More Artists recreate Kubrick scenes

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

Artists have a close encounter with Kubrick

DONALD CLARKE
The Irish Times
Friday, 25th September, 2009

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0925/1224255182918.html

The continuing significance of Stanley Kubrick as an iconic image-maker will
be reflected in an intriguing exhibition set to open in Dublin's Light House
Cinema next Thursday. John Maguire, film critic with the Sunday Business
Post and Today FM, has gathered a selection of artists - some established,
some upcoming tyros - and invited them to construct pieces inspired by
Kubrick's films.

"In the history of cinema, there have been very few individuals with Stanley
Kubrick's vision and nobody who could capture a moment with his sense of
grace and wonder," Maguire says. "From his first films, Kubrick showed a
restless desire to innovate, to change perceptions, to show things in a new
light. This is the function of the artist."

The works include Francis Matthews's spookily near- photorealistic evocation
of an interior from The Shining , David Turpin's playful take on Barry
Lyndon , and Mark Wickham's sketch of a key scene from Paths of Glory .
Artwork for the exhibition poster, by Uruguayan illustrator Martin Ansin, is
arranged across echoing spaces, which, with their well-lit ambience, suggest
a world designed by Kubrick.

In a spirit of full disclosure, we should mention that the programme
contains monographs by Paul Lynch of the Sunday Tribune and (hem, hem)
Donald Clarke of The Irish Times.

The exhibition, which is free, will run at the Light House until October
31st. www.lighthousecinema.ie

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

On Sep 29, 4:10 pm, "Cosmic Gnome"
<hundredmillionlifeti....TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Artists have a close encounter with Kubrick
>
> DONALD CLARKE
> The Irish Times
> Friday, 25th September, 2009
>
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0925/1224255182918...
>
> The continuing significance of Stanley Kubrick as an iconic image-maker will
> be reflected in an intriguing exhibition set to open in Dublin's Light House
> Cinema next Thursday. John Maguire, film critic with the Sunday Business
> Post and Today FM, has gathered a selection of artists - some established,
> some upcoming tyros - and invited them to construct pieces inspired by
> Kubrick's films.
>
> "In the history of cinema, there have been very few individuals with Stanley
> Kubrick's vision and nobody who could capture a moment with his sense of
> grace and wonder," Maguire says. "From his first films, Kubrick showed a
> restless desire to innovate, to change perceptions, to show things in a new
> light. This is the function of the artist."
>
> The works include Francis Matthews's spookily near- photorealistic evocation
> of an interior from The Shining , David Turpin's playful take on Barry
> Lyndon , and Mark Wickham's sketch of a key scene from Paths of Glory .
> Artwork for the exhibition poster, by Uruguayan illustrator Martin Ansin, is
> arranged across echoing spaces, which, with their well-lit ambience, suggest
> a world designed by Kubrick.
>
> In a spirit of full disclosure, we should mention that the programme
> contains monographs by Paul Lynch of the Sunday Tribune and (hem, hem)
> Donald Clarke of The Irish Times.
>
> The exhibition, which is free, will run at the Light House until October
> 31st.www.lighthousecinema.ie

Celebrate Kubrick's "innovation" by replicating moments in his films?

In anycase, Kubrick's popularity seems to be very high now. I just saw
a poll on IMDB where several thousand people voted "Eyes Wide Shut"
their favourite films of the 90s. And these are mostly people their
20s and late teens doing the voting. "Barry Lyndon" is also having a
huge surge in popularity, again with young people. Also with all the
cynicism surrounding the second Gulf War, many people have been
rediscovering "Full Metal Jacket".

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

More links to "brand Kubrick"...

http://www.sbpost.ie/agenda/kubricks-shining-odyssey-44510.html

http://maguiresmovies.blogspot.com/2009/09/stanley-kubrick-taming-light.html

What comes after postmodernism? Does some new technological leap reset
things or are we headed toward a Clockwork Future, all art rendered
impotent?

"Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to
spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-
modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the
point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy
basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history.
That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of
the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The
avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian
visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible
because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are
stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can
never escape." - (Kalle Lasn and Bruce Grierson, "A Malignant
Sadness")

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

The art curator of this thing just left this message on IMDB. He's
replying to a link I posted of this thread on AMK:

"I am the curator of the Kubrick exhibition in Dublin.

It goes without saying that I fundamentally disagree with your quoted
notions of post-modernism and do not feel that Stanley Kubrick: Taming
Light is in any way exploitative of Kubrick (who I revere) or his
legacy of films.

