WEBVTT 00:00:00.459 --> 00:00:02.560 When we think of a creative mastermind at work, 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:05.320 we usually picture like a watchmaker. Oh yeah, 00:00:05.519 --> 00:00:07.759 someone sitting in this totally quiet, pristine 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:10.960 room. Right, just squinting through a tiny magnifying 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:13.960 glass, placing these microscopic gears into, 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:16.420 you know, perfect alignment. Exactly, because 00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:18.980 every single piece behaves exactly as it's supposed 00:00:18.980 --> 00:00:21.579 to. It's clean. It's totally predictable. But 00:00:21.579 --> 00:00:24.980 what happens when you take that sterile, flawless 00:00:24.980 --> 00:00:28.079 precision and try to apply it to a chaotic film 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:29.920 set? Right, because suddenly those little gears 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:33.100 are thousands of tired, argumentative human beings. 00:00:33.219 --> 00:00:35.600 Exactly. They need feeding. They have huge egos. 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:38.969 And well, they talk back. Welcome to today's 00:00:38.969 --> 00:00:41.789 Deep Dive. Glad to be here. Today we are unpacking 00:00:41.789 --> 00:00:44.789 this massive collection of biographical records, 00:00:45.070 --> 00:00:47.270 production notes, and historical accounts covering 00:00:47.270 --> 00:00:51.090 the life, the films, and the truly obsessive 00:00:51.090 --> 00:00:54.170 genius of director Stanley Kubrick. It's a wild 00:00:54.170 --> 00:00:56.990 ride. It really is. And our mission today is 00:00:56.990 --> 00:00:59.810 to figure out how a bored, failing high school 00:00:59.810 --> 00:01:03.409 student evolved into the ultimate cinematic mastermind. 00:01:03.770 --> 00:01:05.849 Yeah, we're really going to explore the absolute 00:01:05.849 --> 00:01:09.450 extremes a person will go to in order to achieve 00:01:09.519 --> 00:01:11.959 pure perfection. Right. And what his intense 00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:14.359 need for control can teach you about realizing 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:16.900 your own creative visions. And, you know, what's 00:01:16.900 --> 00:01:19.920 so compelling about this journey is the profound 00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:22.239 irony of where it actually began. Oh, for sure. 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:25.120 If you looked at Stanley Kubrick on paper as 00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:27.659 a teenager growing up in the Bronx, you would 00:01:27.659 --> 00:01:30.760 not see a future mastermind. I mean, he wasn't 00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:33.319 a child prodigy in the traditional academic sense 00:01:33.319 --> 00:01:36.450 at all. Not even close. No. In fact, he was a 00:01:36.450 --> 00:01:38.230 thoroughly mediocre student. We're talking about 00:01:38.230 --> 00:01:41.689 a kid with a 67 or like a D plus grade average. 00:01:41.810 --> 00:01:44.590 That is just so crazy to think about. Right. 00:01:44.670 --> 00:01:47.810 He was introverted. He absolutely hated the rigid 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:49.989 structure of a classroom. And he would regularly 00:01:49.989 --> 00:01:52.170 just skip school entirely. Just to go sit in 00:01:52.170 --> 00:01:55.069 the dark at local cinemas watching double features 00:01:55.069 --> 00:01:58.349 all day. Exactly. So how does a kid failing high 00:01:58.349 --> 00:02:01.930 school become a visionary who literally redefines 00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:04.189 an entire art form? Well, it all points back 00:02:04.189 --> 00:02:06.890 to two really pivotal gifts from his father, 00:02:06.969 --> 00:02:09.870 Jack Kubrick. His dad was a homeopathic doctor, 00:02:10.169 --> 00:02:12.530 right? Yeah, and he was incredibly frustrated 00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:16.069 by his son's poor grades. But he still recognized 00:02:16.069 --> 00:02:18.090 that there was a sharp mind in there somewhere. 00:02:18.349 --> 00:02:21.110 Right, he saw the potential. Did. So when Stanley 00:02:21.110 --> 00:02:25.370 was 13, his dad gave him a Greflex camera. And 00:02:25.370 --> 00:02:28.030 then the second gift was teaching him the game 00:02:28.030 --> 00:02:30.949 of chess. And those two things just completely 00:02:30.949 --> 00:02:33.610 changed the game for him. They essentially rewired 00:02:33.610 --> 00:02:36.090 his brain. I mean, the camera gave him a way 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:39.150 to frame and capture reality. It gave him the 00:02:39.150 --> 00:02:41.030 sense of ownership over what he was looking at. 00:02:41.229 --> 00:02:44.250 But the chess, the chess was the absolute key, 00:02:44.389 --> 00:02:46.509 wasn't it? Oh, the key to his entire philosophy. 