Kubrick Marched to the Beat of his Own Drum

Stanley Kubrick was an accomplished jazz drummer, photojournalist, chess player and beard-grower. What you may not know is that he also directed movies. 

Seen here attempting to bend a salad fork with his mind.

With the exception of Spartacus, where he was brought on to replace another director, every one of his films came from a screenplay that he wrote, which was based on some other source material. Born with a propensity for giving precisely zero shits, Stanley Kubrick adapted these works into motion pictures that their original authors would hardly recognize and/or disavow completely. For better or worse, he turned them all into Kubrick films. 


A Clockwork Orange

This was the first movie that Kubrick made after the MPAA implemented their current ratings system. It received an X rating, because Stanley Kubrick apparently saw this as a challenge.   

I feel the same way about these signs. I usually try for a high score.

He also left out the entire last chapter of the book, which completely changes the theme of the movie. In chapter twenty-one of the novel, Alex runs into one of his old droogs, who appears to have outgrown his former ways. Ultimately, Alex wonders if maybe he should grow up, too. The movie, however, ends with, “I was cured alright...” now that he is back to his old violent self. 

In other words, the theme of the film is that you cannot change people (without denying them free will), whereas the theme of the book is that people ultimately change on their own accord through various stages of maturity. 

But that sounds less like a Kubrick movie and more like a shitty episode of Family Ties.

The Shining

Stephen King famously hates the Kubrick adaptation. He once compared it to a Cadillac without an engine because he thought that it was void of everything that was significant about the novel. In the book, there is no ambiguity about the fact that Jack is possessed by an evil spirit, which King has even said was a metaphor for his own struggles with alcoholism. Jack is therefore presented as a victim of sorts, driven toward self-destruction by forces that are ultimately beyond his control. 

The movie, on the other hand, implies that Jack’s self-induced madness is actually a component of his own personal hell that he is forced to repeat ad infinitum. Kubrick treats it as something akin to driving an ice cream truck twenty-four hours a day without any ice cream, where you have to listen to Pop Goes the Weasel on repeat... but the weasel never pops. Actually, that kind of describes his approach to directing Shelley Duvall as well, considering that he made her do 127 takes of a single action -- until both she and her character were in tears. 

Full Metal Jacket

The movie is based on the novel The Short Timers, by Gustav Hasford. He and Kubrick only met once, and after that, Hasford was no longer allowed on set. Although he did ultimately receive screen credit, Hasford and Kubrick were not on speaking terms by the time film premiered because the final cut was so far removed from what the author had originally crafted. 

Some of the most quotable lines in the movie were actually written by R. Lee Ermey, the actor who played the drill sergeant. With an extensive background as an actual drill sergeant, Ermey was initially hired as a technical adviser. However, he wanted to prove to Kubrick that he was right for the part so he came up with a wealth of insults, which he delivered in character while having blunt objects thrown at him. Needless to say, Ermey nailed it, and much of his original dialogue made it into the final film. 



Barry Lyndon

The cinematography in this movie is rather amazing, especially considering that it was shot entirely with natural light. 

That said, it's also boring as hell and I've never made it all the way through. I only own it because it was part of a box set. Since I never had any specific reason to watch the whole thing, I never did. I therefore have nothing further to say about this film. 



Lolita

This was originally marketed under the tagline, “How did they ever make a movie out of Lolita?” because the novel was so risqué for its time. Vladimir Nabokov even worked with Kubrick in the adaptation, giving the director a first draft that was over four hundred pages long, which is longer than the book. Uncut, this would have been a nearly seven-hour movie. Kubrick then did a total rewrite, appeasing the film’s prospective financiers by making some fairly significant changes. When Hollywood producers further demanded that Humbert Humbert and Lolita get married at the end, Kubrick chose to seek financing outside of the U.S. Incidentally, this was when he moved to England and never came back. Even years later, when he made Eyes Wide Shut, he had an entire set built to recreate the scenes that take place in New York City. Because fuck Hollywood. 

In the book, Humbert has already been convicted of his crimes, and he recounts the story from a prison cell, offering insights into the psychological motivations behind his sickness while also making it clear that he deserves his fate or worse. The Kubrick film, though, makes him far more likable, further suggesting that he was as much a victim of her seduction as she was of his. Also, Quilty was a minor character in the book, but the part was expanded to make room for Peter Sellers to chew through the scenes. 

Once again, the book and the movie are two completely different animals.


Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb


Speaking of Peter Sellers, Stanley Kubrick once said of him, “I get three [actors] for the price of six,” a reference to the multiple roles that Sellers played in this film and the extraordinary salary that he got paid for it. He was even supposed to play the part that went to Slim Pickens, but he twisted his ankle and couldn’t do what was required of him physically. I suspect that this is also why his character of Dr Strangelove is confined to a wheelchair.

The movie is based on the novel Red Alert, but the Kubrick film bears little resemblance to the source material, particularly in terms of how the characters were portrayed. Also, while the film has often been referred to as one of the greatest satires ever made, the book was a straightforward war thriller that was not intended to be humorous. 

2001: A Space Odyssey

This is an interesting case study in adaptations. The first page of the novel says: "Based on a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke." This is because the book and the film were meant to complement one another and were written and released concurrently. Back in 1951, Clarke had written a short story called The Sentinel, which served as the inspiration for 2001. Kubrick then wrote the screenplay while Clarke wrote the novel, and they bounced ideas off each other through the whole process. As with the entire second act of 2001: A Space Odyssey, their collaboration was much like a game of chess. In fact, now that I think about it, the monolith is kind of like a big chess piece... 

And if that didn't blow your mind, the Kubrick film just might.