Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) - Movie Review

ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019)

MOVIE REVIEW

WARNING: This review contains spoilers and f*** language. You've been warned.

As I walked in on my second cinematic viewing of renowned provocateur and foot-fetishist Quentin Tarantino's ninth film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood I started to feel a great sense of joy and excitment. First of all, this is the first time I watch a movie more than once in a theatre (because going to the movies is fucking expensive okay?!), I'll be rewatching a new film from one of my favorite film directors, and most of all, I watched it with my dad so it would be nice to see his reaction to the movie. My dad liked the movie alot (he even played the soundtrack as he was cleaning the house the next morning) and I actually liked it slightly more this viewing. However, as the days have gone by, I've been struck by a sense of bittersweetness whenever thinking about this movie, and the feeling that this might actually be one of Tarantino's very best and perhaps his most emotional films. But I'll elaborate more on that through the course of this review, so hold on to your butts because where we're going we don't need roads! (if you don't get that reference I can't help you, sorry!)

So I'm sure most people know the story of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is about at this point, but because I'm such a generous and kind soul (I'm really not, but we'll just pretend that I am), I'll give you a little synopsis of the plot. The film is set in the year 1969, when the old movie moguls were on the way out and the young movie brats were on the way in. Fading television actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double/helper/driver//zen master/best friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) are both trying to keep their careers alive. Meanwhile, Rick's next-door neighbor is the real-life Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), who is at the start of a promising film career together with her husband Roman Polanski, the hottest director in town thanks to Rosemary's Baby. Meanwhile, spread throughout the film is the ever-present threat of the Manson Family. All of these storylines will intertwine in one of the most satisfying climaxes in all of Tarantino's films.

From left to right: Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth and Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton.

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate.

The story goes that Tarantino had been working on several core elements that would ultimately end up as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as early as Death Proof (2007), but it wasn't officially announced to be Tarantino's next film until 2017. At that point, it was set up at The Weinstein Company run by Bob and Harvey Weinstein (whom had produced all of Tarantino's previous films). However, after the mountains of sexual abuse allegations that surfaced against Harvey, Tarantino split ways with the brothers and shopped his movie around the studios in Hollywood. To give credit were its due, all the studios were really anxious to bankroll the new Tarantino film, despite the fact that he demanded total creative freedom, a hefty $100 million budget and a stipulation that the rights to the movie would revert to him after 10 years. As strange as this may sound in contemporary corporate Hollywood, it makes sense. He's a brand, and his movies are almost guaranteed to be commercial and/or critical successes and awards favorites, so he's a safe bet. Tarantino recruited Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt for the two central leads, both of whom had worked with Tarantino on Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds respectively. Besides them, he assembled a cast that most directors would kill for: Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Bruce Dern, Damien Lewis, Emile Hirsch, Austin Butler, Michael Madsen, Dakota Fanning, Mike Moh and even Maya Hawke (Uma Thurman's and Ethan Hawke's daughter) in a small role as one of the Manson girls.

Quentin Tarantino (right) during shooting of a dialogue scene between Rick and Cliff.

In many ways, this movie feels like the culmination of Tarantino's career, or at least in his career so far. The film functions like a wonderful combination of his sprawling and dialogue-driven films like Pulp Fiction and the more action-packed and the mixing of factual history with alternate history in films like Inglourious Basterds. It's a combination made in heaven and absolutely benefits the movie. Most of the movie is purely character-driven and doesn't involve too much action, but that's no problem for me. In fact, I could probably have watched an entire movie just about Rick and Cliff's adventures throughout Hollywood in the sixties, or an entire movie with Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate. Most of these scenes don't really serve any narrative purpose, and I can understand why some people will refer to this movie as boring or self-indulgent, but I don't see it that way. I don't think Tarantino is interested in telling a conventional story. He mostly wants to highlight these characters he clearly love and recreate the Hollywood of 1969. And you know what, not all movies benefit from a tight narrative. Certain movies, like this one, actually benefit from a more loose narrative in my opinion, because I think it's allowing the story to tell itself in its own manner. And I would also make the argument that this might be Tarantino's great strenght as a filmmaker, his ability to make rather mundane and mostly dialogue-driven scenes engaging and entertaining to watch.

Lots of scenes of people driving cars in this movie, and yet its incredibly satisfying.

And speaking of characters and actors, all the performances are great per usual in a Tarantino movie. Tarantino wasn't kidding when he called DiCaprio and Pitt the greatest screen duo since Paul Newman and Robert Redford, because their chemistry is really something else. You really get the sense that they have known each other for a long time, and in a way rely on each other perhaps a little more than they think they do. They're also very funny, both together and separately. DiCaprio gives the impression of this slightly full-of-himself-but-somewhat-tragic actor who wants to make some actual achievements and questions his role in the film industry and indeed in life. Cliff is a very whatever-type character. He just rolls with everything, and even says to Rick that he doesn't mind cleaning Rick's house or driving his car. He's absolutely fine with working for Rick because Rick gives Cliff a purpose in his life. And as Kurt Russell's voice-over explains, they're a little more than brothers and a little less than a married couple. Another terrific player in this movie is Margot Robbie, who is absolutely brilliant as Sharon Tate. Although I kind of wish there had been more scenes with her, I think she steals every scene she's in. Despite having a minimal amount of dialogue, she still manages to gives you the sense of Sharon being this utterly innocent and playful force of infectious joy, which makes her real-life fate even more tragic. And perhaps more people will look into Sharon Tate and make more people aware of her life before her notorious death.