I want to claify one key point you make with regard to
commercialisation.
Stanley Kubrick: Taming Light is a tribute from 25 painters,
photographers and illustrators. It is not an art sales event and was
established and run on a not-for-profit basis, only possible through
donations of time and expertise.

The exhibition stands at the Light House from October 1st - 31st. You
are most welcome to come and see it but leave your po-mo 101 textbooks
and ideas about vampirism and commodified interiority at the door."

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

On Sep 29, 3:09 pm, MP <mystic_prow... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
> The art curator of this thing just left this message on IMDB. He's
> replying to a link I posted of this thread on AMK:
>
> "I am the curator of the Kubrick exhibition in Dublin.
>
> It goes without saying that I fundamentally disagree with your quoted
> notions of post-modernism and do not feel that Stanley Kubrick: Taming
> Light is in any way exploitative of Kubrick (who I revere) or his
> legacy of films.
>
> I want to claify one key point you make with regard to
> commercialisation.
> Stanley Kubrick: Taming Light is a tribute from 25 painters,
> photographers and illustrators. It is not an art sales event and was
> established and run on a not-for-profit basis, only possible through
> donations of time and expertise.
>
> The exhibition stands at the Light House from October 1st - 31st. You
> are most welcome to come and see it but leave your po-mo 101 textbooks
> and ideas about vampirism and commodified interiority at the door."

LOL.

I think he and Harry oughta get together,

dc

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

On Sep 29, 3:23 pm, kelpzoidzl <kelpzoi... DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 29, 3:09 pm, MP <mystic_prow... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > The art curator of this thing just left this message on IMDB. He's
> > replying to a link I posted of this thread on AMK:
>
> > "I am the curator of the Kubrick exhibition in Dublin.
>
> > It goes without saying that I fundamentally disagree with your quoted
> > notions of post-modernism and do not feel that Stanley Kubrick: Taming
> > Light is in any way exploitative of Kubrick (who I revere) or his
> > legacy of films.
>
> > I want to claify one key point you make with regard to
> > commercialisation.
> > Stanley Kubrick: Taming Light is a tribute from 25 painters,
> > photographers and illustrators. It is not an art sales event and was
> > established and run on a not-for-profit basis, only possible through
> > donations of time and expertise.
>
> > The exhibition stands at the Light House from October 1st - 31st. You
> > are most welcome to come and see it but leave your po-mo 101 textbooks
> > and ideas about vampirism and commodified interiority at the door."
>
> LOL.
>
> I think he and Harry oughta get together.

Actually no, I don't wish harry (cosmic gnome) on anyone.

Ultimately it doesn't matter if everyone understands Kubrick in the
same way and people can honor him any way they wish.

dc

stalepie09 · External Since: Sep 29, 2009 Posts: 5

On Sep 29, 5:57 pm, MP <mystic_prow....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
> More links to "brand Kubrick"...
>
> http://www.sbpost.ie/agenda/kubricks-shining-odyssey-44510.html
>
> http://maguiresmovies.blogspot.com/2009/09/stanley-kubrick-taming-lig...
>
> What comes after postmodernism? Does some new technological leap reset
> things or are we headed toward a Clockwork Future, all art rendered
> impotent?
>
> "Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to
> spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-
> modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the
> point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy
> basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history.
> That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of
> the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The
> avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian
> visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible
> because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are
> stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can
> never escape." - (Kalle Lasn and Bruce Grierson, "A Malignant
> Sadness")

I think the biggest problem with art today is that there is seemingly
nothing new left to do. It seems as though all ideas have already been
used and explored. Not in the sense of "there's never been anything
new under the sun," but in the sense that everything that can be done
has been done RECENTLY and is documented, in the history books, and
available for rent / to buy. Plus there's such a large back catalog of
stuff to look through (books, music, film, plays, etc) in the last
five centuries! How can anyone have the time to go through it all and
at the same time work on something new?

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

This John Maguire "museum curator" guy is upset at me. But how can I
take a guy seriously when in his blog he lists "The Departed",
"Crank", "Borat", "Stranger than Fiction", and "Batman" as the best
films of their respective years. What does it take to become a museum
curator these days?

