I love you, Stan.

Posts : 55 Join date : 2007-08-26

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Quote :: 26/ What films/filmmakers impressed Kubrick
"There are very few directors, about whom you'd say you automatically have to see everything they do. I'd put Fellini, Bergman and David Lean at the head of my first list, and Truffaut at the head of the next level."

Stanley Kubrick (1966)

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"He watched The Godfather again [...] and was reluctantly suggesting for the 10th time that it was possibly the greatest movie ever made and certainly the best cast"

Michael Herr (1999) writing in Vanity Fair.

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In 1963 he was asked by the US publication Cinema to compile a list of his favourite films They were:

1. I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini, 1953),
2. Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1958),
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941),
4. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948),
5. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931),
6. Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1945),
7. La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961),
8. The Bank Dick (W.C. Fields, 1940),
9. Roxie Hart (William Wellman, 1942),
10. Hell's Angels (Howard Hughes, 1930).

Q: Have the works of certain directors, or pictures, been milestones for you?

SK: "I believe Bergman, De Sica, and Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don't just sit wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over and over and over again in their films, and they themselves write or have original material written for them."

Kubrick was known to be a fan of the German director Max Ophuls, "Highest of all I would rate Max Ophuls, who for me possessed every possible quality. He has an exceptional flair for sniffing out good subjects, and he got the most out of them. He was also a marvellous director of actors." and his use of tracking is especially reminiscent of Ophuls work - "I particularly admired his fluid camera techniques." Compare the barracks scene of Hartman in Full Metal Jacket with Peter Ustinov Circus master in Lola Montes (1955).

Elia Kazan: "without question the best director we have in America. And he's capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses."

In later decades it was reported that he was also very fond of Kieslowski's Dekalog (1) series of films contributing a forward to the published screen plays as well as reportedly lending a copy to Frederic Raphael when they began their collaboration on the script of Eyes Wide Shut. He said of Krzysztof Kieslowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz: "it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatise their ideas rather than just talking about them [...] They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart."

Katharina Kubrick-Hobbs was asked on amk about her father's favourite films, she responded:

"...he loved FILM, period.

Obviously the "great" film directors that this group knows so well were also appreciated by Stanley. He watched them all. Even bad films have good moments,or interesting shots in them.

But there does seem to be a weird desire from people to "list" things.The best, the worst. greatest,most boring etc.etc.

For the record, I happen to know that he liked:

Closely Observed Trains- (Jiri Menzel, 1966)
An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)
The Fireman's Ball (Milos Forman, 1967)
Metropolis (Fritz Lang , 1926)
Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
White Men Can't Jum (Ron Shelton, 1992)
Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau,1946)
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Dog-day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet , 1975)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
Abigail's Party (Mike Leigh, 1979)
Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme , 1991)

and I know that he hated "The Wizard of Oz" Ha Ha!

Don't go analysing yourself to death over this half remembered list. He liked movies on their own terms."

David Lynch also talks about Eraserhead being one of Kubrick's favourite films in Lynch On Lynch. Apparently he met some people from Lucasfilm when The Elephant Man was being shot and was told by them that Kubrick had screened Eraserhead for them.

Another film Kubrick was reported to have admired was Michael Moore's Roger & Me and Jan Harlan added Tarkovsky's Solaris , Carlos Saura's Blood Wedding and Edgar Reitz's Heimat to this ever growing list.