How to become "Stanley Kubrick" - Cracking the Kube Ep. 3, part 1
Why do we think about Stanley Kubrick the way we do? What’s behind his mythological image of an all-knowing, all-powerful filmmaker?
Third episode of my Kubrick series, in two parts. In this, I criticise the classic explanation of the Kubrick Mythology. The video opens with a never-before-heard interview with Stanley Kubrick.
Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
0:20 - Never before heard interview with Stanley Kubrick
1:50 - The two extremes of Kubrick's persona
2:54 - How Kubrick was portrayed in the media
4:42 - Kubrick's reaction to his mythology
5:50 - Persistence of the Kubrick Mythology
7:39 - Kubrick's rationalisation of his mythology
9:30 - The Invisible Man documentary
13:28 - Degeneration of the Mythology in the '90s
15:01 - Criticising the classical explanation
16:24 - Some of the myths are true: perfectionist, obsessive
18:07 - Kubrick talked with the press a lot!
19:47 - A different explanation is needed
The presentation is an updated version of a talk that I gave at a conference in 2017, later published in a French journal:
Filippo Ulivieri, “From ‘boy genius’ to “barking loon’: an analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s persona in American and English media,” @ Stanley Kubrick: Nouveaux Horizons, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, Bordeaux (FR), 16-17 May 2017.
Filippo Ulivieri, “From ‘boy genius’ to ‘barking loon:’ an analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s mythology,” Essais Hors Series #4, 2017, https://journals.openedition.org/essa...
It also incorporates some ideas from another lecture of mine:
Filippo Ulivieri, “Dr. Mabuse No. 2: An investigation into Stanley Kubrick’s mythological image,” Internationales Kubrick symposium, Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt, 21-22 July 2018, • Kubrick Symposium // Filippo Ulivieri: Dr....
The audio clip is excerpted from a 1980 taped interview by Alexander Walker with Kubrick, now in possession of the Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona (UD), Italy. I am grateful to Livio Jacob and Lorenzo Codelli for their kind permission.