Trapped in a prison of his own making: when Stanley Kubrick’s perfectionism got the better of him
When you sit down and watch one of Stanley Kubrick’s films, it doesn’t take long to see why he is considered a genius. The auteur’s career was packed with classic movies that challenged mainstream cinema, offering an alternative to the average Hollywood blockbuster. He often made epics, but they never felt like cash-grabbing vehicles designed to rake in viewers; rather, Kubrick’s films interrogated the meaning of existence through complex character studies and explorations of themes like morality, jealousy, good versus evil, and power on a grand scale.
Starting out with features like Fear and Desire and The Killing, Kubrick found significant early success with Paths of Glory and Spartacus. The 1960s furthered Kubrick’s career, with titles like Dr Strangelove and Lolita proving his proficiency in blending dark themes with humour. 2001: A Space Odyssey was a massive turning point, though, becoming a cinematic feat due to its realistic sets and ambitious ideas—from the Dawn of Man sequence to the light-tunnel scene—that were executed perfectly.
From this point onwards, Kubrick firmly cemented himself as a cinematic icon, following it up with other acclaimed movies, like A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. Not afraid to experiment with genre, Kubrick proved that he could take on any kind of film he tried his hand at, from black comedy to historical epic. In 1980, he decided to take his first foray into the dark world of horror with The Shining, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name.
The movie remains one of Kubrick’s most popular films, drawing in dedicated cinephiles and horror fanatics with its elaborately-designed sets and claustrophobic atmosphere. With Jack Nicohlson as Jack Torrance, the film scarily captures a moment of madness, with Jack’s sanity slipping away as he struggles with writer’s block and isolation. He turns into a maniacal axe-wielding villain, threatening his wife, Wendy, played by Shelley Duvall, in one of cinema’s most iconic and intense moments.
Many stories emerged from the set of The Shining, with Duvall being made to do takes of her screaming and crying over and over. Thus, Kubrick’s perfectionism is often talked about – it was the not-so-secret key ingredient that made his films great, but also the aspect that caused many of his actors and crew members to struggle significantly.
Luckily, his perfectionism and sheer dedication didn’t always manifest in such harmful ways. Within the film, there is a maze that plays a vital role. It is here that Jack chases after his own son, Danny, yet the child manages to outsmart his father, hiding down a path and leaving Jack lost and confused. While Danny escapes, Jack is unsuccessful, freezing to death inside the maze.
During production, Kubrick became convinced that the maze was too easy, so the rest of the crew challenged him to complete it himself. Despite being a lover of all things elaborate, Kubrick couldn’t do it. The maze he had made for the film trapped him just like Jack, proving that it really was an incredibly difficult puzzle that wasn’t merely for show – Kubrick was simply that dedicated to making his films as real as possible.
