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STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES & A.I.

By Vincent LoBrutto • Jul 1st, 2001 • Pages: 1 2

STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES is a handsome looking production. Manuel Harlan shoots digital video in a clean, almost pristine style framing his subjects in appropriate backgrounds. The narration by Tom Cruise is professional but intimate. Harlan is an unobtrusive director letting his subjects tell the story, and only cueing the narrator when a biographical thread, is needed or to present information none of the subjects can provide. Viner Cuneo creates seamless transitions and a perfect balance between the witnesses and the all-important work. Especially fitting is a final roll call of each movie with a shot that immortalized and pays tribute to each film.

From the perspective of a biographer there are a few minor points of contention. Kubrick’s life in the Bronx is not gone into with much detail and the primary information comes from Alexander Singer who knew Kubrick during the period but is just part of a more complex perspective needed to understand the young iconolcast. The narration gives the wrong age when Kubrick entered Taft High School. It also states that Kubrick’s first feature FEAR AND DESIRE was financed by his Father Jacques who borrowed from his life insurance policy. Prior to this, documentation led to Kubrick’s uncle Martin Perveler as the banker. Perveler is listed in the credits of FEAR AND DESIRE as associate producer. Alex Singer told me he was there when Kubrick approached his uncle for the money. Kubrick’s first two wives, high school sweetheart Toba Metz and ballerina Ruth Sobotka are left out of the story. A line of narration could have set the record straight. During THE KILLING segment, Singer repeats a key story he told me concerning Kubrick and director of photography Lucien Ballard. When Kubrick was challenged by the Hollywood professional about a daring dolly shot that moves past the walls of Sterling Hayden’s apartment his actions dramatically demonstrate the young director’s confidence in his abilities. Singer says the shot is early in the film and talks about the dynamic perspective qualities in Kubrick’s application of lens choice. He is referring to the scene with Hayden and his girl friend, not the one shown in the documentary which comes later and has a compressed perspective not the exciting relationship between camera, actors and architecture in the correct example.

STANLEY KUBRICK: A LIFE IN PICTURES is not a biographical documentary. Jan Harlan has accomplished what no outsider could ever. He shows us the country paradise and familial bliss that nurtured and allowed Stanley Kubrick to dedicate himself to the film art. This documentary celebrates the films of Stanley Kubrick through the insight of the privileged few who knew and worked with him.

The documentary is part of The Stanley Kubrick Collection redux. The set was released with excellent transfers painstakingly supervised by Leon Vitali who completed the job after Kubrick’s passing. Vivian Kubrick recorded a commentary for her documentary MAKING THE SHINING. The quality is now up to Kubrick’s standards; the collection has preserved the work and the presence of the documentary gives us the man.

At a screening of the documentary, Jan Harlan and Christiane Kubrick assured me that A.I. was a special film they were most proud of. I had been concerned that A.I., which in my view would be the cap on Kubrick’s career, could not work out but I was not putting my trust in the magic of the cinema.

First some facts are in order. Editor Michael Kahn told an interviewer that the film was based on a concept by Kubrick. On air critic Jeffrey Lyons stated Kubrick suggested A.I. to Spielberg. And then there was that pesky print ad proclaiming “Screenplay by Steven Spielberg”. Rumors and misinformation about how A.I. came to be were everywhere. To fully appreciate this haunting and visually breathtaking film some background is necessary before sitting in front of Kubrick’s last film and experiencing it the way he wanted audiences to see all of his films – free of baggage and ready to allow the dream-state of movies to take hold in the dark.

Stanley Kubrick began developing A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) almost twenty years ago. Kubrick bought the rights to the Brian Aldiss short story, “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” a little over a decade after it was published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1969 and was later anthologized in a short story collection.

The story of a robot boy searching for the love of his human mother captured Kubrick’s life-long obsession with the relationship between man and machine. Kubrick worked with Ian Watson credited on the film for writing the screen story. Kubrick wrote a lengthy treatment and a draft of the screenplay. Storyboards were meticulously planned. Spielberg first met Kubrick in 1979 and over a twenty-year period stayed in touch via telephone. Kubrick decided against filming Louis Begley’s “Wartime Lies” as ARYAN PAPERS when he saw Spielberg’s SCHINDLER’S LIST and confronted his own deep-seated feelings about showing the horrors of the Holocaust. In doing research on how to film the robot boy for A.I. Kubrick first worked with his grandson, Katherina’s youngest boy. Later he tried to actually build a robot boy but all attempts failed. Kubrick finally concluded that the special effect technology was not ready and moved on to EYES WIDE SHUT. After seeing JURASSIC PARK and conducting long talks with ILM’s Dennis Muren the project was put back on track for Kubrick. At one point Kubrick decided Spielberg was the right director for this Pinocchio story. His confidence in Spielberg’s gifts in understanding and directing children sealed the collaboration. Kubrick would produce, Spielberg would direct. After Kubrick’s death, Christiane and Jan Harlan proposed to Warner Bros. that Spielberg take on the project, and A.I. is clearly an equal collaboration between the two filmmakers. The two men talked and faxed back and forth on the project for quite some time. A.I. had the benefit of direct and indirect collaboration because sadly Kubrick didn’t live to physically produce the film but the results are uncanny. The nitpickers can chip away but every shot of this puzzling and remarkable film reminds you who made it with echoes of their greatest works; 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY , A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.

