July 26, 1928 - March 7, 1999
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Biography

Check my SK: A Life in Pictures page.
Or Stanley Kubrick - The Invisible Man

Films

News

2/12/09

BFI - 3/10 at 6:10pm  NFT1 - Nick James chairs a panel discussion featuring renowned French film critic Michel Ciment, alongside Linda Ruth Williams and Tony Rayns, to reassess Kubrick's critical legacy and examine the impact of his films. Study Day: The Kubrick Archives Sat 28 Feb 11:00 NFT3. The full line-up for this Study Day is still to be confirmed, but the following participants will take part: Kubrick's contributors including: Doug Milsome, Gay Hamilton, Brian Cook, Cassius Matthias, Jan Harlan and Tony Frewin. Archivists and researchers including: Sarah Mahurter, Richard Daniels (both from the University Archives and Special Collections Centre at the London College of Communication) and Alison Castle.

South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference & Festival March 13-21, 2009 - Though his name may be unknown to many, German producer Jan Harlan has truly earned his place in cinema history through close collaboration with late brother-in-law, the legendary Stanley Kubrick. At SXSW 09, Harlan will discuss his work with Kubrick, from his contributions to the abortive Napoleon biopic through producing masterpieces including "Barry Lyndon" (1975) and "The Shining" (1980). Harlan is also a talented director in his own right, most recently directing and producing an acclaimed documentary portrait of actor Malcolm McDowell (O Lucky Malcolm! 2006). SXSW is excited to present a unique conversation with one of the great unsung heroes of modern cinema, as well as providing an intimate glimpse into one of the great artistic minds.

Barbican Kubrick Season
2008: A Film Odyssey

February 21-27, Barbican Center, £8.50, £6 members and concessions. Times vary, 020 7638 8891. The Barbican is showing all 12 feature films by famous director Stanley Kubrick to mark the 80th anniversary of his birth. The season gets underway with a gala launch event and introduction by Kubrick's producer, Jan Harlan.

ACO Postcard

The Kubrick exhibition in London at the Barbican consists of two glass cases containing Danny's coat and the 'all work and no play' paper pile from The Shining; some drawings for FX work on 2001; all the prop newspapers used in ACO (The Times, The Daily Mirror etc... with Alex on the cover); a big box of location stills for Barry Lyndon and a few big colorful boards with great behind the scenes stills from the films. There wasn't a catalogue, only a 1-page (double-sided) information sheet (with some good pictures on it), and three excellent postcards (The Shining - a clapperboard; ACO - filming the attack on the tramp and Eyes Wide Shut - Bill's mask). All this and more is held in a permanent archive at one of the London Universities, which can be visited. Of course you weren't allowed to take photos, not even the poster-board without a flash.

The Kubrick Exhibition will be coming to:
Zurich
Kulturhaus SihlCity
April 26 to September 2, 2007

Rome
Palazzo delle Esposizioni
October 5, 2007 to January 6, 2008

Preparations for the exhibition in Rome have been going on for some time - now fall 2007 will finally see the opening. The Stanley Kubrick exhibition will be the first event at the magnificent Palazzo delle Esposizioni, located in the heart of Rome and again open to the public after a five year renovation period. Kubrick's works are presented in a double exhibition together with paintings by Mark Rothko. Both artists have set new standards in their fields; both refused to comment on interpretations of their works: "Paintings need to be mysterious", said Mark Rothko, while Kubrick replied to a question regarding the meaning of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY: "It's not a message that I ever intend to convey in words…".
The family, in particular Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan, is looking forward to the opening and the reunion with well-known guests like Malcolm McDowell, Matthew Modine, Ken Adam and many others.
The exhibition catalogue, which is already available in English and German, will also be published in an Italian translation.

They are also planning to show the Stanley Kubrick exhibition in at least two locations in the US after.

Belfast Telegraph
Foyle Kubrick tribute 11/6/06

The widow of legendary film director Stanley Kubrick will be a special guest at Londonderry's 19th Seagate Foyle Film Festival.
Running from November 10 - 19, the festival's guests also include Jan Harlan, Kubrick's executive producer and Christiane's brother, reflecting this year's theme of Film Dynasties.
    A series of one-off workshops, seminars and question and answer sessions will be presented throughout the course of the festival. A spokesman for the organizers said: "The Q&A session with Christiane Kubrick and Jan Harlan is undoubtedly a highlight of this year's festival, an event any self-respecting Stanley Kubrick fan cannot afford to miss. Christiane Kubrick married Stanley in 1956 and remained married until the legendary film director's death in 1999.
    "Christiane is a highly accomplished, avidly collected painter in her own right and her works feature in (Stanley's films) A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut." Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures will screen at The Strand Multiplex on November 16 at 7.30pm. The screening will be introduced by Christiane and Jan Harlan and followed by a Q&A session.

