Boxes of the Mind

I just finished watching (h/t Jeff Li) the documentary film "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes", made by Jon Ronson for Channel 4 [UK] and released in 2008. I was captivated by it.

Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.

–Stanley Kubrick, DGA D.W. Griffith Award acceptance speech, 1998, quoted in "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes".

Here's how IMDb introduces the film:

A few years after his death, the widow of Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) asks Jon Ronson to look through the contents of about 1,000 boxes of meticulously sorted materials Kubrick left. Ronson finds that most contain materials reflecting work Kubrick did after the release of "Barry Lindon " in 1975, when Kubrick's film output slowed down. Ronson finds audition tapes for "Full Metal Jacket," photographs to find the right hat for "Clockwork Orange" or the right doorway for "Eyes Wide Shut" — thousands of details that went into Kubrick's meticulous approach. Ransom believes that the boxes show "the rhythm of genius." Interviews with family, staff, and friends are included. Written by

That's right as far as it goes, but these boxes — not so much what they contain but because there are boxes filled with these details — have quite a story to tell about Kubrick and, I think, offer a lot of insight into why it took ever longer between his films and why he stopped making films largely because his obsessive attention to details overwhelmed his ability to find material to make into a film that would satisfy him.

That's my interpretation (at the moment) of course. You might like to watch some of it yourself and decide. On YouTube it's in 5 parts; here's part 1.

Posted on June 18, 2010 at 13.02 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Common-Place Book, Music & Art

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