Why did Kubrick always receive such a critical panning?

even so, you are right that he is usually seen as making films that are cold and unemotional, which is an odd thing to say if you have actually seen his films.

After second viewing : "Wait - there's a lot going on beneath the surface innit? All the actors looking tense and anxious and all. This Kubrick, he's a genius."

After having heard about Kubrick's MO : "So the actors are tense because Kubrick made them repeat every take a million times? OMG WTF! This Kubrick, he's a mentalist."

Or so I would figure.

The thing I dislike about Kubrick is the anti-human thing he has going on. He just wasn't a people person, in his art and in life. But what I really like is how his films depend so highly on the images, which, if you think about it, is really how it should be. Some of Kubrick's films I have loved from the first time I saw them and still do love them (2001, Dr. Strangelove). Others, I am up in the air with (Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Spartacus).

But the one Kubrick film that I have loved more and more with each subsequent viewing is Full Metal Jacket. This is the one Kubrick film that received the most mixed critical response, some calling it one of the greatest war films ever made, others calling it a complete cinematic mess. This is Kubrick's most challenging film (in retrospect, even moreso than 2001), and I think the reason for this is that the film's storytelling technique relies less on the acting, dialogue, and usual narrative techniques and more on what we see. It's tough to get, but the way to really appreciate the film is to look not necessarily at what the shot is of, but what's going in the background and corners of the shot, what preceded and followed the shot, how it was shot, and how shots in the "first half" and "second half" of the film connect in the end.

If anything, I think this was Kubrick's greatest strength, the fact that he pushed beyond traditional narrative and strove to make film, a visual art, more visually oriented.

I think FMJ is underrated also: the "it doesn't look like Vietnam" complaint usually comes from people whose only knowledge of Vietnam comes from, uh, the movies.

I wouldn't mind seeing FMJ again, but I remember thinking that the war stuff wasn't as good as the training camp stuff.

I'm fond of Eyes Wide Shut. It is essentially a David Lynch film made in the style of Stanley Kubrick, and that's what's so great about it.

This is absolutely true. Roger Ebert was one of the critics that complained of the film's "unrealistic" look, however, most people's idea of Vietnam come from Apocalypse Now and Platoon. Vietnam isn't all wilderness. The Vietnam FMJ portrays are the cities, that AN and Platoon never touched on. I have heard some Vietnam vets say the sets in FMJ are so close to the real thing, they actually thought it was filmed on-location.

I'm surprised this movie isn't more often cited as being a major cinematic influence. Everyone talked about how groundbreaking Pulp Fiction's structure was, but The Killing was decades ahead of it.

Critics probably always wish Kubrick was doing something else rather than being objective about the film they recieved. This probably stems from doing so few films over such a long career.

To me, one of the most impressive things about all of his films was that they look amazing.

The thing I always love about Kubrick is how I invariably expect there to be more than there is, yet I never seem to mind what I got.

As far as the Naval Officer is concerned, those shots are representations of Dr. Harfords lame imagination visuallizing what his wife wanted -- so to make them creepy and dreamlike would have been totally incongruous. Haven't you ever felt jealousy before? Well I have, and those shots are like quivering little daggers in Harford's mind.

I mean come on, the 'real' parts of the film are creepy and dreamlike to begin with.

I sort of figured that would be Kubrick's thinking behind the naval officer scenes, and they do sit better on subsequent viewings, I just hate the grainy blue film it's shot with. Music's good though.

http://www.citypages.com/databank/20/972/article7786.asp

http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19990809&s=klawans

I fundamentally disagree with any reading of him as cold, anyway.

And for "he just wasn't interested in what makes film interesting," what does that mean? What, exactly, makes 'film interesting'?

the title of this thread is ridiculous.

they're probably referring to what they see as the exuberance or heart-on-the sleeve emotional power of film or something like that. kubrick is not cold, but he is outside, detached from the action in his films. that probaly irks some critics (such as pauline kael) who like it when film absorbs you directly by overwhelming you with the emotions, images, etc. not that i'm saying that kubrick doesn't always do that either but his perspective can SEEM cold to some people.

but that's his brilliance though, that he can portray characters and situations which you feel empathy for even though it's like watching them from outside.

I will grant you that his films tend to be liked more by people who think that the human race is at best a semi-disaster.

I think the thread title has some validity, tho I haven't gone back to the contemporaneous reviews and kept score. The NY Times critic, Bosley Crowther, was generally puzzled by "Paths of Glory," basically asking what the point of the film was since the military commanders' actions were clearly aberrant, so there was no larger social commentary. So pans by the likes of him could be expected.

Gaining in rep is mostly a function of his getting old/dying, but I don't think that trend has reached Eyes Wide Shut yet.

If you think it would be amusing to see "Macbeth" done in Japanese, then pop around to the Fifth Avenue Cinema and see Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood." For a free Oriental translation of the Shakespeare drama is what this is, and amusing is the proper word for it.