Welcome to the deep dive, the place where we
pull together all the sources, the articles,
the research, your notes to give you, you know,
not just the essential facts, but those little
insights that really make you feel like you get
it. And today. We are really getting into it.
We're doing a deep dive on Stanley Kubrick. Right.
A name that, I mean, when you think of cinematic
perfection or maybe obsession. He's the name
that comes up. And we have, I mean, a mountain
of material to go through. We're looking at his
whole life, really, from this young photographer
all the way to, well, one of the most demanding
directors ever. And that's our mission here for
us and for you. We want to unpack how this self
-taught guy managed to get, I mean, almost total
artistic control in a system that's designed
to prevent that. Exactly. And how that meticulous,
some would say obsessive approach led to these
masterpieces that are just, they're so controversial
and they completely transcend whatever genre
he was working in. We're not just looking at
the films themselves. It's the system he built
to make them, the method. It's such a remarkable
story because Kubrick becomes this, you know,
towering figure in the post -war film world.
But he does it by basically escaping the Hollywood
model entirely. He was a master at adapting these
really difficult novels. So difficult. Nabokov,
Anthony Burgess, Stephen King. And he jumped
from genre to genre. Crime noir, then a historical
epic, then sci -fi, then horror. And the key
thing, the thing that almost no one else ever
managed, was getting that complete artistic freedom
while still having major studios pay for it.
That's the holy grail, isn't it? That combination
of total independence and, you know, massive
financial backing. It's just so rare. And it's
what allowed him to be such a perfectionist.
So his hallmarks are pretty much legend at this
point. Oh, absolutely. The intense, almost clinical
attention to detail. The groundbreaking cinematography,
that sort of detached, cold perspective he brought
to these huge human struggles. And the dark humor.
You can't forget the humor. The biting humor,
yeah, that he weaves through even his most serious
films. It's always there. And if we want to get
to the root of all this, you know, his whole
method, we can't even start with a movie camera.
We have to go way back. Way back to his hobbies.
I mean, his path was so unconventional. He basically
drops out of any kind of serious higher education.
So his real schooling was what he did in his
spare time. Completely. First, there was chess.
He was obsessed with it, played for money in
Washington Square Park all the time. And he said
that taught him patience, right? Patience and
discipline. He said it taught him to think several
moves ahead, to see the whole board, which is,
I mean, what a perfect analogy for directing
a film. It's the perfect analogy. And the second
thing, of course, was photography. Photography
was everything. It wasn't just, you know, something
that influenced his visual style. It was his
first job. It's where he learned composition,
lighting, the power of a single image. So you
take the patience from chess and the visual discipline
from photography. And you've got the entire foundation
for his whole career right there. OK, so let's
dig into that. That foundational period, which
starts a long, long way from a Hollywood film
set. Right. Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan
in 1928, but he was raised in the Bronx. His
family was Jewish, though he wasn't. raised religious.
His dad was a homeopathic doctor. And what's
so fascinating about his youth is this incredible
disconnect. The intellectual tension, yeah. The
sources are really clear on this. He had an above
average IQ, clearly a gifted mind. But he was
a terrible student. Awful. A D -plus average.
He was just profoundly bored by the whole thing.
So it wasn't that he wasn't interested in learning.
He just hated schooling. Exactly. His real education
was happening in the dark. He'd skip class all
the time to go sit in movie theaters and watch
double features. And he was pretty scathing about
the American school system later in life. Oh,
yeah. He said it was just fundamentally broken
because it was all about rote memorization. It
didn't encourage curiosity or critical thinking,
which is all he cared about. So the classroom
fails him, but his father steps in with something
that changes everything, a piece of technology.
The Graflex camera. His father buys him one when
he's 13. And this wasn't just a toy. No, this
was a serious piece of gear. And it was an immediate
obsession. It just triggered this lifelong passion
for photography. He had a neighbor with a darkroom,
and he and this kid, Marvin Traub, would just
spend hours in there. you know, learning the
whole process. And they were out on the streets
looking for subjects, developing that eye. Actively
looking. And he was already studying the master's.