00:02:46.710 --> 00:02:48.909 Not just as a director, but just as a human being. 00:02:49.090 --> 00:02:50.629 Because he actually joined the United States 00:02:50.629 --> 00:02:52.650 Chess Federation, right? Yeah. He spent a lot 00:02:52.650 --> 00:02:55.729 of time playing chess for quarters in Washington 00:02:55.729 --> 00:02:58.400 Square Park. And he explained later that the 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:00.539 game taught him patience and discipline. It taught 00:03:00.539 --> 00:03:03.120 him how to assess a complex board. Exactly. How 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:05.780 to anticipate multiple moves ahead, and above 00:03:05.780 --> 00:03:08.900 all, how to maintain total control of the environment. 00:03:09.199 --> 00:03:11.560 And you can really see those chess skills translating 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:13.979 directly into his career. Oh, absolutely. Because, 00:03:13.979 --> 00:03:16.900 I mean, the jump from a kid who couldn't stand 00:03:16.900 --> 00:03:19.599 the structure of high school to a man commanding 00:03:19.599 --> 00:03:22.039 thousands of people on a film set, that's massive. 00:03:22.060 --> 00:03:25.189 What a huge leap. But he started small framing 00:03:25.189 --> 00:03:29.229 reality through a lens. In the 1940s, he gets 00:03:29.229 --> 00:03:31.550 a job as an apprentice and eventually a staff 00:03:31.550 --> 00:03:34.870 photographer for Look magazine. And this is where 00:03:34.870 --> 00:03:37.669 you really see his obsession with human psychology 00:03:37.669 --> 00:03:40.330 forming. There's this one assignment where he 00:03:40.330 --> 00:03:42.909 took 18 different pictures of people just waiting 00:03:42.909 --> 00:03:45.289 in a dental office. And that dental office assignment 00:03:45.289 --> 00:03:48.280 is so revealing. because he wasn't interested 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:51.639 in glamorous, you know, staged portrait shots. 00:03:51.740 --> 00:03:54.120 He wanted the real stuff. Exactly. He realized 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:56.180 that the first picture you take of someone is 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:58.219 just a pose. They're projecting exactly what 00:03:58.219 --> 00:03:59.900 they want you to see. Right. They're smiling. 00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:02.280 They're sitting up straight. But by the 18th 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:05.120 picture, the subject gets bored. They completely 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:09.900 drop their guard and you capture this raw. unstaged 00:04:09.900 --> 00:04:12.580 human emotion in the most mundane environment. 00:04:12.860 --> 00:04:14.819 He was learning how to tell a story visually, 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:17.019 basically by just waiting out his subjects until 00:04:17.019 --> 00:04:19.160 they gave him the truth. Yeah, and he took that 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:22.060 scrappy, independent mindset directly into his 00:04:22.060 --> 00:04:24.040 filmmaking. Because he didn't even go to film 00:04:24.040 --> 00:04:26.600 school, did he? No, not at all. He self -funded 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.519 his early short films. He made his very first 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:32.519 documentary short, Day of the Fight, for just 00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:36.579 $3 ,900. Wow, just $3 ,900. Yeah. He literally 00:04:36.579 --> 00:04:39.420 just rented a camera, carried it around, and 00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:41.339 figured out the mechanics of filmmaking completely 00:04:41.339 --> 00:04:44.079 on the fly. Which I imagine naturally led to 00:04:44.079 --> 00:04:46.639 some major growing pains. Oh, definitely. His 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:48.860 first feature film, Fear and Desire, was this 00:04:48.860 --> 00:04:52.339 famously chaotic, super low -budget shoot. Wait, 00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:54.180 isn't that the one where he almost killed everyone? 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:56.930 Yes. At one point, he accidentally almost killed 00:04:56.930 --> 00:04:59.389 his cast with poisonous gas because he was trying 00:04:59.389 --> 00:05:02.410 to create an artificial fog effect. That is insane. 00:05:02.629 --> 00:05:05.649 Just a casual chemical warfare on set. Right. 00:05:05.889 --> 00:05:07.610 And later in life, he actually kept Prince of 00:05:07.610 --> 00:05:10.129 the Movie out of circulation. He called it a 00:05:10.129 --> 00:05:12.470 bumbling amateur film exercise. I mean, fair 00:05:12.470 --> 00:05:14.629 enough after the gas incident. But the crucial 00:05:14.629 --> 00:05:16.529 thing is that he learned the technical mechanics 00:05:16.529 --> 00:05:18.810 of his craft from the ground up all by himself. 