Ranking Everything: The Films of Stanley Kubrick

At long last I have finished the Kubrick project. I ran through ten of the eleven movies very quickly and then got caught up trying to get a hold of the eleventh and having enough time to watch it.
Again, this project was extremely rewarding. The films of Stanley Kubrick are, of course, excellent and revisiting them is always something I enjoy. I learned a lot from this round, including a sense of the growth Kubrick had throughout his career. Just a head's up, I used the 1956 film "The Killing" as the starter of the list as I did not have access to anything older. As far as I can tell this list is one film short of what is generally acknowledged as Kubrick's mainstream body of work. Anyways, here we go.

1. Dr. Strangelove
You know, this list was very, very hard to put together. I mean on the list of Kubrick films are 3-6 films that people consider their single favorite movie of all time. How do you pick a #1, let alone rank them? Well, let me tell you, it's difficult to rank them but picking a #1 was surprisingly easy. Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite films of all time and the runaway choice for my favorite Stanley Kubrick film. It is not the funniest film of all time but it is, without a (personal) doubt, the BEST comedy ever made. Much has been written about the depth and creativity of this film and I am inclined to agree. I don't laugh my ass off watching it but afterwards I feel like I spent the past two hours laughing. It, along with Monty Python's Life Of Brian, has one of the two most rewarding "punchlines" in film history. For lack of a better explanation, I am trying to say that it does a beautiful job setting up a wonderful/hilarious ending and then hammers it home for one of the great scenes in film history. The performances are top notch and the fact that this came out when it did (very shortly after Bay of Pigs) adds to its legacy. My only complaint - and it is a minor one - is the oddly slow pace to this film. I can see some ways in which the pace builds the humor/suspense but at times it borders on challenging the attention span. An interesting choice by our director.

2. Lolita
Entering this project I predicted that this film would finish last on my list. Perhaps I was not cynical or perverted enough the first time I watched it to truly appreciate its power. This film, much like the source material, turns us all into perverts. Kubrick forces us to accept the lead actress as a sexual object as well as any director has ever turned any actress into such a thing. It is eerie how well this subject suits the director. I think if he had never made it and we were looking back historically at who would have been able to handle such subject matter the list would have two names: Hitchcock and Kubrick and only Kubrick would have pushed this many borders. I admittedly do not know much about the history of the making of this film but I imagine Kubrick's battles with the censors being frequent and loud. Then again, that is probably the case with all of these films. Anyways, like I said, this viewing changed my perspective on the film and, to some degree, how I view sex and my attitude about the male interest in younger women.

3. The Shining
I am not a horror movie buff. For all of the movies I have seen, my horror film resume is relatively small. It mostly consists of the early German horror essentials, the Universal Studios originals and the occassional Hitchcock horror flick. These people proved that you can scare your viewers and maintain your artistic integrity and very few others have followed in their footsteps. Kubrick, however, does follow in their footsteps in this way with this movie. He, at the same time, opens up the world to even more crappy horror flicks. Here we have Jack Nicholson in one of the 3-4 roles that define his apex and, although nothing about this movie actually SCARES me, it probably comes closer than any film that is not some uber-reality horror flick. What I love about this movie is also what I hate about it: the scenes of absolutely terrifying images that have nothing to do with the plot. I am in the camp that says a river of blood flowing down a hallway has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the movie. It does, however, hammer home a MOOD that Kubrick has created. The same goes for spoiler alert?) discovering the word "redrum" is "murder" spelled backward and, ultimately, everything the twin girls do. This practice has been imitated to some degree by almost every horror director since and when the risky technique meets a film already lacking in the plot department it becomes chaos. This, then, evolved into the torture/squeamish films of today that make little effort to have a plot at all in favor of providing your horror fix in gut wrenching imagery. The Shining, for me, is the only film in which this tactic has ever actually worked and it works well.

4. Spartacus
This is probably not a popular choice to make Kubrick's top five. Truth be told, it is not really "Kubrick unleashed" but it has his name on it as much as the others and it is, in fact, my fifth favorite of those with said billing. The legend goes that Kirk Douglas was pissed that he did not get cast as Ben Hur and wanted to make his own Ben Hur-type epic. Thus he bankrolled this film and brought in the guy who directed his last war epic, Paths of Glory, to do it. The two supposedly fought over tons of decisions with this film as both had a lot riding on it and the end result is, in my opinion, significantly better than Ben Hur itself. It is sort of odd to see Kubrick's name attached to a traditional hollywood blockbuster and with each scene you can see daring directorial decisions with a tinge of censorship. Douglas gets his hokier moments in while Kubrick's stylistic decisions highlight what, I would imagine, was a very restrictive script. Probably the second most underrated Kubrick film.

5. 2001: A Space Odessey
The historical importance of a film is generally something that matters a lot to me but in this case I really do not care. Forget that it inspired, umm, everything. It is just a beautiful film. The imagery throughout is astounding. I cannot fathom something with this little plot being so interesting. This is the film equivalent to watching an amazing sunset. Although it still packs a big wallop today I dare say it is a little dated in that our understanding of outer space is so much greater that we forget Kubrick was guessing on a lot of things like "What would THIS look like in space?" and "what would happen if someone did THIS in space?" The film is beautiful from start to finish but, admittedly, there are some parts I just don't care about. The warp speed sequence is artistically interesting but after one viewing I no longer care beyond the "this was way ahead of its time" aspect.

