Documentary structured around taped conversations between Stanley Kubrick
and French critic Michel Ciment.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Gregory Monro
Whenever unhappy footballers head back to their home countries for
international fixtures, they inevitably start mouthing off to the local
press about how unsettled they are at their club, as though they're
completely unaware that we live in an age of instant global
communication and believe their words won’t be picked up by their
manager back in England, Spain or Italy. Or maybe they're very much
aware of this, and use press conferences on the other side of the world
to get a message across indirectly. Perhaps this is why acclaimed
English language filmmakers often ignored the press in their own
countries but would happily devote hours or even days to speaking with
French journalists. Just as Hitchcock had an epic conversation with
Truffaut, spawning the book that bore their names, Positif editor
Michel Ciment was granted the rare opportunity to speak with
Stanley Kubrick at several points between the making of 1971's
A Clockwork Orange and 1987's
Full Metal Jacket. Just as Hitchcock and Truffaut's extended chinwag formed the basis of
the 2015 doc
Hitchcock/Truffaut, director Gregory Monro's
Kubrick by Kubrick constructs itself around Ciment's
recorded chats with the elusive auteur.
The trouble with Kubrick is that he was never very open to discussion
of his movies beyond the technical aspects. I've always preferred when
filmmakers avoid elaborating on the "themes" of their work and leave it
to critics and audience members to speculate upon, but that doesn't help
Ciment's cause much. Kubrick is happy to talk about HOW he applied the
lighting in a scene but refuses to divulge WHY he chose such a scheme
and what he wished to convey in doing so.
This means that Monro is forced to explore other avenues beyond the
Ciment tapes, which largely results in a rehash of footage Kubrick fans
will likely already be familiar with –
Arthur C. Clarke discussing the speculative nature of
2001: A Space Odyssey; Tom Cruise on hearing of the director's passing; a young
Malcolm McDowell defending A Clockwork Orange from
the tabloid hysteria that engulfed the UK on its release. With so many
vintage talking heads on display, you're left wondering why Monro didn't
seek out any of Kubrick's living collaborators for some fresh
footage.
Kubrick by Kubrick is most interesting not when the
director's voice is present but when his methods are being questioned by
those collaborators who didn't have the best time working alongside him.
Composer Leonard Rosenman talks about assaulting Kubrick after
putting his orchestra through the 105th take of a recording that he
viewed as having been nailed in the second take.
Marisa Berenson bemoans her Barry Lyndon experience
as akin to being a glorified stand-in, present simply to be lit nicely.
Sterling Hayden expresses sheer bemusement at Kubrick's
insistence on take after take during Dr. Strangelove, ultimately unsure of whether he actually gave the director what he
was looking for.
The great irony of Kubrick is that while he was a notorious control
freak, he liked to populate his films with actors known for their
improvisational spirit. Think Peter Sellers in
Lolita and Dr. Strangelove, Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and most of all, R. Lee Ermey in
Full Metal Jacket, a non-professional performer who practically hijacked the film's
opening act from Kubrick and created arguably its most memorable
moments. I've never heard Kubrick speak about this curious dichotomy,
and it's a shame that Ciment never brings it up in his conversations. Or
perhaps he did but was given the famous Kubrick brush off on the
matter.
Heavily aural, Kubrick by Kubrick might have worked just
as well as a radio production. There's no real breakdown of Kubrick's
visual work of the likes seen in the excellent recent doc
Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist. Instead the audio is accompanied by a graphic recreation of the
hallucinatory bedroom from the climax of 2001, upon which key props and items from whichever movie is currently
being discussed are placed – the helmet from
Full Metal Jacket; the mask from Eyes Wide Shut; the sword from Spartacus et al. Monro has the good
sense not to distract us with any overly flashy visuals, but if you're
already familiar with Kubrick's work,
Kubrick by Kubrick wouldn't lose much impact if you were
to simply listen to its audio like a high-end podcast.