00:05:19.069 --> 00:05:21.750 And that ground -up education really sets the 00:05:21.750 --> 00:05:24.850 stage for his first massive Hollywood blockbuster, 00:05:25.329 --> 00:05:28.170 Spartacus, in 1960. Yeah, this is a huge turning 00:05:28.170 --> 00:05:30.689 point. He's just 31 years old, and he's handed 00:05:30.689 --> 00:05:33.689 a six million dollar budget, which by the way 00:05:33.689 --> 00:05:35.769 was the most expensive American film ever made 00:05:35.769 --> 00:05:38.189 at the time. It was a massive undertaking. And 00:05:38.189 --> 00:05:41.589 he has a cast of over 10 ,000 people, including, 00:05:41.930 --> 00:05:45.600 like, 8 ,000 trained Spanish soldiers acting 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:47.839 as extras for the battle scenes? But this is 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:50.339 exactly where the watchmaker's gears start grinding 00:05:50.339 --> 00:05:52.319 against the Hollywood machine. Right, because 00:05:52.319 --> 00:05:54.500 he wasn't actually in charge of everything. No. 00:05:54.860 --> 00:05:57.379 The film was actually produced by its star, Kirk 00:05:57.379 --> 00:06:00.180 Douglas. And Douglas had fired the original director, 00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:03.040 Anthony Mann, just a week into shooting. So he 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:06.019 brings Kubrick in to fix it. Exactly. And the 00:06:06.019 --> 00:06:08.240 clashes between Douglas and Kubrick were just... 00:06:08.089 --> 00:06:11.589 monumental Kubrick was absolutely furious about 00:06:11.589 --> 00:06:14.149 not having full creative control over the script 00:06:14.149 --> 00:06:17.370 and the visual style so what did he do well in 00:06:17.370 --> 00:06:20.209 this massive power moves Kubrick took the script 00:06:20.209 --> 00:06:23.029 and essentially gutted it he cut almost all of 00:06:23.029 --> 00:06:24.949 Kirk Douglas's dialogue in the first 30 minutes 00:06:24.949 --> 00:06:29.089 of the film Wow just cut the star producers lines 00:06:29.089 --> 00:06:32.189 yeah forcing the story to be told visually rather 00:06:32.189 --> 00:06:34.649 than through all this clunky exposition You know, 00:06:34.709 --> 00:06:37.389 it's exactly like finally landing your absolute 00:06:37.389 --> 00:06:40.689 dream job at this massive prestigious tech company. 00:06:40.709 --> 00:06:43.689 Right. Only to walk in on day one and realize 00:06:43.689 --> 00:06:46.389 the corporate bureaucracy is completely suffocating 00:06:46.389 --> 00:06:48.870 your ability to actually build anything good. 00:06:49.069 --> 00:06:51.170 There's a perfect analogy. You can really see 00:06:51.170 --> 00:06:53.170 his chest training kicking in here. He looks 00:06:53.170 --> 00:06:55.490 at the Hollywood studio system, realizes he's 00:06:55.490 --> 00:06:57.689 basically playing as a pawn for the producers, 00:06:58.149 --> 00:07:00.709 and decides, no, I need to be the grandmaster. 00:07:00.949 --> 00:07:03.189 That is exactly what happened. Now Spartacus 00:07:03.189 --> 00:07:05.319 went on to He won four Academy Awards. It was 00:07:05.319 --> 00:07:08.060 a massive commercial success, taking in over 00:07:08.060 --> 00:07:11.300 $14 million at the box office. Which is huge. 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:13.879 Huge. For most 31 -year -old directors, that 00:07:13.879 --> 00:07:16.100 would be the absolute pinnacle of their career. 00:07:16.259 --> 00:07:19.360 But not for Kubrick. No. It taught him a vital 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:21.439 lesson that permanently changed the trajectory 00:07:21.439 --> 00:07:25.129 of cinema. Success without absolute creative 00:07:25.129 --> 00:07:27.449 control was totally meaningless to him. He had 00:07:27.449 --> 00:07:30.850 to have his hands on the wheel. Exactly. He realized 00:07:30.850 --> 00:07:33.529 that to make the art he actually wanted to make, 00:07:33.889 --> 00:07:36.930 he could never be a pawn again. Which triggers 00:07:36.930 --> 00:07:40.379 a pretty extreme reaction. Very extreme. driven 00:07:40.379 --> 00:07:43.939 by this refusal to ever compromise again. Kubrick 00:07:43.939 --> 00:07:46.300 doesn't just change studios to find more control. 00:07:46.500 --> 00:07:49.180 He changes continents. Yeah, he just packs up. 00:07:49.339 --> 00:07:52.019 He permanently leaves the United States and moves 00:07:52.019 --> 00:07:55.480 to England, and he sets up this isolated fortress 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.160 at a sprawling estate called Childwick Berry 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.420 Manor. Right. His wife, Christiane, referred 00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:03.759 to it as a perfect family factory. Which sounds 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:06.540 so intense. Well, he essentially centralized 00:08:06.540 --> 00:08:09.199 his entire operation, the writing, the heavy 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:11.399 the research, the editing, the management, it 00:08:11.399 --> 00:08:13.639 was all brought completely in -house. So no more 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:16.740 studio lot offices. No. He completely shunned 00:08:16.740 --> 00:08:19.019 the standard Hollywood publicity machine. You 00:08:19.019 --> 00:08:21.579 know, the premier parties, the industry schmoozing. 