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Stanley Kubrick is overrated (1 Viewer)

42nd Street Freak

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Overrated? Yes indeed.

And he and Warners also helped to close down one of the greatest genre/cult cinema's in the UK by taking it to court because they dared to show the generally good but equally overrated "A Clockwork Orange" to an audience of its fans due to his still in force, oh so tired, self-ban on the film in Britain.

He gets no love from me for that alone.

"The Killing" was his best film.
 

Richard--W

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Some ignoramuses like to say outrageous things to get attention. There is no reasoning with this mentality.

One of the fundamental rules of drama is to provoke emotional reaction and stimulate intellectual discussion about the underlying subtext. The point is to invite audience participation in the unfolding conflict. Not every dramatist can pull it off, and some pull it off better than others. To do this visually takes enormous talent. To do it with the acuity and adeptness of Stanley Kubrick takes more talent than most film makers have combined. Kubrick's films are the height of visual experience, and it helps to watch them with an open mind. Even an immature mind can experience something wonderful in a Kubrick film. Many professional dramatists and film makers wish they had an ounce of what Kubrick had.

The mentality of this thread's statement "Stanley Kubrick is overrated" is infantile and profoundly ignorant.

Besides, Kubrick's films don't need to be defended.
 

RickER

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Richard, its all cool. Step back from the edge man. I like the guy too. But, just because someone doesnt, his opinion is not necessary ignorant.
 

42nd Street Freak

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I love being 'immature'!

It means I don't have to watch cinematic paint dry like "2001" (HAL going nuts being the only remotely interesting bit).

It means I don't have to say "Full metal Jacket" is the greatest war film ever made, when we all know that in fact only the first half is any good while the 2nd half is a badly made, dull, Vietnam flick that can't hold up against "Platoon" and could never even reach the cinematic knees of a true work of genius like "Apocalypse Now".

It also means I don't have to call Jack Nicholson turning into the biggest slice of ham this side of 'Porky' the Prize Pig the greatest horror film ever made.
 

Jan H

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Opinions are like you-know-whats. They all stink. But I'm a Kubrick fanboy, and the only Kubrick films that left me 'cold' were Killer's Kiss (though there is much to admire about some of the shots and the performances were decent), and Lolita, which was limited by the era in terms of what Kubrick could do with the book's racier parts. Mason was definitely brilliant, though.

The reason why Kubrick is my favorite director, though, is because if his wickedly subversive humor. It is black, dry, subtle, and in some cases, not even apparent until you've seen his films multiple times. I've seen EWS about 10 times now, and now I see it as a black comedy about sex and the imagination. 'Strangelove' is obviously one of the funniest films of all time, and 'Clockwork' is also brilliantly funny. Full Metal Jacket is chockful of classic one-liners, and Jack's comic genius is on full display in The Shining. Hell, I even laugh when HAL tells Bowman how much he's improved as an artist in 2001.

For me, Kubrick's genius goes beyond the technical brilliance, his skill with actors, etc. His humor is often at its best when the viewer is simultaneously cringing and laughing. Only the Coen Brothers, IMO, are able to pull off this feat so subtly, dexterously, and memorably.

Kubrick overrated? Compared to who?
 

Patrick McCart

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You do know that Kubrick's family was getting serious death threats over ACO? As soon as he put a halt to UK screenings, he stopped getting threats. It was for the protection of his family and I can respect that.
 

42nd Street Freak

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Indeed I do know....But that was 22 years before!
This was in 1993!
Nobody gave a crap anymore.
Especially as the film was freely available everywhere else in the world and always had been.
 

Claire Panke

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Lest we forget, Kubrick has always been a controversial filmmaker, and critics and fans have been divided over his work for years.

For an interesting read on Kubrick controversy pro and con, please check out the following from Jim Emmerson's excellent film blog - scroll down to the entry for August 28, 2007. It is germane to our discussion here:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2007/08/

I wasn't gonna post on this thread, because even on the Sight & Sound list thread, these kinds of discussions tend to give me hives...but I found the blog article and couldn't resist (more fool me). Emmerson explains Kubrick much better than I.

I understand why Kubrick's films don't necessarily appeal to some movie fans, especially casual movie fans - but I have serious issues with them being dismissed out of hand. They are unabashedly intellectual, the pacing and surface coolness of some Kubrick films are simply more than some people can overcome. As previously mentioned, they are about ideas as much as people, and their cinematic language is complex. Heck, even I don't want to watch a Kubrick marathon. I "like" some of his works more than others. But a film can be a great movie without me or you "liking" it, as if popular appeal is the only ctiteria.

