Stanley Kubrick biography part 2: The 1960s. (Stanley Kubrick bio part 1, Stanley Kubrick bio part 3)

With Kubrick unable to progress his projects, lady luck stepped in to help him along. In 1959 Kirk Douglas was the producer and prospective star of Spartacus, when, only two weeks into production, the director Anthony Mann was fired. Douglas offered Kubrick the gig of director and Kubrick accepted.

Spartacus was based on the novel by Howard Fast about the life of the rebellious slave Spartacus, who defies the Roman Army and puts together an army of slaves who go out to defeat smaller regiments on the Roman army. What follows is an out and out historical epic, packed with memorable scenes, lots of battles and a superb no expense spared cast (Douglas, Olivier, Laughton, Ustinov). The film was Kubrick's first real commercial success with a public that had already lapped up the epic Ben-Hur the previous year. It was a massive critical success too, garnering six oscar nominations (winning four of them). Kubrick though would later distance himself from the film. The production had not been a hugely happy experience with Kubrick and Douglas at constant loggerheads over the detail and direction of the film. From the end result it seems like the weight of Douglas won that particular battle (it's striving epic proportions seem more a result of Douglas quest for a rival to Ben-Hur rather than Kubrick's wish for some real truth and 'bite' for the story). Kubrick would go on to undoubtedly win the war.

Stanley Kubrick's discomfort with the Hollywood system, funding problems, and his lack of control over the necessary finer points of his own films would see him leave America for England, and would usher in the start of a run of films that would see Stanley Kubrick elevated to the realms of undisputed cinematic genius.

Stanley Kubrick was disillusioned with his taste of Hollywood movie making. His work on Spartacus had been a constant compromise with its star Kirk Douglas, leading Kubrick to feel that the film was a pale shadow of what it mght have been under his own control. Having optioned the rights to Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel Lolita, Kubrick moved to England in an attempt to gain the necessary funding and desired independence to make the film and avoid potential censorship issues that would inevitably ensue had the film been made in the States.

Lolita (1962) would be Kubrick's first movie made in his new home of England, and it was shot between November 1960 and May 1961. After some reluctance he persuaded Nabokov to write and adapted screenplay of his novel. As ever with Kubrick things are never that easy, and Nabokov went through various drafts, before eventually Kubrick took over and shaped the adaptation to fit his own vision of the movie. Just to upset Kubrick further he had to compromise on elements of the story in order that the film would be permissible by the board of censors. The story itself surrounds Humbert Humbert a middle aged professor (played brilliantly by James Mason) who becomes besotted with a sexually precocious 14 year old girl named Lolita, so besotted that he marries Lolita's mother Charlotte (wonderfully played by Shelley Winters) in order to be close to Lolita. When Charlotte suddenly discovers the truth of Humbert's motives, she is overcome by shock and runs out of the house only to be run over and killed by a car. Humbert picks up Lolita to tell her that Charlotte is ill in hospital and that he must look after her now. The two then commence a love affair. As Humbert and Lolita continue the affair, Humbert becomes paranoid, controlling and jealous and feels Lolita is slipping through his grasp. In the background a strange multi-disguised character Mr Quilty (played by the strange multi personality Peter Sellers - obviously preparing the way for his role in Dr Strangelove) is there to upset things even further. One of the opening lines in the film is "I am Spartacus", one of many self-referencing moments occurring in Stanley Kubrick films that, like most everything else, he was reluctant to talk about. Despite the films controversial subject ('cleverly' played up in the promotional campaign for the film) Lolita was very well received, winning nominations from both the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and BAFTA.

Buoyed by the success of Lolita, Stanley Kubrick set out to make his political / nuclear war satire Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Kubrick managed to obtain funding to make the film on the condition that Peter Sellers be given four main roles in the film (the studio being convinced that much of Lolita's success was due to Seller's multi-personality performance given in the film - all of which would have stoked further Seller's already out of control ego). In the end due to Seller's breaking his foot he only took three of the lead roles. The film was again made in England, this time a result of Peter Sellers being required to stay in the country because of his impending divorce. The film itself is a fine comedy satire surrounding an attempted unilateral nuclear attack on the USSR by a delusional US Air Force commander, and the ridiculous efforts of both sides and their allies to prevent the attack happening. Dr Strangelove is both a brilliant and a brilliantly funny film. Sellers is undeniably excellent in this film as is George C. Scott. Such is the films enduring impact on cinema, many of the scenes are now well known even to the few people who have not actaully seen the film (Slim Pickens riding the warhead like a bucking bronco and Dr Strangelove unable to control his arm that is wanting to give a nazi salute). The film was a huge success and it received four academy award nominations (Sellers for actor, plus screenplay, director and picture), though they lost out on all awards -three to the woeful My Fair Lady. With the success of Dr Strangelove Kubrick had convinced the studios that he was in fact a true autuer of cinema who could be trusted with complete artistic control of the films, and this paved the way for his next film -the epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With his hard fought total creative control finally in place, Stanley Kubrick decided to make a sci-fi epic. Taking his inspiration from the Arthur C. Clarke short story The Sentinel, Kubrick and Clarke set about simultaneously writing the screenplay and novel respectively in late 1965, that would become 2001: A Space Odyssey. Filming began in early 1966, and due to its complexity editing wasn't started until March 1968. Over budget and 16 months late, the film was released to a very mixed reception in April 1968. The story (and to be honest there isn't much of one) concerns evolution from the time of the apes onto 2001 when space travelers are heading towards Jupiter to find an answer to the next stage of evolution, guided of course by their 'faithful' onboard super computer Hal 9000. 2001: ASO was a very different type of movie - deliberately enigmatic, slow to develop, mysterious, beautiful and sparse (the first line of dialogue is almost 30 minutes into the film). It has since that time continued to split audiences, those who love it and those who hate it, those who think they know what it means (with thousands of different interpretations) and those who have no idea. What is undeniable is that 2001 is an amazing piece of work, beautifully shot by cinematographer Geoffrey Unworthy, with some amazing special effects and beautifully scored (its pioneering use of classical music integral to the film - most notably the Blue Danube Waltz segment). The film is a vindication of Kubrick's wish for total creative control (he was director, producer, writer as well as being hugely involved with the special effects used). The film won Kubrick his first and only Oscar win for the film's special effects, and also nominations for best director and screenplay.

Kubrick's next planned project was a film about Napoleon which reached advanced stages before the studio's dropped it due to the costs involved and the losses that similar films (Waterloo et al) had recently made.

continued in Stanley Kubrick - a biography (part 3)