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:24.060 He built his own self -contained ecosystem where 00:08:24.060 --> 00:08:26.899 his word was absolute law. So think about your 00:08:26.899 --> 00:08:29.300 own career for a second. If you suddenly completely 00:08:29.300 --> 00:08:31.139 stop networking, stop going into the office, 00:08:31.339 --> 00:08:32.879 move to the countryside, and just hit in your 00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:35.779 house. Yeah. You'd probably worry about becoming 00:08:35.779 --> 00:08:38.399 totally irrelevant. It feels like a musician 00:08:38.399 --> 00:08:40.840 refusing to ever tour or do press interviews. 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:43.779 So how did he stay tapped into the culture while 00:08:43.779 --> 00:08:47.240 he was geographically hiding from it? Well, that's 00:08:47.240 --> 00:08:50.279 the real paradox of Kubrick's isolation. By locking 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:52.379 himself away in an English manner, he wasn't 00:08:52.379 --> 00:08:55.039 actually hiding. What was he doing? He was building 00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:58.299 a highly controlled laboratory. He removed himself 00:08:58.299 --> 00:09:01.299 from the noise and those fleeting trends of Hollywood 00:09:01.299 --> 00:09:04.059 so he could focus entirely on the work itself. 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:07.100 Oh, okay. That makes sense. Yeah, he read voraciously 00:09:07.100 --> 00:09:10.840 and he managed a massive global network of collaborators 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:14.039 entirely over the phone lines. So he wasn't just 00:09:14.039 --> 00:09:16.529 sitting in silence? Not at all. Michael Herr, 00:09:16.610 --> 00:09:18.629 a screenwriter who worked with him later, pointed 00:09:18.629 --> 00:09:21.149 out that the idea of Kupik as a hermit was a 00:09:21.149 --> 00:09:23.929 total myth. He was actually incredibly gregarious 00:09:23.929 --> 00:09:26.370 and talked for hours and hours. It just all happened 00:09:26.370 --> 00:09:29.850 remotely. Exactly. His physical isolation preserved 00:09:29.850 --> 00:09:32.830 the purity of his ideas. And the results of that 00:09:32.830 --> 00:09:35.409 absolute control were just staggering. Let's 00:09:35.409 --> 00:09:37.549 take Dr. Strangelove, for example. Oh, perfect 00:09:37.549 --> 00:09:40.370 example. He decides he wants to make a serious 00:09:40.370 --> 00:09:44.379 political thriller about the Cold War. But because 00:09:44.379 --> 00:09:47.000 he's isolated and managing his own research, 00:09:47.019 --> 00:09:49.460 he doesn't just read a script. No, he goes deep. 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:52.860 He reads over 40 dense military and political 00:09:52.860 --> 00:09:55.840 strategy books on nuclear war. 40 books. Yeah. 00:09:56.299 --> 00:09:58.779 And through that obsessive solitary research, 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:01.940 he comes to a profound conclusion. He realizes 00:10:01.940 --> 00:10:04.519 the whole concept of mutually assured destruction 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:08.139 is inherently absurd. Right. So he completely 00:10:08.139 --> 00:10:10.539 pivots the entire project from a tense thriller 00:10:10.539 --> 00:10:12.860 into a pitch black comedy. He just changes genres. 00:10:12.909 --> 00:10:15.690 Entirely. Entirely. He brings in Peter Sellers 00:10:15.690 --> 00:10:18.070 and lets him wildly intervise three completely 00:10:18.070 --> 00:10:20.149 different roles. And he had the freedom to make 00:10:20.149 --> 00:10:22.610 that massive pivot because he answered to absolutely 00:10:22.610 --> 00:10:24.929 no one but himself. And he took that operational 00:10:24.929 --> 00:10:28.940 freedom even further with 2001. A space odyssey. 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:31.299 Oh, this one is legendary. It really is. He gets 00:10:31.299 --> 00:10:33.399 permission to work directly with NASA aerospace 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:36.000 engineers just to ensure the spacecraft designs 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.419 are physically accurate. Of course he does. Right. 