Rick fuckin' Dalton!

The attention to period detail is also extraordinary in this film. The film cost a reported $100 million, and every penny is up on the screen but not in a way that it becomes distracting or overtakes the movie. Tarantino doesn't shove the period details in your face like some filmmakers might, they're mostly in the background and help make the world and the characters feel alive. The terrific soundtrack also helps the period come alive, and Tarantino doesn't opt for the obvious songs from the period, but instead goes for a more eclectic soundtrack featuring everyone from Deep Purple, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Diamond and the Rolling Stones. And like I mentioned earlier, my dad listened to the soundtrack whilst he was cleaning the house, so I'm not alone in loving the soundtrack.

Sharon Tate dancing at the Playboy Mansion.

I also mentioned the fact that I started feeling bittersweet when thinking about this movie, and I can basically pin most of it down to what I will refer to as the "Out of Time" montage that sort-of serves as the start of the third act. The reason why is is sweet is first of all because it's very well done and builds up the climax, but here's what makes it bittersweet for me: We learn that Rick's and Cliff's journey together will come to and end and they will say farewell, and it all takes place on August 8, the day of Sharon Tate's real-life murder (although it was technically August 9 but you get my point). She is eight months pregnant at this point, and seeing her show her girlfriends the babyroom combined with the knowledge of her murder and the use of the Rolling Stones' Out of Time just make me so sad thinking about it and just makes me wish Sharon could've lived. This truly feels like the end of an era, and what was in real life a very tragic end to an era. It's the end of Rick's and Cliff's relationship and what the movie wants you to think will be Sharon's last day alive. And actually, if this movie had been announced as Tarantino's final film, then I would probably feel even more bittersweet about it.

Tarantino directing Robbie for the scene were Sharon Tate goes to see her own movie, which is one of the highlights of the movie.

All right, so I'm gonna make a statement and explain it as I go on about my general feeling about this movie: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Tarantino's most life-affirming movie. I know that's a very strange sentence to read as indeed it is to write, but hear me out. So much of the entertainment in this movie comes from just watching these characters in their life doing everyday things, such as Cliff fixing Rick's antenna, Sharon packing and doing errands, Rick and Cliff watching television together, etc. These moments may seem insignificant, but these are crucial to understand who these characters are and to appreciate and like them as people and human beings. And that is why the ending is so brilliant, because the Manson Family members are there to take away the life of first Sharon Tate and whoever's in the house, and later to Rick, Cliff and Rick's new Italian wife. Therefore, seeing them get murdered in horrific and brutal ways is a perfect celebration of life, albeit a little twisted. And him making this movie right after The Hateful Eight, arguably his most nihilistic movie, it's actually kind of the perfect time for Tarantino in his career to make this particular film.

Rick and Cliff.

Can I also just say that experiencing the ending with an audience was the thing that made it worth seeing this movie twice in the theatre. All the laughs and also shocks that everyone exclaims when the Manson Family members get brutally, and I mean brutally, murdered was so fantastic and made it even more enjoyable for me. But the icing on the fucking cake has got to be the moment when Rick brings forth his flamethrower from his World War II-action movie The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey (which is established very early in the film). The first time I was the film I was howling with laughter, and the second time as I experienced it with a mostly unknowing audience (including my dad) made it even better. And when we got to the moment Rick brought forth the flamethrower on that second viewing, I legitiamtely clapped, and I am in no way, shape or form ashamed of it.

Fan-made poster made by someone who isn't me.

So, to conclude this review, I think Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a masterpiece and, to use critic Robbie Collin's phrase, "late-career masterpiece" fits the bill perfectly. I love the characters, the filmmaking and find the ending so satisfying and respectful of the real-life Sharon Tate, and through subsequent viewings I can see this movie competing with Inglourious Basterds as my favorite Tarantino movie. This is also a great hangout movie, so bring some friends over and do what Rick and Cliff do when they decide to watch their episode of FBI: get a six-pack of beer, order some pizza, and maybe even smoke an acid-laced cigarette or two and maybe mix a frozen margarita. You'll probably end up having a great time.

PS: can I just say that I'd like to live in Tarantino's alternate history universe? I mean, c'mon! World War II ends when Hitler gets blowed up in a movie theatre, white slavers are brutally murdered by rebellious slaves and the Manson Family get defeated and innocent people are allowed to live. What's not to love?!

