Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker by David Mikics

        Better start by ripping off the band-aid: I love Stanley Kubrick’s films. I know that that sometimes sparks controversy because of his association with mansplaining and his reportedly demanding behaviour on set, driving actors into utter exhaustion (cf. The Shining and Shelley Duvall or Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut). The fact is, though, I find his films fascinating, unnerving, and visually compelling. Okay, Band-aid ripped off. Let’s talk about David Mikics’ Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker. It’s a biopic but made of words on a page (is there some kind of word for that?).

        Anyway, Mikics provides an overview of Kubrick’s life as a filmmaker, with each chapter grounding its narration alongside a film or set of films, going in chronological order throughout Kubrick’s filmography. It’s quite a nice overview of the genesis of each film, often supplemented by comments from actors or other crew members and sometimes populated with amusing anecdotes. One in particular that stood out to me was when they were filming with dozens of extras, Kubrick retreated to his place overlooking the field to imagine (?) what to do next. The waiting game went on and on and when extras spoke, Kubric came down to confront them. Mikics paints an intimidating picture of Kubrick, but then an extra makes a joke and Kubrick burst into laughter and the tension dissipated.

Mikics’ book has a similarly breezy tone. The book is informative, but casual. It’s a very accessible text that avoids technical language. Mikics does touch on some of the common motifs in the films (the bond between a child and parent, the ambitiousness of central characters, and so on), but a deeper analysis of the films is somewhat lacking. I suppose that’s not the purpose of this book. This book is meant to give you an overview of Kubrick’s career, not a full theoretical approach to his filmography.

I will say, though, that I appreciated Mikics’ characterization of the films. I’ve seen most of them, but discussion of the ones I haven’t was still engaging. Even some of the films I appreciate less were given their due and elevated by the commentary. Barry Lyndon has never been my favourite, but Mikics highlights why the film was important to Kubrick, how it went against the grain, and why it’s worth a rewatch.

On the topic of Barry Lyndon, I really appreciate Kubrick’s subversiveness. He had always wanted to do a period piece and was told that nobody wanted to watch films where people wrote with feathers. Then, after the sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey gained a huge following and A Clockwork Orange was essentially a cult classic, Kubrick just drops Barry Lyndon out there as the most different film imaginable (in some ways). I also like the subversiveness that arose in Spartacus. Reportedly, it was supposed to have the saccharine heroism of Hollywood that Kubrick hated and he tried to undermine it at every turn.

Having read all of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels, I was interested in the origin of Lolita as a film. It’s a pretty wild story that involved backroom deals, dropped agreements, and bringing in Nabokov himself to write the screenplay, a type of writing he had never done before and which he returned as an (essentially) reworked version of the novel three hundred pages long. I was also interested to know that at one time Kubrick had wanted to make a film adaptation of Nabokov’s novel Laughter in the Dark, which would have been perfect. It’s the perfect novel for a dark, noir-influenced film. I looked it up years ago (and just now) and a film version of Laughter in the Dark is still in pre-production with Anya Taylor Joy set to star (she will be perfect, mark my words), but it’s a shame Kubrick’s vision for it won’t ever see the light of day.

Actually, learning about Kubrick’s dropped projects is almost as interesting as the ones he completed. I imagine many people are familiar with AI: Artificial Intelligence, ultimately handed over to Spielberg by Kubrick after some time of working on it and leading to a happier ending than Kubrick would have done, although Mikics suggests that Kubrick proposed the uplifting ending. The other project Kubrick dropped was a Holocaust film, The Aryan Papers. He worked on it for decades before abandoning it in favour of Eyes WIde Shut. He heard about Schindler’s List, figured the movies would come out around the same time, and left the project behind.

As an aside, I feel like I should note that Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker is part of a series called Jewish Lives. Throughout the chapters, Mikics makes at least one reference to Judaism in some capacity. In my opinion, these references are somewhat shoehorned in, especially since the first reference to Kubrick’s Judaism underplays it, suggesting he would not have characterized himself along those lines.

If we think through the filmography of Kubrick, all of the “big hits” are here. Shall I attempt my own personal ranking of the filmography?

1. Eyes Wide Shut

2. A Clockwork Orange

3. The Shining

4. Full Metal Jacket

5. Lolita

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey

7. Spartacus

8. Dr. Strangelove

9. Barry Lyndon

10. Four-way tie between all the ones I haven’t seen.

As a result, I found the chapters on those films the most interesting and engaging. But even barring that, I was interested in the anecdotes of Kubrick’s life. For instance, I had no idea he would phone people to talk for hours about Hollywood gossip, or that he essentially third wheeled with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman for months, or that he would make actors do multiple takes, over-and-over-and-over again, without giving them any instruction. That last one is a weird power move and, though I’m sure it was terrible for the actors, it’s very entertaining to me in the abstract.