The Flanders International Film Festival salutes the work of Stanley Kubrick.
By Eric Horwitz | Hollywood Reporter 8/22/06
    An enormous spacecraft gently connects to a gigantic, rotating structure as Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube" undulates in the background. Making its mark on film history, the docking sequence from Stanley Kubrick's landmark sci-fi epic, 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey," has become an iconic examples of how powerful the right combination of music and imagery can be.
    Setting cutting-edge special effects to a variety of classical pieces, Kubrick combined the very old with the very new to stunning effect in "2001," setting a new standard for a genre that, until that point, had been populated by campy flying saucers and laser-wielding invaders from Mars.
    A mere three years later, Kubrick again set the film world on edge, arguably outdoing himself with another visionary take on the future: His 1972 big-screen adaptation of Anthony Burgess' dystopian novel, "A Clockwork Orange," employed well-worn classical works like Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" -- not to mention pop standards like "Singin' in the Rain" -- combining familiar sounds with shockingly new images in a way audiences had never before seen -- or heard.
    Given the obsessive attention to music that Kubrick displayed in his movies, it is fitting that the Flanders International Film Festival (set to run from Oct. 11-21), which focuses on the impact of music on film, will feature an exhibition of his work.
    "Stanley Kubrick and his particular use of music and a festival that emphasizes music and film is a match made in heaven," says Jacques Dubrulle, the festival's delegate of the board and managing director. "We were like the lady in waiting ... and the Stanley Kubrick exhibition was a gift from heaven. We as a festival are very proud to organize such a prestigious exhibition exclusively for the Benelux (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands)."
    Dubrulle adds that while Kubrick rarely used traditional film scores, his daring musical choices opened the door for future filmmakers to use music in equally imaginative ways. "George Lucas, so goes an anecdote, wanted to use classical music for his (1977's) 'Star Wars' in the same way as Kubrick did in '2001' but was countered by (composer) John Williams," he says. "Everyone agrees that Stanley Kubrick opened up new dimensions of expression and narration for the cinema."

Playing the man playing Kubrick
BBC News 6/28/06
    Actor John Malkovich has told the BBC he was so "stunned" by the story of a con artist who spent 10 years taking money from people who believed him to be director Stanley Kubrick that he took the role of the man himself for a new film. Colour Me Kubrick tells the story of Alan Conway, who spent a decade impersonating the director, despite knowing very little about his work, looking not at all like him, and having been born in Whitechapel in London rather than the Bronx in New York. Conway's victims included a number of famous British celebrities, from heavy metal bands to cabaret singers.
    Malkovich, who plays Conway in the film, told BBC World Service's On Screen program that he was amazed when he first heard about Conway's scam. "It's not that I applaud it - but I am kind of stunned by it. Why would you bother? To a lot of people, their lives are so beneath the size of their dreams, that they need to be someone else."
    Malkovich plays Conway as an alcoholic on the edge, improvising his every scam and parting credulous people with their money. "He knew nothing about Kubrick, and he was an incredible drunk - which would have made it hard to remember anything he knew, had he known it," Malkovich said.
    Kubrick died only three months after Conway, in March 1999. "It seemed to me to make a lot of sense to just read the person in front of you, and be who they would like you to be." Conway was able to carry out his deception because Kubrick had a reputation of being a recluse. Despite having made some of the best-known films in cinema history - including 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange - the director only very rarely appeared in public, and spent most of his time off set in his mansion in St Albans, Hertfordshire.
    Conway, however, was much more gregarious. In an interesting twist, Colour Me Kubrick director Brian Cook - who himself worked with Kubrick on a number of films, including The Shining and Barry Lyndon - found that many of the British actors he employed for the film had met Conway. "Jim Davidson encountered him and thought he was Kubrick. Conway had really got around, so we heard about it from many of the people actually in the film."
    Kubrick himself only became aware of Conway's existence in the mid-1990s, as he was preparing to make what would turn out to be his last film, Eyes Wide Shut. He began to receive letters accusing him of breaking promises, stealing money and wrecking people's lives. The idea for the film came from Tony Fruin, Kubrick's personal assistant for many years, who was charged with tracking Conway down in 1998.
    Conway's story has been told before, in the British documentary The Man Who Would Be Kubrick, as well as in numerous tabloid exposes. Colour Me Kubrick is described as "A true-ish account", played by Malkovich as broad comedy. "When I saw a TV program about the gentleman in question, he mentioned his extraordinarily exact American accent - but it didn't resemble anyone I'd ever heard. That gave me the idea of having the accent a little bit Yiddish, a little bit Croydon, a little bit Copenhagen, and a little bit Seoul."
    The film is also a peculiar sideways tribute to Kubrick, and has a number of oblique references to his films, especially in the dialogue and the music. However, despite its intriguing premise, the film is currently struggling to get distribution in the two countries Kubrick lived and worked in all his life - the US and the UK. It has so far been released in France - as Appellez Moi Kubrick - and Australia, but there is no word whether it will get a chance in the world's major film market.

Kubrick at Museum of Moving Image Through July 9

The Museum of the Moving Image's new retrospective seems like the place to get all educated on Kubrick, but unless you're careful, you might come away with a fairly skewed picture. Yes, they're screening 12 of Kubrick's 13 features (he never wants his first, Fear and Desire, shown again, anywhere). All the classics are there-A Clockwork Orange, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Dr, Strangelove-as well as his early 16-minute short, Day of the Fight. A few lectures and discussions are scheduled with the likes of Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket), Chris Chase (Killer's Kiss) and Kubrick biographer Vincent LoBrutto, who discusses Kubrick's Bronx years after a June 10 screening of The Killing.

Archives of acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick to be housed at University of the Arts London 2005

