I checked out the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA this past weekend.
All work and no play at LACMA. Photo by coreanscribe.
Kubrick was a genuine genius. I am not. That’s the main reason why I’m not his biggest fan; most of his movies are a little too high brow, intellectual and detached for me. I still appreciate and understand the artistic contributions his films have made to cinema, so I wanted to experience the exhibit to get a better idea of what made him tick as a master movie director.
The exhibit showcased his early works as a photographer at Look magazine to all his cinematic endeavors. This included projects that were triumphantly completed, such as Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey, to those that were sadly abandoned, such as a Napoleon biopic and a Holocaust project entitled Aryan Papers.
Life of Napoleon. Photo by coreanscribe.
It was impressive to see the incredible amount of research Kubrick and his team of filmmakers did in preparation for their movie subjects, such as Napoleon. Kubrick had a small library devoted just to the Emperor of the French and a large card catalogue filled with notecards detailing every bit of minutia of his life. And the movie was never made! What a shame.
One of Kubrick’s films I do like is The Shining, and I’m not a horror movie fan. It was cool to see some of the props from the film but I enjoyed it even more because I recently watched Room 237. If you’re a movie fan or a fan of The Shining, it shouldn’t be missed. It’s a great documentary about being a movie fanatic, it just happens to be about The Shining. Chuck Klosterman wrote a great, insightful review about Room 237 last fall.
I did get a better sense of who Kubrick was and what he was trying to say through the exhibit. The showcase didn’t inspire me to check out Barry Lyndon any time soon, but I think I may stop by Best Buy to pick up a copy of Lolita, Dr. Strangelove and Eyes Wide Shut for another viewing.