It was...magnificent.
One of his pictures are equivaIent...
...to ten of somebody eIse's.
''Oh, NicoIe,'' and shake his head.
And nobody ever reaIIy knew him.
He was known...
...as a kind of future threat.
One of the aII-time great motion picture makers.
A future threat to peace and quiet.
Legendary...
...meanness.
At times he drove me crazy.
He was a very IoveabIe individuaI.
I Iove him one minute, and the next I couId kiII him.
Maybe the smartest man I ever met.
He got fascinated with Nescafé commerciaIs...
Did you see the fiIm Groundhog Day?
...because they toId stories so fast.
That's what it was Iike.
This man was born to push the enveIope...
There is stiII a part of StanIey that is a great mystery.
...and he aIways pushed it.
You expect someone Iike that to be different from us.
We were too scared of him over here.
Everybody pretty much acknowIedges he's the Man...
...and I stiII feeI that underrates him.
This fiIm is about the Iife and work of StanIey I<ubrick:
An outstanding fiImmaker, one of the great artists of our time.
StanIey I<ubrick was an enigma to many peopIe.
In his fiIms he was extrovert...
...chaIIenging, and ready to break conventions.
But I<ubrick himseIf was intenseIy private:
Shunning pubIicity and fierceIy guarding his anonymity...
...happiest at work and at home with his famiIy...
...and a Iarge circIe of friends.
He was a chess pIayer in every sense. Both cautious and aggressive...
...he took great risks but evaIuated each move with the greatest of care.
StanIey was born in New York and remained a New Yorker aII his Iife...
...even though he and his famiIy Iived in EngIand for nearIy 40 years.
He died at his home on the seventh of March, 1 999.
This fiIm wiII make use of unique materiaI which has never been seen.
It is a document about a man who remained siIent...
...whether he was being appIauded or damned.
StanIey I<ubrick was born in New York on the 26th of JuIy, 1 928.
His father, Jack, was a doctor...
...who'd married Gertrude PerveIer the previous year.
His sister, Barbara, was born six years Iater, in 1 934.
Today, a Iot of peopIe that have kids that are that far apart...
...they encourage the oIder one to nurture the younger one as a baby...
...so they get to Iove them.
But I gather StanIey was very jeaIous...
...you know, that I was there.
He was very good, though. He was very good to me.
Nobody ever accuses him of being pIayfuI.
WeII, he was pIayfuI...
...Iike on The Addams Family kind of pIayfuI.
When he was IittIe, I think they considered him kind of a sissy...
...because he just wasn't Iike your typicaI boy.
He read a Iot. He aIways had a book.
WeII, my mother read aII the time.
She aIways was behind him, aIways, and she reaIIy beIieved it.
She says, ''There's nothing you can't do.''
She aIways was supportive of him.
She was reaIIy a great mother, I think.
-Were they strict, Gert and Jack? -No.
Never. He aIways did what he wanted.
In 1 941 , when StanIey was 1 2 years oId...
...he went to Taft High SchooI in the Bronx.
At the beginning, I think, of the second week, StanIey turned to me...
...as the cIass opened and said...
...couId I Iet him copy the day's homework? I said, ''Sure, why not?''
The next day he asked the same thing.
And the next day after that, and before I knew it he was doing it every day.
So after about a week or ten days...
...I finaIIy got up enough aggressiveness to say:
''StanIey, why aren't you doing your homework?'' He said simpIy...
...and in what I Iearned was his characteristic quiet way:
''WeII, I'm not interested.''
It wasn't as if he were stupid. He was simpIy not interested...
...and acted upon that.
StanIey was reaIIy quite invoIved, quite passionate about photography.
StanIey, you must understand, was, by the generaI Iights of the time...
...the son of a weaIthy person, as they had their own home.
They couId have a darkroom.
His father was interested in photography...
...and I think he encouraged StanIey to use it and become a photographer.
That darkroom background, actuaIIy...
...was one of the bedrock things...
...that enabIed him to deveIop a very high IeveI...
...of sophistication about photography...
...and then finaIIy cinematography.
StanIey was fascinated by photography.
He was the photographer on the schooI newspaper and Iooked for pictures...
...that wouId capture the imagination.
We interrupt for a special news bulletin.
A press association has just announced that President Roosevelt is dead.
RooseveIt was a god to us. That's what my mother said. She said:
''I'm not sure there's a God,'' when he died.
And then when he took that picture, whoa.
It made everybody that saw it cry. They'd just start to cry.
He Iooked Iike just the worId had ended...
...and StanIey just got that.
It was this photograph of a news vendor mourning the death of RooseveIt...
...that transformed the amateur into a professionaI.
StanIey was just 1 6 when he soId this picture to Look...
...one of America's great iIIustrated magazines.
When he graduated high schooI, he joined Look as a photographer...
...taking thousands of pictures...
...experimenting and gaining experience for the next stage of his career.
I<ubrick shot severaI features on boxing for Look...
...one on the rising young fighter WaIter Cartier.
Passionate about the sport...
...he reaIized he'd found the subject for his first fiIm.
Day of the Fight was StanIey's first effort at fiImmaking.
I was his assistant on that...
...and I'm very proud of the fact that I operated the second camera...
...during the finaI fight sequence, which is a reaI fight.
And we were aIternating with each other:
I was shooting when he was Ioading.
I got the knockdown because StanIey was Ioading.
He's done it. He's KO'd Bobby Jane.
This is a fighter, Walter Cartier.
He's just moved up one more place...
...in a line that may end with the championship.
FoIIowing Day of the Fight, I<ubrick quit his job at Look...
...and devoted himseIf to making fiIms.
He moved to Greenwich ViIIage and supported himseIf...
...by making short documentaries, hustIing chess in Washington Square...
...and pIaying tournaments for money that wouIdn't be enough...
...to fund an entire fiIm.
In 1 953, I<ubrick's father cashed in his Iife insurance...
...to heIp his son make Fear and Desire...
...a fiIm about a fictitious war.
It was I<ubrick's first feature.
-She'II see us. -Shut up.
He was absoIuteIy and totaIIy invoIved...
...in the making of this movie.
He knew nothing about acting.
I probabIy didn't know much more.
He was not a Bohemian.
He was not an avant-garde, Ieft-bank figure.
He was a kid from the Bronx who was smart.
I don't think he had much education. He was a very good chess pIayer.
The intensity impressed me.
I thought he had a vision of somepIace he was going.
Fear and Desire was a youthfuI apprentice exercise.
I<ubrick wouId Iater withdraw the fiIm from circuIation.
It got him noticed and heIped to get financiaI backing for his next feature.
Killer's Kiss reveaIed I<ubrick's extraordinary abiIity...
...to pIay with Iight.
StanIey was making his second fiIm...
...and I wanted very much to be the stiII photographer.
I aIso wanted to see somebody discovering and Iearning.
I knew I'd be seeing that.
This was StanIey at a point where he had no physicaI resources at aII.
On Fridays, he dismissed the company for a coupIe of hours...
...went to the unempIoyment Iine and coIIected his unempIoyment check...
...because that's what he was Iiving on. It was $30 a week.
He just about made it.
He was very ambitious and he knew this was gonna heIp him...
...because once, there was a scene in the morning, and the crew...
...wasn't being paid much either. Everyone was in a bad mood. He said:
''WeII, why don't we just take the afternoon off?''
I was amazed he was giving us the day off.
He aIways drove me home. So on the ride home, I said:
''Why are you aIways so nice to everyone?''
He said, ''Honey, nobody's going to get anything out of this movie but me.''
The reIease of Killer's Kiss brought I<ubrick to James Harris' attention...
...an up-and-coming producer who had access to finance.
They teamed up to form Harris-I<ubrick Pictures.
The onIy thing is, we didn't have anything to do.
We had no subject to deaI with.
That night I Ieft the office and went to a bookstore...
...and found a book about the robbery of a race track.
I don't suppose there's dinner.
Of course, darIing. There are aII sorts of things.
-There's steak, asparagus, potatoes.... -I don't smeII nothing.
You're too far away from it.
Too far away from it?
You don't think I had it aII cooked, do you? It's aII at the store.
I thought he was a kid.
Both he and Jim were so very young.
I'm guessing, but I think StanIey was onIy 26 at the time.
I don't think anything was difficuIt for StanIey.
He had this tremendous confidence and if he hadn't...
...I don't think he couId have worked with Lucien BaIIard as he had.
The cameraman was Lucien BaIIard.
Lucien had, I beIieve, won an Academy Award...
...was regarded as one of the top 1 2 or so photographers in the business.
He was a particuIarIy styIish feIIow, married to MerIe Oberon...
...a cIassic exampIe of the oId-styIe cinematographer.
StanIey had done his own photography on his two previous fiIms...
...so he knew exactIy what he wanted, and I think that BaIIard...
...resented this kid from New York.
The first shot of the picture, first day, first shot...
...StanIey set up a shot. It was quite compIex.
It was a Iong doIIy shot.
And he's Iined it up specificaIIy with a 25 mm Iens.
He set it up and turned it over to Lucien and Lucien said, ''Fine''...
...and began the eIaborate business of Iighting and setting a doIIy track.
StanIey went over to taIk to Jimmy or do something...
...and Iooked back over his shouIder and noticed that the doIIy track...
...was much further away from where he had set the camera.
He said to Lucien, ''What are you doing, Lucien?
I put the camera here, you're puIIing it way back.
Why haven't you put it where I've asked?''
He said, ''I haven't changed anything.
I'm using a 50 mm Iens...
...to give you preciseIy the same coverage that you've asked for...
...but with the 50. It makes...
...my job a Iot easier and it'II go a Iot faster.''
StanIey Iistened to this and said:
''What about the change in perspective that occurs?''
He said, ''That doesn't matter.''
That particuIar piece of information is dead wrong.
The perspective changes. It's a different shot.
StanIey was aware that Lucien was simpIy buIIing passed him...
...but aIso what particuIarIy nettIed him was the assumption...
...that he wouIdn't understand this or wouIdn't care about it.
StanIey said:
''Put the camera where I toId you, with the Iens that I asked for...
...or get off the set and don't come back.''
He said it very quietIy, very softIy...
...and there was a Iook between them...
...and Lucien changed the setup and moved the camera where it had to be...
...and there was never an argument again, about anything.
AII right, aII right, check it through.
I'm sure you'II find our service to your compIete satisfaction.
I suppose a Iot of what StanIey is, and what he did...
...in more compIicated ways with Iater fiIms...
...is impIicit in this simpIe movie about a meticuIousIy pIanned crime.
The sense the SterIing Hayden character has that he's on top of it...
...he reaIIy knows what he's doing. At the end of it...
...the IittIe yapping dog gets Ioose...
...and the money bIows aII over the pIace.
It's a briIIiant and existentiaI movie.
If existentiaIism basicaIIy posits that we define ourseIves by doing...
...and that chance is the one thing we can never quite fuIIy comprehend...
...prior to its impinging on our desires, or pIans, or whatever....
It's a briIIiant statement of that.
The Killing was not a commerciaI success...
...but it did succeed in buiIding I<ubrick and Harris' reputation.
When I saw The Killing I said, ''My God.
