NP: Kubrick Bio Rec

Tue Dec 1 16:52:13 CST 2015

I'm sure you've all seen this from him, but here he is on drugs:

PLAYBOY: Have you ever used LSD or other so-called consciousness-expanding
drugs?

KUBRICK: No. I believe that drugs are basically of more use to the audience
than to the artist. I think that the illusion of oneness with the universe,
and absorption with the significance of every object in your environment,
and the pervasive aura of peace and contentment is not the ideal state for
an artist. It tranquilizes the creative personality, which thrives on
conflict and on the clash and ferment of ideas. The artist's transcendence
must be within his own work; he should not impose any artificial barriers
between himself and the mainspring of his subconscious. One of the things
that's turned me against LSD is that all the people I know who use it have
a peculiar inability to distinguish between things that are really
interesting and stimulating and things that appear so in the state of
universal bliss the drug induces on a good trip. They seem to completely
lose their critical faculties and disengage themselves from some of the
most stimulating areas of life. Perhaps when everything is beautiful,
nothing is beautiful. (Agel, The Making of Kubrick's 2001, 1970, excerpted
from the Playboy interview, p. 346)

On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks so much for that.
>
> That's a great reading of the movie for anyone, let alone a fifteen year
> old. Even if the teacher earns a ghostwriter credit, it's well done.
>
> The one part of that where she shows her youth even a little is, I think,
> in taking the film so literally (e.g. she needs to identify a particular
> causal event, with a particular perpetrator, that triggers the monolith's
> appearance).
>
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 4:11 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Yeah. It was actually Stackhouse's TEACHER that forwarded her theories to
>> Kubrick, who was very much impressed by Margaret's "first rate mind".
>>
>> J
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> You were right, Johnny: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0009.html
>>> .
>>>
>>> Thank you.
>>>
>>> 2015-12-01 22:20 GMT+01:00 Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> It's by Margaret Stackhouse. I'm struggling to send links (or to type
>>>> competently for that matter) on this phone, but a bit of Googling will dig
>>>> it up soon enough for anybody interested.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tuesday, December 1, 2015, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think Eyes Wide Shut is major Kubrick - it's his defining statement
>>>>> on sexual identity, societal secrecy and individual reputation. Always find
>>>>> something new in that film.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Thomson claims that Kubrick locked Tom Cruise out of Nicole
>>>>> Kidman's cuckolding scene, demanding a strictly closed set, that the actor
>>>>> credited with playing the cicisbeo has no other recognised film or acting
>>>>> credits, and that Kubrick spent an entire day filming them copulate, only
>>>>> to use about five seconds worth of footage in the final cut.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do have a loose theory that the final scene in 2001 is something of
>>>>> a collation of mankind's greatest achievements throughout history gathered
>>>>> together in a space-time continuum warp, as a final testament to mankind as
>>>>> he (we?) begin to die out and find ourselves replaced (much like the apes
>>>>> at the start of the film) by 'superior' beings.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kubrick said the best and most intellectually rigorous analysis of
>>>>> 2001 he had ever read was from a 15 year old girl who wrote to him
>>>>> privately with his theories. I've read that letter and from distant memory
>>>>> it is very impressive - I'll try to dig it out soon.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sunday, November 29, 2015, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the recommendations, Mark. Agreed on all counts, really.
>>>>>> Spent yesterday trying to find car floor mats in the pattern of the carpet
>>>>>> from *The Shining *but no luck. The blog is very cool--I'm glad
>>>>>> people like you are out there, keeping blogs like these.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And John, yes, *Eyes Wide Shut *has grown on me lately as well, even
>>>>>> if it's not, what, Major Kubrick? The whole thing's fascinating, anyway.
>>>>>> All of it elevated by what became of Cruise in the years after that movie
>>>>>> (which you almost sense Kubrick playing with, ahead of time, way
>>>>>> prescient).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 5:57 PM, Steven Koteff <
>>>>>> steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sis loved it, was deeply absorbed/moved. She's
>>>>>>> moderately-to-severely bipolar, and so had a really rough teenagerhood.
>>>>>>> Dropped out of high school, few hospital stays, etc. She is very, very
>>>>>>> smart but is so sensitive and has spent much of her life in so emotionally
>>>>>>> precarious a state that she has spent a lot of time shying away from art
>>>>>>> that is at all high-stakes. She's been a voracious reader, but much of that
>>>>>>> has been, like, harlequins.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But lately she's been stable enough that I've been able to recommend
>>>>>>> things to her, and she's been able to follow through. I'm sort of her
>>>>>>> cultural gatekeeper so I'm basically trying my best to give her a
>>>>>>> trajectory that probably apexes with her being able to appreciate something
>>>>>>> like *GR*, to extract some of its wonders, etc. She can probably
>>>>>>> handle it from there.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 5:43 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> what did Sis think about it?☺
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> P
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 5:51 PM, Steven Koteff <
>>>>>>>> steviekoteff at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Yesterday I got my sister very stoned and took her to see 2001. It
>>>>>>>>> was playing at the Logan Theatre here in Chicago. Her first time seeing it
>>>>>>>>> (she's 21) and the first time I'd seen it in theaters.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'm sure the movie and the director have been talked about ad
>>>>>>>>> mortem on here but if anybody had anything to say about it I am all ears. I
>>>>>>>>> will personally confess that I consider it an important part of my life, a
>>>>>>>>> work of art that elicits genuine awe from me. Sometimes I put the scene of
>>>>>>>>> Hal's deactivation on in the background on a loop while I work.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Realized I've never actually read a Kubrick bio. Or anything about
>>>>>>>>> him/his movies. Anybody have any recommendations? -
>>>>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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