Personally, I find much of Kubrick's work to be rich, complex, thrilling and, as in the case of Strangelove, hugely entertaining. But some people may need a tour guide or road map lest the films remain merely impregnable. And I also understand that some folks will simply not want to put forth the effort to meet Kubrick on his own ground. That's OK too. My personal opinion is that Kubricks late films are uneven. But I saw Clockwork Orange on the big screen a couple years ago, and was struck again at how bold and gripping and provocative this film still is. I sat in my seat after it ended with my mouth in a big "o", for WOW. That's the mark of a work of art, that it still retains the power to affront and astonish years after its creation. These virtues are intrinsic, whether some can appreciate them or not.

I feel one needs a bit of understanding of what Kubrick's (or anyone's) films are about (and I don't mean the plot folks) as well as respect for their artistry before you can have much of a meaningful discussion of whether they're over-rated. I'm quite all right with statements like "Bergman simply doesn't do it for me" or "I find Kubrick slow and uninvolving" but I tune right our when someone says "Scorsese is rubbish". I enshrine no sacred cows (I'm a well known non-fan of Spielberg, although I acknowledge his considerable talent). I don't love Citizen Kane, but I greatly admire it, and appreciate it as a work of genius. That comes from watching it, studying it, and reading about it. A lot of these things come down to personal taste, and the icon of that age for me will always be Rules Of The Game. But I have applied some "critical" thinking to my conclusions, even though they are filtered through my paricular passions, experience and sensibilities.

If, at the end of the day, one still dislikes a director's work that's fine by me. If one doesn't want to analyze and study movies, but simply to enjoy them as recreation, that's A-OK and hallelujiah. But if we're going to take a serious artist's work apart then I think we need to do our homework, which is more than just watching the movies on a lazy afternoon. I mean no offense to anyone here, and I don't mean that we have to turn ourselves into film scholars before we can post, but a little analysis wouldn't be amiss IMO. If we don't understand the films' ideas or content, if we son't underdstand their basic cinematic grammar, then the discussion is just so much hot air.

I do think that there are bad films and good films and better films as well as truly great films, and that it has nothing to do with popularity. I love The Hidden, and own the deluxe DVD edition, but by no means do I rate it over The Shining, a film I don't particularly like.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I think that attitude is just as bad as that of someone who would say "Kubrick sucks, 2001 is boring."

Something I've always enjoyed about Kubrick's films is how much is left to each viewer to determine for his/her self, and how his films provoke conversation and debate like few others. No doubt in his lifetime, Kubrick saw plenty of reviews or essays about his work, and probably felt that some were spot-on, and some completely missed the mark. Nonetheless, he didn't sit down to give us all a guided tour of the films, which might lead one to believe that he enjoyed if not encouraged the debate that would inevitably surround one of his films.

And I think that we're still having conversations about the relative merit of 2001 or ACO or Strangelove decades later is not only something Kubrick would have enjoyed, but proof of the power of his filmmaking.

A lot of us like "Star Wars" and I'm sure a lot of us don't, but we don't spend a lot of times discussing what the films might mean or the ideas behind the artistry. I personally love Star Wars, but its far more straightforward than any Kubrick film. It doesn't ask the same thing from its audience that 2001 does. That's not automatically a bad thing, just a different type of filmmaking.

I personally don't think Kubrick is overrated, but that's not because I think his films are brilliant (which I happen to believe), but because none of his films have the near-universal admiration of something like The Godfather, or Star Wars, or Jaws. For every rabid Kubrick fanboy, there's as many people that dislike the films, for a multitude of reasons (some of which I'd consider legitimate, some of which I just think are silly). In my experiences over the years of seeing Kubrick films and studying them, both on my own and academically, of watching them with friends and family, seeing them in revival houses, all of that, it seems like the crowd always splits this way:

- Those that believe Kubrick and his films are absolutely genius, and incredible works of cinematic art and entertainment

- Those who enjoy some or all of Kubrick's films, but wouldn't go so far as to consider them favorites.

- Those who can acknowledge the technical brilliance of the films but find them to be lacking in character depth or emotion, in other words, people who respect the films but wouldn't really feel the need to sit down and watch them again or own them.