StanIey's gonna make it. This is good.''
But it's Paths of Glory that turned it aII around.
We waIked in the middIe, as we usuaIIy did as kids...
...Paths of Glory.
And myseIf and my friends, who were war-fiIm buffs...
...we had never seen anything quite Iike it, or quite Iike...
...the tone of it. We'd seen other anti-war fiIms.
But this one was so honest...
...particuIarIy the triaI, and scenes between Macready and I<irk DougIas.
I ordered an attack. Your troops refused to attack.
They did attack, but they couId make no headway.
Because they didn't try. I saw it myseIf.
HaIf of them never Ieft the trenches.
A third of them were pinned down by the intense fire.
Don't quibbIe over fractions.
The fact remains that a good part of them never Ieft their own trenches.
I'm going to have ten men from each company in your regiment...
...tried under penaIty of death for cowardice.
-PenaIty of death? -For cowardice.
They've skimmed miIk in their veins instead of bIood.
The reddest miIk I've ever seen, my trenches--
-That's enough! -I won't mince words--
If you continue in this manner, I shaII have to put you under arrest.
It was so honest that it was shocking.
What made it even more shocking was the nature of the way it was shot.
The use of the tracking camera in the trenches.
There's something that's happening. They're trying to be objective:
''I'm just showing you this, man, make up your own mind.
I'm teIIing you right now, this is what went down.
It's bad, it's a Iie, it's hypocrisy.''
Maybe the attack against the anthiII was impossibIe.
Perhaps it was an error of judgement on our part...
...but if your men had been more daring, they might have taken it.
Why shouId we have to bear any more criticism than we have to?
Aside from the fact that many of your men never Ieft the trenches...
...is the question of the troops moraIe.
-The troops moraIe? -CertainIy.
These executions wiII be a perfect tonic for the division.
There are few things more encouraging than seeing someone eIse die.
Many artists, when they put a canvas up which is bIank...
...they start with very detaiIed, smaII, deIicate penciI strokes...
...on a canvas.
StanIey started conceptuaIIy on aII of his movies...
...from my point of view...
...with Iarge primary-coIored brush strokes...
...and he wouId just beat out these concepts that were...
...that were pretty obvious.
In Paths of Glory...
...every sequence hammers its points home...
...but in every sequence the fiImmaking is subtIe and gentIe aImost.
What reaIIy hit us was the end.
There's a tendency when you want to get to that emotion or sentiment...
...not sentimentaI, not sentimentaIity, but sentiment...
...and just portray this aspect of humanity...
...often you faII into sentimentaIity. You reaIIy do.
It's very, very hard to puII off.
This one works Iike-- You cannot see it without weeping.
He was sitting behind his desk for this interview...
...I was to have because he was Iooking for an actress...
...for that scene in Paths of Glory.
You know, I thought he Iooked extraordinary.
And he just sat there...
...beaming at me, grinning at me throughout the interview...
...and I must have grinned back.
He's been smiIing at me for 43 years afterwards.
FoIIowing Paths of Glory, Christiane and her daughter, I<atharina...
...moved with StanIey to Los AngeIes.
StanIey and Christiane were married in 1 958...
...and HoIIywood wouId be their home for the next few years...
...where they were to have two more chiIdren, Anya and Vivian.
For its damning portrayaI of the French officer cIass...
...Paths of Glory wouId be banned in France for nearIy 20 years.
The fiIm brought its director firmIy to the attention of HoIIywood.
He was stiII onIy 28.
This is Stanley Kubrick.
I think that if the reigning powers had any respect for good pictures...
...or the people who could make them...
...that this respect was probably very well tempered...
...by the somewhat cynical observation...
...that poor and mediocre pictures might just as well prove successful...
...as their pictures of higher value.
Television has changed this completely.
And I think that despite the unhappy financial upheaval...
...it's caused in the movie industry...
...it's also provided a invigorating and stimulating challenge...
... which has made it necessary for films to be made with more sincerity...
...and more daring.
If Hollywood lacks the color and excitement of its early days...
... with Rolls-Royces and leopard-skin seat covers...
...on the other hand it provides the most stimulating atmosphere...
...of opportunity and possibilities for young people.
SIaves...
...you have arrived at the gIadiatoriaI schooI of LentuIus Batiatus.
Here you wiII be trained by experts to fight in pairs to the death.
You won't be required to fight to the death here.
That wiII onIy be after you're soId...
...and then for peopIe of quaIity.
Those who appreciate a fine kiII.
A gIadiator's Iike a staIIion.
He must be pampered.
You'II be oiIed, bathed, shaved, massaged...
...taught to use your heads.
A good body with a duII brain is as cheap as Iife itseIf.
I congratuIate you, and may fortune smiIe on most of you.
Then I<irk DougIas came to us and was having troubIe with Spartacus.
He had shot for three days...
...and wanted to repIace the director who was on the fiIm...
...and asked if StanIey couId be acquired, sort of on a Ioan-out basis.
We thought it'd be good for his career and for our company.
I thought he did an incredibIe job of taking that fiIm...
...which the script didn't even have battIe sequences in it...
...and sort of did some recasting of some of the parts...
...took some of the fiIm to Spain and did the big battIe scenes...
...and turned it into a marveIous epic fiIm.
I was rather dreading the arrivaI of StanIey. I didn't know him...
...but I had seen Paths of Glory...
...which I find one of the best fiIms I've ever seen.
In spite of your vices you are the most generous Roman of our time.
Vices?
Ladies.
Ladies. Since when are they a vice?
I had a high opinion of him but aIso had a great affection for Tony Mann.
Tony Mann directed the earIy parts of the fiIm...
...the ones in Death VaIIey, which I think probabIy the studio...
...wanted the reassurance of an oIder, more routine man.
I<irk aIways had the idea of wanting StanIey.
It was a difficuIt task because we aII had different acting styIes.
OIivier and Laughton hated each other. It was Iike two dogs.
I'II take repubIican corruption aIong with repubIican freedom...
...but I won't take the dictatorship of Crassus...
...and no freedom at aII!
That's what he's out for, and that's why he'II be back.
I think he was 30 years oId when he did it.
Yeah, working with OIivier and CharIes Laughton. He was fearIess.
If he was terrified, he didn't show it, because he knew he mustn't.
I think he had an extraordinary abiIity...
...to concentrate on what is important...
...he did not aIIow himseIf to be sidetracked.
And even if it was emotionaI turmoiI...
...and great worry he wouIdn't--
Perhaps it's a chess-pIaying thing-- He wouIdn't aIIow it...
...to infIuence him.
And I think that very soon the actors noticed:
''Oh, yeah, you know, we're quite safe.''
TraveIed a Iong ways together.
Fought many battIes.
Won great victories.
Now, instead of taking ship for our homes across the sea...
...we must fight again.
Maybe there's no peace in this worId...
...for us or for anyone eIse. I don't know.
But I do know...
...that as Iong as we Iive...
...we must stay true to ourseIves.
Its great virtue was...
...it was the onIy fiIm of that kind that didn't have Jesus in it.
There was no trace of Christianity in Spartacus reaIIy.
There was faith, but not Christianity.
If I<irk wants to be rewarded for his courage, which I'd be the first...
...to make a fiIm Iike that without Jesus but with I<ubrick...
...is aIready a tremendous achievement.
I think they were both temperamentaI.
Neither of them wouId give an inch...
...so there was tension.
But he was uncomfortabIe during the making of that fiIm.
But not necessariIy because of I<irk aIone.
It's because he had no rights over the script.
AII those things he'd got used to and fought for having...
...he didn't have, he had no say.
StanIey was unhappy because he was deaIing...
...with the star who was the producer and in charge of the production.
There were certain instances...
...where he feIt that things shouId be done differentIy...
...but because I<irk was in charge...
...they were done I<irk's way.
I'm not saying that I<irk was wrong or right...
...but nevertheIess, StanIey said:
''From now on, I want to do pictures...
...where I reaIIy have finaI cut.''
The first overseas premier of UI's screen epic Spartacus...
...is the most brilliant event on London's show business calendar.
Director Stanley Kubrick....
Spartacus was a criticaI and commerciaI success...
...winning four Oscars.
Despite I<ubrick's youth...
...he was now a recognized HoIIywood director.
But the process had taught him he had to have fuII controI over his fiIms.
I had a feeIing that during Spartacus he was biding his time...
...getting on the record as the director...
...of a big and successfuI fiIm...
...which wouId give him greater freedom in the future.
And he did turn his career into that of an artist...
...whereas it couId quite easiIy, had he surrendered at any juncture...
...have been that of a very successfuI journeyman.
He feIt now he had this IabeI: ''I'm a fiIm director, officiaIIy.
Now I can make a story that I have a crush on.''
The interpretation of the image, where to pIace the camera...
...the nature of the subject matter...
...which at that time, everything was opening up in the earIy '60s...
...and it was scandaIous.
Put your head back.
Open your mouth.
You can have one IittIe bite.
I think what a Iot of peopIe forget...
...is just what a hot book Lolita was.
OriginaIIy, Nabokov couIdn't get a pubIisher in the States or the UI<...
...so it was pubIished as a dirty book in Paris.
It was in 1 955 that Graham Greene and The Sunday Times in London...
...nominated it as his noveI of the year.
It then took off and it very soon found a pubIisher.
He thought Lolita was a fantastic book...
...because it cIarified the feeIing we aII have...
...that good and eviI does not come in the expected package.
I guess I won't be seeing you again.
I shaII be moving on.
I must prepare for my work at BeardsIey CoIIege in the faII.
Then I guess this is goodbye.
Yes.
Don't forget me.
It shocks me when peopIe say StanIey didn't make ''peopIe'' movies.
He made movies about machines or....
It's aIways confounded me.
Lolita is, you know, nothing Iike the book.
But he did draft the author to write the screenpIay.
They were in coIIaboration with each other...
...in another kind of version away from the noveI...
...that is much more about the human condition than the noveI was.
Lolita works...
...as the very first StanIey I<ubrick fiIm for me...
...because I couIdn't imagine anybody eIse making Lolita.
It's a comedy but it's got serious eIements.
It's risqué. It's in your face.
It's got big performances...
...and it works compIeteIy.
You're a disgusting, despicabIe, Ioathsome, criminaI fraud!
Don't do that.
-Can we discuss-- -Get out of my way.
-Get out of my way! -No. I want to taIk--
Go on, get out of my way.
I'm Ieaving here today.
You can have aII of it.
But you are never going to see that miserabIe brat again!
At a time when American cinema in the earIy '60s was on the way down...
...the studio system was finishing...
...this was a man with authority making you Iook a certain way at things.
''When I stood Adam-naked....''
Adam-naked!
You shouId be ashamed of yourseIf, captain.
''Before a federaI Iaw and aII its stinging stars.''
Tarnation! You oId horn toad.
That's mighty pretty. That's a pretty poem.
''Because you took advantage....''
It's getting a bit repetitious, isn't it?
''Because....'' Here's another one: ''Because you cheated me.''
Because you took her at an age...
-...when young Iads--'' -That's enough!
Say, what'd you take it away for? It was getting kind of smutty there.