    University of the Arts London is delighted to announce that the extensive archives of the late acclaimed filmmaker Stanley Kubrick will be housed at University of the Arts London. The archive is expected to be open in 2007. The Archives are one of the world's most comprehensive collections of materials relating to film production comprising scripts, treatments, drafts, extensive working and research documents, correspondence, costumes, props, models, production schedules, photography, books and film equipment.
    Director Steven Spielberg said: "In the whole history of movies, there has been nothing like Kubrick's vision. It was a vision of hope and wonder, of grace and of mystery, of humor and contradictions. It was a gift to us, and now it's a legacy. I am pleased to hear that his archives are going to University of the Arts London, which will ensure his legacy and vision are kept alive. His work will continue to inspire future generations of filmmakers to take risks and to push the boundaries of film." 
    The family of Stanley Kubrick feel that locating the Archives at a major university in London will ensure the widest exposure and guarantee access to students, researchers, inspiring filmmakers and the general public. Kubrick's widow, Christiane Kubrick said: "The films of Stanley Kubrick are the primary things known by the public. His Archives have a depth and breadth that we wanted to make available so that future generations have an understanding of the way that Stanley worked. Stanley spent most of his life in the UK and we are very happy that the Archives will be located in London at a university that values, promotes and reflects the diversity of his interests. We are also grateful to Warner Bros. in Los Angeles, the principal studio Stanley worked with, for all their support."
    The Archives will be secured in a new purpose-built Archives and Special Collections Centre on the campus of London College of Communication (LCC), based at Elephant & Castle in South London. One of the five Colleges of University of the Arts London, LCC has an exceptional track record and strong tradition in film, photography and sound. Providing a state of the art research facility for over 20,000 students and the public, University of the Arts London will ensure the archives are preserved and on display for posterity. They will be accessible for the advancement of research, teaching and practice in all aspects of filmmaking, associated disciplines and the arts.
    Sir Michael Bichard, Rector of University of the Arts London, said: "We are delighted that the Kubrick Archives will be coming to the University. Stanley Kubrick was a master of film and one of the greatest directors of all time and was also a skilled researcher and collector. The rich collections of his Archives demonstrate his illustrious achievements as an artist, which extend well beyond film, to include photography, costume design, scenography, drawing and much more. Our goal is to ensure that his life's work inspires future generations."
    University of the Arts London has embarked on an international campaign to raise the significant funds required to accommodate, maintain and promote the archive, and will be seeking an endowment to support the Kubrick Archives in perpetuity. The University plans an extensive and ongoing program of events, exhibitions and film festivals in order to bring the rich materials of Stanley Kubrick's life and his collection to the widest public. Previously unseen objects and documents from the archives form part of a major touring exhibition

The real Stanley Kubrick
By Dalia Karpel | Haaretz 11/3/05
    "Where did people get the idea that he was a woman hater?" his widow, Christiane Kubrick, guffaws. His third wife, she is the mother of his three daughters and lived with him for more than 40 years. "The man was surrounded by women his whole life. He had good relations with his mother and with his sister, he had three daughters and he was a far better mother than I was. He had no choice but to love the world of women. Stanley was fond of women and was an avid supporter of women's liberation. When we met, in Munich, he was the first man I had ever known who used to call his mother regularly and hold pleasant conversations with her."
    In the early 1970s, Kubrick decided that the media was beyond the pale for him. Already in an interview to "Rolling Stone" magazine, in 1972, he said that the test of a work of art lay in the feeling one has for it and not in one's ability to explain why it is good. In that period, he gave quite a few interviews and turned out to have a razor-sharp humor. He told The New York Times that year, "I have a wife, three children, three dogs, seven cats. I'm not a Franz Kafka, sitting alone and suffering." He remarked that no critic had ever succeeded in illuminating even one aspect of his work.
    "Right from the beginning he realized that he wasn't good at interviews," his widow says. "He would listen to an interview with him on the radio and grumble that he had done himself damage and that he sounded idiotic. That was not true, but that is how he felt. As someone who began his career as a photographer for Look magazine and was present at interviews with people whom he admired as being intelligent, Stanley discovered that in interviews smart people sound stupid. If there is one thing he hated, it was superficiality and small talk. A person like him, who made films with such meticulous attention to detail and wanted everything to be perfect and correct, told himself one day that his films expressed him best, that they are concentrated and contain the gist - so why give interviews? He was frank with himself and understood that he was bad at that."

So it's as simple as it sounds? There was no self-hatred or anything like that involved?

