The Stanley Kubrick movie that took Steven Spielberg 25 viewings to fall in love with
There can be little doubt about Steven Spielberg’s impact on the world of cinema. His ability to translate personal human stories onto the big screen and provide them with a dose of universal appeal and a sparkle of magic is unmatched. Whether you think his plethora of blockbuster hits are of the highest artistic value is really a moot point. The fact that they have connected with millions of people worldwide is enough to elevate Spielberg into the higher echelon of Hollywood history.
The truth is, when you are a director, not everybody will like your film. There will be naysayers at every turn, and that’s a natural part of the creative process. It’s even a role that Spielberg has taken on from time to time.
As his star grew, Spielberg shared a close relationship with many legendary directors. Stanley Kubrick was one filmmaker who, though the two were peers, Spielberg considered more of a mentor. Kubrick was a meticulous moviemaker and represented something Spielberg was always trying to emulate—complete control. When they first met, Kubrick was shooting a seminal classic that Spielberg remarked that “he didn’t like at first.”
The year was 1980, and Spielberg was getting ready to shoot Raiders of the Lost Ark at Elstree Studios in London. The two chatted about movies and their future projects, but their paths didn’t cross again for a while as both were so busy. When Spielberg was getting ready to move into Elstree, disaster struck. Kubrick’s set burnt down, so Spielberg’s shooting plans were abruptly delayed. Months passed, and the movie, which Spielberg was lukewarm to at first, came out. The 2001: A Space Odyssey director invited Spielberg to his house for dinner and they got to talking about the film.
“How did you like my movie?” Kubrick asked, forthright. Spielberg skirted around the question, telling the legend all the things that he liked about it – Kubrick, though, could tell instantly that he wasn’t the biggest fan. “There’s a lot of things you loved about it, but there’s a lot of things you didn’t. So tell me what you didn’t like about it.” The film, of course, was the 1980 horror classic, The Shining.
Spielberg later boasted in a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose that he had seen that one Stanley Kubrick movie more than the rest of us – 25 times. “Kubrick films tend to grow on you. You have to see them more than once,” he continued. “I defy you to name one Kubrick film that you want to turn off once it’s started. It’s impossible! He’s got this fail-safe button or something.”
At the time, Spielberg thought that Nicholson’s performance was over the top, likening it to a piece of Kabuki theatre. Kubrick explained to the Jaws director his aims with that performance – he’d modelled Jack Nicholson’s energy on that of James Cagney – the Public Enemy star who was known for his high energy, eccentricity and comic timing in his roles as tough guys, gangsters and dandy’s. Kubrick held him in high esteem, agreeing with Orson Welles that Cagney was one of the five best actors of all time.
Kubrick became a significant part of Spielberg’s life and work when they got to know each other. He was never afraid to challenge himself in his films – if the Hook director had pitched him an idea for a film, he would present him with the tough questions: “What do you find interesting about that story? Why do you wanna make that picture? Gee, that sounds pretty boring to me, how can you make that interesting. He was challenging me constantly.” Kubrick loved listening to Spielberg, calling him once a week and running up his phone bill: “I paid for it because it was always collect calls. I had such a phone bill from 18 years of talking to Kubrick.”
In the last few years of his life, Spielberg recounted that the older director was eager to change the form of cinema. When Kubrick passed, Spielberg was eager to carry on his immense legacy – films he considered pitch-perfect in terms of craft. He went on to finish the film that Kubrick was working on when he passed – a passion project that turned into AI: Artificial Intelligence.
In 2023, Spielberg announced that this work was not quite done. He is now set on completing the film that eluded Kubrick for much of his career – a large-scale biopic based on the life of Napoleon, which, like Abel Gance’s incomplete 1927 epic, was set to run for several hours. The two shared an impactful and enduring friendship that, even today, long after Kubrick’s passing, is looking to change film history.