Because of its scandaIous theme...
...the fiIm had a crippIing distribution probIem.
The CathoIic Church had their own censorship.
If they condemned your fiIm, they wouId then send notices...
...to their Churches, the CathoIic Churches aII over the country...
...that it wouId be sinfuI to see this fiIm.
Hum, you just touch me and I go as Iimp as a noodIe.
It scares me.
Yes, I know the feeIing.
That heId up the fiIm for six months because they did condemn it.
There was a picture of LoIita on the bedside stand...
...so when Humbert and his wife CharIotte were in bed...
...they feIt that Humbert was using the picture for sexuaI stimuIation.
I denied that. I think that in aII fairness they were right.
Anyway, we agreed to Iimit the number of Iooks at that picture.
To get a reIease, I<ubrick had to re-cut Lolita.
As he Iater toId Newsweek:
''Had I known how severe the Iimitations were...
...I wouIdn't have made it.''
There is acclaim in the film world for Kubrick...
...director of LoIita, arriving with Mrs. Kubrick.
Lolita's strong performance at the box office...
...was boosted by the controversy.
I<ubrick's next fiIm wouId prove even more controversiaI.
Now then, Dimitri...
...you know how we've aIways taIked about the possibiIity...
...of something going wrong with the bomb.
The bomb, Dimitri.
The hydrogen bomb.
Everything wonderfuI about that movie...
...is because of the way it was directed.
Otherwise, I thought there were fIaws in the writing of the movie...
...and fIaws in some of the performances...
...but the directing of the movie was so bravura...
...and so superb that it just, it was just a knockout.
The vision and the use of music of the opening credits--
We knew immediateIy anything couId happen in this movie.
PeopIe remember the fiIm because it deaIs with one of the darkest things...
...of the postwar period, the idea that hanging over us...
...was nucIear obIivion. This is the time of the Cuban MissiIe Crisis.
It can't have possibIy got cIoser than those few days...
...where one mistake by either side couId have started WorId War III.
This piece of satire just hit it right on the button...
...and it was frightening. Very, very frightening.
WeII, now, what happened is...
...one of our base commanders, he had a sort of....
WeII, he went a IittIe funny in the head.
You know, just a IittIe funny.
He went and did a siIIy thing.
WeII, I'II teII you what he did, he ordered his pIanes...
...to attack your country.
WeII, Iet me finish, Dimitri.
Let me finish, Dimitri.
WeII, how do you think I feeI about it?
He was abIe to say what we aII knew...
...about the madness of it.
He had bought the book and was trying to make it straight...
...and reaIized that he couIdn't, that it was so utterIy insane...
...that it couIdn't be done that way.
And what he did was say that. That this is insane, I mean...
...who are we kidding?
GentIemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room!
And it ever after made it very difficuIt...
...to take seriousIy the Strategic Air Command.
I mean, they seemed Iike they were nuts from then on.
I think they probabIy were.
The most extraordinary part of Dr. Strangelove for me...
...was that 30 years on as part of a BBC team, I investigated...
...over a period of two years, many of the centraI tenets in the fiIm.
What had happened in reaIity...
...what had happened to Strategic Air Command in the '50s and '60s.
And the various eIements of the fiIm Iike the idea that the miIitary...
...wouId use nucIear weapons without consuIting the president...
I thought onIy I was in authority to order the use of nucIear weapons.
That's right, sir. You are the onIy person authorized to do so...
...and aIthough I hate to judge before aII the facts are in...
...it Iooks Iike GeneraI Ripper exceeded his authority.
...were aII, you know, seen as appaIIing when that fiIm came out.
Now we know many of those eIements were absoIuteIy smack-on.
Curtis LeMay did a test run to see if you couId provoke the Russians to war.
We taIked to an officer who worked for LeMay's successor...
...GeneraI Tommy Power, and they said this guy was basicaIIy psychotic.
This has not come out for 30 years, but there it is...
...right in the core of Strangelove.
TeII me, Jack, when did you first become....
WeII, deveIop this theory?
I first became aware of it, Mandrake...
...during the physicaI act of Iove.
Yes, a profound sense of fatigue...
...feeIing of emptiness foIIowed.
LuckiIy, I was abIe to interpret these feeIings correctIy:
Loss of essence.
I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake.
Women.... Women sense my power...
...and they seek the Iife essence.
I don't avoid women, Mandrake...
...but I do deny them my essence.
The other fiIms that were being made at the time about these themes...
...about the idea of nucIear war...
...miIitary takeover in the USA.
FiIms Iike Fail Safe and Seven Days in May...
...they're very naturaIistic and rather turgid fiIms.
They have no Iongevity. They don't endure.
They're not fiIms that you wouId watch...
...for any reason except out of socioIogicaI interest.
But peopIe wiII watch Dr. Strangelove repeatedIy because it's so funny.
That was the genius of I<ubrick, but aIso his coIIaborators.
I mean, he had the massive fortune to be working with...
...two of the funniest peopIe ever invoIved in the fiIm industry:
Terry Southern and Peter SeIIers.
What's happened, you see, the string in my Ieg's gone.
-The what? -The string.
I never toId you, but, you see...
...I've got a gammy Ieg. Oh, dear, gone shot off.
StanIey was his best audience.
He spent many of the scenes just being an audience...
...not a director.
He wouId simpIy put cameras everywhere he couId...
...so when Peter was off fIying high...
...StanIey says, ''I don't want anything to be Iost.''
He wouId just Iie on his back, you know, roaring with Iaughter.
That egged Peter on to ever greater heights.
AIso, when you go down into the mine, everyone wiII stiII be aIive.
There wiII be no shocking memories...
...and the prevaiIing emotion wiII be nostaIgia for those Ieft behind...
...combined with a spirit...
...of boId curiosity for the adventure ahead.
One of the great things about his fiIm is the scrupuIous detaiI...
...in which everything-- You know, that's part of the power of it...
...the detaiI in Dr. Strangelove, you know, you wouId think...
...that he'd Iived through that experience.
Survival kit contents check.
In them you will find one .45 caliber automatic...
...two boxes of ammunition...
...four days concentrated emergency rations...
...one drug issue containing antibiotics...
...morphine, vitamin piIIs, pep piIIs...
...sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills...
...one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible.
WhiIe we were shooting, somebody had invited...
...some American service personneI to come to Shepperton.
They were terrified...
...by the amount of accuracy we had in this aircraft...
...and the next day I got a memo from StanIey saying:
''You better make sure that you know where aII your references came from...
...because otherwise we might be investigated by the FBI.''
I discovered very quickIy...
...that behind this boyish enthusiasm...
...and apparent naiveté, there was this super brain...
...and enormous power...
...and utter dedication to moviemaking.
It was quite demoraIizing at times when he changed his mind...
...but every time he did, it was for the better.
But I Iearned a great deaI on that fiIm.
Sir, I have a pIan.
Mien Fuhrer!
I can waIk!
I was kind of shocked by it at first.
It was so irreverent, and it was the height of the CoId War.
I was at NYU at the time, but my friends I saw the fiIm with...
...some were at a Jesuit coIIege caIIed Fordham, others were street kids.
We went to see this movie. They Ioved it.
And they were conservative.
The word on the street was, ''It's great.''
I had a kind of a giddy exhiIaration at the end.
When she was singing, ''We'll meet again, don't know where''
And he's riding the bomb, I thought:
''Man, what kind of an imagination came up with this?''
Dr. Strangelove caused uproar.
Younger audiences Ioved its irreverence and anarchic humor...
...but many peopIe saw it as dangerousIy subversive.
I remember reading a review in, I think, a BeverIy HiIIs paper...
...where the critic said that StanIey shouId be physicaIIy harmed...
...for having made that fiIm.
Now, that's a pretty bad review, I must say.
I can't remember any StanIey I<ubrick movie...
...that was reIeased where there wasn't controversy.
2001 I remember very weII.
I remember PauIine I<aeI's review of 2001.
They were not good reviews.
And then ten years go by, and they're aII cIassics.
By that time I knew that I<ubrick was the one.
Yes, aII these extraordinary directors around the worId were making fiIms...
...but there was something, after you saw Lolita and Dr. Strangelove....
I knew that I<ubrick-- We had to wait for a I<ubrick fiIm.
We knew that when we went to see it...
...that it was extremeIy speciaI.
We expected a Iot from him, quite honestIy, and in 2001 we got it.
By 1 963, I<ubrick had estabIished so high a reputation...
...that he couId pick his next project without bowing to HoIIywood dictates.
As a director whose fiIms were popuIar and criticaIIy accIaimed...
...he had won an astonishing degree of creative independence.
StanIey I<ubrick now began work on a fiIm...
...which wouId estabIish him as one of the great fiIm directors.
With 2001: A Space Odyssey...
...the boy from the Bronx wouId write a new chapter in cinema history.
In the earIy 1 960s, space expIoration began when both Russia and the U.S...
...sent men outside the Earth's atmosphere.
As the space race came to dominate the popuIar imagination...
...I<ubrick captured the spirit of the times by coIIaborating on a fiIm...
...with the science fiction writer, Arthur C. CIarke.
Behind everyone aIive today stand 30 ghosts...
...for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the Iiving.
Since the dawn of time, about a hundred biIIion human beings...
...have waIked on this pIanet.
Now, a hundred biIIion is about the number of stars...
...in our MiIky Way gaIaxy.
So this means that for everyone who has ever Iived...
...there couId be a star.
And of course, stars are suns, with pIanets circIing around them.
So isn't it an interesting thought that there's enough Iand in the sky...
...for everyone to have a whoIe worId?
We don't know how many of those worIds are inhabited...
...and by what kind of creatures.
But one day we shouId know, perhaps by radio...
...perhaps by other means, perhaps by direct contact.
The impact of that on the human race wiII be profound...
...especiaIIy if we encounter creatures far in advance...
...of our own primitive species.
It's a wonderfuI thing to Iook forward to and perhaps a terrifying one.
It may happen in our Iifetimes. It may not happen for 1000 years.
But one day, we wiII know the truth about...
...this incredibIe and wonderfuI universe around us...
...and perhaps understand our own pIace in it.
The extraordinary audacity, power and, I think, guts...
...to say, ''Let's screech everything to a haIt, take everybody...
...back to prehistoric times where it wasn't that fast.''
Considering the way the worId was moving so quickIy, this just said:
''I want you to see something.
I'II take you through something you never thought you'd experience.''
His way of making a fiIm was to concentrate...
...on seven or eight, as he caIIed them, ''non-submersibIe units.''
And what this meant was you had a very good chunk, and you had another...
...and when you had six good chunks, you were aImost home with a movie.
It wouId be easy to connect them, and...
...you can see this principIe operating...
...in particuIar in 2001...
...where I beIieve that the bits don't quite fit on.
And this is why there's a mystery about it that stiII interests peopIe.
I just remember seeing the picture for the first time...
...and feeIing that it wasn't a movie, it was the first time...
...that the motion picture form had been changed.
It wasn't a documentary, and it wasn't a drama...
...and it wasn't reaIIy science fiction.
It was more science eventuaIity.
Hal, despite your enormous intellect, are you ever frustrated...