"It did not stem from self-criticism. Stanley preferred to devote his energy to his films. He was a good businessman and wanted to focus on the budget, the production and marketing, on everything that is entailed in directing a film, and especially on working with the actors. That was the most precious thing for him and the center of his life. He was a happy person who loved to be in his home. He worked most of the time and the term `going on vacation' would bring on an outburst of anger from him. The quiet of life outside the city, in a rural setting [in England], with the children and the animals was the right thing for him. He was a person who took an interest in everything, from the news to sports and literature and history and what have you, and because of his status he did not have to go anywhere: whoever wanted to work with him came to the house. He thought that was wonderful, and would say, `I'll sit in the garden and wait. They will come.'"
    In 1987, Kubrick told the Chicago Tribune that everything that had been written about him was grotesquely wrong and that he was not a recluse but led a normal life. But the image that clung to him was so convenient and so attractive that it developed a life of its own. Christiane confirms that the decision to stop giving interviews exacted a high price. "Barricading himself from the media acted like a boomerang. One day he understood that it was a bunker, because the media hates him and is making up stories about him. He admitted that he had made a mistake and that he had to correct it. `Maybe I'll write an article,' he said. `Dear people, in practice I am charming and amiable.' And we both burst out laughing."
    But the laughter gradually faded, she said, "because the situation became worse in the 1990s, when someone named Alan Conway went around for a long time in all kinds of places pretending to be Stanley Kubrick and trying to seduce children by promising them a part in a film. The police tried to catch him but failed, and the thing got bigger and bigger in the press, and people said Stanley Kubrick was a pedophile. Stanley thought something needed to be done, so he turned to his friend Mike Herr, who had fought in Vietnam and had written `Dispatches,' an important document about the war, and was also involved in writing the screenplay for `Apocalypse Now' [directed by Francis Ford Coppola]. Herr, a Jew who became a Buddhist, knew Stanley well and wrote a moving book about him. The Conway affair ended with his arrest and his confinement in a psychiatric hospital. But later a documentary film was shown in which Conway said how much he had enjoyed being the great Mr. Kubrick, and that was awful. So, when Warner Brothers suggested that I and my brother, Jan Harlan [who was the executive producer of Kubrick's films in the last 30 years of the director's life] produce a documentary film about Stanley, I thought it was time to stop being insular and weeping and whining. After his death, the stories only proliferated and worsened and became grotesque. We said that if we remained silent and did not react, people would say it was all true."
    Kubrick conducted most of his ties with the world by phone. He and Christiane lived on an estate in Hertfordshire, north of London, surrounded by animals. His favorites were the cats, which were concentrated in his wing. Herr writes that Kubrick was capable of conducting hours-long phone conversations. He notes that the writer Gustav Hasford, on whose book "The Short-Timers" Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" was based, told him that he once spoke with Kubrick on the phone for seven hours. Hasford likened Kubrick to an earwig, a small insect, that enters one ear but doesn't go out the other until it has "eaten clean through your head." Christiane confirms this predilection: "There was no one whom he did not reach by telephone. If someone told him it was the middle of the night, he would say, `But you are awake, aren't you?'"
    Kubrick's parents, Jack and Gertrude Kubrick, were American-born, to parents who immigrated from Russia and Romania. His father was a doctor and his mother, Christiane says, was an autodidact and knew how to go about raising her gifted child. "She said that he took no interest in himself as a child. He was a gifted boy, brilliant and independent, and she, in her wisdom, succeeded in implanting in him a strong belief in himself."
    Christiane: "He didn't want to be a boy and his mother said he didn't do anything silly as a boy except for getting married so young. He was focused and very ambitious and he was bored to death in school and would copy the lessons from a friend. Getting married at such a young age was an act of taking responsibility by someone who had a burning desire to be an adult. He was a photographer for Look and played chess for money and read a tremendous amount. His father was a very nice man, a bit conservative and a worrier, who sold his life insurance so Stanley could make his first film, `Fear and Desire,' in 1953."
    Kubrick was then reading about 20 books a week and often visited laboratories and film-editing rooms to see up-close how films were made. He liked jazz and he never missed a Yankees baseball game. He directed his second feature film, "Killer's Kiss," at the age of 27, this time with funding from his uncle, and his name appeared prominently in the list of credits. According to Herr, Kubrick believed from the very outset that he was the greatest director of all. He never said so, but behaved as though he was. "They say he had no personal life, but that's ridiculous," Herr writes. "It would be more correct to say that he had no professional life, since everything he did was personally done, every move and every call he made, every impulse he expressed was utterly personal, devoted to the making of his movies, which were all personal."
    In 1955 Kubrick married Ruth Sobotka, a dancer and choreographer. (His first marriage ended during the shooting of "Fear and Desire.") According to Christiane, that marriage did not succeed because Sobotka traveled a great deal and was not faithful to him. But at the same time Kubrick had already established his first production company, and his third film, "The Killing" (1956) led to the making of his important antiwar film "Paths of Glory" (1957), starring Kirk Douglas. The film was shot in Germany, and during the preparations for it, Kubrick, who was watching television in Munich, saw the beautiful actress Susanne Christian, nee Christiane Susanne Harlan. It was love at first sight for him, but she was already married.
    "He called my agent, who told me that an American director wanted to see me. I thought I was going to meet a redneck. I went to the studio and liked him at once. I was unhappily married to a German actor and we had a daughter of two and a half. Stanley and I soon started to live together in Munich. We were married in Las Vegas in 1960," Christiane says.
    After five years in Hollywood, he began to work in England, making "Lolita" in 1962 and "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" the following year. "Our daughters (Anya, born in 1959, and Vivian, born a year later) grew up in England and we liked the fact that his studio was in the village. The urban Stanley suddenly had a large garden and a big kitchen and life was wrapped in great tranquility."

Did the man who devoted his life to his films find time for his family?

"When we met, I knew I was getting onto a merry-go-round. I left everything and went to America with him with my daughter. It was not a small risk. He read 20 newspapers a day looking for stories, and with the same intensity he devoted himself to his goldfish, to me and to the girls. He was involved in everything. If the cat was sick he would drop everything and talk to the vet and tell him `We will do so-and-so,' and argue with him. He was certain that he was a good doctor and would drive people crazy telling them to take pills of one kind or another. He would explain to the women who worked on the set what to do about a difficult menstrual period - `Don't eat salt, eat this and this' - and would walk away, his cigarette leaving a trail of smoke. He did the same thing with the girls and it was hard for all the pampered women who wandered through our house.
    "He was always available for us and he was accessible and attentive. He would speak on three telephone lines at once and if someone came in and asked him something, he would drop everything. He didn't lock himself in when he wrote, and when he had to he would leave everything and then go back to writing as though he hadn't been disturbed. Nothing made him lose his concentration and he also had a phenomenal memory.
    "I think that in many ways he was a better mother than I was, because his eyes were always open. We were good friends and I learned from him how to live everyday life and concentrate on work. I copied that lifestyle. When people visited us in Munich, they were astounded at the mess there. People came and went and there were meals and even his mother was taken aback by the mess, but we loved it. When he started to make money, we had a house with large spaces and Stanley thought that this was exactly the purpose of money, for space and time."

Wasn't he dominant and domineering about the girls?

"They are pretty dominant themselves. Katharina (Christiane's daughter from her first marriage) is a painter, Anya is an opera singer and Vivian is a composer. Stanley was very involved in raising the girls and because he was in the house a lot, that was nice. The girls fought him, especially Anya, who would say things like `People think you are amazing but they have no idea how boring you are.' He would sit and grumble that he had no say in the house. What does not come through in any of his films, and probably will not come through when the widow tells about it, either - and I really do not want to sound like the professional widow - but what made Stanley extraordinary was his ability to love truly and to identify with the girls and with what was happening with them. He was angry and upset when they did not take his advice, but they loved him because he was a tremendously devoted and loving father. Yes, and domineering, too."