The Kubrick Series #7: Lolita

THE KUBRICK SERIES #7

LOLITA

The tagline for Lolita perfectly sums it up, frankly: how did they ever make a movie of Lolita? Or more appropriately, how did they ever make a movie of Lolita in the 1960s? Perhaps no other filmmaker would've dared attempt to tackle a cinematic adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial classic novel but Stanley Kubrick. Some have even come to regard Lolita as the first true Kubrick film, in the sense that no one else could've made Lolita but Stanley Kubrick and containing many of the trademarks one will find in his later films (dark and ironic humor, exploration of the human condition etc). I don't know if I agree with that statement a hundred percent, but it can't be denied how much Lolita truly feels like somebody's unique vision rather than someone who's a work for hire.

James Mason as Humbert and Sue Lyon as the titular Lolita.

Perhaps Lolita could be seen as Kubrick's response to his less-than-enjoyable experience working on the relatively safe yet successful studio picture Spartacus. Despite the success of said film, Kubrick felt disenchanted from Hollywood and was determined do make his own projects his own way with total creative control and seeked out material which could a complete 180-turn and tackle something completely different and risky. And what could be more risky than tackle a novel were hebephilia is THE central element in the story, whilst also containing references to rape and incest. Well that was Kubrick's intention when he read Nabokov's controversial yet successful novel. Kubrick and James B. Harris (his producing partner) bought the movie rights to Lolita, and commissioned Nabokov with writing the script. However, just like Dan Aykroyd when he wrote The Blues Brothers, Nabokov had no previous screenwriting experience, and as Harris put it so bluntly "you couldn't make it. You couldn't lift it!", which forced Kubrick and Harris to perform drastic rewrites of the film, although Nabokov would receive sole credit. Casting also proved difficult, probably because of the material, but eventually they got James Mason to play Humbert, and Kubrick found his Lolita in the form of Sue Lyon, who was 14 at the time of filming. With exception from a few shots, the majority of Lolita would be shot in England. This would mark a great change in pace in Kubrick's filmmaking, since he would make England his new home and shoot the majority of his subsequent films there.

Kubrick having some fun on the set of Lolita.

In case you don't know, the story of Lolita revolves around Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged English literature professor who moves to the United States to become a lecturer at a college. Before moving to the college, he decides to spend the summer in New Hampshire at the household of the recently widowed Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) and her teenage daughter Dorothy, also known by her nickname Lolita (Sue Lyon). Humbert becomes completely infatuated with Lolita, and does whatever it takes in order ot stay with her. After a series of events (none of which I'll spoil), Humbert ends up as Lolita's caretaker and it looks like he finally has her in his hands. However, also competing for Lolita's affections is famous tv-playwright Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers), who dons several disguises throughout the film in order to get closer to Lolita and separate her from Humbert.

If Kubrick's later work can be dismissed for focusing too much on machines or evil or intellect rather than real human beings, then Lolita can surely be seen as his most character-driven film. In fact, I'd say the real strenght of Lolita lies in its performances and the characters. Mason is quite excellent and, dare I say, perfect in the part of Humbert. He perfectly exhumes an exterior confidence and intellect that makes you trust and like him as a viewer, whilst also harboring great darkness, manipulation and awkwardness on the inside, all of which become displayed throughout the film. Sue Lyon is equally effective as Lolita, and is more than capable of holding her own against such heavy-hitters that are featured in the cast. She proves to be just as intelligent and manipulative as all the adults in the film and you're never in doubt of her talent. Shelley Winters is also remarkable as the lustful widower Charlotte Haze, who grows to be more nagging and more of a torment for Humbert as the story goes along. I suppose the real standout is Peter Sellers who plays playwright Clare Quilty, who dons a fascinating and distinct yet believable American accent (apparently modeled after Kubrick's own New York accent). He also dons several disguises throughout the film in order to win Lolita's heart, making him just as slimey as Humbert, and in a way, serves as Humbert's direct contrast as someone who has everything that Humbert doesn't.

From top to bottom: James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers.

Because of the Hays Code, a form of censorship based on Christian morals which started in the 1930s, Kubrick and Harris were forced to make drastic changes in their adaptation of the book. For instance, Lolita is described as being 12 in the book, whilst Lyon was 14 when filming started, yet her exact age is never stated in the film. By making her character older and more sexually mature, one could see it as an effort on Kubrick's and Harris' part to make Humbert's obsession over Lolita more "acceptable", which still seems futile when telling the story of a man falling in love with a teenage girl (but I suspect it was mostly done to please the Hays Office). But the chore relationship between Humbert and Lolita is never explicitly stated as it is in the book and is instead done through suggestive imagery and innuendos. Another key element was to remove any references to Humbert's previous obsession over teenage girls from the book, and also removes any references to rape and incest which can be found in the book as well. They also greatly expanded Quilty's role from the book, but I'm honestly not complaining, and I don't think the film would be the same without Peter Sellers' performance.