...by your dependence on people to carry out actions?
Not in the slightest bit.
I enjoy working with people.
I have a stimulating relationship with Dr. Poole and Dr. Bowman.
My mission responsibilities range over the entire operation of the ship...
...so I am constantly occupied.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use...
... which is all, I think, that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
UnIike many a science fiction writer...
...incIuding, I must say, myseIf...
...he regarded the future as unknowabIe.
This is the first movie, the first work of science fiction that actuaIIy...
...I think, depicts the future as unknowabIe.
Eighteen months ago...
...the first evidence of intelligent life off the Earth...
... was discovered.
It was buried 40 feet below the lunar surface...
...near the crater Tycho.
Except for a single, very powerful...
...radio emission aimed at Jupiter...
...the four-million-year-old monolith has remained completely inert...
...its origin and purpose...
...still a total mystery.
I respect in awe--
I'm in awe of the mystery of the universe.
Something which Einstein's often said:
''Anyone who isn't awed by the universe, they haven't any souI.''
So from my earIiest days the wonder of space and time has intrigued me...
...and StanIey and I tried to put some of this feeIing into the fiIm.
I think it made peopIe reaIize that we were...
...a rather smaII part of an enormous universe.
It's hard to reaIize when we made that fiIm...
...we didn't know what Earth Iooked Iike from space from any distance.
These things had to be imagined.
The speciaI effects were a quantum Ieap forward for the fiIm industry.
These Iooked the reaI thing.
StanIey had very firm and very specific ideas...
...about how these modeIs were to be Iit.
The painstaking attention to detaiI...
...the coIoration, the dirtying up of the modeIs....
This reaIIy hadn't been seen before.
One of the best exampIes for my contribution...
...is what's known as the sIitscan sequence, the stargate sequence.
There was a Iot of evoIution to that concept...
...of how you wouId be transported from one dimension to another.
It was never soIved in the screenpIay.
I remembered, knowing of an experimentaI fiImmaker...
...who was expIoring this whoIe idea of Iong-time exposures...
...and whiIe the shutter is open, he'd move various kinds of artwork...
...in front of the camera to scan...
...coIor bIocks and objects onto the fiIm...
...in a rather unusuaI way.
I thought if you took what he did, which was fIat and two-dimensionaI...
...and made it three-dimensionaI in the Z axis...
...you couId create this streak exposure.
Like a time exposure. Car headIights on the freeway.
If you Ieave the shutter open...
...the car headIight becomes a streak of Iight.
It occurred to me that there might be some way...
...to appIy that to the stargate sequence.
I waIked that minute down to StanIey's office.
I said, ''I think this is the answer to the stargate.''
And he Iooked at it and said, ''I think you couId be right.''
He said, ''Do whatever you need to do, you have carte blanche to do it.''
That's an exampIe of my whoIe experience on 2001...
...was support from StanIey to expIore, experiment...
...take risks and produce something that was different.
If you can imagine a giant Ferris wheeI, and if you were to cover it...
...with a skin. On the inside edge of that skin...
...imagine the set being buiIt...
...and imagine an endIess haIIway with things aIong the side.
WeII, that revoIved.
There's a scene where I come down a Iadder...
...and the other astronaut, Gary Lockwood, is eating...
...apparentIy upside down, because he's on the other side of the centrifuge.
It Iooks Iike I waIk upside down to him.
How that actuaIIy was done was that Gary had a hidden harness.
He was upside down, so I came in right-side up...
...and they just revoIved Gary down to me, and I just waIked in pIace.
There was this theme of constant rotating, rotating, rotating.
The space station and the spacecraft are rotating.
Everything's in orbit.
And that estabIished a styIe...
...of intercuttabIe shots that uItimateIy Iater...
...Ieant itseIf in StanIey's mind to the Strauss waItz.
I think the history of the cinema divides into two essentiaI eras:
Before StanIey I<ubrick and after StanIey I<ubrick.
EspeciaIIy in reIation to the use of music in fiIms.
Before StanIey I<ubrick, music tended to be used in fiIms...
...as either decorative or as heightening emotions.
After StanIey I<ubrick, because of his use of cIassicaI music in particuIar...
...it became absoIuteIy an essentiaI part of the narrative...
...inteIIectuaI drive of the fiIm.
I actuaIIy knew that piece of Ligeti he used...
...and I remember seeing 2001 and thinking:
''This can't possibIy be Ligeti in a HoIIywood fiIm.''
But it was, and of course, it makes the sequence utterIy unforgettabIe.
It was for me, especiaIIy the visuaI fantasy...
...with the speed, with the coIor and Iight changes...
...when the spaceship goes down...
...on the moon of Jupiter.
And then the speed is more and more and more...
...and it was very cIear...
...that Dr. Einstein pretended...
...that the Iight veIocity is the highest, you cannot go beyond.
But in this fiIm it was suggested as it wouId be...
...beyond the speed of Iight and then we enter in another worId.
I never know whether the images arose out of the music or vice versa.
The true thing to say is that they became in his imagination, cIearIy...
...and so have become in ours, totaIIy inseparabIe.
When 2001 opened, Iike previous fiIms of I<ubrick's...
...it spIit both the critics and the audience.
The opening of 2001 was very frightening...
...because we had aII the executives sitting in the audience...
...very oId, many of them.
They didn't understand the fiIm at aII and Ieft, whoIe rows of them.
And we were panic stricken. Then there was an enormous...
...catastrophic meeting in our hoteI room...
...and StanIey was so upset he Iost his voice.
We were up aII night. The next morning we went to this house...
...and StanIey was battIing on in New York.
I feII, cIutching my handbag, across...
...my bed asIeep, because I hadn't sIept aII night.
And woke up to the sounds of a DJ...
...saying:
''This is the most fantastic fiIm and peopIe are queuing around the bIock.''
He was taIking about 2001.
I was desperateIy trying to ring StanIey to teII him...
...some peopIe Iike it, it was the bIue-rinse brigade that waIked out.
He toId me that the first...
...exhibitor screening of 2001...
...had, I beIieve he said, 241 waIkouts.
You know, I'm sure he counted them too.
When I first saw 2001, I didn't Iike it...
...and I was very disappointed.
Then three or four months Iater, I was with some woman in CaIifornia...
...and she was teIIing me what a wonderfuI fiIm it was.
And I went to see it again...
...and I Iiked it a Iot more the second time I saw it.
Then a coupIe of years Iater I saw it again and I thought:
''Gee, this is reaIIy a sensationaI movie.''
And it was one of the few times in my Iife that I reaIized...
...that the artist was much ahead of me.
A Iot of peopIe didn't get it the first time around...
...and I'm reaIIy fond of quoting the MGM executive who said:
''WeII, that's the end of StanIey I<ubrick.''
The message has got over, even though we didn't intend one specificaIIy.
StanIey wanted to create an experience.
PeopIe wiII get messages from it according to their own phiIosophies.
2001 received a NationaI CathoIic Award for its imaginative vision...
...of mans' creative encounter with the universe.
Some turnaround for I<ubrick, who had so upset...
...the CathoIic Iegion of decency with Lolita.
2001 aIso won an Academy Award for best visuaI effects.
As the fiIm's director and designer...
...I<ubrick received his onIy ever Oscar.
It was that kind of process...
...of personaIIy taking controI of not onIy the peopIe...
...the technoIogy, the art and the craft of making movies.
He was it. He embodied the whoIe thing.
And he invited actors, cinematographers...
...and production designers to come into his famiIy and coIIaborate...
...which for some was difficuIt.
After working with him on 2001, I swore I'd never work for anybody again.
StanIey was a heII of a taskmaster.
He was difficuIt and demanding.
His IeveI of quaIity controI was just astronomicaIIy near perfection.
I found, as a young guy, this was hard.
His mind was so insatiabIe and so active...
...that he couId bareIy sIeep, he couId bareIy stop.
I saw that StanIey I<ubrick worked and Iived his work seven days a week...
...aImost 24 hours a day.
And I think he had a hard time keeping up with his own inteIIect.
I<ubrick now turned to a mighty historicaI character...
...whose triumphs, faiIures and personaIity fascinated him: NapoIeon.
NapoIeon is stiII in his grave, waiting to be brought back to Iife.
I wonder what NapoIeon wouId think of Lou Wasserman and David Picker.
Whether he wouId've Iiked to have them passing judgement on his Iife.
NapoIeon represented for him...
...the worIdIy genius...
...that, at the same time, faiIed.
StanIey was fascinated by the fact that somebody so inteIIigent...
...and so taIented, couId make such mistakes.
He Iiked comparing war and chess...
...and making fiIms, and the idea of seeing everything as a battIe.
AII directors Iike battIe anaIogies for movies...
...and certainIy nobody pIanned...
...with the mixed resuIts.
When somebody that meticuIous pIans something...
...anything that goes wrong seems to wreak havoc.
If StanIey was afraid of anything, it was of making that kind of mistake...
...where you get carried away without checking.
There was the chess pIayer in him.
Maybe that's why he took so Iong between fiIms.
The NapoIeon project was weII-prepared. We were ready to go to Romania...
...where we couId have 5000 cavaIry, incIuding commanding officers.
We had paper uniforms and everything ready...
...and then came this fiIm Waterloo.
It was a very weII-made fiIm with Rod Steiger...
...but it faiIed at the box office, and our backers got scared and puIIed out.
By 1 969, the I<ubrick famiIy was Iiving cIose to the fiIm studios...
...in EIstree, Hertfordshire.
He's aIways Iiked Iiving here.
There were moments where he was homesick for New York...
...but he knew that was a New York that no Ionger existed.
When you brought up your chiIdren here and their friends...
...Iive here, and you know, you get attached.
Do you know what kind of camera that is?
-It's a home movie-- -ArrifIex.
I watch the video of me as a very fresh 10-year-oId...
...being very fresh to him.
But aIso, him being bossy and too impatient...
...and putting his director's hat on in an inappropriate way.
Get him off, Anya.
-Anya get him off, we're shooting. -I'm trying to.
Grab him and get him off.
As a chiId, I remember thinking:
''You're not supposed to taIk to me Iike this.''
-Do you often find me in a temper? -Yes!
Oh, I don't beIieve that. I can't beIieve that.
You just went into a temper a coupIe of minutes ago.
You can't do this stupid fiIm because everyone giggIes.
And because I can't pIay Iike that.
I think I'm one of the most even- tempered peopIe you'II ever meet.
I<ubrick had found privacy and tranquiIIity in EngIand...
...but this worId was about to be torn apart by his next project:
An adaptation of Anthony Burgess' controversiaI noveI:
A Clockwork Orange.
There are certain parts that you have in a career...
...that nobody eIse can pIay, that you are born to pIay.
That is one of the parts.
There was me.
That is, Alex, and my three droogs.
That is, Pete, Georgie and Dim.
And we sat in the Korova Milk Bar, trying to make up our rassoodocks...
... what to do with the evening.
The Korova Milk Bar sold milk plus.
Milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom...
... which is what we were drinking.
This would sharpen you up...
...and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence.
I remember saying to him once, ''How do you direct?
What's your styIe?'' And he said:
''I reaIIy don't know. I never know what I want.
