Stanley Kubrick’s favourite Stanley Kubrick movie: “He was really happy with that”
Many Stanley Kubrick fans would be hard-pressed to pick their favourite of his films. As far as history is concerned, 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably the most influential. For decades, it was regularly duking it out with Citizen Kane for the distinction of being the greatest film ever made. Cerebral, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and technically revolutionary, it had all the hallmarks of the auteur at his best and continues to mystify and enthral audiences.
As a filmmaker who made only 13 features, Kubrick showed a remarkable range. Aside from that seminal space epic, he made a horror movie, a psychosexual thriller, a satire, a war movie, and a lavish historical drama. He was one of the great auteurs in cinematic history, but there was little continuity–at least thematically–throughout his filmography.
Kubrick himself was a bit of an enigma. Known for being a brutal taskmaster on film sets, he would push his actors to the brink of mental collapse just to get the shot. He holds the Guinness world record for the most takes of a single scene for the staggering 127 versions of the baseball bat sequence that he forced Shelley Duvall to do for The Shining. She was physically and emotionally beaten down by the scene and suffered the ramifications of it for years. When he wasn’t tormenting actors, however, Kubrick was known for being reclusive and so terrified of flying that he insisted on filming all of his movies in England.
Given how private he was and the fact that his films are so varied, it would be hard for even a Kubrick scholar to predict which of his movies he liked most. In an interview with DVDTalk, however, his long-time producer and brother-in-law Jan Harlan shed some light on the matter.
“I think he particularly liked Eyes Wide Shut,” Harlan said. “Yes. He really was happy with that. Probably because it was the hardest film to do for him. It was such a struggle and such a difficult topic. It was a hidden film. There were so many things the audience had to really decipher for themselves. And tremendous performances by everybody, and he was very happy with it.”
Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as a wealthy New York couple who face their marital issues over the course of an evening, 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut was Kubrick’s last film, and one of his least well-received. Based on a 1926 German novella, it follows Cruise’s character as he ventures into the nocturnal world of an underground sex cult. The stars were married at the time, and the press surrounding the film played up the salacious elements of the plot. Ultimately, however, the story is much more psychological than carnal, leading to a disastrous mismatch between expectation and reality for many cinemagoers.
It fared poorly at the box office and many critics dismissed it for being surprisingly cold and detached given the subject matter. For better or worse, Kubrick himself never knew about this chilly reception to the film he was proudest of. He died shortly after turning in the final cut.
Harlan put the reception down to unenlightened viewers rather than the merits of the film itself. “I think the audience didn’t share his enthusiasm in the Northern European Anglo-Saxon world,” he said. “In Japan they did. And in Italy, Spain and France they did. But you know that’s just what you get to do. That’s how it is.” In recent years, critics have begun to reevaluate the film, and it has experienced a new wave of appreciation. Compared to the rest of his oeuvre, however, it remains an underdog.