By the way, did I mention this movie is also a comedy? Doing a comedy about pedophilia (although technically it's hebephilia) is quite odd, and perhaps that's why one could call Lolita Kubrick's first post-modern film. But the film itself is very funny, with most of the comedy coming from Mason's and Sellers' performances and the films multitude of innuendos, ranging from quite subtle to the most obvious. Here are some of my favorite moments in the film:

 Humbert is playing chess with Charlotte, and as Lolita kisses him goodnight, he says "I'll take your queen".

When at the party, a married couple approach Charlotte since they're old friends, and whilst the husband John is dancing with Charlotte, his wife Jean suggests to Humbert that they "switch partners". Mason's reaction to this line is priceless.

Probably the least-subtle, yet still very funny, name of Lolita's summer camp.

The film does feature some of Kubrick's trademark cinematography, with the movement of the actors acting in choreaography with the camera moves, often in long and unbroken takes, although the majority of the camerawork feels very relaxed and laidback in order to give more space for the characters. There's also some symbolic imagery (besides from aforementioned innuendos), with the big one (at least for me) being the opening credits, which is done to a shot of a female foot being painted by a male hand, which rather tastefully suggests the erotic nature of the film right from the get-go. There's also the image of the painting getting shot by Humbert. I think I understand the symbolism behind the shot (no pun intended). Humbert is shooting at Quilty for taking Lolita away from him, who tries to hide behind the painting of a young woman. Humbert fires, and in doing so perhaps he signals that he has given up on Lolita and other "nymphetes" as he refers them to, and needs to kill Quilty in order to get rid of this obsession.

The opening credits of Lolita.

The shot painting.

Despite all the controversy surrounding the book and the film, the film was a big success at the box office, probably boosted by the controversy and the popularity of the book. The critical reception was mixed to positive, and over the years it has grown in stature, like most of Kubrick's films. Kubrick himself however later assessed that if he had realized how severe and tough the censorship was going to be on the film, he probably wouldn't have made the film in the first place. Having never read Lolita myself I can't comment, but I can imagine that's why Adrian Lyne attempted a remake in 1997 with Jeremy Irons as Humbert, since quite a lot had changed in terms of movie censorship. But I haven't seen the remake, so I can't really tell weather or not it did a more successful job at adapting the book. One can always ask the question if one could ever properly adapt Lolita, but that's a question I leave for people who have actually read the book.

Lolita is not my personal favorite Kubrick film (sorry David Lynch), although I know it has many admirers. But I certainly don't think it's a bad, in fact I'd say it's a great film, just not up to the standard of his later films. And I still like the characters, the comedy of which there is plenty, and the story is certainly interesting. But I feel like this was the movie that Kubrick needed to do after Spartacus, and if the price to pay for the rest of Kubrick's rich filmography is one that doesn't quite meet the standard of his later work, then I'm glad Lolita exists.

To be continued with: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

The Kubrick Series #6: Spartacus

THE KUBRICK SERIES #6:

SPARTACUS

Whenever you're dealing with major cinematic auteurs, there seems to be two kinds of films: the passion projects and the jobs. The passion projects are the ones the filmmakers themselves spend years developing and really put all of their heart and soul into it, whereas the "job" is merely serves as means to pay the rent. My assessment may be a bit cynical, but when doing research it appears, to me at least, to be the case. Sometimes a brilliant auteur is able to take a "job" and turn it into something stylish and/or personal work. Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) and Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) come to mind. The same however can not be said of Stanley Kubrick's "job", Spartacus.

Kirk Douglas, who played Spartacus and was the executive producer of the film.

Although Paths of Glory was only a modest commercial hit, it helped cement Kubrick as a major filmmaker on the rise, and to finally make Hollywood take notice of him. One major figure to take notice of Kubrick was none other than superstar Marlon Brando, who approached Kubrick with the possibility of directing the western One-Eyed Jacks with Brando as star. Kubrick accepted the offer and a then-unknown Sam Peckinpah was hired to write the script. But Kubrick and Brando butted heads with each other, and eventually both Kubrick and Peckinpah left the project. Brando would later direct the film himself in his sole directorial effort. After scrambling for a new project, Kirk Douglas called Kubrick and his producing partner James B. Harris. Douglas was one week into shooting his epic passion project Spartacus when he fired his director Anthony Mann. After a quick discussion, Kubrick and Harris agreed it could boost Kubrick's career and make things easier for their company to get their own projects financed. But the actual making of the film would prove to be anything but an enjoyable experience on Kubrick's part.

One can only dream of what awesome stuff Kubrick and Marlon Brando could've made together.

Douglas and Kubrick in the gladiator school set of Spartacus.

Spartacus is based on the historical novel of the same name by Howard Fast and tells the classic real-life story of Spartacus, a Thracian slave-turned gladiator who started the biggest slave revolt in history at that point against the Roman Empire. With 120,000 runaway slaves at his disposal, Spartacus tries to escape from Italy via the sea with the help of pirates. However the pirates are bought off by the Romans, and Spartacus' troop is left stranded, with Roman legions marching in closer and closer on them. Eventually, Spartacus comes to the conclusion that they must fight in order to win their freedom.