He was really influenced by the photojournalist
Ouija, Archipelag. The guy who shot all that
gritty New York crime stuff. The raw, visceral,
nighttime city life. And here's a great little
piece of foreshadowing decades later when Kubrick
is a world -famous director making Dr. Strangelove.
He hires Weegee. He hires Weegee as a special
stills photographer for the set. It just shows
you how deep that early influence ran. So his
grades are terrible. He can't get into a normal
day college. He does some evening classes for
a bit. But his mind is already somewhere else.
He's totally focused on trying to make a living
with his camera. And in 1945, it happens. He
sells his first photo series to Look magazine.
That's his big break. That's his entry into the
professional world. And by 1946, he's a full
-time staff photographer. He's, what, 18 years
old? Just a kid. And he's already known for not
just taking photos, but telling stories with
them. The perfect example is that first series
he published, A Short Story from a Movie Balcony.
What's so revealing about that? The whole thing
was staged. It looks like a candid moment of
a guy getting slapped and reacting. But Kubrick
set the whole thing up. He was already directing.
He was manipulating reality to get the shot he
wanted. Moving from just documenting to composing?
Exactly. You see the same thing in another project
where he had to take pictures of people in a
dental office waiting room just capturing these
little moments of human anxiety in this really
mundane setting. Which feels very much like a
shot from one of his later films. It connects
directly. to those long, uncomfortable close
-ups. And all this time he's at... Look, he's
also just devouring films at the Museum of Modern
Art. He gets obsessed with the French director
Max Ophuls. What was it about Ophuls' style that
grabbed him? The camera movement. It was so fluid
and complex. He said it felt like Ophuls' camera
could go through every wall and every floor,
just tracking the characters seamlessly. He was
also studying actors, too. He admired Elia Kazan.
Yeah, he said Kazan could work miracles with
actors. He understood that the performance and
the camera had to be in perfect sync. So all
this absorbing of technique, it leads him to
this critical decision. He just decides to teach
himself how to make movies. He read every book
he could find, even the really dense stuff from
Soviet filmmakers like Eisenstein, and basically
just concluded the best education in film is
to make one. I love that confidence. He apparently
got it not from watching masterpieces, but from
watching bad movies. Yes. He'd see a bad film
and think, I don't know a goddamn thing about
movies, but I know I can make a better film than
that. It's that mix of, you know, sharp judgment
and just total self -belief. So he takes action,
he uses his savings, gets some independent money,
and makes a short documentary. Day of the Fight,
1951. It's about a boxer named Walter Cartier.
It cost him about $3 ,900 to make. And he sells
it to Archaeopathy for $4 ,000. He made a $100
profit on his very first film. Wait, a profit
on his first try? A small one, yeah. But selling
a short for that much money back then was a record.
It was a huge success for a first -timer. And
it already has one of his signature moves, that
backward tracking shot. So he immediately quits
his job at Look. Immediately. He's a full -time
director now. He follows up with two more shorts
pretty quickly. Flying Padre. Which has these
shots from a plane that feel weirdly like 2001.
They really do. And then The Seafarers in 1953,
which was his first color film. And The Seafarers
is important because it shows his technical ambition
growing. You can see it right there. It has this
early, really smooth dolly shot that establishes
a whole community. It's the beginning of the
tracking shots that would define his entire career.
He's teaching himself the language of cinematic
movement. But then comes the jump to a full feature
film, which is a huge leap. A huge leap, and
it's funded by his family. His uncle, a pharmacist,
gives him $9 ,000 to make Fear and Desire in
1953. It's this war allegory shot on a tiny budget.
Tiny. About $53 ,000, which he still managed
to go over budget on. So he learned that lesson
early. And the critics at the time, they actually
liked it. They praised the camera work. Right.
Yeah. They saw artistic glimpses of something
new. But as soon as he got more experience. And
he hated it. He absolutely disowned it. Called
it a bumbling amateur film exercise. He spent
years trying to buy up and destroy every copy.
It's just the first perfect example of his impossibly
high standards. So his next one, Killer's Kiss
from 1955, he funded himself. A film noir. And
he's still doing everything. Directing, producing,
editing, cinematography. He's just experimenting
like crazy with camera angles. And the interesting
thing is the schedule. He shot it really fast,
but then spent months on the sound and editing.
