Jonathan Glazer’s favourite Stanley Kubrick movie
British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer might be one of the most important cinematic voices of the 21st century, but he found his start as a director for theatre, advertisements and music videos. Having worked with some of the biggest names of the 1990s, from Radiohead and Blur to Massive Attack and Jamiroquai, Glazer honed the skills that would soon come in handy as he transitioned to making feature films.
Three years after winning ‘MTV Director of the Year’, Glazer directed his debut feature, Sexy Beast in 2000, a crime drama starring Ray Winstone, which won Glazer ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Screenplay’ at the British Independent Film Awards. Moreover, Ben Kingsley’s performance was nominated for a ‘Best Supporting Actor’ Oscar. Evidently, Glazer’s first foray into feature filmmaking was a success, and he followed it with Birth three years later.
The Nicole Kidman-led film wasn’t as well-received as Sexy Beast; at the Venice Film Festival, it was met with booing from the audience. However, many critics have retrospectively praised the movie, highlighting it as an underrated gem of the 2000s.
After a near-decade-long hiatus, Glazer returned with his career-defining masterpiece, Under the Skin. The movie features Scarlett Johansson as an alien disgusted as a human who drives around while preying on men. It’s a haunting piece of cinema, scored by Mica Levi’s mesmerising soundtrack, which sees Johansson’s character lure men into a mysterious black liquid where they subsequently meet their demise.
There is a sharp contrast between the sci-fi special effects and the naturalistic scenes of the Scottish public that Johansson drives by and interacts with. This makes the movie all the more terrifying, with the alien blending into a realistic portrayal of everyday human life scarily well.
In an interview about the movie, Glazer discussed how labelling Under the Skin as sci-fi doesn’t feel entirely satisfying. He explained: “Science fiction, I think, offers a good conduit for ideas, as a genre. So I am not against the genre at all. I think it’s a great genre. But I like thinking of it as a starting point for this rather than working within the borders of the genre.”
Thus, he selected movies like Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey as his favourite science-fiction movies, stating: “Something remains unfathomable or inscrutable about the ideas. Not inscrutable, but just philosophical.”
Like Glazer, Stanley Kubrick wasn’t known as a sci-fi director, he simply used the genre as a way to explore greater ideas about humanity. So, as Kubrick used a cosmic setting to explore the relationship between technology and human evolution, Glazer used his alien protagonist to analyse otherness and human behaviour.
Kubrick’s influence on the director has been apparent since the beginning of his career, with his video for Blur’s ‘The Universal’ referencing A Clockwork Orange and Massive Attack’s ‘Karmacoma’ showing the influence of The Shining. Of course, he has also referenced 2001: A Space Odyssey in his work, specifically Jamiroquai’s ‘Virtual Insanity’.
“I’ve picked his pockets, really,” he once said. “People politely say ‘homage,’ but I probably stole his wallet.”