00:10:38.820 --> 00:10:42.580 He pushes the budget up to $10 .5 million. And 00:10:42.580 --> 00:10:45.759 then in a move that would terrify any studio 00:10:45.759 --> 00:10:49.080 executive today, he throws out an original commission 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:51.700 score by an established Hollywood composer. Just 00:10:51.700 --> 00:10:54.580 tosses it. Tosses it and replaces it with classical 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:58.279 music like Strauss's Blue Danube. Which is such 00:10:58.279 --> 00:11:01.419 a massive risk. I mean, why did he do it? Well, 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:05.000 because typical sci -fi movies of the 1960s used, 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.399 like, spooky theremin music or just standard 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:10.960 orchestral swells. Right, the classic alien sounds. 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.899 Yeah. But Kubrick felt that classical music brought 00:11:13.899 --> 00:11:16.879 a specific... seriousness and transcendence to 00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:19.019 the visuals. It completely elevated the film 00:11:19.019 --> 00:11:21.639 from a pulp space adventure to an almost religious 00:11:21.639 --> 00:11:24.440 experience about human evolution. And he couldn't 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:26.620 have made that choice if a studio committee was 00:11:26.620 --> 00:11:28.539 breathing down his neck. No way. They would have 00:11:28.539 --> 00:11:31.039 demanded the spooky aliens. Exactly. And this 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:33.200 transition is fascinating because once he had 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:35.399 secured his isolated fortress and his creative 00:11:35.399 --> 00:11:37.659 independence, he started pushing not just the 00:11:37.659 --> 00:11:40.039 boundaries of narrative but the absolute limits 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:42.080 of physical technology. Oh, he was relentless. 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:45.200 He demanded that the physical world bend to his 00:11:45.200 --> 00:11:48.259 vision. Look at his 18th century period film, 00:11:48.460 --> 00:11:50.860 Barry Lyndon. He wanted the lighting to look 00:11:50.860 --> 00:11:53.379 exactly like the oil paintings from that era. 00:11:53.659 --> 00:11:56.000 Right. No artificial movie lights at all. Right. 00:11:56.179 --> 00:11:58.440 Which cinematographers at the time told him was 00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:00.899 physically impossible. Because traditional film 00:12:00.899 --> 00:12:02.740 lenses need a certain amount of artificial light 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:05.220 to capture an image. Otherwise it just looks 00:12:05.220 --> 00:12:07.600 completely grainy and dark. So what does he do? 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:11.409 He tracks down and acquires three specially adapted 00:12:11.409 --> 00:12:15.009 high -speed lenses. The F .7 Zeiss lenses. Yes. 00:12:15.230 --> 00:12:17.289 Lenses that were originally developed for NASA 00:12:17.289 --> 00:12:19.730 to take satellite photography of the dark side 00:12:19.730 --> 00:12:22.750 of the moon. Unbelievable. To put that in perspective 00:12:22.750 --> 00:12:25.629 for non -photographers, a lower f -stop means 00:12:25.629 --> 00:12:28.370 the camera's aperture opens wider to let in more 00:12:28.370 --> 00:12:32.649 light. And an f0 .7 is massively wide. Very wide. 00:12:32.830 --> 00:12:34.990 It was one of the only lenses on earth capable 00:12:34.990 --> 00:12:37.250 of capturing a clear image lit by absolutely 00:12:37.250 --> 00:12:40.009 nothing but actual 18th century candlelight. 00:12:40.190 --> 00:12:42.850 He literally had to have cameras heavily modified 00:12:42.850 --> 00:12:45.950 just to accept these massive lenses. It's astonishing, 00:12:46.230 --> 00:12:48.529 really. He was forcing the technology to catch 00:12:48.529 --> 00:12:51.210 up to his imagination. Truly. And he was just 00:12:51.210 --> 00:12:53.549 as aggressive in adopting new technology for 00:12:53.549 --> 00:12:56.549 camera movement. In The Shining, he became one 00:12:56.549 --> 00:12:59.350 of the very first directors to utilize the Steadicam 00:12:59.350 --> 00:13:01.370 to its full potential. Oh, and the Steadicam 00:13:01.370 --> 00:13:04.289 was brand new at the time, right? Yes. It's essentially 00:13:04.289 --> 00:13:07.149 a vest and gimbal system worn by the camera operator. 00:13:07.690 --> 00:13:10.570 It uses counterweights to completely absorb the 00:13:10.570 --> 00:13:12.769 operator's footsteps. So the camera can move 00:13:12.769 --> 00:13:15.549 over rough terrain without shaking at all. Exactly. 00:13:16.070 --> 00:13:18.549 Kubrick called it a magic carpet. Traditional 00:13:18.549 --> 00:13:20.970 movies used a camera on a dolly track, which, 00:13:21.009 --> 00:13:23.210 you know, only moves in straight lines. Right. 