The murderers' state and me

She was born in 1932, to a family of theater and entertainment people. From childhood she dreamed of being a painter but studied and made a living from dance and acting. Her paternal grandfather was a playwright and the director of a theater. Her father, Fritz Harlan, was an opera singer; his brother, Veit Harlan, a film director, entered history because he made "Jud Suss." The film is a rare case in the history of cinema: at the end of the war its maker was arrested and placed on trial in Hamburg for crimes against humanity and preparing the ground for genocide, with the film introduced as evidence. He was acquitted twice in 1949, once on the grounds that the film was essentially immaterial to the events that occurred, the second time on the grounds that he was coerced by the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Harlan went on making films in Germany until his death in 1964, at the age of 64.

Christiane: "That is the heavy burden I have borne since childhood. I would be happy if I didn't come from a state of murderers. Stanley took a great interest in my catastrophic family background. We spoke about it a great deal. People asked him, `How could you marry a German woman, especially one with a background like that?' I thought a lot about the fact that no one could have taken a greater interest in my family background than Stanley, who understood that I came from the other side, which was the opposite of his [background]. But he also knew that my generation could plead innocence: I was very young during the Holocaust, though at the same time old enough to remember everything."

What did his parents say about his choice of a wife?

"I was very nervous ahead of the meeting with his parents, and he was very nice and supportive, because he sensed that I was suffering. I sat there as though my head was weighed down by a ton. If only I were not from a state of murderers, I thought to myself - but his parents were wonderful, especially his mother."

Did Kubrick see "Jud Suss"?

"He saw all my uncle's films," Christiane says, "and also met him in the same year we met. My uncle, who was tried and acquitted, was already sick. He liked Stanley and warned me that if I were going to America, I should not expect people to like me there. My uncle's story is complex. I liked him very much and thought he was a fantastic person. He and my father wanted to be circus people and used to do stunts, and when I studied dancing they would hurl me in the air. But it certainly depresses me to think about the nature of `Jud Suss.'"
    At the age of 10 she, like all her peers, was inducted into the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth). "I liked going there because it released me from housecleaning duties. I was a girl whose whole world was the theater: I had a large puppet theater and I wrote and directed plays and took money from children to see them. And that's actually what I did in the Hitler Jugend. The first time we were evacuated was when Germany attacked France. In my conversations with Stanley, I often told him that the ray of hope I had came from my being a bad and rebellious girl. I was far from my parents and those people in the Hitler Jugend, and even though I was educated to be a Nazi and was no better than anyone, in my heart I did not believe it."

Is that a perception of hindsight or did you feel that way then?

    "I remember that I painted well and that when they taught us [in art class] about the structure of the Aryan skull, I thought it was ridiculous. The person who gave the talk didn't even look Aryan. Germany is the most mixed state in the world - there were 11 borders along the Rhine and the Danube, where everyone came from - so what were they talking about? The whole race thing was totally insane. Afterward, we were sent to a labor camp that was protected from bombing and I did farm work there. Female prisoners - Ukrainian, Polish and a few French women - worked with us and I became friends with some of them and that gave me a new ray of hope."
    Her parents, who were part of the Wehrmacht entertainment troupes, performed for the troops at the front. Her father was later drafted and sent to a combat unit in the Black Forest where, his daughter says, he guarded Russian prisoners. After the war he was detained in an American prisoner-of-war camp. She and her mother lived by Lake Constance, on the Swiss border, in the hope of being able to cross into Switzerland. "My father was arrested brutally - I will not go into details, because it is a terrible story. He returned home three and a half years later. My mother and I were at Constance; the Moroccan-French army captured the area and I was very sick and things were not easy. We got our `prize.' Stanley was fascinated when I told him about those years, but also sad, and sometimes we wondered who had a more horrific background - him as a Jew or me as a German who lived through the Nazi period."

How did your family react when you told them you were going to marry a Jew?

"There was a bit of chaos. My family was a microcosm of the events. My maternal grandmother, who was a pianist from Hamburg, married a Jewish violinist from New York, so that there was also a half-Jewish side in the family. The amazing thing is that this was in a society that had the chance to be respectable and was educated and not poor. The murders in Germany were perpetrated by people who it is hard to believe were capable of that. It is impossible to understand how it was physically possible to murder so many people. They did it meticulously, by manual means, and it was all documented in the certainty that the hatred was justified and that Germany was the savior of the world. I do not understand it."
    She is from the generation that wanted to see and know everything. When Kubrick was engaged in the preparations and massive research for a film about the Holocaust, to be entitled "The Aryan Papers," based on the novel "Wartime Lies" by Lewis Begley, "I read all the material Stanley collected with his usual care and became depressed, even though I knew everything. He was also in a state of depression, because he realized it was an impossible film.
    "It's impossible to direct the Holocaust unless it's a documentary. If you show the atrocities as they actually happened, it would entail the total destruction of the actors. Stanley said he could not instruct actors how to liquidate others and could not explain the motives for the killing. `I will die from this,' he said, `and the actors will die, too, not to mention the audience.'" (After originally trying to get Isaac Bashevis Singer to write an original screenplay for the film, Kubrick abandoned the project because Steven Spielberg was making "Schindler's List.")

Death and superstition

Interviews may not have interested Kubrick, but reviews did. "When reviews of his films were published, he would tell me, `You read it, I don't want to.' A while later he would ask what the critics wrote and when I told him he became angry. In the end he got angry at himself for getting angry at the reviews and said he wasn't going to think about it at all. Of course he was very childish, in all senses. He knew that. He would tell me, `I'm an asshole.'"
    In their last phone conversation (one hour), Herr reports, Kubrick talked about the prose style of Ernest Hemingway and suggested that he come to watch "Eyes Wide Shut" and interview him for "Vanity Fair" (the film was released after Kubrick's death). Kubrick told Herr about a friend of his, the director of a studio, who bought an apartment in New York and thus became the first Jew to be approved by the other tenants. Kubrick was astounded by the story.

Did he think about death?

