Kubrick's canon

>> The late master is toasted with a retrospective

by MATTHEW HAYS

As they launch their retrospective of late auteur Stanley Kubrick this week, Cinéma du Parc programmers are rightly proud. Though most of his films are readily available on video, getting them on to the big screen is much, much harder to do. Due to a special arrangement with Warner Bros., who own the distribution rights to Kubrick's oeuvre, the Parc will be the sole cinema in Canada to run the series this summer (the only possible complaint is that, due to lack of availability of prints, 2001: A Space Odyssey could not be included). A selected rundown of series highlights:

Lolita Kubrick's version, a required breath of fresh air after Adrian Lyne's much-maligned take, contains the director's own unique adaptation of the source material. James Mason is fine as the repressed protagonist, Peter Sellers is hilarious as Clare Quilty, but the real standout, cast-wise, is Shelley Winters, who continued to out-do herself in a role as a rather twisted, sex-starved hag.

Paths of Glory Kubrick's '57 anti-war film was decades ahead of its time. Kirk Douglas plays an officer desperate to fight the unnecessary deaths caused by bad orders from callous superiors, who attempt to persecute him and two other survivors of the battle for alleged cowardice. Bolstered by fine performances, the film launches an important motif of Kubrick's, that of pointing out the insanity of war.

Full Metal Jacket A perfect companion piece to Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket opens with one of the most horrific first acts in film history. As the drill sergeant drills the life out of his platoon in training, they are soon dehumanized, with a nasty--but entirely understandable--end result. Kubrick's take on the Vietnam conflict came after a number of other directors had chimed in on the subject, but this film manages to stand alone due to its stylistic merits. Lee Ermey, a former drill sergeant himself, lends a good dose of realism to his role as the evil instructor.

The Shining Kubrick took one of Stephen King's novels and turned it into this, one of the scariest movies of the past 20 years. Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall play a couple whose relationship starts to suffer just a wee bit after living in snowed-in isolation. This is the ultimate vacation movie, something which could put you off "getting away from it all" for all time. Oddly enough, King disagreed so forcefully with Kubrick's take on the source material that the author has refused to ever praise this film.

The Killing A perfect film noir, with Sterling Hayden leading a motley crew of wayward criminals in an effort to get the big loot payoff. The film is economic yet complex in its toying with linear timeline; my fave bits come between toxic couple Elisha Cook and Marie Windsor. He's the loser who thinks this caper will finally make them rich; she's the vampish, unfaithful wife who can't stand him. He explains that he's finally got the plan to make them a pot of gold. "I hope you put a lot of postage on it," Windsor bitchily replies. "It's a long way to the North Pole."

A Clockwork Orange Kubrick's unblinking, unrelenting gaze into the future, based on Anthony Burgess's eponymous novel. Malcolm McDowell is unforgettable as the misanthropic antihero, who loves Beethoven and a bit of the old in-and-out whenever he can get it. The rape sequence is all the more harrowing when one considers that Burgess based it on the rape of his wife, an incident he was forced to witness after hooligans broke into their home.

Eyes Wide Shut Last, and some would say least, this was Kubrick's final film. Reworked, rescripted and recast during the shoot, the film became legendary long before its release. And its release divided just about everyone, becoming the auteur's most controversial film. Tom Cruise stars as a man set off when his wife (played by real-life wife Nicole Kidman) reveals her deepest, innermost confessions about passions for another man. Is it fantasy or is it reality? Cruise can't quite figure it out, and by the second act, neither can we. Ultimately ambiguous, this is not a film for those looking for easy narrative answers. But I still contend it's a brilliant bit of work, entirely up to par with the rest of Kubrick's canon. You be the judge! :

The Stanley Kubrick Retrospective opens Friday, July 7 and runs until August 3 at Cinéma du Parc