The director Steven Spielberg said is “impossible” to turn off
Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick are revered as paragons of filmmaking prowess, each admiring the other’s work immensely. Spielberg viewed Kubrick as the quintessential director, while Kubrick recognised Spielberg’s knack for crafting films that deeply resonated with audiences. This mutual admiration culminated in a collaboration on a project Kubrick had contemplated since the 1970s.
Kubrick is perhaps most famous for his unparalleled mastery of cinema, creating iconic classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and Eyes Wide Shut. With just 13 films to his name, Kubrick inspired countless directors with his innovative approach to filmmaking and storytelling.
Just four months after Kubrick’s unexpected death, Spielberg shared some deep thoughts about the legendary director in his 1999 interview with Paul Joyce. In Spielberg’s view, Kubrick “He had a very specific way of telling a story. It’s not that he wanted to show off, ‘I’m so different than you’, but he said ‘Why does every story have to be told the same way?’”.
Discussing his relentless search for greatness, Spielberg added: “He would tell me the last couple years of his life, and we were talking about the form, he kept saying, ‘I want to change the form, I want to make a movie that changes the form’, and I said, ‘Well didn’t you do that with 2001?’. He said, ‘Just a little bit, but not enough; I really want to change the form’, so he kept looking for different ways to tell stories.”
According to Spielberg, 2001: A Space Oddysey was his “his most realistic movie”, followed closely by A Clockwork Orange, which is celebrated mostly for its demonstration of “utter contempt for violence”. When Spielberg first met Kubrick on the set of The Shining, a film he said he didn’t like after the first watch, the director left such a mark that he would remember the encounter forever.
“I have since seen The Shining 25 times,” Spielberg said. “It’s one of my favourite pictures. Kubrick films tend to grow on you, but you have to see them more than once. The wild thing is, I defy you to name one Kubrick film that you can turn off once you started. It’s impossible. He’s got the fail-safe button or something. It is impossible to turn off a Kubrick film.”
The admiration between the two was mutual, with Kubrick once expressing enthusiasm for Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Maybe there was more than meets the eye regarding their shared respect, especially considering Spielberg’s decision to carry on with A.I. Artificial Intelligence after Kubrick’s passing. After all, they both had a profound impact on the film industry with their meticulous attention to detail and often cerebral narratives.