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

And here's that exhibition website:

Kubrick: Taming Light
"A group show of new painting, photography and illustration inspired by
Stanley Kubrick"

Inspired 'by Stanley Kubrick'!!!??? And not 'inspired by the work of Stanley
Kubrick'? Personalized 'authorship' appropriative dementia once again.

http://kubricktaminglight.com/

Ooooh, and they're on twitty, and they're on faceturdy, and Sign Up Sign Up
Sign Up quick quick quick before you lose out on your Starbucks coupons!!!
Quick quick quick, you don't want to get left behind, do you??????????

"Cosmic Gnome" <hundredmillionlifetimes.TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
news:h9tlu3$90n$1@news.doubleSlash.org...
>
> "MP" <mystic_prowler.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:8e0a34a0-47cb-43f9-83d9-7d54b2f19db9@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
> On Sep 29, 4:10 pm, "Cosmic Gnome"
> <hundredmillionlifeti....TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> Artists have a close encounter with Kubrick
>>
>> DONALD CLARKE
>> The Irish Times
>> Friday, 25th September, 2009
>>
>> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0925/1224255182918...
>>
>> The continuing significance of Stanley Kubrick as an iconic image-maker
>> will
>> be reflected in an intriguing exhibition set to open in Dublin's Light
>> House
>> Cinema next Thursday. John Maguire, film critic with the Sunday Business
>> Post and Today FM, has gathered a selection of artists - some
>> established,
>> some upcoming tyros - and invited them to construct pieces inspired by
>> Kubrick's films.
>>
>> "In the history of cinema, there have been very few individuals with
>> Stanley
>> Kubrick's vision and nobody who could capture a moment with his sense of
>> grace and wonder," Maguire says. "From his first films, Kubrick showed a
>> restless desire to innovate, to change perceptions, to show things in a
>> new
>> light. This is the function of the artist."
>>
>> The works include Francis Matthews's spookily near- photorealistic
>> evocation
>> of an interior from The Shining , David Turpin's playful take on Barry
>> Lyndon , and Mark Wickham's sketch of a key scene from Paths of Glory .
>> Artwork for the exhibition poster, by Uruguayan illustrator Martin Ansin,
>> is
>> arranged across echoing spaces, which, with their well-lit ambience,
>> suggest
>> a world designed by Kubrick.
>>
>> In a spirit of full disclosure, we should mention that the programme
>> contains monographs by Paul Lynch of the Sunday Tribune and (hem, hem)
>> Donald Clarke of The Irish Times.
>>
>> The exhibition, which is free, will run at the Light House until October
>> 31st.www.lighthousecinema.ie
>
> "Celebrate Kubrick's "innovation" by replicating moments in his films?"
>
> This is what's called the post-modern aesthetic, now ubiquitous, now so
> subsumed into our late capitalist dispensation that the irony goes -
> unblinkingly - unnoticed (all those film remakes claiming to be
> 'innovative' etc, all that curatorial pompous pseudomodernism, all that
> FEAR of the new and experimental and innovative). Yes, FEAR, with the West
> now effectively traumatized even further by the current financial meltdown
> ... Fear is the complement of the fixation on memory, the thought, how
> will it/I be remembered?, functioning not as a spur to a greatness but as
> a cue to be ultra-cautious. Far from being the creative carnival of
> unrestrained libidinal innovation that some of its defenders want it to
> be, current capitalism is locked into the production of commodities that
> are barely different from one another. 00s capitalism is very different
> from the capitalism that Deleuze, Guattari and Lyotard described in the
> early 70s. The issue that troubled, exercised - and to some degree
> excited - them was capitalism's capacity to consume and metabolize any
> apparently 'subversive region', convert any Outside into a commodified
> interiority. Capitalism's problem now is a consequence of that very
> success; if it has colonized everything, then there is no longer any
> Outside for it to vampirize, and it is reduced to cloning the
> already-existing successful models, producing diminishing returns. In this
> way, the spreading of Business Ontology into all areas of the culture and
> into every level of the psyche - the demand that every single activity
> must justify itself in terms of economic utility - is disastrous for
> capitalism itself; it fails to recognize that the most ostensibly useless
> and non-productive activity may be what generates the 'entrepreneurial
> leaps' without which it is caught in stagnant reiteration.
>
> "In anycase, Kubrick's popularity seems to be very high now. I just saw
> a poll on IMDB where several thousand people voted "Eyes Wide Shut"
> their favourite films of the 90s. And these are mostly people their
> 20s and late teens doing the voting. "Barry Lyndon" is also having a
> huge surge in popularity, again with young people. Also with all the
> cynicism surrounding the second Gulf War, many people have been
> rediscovering "Full Metal Jacket"."
>
> Yes. Quite extraordinary, really. It would be interesting to more
> precisely plot this trajectory of surging popularity (actually, the posts
> on this newsgroup over the past decade already do so). [A TELL with many
> of these recent converts: they call him Que-Brick!].