In any case, Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker is a good little book to get an outline of Kubrick’s life and work. It’s not particularly deep. It’s not particularly challenging. It’s just a fun, interesting book for fans of Kubrick’s films. Go for it.

…Also, maybe it’s time to rewatch the filmography…

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton

    

        Oh no. I’m going to have to reread In Search of Lost Time, aren’t I?

How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton is an interesting nonfiction project, bordering between biography, self-help, and literary criticism. Some of its key topics are creativity, perception, suffering, and wellness, and I have to say, if not entirely practicable, it’s an entertaining read.

Part of what makes the book so entertaining is Botton’s tone. While his work is informative, the selection and presentation of details is outright funny. For instance, Botton explains how Proust took a job at a library and eventually got fired after five years, since he ultimately only worked about one day a year. The way Botton presents the detail is just a fun pithy approach. Similarly, I couldn’t help but laugh when reading about reviews of Proust’s work. When he started writing In Search of Lost Time, he sent it to friends and publishers and Botton quotes peoples’ indifference and rage comically. One publisher was incensed by a sentence that went on for forty-four lines of text. At least a few complained that after four hundred pages, they had no idea where the book was going (and it’s implied that Proust didn’t either.) One of Proust’s friends sent a letter praising the book for its excellence, and how she continually re-read the passage about his first communion—a part that didn’t exist. Botton also notes the cultural legacy of Proust via a contest that Monty Python hosted where people needed to summarize In Search of Lost Time in fifteen seconds while wearing a bathing suit. I like embracing the absurdity of Proust’s project like that.

It’s not all laughs, of course. Proust dealt with some pretty significant health issues (of which many were skeptical), for instance. Botton outlines Proust’s diet, sleep habits, and digestive problems, and about how his severe allergies limited his life. In a rare moment where Proust is critical of his mother, he says she likes to be his nurse and hates when he is well. Later, Botton outlines the factors leading up to Proust’s death, his refusal to take doctors’ orders, and implies that he essentially brought about his own death. It’s pretty dark.

Aside from the literary biography aspect of the work, the book is branded—even in its title—as a kind of self-help book. I wouldn’t say that the book entirely delivers on that promise. Early in the book, Botton provides an excellent breakdown for reasons for reading in general, using passages from Proust’s books and letters to support the benefits. That catalogue of reasons for reading is beautifully developed and Botton offers some personal commentary that I found touching as a literary work in its own right. He discusses how part of why we read is that we find parallels in our own lives. He talks about how In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, the second volume of In Search of Lost Time, the narrator falls in love with Albertine and the narration draws parallels to other figures that he knew. Botton describes the various figures in his own life with whom he sees parallels in Proust’s characters. It’s refreshing to see someone’s personal connections on the page like that; it felt relatable in that respect.

Another section that really stood out to me is the commentary on Proust reading the news. At the time, there were news briefs that offered a quick account of an event. Proust came across one involving a murder and wrote a piece that linked it into a literary tradition, offering sympathy to its characters, and so on. He expanded on the sparse details and really paid close attention to its emotional core. The same principle existed in his letters; his mom pushed him to write more, annoyed that she received only the most cursory details of what time he slept, and so on. There’s an ethos of paying attention and of trying to find non-standard phrases to describe experience. In fact, Proust had a great disdain for bourgeois stock phrases that signalled culture. Instead, he was devoted to the particular and unique. Every rainstorm is different, for example. And all of this from expanding on newspaper details!

If the book delivers on its promise of How Proust Can Change Your Life, it is in this notion of paying attention to the particular. It comes to form a ethical stance towards life, to give nuance to every sensation. Botton returns to a similar idea in the final chapter of the book. He documents the number of people who try to visit key locales in In Search of Lost Time, like Combray or the shop that makes the madeleine that inspired Proust’s reminiscences. Heck, I went to Paris to finish reading In Search of Lost Time. To return to the point, Botton sees this practice as a peril: it is us trying to insert ourselves into books. We are trying to live out the experience of someone else, rather than let ourselves have experiences worth communicating. Botton notes that Proust inspires an ethics of attention where it is the “quality of vision” and not “the object of view.” It isn’t what we’re looking at that matters, it’s how we look at it.

Essentially, the book is a compelling case to be original, caring, perceptive, and responsive to others. I admit that it touched a place in my heart and pulled Proust back to the surface. There is so much humour and tenderness in Proust’s work, his biography, and Botton’s account narration that it makes a compelling case to return to Proust’s oeuvre and really give it the time it deserves.

Happy reading; happy living!