Although it is technically a Stanley Kubrick film, it's a much more generic and standard Hollywood film than anything the director has ever done before or since, which is probably the reason why I reacted to coldly to it when I saw it. There's virtually none of Kubrick's key trademarks to be found in Spartacus, like his razor-sharp ear for ironic use of music, his sardonic sense of humor or any insights into sexuality and violence. Almost the entire film looks and feels like it could've been directed by anyone, with only a handful of semi-Kubrickian shots and compositions in the film. There are a few shots that bring to mind the Max Ophüls-inspired fluid tracking shots that we saw in The Killing and Paths of Glory. Then there's these two shots that feel the most Kubrickian in the whole film. The first one is a gladiator fight seen, or rather heard, through Spartacus' perspective, who's sitting behind a wooden door unable to see the fight, hence hearing the fight and seeing the aftermath. The other shot is a big wide shot during the climactic battle scene were you can see the Roman legions marching towards Spartacus' troops.

This shot from the battle scene feels very Kubrickian and is a good example of visual storytelling, probably because this is the one part of the film that was genuinly his own idea.

Another one of my criticisms is the portrayal of Spartacus as played by Douglas. Douglas does a very good job at portraying the titular gladiator, especially in the first act of the film where he doesn't have a lot of dialogue and is forced to do the majority of his acting through the body langugage and his eyes. This was the part of the film that genuinly surprised me and caught me off-guard, which made me go "blimey, he hasn't said that much now, has he"? So my issue is not with the way the character of Spartacus is acted, but rather the way he's written. Because he has essentially no quirks or major flaws, which in other words makes him a dull and uninteresting character to follow. And I'm not alone on thinkin this, because so did Kubrick in fact when he got the job. But because Douglas was also the producer on the film, he was able to overrule Kubrick and all he could do was to do what he was told.

The rest of the cast is filled with enough A-list talent to make classic movie fans go wild, and they all deliver strong performances. From top to bottom we have Laurence Olivier as our basic atnagonist Crassus, Jean Simmons as Spartacus' wife Varinia, Tony Curtis as Crassus' former slave and Spartacus' right-hand man Antoninus, Charles Laughton as Crassus' senatorial arch-enemy Gracchus, Peter Ustinov as gladiator-school owner and Spartacus' brief master Batiatus and John Gavin as a young Julius Caesar. Like I said, they all deliver strong performances despite a lackluster script which I think serves as a testament to their qualities as actors. Olivier, Laughton and Ustinov are particularly exception in their respective parts.

A publicity photo of the cast. Top row, left to right: John Gavin, Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov. Bottom row, left to right: Douglas, Jean Simmons and Tony Curtis.

Peter Ustinov's performance in Spartacus is excellent, and he would end up winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, which was also the only time anyone won an acting award for appearing in a Kubrick film.

The film is also very well shot, albeit very traditionally. This is the first Kubrick film to be shot in color and also in the the 2:20:1 widescreen aspect ratio. All of his other films had been shot in either the 1:33:1 or the 1:66:1 aspect ratios. This practice allowed Kubrick to display great vistas and a large number of extras within a single frame, as exemplified in the wide shot of the Roman legions during the battle scene. However, just like on The Killing, Kubrick would once again clash with an old Hollywood pro cinematographer. Russell Metty was the experienced cinematographer of Hollywood classics such as Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938), Orson Welles' The Stranger (1946) and Touch of Evil (1958), plus a number of Douglas Sirk's films and had been hired to shoot Spartacus when Anthony Mann was still directing. Metty took exception to Kubrick who would often interfere with his camerawork and lighting to better suit his own sensibilites. Metty at one point walked off the set and exclaimed "This guy is going to direct this movie? He's going to tell me where to put the camera? They've got to be kidding"! But since he had a contract he stayed, but the majority of the film was shot by Kubrick. How ironic then that Metty would receive the Oscar for Best Cinematography because he was the credited cinematographer.

Kubrick and cinematographer Russell Metty. Metty would often spout antisemitic slangs and comments at Kubrick, who nevertheless remained calm and collected during the rough shoot.

I think ultimately, my problems with the film comes down to the script. The script was written by famed screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted from Hollywood the last decade due to his alleged communist sympathies and refusal to name names on other alleged communists (although he was still able to work in Hollywood under a pseudonym). Because of this the film itself is often seen as an allegory for the Hollywood blacklist, best exemplified in the infamous "I'm Spartacus!" scene, but also for the civil rights movement which was in full swing in the late 50s and early 60s. But that still doesn't excuse the fact that Spartacus remains an uninteresting character and that the films way of dealing with politics and rebellion is very simplistic. In fact, one of the things Kubrick wanted to change about the script was to show how the slave rebellion was capable of the same level of cruelty as the Romans and also how easily a rebellion falls apart under its own weight. But all of these ideas and suggestions were discarded in favor of a more black-and-white portrait.

