KUBRICK, Stanley

(1928-)

   US film-maker, resident in the UK. Born in New York, the son of a doctor, he early became obsessed with photography; Look magazine hired him as soon as he left school. Motion pictures became his dominant interest, and he left Look after four years to make two short films with his own money and then two feature films, Fear and Desire (1953) and Killer's Kiss (1955), borrowing the production money from relatives. Bythen he had also become a fully qualified cameraman. In 1956 he made The Killing, which attracted the attention of critics, and his reputation wasfurther enhanced by Paths of Glory (1957); he directed most of Spartacus (1960). In 1961 he moved to the UK and, with Lolita (1962), began thecycle of films that have made him internationally famous. In 1963 he made his first sf film, DR STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB, and at the end of 1965 he started work on 2001: A SPACEODYSSEY, which he completed in 1968. His next film was also sf - the controversial A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971). Breaking away from sf but remaining true to his concerns, SK's continued his slim output with Barry Lyndon (1975), from W.M. Thackeray's novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844;1852), The Shining (1980), from Stephen KING's bestselling The Shining (1977), and Full Metal Jacket (1987), from The Short Timers (1979), a Vietnam novel by Gustav Hasford (1947-). Having avoided direct involvement in Peter Hyam's 2010, the sequel to 2001, SK is currently (1992) planning a return to sf with an adaption of Brian W. ALDISS's"Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" (1969).SK is one of the few film-makers who has succeeded in maintaining control over all aspects of his films (Spartacus was the exception), and his personal style is stamped on allhis work, its most obvious characteristic being a cool and ironic wit. His films manifest a formidable intelligence, unusual in a maker of high-budget spectaculars. SK is reported to have an almost obsessive desire for perfection, which shows itself in a fastidious attention to detail. Critics have emphasized the intellectual authority of SK's work - though some see him as merely cold-bloodedly stylish - but he is also, and perhaps primarily, a consummate showman. His sf work is notable for distasteful, ultimately impotent protagonists dwarfed or cowed by enigmatic, dehumanizing TECHNOLOGY; but his main theme, older than sf, appears to be Original Sin.

   JB/KN/PN

   See also: CINEMA; COMMUNICATIONS; MUSIC; ORIGIN OF MAN; PARANOIA.