Stanley Kubrick named the only “film masterpiece” he could think of
Few filmmakers have changed cinema quite like Stanley Kubrick, whose near-perfect body of work has inspired every director who has followed in his footsteps, consciously or not. The American filmmaker, who started as a photographer before making low-budget movies, eventually made a name for himself with the controversial anti-war film Paths of Glory and the Academy Award-winning Spartacus.
However, with the release of his dark comedies Lolita and Dr Strangelove, alongside the cosmic epic 2001: A Space Odyssey, by the end of the 1960s, Kubrick was one of the most crucial working filmmakers. With the release of the latter, Kubrick emulated space to a terrifyingly realistic degree, depicting human evolution and the dangers of rapid technological advancements. The movie was released before humans had even stepped foot on the moon – that wasn’t until the following year.
Kubrick’s film demonstrated the sheer potential of cinema, influencing the shape of sci-fi cinema, which would become increasingly popular in the following decade with the likes of Star Wars and Alien. It is widely believed that 2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece – very few would argue otherwise – cementing Kubrick as a master of cinema. Kubrick went on to release five more films, including A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, all of which are widely acclaimed.
Thus, when Kubrick calls something a masterpiece, he’s likely correct. Yet, the director didn’t throw around the world lightly, saving it for something he found incredibly special: Dekalog by Krzysztof Kieślowski. Released in 1989, Dekalog is a series of ten one-hour-long films which Kubrick believed to be the only “film masterpiece” he could name. Inspired by the Ten Commandments, each instalment focuses on a different theme. For example, Kieślowski explores worship through the obsession with science. The director ties each episode together with specific motifs, such as milk, as well as uniting all of the characters within the same housing project.
For Kubrick, Kieślowski was a true genius. He wrote the foreword to Decalogue: The Ten Commandments, where he discussed his love for the film series. “I am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify and reduce the work. But in this book of screenplays by Krzysztof Kieslowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them.”
He added: “By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what’s really going on rather than being told. They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don’t realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.”
Watch the trailer for Dekalog below.
