Legends- Stanley Kubrick 1928-1999

   Stanley Kubrick died of a heart attack, twenty years ago today. Fortunately, film is forever, and his rock-solid rep as the director's director only seems to grow with each passing year. There's no such thing as a bad Stanley Kubrick movie. His legendary perfectionism made sure of that. While today's filmmakers scramble to get their latest franchise offering ready for next summer, Stanley typically spent 3-4 years fine-tuning a project, with little or no thought given to box office or studio expectations. In retrospect, it's fitting that he didn't make it into the 21st Century, because his style of unrushed artistry simply doesn't exist anymore.

   I've put together a list of all thirteen of his films in order of importance. Yes, we all wish he'd been a LITTLE more productive during these forty-six years. But then again, his absences made ma

13. "Fear and Desire"(1953)
Kubrick expressed embarrassment over his first AND worst film, as his standing in the industry steadily increased. A prolific 1940s photographer turned Hollywood novice, Stanley had a small crew and an even smaller budget($50,000) to work with on his debut feature(just to put things in perspective, that year's Best Picture winner "From Here to Eternity" cost $2 million). If nothing else, Kubrick's antiwar leanings were established by this story of four soldiers stranded behind enemy lines during an unspecified conflict. "Fear and Desire" is little more than the answer to a trivia question sixty-plus years later. That old saying "everybody starts somewhere" certainly applies here.

12. Another relatively minor effort from an artist that wasn't fully formed, this 67-minute independent noir is about a NYC boxer(Jamie Smith has no wiki page) and his relationship with the girlfriend(Irene Kane) of a crime boss(Frank Silvera). Kubrick was experimenting with sound and cinematography, but "Kiss" made no critical or commercial impact and is only for completists. For what it's worth, Martin Scorsese has cited it as an influence on his early career.

11. "The Killing"(1956)
Kubrick's first REAL movie didn't make money but it DID impress forward-thinking critics and talent scouts that would soon be telling anyone that would listen that they knew all along.

Kubrick's final film chronicled one of the last happy years in the marriage of superstar couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Did this movie's ludicrous fifteen-month London shoot cause a strain that led to their split, two years later? That's open to debate, but if we put Stanley's nagging perfectionism and critics' sky-high expectations aside, this movie is better than it got credit for being in the summer of '99. If you were a prententious cinephile, this was a bigger deal than "Star Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace". Stanley died six days after turning in a cut of "Shut" that he considered complete.

"Private Pyle!!!" R. Lee Ermey's crazed drill sergeant insured that I would never serve my country, in the blistering Vietnam drama that exploded onto summer screens the same year Oliver Stone's "Platoon" won Best Picture, perhaps muting it's critical response. But Kubrick movies have a way of sticking around and picking up more admirers in the years after their release. America's involvement in Southeast Asia became an early '80s obsession for Stanley after reading Gustav Hasford's semi-autobiographical novel "The Short-Timers". The dehumanizing boot camp scenes are justifiably famous, and while the actual Vietnam portion doesn't hit quite as hard, this is still a strong effort from the bearded recluse(as well as career highs for Matthew Modine and Vincent D'Onofrio). Check out Siskel and Ebert going to war over "FMJ" on Youtube(Gene liked it more). I miss those guys.

Ryan O'Neal is an Irish rogue, a duellist, a deserter

Kubrick's most impersonal film. What I mean by 'impersonal' is, he joined the film when it was well into preproduction, and therefore couldn't control every aspect of it(original director Anthony Mann was unceremoniously fired). "Spartacus" won four Academy Awards and was a significant moneymaker for Universal, making it a pivotal film in SK's industry development.

4.

This confrontational conversation-starter may be the most warped, disturbing film ever to become permanently ingrained in the fabric of pop culture. How do we feel about Alex DeLarge today, in the era of MeToo and cancel culture? I would ask the high school/college crowd for their take on a singing rapist-hooligan forced into a failed rehabilitation, if I were more confidant that they'd actually SEEN a weird film made before most of their parents were born. Like "Psycho", I was familiar with the iconic imagery in "Clockwork" long before I took the time to watch it. A rewatch reveals that it's every bit as potent as it was in December 1971. Malcolm McDowell's mersmerizing performance and the free-will vs. conformity theme still registers, and "Orange" stands out more than ever as the ultimate example of challenging art, in a 21st Century landscape littered with safe corporate commercialism. Kubrick's maverick reputation was cemented, as he arguably became the first filmmaker to gain a significant cult following.

Kubrick's most popular and well-known work stands tall in the annals of horror cinema. "The Exorcist" and the original "Halloween" are really it's only peers, if those two sold-out revival showings I attended are any indication. It's common knowledge that the individualistic Stanley broke from Stephen King, just as he broke from "Clockwork" author Anthony Burgess, during his year-long stay in the ominous Overlook hotel. Jack Nicholson is one of the few giant stars that got to headline a Kubrick production, and in a career filled with great characters, Stanley Torrance may be at the top of the list. Shelley Duvall's distress has been well-documented, but for what it's worth, she's immortalized here as his long-suffering wife Wendy. Kubrick constantly keeps viewers on edge with his ghost girls, expert composition and Wendy Carlos' moody score that sets the tone during the opening credits. You don't have to be a film school scholar to spot this materpiece.

Speaking of masterpieces, we've come to #1. The deep, dark recesses of space have never been explored more thoughfully than in Kubrick's epic game-changer. "2001" inspired countless future filmmakers(Spielberg, Lucas, Scott, Cameron, Nolan), and simply left an enormous cultural footprint. Few films can claim to have pushed the medium forward, and part of me wishes I could have witnessed the technical revolution firsthand with all those lucky hippies in the spring and summer of '68.