Kubrick by Kubrick

["The Blue Danube" from "2001: A Space Odyssey" plays]

["Waltz No. 2" from "Eyes Wide Shut" plays]

News just in, we've just heard

that the film director Stanley Kubrick

has died at the age of 70.

Kubrick, who was an American,

began his career in Hollywood, where he directedSpartacus,

but he decided to move to Britain,

where he directed Lolita, Clockwork Orange,

2001: A Space Odyssey andThe Shining.

Stanley Kubrick was widely regarded

as one of the greatest and most controversial masters of cinema.

He'd just finished what was to be his last film,

Eyes Wide Shut, which took five years to make.

Stanley Kubrick has been called the Howard Hughes of cinema

because he was such a recluse.

I prefer to think him as the Frank Sinatra of cinema

because he always did everything his way.

You can go back to any Kubrick film

and feel rebirth.

Kubrick is at the very least a genuine innovator

who pushes out the boundaries of what it's possible on film,

and there have never been many of those about.

He is also an elusive man

who rarely permits himself to be observed at work.

He was not any of the things

that the newspapers wrote about him.

And...

he himself said, "It's very difficult.

How do I defend myself?

Do I write an article, you know, 'Dear public, I'm charming'?"

Um, that's more difficult than it sounds actually.

'Cause, you know, he never ever does a television show

or very rarely does any press interviews.

Well perhaps the first question would be about

this problem of interview

because, it seems that more and more you feel reluctant

to speak about your films ?

Well, I've never found it meaningful

or even... possible

to talk about film aesthetics in terms of my own films.

I also don't particularly enjoy the interviews

because one always feels under the obligation

to say some witty, brilliant summary

of the intentions of the film.

And...

withDr. Strangelove you could talk about

the problems of nuclear war...

2001 you could talk about

extraterrestrial intelligence, but I've never been--

Clockwork Orange about violence.

Yes, or future social structures.

I mean I don't know what led me

to make any of the films, really, that I've made.

And I realize that my own thought processes are...

very hard to define,

in terms of you know, "What story do you want

to make into a film?"

In the end, it does become this very indefinable thing,

like why do you find one particular girl attractive,

or why did you marry your wife.

Yes, and also I suppose it is more difficult

for you to analyze yourself

because the material comes from somebody else.

So, it's more difficult to see the personal reasons

that were behind it

since you didn't write it yourself

but of obviously the choice of the subject

is a very personal thing, because you can choose

between thousands of books but you chose one.

So, it's-- you become the author of the book,

in a way, by choosing it.

STANLEY Well...

if somebody else has written the story,

you have that one great first reading.

You never again, once you read something for the first time,

can ever have that experience.

And the judgment of the narrative

and the sense of excitement

of what parts of the story reach you emotionally,

is something which doesn't exist if you write a story.

We know, I mean everybody knows,

it's notorious that you love to accumulate information

and do research.

Is it a thrill for you,

like being a reporter or a detective?

It is a little bit like a detective

looking for clues.

On Barry Lyndon, I created a picture file

of thousands of drawings and paintings.

I think I destroyed every art book

that you can buy in a bookshop

by tearing the pages out and sorting them out.

But...

the costumes were all copied from paintings.

I mean none of the costumes were quote "designed".

It's stupid to have quote "a designer"

that interpret the 18th Century

as they may remember it from art school

or from a few pictures they get together.

["Sarabande" from "Barry Lyndon" plays]

Would you agree that the more illusion works,

the more realistic it is?

That cinema has to extremely realistic,

you know, to create illusion?

Well, I would always be attracted

to something which offered

interesting visual possibilities,

but that certainly wouldn't be the only reason.

And, since part of the problem of any story

is to make you believe what you are seeing,

certainly getting a realistic atmosphere,

especially if it's not a contemporary period,

is just necessary as a starting point.

It's why you came to this idea

of shooting with light, natural light.

Well, that's something

that I've always been very bothered by

in period films

is the light on interiors is so false.

It was very different to any kind of other movies

as far as photography was concerned,

because the lightning was so--

You know, lot of it was shot by candle light,

a lot of it was shot with equipment

that Stanley Kubrick had found,

that had never been used before really, on film.

So, it was quite an experience working with that.

It was also difficult because there were times

when you just couldn't even move a fraction of an inch.

And...

there were days we would just sit there

and just be lit all day.

You know...

Literally.

Samuel, I'm going outside for a breath of air.

Yes, My Lady, of course.

To know about lighting and lenses and composition

has to be a help as a movie director.

I remember, when I was makingSpartacus ,

the cameraman, Russ Metty, used to think it was very funny

that I used to pick set-ups with a view finder,

and he said to me,

"We are shooting in that direction

and it's a knee figure shot

and just, you know, go and rehearse with the actors

and when you come back

we'll have the shot and the set-up and everything"

He couldn't understand

why I wanted to waste time making a composition.

Certainly, photography gave me the first step

where I could actually try to make a movie

because without that

how could you make a movie by yourself

if you didn't know anything about photography?

What kind of photographs were you doing?

I mean there is the famous photograph

of the newspaper vendor and the--

Photojournalism with natural light.

Mostly things of the street, like Cartier Bresson--

Well unfortunately,

becauseLook always did feature stories,

the subject matter always tended to be idiotic.

They would do a story like

"Is an Athlete Stronger Than a Baby?"

And I would have to go and there'd be some guy

that would have to try to get in the same positions

as a baby and things like that.

They were pretty stupid feature stories,

but occasionally I could do a sort of personality story,

or a story about something like a university,

or something like that, where you had a chance

to take some reasonable photographs.

You worked four years atLook ?

Yeah, about four years. I was about 20.

This forest then, and all that happens now

is outside history.

Only the unchanging shapes of fear,

and doubt

and death

are from our world.

These soldiers that you see keep our language and our time,

but have no other country but the mind.

You started by making almost a home movie, when you were 23,

Fear and Desire, about four men in a patrol.

What was behind this project?

That was a very arrogant, flippant script

put together by myself,

and a boy that I knew who was a poet.

Where we thought that we were geniuses,

and it was so incompetently done...

and undramatic...

and so pompous.

But I learnt a lesson from that.

- -

At least it had the ambition of having some ideas in it,

and I suppose you could say in that sense

there is some continuity with the rest of my films,

which I've also tried to make sure that...

you know, they weren't just hollow entertainments.