00:13:23.990 --> 00:13:26.149 But Kubrick used the Steadicam to follow the 00:13:26.149 --> 00:13:29.289 young boy Danny riding his tricycle through the 00:13:29.289 --> 00:13:32.409 twisting hallways of the hotel and over the uneven 00:13:32.409 --> 00:13:34.889 gravel of the physical maze set. Which created 00:13:34.889 --> 00:13:38.470 this totally unnatural, floating, predatory point 00:13:38.470 --> 00:13:40.710 of view. It made the hotel itself feel alive. 00:13:40.889 --> 00:13:43.049 But, you know, while he was pushing the technology 00:13:43.049 --> 00:13:45.570 to its absolute limits, he was also pushing human 00:13:45.570 --> 00:13:48.100 endurance. This is where it gets tough. Yeah. 00:13:48.379 --> 00:13:50.879 The human element of his filmmaking is where 00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:53.019 things get really intense. Yeah. Because to get 00:13:53.019 --> 00:13:56.200 the perfect shot, he demanded dozens, sometimes 00:13:56.200 --> 00:13:58.659 hundreds of retakes. Yes. Let's look at this 00:13:58.659 --> 00:14:00.279 objectively, because this is where the whole 00:14:00.279 --> 00:14:02.519 Watchmaker analogy really gets tested. For sure. 00:14:02.940 --> 00:14:05.759 During The Shining, Shelley Duvall was required 00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:08.500 to perform the exhausting hysterical baseball 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:12.940 bat scene 127 times. It's brutal. And Scatman 00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:15.399 Crothers, a veteran actor, had to do the kitchen 00:14:15.399 --> 00:14:19.000 scene with the young boy 148 times. Yeah. Doing 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:21.639 127 takes of a scene where you are crying and 00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:24.139 swinging a bat isn't just about getting the framing 00:14:24.139 --> 00:14:28.230 right. It's a massive. psychological and physical 00:14:28.230 --> 00:14:31.330 toll it really is from a sheer management perspective 00:14:31.330 --> 00:14:34.250 how does a director push people to that absolute 00:14:34.250 --> 00:14:36.450 extreme without the whole production completely 00:14:36.450 --> 00:14:38.529 falling apart like how do you demand that without 00:14:38.529 --> 00:14:41.309 your entire team just walking out on you it is 00:14:41.309 --> 00:14:44.210 the ultimate tension of Kubrick's legacy because 00:14:44.210 --> 00:14:47.169 on paper it sounds completely brutal but his 00:14:47.169 --> 00:14:49.970 justification for it was deeply tied to his views 00:14:49.970 --> 00:14:53.299 on human psychology Well, Kubrick believed that 00:14:53.299 --> 00:14:55.659 actors naturally relied on their conscious technique 00:14:55.659 --> 00:14:58.019 -like. They knew their lines. They knew their 00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:00.919 marks. They were acting. Right. He essentially 00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:04.019 believed that the first 20 or 30 takes were just 00:15:04.019 --> 00:15:07.700 glorified rehearsals. Wow. By making them do 00:15:07.700 --> 00:15:10.919 it over 100 times, he wanted to exhaust them 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:14.059 so thoroughly that they actually stopped acting. 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:17.139 They forgot their technique entirely, and they 00:15:17.139 --> 00:15:20.139 reached a deeper, unconscious state of pure, 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:23.519 unpolished emotion. And amazingly, some of the 00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:26.039 actors actually defended the process later. They 00:15:26.039 --> 00:15:29.340 did. Jack Nicholson, who starred alongside Duvall 00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:32.159 in The Shining, noted that Kubrick would shoot 00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:34.320 until the actor finally stopped thinking about 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.980 what they were doing. That's wild. And there's 00:15:36.980 --> 00:15:38.940 a really telling observation from Michael Hare, 00:15:39.179 --> 00:15:42.250 too. He noted that actors would go through absolute 00:15:42.250 --> 00:15:44.789 exhaustion with Stanley. They'd swear they must 00:15:44.789 --> 00:15:46.610 have been mad to get involved and swear they'd 00:15:46.610 --> 00:15:48.769 never work with him again. I mean, I would too. 00:15:48.889 --> 00:15:51.570 Right. But then, years later, they would look 00:15:51.570 --> 00:15:53.250 back and spend the rest of their professional 00:15:53.250 --> 00:15:55.970 lives longing for another director who cared 00:15:55.970 --> 00:15:58.370 as deeply as Stanley did. Yeah, they realized 00:15:58.370 --> 00:16:00.710 he wasn't pushing them out of malice. He was 00:16:00.710 --> 00:16:02.830 doing it because he was entirely in service to 00:16:02.830 --> 00:16:06.169 the film. But that relentless drive for pure 00:16:06.169 --> 00:16:09.679 emotion and perfect execution... eventually became 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:12.440 a double -edged sword, didn't it? It did. As 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.659 we move into his final masterpieces, we see the 00:16:15.659 --> 00:16:18.860 true burden of this perfectionism. His need to 00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:22.080 control every single variable meant his physical 00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:25.559 world actually started to shrink. Even as the 00:16:25.559 --> 00:16:28.080 worlds he was creating on screen grew more ambitious. 