Seven months. It tells you that from the very
beginning, he believed the film was truly made
in post -production. That's where the control
was. And it pays off. People notice the camera
work. Martin Scorsese later said it was a big
influence on Raging Bull. It was. So this whole
early period, it proves he can do two things.
He can execute these complex visuals and he can
make money. And that gets him ready for the big
show, Hollywood. Which brings us to this next
phase, where he starts building the professional
machine he needs to make his vision a reality.
And it all starts so perfectly over a game of
chess. In Washington Square Park. He meets a
young producer named James B. Harris. And Harris
is just blown away by him. Immediately. He called
Kubrick the most intelligent, most creative person
I have ever come in contact with. So in 1955,
they form Harris -Kubrick Pictures. Their first
project is The Killing in 1956. It's a racetrack
heist film. And this is his first time with a
fully professional crew, which immediately causes
problems. Big problems. He wanted to shoot it
himself, but the union rules wouldn't let him.
So we have to hire a veteran cinematographer,
Lucene Ballard. And Kubrick is, what, 27 at this
point? And he immediately gets into a fight with
this guy who's been in the business for decades,
threatening to fire him over where to put the
camera. It wasn't ego. It was just NK. He believed
his vision was the right one, period. And they
shot it incredibly fast on a tight budget. 24
days for $330 ,000. It didn't do well at the
box office initially, but his reputation just
grew and grew. Because of that nonlinear story.
Right. Flashing back and forth. Yeah. People
compared it to Orson Welles. Yeah. And now, you
know, it's seen as this huge influence. Quentin
Tarantino always talks about it. And the killing
gets the attention of MGM, which leads them to
their first big studio picture, the anti -war
film Paths of Glory. 1957. Stars Kirk Douglas.
This is Kubrick's first real commercial and critical
hit. But because of this scathing attack on the
French military during World War I, it was instantly
controversial in Europe. It was banned in France
for years, wasn't it? Banned until 1974. The
French government thought it was an unflattering
depiction of their military. The Swiss Army censored
it, too. But the production itself tells you
everything about his method. That famous battle
scene. It's just an unbelievable piece of orchestration.
He sets up six cameras in no man's land. And
then he gives every single extra a number for
a zone where they're supposed to die. So what
looks like total chaos is actually choreographed
down to the last man. That level of control,
though, that puts him on a collision course with
the Hollywood machine. A total collision course.
Kirk Douglas was impressed with Paths of Glory,
so he hires Kubrick to take over as director
on Spartacus. Which was this massive production
already in trouble. A completely different animal.
A $6 million budget, 10 ,000 cast members. Kubrick's
only 31. He's the youngest director to ever helm
an epic like this. And the clash with Douglas,
who was the star and the producer, is just legendary.
They fought over everything. The script, creative
control, and especially the pace. The studio
system was built for speed. Right. They wanted,
what was it, 32 camera setups a day? 32, which
is just an insane number. And Cooper comes in
and says, no, I need to do two. Two. You can
just imagine the studio executives' heads exploding.
They eventually compromised on eight, but the
tension was just, it was toxic. Douglas later
called him a talented shit, said he regretted
hiring him. He also apparently cut most of Douglas'
lines from the first half hour of the movie.
He did. Yet, despite all that fighting, the film
was a huge success, won four Oscars, and for
Kubrick it proved something. If he could survive
that, he could survive anything. But he knew
he could never work that way again. Ever again.
And that leads to the most important decision
of his entire career. He moves to England in
1961 and basically never comes back. And the
initial reason was financial, right? Yeah, it
was a mix of things. He had to shoot Lolita in
the UK because of some contract stuff. But he
also took advantage of something called the E
.D. Plan. It was this great tax break you could
get if most of your crew was British. So his
meticulous, high -retake style suddenly became
much cheaper to do in the U .K. Exactly. It was
a smart financial move. But it was also about
escaping the Hollywood system and, weirdly, his
growing fear of crime in New York. So in England,
he creates his own little kingdom. His fortress
of solitude. He basically turns his home, Childwickbury
Manor, into a studio. Writing, research, editing,
all under one roof. And that's where he gets
the total absolute control he always wanted.
