Stanley Kubrick’s least favourite Stanley Kubrick movies: “He was disgusted with it”
There came a point during the middle of the 20th century when cinema shifted on its axis. There was a craving for something different, unshackled from the old way of doing things, that inevitably led new ideas and techniques to bleed into the medium. Over in Italy during the 1940s and ‘50s, the neorealists were bringing more grittiness to the screen, while the late ‘50s and early ‘60s gave way to the French New Wave, where experimental techniques revitalised the medium.
No matter where you looked, different countries were busy finding ways to advance the medium forward into a more ambitious and honest art form. Over in America, circa 1952, a young Stanley Kubrick – who had begun his artistic career as a photographer – was attempting to make his first feature, inspired by the European arthouse masters whose work was so wildly different from what was popular in mainstream Hollywood.
Fear and Desire, Kubrick’s debut, was not well-received, and evidence of his filmmaking naiveté is plain to see. Yet, at the same time, his passion is blindingly obvious, especially considering the fact that most of the production credits, from cinematography to editing, belong to Kubrick himself. Still, it was one of Kubrick’s most hated films, with Paul Mazursky, a star of the movie, reporting that the filmmaker went to extreme lengths to make it as hard to watch as possible.
He once explained, “Stanley tried to have the negative burned. He hated the movie. Hated it.” Kubrick also reportedly called the film “a bumbling amateur film exercise,” which was not entirely inaccurate. Yet, within a few years, Kubrick would emerge as a much stronger filmmaker, making celebrated hits like Spartacus, Paths of Glory, and Dr Strangelove.
Kubrick had discovered his own style, and this carried him into various genres and tones of filmmaking, no matter if he was directing a sci-fi movie, a period epic, or a horror film. He became one of cinema’s most mighty figures, dissecting the innate meaning and complexities of the human experience through his work. Many images from his films have become indelible, like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the blood-spilling elevator in The Shining, their influence spreading widely in his wake.
While it’s hard to identify a moment in Kubrick’s filmography besides Fear and Desire that could be considered “a piece of shit,” the perfectionistic director found plenty to detest in his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, too. Despite the fact that many fans consider the movie one of his best, Kubrick reportedly wasn’t happy with it before he died in 1999, despite the fact he screened the final cut.
According to R Lee Ermey, who starred in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, the filmmaker was worried about how the film would perform. He told Radar Online, “Stanley called me about two weeks before he died. We had a long conversation about Eyes Wide Shut. He told me it was a piece of shit and that he was disgusted with it, and that the critics were going to have him for lunch. He said [Tom] Cruise and [Nicole] Kidman had their way with him – exactly the words he used.”
Kubrick simply wasn’t happy with the finished result, seemingly believing that his main actors had taken advantage of him. Yet, Eyes Wide Shut is a fantastic film, with jealousy, secrecy, and murder unravelling over dark New York nights. Perhaps Kubrick didn’t achieve his ultimate vision, whatever that might have been, but for most viewers, Eyes Wide Shut is an accomplished and deeply impressive piece of cinema.