6. Paths of Glory
It is rare that a film is both a war action movie and a courtroom-style drama but this early gem deserves placement in both categories. Although I do not consider myself strictly anti-war, I have a fond appreciation for this, perhaps the greatest anti-war film of all time. The first Kubrick/Douglas pairing is great. Oddly, it seems as though Kubrick had more freedom to push the envelope here than in their second pairing but it may actually be the script that truly pushes the envelope. It is simultaneously interesting and exciting as Kubrick shows a flair for suspense while providing us with a very un-hollywood ending. This is perhaps the first war movie to be inspired by film noir. Speaking of which...

7. The Killing
This film noir gem is easily Kubrick's #1 most underrated film. Were it not for the lack of star power and, perhaps, a few grating characters this would widely be known as one of the 10 seminal film noir movies of all time. Again we have a fascinating story throughout with a great film noir Chinatown-esque ending. The movie is not as logically sound as his later films (if you had that much money, why not just wait, sort it out and get a later flight?) but considering when he made it (this is the earliest of his films on this list - 1956) the achievement seems all the more impressive. Rarely does this movie remind you that you are watching the work of anything but a cinematic master.

8. Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket may well be the most popular of Kubrick's films among my friends. The absolutely iconic first third of this movie offers laughs, incredible characters and one memorable scene after another. Because the next two thirds are like a completely different movie - and being completely different from the first third cannot possibly be a good thing - many write it off. To me, the second section of this movie is amazing. Here we have Kubrick post-Clockwork Orange where he showed the depths of staying away from the mainstream. Now he embraces the Scorsesean idea of pop songs contributing to a movie and cleverly implements pop songs throughout. I could be wrong about this but I think the last two thirds of this movie are what Kubrick originally wanted to make while the first third was him catching lightning in a bottle with an absolutely incredible assortment of characters and lines. The popularity of the opening sequence leads me to think people would be content with watching the drill sergeant yell at his grunts for two hours. The reason this film does not rank higher in my eyes - the eyes of someone who loves both parts equally - is the fact that this so-called problem could easily have been fixed if the Private Joker character had a comparable amount of screen time to the Gomer Pyle character. I think it is such a fantastic Kubrick thing to do to cut your two main characters out of a film before it even gets rolling (thank you Hitchcock) but this one actually does suffer at the transition as Private Joker actually was portrayed as a very minor part of this film. A supporting actor, if you will.

9. A Clockwork Orange
I feel like I am entering dangerous territory here by putting this film as low as ninth on such a list. Any movie that thousands of people regard as their favorite of all time probably should not rank ninth on any one person's list of its director's works. Personally I think this speaks more to the quality of the Kubrick body of work than to any personal bias I might have toward this movie. I think there are three stages, maybe more, that people go through with this movie. The first stage is being horrified and turned off by its graphic content, revolutionary ideas and all-around upsettingness. The second is accepting these things as genius and worshipping the man behind them. The third is where I am at, which is a more existential approach in that I have been through the the first two and now consider this film strictly as "here is what Kubrick was trying to do with this." If you've been reading all along you know that is sort of how I approach all films and on this one, specifically, it hurts the ranking a bit. This film ultimately ends up feeling like Kubrick is putting himself on camera and saying "hey, look what I can get away with" and while the content still makes the film historic and fascinating I feel like it is cheapened on the whole by the context. I mean if I was a director and had earned the right to do whatever I wanted with my films I would probably do the same thing, but that does not save this one for me in that regard.

10. Eyes Wide Shut
Again, I feel like putting a movie as good as this one so low on the list is sort of criminal. This is the perfect example of "worse than the rest of Kubrick's but better than everyone else's." I know the past few years have caused many people to rethink the acting of Tom Cruise and I must confess that I might be a victim of this reimagining but he really takes away from this movie for me. Otherwise the problems I have with this movie are not the same that others have. I really LIKE the non-ending. I really LIKE the way this movie makes us feel. The subject matter is fascinating and I think movie embodies (if not defines) what suspense was in the 1990s. I really love the underlying theme which is: don't be naive to the effed up underbelly to our society. Even today there are swingers groups all over my city of Atlanta that we hear relatively little about. What a great title: you think your eyes are open but they are really closed. The execution of this film may not be great but the ideas behind it are incredibly powerful.

11. Barry Lyndon
Last but not least we have Barry freakin Lyndon. I think this film is last on most people's imaginary lists for Kubrick. With the exception of maybe 2001 it is probably the most technically sound film of his career but it just... it is not very interesting. I mean it's just a really well made version of a really, really normal movie. The pace is notoriously slow and the attention to detail is notoriously meticulous. All of these things are just well and fine but I can't see a reason to watch this one over and over. I know I have not watched it for the last time in my life but, unlike the others, I can't honestly say I look forward to the next opportunity to watch it (unless of course it is in an actual movie theatre - where I would like to rewatch all of his films).

So there we have it. Eleven Kubrick films ranked, yanked and spanked. Or something like that. This took me a really long time to put together so I would definitely appreciate some comments, feedback and whatnot. Thanks in advance for that.

Currently working on a few other lists but it will probably be at least another week before I can get a post up. Still taking suggestions for future lists.