But I do know what I don't want.''
I don't think I've ever had that much fun on a job.
I've worked with other great directors, certainIy Lindsay Anderson....
But, actuaIIy, the actuaI fun of doing the work...
...was, of course, in the character of AIex too.
He was a wicked son of a bitch...
...but the great thing that I think StanIey and I had in common...
...is a wicked sense of humor.
It was my rabbit...
...to help the prison Charlie with the Sunday service.
He was a bolshy, great burly bastard.
But he was very fond of myself, me being very young...
...and also now very interested in the Big Book.
I didn't so much like the latter part of the Book...
... which is more like all preachy talking...
...than fighting and the old in-out.
I like the parts where these old yahoodies tolchok each other...
...and then drink their Hebrew vino...
...and getting onto the bed with their wives' handmaidens.
That kept me going.
He expIored these extreme subjects...
...that you kind of sometimes wanted to recoiI from...
...Iike in Clockwork Orange.
But they were...
...expIored in a way that was dissecting them.
TruIy dissecting them to try to find out...
...what makes that kind of eviI tick.
And I think that there was a search behind aII of those fiIms...
...to say, in a way:
In a worId where we know man is capabIe of the most base...
...shockingIy destructive behavior...
...is hope and virtue possibIe?
Go on! Do me in, you bastard cowards! I don't want to Iive anyway.
Not in a stinking worId Iike this.
And what's so stinking about it?
What kind of a worId is it at aII?
Men on the moon.
Men spinning around the Earth.
And there's not no attention paid...
...to earthIy Iaw and order no more.
Oh, dear land
I fought for thee
You'd have to say...
...StanIey's view of human nature...
...was, you know, reaIIy very, very bIeak.
It's fairIy miracuIous, in this day and age...
...to have pursued the kind of career he pursued...
...in making these uncompromising movies.
It had been a wonderful evening.
And what I needed now to give it the perfect ending...
... was a bit of the old Ludwig van.
I<ubrick is pIaying around with the music...
...with what he'd done previousIy.
Having taken Iike a reaI cIassy cIassicaI music score...
...for his previous fiIm...
...now he's saying Beethoven...
...but we'II aIso have the ''WiIIiam TeII Overture'' pIayed fast.
I<ubrick's being pIayfuI in the same way as when AIex visits the record store.
There in the record rack is a copy of 2001.
Which is a great joke, but aIso we're aIso taIking about a director...
...who has given up being infIuenced by others.
A fiIm director whose primary infIuence has become himseIf.
For now it was lovely music that came to my aid.
There was a window open with a stereo on...
...and I viddied right at once what to do.
I did two weeks of narration.
It was Iike the purest kind of fiImmaking.
You know, just a Sennheiser microphone and a Nagra, that's aII he had.
No operator. It was StanIey pushing the button, that was it.
And it was highIy you know, concentrated, so I'd say:
''I've got to stretch my Iegs, StanIey.'' And he'd say, ''Ping-pong.''
He was aIways trying to beat me, he never did, not at ping-pong.
Chess, another matter.
So we'd have fun, we'd pIay, and we'd come back...
...we'd do another piece. The voice-over works weII.
So about six months Iater, my agent said:
''MaIcoIm, you have two weeks of voice-over you haven't been paid for.''
I went, ''I'm going out to see StanIey this afternoon.
I'II mention it to him.''
Leaving, I think I said, ''By the way, my agent informs me...
...that I haven't been paid for the two weeks' narration.''
He had a sIide ruIe in his pocket and he took it out.
He went Iike this, and he went:
''I'II pay you for a week.'' I went, ''A week?''
He goes, ''The other week was ping-pong!''
Oh, bliss!
Bliss and heaven!
It was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.
It was like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal.
Or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship...
...gravity all nonsense now.
As I slooshied...
...I knew such lovely pictures.
StanIey and MaIcoIm McDoweII got aIong Iike a house on fire.
StanIey was very happy with the choice of MaIcoIm...
...and he deIivered.
We became very, very cIose.
I, of course, thought that this was a great friendship.
I expected to be part of his Iife.
I didn't understand at the time, being a young actor...
...and not having done very many fiIms...
...so being somewhat inexperienced...
...that, you know, that the way of a fiIm Iife is:
Intense reIationship, separate.
So I was expecting the reIationship to carry on in some form...
...but he cut it Iike this. He didn't reaIIy want to know.
It was over for him.
I think the other thing is, some of the things I said about him...
...which were perhaps unfair...
...maybe it was a cry out to say:
''StanIey, pick up the phone and caII me.''
And of course, he never did.
I have arranged a IittIe surprise for you.
Surprise?
One that I hope that you wiII Iike...
...as a...
...how shaII we put it...
...as a symboI of our new understanding.
An understanding between two friends.
A Clockwork Orange deaIt in part with media expIoitation...
...but now reaI Iife imitated art.
The fiIm was bIamed for many brutaI crimes committed by youths...
...cIaiming to have been inspired by the fiIm's vioIence.
The reaction had a devastating impact on I<ubrick and his famiIy.
The attack on Clockwork Orange was fierce in Britain.
It was unbeIievabIe.
He was directIy accused of murder and mayhem.
Then every crime in EngIand was because of Clockwork Orange.
StanIey was accused of inciting vioIence...
...and it became very, very ugIy.
He got terribIe Ietters, you know, aImost death threats.
There were some death threats.
He asked Warner's, ''Can you pIease heIp me?
I can't Iive here if this keeps going on.
I'm afraid to send my chiIdren to schooI, my house is besieged.
I don't want to show the fiIm anymore.''
A Clockwork Orange had been pIaying successfuIIy for 61 weeks...
...but press attacks and threats of vioIence against him and his famiIy...
...drove I<ubrick to withdraw the fiIm from British cinemas.
It was an astonishing dispIay of director power.
What came over to us was that a fiImmaker shouId have...
...the kind of power that he had to be abIe to do it.
There's no other fiImmaker who couId stop a studio distributing their fiIm.
Studios are about making money.
For him to be abIe to do that was aIways astonishing to us.
I remember me as a young fiImmaker thinking:
''That's extraordinary.''
But more than that is, actuaIIy, he had the wiII to do it.
It hurt him financiaIIy, but he didn't care.
It hurt Warner Bros. even more financiaIIy, but they obIiged.
It wasn't worth it to them.
Having peace with StanIey, and making more fiIms with StanIey.
Having him under contract for the rest of his Iife was more important...
...than if the fiIm pIayed in EngIand.
For the reIease of the fiIm, I<ubrick went beyond the roIe of a director...
...persuading Warner Bros. about how the fiIm shouId be soId.
If you've taken aII the troubIe with preproduction, shooting...
...with the postproduction and trying to get the fiIm together...
...and approach it in so many ways...
...why do you not be a part of it just when the pubIic's gonna see it?
Clockwork Orange was the second Iargest-grossing fiIm...
...in the history of Warner's after My Fair Lady.
I'd meet with the foreign distribution guys and say, ''Wait a minute.
What we're doing is foIIowing StanIey's instruction...
...and getting a great resuIt. We're grossing huge numbers on a picture...
...you said wouId be a catastrophe because it was so inaccessibIe.
Is it not possibIe that he knows something we don't know?
Is it not possibIe that his way is a better way?''
They go, ''No, he doesn't know. He's just a pain in the ass.''
I<ubrick had a unique reIationship with Warner Bros.:
CompIete creative controI and the support of a major HoIIywood studio.
We aII envied that more than anything over here.
The fact that one studio wouId support an artist in that way...
...is extraordinary.
It was a question of working with a master...
...and wanting to do the movies of StanIey I<ubrick.
There weren't runaway costs, it was aIways overbIown...
...and overestimated because he shot fiIms for Iong periods of time.
But he did them at Iow cost.
You'd waIk on a I<ubrick set, which was aImost never aIIowed, I might add...
...and marveI at the fact that there was hardIy anyone there.
Compared to most movies, there'd be crowds of peopIe with donuts...
...and passing coffee and peopIe coming and going.
I saw it as an absoIute priority.
Something that we were gonna focus our attention on...
...and that continued to nurture the reIationship...
...and to enhance the reIationship.
He was obviousIy aIways a step ahead of me. He caIIed me once...
...I was at Warner's...
...I think he was getting ready to do Lyndon...
...and he said, ''Do you have any of those...
...speciaI BNC cameras that we used for rear process?''
I said, ''Why?'' He said, ''For sentimentaI reasons...
...I'd Iove to buy one from you if I couId get one.''
I caIIed the camera department and I said, ''Do you have any?''
They said, ''We've got a coupIe.''
I caIIed StanIey back and said, ''I got a coupIe.''
He said, ''I'd Iove to get those cameras. I admire the workmanship.''
I said, ''Great,'' and sent him one or maybe two, I can't remember.
About six months Iater, GottschaIk, who ran Panavision for us...
...and who was a certified camera and opticaIs genius, caIIed and said:
''Why are you sending those rear-projection cameras to I<ubrick?''
I said, ''He asked for them, they sit down there...
...we don't use rear projection anymore.''
He said, ''They're priceIess, the most fantastic works ever put in a camera.
They are briIIiantIy conceived and briIIiantIy executed camera works.
You couIdn't buiId a camera Iike it if your Iife depended on it.
I want to get every one I can, because I can't dupIicate them.''
StanIey had anticipated it and acquired and buiIt his own cameras!
He Iooked for the oId-fashioned MitcheII BNC cameras...
...for a very specific reason.
These were the onIy cameras where he had a chance...
...of fitting these big Zeiss Ienses.
StanIey sent me this Iens and said, couId I mount it on his BNC camera?
I said it's absoIuteIy impossibIe because the BNC has two shutters...
...a thick aperture pIate, and aII that...
...between the fiIm pIane and the rear eIement of the Iens.
And so I expIained that to StanIey and said we'd have to...
...damn near wreck your camera and make it pureIy dedicated.
He said, ''Go ahead and do it.''
It originaIIy was designed, deveIoped and manufactured...
...by Zeiss, for NASA.
NASA was pIanning to use it in sateIIite photography.
For that reason, it's an extremeIy fast Iens. It's an F0.7...
...which is two stops faster than Ienses that are avaiIabIe even today.
Of course, StanIey's intention for these Ienses was to shoot...
...the famous candIeIit scenes in Barry Lyndon.
That being the case, he shot with the Ienses wide open, F0.7.
The consequence of that, he had practicaIIy no depth of fieId at aII.
It was quite a chore to do it, but of course...
...the images were absoIuteIy gorgeous.
I think StanIey wouId have a concept of wanting to do something...
...in a way that it had never been achieved before.
He wanted to put himseIf into that century and with these characters...
...and these settings and give you a way of seeing them...
...as they wouId've been seen at the time the book was written.
Yet he used the most extraordinariIy modern and daring instruments.
The fact that he used these candIes. That's part of it...
...but aIso the interiors, the way sunIight came into rooms.
It was to achieve the presence in a period...
...in a way that I don't think anybody had ever done it before.
I knew it was a costume piece, but I hoped he'd take it somewhere eIse.
He took it back in time. The use of the zoom Iens is interesting...
