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Stanley Kubrick

Kubricks' 2001: One Mans Incredible Odyssey

This blog is intended primarily as a tribute to the inventiveness and ingenuity of the craft of the matte painter during Hollywoods' Golden Era. Some of the shots will amaze in their grandeur and epic quality while others will surprise in their 'invisibility' to even the sophisticated viewer. I hope this collection will serve as an appreciation of the artform and both casual visitors and those with a specialist interest may benefit, enjoy and be amazed at skills largely unknown today.
http://nzpetesmatteshot.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/kubricks-2001-one-mans-incredible.html
 
The Lost Ending of 'The Shining' Explained

When The Shining premiered in theaters in 1980, those two iconic shots bookended an additional scene, of Wendy and Danny recuperating in the hospital. This week, on a Reddit thread titled “Frames from the hospital scene from the original ending of The Shining,” a fan unearthed three continuity Polaroids that show scenes from the film’s deleted epilogue. Read on to find out what happened in The Shining’s original ending, and why Kubrick made the last-minute decision to axe it.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/lost-ending-the-shining-photos-123487932632.html

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The Amazingly Accurate Futurism of 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’documents in nearly scientific detail exactly that: the story of how the iconic science-fiction film came into existence, and how it predicted much of the technology we take for granted today.

Science writer and space historian Piers Bizony offers an extraordinarily detailed catalog. It begins with the genesis of Kubrick’s masterpiece, starting with his partnership with author Arthur C. Clarke, and extends through the creation of the film’s futuristic set design. Only 1,500 copies were printed, and they’ve long since sold out at $1,000 each. (A $70 second edition version is now available for pre-order.)

In the tome, which is chock-full of previously unseen images, Bizony highlights the central tension of the film’s design: Even as Kubrick and his team—including cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth and art director John Hoesli—were creating a fictive future set in space, NASA was racing to put a man on the moon. The set and props in 2001: A Space Odyssey had to dramatically outpace the emerging technology, lest NASA succeed while they were filming and make Kubrick’s vision appear outdated, or, worse, flat-out wrong.

This forced Kubrick’s team to do deep, meticulous research, which Bizony says helps explain why much of the set design accurately forecasted how we live with technology today. “The executive briefcase with its phone handset and dial? Look closely, and all the elements of the laptop or smartphone are there, half a century ahead of time,” Bizony tells WIRED. You could also, for example, see HAL 9000 as a proto-Siri.

The book is packed with other details about the making of the film (for example, Clarke wrote the most of the screenplay at the Chelsea Hotel, in the company of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg), but is most elucidating in its attention to the technical and design details that made the film such an enduring paragon almost 50 years after its release.

http://www.wired.com/2015/08/amazingly-accurate-futurism-2001-space-odyssey/?mbid=social_twitter
 
I finally saw Interstellar the other night. It was a powerful reminder of just how good a film 2001 is...


(Q: How does Nolan attempt to measure the mind-boggling distances in space?
A: In Kubrick metres.)
 
Interstellar is a lot more emotional than 2001 (unless what happens to HAL makes you sad). There's a Kubrick article coming up in the new FT next month, according to the back page.
 
I've just been re-reading Anthony Frewin's novel, London Blues. Not as well known as it probably should be - although I'm pretty sure it'll be cited as a classic of the British crime-fiction genre when he's dead. It's an existential thriller (well, so the blurb say - I'm never entirely sure about that definition; I kind of associate it with French crime fiction - that is, Existential = all the characters are wankers, barely a plot, and the author couldn't be arsed to work out an ending) set in the 1960's against the background of the Soho porn industry and the Profumo affair - and ranging in milieu from central London to Bayswater to the Kent coast.

Frewin wrote another conspiracy centred novel at around the same time - Sixty Three Closure - which involves the discovery of a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald taken in, of all places, Hitchin, at a time when the historical records indicate that he should have be in Russia. (Yes, I know - but it kind of works; Frewin has a kind of Home Counties and Thames Estuary noir thing going on - which also kind of works.)

I mention this here because Frewin was personal assistant to Stanley Kubrick for over twenty years (and is - or at least was - a representative of the director's estate) and his creative interests add another facet to the Kubrick conspiracy mill.

