Stanley Kubrick

When one talks of movies, of course, one remembers images (despite sales figures, soundtrack CDs still come second).

Kubrick photo

And in the brief 100 year history of the medium, a large number of the most indelible screen moments were crafted by the late Stanley Kubrick, a filmmaker who truly defined the oft-overused label "auteur" :

Major Kong riding the A-bomb into oblivion over Dmitri's Russia

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"Lolita" and her hoola-hoop out-scandalizing Adrian Lyne

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The Star Child awaiting its rebirth from the orbit of Jupiter

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Alex and the Droogs' yarbels-crushing ballet of violence set to "The Thieving Magpie"

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Caretaker Jack Torrance's frame-filling rictus embodying the corrupted soul of the Overlook Hotel

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A teenage girl as an Angel Of Death in Hue City, Vietnam

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If the cinema has already attained its equivalents of "The Night Watch" or "The Persistence Of Memory" or "Starry Night", then these images certainly qualify. And while Kubrick always dazzled, he also often confused, confounded, and outraged viewers, but never left them indifferent. Even those who hated a particular Kubrick film usually offered an interpretation as unique as their own fingerprint.

The unveiling of this summer's "second" most anxiously awaited feature, "Eyes Wide Shut", is a curious benchmark. It's that rare Event Movie where the presence of its director eclipses that of its A-list stars. For many, it will signify the last time the screen will be graced with a bold new vision from one of the medium's most influential iconoclasts. But considering that Kubrick's previous film was released 12 years ago, for some Eyes Wide Shut will serve as their introduction to the filmmaker's uncompromising, innovative style and career-spanning obsessions.

It's ironic that for this new generation, Kubrick, in death, will seem more alive that at any other time in his 40 year career. Within hours of his dying (which I initially heard of, appropriately enough, from the faceless, omniscient voice of the Internet), a flurry of mini-biographies flooded the media: Stanley the genius; Stanley the prima donna; Stanley the family man; Stanley the closet pop culture maven. Stanley the intellectual/outcast/ eccentric. Attempts at portraits as infuriating and as contradictory as Kubrick's films. With many more to come, no doubt...

[Kubrick's Early Films]

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