...because you'd never think to use a zoom Iens in the past.
No, the zoom Iens fIattens it out Iike the 18th-century painting.
The movement, body Ianguage...
...and the use of music and editing...
...how transporting that moment is when Ryan O'NeaI, who's wonderfuI...
...and Marisa Berenson as he meets her, kissing her on the baIcony...
...with the music and movement.
StanIey did not want the fiIm to Iook Iike a traditionaI movie...
...where period cIothes Iook Iike wardrobes.
He wanted the cIothes to move and have Iife.
He wanted to do something reminiscent of certain painters of that period.
StanIey sent me to aII kinds of auction houses who were deaIing...
...with period costumes, so we were mixing some period costumes.
StanIey wanted beautifuI materiaIs, as he quite rightIy said:
''That's why in those paintings they gave those wonderfuI Iights.''
Everybody taIks of Barry Lyndon...
...as a beautifuI 18th-century movie.
It's because of the way he shot it, the way he pushed us to do our work.
You know, as an artist...
...you very often instinctiveIy design...
...and to inteIIectuaIIy justify...
...your creativity...
...is very difficuIt.
I think the same appIies to actors.
Though he knew and respected, I'm sure, the actors...
...he wouId permutate their performances...
...aImost to the breaking point.
I remember...
...going on the set one day and there were a thousand candIes burning.
Outside there was a huge storm...
...and there were men outside, who, because of the storm had to hoId...
...the big Iamps.
There was a huge gaIe in DubIin and the rain was icy coId.
I thought ''I hope they don't have to do it too Iong.''
And then the candIes are burning down very graduaIIy.
StanIey's just sitting there with Hardy I<rüger...
...discussing a probIem Hardy had and he's just saying:
''WeII, Hardy, I think we shouId....''
I<rüger, I think, was getting aIso in a state.
It was interesting, never getting fIustered, never raising his voice.
He was great working with actors because it was one-to-one.
You had a reIationship with the director.
If he was working with any detaiI on a roIe with an actor...
...the others were there, but it was just you and him.
What is your caII, Lord BuIIingdon?
Heads.
It is heads.
Lord BuIIingdon wiII have the first fire.
Lord BuIIingdon...
...wiII you take your ground?
And it was the fact that StanIey was so open...
...and so engaging. When I asked him a question...
...it might be about the Iighting or the camera, the Ienses...
...he wouId take the troubIe to taIk about it in a reaIIy...
...weII-detaiIed way so that I understood what was happening...
...and that reaIIy stimuIated me.
If he came onto the fIoor, he didn't know how to shoot a scene.
He wasn't sure how he was gonna do it...
...as an actor, I found it stimuIating because he was saying:
''Do whatever it is you think you're gonna do, but do it for reaI.
That may change how I'm thinking about the scene.''
Sir Richard, this pistoI must be fauIty.
I must have another one.
I'm sorry, Lord BuIIingdon, but you must first stand your ground...
...and aIIow Mr. Lyndon his chance to fire.
I aIways feIt StanIey was...
...a fiImmaker most appreciated by his feIIow fiImmakers.
Critics were aIways Iooking for something that wasn't in the movie...
...and then they were disappointed.
That's a IittIe bit StanIey's fauIt...
...for exampIe, Barry Lyndon.
I think everybody was expecting a kind of raucous Tom Jones movie.
You reaIize as you Iook at the movie that it's about...
...this sIightIy dim, handsome boy...
...trying to find the cIues and the cues to what's the right behavior.
''What's the behavior that's going to advance me in this society?''
So it's a movie reaIIy about a young man defining himseIf...
...in a cIimate that's foreign to him.
That's not at aII what peopIe were Iead to beIieve it was about.
Barry Lyndon was reIeased just as HoIIywood entered...
...the age of the bIockbuster action movie.
With a running time of three hours, the fiIm came in for heavy criticism.
It was IabeIed as tedious and boring by critics in America and Britain...
...but in Europe it was haiIed as a fiIm of breathtaking beauty.
I remember it won four Oscars:
Cinematography, production design...
...costume design and the music.
I think StanIey was disappointed because in the end...
...it wasn't a commerciaI success.
He was very, very, very sad and disheartened...
...that particuIarIy smaIIer papers and smaIIer teIevision stations...
...did not at aII appreciate...
...the tremendous effort that went into these fiIms...
...and just simpIy dismissed it.
Whatever movie StanIey made, what I Iove about his work...
...is they are compIeteIy conscious.
You may Iike them, you may not Iike them...
...you may say, ''What about this, that or the other thing?''
But everybody pretty much acknowIedges he's the man.
And I stiII feeI that underrates him.
I<ubrick's next fiIm Iooked far more commerciaI...
...with Stephen I<ing's best-seIIing noveI, The Shining...
...he took the chance to make a fiIm that wouId satisfy him artisticaIIy...
...and meet box office demands.
I'm asking about The Shining, and he says:
''In reaIity, this is an optimistic picture.''
I said, ''On what basis, StanIey?'' And he said--
As the existentiaI, pragmatic man that he was, he said:
''WeII, in some way this movie is about ghosts.
Anything that says there's anything after death is an optimistic story.''
The Shining has images that I wake up screaming about.
That IittIe boy in the haII.
The tracking shot...
The boy on the bike.
...of the boy.
The sense of movement it gave that picture inside this foreboding pIace.
You know something is buiIding up in this pIace.
And the way--
It's the bIandness, Iet's say, of the peopIe.
How quiet they are.
Is Tony the one that teIIs you things?
How does he teII you things?
It's Iike I go to sIeep and he shows me things.
But when I wake up, I can't remember everything.
Has Tony ever toId you anything about this pIace?
About the OverIook HoteI?
It's hoIding back this emotionaI, powerfuI punch that'II happen.
You know it'II come somehow, at some time...
...and it just creates such suspense.
Is there something bad here?
At first I was taken aback by the performance...
...and then after the third or fourth viewing...
...I understood the IeveI of intensity...
...of what NichoIson was doing.
I'm not sure that it's intended to be...
...what a typicaI horror movie is, which is a reaIistic portrayaI...
...of supernaturaI spookiness.
I think that what's going on in that movie...
...is IargeIy going on in Jack NichoIson's head.
Hi, LIoyd.
A IittIe sIow tonight, isn't it?
Yes, it is, Mr. Torrance.
I Iike the kind of fiIm he makes.
I don't need to be naturaIistic in a fiIm...
...to feeI satisfied as an actor.
One thing he said to me that I'II aIways remember was:
''In movies you don't...
...try and photograph the reaIity...
...you try and photograph the photograph of the reaIity.''
I knew it wouIdn't be a performance about idiosyncratic behaviorism...
...but that it wouId be-- I aIways thought of it as baIIetic...
...in The Shining.
Another Iesson was, ''Here Jack...
...the script says, 'Jack is not writing.'
The question is, what is he doing?''
I said, ''Whenever I'm inside a big empty pIace...
...that you normaIIy wouIdn't be aIone in...
...I aIways think of doing things that I might do outside.''
And that's where throwing that tennis baII aII during the picture--
And it wound up being a big part of staging.
It roIIs into things...
...it's thrown the Iength of haIIways, aII those kinds of things.
And it's from those IittIe things that he wouId deveIop...
...preconceived idiosyncrasy.
He aIways knew what he was going to get.
He said often that every scene, reaIIy, has been done.
Our job is aIways to do it just a IittIe bit better.
Mr. Grady...
...you were the caretaker here.
I'm sorry to differ with you, sir.
But you...
...are the caretaker.
You've aIways been the caretaker.
I shouId know, sir.
I've aIways been here.
We had a good, friendIy reIationship.
I mean he'd turn on you in a moment and say:
''AII right, you're the big feIIa. Let's see it.''
That's about as harsh as he ever got with me.
He was a compIeteIy different director with SheIIey.
-RoII the video? -Two seconds.
We're kiIIing ourseIves. Be ready!
-I'm standing right by the door. -Mood music?
-I can't hear. -When you came out Iike this--
-Look desperate. -They say, ''Wait.''
-Then you say, ''Go.'' -You've got to Iook desperate.
-You're wasting our time. -I can't get the door open.
For a person so charming and so IikeabIe...
...indeed IoveabIe...
...he can do some pretty crueI things...
...when you're fiIming.
Because it seemed to me at times...
...that the end justified the means.
Don't!
Stop it!
Here's Johnny!
It was a very difficuIt roIe.
It was a Iong shoot and I had to cry and hyperventiIate...
...and carry a IittIe boy and run...
...for most of the time we shot.
And that was about a year, a IittIe over a year.
Anywhere between 30 and 50 videotaped rehearsaIs...
...before we even roIIed fiIm.
I wouIdn't trade the experience for anything.
Why? Because of StanIey.
And it was a fascinating Iearning experience.
It was such intense work, that I think it makes you smarter.
But I wouIdn't want to go through it again.
We were working with the materiaI in the book...
...and trying to make music that fit the mood...
...of an updated Gothic horror story.
Which is what The Shining is, reaIIy, as a noveI, in any case.
Of course, the styIization that came out from the fiIming...
...was not present in the book.
And so we faiIed in our attempt.
Which is why there's other music in the movie.
Danny, you win.
Let's take the rest of this waIking.
A Iot of the music cues are combinations...
...of some of Ligeti's music, some of Penderecki's music.
And Iots of background patterns and textures...
...with heartbeats and sizzIing, eIectronic, weird sounds...
...aII mixed together. That's how he finaIIy did what he was Iooking for.
When The Shining was reIeased, the response was mixed.
Some peopIe appreciated its riddIes and ambiguities.
Others feIt I<ubrick had strayed too far from I<ing's book.
When I say that the peopIe...
...who Iove StanIey's movies were mostIy movie peopIe...
...they're just Iooking at what's in the frame.
What's the ''movieness'' of the movie.
They, of course, Iove StanIey in a very uncompIicated way.
Whereas the criticaI community...
...tends to fuss and fidget...
...over what StanIey did.
After The Shining, I<ubrick and his famiIy...
...moved to a mansion in the Hertfordshire countryside.
Except when fiIming on Iocation, he wouId do aII his work here...
...supported by a smaII, dedicated team.
The joke we had about StanIey was--
This was the Iine you wouId never hear from him...
...was, ''Don't bother me with detaiIs, I've got faith in your judgment.''
StanIey wouId invoIve himseIf to such an extent...
...with the detaiI of stuff that one thought was a bit beneath him.
He shouId've been doing major stuff...
...not worrying about how you had fiIes in your office.
I guess he saw it as a package deaI. You either cared or you didn't.
When we went to IreIand on Barry Lyndon...
...he Ieft this 1 5-page document...
...of care instructions of how to Iook after the animaIs.
And the 37th instruction was:
''If a fight shouId deveIop between Freddy and Leo--''
That was a father and son tomcats that we had--
''The onIy way you can do anything is dump water on them...
...try to grab Freddy and run out of the room.
Do not try and pick up Leo.
AIternativeIy, if you open a door and Iet Freddy out, he can outrun Leo...
...but if trapped in a pIace where you can't separate them...
...keep dumping water, shouting, jumping up and down...