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

"MP" <mystic_prowler RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8e0a34a0-47cb-43f9-83d9-7d54b2f19db9@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
On Sep 29, 4:10 pm, "Cosmic Gnome"
<hundredmillionlifeti... RemoveThis @fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Artists have a close encounter with Kubrick
>
> DONALD CLARKE
> The Irish Times
> Friday, 25th September, 2009
>
> http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0925/1224255182918...
>
> The continuing significance of Stanley Kubrick as an iconic image-maker
> will
> be reflected in an intriguing exhibition set to open in Dublin's Light
> House
> Cinema next Thursday. John Maguire, film critic with the Sunday Business
> Post and Today FM, has gathered a selection of artists - some established,
> some upcoming tyros - and invited them to construct pieces inspired by
> Kubrick's films.
>
> "In the history of cinema, there have been very few individuals with
> Stanley
> Kubrick's vision and nobody who could capture a moment with his sense of
> grace and wonder," Maguire says. "From his first films, Kubrick showed a
> restless desire to innovate, to change perceptions, to show things in a
> new
> light. This is the function of the artist."
>
> The works include Francis Matthews's spookily near- photorealistic
> evocation
> of an interior from The Shining , David Turpin's playful take on Barry
> Lyndon , and Mark Wickham's sketch of a key scene from Paths of Glory .
> Artwork for the exhibition poster, by Uruguayan illustrator Martin Ansin,
> is
> arranged across echoing spaces, which, with their well-lit ambience,
> suggest
> a world designed by Kubrick.
>
> In a spirit of full disclosure, we should mention that the programme
> contains monographs by Paul Lynch of the Sunday Tribune and (hem, hem)
> Donald Clarke of The Irish Times.
>
> The exhibition, which is free, will run at the Light House until October
> 31st.www.lighthousecinema.ie

"Celebrate Kubrick's "innovation" by replicating moments in his films?"

This is what's called the post-modern aesthetic, now ubiquitous, now so
subsumed into our late capitalist dispensation that the irony goes -
unblinkingly - unnoticed (all those film remakes claiming to be 'innovative'
etc, all that curatorial pompous pseudomodernism, all that FEAR of the new
and experimental and innovative). Yes, FEAR, with the West now effectively
traumatized even further by the current financial meltdown ... Fear is the
complement of the fixation on memory, the thought, how will it/I be
remembered?, functioning not as a spur to a greatness but as a cue to be
ultra-cautious. Far from being the creative carnival of unrestrained
libidinal innovation that some of its defenders want it to be, current
capitalism is locked into the production of commodities that are barely
different from one another. 00s capitalism is very different from the
capitalism that Deleuze, Guattari and Lyotard described in the early 70s.
The issue that troubled, exercised - and to some degree excited - them was
capitalism's capacity to consume and metabolize any apparently 'subversive
region', convert any Outside into a commodified interiority. Capitalism's
problem now is a consequence of that very success; if it has colonized
everything, then there is no longer any Outside for it to vampirize, and it
is reduced to cloning the already-existing successful models, producing
diminishing returns. In this way, the spreading of Business Ontology into
all areas of the culture and into every level of the psyche - the demand
that every single activity must justify itself in terms of economic
utility - is disastrous for capitalism itself; it fails to recognize that
the most ostensibly useless and non-productive activity may be what
generates the 'entrepreneurial leaps' without which it is caught in stagnant
reiteration.

"In anycase, Kubrick's popularity seems to be very high now. I just saw
a poll on IMDB where several thousand people voted "Eyes Wide Shut"
their favourite films of the 90s. And these are mostly people their
20s and late teens doing the voting. "Barry Lyndon" is also having a
huge surge in popularity, again with young people. Also with all the
cynicism surrounding the second Gulf War, many people have been
rediscovering "Full Metal Jacket"."

Yes. Quite extraordinary, really. It would be interesting to more precisely
plot this trajectory of surging popularity (actually, the posts on this
newsgroup over the past decade already do so). [A TELL with many of these
recent converts: they call him Que-Brick!].