"Stanley believed in superstitions and I would laugh at him. He knew it was stupid, besides which he was a total unbeliever. After all, all his thoughts in `Space Odyssey' revolved around the question of what's out there. The girls and I used to tease him by saying that his body language was like that of Tevye the Milkman - he would clasp his hands and sigh. He apparently grew up in a milieu where there were religious Jews and from them learned to sigh with a big `ochhh' while looking up toward God with accusation and melancholy. We imitated him and laughed. I told him it was bad luck to believe in superstitions."

Kubrick leaves treasures to Britain
Alice O'Keeffe | The Observer 10/23/05

    One of the most extraordinary collections in film history is coming to London. The extensive archives of Stanley Kubrick, maverick director of A Clockwork Orange, are to be housed at the capital's University of the Arts from next summer.
    It will be the first time the archives - including scripts, photographs, props and letters - have been displayed in Britain, though Kubrick lived and worked here for 38 years until his sudden death from a heart attack in March 1999.
    Kubrick, a passionate collector, amassed more than 400 boxes of documents and memorabilia at his Hertfordshire mansion. Alongside family photographs and correspondence with the likes of Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov, the archives include hundreds of fan letters, which Kubrick filed meticulously but rarely answered. One of the few surviving responses reads: 'Dear Mr. William, Thank you for writing. No comment about A Clockwork Orange. You will have to decide for yourself. Sincerely, Stanley Kubrick.'
    There is a library full of research for a film about Napoleon that he never made. True to his reputation for meticulous preparation, he had several hundred books on the subject shipped from France in the Sixties. With a team of assistants, he spent several years filling 25,000 library cards with information about Napoleon's life.
    Still more boxes are filled with stationery, about which he was passionate. One assistant remembered him ordering 100 bottles of brown ink because he was concerned that the makers had discontinued it.
    The collection is so huge that the university, which unites five arts colleges including Central St Martins College of Art and Design and the London College of Communication, is to build a centre for them at the Elephant and Castle. 'This inspirational collection will be the jewel in the crown of the new centre,' said Will Wyatt, chair of the governors. 'We're planning on attracting other archives to go alongside it.'
    The acquisition is a coup for the university, as several US institutions had expressed an interest in housing the archives. But Kubrick's family were keen for it to stay in Britain. 'Stanley spent most of his life in the UK and we are very happy the archives will be located in London,' said his widow, Christiane.
    Steven Spielberg, a great Kubrick admirer, said: 'I am pleased to hear his archives are going to the university. His work will inspire future generations of film-makers to push the boundaries of film.'
    Kubrick moved to Childwick Bury, near St Albans, in 1961 and never again left Britain. The Bronx-born doctor's son started by writing, producing and directing low-budget pictures. He was hired by Kirk Douglas to replace another director on Spartacus in 1960. Despite the film's box office success, Kubrick became disillusioned with Hollywood and left the US.
    After Kubrick's death an archivist worked between 12 and 15 hours a day for eight months to sort several hundred boxes of material. 'He didn't hoard,' Christiane Kubrick has said. 'He just didn't throw anything away.'

Don't miss Malcolm McDowell in conversation!
Malcolm McDowell's career defining, oft-referenced performance as the manic sociopath Alex de Large in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange established him as one of the leading young stars of British cinema. He has since lent his distinctive acting style and intriguing characterizations to in excess of one-hundred films. Session includes admission to A Clockwork Orange as part of Freaky Fridays.

dates Fri 25 Nov 2005, 7pm
location Cinemas
audience 18+
admission Full $25 Concession $20
(incl. A Clockwork Orange)

Fri 25 Nov 2005 - Sun 29 Jan 2006
Screen Gallery, Australian Centre for the Moving Image
www.acmi.net.au/kubrick_detail.htm

Descend to the world's largest Screen Gallery to explore installations that track Kubrick's career, from his days as a magazine photographer through to his eleven major feature films. Developed with the close assistance of his family and estate, the cooperation of the Hollywood studios, and the support of Kubrick collaborators such as Sidney Pollack and Nicole Kidman, the result is an extensive and absorbing visual biography.

Alongside his major feature films, the exhibition also includes Kubrick's planning for AI, completed after his death by Steven Spielberg, and revealing preparatory work for an abandoned Napoleon epic. Original sketches and restored technical equipment are being shown in public for the first time. Reconstructed film sets and special effects provide unique insight into Kubrick's processes.

Art and Style Cross Borders: Frankfurt
By Mark Landler March 14, 2004
    
    Stanley Kubrick lived most of his adult life far from Hollywood, in rural seclusion north of London. A major exhibition devoted to his work will likewise be out of the way, at least for movie-industry types: in Frankfurt from March 31 through July 4.
    Given Mr. Kubrick's long and complicated legacy, it will take more than a single museum to display the costumes, props, photographs, scripts and other material from his half-century career. The German Film Museum and the German Architecture Museum, which stand next to each other on the south bank of the Main River, are showing the exhibition, which they organized with the cooperation of Mr. Kubrick's widow, Christiane, and his longtime producer, Jan Harlan, Mrs. Kubrick's brother.
    Mrs. Kubrick, who is German, let researchers from the film museum comb through her husband's archives (he died in 1999). "This is the first opportunity anybody has had to create an exhibit with these primary materials," said the curator, Hans-Peter Reichmann.
    The result is not just a commemoration of Mr. Kubrick's films, though many of them will be shown, as will a documentary about his life directed by Mr. Harlan in 2001. It will also show the director's meticulous attention to design, displaying objects like the 60's-style, ultramodern Djinn chairs that appeared in "2001: A Space Odyssey."
    Malcolm McDowell, who played the cane-wielding, Beethoven-loving thug in "A Clockwork Orange," narrated the English audio guide to the exhibit. The German version is read by Jörg Pleva, who dubbed Mr. McDowell's voice in "A Clockwork Orange."