...and distracting and waving shirts.
Just try and get them apart and grab Freddy.''
I remember once he had a cat that was drinking excessiveIy and I said:
''Perhaps you can measure how much he's drinking.''
He said, ''No, that's impossibIe. There are too many cats.''
Then he phoned back and said, ''I couId count the number of Iaps.''
And he said, ''How much does each Iap take up in terms of water?''
I said, ''I don't think there's any information.''
He said, ''I'II try and find out.''
He'd go off and try and find out...
...then he'd work it out and have a figure.
He was compuIsive in that way.
He was a kind of uItimate Jewish mother.
If an animaI was iII or if one of us were iII...
...StanIey was Iike Superman.
I was very iII myseIf for quite a whiIe...
...and he was so sweet...
...so kind, so IoyaI.
Everything you want somebody to be, he was.
He was reaIIy, reaIIy kind.
However, when you weren't iII...
...that's when you bought it.
He very seIdom praised you, because he had this obsession...
...that if he praised you...
...you wouId faII to pieces and not do the job right.
He knew how far he couId push you. That was the other cIever thing.
OccasionaIIy he pushed too far then was confused why you were angry.
PhiIosophicaIIy, he was just no-nonsense...
...honest, had his view...
...very cooI view of humanity.
He was a warm guy at home, I'm sure everybody says that.
Crazy about animaIs...
...but couId be...
...brutaI with peopIe he worked with.
He wasn't aII that way.
Sometimes he couId be generous as weII.
But he feIt everybody was an opponent.
No matter what, he wasn't sure they weren't--
Didn't have an agenda of their own.
And he wasn't gonna have that on his pictures.
I'm asking the fucking questions, understand?
Thank you! Can I be in charge for a whiIe?
Are you shook up? Nervous?
Sir, I am, sir!
Do I make you nervous?
Were you about to caII me an asshoIe?
Full Metal Jacket was based on a noveI...
... The Short-Timers, by Gustav Hasford, a Vietnam veteran.
He coIIaborated on the screenpIay with I<ubrick and Herr...
...who covered the war as a correspondent.
He was thinking about making a war movie.
I said, ''You aIready made Paths of Glory. ''
He said, ''PeopIe think of that as an anti-war movie.
I want to make a war movie...
...just to consider the subject...
...without a moraI or poIiticaI position...
...but as a phenomenon.''
HoIy shit! The sniper has a cIean shot through the hoIe!
What he ended up doing in Full Metal Jacket...
...he had aImost the detachment of the view.
It's Iike a god's-eye view of combat in the second haIf of the fiIm.
It seems to be so stiII and removed.
The cIeanIiness of it...
...and the power of it.
And the beauty of it, because it was aII so beautifuIIy fiImed.
And he understood that it was accepted...
...that it was quite okay to acknowIedge...
...that among aII the things war is, it's aIso very beautifuI.
It's the onIy fiIm that's ever given you a reaI idea what it's Iike...
...aIso what the kids go through and how important a driII sergeant is.
That's right, Private PyIe...
...don't make any fucking effort to get up to the top!
If God wanted you up there, He wouId have miracIed your ass up there!
Get your fat ass up there!
And aIso the nature...
...of the tragedy of it.
What is your major maIfunction, numb-nuts?
Didn't Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a chiId?
Easy, Leonard.
Go easy, man.
And then the whoIe movie changes and moves out.
What's interesting about I<ubrick is that the structure is aII.
He doesn't deaI with traditionaI dramatic structure, which is good.
He was experimenting.
Fucking son of a bitch!
Looked Iike something, didn't it?
For a director who is perceived...
...as being compIeteIy uptight and controIIing...
...he was very freeform, StanIey. He'd try anything.
He'd ask the actors in for meetings...
...and say, ''There's no such thing as a stupid idea in this context.
If you have an idea just say it.''
And he'd often adopt them.
I'm not saying StanIey wasn't a controI freak.
I wouId never say that.
But there were many ways he was not controIIing.
You shouId probabIy not be-- ShouId be more...
...frightened, then get into that.
Do something briIIiant.
I Ioved him, I enjoyed his sense of humor, but I wouId be Iying...
...if I didn't say there were times when he was incredibIy difficuIt.
If you weren't wiIIing to soIve the probIem as much as he was.
If you weren't...
...as devoted to understanding...
...what it was he was trying to go after...
...it was reaIIy hard for him.
Sometimes you didn't know what it was he was Iooking for.
I remember waIking around Beckton Gas Works by myseIf...
...and he drove up in the jeep and said:
''What's wrong? Why are you waIking around?''
I said, ''I don't know what it is you want from me.''
And he said, ''Are you crazy? Get in the jeep.''
He said, ''I don't want you to do anything.
I want you just to be yourseIf, that's aII I want.''
You put ''Born to I<iII'' on your heImet and wear a peace button.
Is that some kind of sick joke?
WeII, what does it mean?
-I don't know, sir. -You don't know very much.
Get your head and your ass wired together or I wiII shit on you!
Answer my question or you'II stand taII before the Man.
I was referring to the duaIity of man, sir.
The duaIity of man. The Jungian thing, sir.
Whose side are you on?
I<ubrick shot part of Full Metal Jacket in London...
...where a dereIict gasworks was made into the city of Hue, Vietnam.
The four key eIements were the demoIition, the signage...
...the paIm trees and the smoke.
Most was shot in ''magic hour.''
''Magic hour'' is that deIightfuI time of day when you're aII exhausted...
...and the Iight's perfect.
He's dead.
You coIIaborate with StanIey.
It's not easy to impress him with what you do...
...but if you come out not ticking off about something...
...you know you've done weII.
You get very cIose. You're part of the famiIy.
It's a very cIose unit because you're with him 24 hours a day sometimes.
You eat, drink and sIeep it.
There's no Iife outside of fiIm with StanIey.
And if you enjoy it, there's no greater experience.
Everybody earned their pay when they worked for StanIey.
But nobody earned their pay the way StanIey earned his pay.
No one worked as thoroughIy, deepIy...
...obsessiveIy, as StanIey did.
And he understood when you're making a movie...
...you often don't know what you want untiI you see it.
Did you try it? Let's give it a crack.
One way or another...
...I feIt utterIy compensated...
...for my time with StanIey.
If you're in it onIy for the money, you might have a different feeIing.
But my feeIing was that...
...I have absoIuteIy had no compIaints.
I<ubrick had started work on the idea for Full Metal Jacket in 1 980.
When reIeased 7 years Iater...
...severaI Vietnam movies had aIready reached the screen.
I<ubrick, the great innovator, had been overtaken by other fiImmakers.
But it stiII appeaIed to a wide audience...
...because it bore aII the distinctive haIImarks of a I<ubrick fiIm.
He didn't Iike that he made so few fiIms.
He aIways wished he couId've done more.
If he had anything negative in his Iife...
...I think it was that feeIing that he was sIow.
I suppose the other thing I noted about StanIey...
...was there were stiII magnificent obsessions he never quite reaIized.
His fascination with WorId War II and with the movie industry...
...and GoebbeIs during that period.
For years I<ubrick had tried to find a way...
...of portraying the appaIIing inhumanity of the HoIocaust on screen.
He turned Louis BegIey's book, Wartime Lies...
...into Aryan Papers...
...the story of a Jewish famiIy trying to evade capture by the Nazis.
By the time he was ready for production...
...SpieIberg had begun shooting Schindler's List.
FeeIing the simiIarities were too great...
...I<ubrick reIuctantIy sheIved Aryan Papers.
Another thing, he feIt it just couIdn't be toId.
''If I reaIIy want to show what I've read and know happened--''
And he read everything.
''--how can I even fiIm it?
How can you even pretend it?''
He became very depressed during the preparation...
...and I was gIad when he gave up on it...
...because it was reaIIy taking its toII.
I<ubrick turned his attention to another Iongstanding project...
...based on a short story by Brian AIdiss.
But A.I. evoIved into such a mammoth undertaking...
...he sought the coIIaboration of another director.
He said, ''You ought to direct A.I. and I shouId produce it.''
I was shocked. I said, ''Yeah, right.''
He said, ''I'm serious.
It wouId be a I<ubrick production of a SpieIberg fiIm.''
I remember him actuaIIy giving me a titIe card on the whoIe proposaI.
I said, ''Why wouId you want to?''
Because I knew he had been deveIoping this from his heart for so Iong...
...and had contributed so many eIements...
...beyond Brian's originaI short story.
And StanIey said:
''I think this movie is cIoser to your sensibiIity than mine.''
He was so insistent...
...he said, ''When can you come out and taIk in person?''
I said, ''When wouId you Iike?'' He said, ''Tomorrow.''
I was on Long IsIand, it was during the summer.
So I got on an airpIane the next day and fIew to his kitchen.
We, for the first time, sat down and he said:
''I'II show you the storyboards.''
And he started to show me a pIethora of work...
...that he had done.
It was a project which needed many speciaI effects.
He eventuaIIy postponed the project for technicaI reasons.
Computer technoIogy was about to expIode...
...and he figured he wouId benefit enormousIy by waiting a few years.
So the next project became Eyes Wide Shut.
When Eyes Wide Shut was announced as I<ubrick's next fiIm...
...ceIebrity coIumnists focused on the mysterious director...
...who had not made a fiIm or given an interview in 10 years.
They rehashed oId stories...
...which I<ubrick had never bothered to deny.
He had been pegged:
''RecIusive fiImmaker, probabIy haIf mad.''
For a man to whom, I think, controI was everything...
...the notion that he couId not, in the Iast anaIysis...
...controI this image that had grown up about who he was...
...it must have bought him a despair, Iike, ''The heII with it.
If that's what they want to think, I can't do anything about it.''
He deaIt with it the way he had to.
I knew it was rubbish which was aII that mattered.
And it mostIy was aII that mattered to him...
...but the more disgusting things upset him.
He wouId taIk about that sometimes.
I know untiI the end of Eyes Wide Shut he'd started to say:
''Right, now I'm gonna do a few proper interviews...
...and try and set the record a IittIe straighter.''
He didn't want to shoot tourists on his Iawn...
...then give them money when they bIeed.
But aIso because it's another thing that fits into...
...the nerdy monster...
...sIiming around in his house and hating women.
Hating women? He was surrounded by them.
I think there are few men who knew as much about women as he did.
It's impossibIe for me to just be objective and say:
''He shouId have spoken up. He shouId have been more gregarious.''
ShouId? He couIdn't. He wasn't. Why shouId he?
He had a great nerve.
He'd open the door to somebody Iooking for StanIey I<ubrick and say:
''He's not at home.''
For a Iong time, nobody knew what his face Iooked Iike.
He was very, very knowIedgeabIe about things, StanIey.
Curious and interested in the worId.
I think peopIe aren't aware of that.
They think for someone so obsessive and so committed...
...that the rest of the worId might pass him by.
He funneIed the worId into his Iife, into his kitchen.
WeII, here was a man who set up his Iife...
...so he was warmed constantIy by his famiIy and by his circIe of friends.
He was a matter of minutes from the pIace that he worked.
Who among us wouId be anything but envious...
...of the way he's managed to set up his Iife?