The slaves Draba (Woody Strode) and Spartacus (Douglas) fighting each other as gladiators for the amusement of Crassus and his friends. In the scene Draba refuses to kill Spartacus and tries to attack Crassus but fails and gets killed. One possible interpretation of this scene is how the black men and white men are pitted against each other in society by the powers at be and the only thing they can do is stand up and fight the oppressors.

A montage of images from the famous "I'm Spartacus!" scene, which also inspired the very similair scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian when everyone on the cross exclaims "I'm Brian! No I'm Brian and so is my wife!"

Despite an obviously troubled production and obvious flaws, Spartacus proved to be a huge success, both critically and commercially. The film even outgrossed Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho as the highest-grossing film of 1960. The film received six nominations at the Oscars that year and won four, including previously mentioned wins such as Best Supporting Actor for Ustinov and Best Cinematography for Metty and also Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. But despite all of this, Kubrick disowned the film and decided that he had had enough of all the Hollywood hoopla. From now on, Kubrick would now only direct films were he had total artistic creative control. And for the rest of his life, he always did.

I myself must rate Spartacus relatively low in Kubrick's filmography, only Killer's Kiss and Fear and Desire are worse in my opinion. And it makes me truly sad to say so because it is a well-made film with great production value, but it's just too bland and too generic to be ranked highly in Kubrick's body of work. My final word on Spartacus: it's fine, but no more than fine.

To be continued with: Lolita (1962)

The Kubrick Series #5: Paths of Glory

THE KUBRICK SERIES #5:

PATHS OF GLORY

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth eér gave,

Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.

The paths of glory lead to but the grave."

- Thomas Gray

"There is no such thing as an anti-war film". Thus reads the famous quote by French filmmaker Francois Truffaut. Although he never explained the meaning of the quote, the most common interpretation of it indicates that any film that depicts war cannot truly be anti-war since cinema, as a medium, tends to glamorize and romanticise any subject matter it touches. And the war genre is perhaps the easiest genre to glamorize. Although the intention of most filmmakers is probably to make anti-war films, the truth of the matter is that the majority of them tend to be just the opposite. Frankly, more often than not they mostly serve as recruitment tools to make people join the army than scare people off from ever joining it. But to counter Truffaut's argument, I think there are films that are actually successful in their attempt to demonize war. Films like Apocalypse Now, Downfall, All Quiet on the Western Front, Das Boot, The Thin Red Line, Gallipoli, The Deer Hunter etc all do a very good job in my opinion of showing the horrors of war. And one of the finest additions to that list of great films is Stanley Kubrick's brilliant masterpiece Paths of Glory from 1957.

Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax.

After the critical success of The Killing, Kubrick and his producing partner James B. Harris were offered to work with MGM for their next project. Unfortunately, the two projects Kubrick and Harris proposed, an adaptation of Stefan Zweig's The Burning Secret and another adaptaion of Calder Willingham's novel Natural Child, were turned down by MGM due to their subject matters. Eventually Kubrick remembered a book he had read when he was younger (probably one of the few books he liked to read) called Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb, and thought it could make a darn good movie. But due to the darkness of the source material no studio in Hollywood would touch it. Eventually however, the project was sent to Kirk Douglas, who loved the script and is believed to have said "I don't think this picture will ever make a nickel, but we have to make it". With Douglas signed on as both the star and the executive producer through his Bryna Productions, the film found its home at United Artists, making it Kubrick's third consecutive film released by UA, and was budgeted at around $1 million, which was not an extraordinary sum for a big scale war film, but was still Kubrick's highest-budgeted film at the time. Due to the nature of the subject matter and its criticisms of the French Army, the film was shot in Germany to avoid any trouble with the French authorities.

Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas casually chilling in No Man's Land as you do.

Paths of Glory is set in France in 1916 during the height of World War I. As the voice-over explains, both sides have been stuck in trench warfare since the beginning of the war and neither had made any significant progress. At a French army headquarters located in a fancy castle, General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) orders one of his division commanders and close friends General Mireau (George Macready) to attack the Ant Hill. Mireau initially refuses, and calls any attack a suicide mission. But when Broulard mentions a possible promotion, Mireau completely changes and gives in to the credibility of the charge. The charge is to be led by Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), who reluctantly agrees to partake in the assault. When, to no one's surprise really, the attack fails, Mireau blames the failure on his soldiers and orders three of them to be court martial on the charge of cowardice. Dax, who once served as a defense attorney before the war, will oversee the defense of the three accused men.