Deutsches Filmmuseum, (49-69) 212-388-30, and Deutsches Architektur Museum, (49-69) 212-388-44, are at Schaumainkai 41 and 43. The museums are closed Monday; general admission, $10.20. Information at www.stanleykubrick.de.

Kubrick read the novel A Clockwork Orange in the summer of 1969, a gift from Terry Southern, co-author of the Dr. Strangelove screenplay. He gave him the novel when they were working together in 1963. He finished the book in one sitting and immediately reread it. He had Malcolm in mind to play Alex by the third or fourth chapter, a character Kubrick has compared to Richard III.

Stanley Kubrick is said to have considered Perfume: The Story of a Murderer "unfilmable."

Robert Altman:
"I'm always sad when one of our artists goes. I don't have very much to say about it rather than it's a loss. I didn't know him except I talked to him on the telephone quite a bit. I've never seen his face."

Did he ever ask you how you made films so fast? 

That's part of what we would talk about. Maybe I don't take them as seriously or it's not such a big deal and if a film failed - so what.

"Each year the Kubricks' have this art exhibition and my brother-in-law sells some of his beautiful turned wood pieces that he creates in his spare time. There was a very odd assortment of people there including a very camp hat maker who used to work on some of his films." - friend of family

Bibliography

Books By, About or the Basis for his films in order of release.

