slate, it would've been a disaster to cast O'Neal as the great French general in his dream project (now I should say I do like O'Neal in most of his performances, I'm a great defender of his Love Story performance).

5. Lolita (5/5)

I won't get into too much detail about the main strength of the film, the performances, as it's perfect ground for a Head-to-Head between this version and the rather weak 1997 version. This is one of Kubrick's films where he tones down his more overt approach, so to speak, though no doubt the meticulousness and fussiness which made him such a great director was to be found. This film was in many ways one of Kubrick's biggest challenges, to the extent that the fact it doesn't really have any failings, only slight inadequacies IMO, is quite remarkable. The censorship and Hays Code of the time affected a smooth production considerably, as many liberties with the text and excision of material, as well as the simple fact that Vladimir Nabakov's brilliant masterful novels (in my opinion, one of the greatest of all-time) simply could not be completely adapted to the silver screen. Poetic digressions, classical references and a constantly wandering, musically scattershot narrative works on the page that would be impossible to convey onscreen. Given all these factors, Kubrick still manages to create a masterpiece, albeit one that doesn't quite capture all the power of its source material. But that's nitpicking - take for example the scene below. Wordlessly, Kubrick's powers of splicing together imagery and implication manages to convey such an intense and disturbing sense of Humbert Humbert's (James Mason giving perhaps his greatest performance) infatuation with Dolores Haze (Sue Lyon).

The way the ending of the novel is moved to the beginning is an in medias res example played to perfection. Purists may take issue with the way Clarence Quilty is portrayed and expanded upon as a film, but it helps to enhance the darkly comic elements of the film well in Peter Sellers' hands. The film performs its balancing act of drama and offbeat whimsicality into a curious but effective blend, and ends up for all its slight truncations, a fulfilling piece of cinema.

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (5/5)

The films ranked before and after this one present Kubrick at his most restrained in terms of using his directorial vision to constrain his actors. He allowed Peter Sellers to improvise, strong dramatic scenes for Kirk Douglas to dig his teeth into, employed A-List movie stars like Douglas, Mason, Shelley Winters etc. and shifted the focus point to characterization and dialogue, and let them control the emotional power of the film. With 2001: A Space Odyssey Kubrick went in the complete opposite direction. The film is one of the most controlled in all of film history, in that the actors, bar Douglas Rain, are completely interchangeable in their roles. They're all solid, but it's not an actor's film at all, nor is it a film about characters, dialogue (the first 20 minutes are completely dialogue-free and even after that it's fairly sparse), or even storyline. This is a film all about epic vision, scope, and visual splendour and perhaps presents Kubrick at his most powerful as a filmmaker. Does it make it his best film, you may ask?

Well, that's a matter of subjective opinion, really. I personally don't think the film is Kubrick's greatest, but objectively I must consider it a supreme masterpiece, and probably his most singularly iconic, important and innovative work as a director. From the use of rotating sets to convey zero-gravity, to the splendid visuals depicting the monolith's journey through space, the Star Gate sequence, the 'Dawn of Man' visual power coupled with that booming soundtrack, Kubrick pieces all these pieces of a puzzle together perfectly. He somehow manages to make the life and death of the sentient computer HAL 9000 so compelling, through the perfect utilization of Rains' voice and the visual makeup of the character, he pieces together each montage and scene perfectly together, even though I question whether Heywood Floyd scene was really necessary. On the whole it's not quite the wholly immersive experience I was expecting, but its completely flawless on a technical level, and on that front one of the true all-time great motion pictures.

3. Paths of Glory (5/5)

Few people remark on how beautifully the courtroom scenes are shot!!!

A most atypical Kubrick film, not in terms of quality but in terms of topic matter. It concerns life in the WWI French trenches, a failed suicidal attack and its aftermath, with Colonel Dax's (Kirk Douglas) defence against charges of cowardice, and is all in all a rather low-key affair, certainly far from the scope of later works. Kubrick shows his utter brilliance as a director by flourishing just as well within a small, relatively confined setting, as he captures the brutality of warfare in the trenches with such viscreal power, the failed attack extremely haunting in its direction, particularly in how he blends sound and visuals to create a truly claustraphobic sequence. Even more impressive than the technical aspects, however, is Kubrick's utilization of humanity as the core of the film. There's the terribly rotten side, encompassed by the nauseating, despicable soldier politics of slyly manipulative General Georges Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) and toady General Mireau (George McCready). The villains are not necessarily 'evil', so to speak, but are depicted with such realism and utter lack of compassion and common sense, that they end up being perhaps the least sympathetic, most hateful of Kubrick's long line of antagonists. This is matched perfectly with his presentation of the cowardice and patronsing airs of some of the other soldiers, and of course the other side of the coin which is best embodied through Douglas' Dax. Douglas gives easily his greatest performance in this film as the voice of not only reason, but goodwill; the film beautifully weaves its way around his performance by dividing itself into two distinct halves. The first half is definitely the Kubrick show, where he unleashes an array of tension, emotional confusion, pathos, violence into conveying the tragic chaos of the trench warfare, culminating in the aforementioned brilliant sequence.