Padraig L Henry · External Since: Sep 29, 2009 Posts: 2

On Sep 29, 11:09 pm, MP <mystic_prow... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
> The art curator of this thing just left this message on IMDB. He's
> replying to a link I posted of this thread on AMK:
>
> "I am the curator of the Kubrick exhibition in Dublin.
>
> It goes without saying that I fundamentally disagree

I like his appeal to self-evidence here ("It goes without saying"), as
though all discussion and debate was entirely superfluous because the
'curator' is already somehow magically endowed with absolute knowledge
of the subject.

>with your quoted
> notions of post-modernism and do not feel that Stanley Kubrick: Taming
> Light is in any way exploitative of Kubrick (who I revere) or his
> legacy of films.

Who suggested that the exhibition was being 'exploitative'? Isn't the
curator being a little bit over-defensive here? It seems he didn't pay
much attention to what you actually posted, MP, just assuming you were
some crank having the gall to engage in critical discourse.

>
> I want to claify one key point you make with regard to
> commercialisation.
> Stanley Kubrick: Taming Light is a tribute from 25 painters,
> photographers and illustrators. It is not an art sales event and was
> established and run on a not-for-profit basis, only possible through
> donations of time and expertise.

Again, this hysterical sensitivity about 'commercialisation',
completely missing the points being made in the original post. Yes, I
know all about The Lighthouse Cinema and its state backers (the Arts
Council/Film Board and the Dept of Family and Social Affairs in
Ireland coughing up €1.75 million for its welcome establishment a year
ago), but this is a ridiculously silly attempt to deflect from what
was actually being argued.

>
> The exhibition stands at the Light House from October 1st - 31st. You
> are most welcome to come and see it but leave your po-mo 101 textbooks
> and ideas about vampirism and commodified interiority at the door."

Oh, you won't find the points that were made here in any 'po-mo 101
textbooks'; on the contrary. But you WILL FIND such sloppy and lazy
rationalizations of the pomo status quo that is evident in such a
cynical and shallow response (in defense of a supposedly 'serious' and
'culturally highbrow' exhibition) in such seemingly imaginary
textbooks.

[But it's really not worth arguing further here on this topic; I know
who these idiots are. Unfortunately.]

Padraig L Henry · External Since: Sep 29, 2009 Posts: 2

On Sep 29, 11:44 pm, stalepie09 <stalepi....TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 29, 5:57 pm, MP <mystic_prow....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > More links to "brand Kubrick"...
>
> >http://www.sbpost.ie/agenda/kubricks-shining-odyssey-44510.html
>
> >http://maguiresmovies.blogspot.com/2009/09/stanley-kubrick-taming-lig...
>
> > What comes after postmodernism? Does some new technological leap reset
> > things or are we headed toward a Clockwork Future, all art rendered
> > impotent?
>
> > "Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to
> > spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-
> > modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the
> > point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy
> > basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history.
> > That the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of
> > the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The
> > avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian
> > visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible
> > because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are
> > stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can
> > never escape." - (Kalle Lasn and Bruce Grierson, "A Malignant
> > Sadness")
>
> I think the biggest problem with art today is that there is seemingly
> nothing new left to do. It seems as though all ideas have already been
> used and explored. Not in the sense of "there's never been anything
> new under the sun,"

It is the belief that this is so that constitutes the post-modern
condition. The irony is that those who have been meticulously
analysing and critically pointing this out over the past thirty years
(from Jameson to Baudrillard, from Deleuze to Lyotard) have been the
ones accused of being 'postmodern', accused by the very people (almost
everyone) who are willing slaves of the post-modern condition ...

The Modernist movement resisted such chronic fatalism (but even it too
is currently being shut down, appropriated, subsumed by the po-mo
ideologues, and rendered as 'heritage', as some static historicist
past, as opposed to a continuous process of innovation and
experimentation and challenge to any rigid status quo ...

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

http://kubricktaminglight.com/index.html

http://kubricktaminglight.com/gallery.html

The website has been updated. You can now browse pictures of the
various works of art exhibited.

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

"Stanley Kubrick" by Donald Clarke (The Irish Times)

http://kubricktaminglight.com/clarke.html
http://kubricktaminglight.com/lynch.html

A few years ago, I got to meet the distinguished production designer
Sir Ken Adam. Though most often identified as the man behind all those
underground lairs in early James Bond films, Adam would acknowledge
that his most delicious creations were dreamed up for Stanley Kubrick.
The work was, however, far from easy. Indeed, the experience of
designing the war room for Dr Strangelove proved so traumatising that
he swore never again to sign on the director’s dotted line.

