Jeremy Allen White on why Stanley Kubrick is “the greatest director of all time”
Many have acknowledged the fact that Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest film directors of all time, and it would be hard to argue otherwise. It would be harder to make the case that he is the single best filmmaker of all time, though, but that’s exactly what Jeremy Allen White believes.
White had been making a case for Kubrick during a feature with GQ, in which his argument was pitted against Lionel Boyce, who was fighting out of the corner of Robert Altman. It was a fiercely contested battle where White pointed out that Kubrick’s influence on current highly-lauded directors is undeniable.
To make his point, White first explained what he thinks a “great director” is. He answers: “Somebody who can make a film about really complex themes but make it digestible, and kind of simple for an audience, while also making it riveting.” In that light, White thinks Kubrick fits the bill and is “absolutely the best at doing” it.
White then explained that Kubrick had started his career as a “photographer and documentary filmmaker” before claiming that he “has made some of the greatest imagery in film”. White also argued that Kubrick was “the first [director] to use music in a way that wasn’t just a suggestion to the audience of how they should feel or like a decorative piece for the film, but it was truly an accompaniment.”
One of the most admirable things about Kubrick’s filmography is the fact that all his works vastly differ in their genre. “They’re all over the place,” White said. “Lolita, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove. It’s really all over the map. The Shining in horror, 2001 in sci-fi. It really crosses the spectrum of all different sorts of genres.”
As stated above, Kubrick has arguably the furthest-reaching influence of any director in the 20th Century. White specifically pointed out the likes of Jonathan Glazer, Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Spielberg, who have all cited Kubrick’s influence on their films. White said: “There’s almost no incredibly accomplished director living today that hasn’t cited Kubrick as a massive influence on their work.”
White then went as far as to say that without some of Kubrick’s classics, certain genres would not be in the state that we find them in today. “I mentioned those directors because Spielberg [for example] has obviously done a lot of sci-fi,” he said. “I really think, without 2001, and I would even argue Clockwork, sci-fi could not exist in the way it does today. Or these films about dystopian futures and stuff like that.”