- Those who just dislike the films, who find themselves bored by Kubrick's deliberate pacing, or who just don't get why they're anything special the way a Casablanca or Godfather is. (This might be the group that would have said that "Spartacus" is their favorite of his or the only of his that they enjoy, finding it much more immediately accessible.)

And it seems no matter what context I see a Kubrick film is, the audience always splits that way, not equally, but certainly enough to be visible. And as long as the audience continues to split this way, "overrated" is a general term can't be applied in my opinion, because there are too many people who aren't in love with the films. Heck, even Roger Ebert, who loved 2001 and Strangelove, gave Clockwork Orange a pretty bad review, which goes to show that intelligent people with an expansive knowledge of film don't automatically see every one of Kubrick's films as genius.

When I think of the term "overrated", I think more about a film like "Finding Nemo" (admittedly not a Kubrick work!). I didn't like it, not at all, yet whenever that comes up in conversation, without fail the response is always, "What do you mean you didn't like Finding Nemo? It's impossible not to like Finding Nemo. You probably need to watch it again, obviously you just missed it, really, it's not possible to not like that movie." (Same, by the way, for "Elf" in my experience.) Those are films I would think are more deserving of the "overrated" response. Or films like "Crash" or "Brokeback Mountain", which technically are certainly well-done, but in my opinion just aren't particularly good films. When you say you don't like a movie and everyone stares at you in shock and claims there must be something wrong with you, that's more of a sign of something being overrated. With a Kubrick film, I never say those sorts of things to someone, although I usually ask why...not because I don't find their opinion valid, but because as a big fan of his work I'm always curious to see what about it doesn't work for someone else.

(...and now if you'll excuse me, I have a high horse to climb off of...)
 

42nd Street Freak

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*pfffft*

Actually I like "Strangelove" a great deal. And "The Killing".
But not much else does anything much for me at all. And some do even less.

But my views don't need to be defended.
 

42nd Street Freak

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Did you? Oh, right.
Blimey Kubrick fans are defensive aren't they.

*leaves, to go back to discussion on immature films, knowing I have met my match*
 

Thomas J.

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The problem with just saying "Stanley Kubrick is overrated" is that you're not saying by whom. I know that in contemporary academia, Kubrick isn't as consistent a topic of discussion as other filmmakers such as Ozu, Godard, and Charles Burnett. So your statement needs a qualifier in order to be accepted or rejected as truth.

Kubrick is very much revered in mainstream cinephilia, mostly because he had the hegemonic studio system backing him -- he made ostensibly non-mainstream movies for a mainstream audience. After all, a major studio wouldn't have financially supported him otherwise. Even today, a major Hollywood studio still supports him through marketing and DVD rereleases (which actually helped spawn this thread, thus proving my point), which means, above all else, that his films get seen and remain in the public eye. It follows, then, that Kubrick's oeuvre has the opportunity to be framed as "great" by the mainstream, and a lot of other great filmmakers don't have that opportunity.

Since Kubrick is the rare example of a non-mainstream filmmaker supported by the mainstream cinema economics of moviemaking, his films are bound to become overrated due to lack of competition in the same hegemonic infrastructure. In other words, mainstream cinephiles have an easy opportunity to become exposed to Kubrick's works, and they recognize the merits of the films, and since there's not much else of equal merit supported by the system, these films become overly talked about as paragons of cinematic quality...simply as a byproduct of their being within an arm's reach of accessing.

As I already mentioned, however, academia and serious cinephiles who go out of their way to access films that otherwise wouldn't be seen because they aren't supported by the system, aren't so prone to make Kubrick the focal point for a discussion of "great cinema," which I personally think is the appropriate placement for Kubrick. He was a great filmmaker, but there were/are filmmakers who were better who aren't given as much mainstream exposure in North America. Kubrick was a "common great filmmaker," if you will, in that he made his best films (2001, Dr. Strangelove) after a honing his craft, and then fell off once he got older. That doesn't make him NOT a great filmmaker, though. He had the usual trajectory.

So yes, he is overrated by the mainstream, but not in academia where he is considered just one of many equal or even greater "great filmmakers." Moreover, this is to be expected given the hegemonic studio-supported context of his work.
 

Thomas J.

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This is ironic considering I have yet to meet a single person in real life who liked CRASH, and here you are implying that everyone you've met likes CRASH. You should come over to my side of the world, Josh. Personally, CRASH is a film that should have won both the Oscar and Raspberry in the same year -- I really would've loved that.
 

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