The story concerns a robot boy rejected by a human family who goes on a journey to find the love of his mother. The unlikely collaboration between these two filmmakers, opposites in approach to content and visualization, has an impact on every frame, word and narrative aspect, rendering the film with a sense of strangeness, conflict and thematic complexity. The story is greatly influenced by the Pinocchio fable and has the properties of a fairy tale and a child’s dream. Spielberg gets an exceptional performance from Haley Joel Osment who subtly portrays the sophisticated robotic physicality and honestly creates an emotional life either programmed in or that grows from within the boy. Spielberg does an uncanny job in directing the film as if Kubrick had lived to produce it. Of course, what A.I. would have been if Kubrick had lived is a useless debate. What is onscreen is an enigmatic combination of visual style that in the words of executive producer Jan Harlan creates “something brand new.” Spielberg utilized the dolly shot, long take technique and precise composition of centering and counterbalancing the frame that dominated Kubrick visualizations. Co-existing not just side by side but at times combined are the shimmering light from E.T., the classical American film framing, and the ability to masterfully move characters through the frame that are among Spielberg’s strengths. Michael Kahn, Spielberg’s long-time editor, paces the film alternating between Kubrick’s stress on mise en scene with montage driven sequences he and his director are known for. Januz Kaminsky, the director of photography who worked intensely with Spielberg on SCHINDLER’S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN reverberates the colors, angles, movement and sense of light generating a visual style that speaks to the approval of both men. The result is the viewer is watching A.I. while feeling a magical sense of déjà vu. The most effective moments are not direct references but images that represent both directors interpreting the material at the same time, some times in synch, others in a debate with equal voice. John Williams has written a score more reminiscent of Kubrick’s landmark musical achievements in 2001 than the sentimental music he is famous for. Williams echoes the voice of Kubrick throughout. The film’s final resolve, the last third catapults A.I. into a 2001 Star Trip as the boy/robot takes a spiritual journey that presents many questions and the kind of cinematic experience expected from both filmmakers. The ambiguity of 2001 almost wins out but in the end Spielberg gets the last word with a conclusion that melds godlike imagery and extraterrestrials with a Disneyoid happy ending. It is only here that Williams turns on his Spielbergian sentimentality. Spielberg has introduced a British influence through several characters and narration that is a Kubrick touch and only goes for star power with Osment and Jude Law who is the spirit of a young Malcolm McDowell here. William Hurt gives a sublime performance in the significant but small role of creator Professor Hobby. If stars or personality actors played the dominant roles of the parents the film would lose the ability to explore the relationship between man and machine if controlled by performers who brings prior personality to their work.

This reported 90 to 100 million-dollar production is a huge risk for Spielberg and Warner Brothers. It may not please either the Spielberg or Kubrick camps. It does not fit the summer blockbuster paradigm. A.I. is a movie to sit quietly in front of and think, not a popcorn eating, nail-biter filled with mindless action.

While Stanley Kubrick was still with us Premiere magazine listed the filmmakers most significant in electronic cinema. At that time Kubrick was to follow EYES WIDE SHUT with A.I. He was scheduled to direct. Premiere looked forward to seeing what the man who made 2001 with primitive cinema technology could do now with the brave new digital tools in A.I.. They crowned him Messiah, sight unseen.

In the 1960s, 2001 was misunderstood and ridiculed by critics and confused but intrigued moviegoers. It was a time before the franchisees, twenty-million dollar salaries, blockbusters, bet it all on one big weekend, thumbs up, thumbs down, no-think prepackaged state we currently find ourselves in.

During A.I. I thought a lot about ideas, themes and where we are going in the twenty-first century. This is Stanley Kubrick’s year. It is 2001, go see A.I., have a cinematic experience, think while you watch and talk about it with a like spirit on the net, your cell phone or face to face, but think about it, for the legacy of Stanley Kubrick.

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