Michael

Thanks for sending along the Kubrick documentary, which I've watched about half of at this point.

Most of the biographical information on his early life I knew from a book I had read on Kubrick back in college. What was a big surprise was listening to Kubrick talk--his accent was, of course, American. The other, related, surprise was realizing just how clued in his subject matter was to the times. He developed a nuclear war movie (Dr. Strangelove) around the time of the Cuban missile crisis, he made a teen-sex movie (Lolita) in the early days of the pill/sexual revolution, he made a space movie (2001) during the space race, he made a juvenile crime/urban disorder movie (Clockwork Orange) during the law and order presidency of Nixon. I'll bet if you read the screenplay for his cancelled project on Napoleon in the late 60's you'd see it derived from LBJ and the Vietnam war.

I can see how someone with Kubrick's armor-plated chutzpah would ultimately end up with Hollywood eating out of his hand. Unfortunately, being in that position meant he stopped using his greatest talent--figuring out the hot issues of the day and building movies around them.

In the end, the chess hustler seems to have hustled himself; Kubrick's art (I use the term seriously) came out of his street smarts, his instinct for the main chance, and when he stopped picking subjects on that basis (because of the hostile reaction to Clockwork Orange in Britain?) his movies lost their zip.

Cheers,

Friedrich