00:16:28.600 --> 00:16:30.639 We mentioned earlier that he isolated himself 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:33.120 in England, but a massive part of that was a 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:36.600 profound fear of flying. Yes, he completely hated. 00:16:36.809 --> 00:16:38.950 the loss of control that came with getting on 00:16:38.950 --> 00:16:41.370 an airplane. Right, which presents a massive 00:16:41.370 --> 00:16:43.250 logistical nightmare when you decide to make 00:16:43.250 --> 00:16:45.450 a sweeping movie about the Vietnam War. Oh, absolutely. 00:16:45.610 --> 00:16:47.830 Because for Full Metal Jacket, he absolutely 00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:50.450 refused to leave the UK. So how do you shoot 00:16:50.450 --> 00:16:53.429 a Vietnam War epic in England? By exerting total 00:16:53.429 --> 00:16:56.690 control over the environment. Exactly. He transformed 00:16:56.690 --> 00:16:59.789 a derelict gasworks in the London Docklands into 00:16:59.789 --> 00:17:02.210 the ruined Vietnamese city of Hu. Which is just 00:17:02.210 --> 00:17:04.670 crazy to think about. The logistics are mind 00:17:04.670 --> 00:17:07.430 boggling. He had his art department meticulously 00:17:07.430 --> 00:17:10.150 recreate the rubble based on historical photographs. 00:17:10.369 --> 00:17:14.970 Right. He actually imported 200 real palm trees 00:17:14.970 --> 00:17:17.809 all the way from North Africa by road. And when 00:17:17.809 --> 00:17:20.170 that wasn't enough, he ordered thousands of plastic 00:17:20.170 --> 00:17:22.650 ones from Hong Kong. Just to make a freezing 00:17:22.650 --> 00:17:25.990 industrial site in London look like a humid jungle 00:17:25.990 --> 00:17:29.009 war zone. Just incredible. And that intensity 00:17:29.009 --> 00:17:32.500 and need for absolute geographical control only 00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:35.559 increased with his final film Eyes Wide Shut. 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:38.380 I mean, he was almost 70 years old by then, yet 00:17:38.380 --> 00:17:42.099 he worked a relentless 15 -month shoot. 15 months. 00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:44.319 Mostly at a soundstage right near his home. He 00:17:44.319 --> 00:17:47.460 was pulling 18 hour days and maintaining complete 00:17:47.460 --> 00:17:50.559 obsessive secrecy over the entire project. Tragically, 00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:52.519 he suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep 00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:55.099 just six days after screening the final cut of 00:17:55.099 --> 00:17:57.940 that film for his family and the stars. So sad. 00:17:57.960 --> 00:17:59.920 He literally worked on his craft until the very 00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:02.569 end. But there's one story from his later years 00:18:02.569 --> 00:18:04.829 that presents a really fascinating contradiction 00:18:04.829 --> 00:18:06.589 to everything we've just discussed about his 00:18:06.589 --> 00:18:08.109 need for control. Well, why know where you're 00:18:08.109 --> 00:18:10.369 going with this? It's about a project he never 00:18:10.369 --> 00:18:13.339 actually finished. For years, he developed a 00:18:13.339 --> 00:18:16.059 sci -fi film called AI Artificial Intelligence. 00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:19.380 It was this futuristic fairy tale about a robot 00:18:19.380 --> 00:18:22.599 boy who wants to be human. But after years of 00:18:22.599 --> 00:18:25.940 obsessive development, this man, the ultimate 00:18:25.940 --> 00:18:28.539 control freak who demanded 100 takes and rebuilt 00:18:28.539 --> 00:18:31.900 Vietnam and London, voluntarily hands the project 00:18:31.900 --> 00:18:34.940 over to Steven Spielberg. It just seems wild, 00:18:35.160 --> 00:18:37.940 right? It's like Steve Jobs spending years inventing 00:18:37.940 --> 00:18:40.339 the iPhone, looking at the final blueprints, 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:41.920 and then just handing them over to Bill Gates 00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:43.859 because he thought Gates would code the interface 00:18:43.859 --> 00:18:46.140 better. That's a great way to put it. Why on 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:48.640 earth would Kubrick give up his passion project? 