His first film there is Lolita in 1962, which
is a major shift in style for him. It's his first
black comedy. It's this transitional film into
the more surreal psychological stuff he'd do
later. And he had to deal with the censors because
of the subject matter. Oh, yeah. He had to strip
out almost all the erotic stuff so it becomes
this comedy about obsession rather than anything
explicit. But this is where he discovers Peter
Sellers. And he falls in love with him. He loved
Sellers' range. And he actually encouraged him
to improvise wildly. He'd set up three cameras
just to make sure he caught every little thing
Sellers did. Which is the opposite of the control
freak reputation. It is. And that collaboration
leads directly to Dr. Strangelove. The 1964 masterpiece.
He'd become completely preoccupied with the threat
of nuclear war. He started out wanting to make
a serious thriller based on this book, Red Alert.
But the more he researched it, the more absurd
he found it. He found the whole idea of mutually
assured destruction so fundamentally ridiculous
that he realized a serious movie would actually
be less believable than a comedy. So he just
flips the whole thing on its head, turns it into
this outrageous black comedy full of sexual innuendo.
Co -written with the great satirist Terry Southern.
And Sellers, of course, plays three different
roles. The film was a shock when it came out.
A huge shock. People thought it was revolutionary,
but it got some really harsh reviews, too. One
critic called it a shattering, sick joke. But
it quickly became recognized for what it is,
a comedy masterpiece. It proved Kubrick could
take the most serious subject imaginable and
turn it into something completely unique. And
that really brings us into the period where he
becomes this. this technical god of cinema it
it starts with his whole philosophy of directing
yeah he only wanted to make films that mattered
he was obsessed with substance and form being
equally important and he wanted his films to
appeal to every kind of viewer he believed in
communicating subconsciously he loved enigmas
and allegories he thought that making a direct
statement was just less powerful than letting
the audience find the meaning for themselves.
He wanted the film to be an experience that hits
you on a deeper subconscious level. Which leads
to that style that people often call cold or
detached. It's very deliberate. He's not interested
in specific character emotions as much as he
is in these universal themes. You know, inherited
evil, the birth of intelligence. You're watching
humanity under a microscope. But that's a risk,
right? That coldness can push an audience away.
Some people feel that way about Barry Lyndon
or even to... 2001? It's a valid criticism, but
for him, the technical perfection was the emotional
connection. The world had to be so perfectly
rendered for the big ideas to land properly.
And the absolute peak of that idea is 2001, A
Space Odyssey. Which took five years to make.
Five years. The theme is just immense. It's the
birth of intelligence from ape to this star child,
all guided by these silent black monoliths. And
the research was insane. Staggering. He was talking
to NASA scientists. He observed a NASA mission,
all to make sure the physics and the look of
the spacecraft were completely accurate. He wanted
total realism. which made the unreal parts, like
the monoliths, feel even more powerful. And to
get that realism, he had to basically invent
new technology. He did. The visual effects were
groundbreaking. That slit -scan photography for
the Stargate sequence, no one had ever seen anything
like that. And the front -screen projection for
the Dawn of Man scenes looked so seamless. He
won his only personal Oscar for that, for visual
effects. Which is crazy when you think about
it. But maybe the biggest artistic leap was the
music. He had a full score commissioned from
a composer, Alex North. And he just threw it
out. Threw the whole thing out. He felt it was
too conventional, too emotionally manipulative.
He wanted the music to feel like it was coming
from outside the story. So he switched to existing
classical pieces. Which is how we all now associate
Richard Strauss's also Sprech Zarathustra with
space. He made that piece iconic. But he also
introduced audiences to really challenging modern
composers like Gheorghe Leggetti. That eerie,
buzzing music. It's called micropolyphony. It's
this dense, shifting sound that's really unsettling.
It was the perfect sound for the cold, terrifying
indifference of space. It was a genius move.
So after five years in the future, he goes all
the way into the past with Barry Lyndon. 1975.
An 18th century drama that became famous for
his insane attention to historical detail. He
was demanding. 20, 30, sometimes way more retakes
for a single shot. And this is where we get to
that amazing technical nugget. He wanted to shoot
scenes lit only by candlelight. To make it look
like an 18th century painting. But that was basically
impossible with the film and lenses they had.
