Stanley Kubrick’s favourite sitcoms: “He was fiercely unpretentious”
Stanley Kubrick was often criticised by past collaborators and people in the business for his self-serious and meticulous approach to his craft, with many actors and producers discussing his all-consuming approach that would sometimes lead to shoots that were unprecedented in length and what they demanded of the cast. From the treatment of Shelley Duvall while shooting The Shining to the director’s bizarre ghosting of Kirk Douglas after forming a close friendship on two productions, Kubrick became fabled for his intensity and alleged pretentiousness when it came to his art.
However, the line between passion and pretentiousness has been debated by many people, with some arguing that passion is only labelled as pretentiousness when people lose respect for the arts or if the artist is somehow delusional about the power of their work and knowledge of the medium. But while many have cast Kubrick under this inflammatory label, there is a lot of evidence that points towards the contrary, mostly coming from his love of two classic sitcoms and intense dislike of Los Angeles.
For many people in Hollywood, Los Angeles seems like a haven in which dreams come true and the sun never stops shining. Some filmmakers and actors love the feeling of a consequence-free life in which they can indulge in their fame and power and revel in the unique system of the city that places artists above everyone else. It can be an intoxicating place for some that encourages you to lose all sense of reality and become absorbed in a culture of celebrity and superficiality.
But while some enjoy this culture, with the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin being known for their rowdy behaviour and enjoyment of the ‘high life’, Kubrick was never a fan, and in fact hated Los Angeles and everything it represented. As well as this, he was described as being incredibly grounded compared to many other great filmmakers, with someone describing the incredibly normal habits of the director and his distaste of fame.
Michael Herr, a close friend of Kubrick, said, “He was crazy about The Simpsons and Seinfeld, and he loved Roseanne, because it was funny and, he believed, the most authentic view of the country you could get without actually living there. “Gee, Stanley, you’re a real man of the people,” I said, but in his way he was. He was fiercely unpretentious. He was exclusive, he had to be, but he wasn’t a snob. It wasn’t America he couldn’t take. It was L.A”.
While he might have been one of the greatest directors of all time, it seemed as though this never clouded his sense of authenticity or corrupted his ego, with many directors losing themselves in the presence of power and becoming absorbed by the endless possibilities that come with fame.
But for Kubrick, it sounded as though his daily life was not clouded by this, and he remained rooted in the simple pleasures and hated the culture of celebrity worship in Los Angeles, proving him to be one-of-a-kind while so many others have lost their heads with far less acclaim and artistic success.