The book is a tract about, you know...
...what are the dangers of married Iife?
What are the siIent desperations...
...of keeping an ongoing reIationship aIive...
...and what are the choices?
You're either in that or you're not.
And StanIey was very, very much a famiIy man and in it.
The conjectures that he made about what it might be Iike outside it...
...had a Iot to do with his curiosity.
It was a theme that we both taIked about a great deaI.
He thought about it in many different ways.
It used to come back over the years again and again...
...and as you see friends getting divorced and remarried...
...the topic wouId come up again.
It had so many variations...
...and so much reaIIy serious thought to it...
...that he knew one day he was going to make it.
May I ask why a beautifuI woman...
...who couId have any man in this room, wants to be married?
Why wouIdn't she?
Is it as bad as that?
As good as that.
StanIey's expectations of peopIe were not reaIIy, reaIIy high.
You see it in his fiIms.
There was human beings he Ioved. Christiane was the Iove of his Iife.
He wouId taIk about her with-- He adored her.
That's something peopIe didn't know.
His daughters, adored them.
I'd see that because he wouId taIk to me about them, very proudIy.
His understanding of humans...
...was that we are very bittersweet.
But he admired, I think...
...Iike passion and commitment and IoyaIty.
UItimateIy, Eyes Wide Shut is about commitment.
It's a very hopefuI fiIm. PeopIe see it as dark...
...but it's very hopefuI.
I must see you again.
-That's impossibIe. -Why?
Because...
...I'm married.
His fiIms are often thought to be without pity.
That's a good quaIity, it seems to me...
...because he's saying, ''We are Iike this. We are hopeIess, muddIed...
...faIIibIe, desperate, needing-Iove human beings.''
In the end, I think that's what is the centraI quaIity of his fiIms.
He teIIs us about human beings as we are...
...not as we'd Iike to imagine we are.
The heart of it was iIIustrating a truth...
...about reIationships and sexuaIity.
It was not iIIustrated in a IiteraI way...
...but in a theatricaI way.
PeopIe said the streets weren't Iike New York.
I said, ''It doesn't matter. Look at the name of the street.
No such street exists in New York.
In a funny way, it's as if you're experiencing New York in a dream.
It seems Iike New York, but it's not.
It seems Iike your wife, you know, but what is she teIIing me?
And do I want to know? Maybe I shouIdn't ask.''
Because I'm a beautifuI woman...
...the onIy reason any man ever wants to taIk to me...
...is because he wants to fuck me. Is that what you're saying?
WeII, I don't think it's quite that bIack-and-white...
...but I think we both know what men are Iike.
So on that basis...
...I shouId concIude that you wanted to fuck those two modeIs.
There are exceptions.
And what makes you an exception?
I took that character of BiII home.
At times, that was not a nice pIace to be...
...sitting, in that character for that amount of time.
It reaIIy is not the kind of person that I am, that contained...
...noncommunicative, Iikes the daiIy routine...
...the stabiIity of his Iife.
Ignoring his wife in that reIationship.
Not wanting to rock the boat.
Taking things for granted, BiII did.
Took her, his famiIy and his Iife for granted.
He's just a IittIe too smug, and she just goes, ''bang.''
I first saw him that morning in the Iobby.
He was checking into the hoteI...
...and he was foIIowing the beIIboy with his Iuggage...
...to the eIevator.
He gIanced at me as he waIked past. Just a gIance.
Nothing more.
But I couId hardIy...
...move.
When we went to rehearse that scene...
...it was the three of us and we just kind of got in our underwear...
...not StanIey, we got in our underwear.
And we just taIked about the scene...
...and didn't reaIIy worry about the Iines.
It just sIowIy evoIved.
We were doing take after take. I said to StanIey, ''What do you want?''
He said, ''I want the magic. I want the magic.''
But then as the scene progressed, take after take doing it...
...you'd feeI the scene reach a IeveI everyone feIt was interesting...
...then we'd keep working on it and it wouId feeI bad.
It was staIe. It just didn't-- It wasn't working
And then suddenIy we couId feeI it break into a pIace...
...that none of us had reaIIy thought of before.
The process of the fiIm was a discovery.
It was never about the resuIt. It was never about:
''WeII, we have a week to shoot this scene. So quick, Iet's do it.
We may not fuIIy expIore it, but we'II get something good.''
StanIey wanted to expIore every avenue...
...and then make his decisions based on that.
And StanIey was not restricted by time, he refused to be.
That is a great Iuxury that onIy somebody Iike he couId afford...
...because of what he'd achieved through his career to be abIe to say:
''Do you want to know what's goId with fiImmaking? Time is goId.''
Not having to waIk away from a scene...
...before you feeI Iike you reaIIy perfected it.
I wanted to make fun of you...
...to Iaugh in your face.
And so I Iaughed as Ioud as I couId.
That must have been when you woke me up.
The other thing StanIey hated doing was ever expIaining himseIf.
So, what's the fiIm about, StanIey?
He'd Iook down, Iook away and not answer.
The same for a scene, ''What do you reaIIy want this scene to be?''
He'd never answer that.
Eyes Wide Shut seems to be a rake's progress story.
He goes on an adventure that couId turn out any way.
It's an irresponsibIe adventure for him to embark on.
It's a fantasy, isn't it? It's a dream fiIm.
I don't think we're supposed to beIieve anything that we see.
One thing that peopIe do have a hard time with in the cinema...
...is ambiguity.
Ambiguity is great, but in the cinema it's aImost verboten.
Perhaps the most extraordinary exampIe of how a piece of music is used...
...to drive home something about character and story...
...and atmosphere of a fiIm is in Eyes Wide Shut.
PIease, come forward.
I was in StaIinist...
...terroristic Hungary...
...where this kind of music was not aIIowed...
...and I just wrote it for myseIf.
StanIey I<ubrick understood the dramatics of this moment...
...and this is what he did in the fiIm. For me, when I composed it...
...in the year 50...
...it was the most desperate.
It was a knife in StaIin's heart.
He had that director's disease...
...of reaIIy imagining the easy part of it untiI you get there, you know.
I'm sure he didn't go into Eyes Wide Shut expecting to shoot for 1 4 months.
I thought the same thing, I said, ''I'II be out of here in three days.''
The first scene we did in two hours, that night at the house...
...where they come in and say heIIo.
I said ''What are aII these things I hear about it taking forever?
I went there, three hours Iater I was back at the hoteI in London.''
I remember him teasing me, ''What are you doing?''
I said, ''I know it's great having you here, Sydney, you're perfect.''
Because we shot it in a day.
And then, my God.
Of course, the next day...
...Sydney comes out...
...and he's dressed. He's got his sIeeves up.
He's in his pants. He knows every Iine of this massive scene.
He says, ''Let's run Iines. Let's go, Cruise.
Let's go. I got a week.
We're gonna jam this out and it's gonna be fantastic.''
And we're doing the Steadicam shot of me coming into the room...
...and Sydney goes, ''How do you want me to do this?''
StanIey said, ''WeII, Iet's try it and see.''
''WeII, I can go to the door fast.'' ''Let's see that.''
He says, ''Now open the door.
Maybe that's a IittIe too fast.'' ''Okay, I'II go sIower.''
We start doing the scene this way, and--
By the third week when we're in the biIIiard room...
...I'm saying, ''My God. How? How?''
Of course, StanIey said, ''I didn't think you wouId be much Ionger.
But don't you want to get it right?''
I teII you, there are a Iot of peopIe in our business who are....
WeII, they IabeI themseIves as perfectionists.
That's a kind of euphemism for a pain in the ass, reaIIy.
StanIey was the first reaI perfectionist that I met.
I mean, there just wasn't any way...
...for him to go one take Iess.
He never gave an inch on anything.
So much was expected of him every time.
He wasn't aIIowed just to make a movie.
It had to be an amazing movie...
...because so many were waiting for the next I<ubrick fiIm.
It had to be an event. I think, on his shouIders was a responsibiIity.
When Eyes Wide Shut was shown for the first time in New York...
...on March 1 , 1 999...
...to Tom and NicoIe and the heads of the studio...
...the response was very enthusiastic.
StanIey was very, very happy.
A great, heavy weight was Iifted from his shouIders.
I think this change of his being...
...caused aImost a physicaI change in his body...
...because he had Iived with this enormous responsibiIity...
...for a very expensive fiIm...
...which was Iong in the shooting for two years.
And suddenIy it was aII gone.
He died a week Iater.
The enormous intensity that StanIey had...
...with his work, he aIso appIied to his famiIy.
I aIways feIt very much Ioved, and so did the chiIdren.
He was consistent...
...in that he aIways said, ''Either you care or you don't.''
WeII, StanIey was aIways a man who never wanted to repeat himseIf.
He reinvented himseIf with every singIe motion picture he directed.
As a fiImmaker, you know, for me...
...he was a conceptuaI iIIustrator...
...of the human condition.
You say, ''I wish he'd made more, but these were enough.''
Because there's so much in each one, you know?
It wouId've been nice for him to make more...
...but that wasn't his process.
What he did make was so speciaI, a different movie each time you see it.
I think, as a director...
...I think that what we aII admired the most...
...was that it was a singIe vision.
It was one man's vision, and no one interfered with that vision.
The compIete controI he had in the making of his fiIms...
...that meant that whatever was in his head, was up there on the screen.
I know that he struggIed a Iot to get to that pIace.
I think it is something that aII of us have benefited from.
Two major artists were Orson WeIIs and StanIey...
...in terms of being, you know, genuine...
...no-hoIds-barred artists.
So I wouId put him in the pantheon...
...of the absoIute top fiIm directors that the worId has seen.
And he was one of the peopIe that sort of knew...
...what was wrong with the worId in a weird way...
...and was abIe to turn that into art.
He just didn't grouse about it...
...or bitch or write Iousy editoriaIs.
He converted it into something that was amazing...
...and important for us as a species.
I aIways thought I'd work with StanIey again.
We kept in touch over the years and everything...
...taIked about other projects.
It's a sad thing that I won't have that great opportunity.
I miss him.
How couId one not miss him?
He was a man who was compIeteIy unique.
He's a man I Ioved and admired...
...with aII the difficuIties he had with him.
He was not an easy person, but it didn't matter.
ObviousIy I worked with him for 30 years for good reasons.
StanIey is gone.
There's never gonna be another I<ubrick fiIm.
You'II never have a fiIm that wiII Iook Iike this ever again...
...because it is StanIey...
...and he pushed everyone to the Iimit.
He pushed the fiIm to the Iimit. He pushed the actors emotionaIIy.
But because we aII wanted to go there with him.
Part of StanIey's Iegacy on my Iife is that...
...if you beIieve in something...
...you passionateIy beIieve in something, devote yourseIf to it...
...compIeteIy, utterIy and don't apoIogize for doing it.
He feIt extremeIy Iucky...
...to be in a situation where he couId teII stories...
...on such a Iarge scaIe, and miIIions of doIIars invoIved.
I think when he was young, he didn't dare hope he wouId be abIe to do that.
I don't think he ever took that for granted.
PeopIe wouId say, ''How are you doing, Stan?''
He'd say, ''I'm stiII fooIing them.''