So he finds a solution. A crazy solution. He
gets his hands on this special high -speed f
.7 lens made by Zeiss. And where did this lens
come from? It was developed by NASA. For taking
pictures of the dark side of the moon. For spy
satellites. He took space age military grade
technology and used it to make a period drama.
That is just unbelievable. It's why the film
looks so authentic. But shooting with that lens
is incredibly difficult. The depth of field is
so thin that if an actor moves an inch, they're
out of focus. And the production was apparently
chaotic. He had to flee Ireland because of death
threats from the IRA. Yeah, he was creating this
perfectly controlled world on set. while dealing
with real political danger outside. It's an incredible
contrast. After the 18th century, he jumps to
modern horror with The Shining. 1980. Filmed
almost entirely in England on these massive sets
they built to look like the Overlook Hotel. And
this is where he pioneers another piece of technology,
the Steadicam. He wasn't the first to use it,
but he was the first to really understand what
it could do. He used it to get those fluid, gliding,
tracking shots. Danny on his tricycle, the chase
in the maze. Makes you feel like you're a ghost
floating through the hotel. The inventor of the
Steadicam said Kubrick was the first director
who truly got its psychological potential. It
created this sense of relentless, smooth pursuit
that's so unsettling. And of course, the stories
about what he demanded from the actors on that
film are legendary. He pushed them to their absolute
limit. Shelley Duvall said she felt abused by
the process. She had to do that baseball bat
scene 127 times. 127. Another scene went to 148
takes. The theory is he was deliberately trying
to exhaust her, to strip away the acting and
get to a place of raw, genuine terror. It's a
method that is both brilliant and, frankly, terrifying.
It absolutely is. He was using psychological
pressure as a directorial tool. So let's talk
more about that method, specifically the mystery
of the multiple takes, because there was a philosophy
behind it, right? It wasn't just sadism. There
was. I mean, his whole reputation is built on
those stories of 50, 80, over 100 takes. And
his stated goal was to get the actors to stop
thinking about the performance, to exhaust their
conscious mind and get them to a deeper, more
instinctual place. But he also said that the
really high take counts usually only happened
when actors showed up unprepared. That's the
key qualifier. He said, you cannot act without
knowing dialogue. If they're struggling with
the words, they can't get to the emotion. So
the endless retakes were often a consequence
of an actor not being ready. And the best example
that proves this is Arlie Ermey on Full Metal
Jacket. The perfect example. Ermey, who played
the drill instructor, would nail his scenes in
just two or three takes. And why was that? Because
he was that character. He was a real drill instructor.
He had said those lines with that intensity for
years. Kubrick said it was like Ermey was already
an actor because he has such total command of
the material. So it shows he was willing to be
collaborative, even allow improvisation if the
actor was fully prepared. Exactly. He let Peter
Sellers go wild. He loved it when Jack Nicholson
came up with the here's Johnny line. He wanted
actors who could break the rules, but only after
they had mastered them. What about his technical
control on set? He famously didn't put camera
directions in the script. Which is so strange
for a control freak, right? But it's because
he developed the visuals during rehearsal. He'd
watch the actors block out a scene and then decide
where the camera should go, what lens to use.
It was an organic process. But once he decided,
that was it. That was it. His cinematographer,
John Alcott, called him the nearest thing to
genius I've ever worked with. But his real passion.
The part of filmmaking he said was truly unique
was the editing. He thought the film could be
made or broken in the editing room. Completely.
He would work seven days a week, 18 hours a day,
just cutting. He knew that in post -production,
he could reshape everything. The performances,
the rhythm, the entire meaning of the scene.
And that obsession extended to the sound, to
the music. The story about the dual scene in
Barry Lyndon is just incredible. He spent 42
working days just listening to 17th and 18th
century music to find the perfect piece. 42 days
for one scene's music. That's the definition
of obsession. And that refusal to compromise
continued right to the end of his career. He
makes a Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket.
And shoots the whole thing within 30 miles of
his house in England. He imported palm trees.