00:18:49.140 --> 00:18:51.940 Because he actually recognized his own limitations. 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:56.599 Kubrick's cinematic style was often cold, clinical, 00:18:56.779 --> 00:18:59.220 and very intellectual. Yeah, very detached. But 00:18:59.220 --> 00:19:02.299 AI was essentially a fairy tale. It needed warmth. 00:19:02.509 --> 00:19:05.029 It needed sentimentality. And that wasn't his 00:19:05.029 --> 00:19:07.650 strong suit. Exactly. Kubrick told Spielberg 00:19:07.650 --> 00:19:09.750 that the emotional nature of the story was simply 00:19:09.750 --> 00:19:11.950 closer to Spielberg's sensibilities than his 00:19:11.950 --> 00:19:14.730 own. What's fascinating here is that this choice 00:19:14.730 --> 00:19:17.869 reveals the very core of who Kubrick actually 00:19:17.869 --> 00:19:21.950 was. His ultimate loyalty wasn't to his own ego. 00:19:22.150 --> 00:19:23.930 Right. It wasn't about him getting all the glory. 00:19:24.089 --> 00:19:26.690 No, it wasn't about him proving he could direct 00:19:26.690 --> 00:19:30.210 anything. His loyalty was entirely to the idea 00:19:30.210 --> 00:19:33.190 itself. If he truly believed the film would be 00:19:33.190 --> 00:19:35.410 better served by someone else's aesthetic, he 00:19:35.410 --> 00:19:38.069 was willing to step aside. That's powerful. It 00:19:38.069 --> 00:19:40.950 really proves that his pursuit of absolute perfection 00:19:40.950 --> 00:19:44.329 was never about personal vanity. It was always 00:19:44.329 --> 00:19:48.269 only about serving the final product. So what 00:19:48.269 --> 00:19:50.410 does this all mean for you listening to this 00:19:50.410 --> 00:19:52.730 deep dive? Yeah, how does this apply? Whether 00:19:52.730 --> 00:19:54.690 you are leading a team at work and designing 00:19:54.690 --> 00:19:57.069 a new product or just trying to manage the chaos 00:19:57.069 --> 00:19:59.650 of your own daily life, Kubrick's story asks 00:19:59.650 --> 00:20:02.049 a pretty demanding question. It really does. 00:20:02.170 --> 00:20:04.190 How far are you truly willing to go for your 00:20:04.190 --> 00:20:05.769 vision? What are the things in your life that 00:20:05.769 --> 00:20:08.069 you need to take absolute control over? And perhaps 00:20:08.069 --> 00:20:09.869 more importantly, what are you willing to sacrifice 00:20:09.869 --> 00:20:12.750 your time, your comfort, maybe even your popularity 00:20:12.750 --> 00:20:15.769 to achieve that level of excellence? And I want 00:20:15.769 --> 00:20:18.589 to leave you with one final fascinating paradox 00:20:18.589 --> 00:20:21.730 to mull over. Lay it on us. Throughout this deep 00:20:21.730 --> 00:20:24.529 dive, we've talked about Kubrick as the ultimate 00:20:24.529 --> 00:20:27.789 champion of creative freedom. A man who fought 00:20:27.789 --> 00:20:31.210 studio executives, completely bypassed the Hollywood 00:20:31.210 --> 00:20:34.109 machine, and demanded the right to show audiences 00:20:34.109 --> 00:20:37.450 his exact uncompromising vision. Right, the grand 00:20:37.450 --> 00:20:41.089 master of the board. Exactly. Yet when his provocative 00:20:41.089 --> 00:20:43.430 film, A Clockwork Orange, was released in the 00:20:43.430 --> 00:20:46.609 1970s, it sparked massive cultural controversy. 00:20:46.869 --> 00:20:49.819 Oh yeah, huge backlash. There were reports of 00:20:49.819 --> 00:20:53.000 real -world copycat crimes, and Kubrick even 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:55.359 began receiving credible death threats against 00:20:55.359 --> 00:20:57.980 his family. That's terrifying. But here's the 00:20:57.980 --> 00:21:00.400 incredible part. It wasn't the British government 00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:02.539 or some censor board that banned the film in 00:21:02.539 --> 00:21:05.720 the UK. Really? Who was it? Stanley Kubrick himself 00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:08.140 went to the studio executives and personally 00:21:08.140 --> 00:21:10.660 pulled it from circulation. Wow. He made his 00:21:10.660 --> 00:21:13.220 own movie, legally unavailable in Britain, and 00:21:13.220 --> 00:21:15.220 it stayed that way until after his death. That 00:21:15.220 --> 00:21:18.400 is profound. Right. For a man who spent his entire 00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:20.539 life fighting for the right to show audiences 00:21:20.539 --> 00:21:24.500 his exact vision, his ultimate most powerful 00:21:24.500 --> 00:21:26.900 act of control as the grandmaster was deciding 00:21:26.900 --> 00:21:28.940 what the audience was not allowed to see. He 00:21:28.940 --> 00:21:30.759 didn't just control the pieces on the board. 00:21:30.819 --> 00:21:32.660 He controlled the board itself. And sometimes? 00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:35.920 That means packing the pieces away. Thanks for 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:37.299 joining us on this deep dive.