“I was very good friends with Stanley,” Adam told me. “But when I
first met him I thought him rather naïve. Nobody could say: ‘This
couldn’t be done.’ They would have been fired immediately.”

Adam duly resisted all entreaties to work on 2001: A Space Odyssey,
but, when Barry Lyndon came along, gave in and agreed to (quite
literally) go back to the drawing board. He won an Oscar, but nearly
lost his mind.

“Oh yes, I had a terrible mental breakdown,” he said. “We were working
these incredibly long hours. And there was the closeness to Stanley,
who was so completely disorganised. We didn’t have a script as such.
He had just Xeroxed pages from Thackery’s novel.”

Who’d put up with Stanley Kubrick?

Well, Warner Brothers for a start. For 30 years – from the icy 2001: A
Space Odyssey to the vulgar Eyes Wide Shut – the American studio never
faltered in its commitment to indulge Stanley’s every whim. Years went
by during the production of 2001 and, when the film was eventually
released, it received poor notices and (before its reinvention as a
midnight movie) modest box-office returns. Undaunted, they allowed him
to make the nasty A Clockwork Orange and, apparently unmoved by the
director’s decision to withdraw that film from distribution,
bankrolled the conspicuously leisurely Barry Lyndon. Even that
commercial disaster didn’t cause Warners to flinch. The money kept
coming.

The truth was that, for all Time Warner’s rapaciousness, they quite
liked the idea of having their own pet genius. Just as medieval
princes used to keep court painters on a retainer, the studios
sometimes indulge a supposedly highbrow director in the expectation
that he will lend a bit of class to their operation. “We don’t really
understand what he does,” they might say. “But what ordinary mortal
can hope to grasp the working practices of a genius.”

Is there any other director whose work could inspire an exhibition
such as this? Alfred Hitchcock, perhaps. Orson Welles’s films were too
often compromised by the chaotic nature of their production. You could
find artists who would enjoy addressing the work of Andrei Tarkovsky,
Jean Renoir or Jean-Luc Godard, but good luck trying to draw audiences
towards the gallery.

No. Stanley Kubrick has somehow become the first face we see when we
imagine a cinematic genius. Despite the catastrophe that was Eyes Wide
Shut – a film made for people who think having a bidet makes you
sophisticated – internet forums still bandy the g-word around whenever
Mr Kubrick’s name is mentioned. Genius is an annihilating word. Go up
against somebody so identified and, it is suggested, you go up against
Newton, Goethe, Leonardo, Shakespeare and all the other people in the
same distinguished club. You’d better have your arguments sharpened.

None of which is to suggest that Ken Adam was wrong to risk his sanity
or that Warners should have pulled the plug or that this exhibition
should really be about Alfred Hitchcock. One signifier of genius in
cinema may be the ability to produce a flow of images, any one of
which, if viewed in isolation, carries the unmistakable signature of
its creator. Kubrick had that talent. When he came to make Barry
Lyndon – a near-perfect hymn to the beauty of stasis – it seemed
inconceivable that the Kubrick of A Clockwork Orange and 2001 would
survive the journey to 18th century Ireland. Yet the film seemed more
spookily alien than anything in those two futuristic fantasies. Any
three seconds looks like three seconds of Kubrick.

Those who care about this genius nonsense and think Kubrick a lesser
being than Newton (and Goethe and Leonardo and so on) might point out
that, for all the big themes, there is no nuanced thinking in the
films. True enough. But these are the sorts of masterpieces you’d
expect to emerge from the psyche of someone who, like Kubrick, was
both a stills photographer a superb chess player. The images have a
precision and a logic that could drive you crazy if you allowed them
to tarry too long. Ask Sir Ken (still with us at 8 Cool

. He only just
escaped with his mind intact.

_______

The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick" by Paul Lynch (The Sunday Tribune)
It is, perhaps, one of the most perfectly realised moments in cinema
history. The setting is earth, the subject the dawn of man, and the
film, of course, is Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic, 2001: A Space
Odyssey.