200 palm trees from North Africa. He transformed
a derelict gasworks in London into the war -torn
city of Who. It was just this massive act of
engineering. He could build any world he wanted,
wherever he was. And he even played with his
own style. He made the Steadicam shots in that
film intentionally shaky. Yeah, to get that newsreel
effect, he would break his own rules if the story
demanded it. And then his final film, Eyes Wide
Shut. 1999. He worked on it relentlessly for
15 months, 18 hours a day, in total secrecy.
And then just days after he showed the final
cut to his family and to Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman, he died. A sudden heart attack. He never
saw it released to the public. It's such a tragic
but also weirdly fitting end for a man whose
control over his work was absolute right up to
the very last minute. And then there's this whole
shadow career, right? The great movies he never
made. Which are almost as famous as the ones
he did make, starting with Napoleon. After 2001,
he spent two years researching Napoleon's life.
He was planning this enormous epic. He wanted
40 ,000 infantry and 10 ,000 cavalry. He was
literally planning to rent an entire country's
army, probably Romania's, to stage the battles.
Yeah. He had every single day of Napoleon's life
cataloged. So why didn't it happen? It was just
too expensive. And then another Napoleon film.
Waterloo came out and flopped at the box office
and the studio got cold feet and canceled it.
But the script was so detailed that Steven Spielberg
is now turning it into a mini series. Which tells
you how complete his preparation was. Then you
have AI artificial intelligence. He worked on
that for years, but then he gave it to Spielberg.
He did. In 1995, he told Spielberg that the story.
which is kind of a dark fairy tale was closer
to spielberg sensibilities and spielberg directed
it after kubrick died he did he said it felt
like he was being coached by a ghost it's this
incredible final collaboration between two masters
and then there's the one that just seems impossible
the beatles asked him to direct the lord of the
rings and he said no his reason was that he didn't
want to make a film based on a book that was
already so popular and beloved he was always
looking for challenge something unexpected his
legacy is just The film historian Robert Kolker
said his films were more intellectually rigorous
than the work of any other American filmmaker.
And you feel that. And the generations of directors
he influenced, though. Scorsese, Christopher
Nolan, David Fincher. Spielberg called 2001 the
big bang for their generation of filmmakers.
And his influence is everywhere in pop culture.
The sources say that The Simpsons has more references
to Kubrick's films than to any other single thing.
Which is amazing. And the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement
Award is now named after him. Yeah. He just built
this incredible body of work by constantly refusing
to repeat himself, always creating these complex,
intelligent films. So what does this all mean
for you, the well -informed listener? We've traced
Stanley Kubrick's extraordinary self -taught
journey from a Bronx photographer who honed his
patience through chess to a cinematic master
who demanded and achieved a singular artistic
vision. He pushed technical boundaries in every
single film, whether that was repurposing a NASA
-developed lens for candlelight filming in Barry
Lyndon, pioneering the fluid Steadicam in The
Shining, or introducing challenging modern classical
music in 2001. His greatest trick was acquiring
major Hollywood financial backing while operating
outside its creative control, allowing him to
be the ultimate sovereign of his cinematic universe.
He was an artist who chose films that mattered,
treating genre not as a stylistic restriction,
but as a vessel for examining the universal,
often dark, elements of human nature. His dedication
to exhaustive research, his mastery of the editing
room, and his firm belief that the audience should
discover the meaning for themselves is why his
films remain so endlessly fascinating and intellectually
rigorous, compelling us to return to them decades
later. He never stopped learning, refining, and
utilizing the absolute best, most cutting -edge
technology available. Here's a final thought
for you to consider. Kubrick's entire career
was driven by his commitment to maximizing technical
perfection and control, ensuring he could render
the world exactly as he saw them in his head.
Considering his obsession with everything from
satellite lenses to stabilized camera rigs and
the final moments of editing, what single piece
of technology, unavailable during his lifetime,
think about the pace, the control, the immediate
feedback it might offer, would have most fascinated
and revolutionized the way he made films today?
Think about that commitment to total visual control
and what tool he'd be using to exert it now.
A fascinating question about a man who was always
chasing the next technological edge. That's it
for this deep dive. We'll see you next time.