But it doesn't end there.

It was Frewin who busted the infamous TV Times interview with Stanley Kubrick. The other one, who wasn't actually Stanley Kubrick, but was in fact bankrupt estate agent and serial fantasist Alan Conway.

The interviewer was himself another serial fantasist and author of shoddily researched (if at all) reference books, unfinished episodes of Dr Who, and convicted burglar of photographic archives: one Adrian Rigelsford.

The combination of supposedly reclusive director and attractor of bizarre theories, with not one but two rather seedy little individuals who seem to have made fantasy a basis of their lives - to the point where you're not sure whether either of them realised that it was fantasy any more – could make you feel a bit like you're tipping over into one of Frewin's (or, for that matter, Kubrick's) narratives. Conway was so immersed in his myth that his friends actually took to calling him Stanley - and you can't help wondering if the one con artist knew the man he was interviewing was himself a con-artist, or indeed, if the latter realised that he was being interviewed by someone who was himself full of shit - in which case, who was conning whom? Or does it balance itself out? If one liar tells a lie to another liar, who then lies about it, could they end up telling the truth by accident?

The atmosphere of oddness isn't helped by the fact that although Conway was found to have died of a heart attack, the police noted unexplained bruising on his neck. And also that some time after Conway's death his son discovered a rather sinister answer phone message had been left for his late father:

'Hi Stanley...I'm going to get you this time. I'm going to get you.'

A rather eclectic muddle of facts, I grant you - but I find them somehow satisfying.

Articles here (the former is Frewin's description of his investigation into the fake interview):

[URL='http://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/nov/20/features.weekend']What Stanley didn't say.[/URL]

The counterfeit Kubrick
.

Possibly worth the effort even if you aren't much of a fan. The idea of Joe Longthorne appearing in one of Kubrick's movies is probably worth the bus fare alone.
 
This has come out of the blue - looks a very silly though.

In Moonwalkers, The Government Hires Kubrick To Fake The Moon Landings. Then Shit Gets CRAZY.

You might think a movie about faking the Moon landings would be mad enough—and especially once you throw in the idea of hiring Stanley Kubrick, director of 2001, to spearhead the project. But Moonwalkers looks much weirder than that.

NSFW trailer:


http://io9.com/in-moonwalkers-the-government-hires-kubrick-to-fake-th-1742446697

More clips at link.
 
Looks to be completely barking mad. I might like it!
 
Looks like they got Guy Richie to direct the moon landings.
 
Great article. Thanks, sherbs. Proves Stan was The Man with a heart of gold, as we always suspected.

The Shining is one of those films that completely transcends and outranks the book by a trillion billion miles.
 
Great article. Thanks, sherbs. Proves Stan was The Man with a heart of gold, as we always suspected.

The Shining is one of those films that completely transcends and outranks the book by a trillion billion miles.

I agree! But i still had to read the book to fully understand parts of the film.
 
Wish I had an 8K telly...if only I had 8K eyesight

Space Odyssey helps launch first 8K TV channel
By Chris FoxTechnology reporter

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Image copyrightWARNER BROSImage caption2001: A Space Odyssey was released in 1968
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey will help launch the world's first super-high definition 8K television channel on Saturday.
Japanese broadcaster NHK said it had asked Warner Bros to scan the original film negatives in 8K for its new channel.
Super-high definition 8K pictures offer 16 times the resolution of HD TV.
However, few people currently have the necessary television or equipment to receive the broadcasts.
etc

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46403539
 
BBC have a Kubrick season running. These films are currently on iplayer - there may be more to follow.

2001

Barry Lyndon

Paths of Glory
 
Thanks - haven't seen this in donkeys years. Good film as I recall.
I got the DVD last year, very good movie and a very influential one.

Occasionally, Kubrick's Fear and Desire will pop up on Talking Pictures. Kubrick wasn't happy with it and said it was the equivalent of a child's drawing on a fridge.
 
I've met Ian Watson. Sat next to him in the audience at an SF convention. I only found out who he was when he addressed the person on stage and introduced himself.
 
I've met Ian Watson. Sat next to him in the audience at an SF convention. I only found out who he was when he addressed the person on stage and introduced himself.

Any impressions?
 
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