The second half then becomes more of an actor's showcase, wisely so, though Kubrick's industrious, meticulous eye never disappears from view, as his extremely controlled and tight-knit approach to the material ensures that each and every character's purpose feels both to the point and emotionally powerful. I particularly love the small moments between the cowardly Lieutenant Roget (Wayne Morris) and the man he sends out as a representative to be court-martialled, Corporal Phillipe Paris (Ralph Meeker) who's got some dirt on him. The scenes with Meeker, and Joe Turkel and Timtohy Carey as the two other soldier's forced to take the brunt of blame, are as unsparing and powerful as the courtroom scenes where Dax defends his men, which are both oh so compelling and oh so difficult to watch. It's an extremely strong film all the way to the very end, with a fantastic ending that really tempts me to push it further up the list. The execution scene, and confrontation scene between Dax and Broulard, are great, but that final scene...it's one of the most genuinely emotionally poignant moments in not just Kubrick's films, but all of cinema.

2. A Clockwork Orange (5/5)

Another masterpiece by Kubrick, this time round with much less humanity at its core, which is precisely the point. In between Paths of Glory and A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick's whole style as a filmmaker had transformed from an auteur who helmed the sensitive, hard-hitting and interrogative examinations of human nature at its best or worst like Paths of Glory and Lolita, to grand spectacles like Spartacus like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which is not that Kubrick had completely lost trace in humanity, rather he seemed to have lost faith in it. Depressing thought - but it reached perhaps its culmination in this adaptation of the Anthony Burgess novella about an extremely dystopian society where gangs are all the rage, and we focus on the life and times of one particular miscreant, Malcolm McDowell's Alex DeLarge. Now I have one little qualm about the film in its ending. It's not the novella's ending, and thus removes a bit of the complexity of the source material by excising the 'self re-evalauation' of Alex at its conclusion. I say 'little qualm' because it actually does work for the film, the ending Kubrick opts for, and thus perhaps I'm just being too much of a purist. The rest of the film perfectly captures the madcap world of Alex and his Droogs, from those brilliant opening scenes of their horrorshow wrongdoings, where the horror and terrible nature of their actions are never sugarcoated, but stylized in a brutal and most elegant fashion by some outstanding cinematography, colour schemes, set designs, and a blend of depraved darkness and excellent black comedy. My favourite scene is probably the gang fight scene set to 'The Thieving Magpie':

NSFW

It should be said the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange is a thing of mastery, particularly in the segments where Alex engages in his 'rehabilitation'. The beautiful music is used to extremely unsettling effect, and creates such an unnerving atmosphere that is quite brilliantly done. The direction of Kubrick creates a terrific contrast with the 'before'/'after' of Alex's predicament, and even manages to humanize his plight with the help of McDowell's great work. It's simply a spellbindingly good film from start to finish, and deserves its reputation as one of the greatest films of all-time.

1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (5/5)

'Thanks for a great game of chess, George.'
'My pleasure Stan, just make sure those outtakes really are outtakes.'
(For what it's worth I've always thought Buck Turgidson was the equal work of both director and actor.)

Easily my favourite Kubrick film, and also one of my favourite films of all-time. Kubrick as per usual, takes on some tricksy source material, in this case a political/nuclear war, dead-serious novel and making it even riskier by directing it with an overwhelming atmosphere of absurd black comedy and satire. Kubrick's approach pays off wonderfully as he conveys the Cold War tensions at the time with both remarkable subtlety through the use of set design, music, and visual transitions from one scene to the next carrying a palatable menace, and more overtly through the outrageously entertaining performances of his cast, from the multiple role'd Peter Sellers to a deliciously unhinged George C. Scott, and a strangely convicted but no less idiotic portrayal of Brigadier Ripper by Sterling Hayden, and down to the smaller roles like Peter Bull as a deadpan Russian envoy, Slim Pickens as one helluva rousing pilot cowboy, Keenan Wynn as Coca Cola's greatest advocate, even James Earl Jones getting to show off some of his vocal chops. Each actor fits perfectly into the scheme of the film by Kubrick's ochestration of them, when you read about the behind-the-scenes process of making it, it's quite remarkable when you realize how much control he had over the whole production. The script manages to work perfectly in line with the improvisations of the likes of Sellers, carrying the laughs consistently but with also some genuine weight in specific moments, also that whole finale while hilarious also has a certain poignancy which is deeply underrated. It was all on him, so to speak, whether or not this film fails or succeeds, and succeed it does marvelously.