Earth lies as a barren wasteland, populated by pre-human apes. A giant
black monolith arrives parked in the desert. The apes gather around.
The stone emits a strange power that seems to inspire the next stage
in evolution. We watch the moment of art being born, a leap of the
imagination: an ape looks at a bone and is able to see it in his mind
as something else — a weapon. He smashes a skull on the ground and
Kubrick cuts to the felling of an animal. It doesn’t take long for
these pre-human apes to turn the weapons upon themselves. Soon they
are killing their own kind. And then the moment: a frenzied simian,
mouth agape, hurls with full force a bone-as-weapon into the air. In
close-up, it somersaults upwards the blue sky, and then, as it begins
to fall back to earth, Kubrick cuts, magically, to a similar shape, of
a space station orbiting around the earth. The moment is
extraordinary: in a single piece of cinematic shorthand, Kubrick
distills one of the most complex ideas of our age — evolution and the
advancement of the human species over millions of years— into a single
cut.

Kubrick arrived at this point of precision over eight films. While
2001 was a giant leap. Schooled as a street photographer, and having
shot almost all his films within the classicism of black and white
(the exception of course was Spartacus, which Kubrick was parachuted
into), this was the first Kubrick project that began as a colour film.
It would propel him towards his very own kind of cinema.

With colour, Kubrick found an alacrity and an arrest in his images
that began to transcend the subject material of his stories. His films
were nourished by colour. It enabled him to drill deep, to tap the
essence of things. Think of the many images embedded in our minds from
The Shining: that torrent of blood pooling about a doorway, bloodier
than blood; the whites of Jack Nicholson’s eyes in that famous “here’s
Johnny” scene, madder than madness, whiter than white. Or how about
that opening sequence filmed from a helicopter on that alpine journey
to the forlorn Overlook Hotel? Those widescreen shots seem to push the
natural boundaries of the screen, to absorb every photon of light.
Kubrick wanted to do to his audiences what he did to Alex in A
Clockwork Orange: to peel back our eyelids until we are forced to see
every beam from the projector. He did not want us to blink.

Of course, while Kubrick’s images shimmer with a stand-alone
intensity, he also used his formidable imagery as a lure. His cinema
entices us with beauty only to unsettle us with a writing discontent
underneath. Think of those steadi-cam shots (which Kubrick pioneered
for The Shining) of the child tunnelling down those corridors on his
tricycle in a state of innocent bliss. It’s the ultimate kids’
playground. Yet the music scratches at our ears and we watch with a
mounting sense of dread that this world unfolding is not as the kid
sees it. Or Jack Torrance, smashing through the door with his axe: it
is the ultimate moment of horror — the father/protector turning on his
own family.

And then there’s Barry Lyndon (for my money, his best film). Watching
it is like entering an art museum. The film is stately and mannered,
each frame hung on the screen like a standalone work of art — a
Vermeer or Hogarth perhaps. They are crafted with impeccable attention
to lighting and composition (once again Kubrick advanced film
technique — he used NASA lenses to allow him to shoot in natural,
ultra-low candle light). Historically, such scenes were painted as
moments of quotidian celebration, a pastoral setting or a gathering at
a salon. Yet Kubrick, all the time, is working to undermine such
notions. For Ryan O’Neal’s Lyndon is a rogue, a liar, a thief and a
wastrel. Kubrick is telling us that these images we have held for
centuries to be beautiful are a lie: they do not attest to the folly
of man.

If Kubrick had a theme, then that may have been it. There is a cold
pedantry to his work, an unfeeling, ivory-tower vantage that, when
married to the analytical care he took with his craft, can you leave
you feeling a little cold to his films. Sometimes too, it is hard to
ignore the artificiality in his images: those monkeys in 2001 could be
Halloween costume apes. And what about those imported palm trees in
Full Metal Jacket, a film whose war scenes, shot on location in
England, looked anaemic beside the heft and the jungle hue of
Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

In his classic 1968 book The American Cinema, the great Andrew Sarris
accused Kubrick of having “a naive faith in the power of images to
transcend fuzzy feelings and vague ideas”. Sometimes, I think he may
have been right. And yet, 10 years after his death, Kubrick’s art is
still as potent as ever. Yes, there is that chill and unfeeling
disdain. But there is no doubting his is a special kind of pure
cinema.

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie and
Dim and we sat in Burger King trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do
with the evening. Burger King sold the Whopper, which is what we were
eating. This would sharpen you up and make you ready to watch another
Tarantino video."

Even Burger King are now wetting themselves with Moloko and Velocet:

"Burger King (BKC) has announced it's launching an extensive interior
renovation of its 12,000 restaurant locations. The new design, codenamed
"20/20," draws design cues from both traditional diners and the Korova Milk
Bar in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange."

