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A Conclusion Will Be Sought That Attempts To Show Kubrick As A Unique Modern ...

A conclusion will be sought that attempts to show Kubrick as a unique modern film-maker who was as meticulous in his vision of how to project imagery as was any of his rivals or contemporaries. First, though, a brief overview of the core directorial character traits of the director must be attempted so as to establish a conceptual framework for the remainder of the discussion herein.

Kubrick as Film-maker: Key Character Traits
Stanley Kubrick is one of the rare film-makers whose work and reputation appear to have transcended their medium. Conceptually bold, stylistically precise and technically innovative, his films have simultaneously defined and confounded cinematic epochs while dividing critical opinion. Ambitious and perhaps portentous, some see these characteristics as symptoms of a remote control-freakery which manifests itself as cold, cynical detachment from its subjects. Either way, Kubrick's work stands as a testament to the possibilities and limitations of the total control of the film director. (James, 2000:263)
This last point is the most important theoretical obstacle to overcome regarding attempts to depict an accurate picture of Kubrick and his films. It must be remembered that the film-making process though lucrative and aesthetically pleasing is a formative, structuralist process that requires management and micromanagement in the same way as many other art forms and business models in the corporate world. Kubrick, more than any other comparable film-maker, was intent upon maximising the possibilities inherent in this seemingly laborious process of production and postproduction management and he saw the role of the director as one that relied upon meticulous editing in order to get the best out of the final product. In this sense, Kubrick was very much a disciple of V.I. Pudovkin, who's Film Technique and Film Acting (1970) was the most important guide for the young director.
Film editing is the language of the film director. Just as in living speech, so one may say in editing: there is a word the piece of exposed film, the image; a phrase the combination of these pieces. (Pudovkin, 1970:100)
Kubrick himself underlined what he saw as the raison d'être for making movies, which did not veer very far from the fundamental principles of painstaking photography and editing processes. In the following extract, the director can be seen to mimicking Pudovkin's stance with regards to editing whereby simple words, phrases and actions that might have been missed during filming are later understood to be vital bridges that can link the loosely connected scenes in the film together.


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