Since the entirety of the film was shot in Germany, Kubrick work with a mostly German crew, including cinematographer Georg Krause, editor Eva Kroll, art director Ludwig Reiber and costume designer Ilse Dubois. This would collectively be their only collaboration with Kubrick, but they all do a first-rate job in their respective areas. First things first, the photography is splendid. It is in my opinion with this film that Kubrick perfected the fluid camera moves he saw and admired in the films of Max Ophüls, and he successfully manages to turn the camera into an active participant in the drama rather than the camera serving as an objective observer. A pefect example would be the famous shot of Douglas walking right through the trench minutes before the attack. You can feel the dread and anxiety that must be going through everyone's mind at that moment. This is also the first time in a Kubrick film to utilize a zoom lens, a relatively new technique at the time which would go on to become a recurring trademark in his later films. This could be seen as the first indicator of Kubrick intermixing the old with the new, as far as cinematic technique is concerned.

The infamous trench shot I'm referring to is this one, which has now become a staple of WW1 movies. The camera cuts between these two shots: a profile shot tracking Douglas from the front (pictured above) and a POV-shot showing the reaction of his men.

The score should also be mentioned. Working on his fourth consecutive and final collaboration with composer Gerald Fried, the score is used sparingly, and much of the score makes highly effective use of military drums. But perhaps the two most memorable pieces of music in the film are found in the beginning and the end. The opening credits are all scored to a version of the French national anthem La Marseillaise, which helps underscore the brutal and bleak irony of the film. A national anthem is generally supposed to inflict pride and respect in the people living in their respective country. But this film fills you with everything but pride and respect, and it works brilliantly. I will come back to the use of music in the film's ending later on.

From top to bottowm: Timothy Carey (Private Ferol), Joe Turkel (Private Arnaud) and Ralph Meeker (Corporal Paris), all charged for cowardice in the face of the enemy.

In front of the camera, we see Kubrick throw in two of his stars from The Killing alongside (mostly) new faces. The most notable carry-overs are Timothy Carey and Joe Turkel, who play two of the convicted soldiers alongside Ralph Meeker, star of Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly. Other cast members, such as Adolphe Menjou and George Macready do very well in theirc respective parts. Macready is quite devilish in the role of General Mirau, who won't accept blame for his errounos and selfish judgement, even though he himself claimed the Ant Hill to be impregnable. Menjou on the other hand conveys a certain sense of charm, wisdom and warmth through his presence, but this proves to be even more dangerous as he is the true villain of the piece and possibly even more cynical than Colonel Dax. The big standout however is Douglas, who delivers what is possibly the best performance of his career. During that trench walk, he is able to convey the feeling that the audience is feeling at that very moment: this is doomed to fail, a lot of people are going to get killed, it's all hypocrisy, and this won't have a happy ending. Another fine example of his acting abilities can be found in the famous courtroom scene. I will try not to spoil too much, but the court turns out to be a farce, and Douglas conveys the pure rage and anger he's feeling at that moment at the general staff of the army in both his facial expressions and his closing statement.

From top to bottom: Adolphe Menjou (General Broulard) and George Macready (General Mireau), who serve as two evil sides of the same coin.

Kirk Douglas delivers a brilliant performance as the sympathetic and righteous Colonel Dax.

Ultimately, the film comes down to man's inhumanity towards man and how war merely serves as a justification for us to indulge in the barbaric and violent side to our nature. Institutions like the army simply uses words and phrases like "honor" and "bravery" like dress-up to justify their own brutality, when in a way, they're more brutal and unforgiving than the enemy the soldiers are supposed to be fighting. Let us not forget that these are the same men who forbade their troops from celebrating Christmas together with the enemy because it would be bad for "morale". All of these things would serve as a recurring theme in Kubrick's work, all the way up to Kubrick's later war film Full Metal Jacket.

Going back to the cinematography for a second, one can see Kubrick's fondness for one perspective shot compositions in several shots in the film, which one could attribute to reflecting the stern and cold precision of the military.

But despite the film containing this notion of brutality and cynicism aimed towards the military, Paths of Glory could be described as Kubrick's most emotional film. I don't know if it is, but it's certainly up there (incidentally I don't subscribe to the notion that Kubrick's later films were "cold" or "distant"). The ending however, might be the most emotional in any Kubrick film. I won't give away too much, but basically aa number of Dax' men are in a tavern, with a young captured German girl being forced to perform in front of them. At first the men are howling and whistling and are frankly acting like brutes. But as this frightened and innocent German girl starts to sing the song The Faithful Hussar, a tear comes out of her eye. Through this, the soldiers begin to show compassion and their humanity, and stop whistling and join in singing. This becomes a very moving scene and a perfect ending of the film. It's also a perfect use of music, which I mentioned earlier.

Christiane Kubrick (née Harlan) as the captured German girl immortalized in the film's final scene.

One quick thing before I conclude the review: the German girl singing at the end is played by Christiane Harlan. Kubrick and Christiane fell in love with each other, and Kubrick would divorce his second wife Ruth Sobotka in order to marry her. They would remain loyal, faithful and happily married to each other to the day Stanley died in 1999. The couple had three daughters; Katharina, Anya and Vivian.

From left to right: Christiane, Stanley and Kirk on the set.