Title	Year	Author/Notes
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. (Basis for Barry Lyndon)	1844 UK	by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. (Edited)	1856 US	by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. (Restored)	1908 UK	by William Makepeace Thackeray
Paths of Glory	1935 US	by Humphrey Cobb
Traumnovelle (Basis for Eyes Wide Shut)	1926 US	by Arthur Schnitzler
Spartacus	1950 US	by Howard Fast
Lolita	1955 Rus	by Vladimir Nabokov
Clean Break (Basis for The Killing)	1955 US	by Lionel White
Red Alert (Basis for Dr. Strangelove)	1962 US	by Peter George
A Clockwork Orange (21 Chapters)	1962 UK	by Anthony Burgess - HC
A Clockwork Orange (20 Chapters)	1963 US	by Anthony Burgess - HC/SC/PB
Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying (Originally Red Alert)	1/64 US	by Peter George
2001: A Space Odyssey	1968 US	by Arthur C. Clarke - HC/PB
The Making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001	4/70 US	by Jerome Agel - PB
Orizzonti di gloria: un film di Stanley Kubrick	1971 IT	by Guido Fink - PB
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange	1972 US	Abelard-Schuman w/700 pics HC/PB
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange Gift Edition	1972 US	Ballantine w/32 color photos
A Freak's Anthology; being a golden hits from Buddha to Kubrick	1972 US	by Michael Horowitz - PB
The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick	1972 US	by Norman Kagan - HC
Stanley Kubrick Directs	1972 US	by Alexander Walker
Stanley Kubrick Directs (ACO Cover)	1973 AU	by Alexander Walker
The Films of Stanley Kubrick	1973 US	by Daniel Devries
The Films of Stanley Kubrick	1974 US	by James Monaco
Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey	1975 US	by Gene D. Phillips
The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick	1975 US	by Norman Kagan - SC
Directors and Directions: Cinema for the Seventies	1975 US	by John Russell Taylor
Stanley Kubrick	1977 IT	by Enrico Ghezzi - SC
The Shining	1977 US	by Stephen King - HC/PB
Stanley Kubrick	1978 IT	by Sergio Toffetti - PB
A Cinema of Loneliness	1980 US	by Robert Phillip Kolker - w/ACO HC
The Short-Timers (Basis for Full Metal Jacket)	1980 US	by Gustav Hasford
Kubrick (In French)	1980 FR	by Michel Ciment HC/SC w/many pics
Stanley Kubrick: A Guide to References and Resources	6/80 US	by Wallace Coyle
Kubrick (In English)	1982 US	by Michel Ciment HC/SC w/many pics
Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze	1982 US	by Thomas A. Nelson HC/PB
2001: A Space Odyssey (New Epilogue)	1982 US	by Arthur C. Clarke - PB
The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick	1983 IT	by Peter Bondanella - SC
Invito al cinema di Stanley Kubrick	1985 IT	by Ruggero Eugeni
Stanley Kubrick: Tempo, Spazio, Storia e Monid Possibili	1985 IT	ed Gian Piero Brunetta
Full Metal Jacket	10/87 US	by SK/Michael Herr/Hasford - PB
The Killing (Originally Clean Break)	2/88 US	by Lionel White
A Cinema of Loneliness 2nd Edition	6/88 US	by Robert Phillip Kolker - HC/SC
Kubrick e il cinema come arte del visibile	1990 IT	by Sandro Bernardi - SC
Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick	1990 FR	by Philippe Pilard
Christiane Kubrick Paintings	10/90 US	by Christiane Kubrick - HC
The Annotated Lolita	1991 US	by Vladimir Nabokov/Alfred Appel
Stanley Kubrick : das Schweigen der Bilder	1993 GE	by Kay Kirchmann - SC
2001: A Space Odyssey (New Arthur C. Clarke Intro)	7/93 US	by Arthur C. Clarke - HC/PB
Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis	7/94 US	by Mario Falsetto - HC/PB
The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick - New Expanded Edition	1994 US	by Norman Kagan - SC
Ladro di sguardi : fotografie di fotografie, 1945-1949	1994 IT	by Stanley Kubrick - HC
Stanley Kubrick (Expanded)	1995 IT	by Enrico Ghezzi - SC
Le Petite Livre de Stanley Kubrick	1995 FR	by Jean-Marc Bouineau - SC
Stanley Kubrick: L'arancia meccanica	1996 IT	by Giorgio Cremonini
Stanley Kubrick	1996 FR	by Pierre Giuliani
Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick (Perspectives on Film)	7/96 US	ed Mario Falsetto - HC
Stanley Kubrick & the Art of Adaptation: Three Novels, Three Films	2/97 US	by Greg Jenkins - HC
Stanley Kubrick: A Biography	4/97 US	by Vincent LoBrutto HC/SC
I film di Stanley Kubrick	1997 IT	by Roberto Lasagna e Saverio Zumbo
Stanley Kubrick: A Biography	1997 US	by John Baxter - Trade
A proposito di Stanley. Il cinema di Kubrick	1998 IT	ed Giroldini Primo
Stanley Kubrick: Shining	1996 IT	by Giorgio Cremonini
Stanley Kubrick	1999 IT	ed Sogni Laura D. e Brivio Lara
Stanley Kubrick	1999 IT	ed Gian Piero Brunetta
Stanley Kubrick	1999 GE	by Andreas Kolb/Rainer Rother - HC
Stanley Kubrick und seine Filme	1999 GE	by Georg Seesslen/Fernand Jung - SC
Narrative and Stylistic Patterns in the Films of Stanley Kubrick	6/99 US	by Luis M. Garcia Mainar - HC
Eyes Wide Open (Black Cover) *	6/99 US	by Frederic Raphael - SC
Eyes Wide Open (White Cover) *	7/99 UK	by Frederic Raphael - SC
Eyes Wide Shut: A Screenplay	8/99 US	by Stanley Kubrick - SC
Stanley Kubrick Director: A Visual Analysis	8/99 US	by Alexander Walker - HC/SC
Stanley Kubrick (Blue Cover)	9/99 US	by Paul Duncan - SC
Stanley Kubrick Companion	9/99 US	by James Howard - SC
Ladro di sguardi : fotografie di fotografie, 1945-1949 (2nd Edition)	10/99 IT	by Stanley Kubrick
2001: ASO (Millennial Edition - New A.C.C. Intro + Memoriam)	10/99 US	by Arthur C. Clarke - HC/PB
Aqui Kubrick	12/99 UK	by Frederic Raphael - PB
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (Reprint)	2000 UK	Penguin 384 pgs 700 pics PB
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (Reprint)	2000 US	Screenpress 340 pgs 700 pics PB
Kubrick	2000 US	by Michael Herr - HC
The Making of 2001: ASO (Modern Library the Movies)	3/00 US	by Stephanie Schwam - SC
Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze (Expanded Edition)	4/00 US	by Thomas A. Nelson HC/PB
The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick - 3rd Edition	5/00 US	by Norman Kagan - SC
Kubrick's 2001 A Triple Allegory	5/00 US	by Leonard F. Wheat - HC
Kubrick (Revised Edition/In French)	6/00 FR	by Michel Ciment SC w/pics
A Cinema of Loneliness 3rd Edition	7/00 US	by Robert Phillip Kolker - HC/SC
Stanley Kubrick: Interviews	2/01 US	ed Greg Phillips - SC
Stanley Kubrick: Seven Films Analyzed	2/01 US	by Randy Rasmussen - HC
2001 Filming the Future	2/01 US	by Piers Bizony - PB
Supertoys Last All Summer Long+Other Stories of Future Time (A.I.)	6/01 US	by by Brian Aldiss - SC
Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis 2nd Edition	7/01 US	by Mario Falsetto - HC/PB
Kubrick's Cinema Odyssey	8/01 US	by Michel Chion/C Gorbman HS/SC
Kubrick: The Definitive Edition	9/01 US	by Michel Ciment HC/SC w/pics
The Complete Kubrick	9/01 US	by David Hughes - PB
La Musica Secondo Kubrick	5/02 US	by Sergio Bassetti - HC
The Stanley Kubrick Encyclopedia	5/02 US	by Rodney Hill - SC
Stanley Kubrick A Life in Pictures	9/02 US	by Christiane Kubrick - HC
Stanley Kubrick - The Complete Films (Reprint - Eye Cover)	4/03 US	by Paul Duncan - SC
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange	5/03 US	ed Stuart Y. McDougal - HC/SC
Stanley Kubrick in Perspective	3/04 UK	ed Frederick Dolan - HC/PB
The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust	8/04 US	by Geoffrey Cocks - TPB
The Stanley Kubrick Archives	4/05 US	ed Alison Castle - HC w/CD + 70mm clip
Full Metal Jacket Diary	10/05 US	by Matthew Modine - HC
Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows	12/05 US	by Rainer Crone - HC
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays	3/06 US	ed Robert Kolker - HC/SC
Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History	6/06 US	by Geoffrey Cocks - HC/SC
Spartacus: Film and History	12/06 US	by Martin M. Winkler - HC
The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick	4/07 US	ed Jerold J. Abrams - HC
The Stanley Kubrick Archives	08 US	ed Alison Castle - HC No CD or clip

* Note: From Christiane Kubrick - "We believe that Mr. Raphael, whilst professing praise and a degree of affection for his subject, has in fact denigrated Stanley and unjustly caused pain to those who knew him well."

Obituaries/Tributes

The Times 'Kubrick: A Cinematic Odyssey'	3/8/99 UK	James Christopher w/6 pics
Entertainment Weekly	3/19/99 US	Review of ACO
People Weekly	3/29/99 US	Odyssey Over/ACO pic
Entertainment Weekly	4/9/99 US	Lost Interview/ACO pic
The New York Times Magazine	7/4/99 US	Kubrick An Oral History Article
Entertainment Weekly	7/23/99 US	Kubrick's Final Movie
Vanity Fair	8/99 US	FMJ writer on SK w/ACO pic
Premiere	8/99 US	MM on Kubrick w/ACO pic
Sight & Sound (EWS Cover)	9/99 UK	Kubrick Family + More

This format © 2001-09 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net