The influential filmmakers who made Stanley Kubrick’s “fantasy image of movies”
Anyone who has seen even a handful of Stanley Kubrick’s movies has likely been mesmerised by them at one time or another. After all, throughout his career, Kubrick contributed to some of the most impressive moments in the history of cinema, showcasing his talents in a wide range of movie genres and tones.
Whether it was the philosophical revelations of his science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, the horrors of The Shining, or the harrowing brutality of Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick delivered the spectacle of cinema time and time again, always earning the acclaim of the critics and his audience alike.
Still, even the greatest and most acclaimed filmmakers of all time could still feel blown away by the works of others, and, in this light, Kubrick was no different. In an interview from 1987 (via Sight & Sound), Kubrick named some of his early inspirations and the kind of directors that made him want to pick up the camera In the first place.
“My sort of fantasy image of movies was created in the Museum of Modern Art, when I looked at Stroheim and D.W. Griffith and Eisenstein. I was starstruck by these fantastic movies.” These three figures comprise a trio of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of the medium, a selection of genuinely important cinema icons.
For instance, the Austrian-American Stroheim was considered a visionary and avant-garde hero of the silent era, with his 1924 film Greed being considered one of the all-time greats. However, after clashing with Hollywood studios, Stroheim turned to acting in French cinema, although his impact on the medium as an auteur would forever be remembered.
D.W. Griffith on the other hand, was known for his influential developments in the process of film editing, which vastly contributed to the narrative elements of cinema. 1915’s The Birth of a Nation was widely successful but was equally criticised for its portrayal of African Americans, with Griffiths’ next film, Intolerance, responding to the criticism. Griffith made a huge 500 movies throughout his career, almost all of which were silent.
Finally, Sergei Eisenstein was a Soviet film theorist and director who largely pioneered the film technique of montage, which he used to excellent degree in his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and October. In addition, he helmed the historical epics Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible and was considered a truly important figure in the development of cinema.
Still, even though Stroheim, Griffith and Eisenstein blew Kubrick away when he saw them at the Museum of Modern Art, he “was never starstruck in the sense of saying, ‘Gee, I’m going to go to Hollywood and make $5,000 a week and live in a great place and have a sports car,’” but rather was taken with the very medium of cinema for the first time.
“I really was in love with movies,” he added, noting, “I used to see everything at the RKO in Loew’s circuit, but I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t know anything about movies, but I’d seen so many movies that were bad, I thought, ‘Even though I don’t know anything, I can’t believe I can’t make a movie at least as good as this’. And that’s why I started, why I tried.”
So it was the likes of Eisenstein, Stroheim, and Griffith that showed a young Kubrick the kind of power behind the cinematic medium. Even though the director didn’t immediately head to Hollywood with dreams of driving around in a sports car, he was forever changed by his early experience at the Museum of Modern Art, and some of the greatest works of cinema were inevitably made by that crucial moment in time.
