THE KUBRICK ARCHIVE

Kubrick was a photographer for ten years for Look Magazine and a Staff Photographer At 19 conducting press profiles. At Look, he created informational family and documentary led pieces upon working for Cartier, he would go on to male shorts and would reshot the Cartier documentary as a film. Films such as Dare to Fly and low budget film noirs led to his WWII masterpiece in 1958 Paths PT Glory, 

It was after directing Spartacus he would achieve massive success, only to be stuck with the banning of his film Lolita in 1962. Films of this nature had to be R rating at the time. 

The nuclear Comedy was a milestone in 1964 and post the bay of pigs incident the scene of mutually assured select destruction was initially a serious script but turned out to be unintentionally funny.

One of the films I will focus on in the course of this project, will be the seminal science fiction cult classic. 2001 A Space Odyssey, which turned 59 last year. With its fantastic special effects and scintillating soundtrack, the film’s realistic to predict the future can be seen in the scientific research conducted into the rational future design. Tech companies such as Rand corporation, IBM, GE were invited to create props for publicity for the showcase of design, a paragon of which would be the futuristic beauty parlour. 

In regards to A Clockwork Orange, the other film of my focus for the project, models were used over storyboards as well as sketches. The Ultraviolence film had to be X rated for genera release and faced a public backlash. The script had a changed title and was based on a book, although Kubrick distanced himself from the source novel, and his annotations can be found in the Archive. One of the most interesting discoveries was to find that Kubrick changed the format of his screenplays with the Direction Centre and dialogue across. This unconventional method enabled more more space for direction - as the master of the long shot, his scene directions would last longer in the film and thus would require more space on the page. Thus the one minute average run time of a screen play page was considered and the format changed to reflect this, and his screenplays would continue to be written in this format. 

His film Barry Lyndon, although his least famous and a commercial failure, was an incredible critical success, receiving a very positive reception in France and Italy. A period drama based on the real life and times and rise and fall of its Irish story protagonist. The film provides a stunning visual look at 18th century research of art, costume and set design. Kubrick would use period paintings in his research to create scenes reminiscent of the 18th century art style. In addition, to shoot in low light, a NASA lens was used and adapted for night shoots.

Perhaps Kubrick’s most commercial success, The Shining is an artistic horror which relied on conveying the impending terror over the supernatural. In the pre production process he asked for rough sketches so he could advise which to follow. With the visual immediacy requirement, the designer sent many letters and an example of this would be the famous All Work And No Plua Manuscript being adapted in multiple languages for the film’s various language versions. 

Kubrick’s ode to war, Full Metal Jacket was made in 1987 and pitted the individual versus the structure or system. Shot in the UK, in Beckton, palm trees were importer and this the low angle style of shot was used out of necessity as shot on location in London. Principle photography was completed on sets or one location as Kubrick also had a fear of flying, and was known to dislike his location work such as on the set of Spartacus, as he preferre direct control of the set and production at hand. He would continue to edit the film even after its release. 

Among the archives, notable items on display included Viennese masks where for a scene of 35 masked characters over 150 were 35 and the reverse projection method used in Lolita. 

Also at the Archive are the Colin Jones Archives of his work addressing Social Change and the Miners Strikes, plus Tom Ecclesy, Victoria Train, whose abstract work emphasised shape over depth and pioneered modernistic designs such as creating Menus in an animal 1970s style.