Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

Directed by: Jan Harian
Narrated by: Tom Cruise

Stanley Kubrick was never a good student in school... he would often ask his fellow colleagues to copy their homework. After some days of letting little Kubrick copy their homework, one of them asked: "Stanley, why aren't you ever doing your homework?" He simply answered: "I'm just not interested!"

His father was a photographer, and since he was young, he was introduced to the dark room and started taking his own pictures.

The 1st one that he was famous for, he sold it for a lot of money and after that started working for "LOOK" magazine when he was about 16 years old. The picture was taken right after President Roosevelt's death:

Kubrick was a Leo, born July 26th of 1929 in NY. Many said he was a perfeccionist, creative, and sometimes cruel with his actors. He was married 3 times, and the love of his life was Christiane Kubrick, a beautiful actress and painter he met on one of his movies. He remained with her until his death, and with her had 3 girls.

Kubrick once said: "I don't know what I want, but I do know what I don't want." And this was his style when shooting... He would shoot scenes again and again until it was perfect.. The way he had never imagined.

He died after 2 years filming "Eyes Wide Shut" with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. His first movie with no bad criticism. He died of a heart-attack in England.

This documentary is very curious. I learned so many things about Kubrick that I had no idea and that fascinated me. The story behind each movie, the story behind a man in which many of his works are considered to be the best of all time!

There are testemonies on him from many famous people as: Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson and many others.

One of the most shocking for me was Shelley Duval's: Talking about her experience in the film "The Shining". Kubrick was very cruel to her and often made her think twice about the movie. She said she doesn't regret the experience but would never do it again.

I rated it ****. If you are a fan of Kubrick's work, starting from "Paths of Glory" when he was completely unknown to "Eyes Wide Shut", you should def. see it.

I close my statement with some quotes of Mr. Kubrick.

"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later."

"A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper."

"Any time you take a chance you better be sure the rewards are worth the risk because they can put you away just as fast for a ten dollar heist as they can for a million dollar job."

"I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old."

"If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed."

"If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered."

"It's a mistake to confuse pity with love."