comment #1

Ray says ...

Geez ... can this documentary make Kubrick seem any weirder?? Ya just gotta love the creepy, IN SEARCH OF... synth music throughout.

The guy was a genius ... but yikes, what a freak.

comment #2

AHFan says ...

Wow-the filing system for all the fan mail-by positive, negative, and "crank"-and city and state. With today's technology he would probably look up on google maps-street view and keep the picture on file too.
With all the hate he gets, I wonder if George Lucas files his "crank" letters...

comment #3

mutinyco says ...

I always find it amusing when people are surprised that geniuses think and behave differently than average people. That's the whole point.

comment #4

CinemaPhreek says ...

"Will someone swoop in and have it taken down?"

Like, say, the actual owners who paid to have it created and should therefore be allowed to recoup their investment in time and money?

Oh, I forgot, we all now INSTANTLY entitled as one of our RIGHTS access to anything created on the planet by anyone else.

Because, if you wouldn't have the sense of ownership/balls to grab this thing laying as a DVD by in a shop, slip it into your jacket and walk out the door with it, then there's no difference fundamentally to watching it online if it's not clear the filmmakers want you to. Stealing is stealing, unless you don't have the intelligence or imagination to recognize it. And if you don't, why the fuck would want to watch a doc about Kubrick in the first place - it will all go right over your head anyways.

comment #5

The Pope says ...

Mutinyco,
I agree with you 100%. Kubrick's ability to concentrate and focus on a subject, almost to the point of exhaustion, is what makes his films great. If people call him a freak, they are calling his films freakish. They are not. They are examinations of the human experience. So, if they are freakish, then the human experience is freakish.

I met with Christiane Kubrick and her brother, Jan Harlin a number of years ago. They are both wonderfully warm and open people, both wanting to protect Kubrick's memory and yet also wanting to show the rest of us, the enormity of his mind. I think his daughter Vivianne expresses the anxiety very well when she says that people will take one little fact and run away with it and build a Frankenstein type monster out of her late father.

You could do that with any one of us. Take one little moment and build an entire argument to be committed to an asylum.

Citizen Kane showed that no one word can some up someone's life. We are still fascinated by Shakepeare's Hamlet, Macbthe, King Lear and Othello because they are each examples of us all. No one line can sum up the plays and that is why they can be reinterpreted through the ages.

Kubrick was fascinating and I will say it again, his widow Christiane and his brother-in-law, Jan Harlin are really lovely people. The thing that gives me the shivers about this documentary is the narrator. Is he aware of how naive and grating he sounds? And talk about stating the bleeding obvious... the guy would swear that we are dumber than a bunch of hammers.

comment #6

Stephe96 says ...

One would imagine that an actual 'genius' would realize that the most authentic NYC locations can be easily found in....NYC. But what do I know? Other than the fact that 'Eyes Wide Shut' had the least realistic depiction of New York City since 'Seinfeld' went off the air. I mean, what was the point of all that research? All those boxes?

comment #7

Edward says ...

Stephe96: By not shooting in NYC, Kubrick gained total control of his environment. Sure, it wasn't shot on location, but it served his purpose and in the end does it really matter where it was shot?

I thought the NYC sets were amazingly realistic.

Anyone know if it would cost more to shoot on location in NYC than it would cost to build sets in a soundstage?

comment #8

corey3rd says ...

this is not like shoplifting a movie. It's more like going into a store, putting the Blu-ray in the player and watching it on the store's 60 inch plasma 1080p for the next two hours. Or maybe it's like sitting in Barnes and Noble and reading the entire book on those comfy chairs.

The behind the scenes footage of FMJ needs to be put into its own documentary. Shame the Sundance Channel wouldn't foot the bill for such a creation.

comment #9

mutinyco says ...

The non-realistic NYC is nonsense. You don't have to look any further than through the set windows to notice that the intention isn't realism.

Movies are shot all the time in locations other than where they're set and nobody says anything. Toronto is regularly a stand-in for NY. The upcoming Burn After Reading is set around DC, but those exteriors are pure Brooklyn.

comment #10

The Pope says ...

Corey,
Yeah, the best part of the docu is what his daughter Vivianne shot for FMJ. 18 hours?!?! Why doesn't someone pony up and get it edited into a "Hearts of Darkness" like companion piece?

comment #11

berg says ...

DVD-18 ... you double track each side of the DVD with side by side spirals, and record on both sides, and put all 18 hours of the FMJ docu on it ... please, soon ...

comment #12

Aris P says ...

Fascinating potential here, but if this is all we get out of 1000 boxes of Kubrick material, I'd call this "documentary" a giant disappointment. How about, I don't know, showing us a little more about what was in the boxes.

comment #13

Stephe96 says ...

MUTINYCO,

Yeah, but if Kubrick's intention "wasn't realism," why the obsession with detail?

comment #14

mutinyco says ...

That makes no sense. Wes Anderson's movies are ruthlessly detailed. There isn't a moment of realism to be found. There's no equation between detail and reality. Just detail and quality.

Kubrick's method was to find and choose from the best of what already existed. His attitude was that the odds of a set designer or film scorer coming up with something better than an architect or a great composer was unlikely. It was better to seek what already existed.

Throughout his major canon, I don't think Kubrick ever directed a film that sought to be realistic or naturalistic. Everything he made was highly stylized.

comment #15

saramie says ...

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comment #16

otakuhouse says ...

if you didn't catch that eyes wide shut has something to do with dreams, you missed the point.

Yes, so why exactly was the FMJ footage never turned into a film? I WONDER.

comment #17

The Pope says ...

The main problem with the docu by Jon Ronson is that he insists on placing himself as close to the centre of the stage as possible. He does that quite regularly and for my money, it is a sure sign of a documentarian who would really prefer to document their own life. The amount of times he began senstences with "I" or included his thoughts, feelings, inanities as part of that narration was really annoying!

However, I have never seen his documentary on the Holocaust, the one that caught Kubrick's attention all those years ago. I reckon though it was a helluva lot better than "Boxes."

Hopefully now that everyone knows about the 18 hours of FMJ footage, someone will pony up and start the interviews.