Stanley Kubrick
How a Financial Misunderstanding Led to Stanley Kubrick’s First Film
Maria Popova shared a rare recorded interview with the legendary film director Stanley Kubrick. Jeremy Bernstein of The New Yorker interviewed Kubrick in 1966 when he was only 37. Maria highlighted the challenging views of nuclear power in their discussion around Dr. Strangelove and the atomic bomb. What I especially enjoyed about the interview is the story of how Kubrick eventually made his first film and his numerous setbacks. (1)
As a youngster, Stanley Kubrick wasn’t a great student, never having success in school. A social misfit, he had few intellectual interests. Or at least what those around him believed to be intellectual interests. He didn’t read, but Kubrick had an obsession that gave him purpose. Photography. Photography allowed him to build confidence in himself. It helped hone his problem-solving skills. In Kubrick’s estimation, people that appear to care don’t go deep enough to solve the problems that are right in front of them. He highlights the fact that this is the exact thing schools don’t teach. A generalized approach to problem-solving that can apply in many contexts. Schools focus on rote learning.
For the young Stanley Kubrick, these skills included learning the step by step process of how to take a good photograph. How to play with light, figuring out apertures and shutter speeds. It also involved learning all the technical aspects of production. Like building a dark room and developing film on his own. To keep practicing, Kubrick also learned to sell pictures. He acquired these skills between the ages of 13 to 17. Before graduating high school, Kubrick already sold a couple of photos to Look Magazine. A lucky break for him since there was no chance of college. During his graduation year, GI’s were coming back and applied in droves to college under the GI Bill. No college made exceptions or lowered their standards that admission year. They had more than enough students to choose from. Kubrick’s grades prevented him from making the cut. Even his father pleading with the dean of admissions of his alma matter NYU couldn’t get him in.
Kubrick planned to attend night school to boost his grade point average and eventually transfer to day classes at a college program. The plan was later shelved when the editor of Look Magazine, who he sold photos to, offered him an apprentice position. The young Kubrick wound up staying for 4 years. In his estimation, what he learned on the job exceeded what he would have learned in a 4-year college program. It was during this time he cultivated his reading habit and made up ground from his school days.
Alex Singer, a friend of Kubrick’s, working as an office boy for the film “The March of Time,” tipped Kubrick off about their production operations. Singer wasn’t supposed to know the budget. Or any of the financial details of the project. He overheard a production lead quote $40,000 for a 1 reeler. Which was roughly 8 to 9 minutes of film. It sparked something inside of Kubrick. He started to do the rough math. This included the costs of renting equipment, film, sound, and editing. The quotes added up to roughly $3500. Which could be a sizable profit if Kubrick could sell a 1 reeler for $40,000 also. They filmed a piece on Walter Cartier, the boxer. Kubrick had known Cartier from doing a bit on him for Look Magazine. He shot the film by himself. With some help from Singer lighting scenes and carrying equipment.
The next challenge was selling it to a distributor. Kubrick had met with numerous folks who enjoyed the Walter Cartier film. They all offered him roughly the same amount. Only a couple thousand dollars. Kubrick, shocked, asked him why they were lowballing him. The distributor execs were surprised Kubrick thought they were lowball offers. What Kubrick found out next shocked him. He told the distributors about the “The March of Time” and the associated $40k price tag. The exec shared the bad news. The “March of Time” was mismanaged. The production was going out of business from overspending. No one would pay that amount for a short film. RKO wound up buying Kubrick’s short film for roughly $100 less than it cost to make it. So it broke even. Shown nationwide, it had global distribution. Kubrick thought he’d receive offers to make another film from this effort. Unfortunately, none came.
Kubrick would try making another short film. At the recommendation of RKO, he made a short film of a very colorful character, The Flying Padre. A German priest who’d fly around rural New Mexico in a prop plane to perform service. Again it was another breakeven proportion which forced him to start thinking about viable ways to practice his trade and create films. Kubrick again did some rough math similar to the math he did when attempting to create his first short. Feature-length movies made millions. If he could make a feature film by himself as a one-man crew for $10,000, then he would finally be in business.
For his first feature-length film, “Fear and Desire,” he found a friend in the East Village to help him write a script. He also found actors through mutual friends. Kubrick would shoot and edit the entire film himself with a friend helping him with some lighting. With this film came a new lesson. Kubrick learned the power of a great script. The script was so dull. To compound the problem, the actors couldn’t really act. Although the film had art house distribution and some favorable reviews, it never returned any money invested in it. Kubrick needed to get another script and fast if he was to continue in film making. To make ends meet, he’d play chess in Washington Square Park for quarters. As he recalled, “You couldn’t live off of it, but it could at least buy you some meals.”
“Paths of Glory” was a new opportunity. Even though every studio turned it down. It became real once Kirk Douglas became interested in it. Kubrick made the film with no complications, and it had decent reviews. This was definitely a step forward but a brief one. Kubrick would engage in a series of film projects that would never get off the ground. He worked on a film script and treatment for another Kirk Douglas film that was abandoned. Another for Gregory Peck that was abandoned. He left a Marlon Brando film during the first two weeks of shooting after working on it for six months. He had a gut feeling the film was going to be horrible. Another break came when he was asked to take over the filming of Sparticus. His criticisms of the writing weren’t well received by the team. The production dragged out for 2 years. During which time, the rights to Nabakov’s Lolita were secured. Lolita was a film no studio wanted to make. No movie exec would go near it. But Kubrick thought there were a lot of misconceptions about the book, and people didn’t fully understand it. He’d go on to complete the film and end his dry spell. Vladimir Nabokov would approve of Kubrick’s edits after watching the movie.
Learning from his mistakes when he made Dr. Strangelove, He found a partner in Terry Southern. Kubrick identified, “When you have short deadlines, it’s important to have a partner so you can keep up the intensity in the creative process.” He also understood that directing is only one-third of the job. Writing plays a critical role as does editing, which makes up the other two-thirds of the process. Other directors to Kubrick seemed to be the most senior members of the crew and didn’t really get their hands dirty. The producer was more of an integrator across disciplines than the director typically was. Kubrick knew he had to influence the scripts to be able to adhere to the vision he had on screen. He also had a history of editing footage himself. Kubrick likened the lack of depth in being able to affect the final film by focused only on directing as, “…like planning a city by driving through it.” It doesn’t work. (2)
Kubrick found this unique alchemy across disciplines that allowed him to create some of the most celebrated works on film. Part of the formula was superior writing. Hence the adaptation of classic novels such as 2001 A Space Odyssey, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita, Dr. Stranglelove (Adapted from Red Alert).
References
- Popova, Maria. “November 27, 1965: A Rare Recording of Stanley Kubrick’s Most Revealing Interview.” Brain Pickings, 18 Sept. 2015, www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/27/jeremy-bernstein-stanley-kubrick-interview/.
- Ibid.
Originally published at https://blog.viktorbezic.com.
