Great read, viva Kubrick! 2001 and Barry Lyndon are probably my favorites, and I'll agree, Paths of Glory is a timeless tear dish of hard emotions perpetually served raw and cold, it always get to me. Funny thing tho with The Shining, sometimes I love it, other times, I struggle with it. I think it's Shelly, no disrespect to her but watching her is like running fingers down a chalkboard. Anyhow, so much talk of Kubrick and the other greats but no mention of "The Green Slime", what gives?
I think Kubrick was more interested in men than women, and his movies reflect that. In most of his films, when there are significant female characters at all, they often serve as plot devices and sexual motivators to get the men to do things and feel things. When the men do "feel" things, they are often shown at a remove, via long shots and with a minimum of dialogue, and usually no music to augment the scene. This could be interpreted as "cold" filmmaking (by the way, Dr. Strangelove, which is a nonstop reel of over-the-top emotional performance, is not an exception. Strangelove is a satire and the emotions there are cartoon-like and therefore not adult. Often men who are uncomfortable with confronting real emotions find a sanctuary in satire because (as a creator) it can allow them to believe they are addressing emotion, or (as a viewer/reader) it can allow them to keep real feelings at arm's length by taking pleasure in emotions being inflated out of reality (and therefore not truly scary).
I agree that most of Kubrick's films do show a range of real emotion, and I agree with all the examples you cited. It seems to me that with Kubrick personally, being in control was a big part of his psyche. Certainly it manifested in his personal and professional life. Part of feeling in control is not showing your emotional hand to others, lest they exploit it and weaken your position. To me, Kubrick unconsciously manifested this character trait into the way he filmed scripts and the way he shaped stories. It was more his tendency to hang back, as far as lens choice, music (or absence thereof) and even the way he showed action (or didn't). He achieved a uniqueness this way, because most of his contemporaries just plunged in and shot scripts and were in sync with Hollywood's belief that the more emotion you show (and hammer home with no shame), the greater impact on the audience and the better the movie would do.
In a perverse way, I think Kubrick's "coldness" as a filmmaker is actually more of an accurate depiction of the way real people experience (and display) emotion. It's more common for people to feel things intensely but not emote like a movie actor; and in my experience most of life's most deeply-felt moments are silent and still.
Great read, viva Kubrick! 2001 and Barry Lyndon are probably my favorites, and I'll agree, Paths of Glory is a timeless tear dish of hard emotions perpetually served raw and cold, it always get to me. Funny thing tho with The Shining, sometimes I love it, other times, I struggle with it. I think it's Shelly, no disrespect to her but watching her is like running fingers down a chalkboard. Anyhow, so much talk of Kubrick and the other greats but no mention of "The Green Slime", what gives?
Loved this take on Kubrick.
I think Kubrick was more interested in men than women, and his movies reflect that. In most of his films, when there are significant female characters at all, they often serve as plot devices and sexual motivators to get the men to do things and feel things. When the men do "feel" things, they are often shown at a remove, via long shots and with a minimum of dialogue, and usually no music to augment the scene. This could be interpreted as "cold" filmmaking (by the way, Dr. Strangelove, which is a nonstop reel of over-the-top emotional performance, is not an exception. Strangelove is a satire and the emotions there are cartoon-like and therefore not adult. Often men who are uncomfortable with confronting real emotions find a sanctuary in satire because (as a creator) it can allow them to believe they are addressing emotion, or (as a viewer/reader) it can allow them to keep real feelings at arm's length by taking pleasure in emotions being inflated out of reality (and therefore not truly scary).
I agree that most of Kubrick's films do show a range of real emotion, and I agree with all the examples you cited. It seems to me that with Kubrick personally, being in control was a big part of his psyche. Certainly it manifested in his personal and professional life. Part of feeling in control is not showing your emotional hand to others, lest they exploit it and weaken your position. To me, Kubrick unconsciously manifested this character trait into the way he filmed scripts and the way he shaped stories. It was more his tendency to hang back, as far as lens choice, music (or absence thereof) and even the way he showed action (or didn't). He achieved a uniqueness this way, because most of his contemporaries just plunged in and shot scripts and were in sync with Hollywood's belief that the more emotion you show (and hammer home with no shame), the greater impact on the audience and the better the movie would do.
In a perverse way, I think Kubrick's "coldness" as a filmmaker is actually more of an accurate depiction of the way real people experience (and display) emotion. It's more common for people to feel things intensely but not emote like a movie actor; and in my experience most of life's most deeply-felt moments are silent and still.