Having been highly impressed with science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke's novel
“Childhood's End” Kubrick organised a meeting with Clarke in New York City in April 1964, where he asked if Clarke would be interested in developing his 1948 short story “The Sentinel” (in which a monolith found on the Moon alerts aliens of mankind) into a film project.
That same year Clarke started writing a new novel expanding on his 1948 short story to then collaborate with Kubrick on the screenplay adaptation.
That Novel “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke, Produced by Stanley Kubrick, Cinematography Geoffrey Unsworth, Edited by Ray Lovejoy, Starring Keir Dullea & Gary Lockwood (Run Time 139m)
When Dr. Dave Bowman and other astronauts are sent on a mysterious mission, their ship's computer system, HAL, begins to display increasingly strange behaviour, leading up to a tense showdown between man and machine that results in a mind-bending trek through space and time.
Famously this project took five years to complete. After initially making contact with Clarke
Kubrick began intensive research for the film, focusing on informed speculation over what the future may well look like and he also forged connections and relationships with scientists at NASA so he could gain an understanding of how space travel and exploration would actually work.
Pricable photography commenced on December 29, 1965, with “the excavation of the monolith in on the moon” Photography continued until early 1967 capturing footage in the Namib Desert that would later be used as back projection during the “apes scenes” later that year.
Post-production and special effects work continued until the end of 1967 taking the cost of the shoot up to $10.5 million. ($95,790,000 in 2024 money)
Kubrick conceived “2001: A Space Odyssey” as a Cinerama spectacle and experience.
He chose to shoot the film in Super Panavision 70 (A 70mm anamorphic lens used to capture a particular wide aspect ratio ideal for a more immersive viewing experience)
“2001: A Space Odyssey" ended up being a “dazzling mix of imagination and science"
The ground-breaking visual effects earned Kubrick his only personal Oscar, an Academy Award for Visual Effects.
Let that sink in and remember that when anyone is acting like the Oscars actually matter, one of the greatest most visionary and genre-defining motion picture directors ever in the history of film won one Oscar for special effects because he didn't play the Hollywood game.
Kubrick said about the film,
"On the deepest psychological level, the film's plot symbolises the search for God and finally postulates what is little less than a scientific definition of God. The film revolves around this metaphysical conception, and the realistic hardware and the documentary feelings about everything were necessary in order to undermine your built-in resistance to the poetical concept".
When it was first released in 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey was not critically acclaimed it was faulted for its lack of dialogue, slow pacing, and seemingly impenetrable story-line.
It must have been unnerving for these people to see nothing like they had ever seen before and a true artist elevating a genre that had been thought of as shlock in some quarters.
Kubrick was particularly outraged by a scathing review from Pauline Kael, who called it
"the biggest amateur movie of them all", with Kubrick doing "really every dumb thing he ever wanted to do".
Despite these short-sighted critical reviews, 2001 gradually gained popularity and took
$31 million at the worldwide box office against its $10.5 million production budget.
Today, it is hailed as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made!
So suck that Pauline Kael!!
During the post-production phase of “2001: A Space Odyssey” Kubrick set his sights on his next project, a large-scale Biopic of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. No small feat considering the amount of painstaking research that would have to take place for Stanley to achieve his vision.
Stanley tried to watch every film ever made on the subject and read a stack of books about the French emperor. Kubrick went as far as scouting locations, planning to film large portions of the film on location in France, in addition to the use of United Kingdom studios. He also planned to film the battle scenes in Romania and enlisted the support of the Romanian People's Army who had committed 40,000 soldiers and 10,000 cavalrymen to Kubrick's film for battle scenes.
Stanley wanted Jack Nicholson to play Napoleon and Audrey Hepburn for Josephine. In written correspondence at the time, he stated he felt he was going to create
"the best movie ever made."
Napoleon was eventually cancelled due to the prohibitive costs involved in the necessary
epic location filming.
A surviving artifact from this project is a wooded cabinet containing index cards to represent every day of Napoleon’s life with notes on each one indicating where he was and what he was doing. This was created by Kubrick with the help of research assistants.
A truly epic project and a great example of the obsessive nature of Kubrick as an artist.
When it became apparent that Napoleon was not going to be his next project Kubrick looked for a smaller-scale project that he could get off the ground quickly and complete on a modest budget. He settled on doing an adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel
“A Clockwork Orange”.
“A Clockwork Orange” (1971)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Based on the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Produced by Stanley Kubrick, Music by Wendy Carlos, Cinematography John Alcott, Edited by Bill Butler, Starring Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri, Miriam Karlin. (Run Time 136m)
In a dystopian future England, Alex and his "Droogs" spend their nights getting high at the Korova Milkbar before embarking on "a little of the old ultraviolence”. After he is jailed for sexually assaulting and then bludgeoning a cat lady to death, Alex submits to experimental behaviour modification therapy techniques to earn his freedom; he's conditioned to abhor violence. He is then returned to society defenceless and young Alex becomes a victim of his past exploits.
Kubrick had received a copy of Anthony Burgess's novel from Terry Southern while they were working on Dr Strangelove together in 1964, Stanley initially didn't think the novel would be suitable for screen adaptation on the grounds of “Nadsat” the street language that is so prevalent in the novel being too difficult for moviegoers to comprehend.
By the time 1969 rolled around, there was widespread concern about the perceived moral decline of teenagers and young people in society. In the late 60's films were being made by the “New Hollywood movement” depicting the sexuality and rebelliousness of young people so there was a cultural shift making a film like “A Clockwork Orange” viable.
The film was shot in 1970–1971 on a budget of £2 million (£26.5m in 2023).
For this project, Kubrick moved away from shooting in the “Super Panavision 70” CinemaScope he used for 2001 in favour of a more modest widescreen format but this film still looks amazing. Stanley’s beautiful shots display the kind of rigorous symmetrical framing that would make Wes Anderson blush! just beautiful shot compositions.
What looms largest in this films legend is it’s notorious depiction of teenage physical and sexual violence.
A Clockwork Orange became one of the most controversial films of its time and a poster child in the ongoing debate about the “glorification” of violence in cinema.
It received an “X” certificate in the US and the UK and was released into cinemas in late December 1971.
Film critics at the time did correctly view the violence depicted as satire and in pop culture at the time “A Clockwork Orange” is less violent than Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” which had come out a few weeks earlier.
After receiving death threats following a series of copycat crimes Kubrick personally pulled the film from release in the United Kingdom and the film remained legally unavailable in the UK and only became available in the UK after Kubrick's death.
For transparency on this famous story of Kubrick pulling the film from the UK ,
The film was made for £2m and came out in UK cinemas in late December 1971.
It was in UK cinemas for 61 weeks and it is feasible that the film was in profit off the back of UK box office alone before Kubrick withdrew the film in 1973.
The film ultimately grossed over £200m worldwide.
Negative hype in the media aside, the film received four Academy Award nominations, for
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Editing.
After the great William Friedkin won Best Director for The French Connection that year, he said: "Speaking personally, I think Stanley Kubrick is the best American film-maker of the year. In fact, not just this year, but the best, period."
A Clockwork Orange was a tremendous financial success and Kubrick was keen to launch a new project. One that ended up scratching his “Period Drama” Itch he had from all his Napolean research and development along with an opportunity to innovate within the sphere of cinematography and get to use the connections he had inside NASA again.
In 1972 Stanley began work on his screen adaptation of the 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon.
End of Part 3…