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/10/08/burger-king-makeover-fast-food-...fits-of

[includes photos]

And not forgetting this place:http://www.korovamilkbar.com/site/

But whatever became of electronic and synthesized music, to Carlos,
Krautrock and the Trans-Europe Express?

"Most people's first exposure to synthesized music was in 1971, on the
soundtrack to ..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/6268852/Sy...-Britan

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

It's like the brith of a new movement: Kubrickism or Brickism or
Kubeism or something.

And have you noticed McDonalds are slowly redesigning their
"restaurants" and changing their color schemes? They're now filled
with dark greens and browns, the chairs are shaped like apples and the
whole thing looks a basket of salad. Its the new healthy living
aesthetic. Less plastic, more terracotta.

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

"MP" <mystic_prowler DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:31974b1f-39b9-46f0-b8c9-ba658c98c370@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> It's like the brith of a new movement: Kubrickism or Brickism or
> Kubeism or something.

And the question remains: what is it about the semiotics of 'brand Kubrick'
that has produced this sudden (ie since his death) mass 'iconic'
appropriation? The social effects (associated with his name by mainstream
pundits ie hermitic, aloof auteur) of distance, isolation, fear, structure,
sanitization, misantrophy, and their ironically reassuring affects on a
suffocating public?

>
> And have you noticed McDonalds are slowly redesigning their
> "restaurants" and changing their color schemes? They're now filled
> with dark greens and browns, the chairs are shaped like apples and the
> whole thing looks a basket of salad. Its the new healthy living
> aesthetic. Less plastic, more terracotta.

Yes, one of the failings of the organicist (and green and 'anti-capitalist')
movement is its inability to grasp the way in which capitalism has absorbed
and continues to incorporate the organic and the green and the 'natural'
almost everywhere (what's next, a 'green' burger? Or 'green' oil and green
natural gas and green coal and green carbon dioxide?). As Fisher argues,
quoting from Zizek's latest book "First as Tragedy, Then as Farce"
(published this month), "some of the strongest passages in First As Tragedy,
Then As Farce keep reiterating this message. (One of my favourite lines in
the book: "Who really believes that half-rotten and overpriced 'organic'
apples are really healthier than the non-organic varieties?") Needless to
say, while any credible leftism must make ecological issues central it is a
mistake to seek out an "authentic" organicism beyond capitalism's
simulated-organic. (Another of my favourite lines in First As Tragedy ...:
"if there is one good thing about capitalism, it is that, precisely, mother
earth now no longer exists.") Organicism is the problem, and it's not some
eco-spirituality that will save the human environment (if it can be saved)
but new modes of organisation and management."

MickeyMoop · External Since: Oct 30, 2009 Posts: 1

On Sep 29, 6:31 pm, kelpzoidzl <kelpzoi... RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 29, 3:23 pm, kelpzoidzl <kelpzoi... RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 29, 3:09 pm, MP <mystic_prow... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The art curator of this thing just left this message on IMDB. He's
> > > replying to a link I posted of this thread on AMK:
>
> > > "I am the curator of the Kubrick exhibition in Dublin.
>
> > > It goes without saying that I fundamentally disagree with your quoted
> > > notions of post-modernism and do not feel that Stanley Kubrick: Taming
> > > Light is in any way exploitative of Kubrick (who I revere) or his
> > > legacy of films.
>
> > > I want to claify one key point you make with regard to
> > > commercialisation.
> > > Stanley Kubrick: Taming Light is a tribute from 25 painters,
> > > photographers and illustrators. It is not an art sales event and was
> > > established and run on a not-for-profit basis, only possible through
> > > donations of time and expertise.
>
> > > The exhibition stands at the Light House from October 1st - 31st. You
> > > are most welcome to come and see it but leave your po-mo 101 textbooks
> > > and ideas about vampirism and commodified interiority at the door."
>
> > LOL.
>
> > I think he and Harry oughta get together.
>
> Actually no, I don't wish harry (cosmic gnome) on anyone.
>
> Ultimately it doesn't matter if everyone understands Kubrick in the
> same way and people can honor him any way they wish.
>
> dc- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

If ye seek Harry Zlushavilli Gnome's monument, look about you.
The rest is commentary. Ave Stanley, full of light. Mr. Alexander,
you're afraid of this group, aren't cha?