As one of the most documented movie makers, the volumes of pieces on Stanley Kubrick is almost worthy of a wiki in itself. However, most of these are fan art of their own kind and hardly give a picture to the true genius of Kubrick.

There was but one interview, I found this while going through stuff on Barry Lyndon, a masterpiece about a distant past with a vision set before its time, that culminated in one for the ages. Among all the interviews and debates around Stanley Kubrick, this one perhaps gives a true picture of him to me. It in some ways asked questions that he didn’t expect but was somehow prepared for, almost as if he was waiting for them since long. That it was to promote a film (Full Metal Jacket) and the first thing Kubrick and Tim Cahill talk about is well about how the interview is going to shape up.

“I’m not going to be asked any conceptualizing questions, right?”

“All the books, most of the articles I read about you — it’s all conceptualizing.”

“Yeah, but not by me.”

“I thought I had to ask those kinds of questions.”

“No. Hell, no. That’s my . . . [He shudders.] It’s the thing I hate the worst.”

And you already have a glimpse of things to come.

My favourite bit of the interview is when Kubrick spells out :

Oh, God, no. I’m trying to be true to the material. You know, there’s another extraordinary accident. Cowboy is dying, and in the background there’s something that looks very much like the monolith in 2001. And it just happened to be there.

The whole area of combat was one complete area — it actually exists. One of the things I tried to do was give you a sense of where you were, where everything else was. Which, in war movies, is something you frequently don’t get. The terrain of small-unit action is really the story of the action. And this is something we tried to make beautifully clear: there’s a low wall, there’s the building space. And once you get in there, everything is exactly where it actually was. No cutting away, no cheating. So it came down to where the sniper would be and where the marines were. When Cowboy is shot, they carry him around the corner — to the very most logical shelter. And there, in the background, was this thing, this monolith. I’m sure some people will think that there was some calculated reference to 2001, but honestly, it was just there.

There’s an element of mirth, research, understanding of the craft of both people all built on a superficial tone of a coincidence. It just lifts the whole episode into a realm that’s different.

Read the entire piece here: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0077.html

And while at it, you might enjoy this fan video for the master.

And as a while we’re at Stan Kube , an even older 1962 , Terry Southern Interview.