Although Paths of Glory was not a success financially, it received rave reviews from critics. In later years, Paths of Glory is often seen as Kubrick's first milestone, and his first all-out masterpiece. I can't help but agree, and I think the film is a remarkable achievement and a simply brilliant film.

To be continued with: Spartacus (1960)

This article is dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, who was born on this day 91 years ago in The Bronx.

The Kubrick Series #4: The Killing

THE KUBRICK SERIES #4:

THE KILLING

Perhaps its no surprise that so many young filmmakers at the start of their careers opt to make crime films. The crime genre and its many subgenres have long been popular in many forms, not just in films but in books, comics and tv shows. Perhaps the appeal of the genre lies in the action and the conventions, or perhaps in the existential and philosophical nature that underpins the majority of works in the genre. In film we tend to look at the film noirs of the 1940s and 50s as the precursors to filmmakers like Michael Mann, Jean-Pierre Melville or the Coen Brothers, all of whom tend to explore ideas of human nature in their respectice films. And although it tends to get overshadowed by other films of the era, I think Stanley Kubrick's breakout film The Killing should very well be up there with these other types of films.

Sterling Hayden as Johnny Clay, the protagonist of the film.

Stanley Kubrick met aspiring film producer James B. Harris, and the two immediately hit it off. They quickly formed their own production company, Harris-Kubrick Productions, and they quickly started looking for material suitable for a film. They soon found the pulpy crime novel Clean Break by Lionel White, and immediately optioned the rights. They were able to set the film up at United Artists, who agreed to co-finance and distribute the film, now titled The Killing. Kubrick got together with respected crime novelist Jim Thompson to write the screenplay, but Thompson would be relegated to a simple "dialogue" credit, with Kubrick receiving full credit for the screenplay. Thompson wouldn't mind on the condition that he got to co-write Kubrick's next film Paths of Glory. They were able to sign b-star Sterling Hayden to play the lead for $40,000, and the film was granted a budget of $320,000, a relative step up from Kubrick's previous two pictures.

Stanley Kubrick and Sterling Hayden between takes.

The Killing tells the labyrinthine story of ex-convict Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) who has gathered up a small crew of co-conspirators to commit the seemingly "perfect" heist: the robbery of a race track with an estimated profit of $2 million, all in the hopes of Johnny being able to escape with his devoted girlfriend Fay (Coleen Gray). However, as with almost every heist movie in existense, the seemingly perfect plan begins to fall apart, and everyone must fend for themselves as unexpected forces interfere with them. Over the course of the film we get to see various different perspectives from everyone in Johnny's crew and how they relate to each other, all in non-chronological order.

For the first time in his career, Kubrick was working with only professionals both on-and off-camera, and with the financial backing of a major Hollywood studio. Although he wasn't working with any a-list movie star like he would on his next film in front of the camera, the actors in this film range from old pros like Elisha Cook, Jr., Marie Windsor, Joe Sawyer, to fresh new talent in the acting community like Vince Edwards, James Edwards (no relation to Vince), Timothy Carey and Joe Turkel, and they all deliver solid performances which shows Kubrick's growth as an actor's director as well as a brilliant craftsman. Several of the actors, mainly Hayden, Carey and Turkel would make their first appearance in a Kubrick film. You can also tell that Kubrick had learned from his experiences with Fear and Desire and Killer's Kiss how to direct actors, since they all deliver solid performances.

From left to right: Ted de Corsia, Joe Sawyer, Elisha Cook, Jr, Sterling Hayden and Jay C. Flippen plotting the seemingly perfect heist.

Behind the camera, Kubrick would simply have to remain satisfied as the co-writer and director of the film as he was now working with a professional Hollywood crew. With the exception of returning composer Gerald Fried, Kubrick's then-wife Ruth Sobotka serving as the art director, and old high-school friend Alexander Singer taking on duties as associate producer, everyone else were a Hollywood professional, with the most prominent one being cinematographer Lucien Ballard probably, who had previously worked on Samuel Fuller's Fixed Bayonets! (1951) and would go on to work multiple times with Sam Peckinpah. In fact, Ballard would perhaps be the first major Hollywood professional to clash with Kubrick during filming, and he would certainly not be the first. On one occassion, Kubrick had laid out a tracking shot with a 25mm lens attached to the camera, but when he got back Ballard had moved back the track and replaced the lens with a 50mm lens. Kubrick quietly told Ballard that he could either put back the camera with the 25mm lens or he could simply leave the set and not return. Ballard stayed on set, but for Kubrick to show that kind of guts to a Hollywood pro is mighty impressive to say the least.

Although Hayden is technically the star of the film, the two of the standouts performances in the film, at least they were for me, belong to Elisha Cook, Jr. and Marie Windsor, playing husband and wife respectively. Cook was a master at playing weak willed and easily persuaded criminal, as one could see in his earlier work like The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946), and he reprises that type of character in this film, although this time he's even weaker and possibly even dumber. Windsor on the other hand excells at playing the sexy and manipulative femme fatale who goads Cook's character into giving her information regarding the robbery, and she proves to be the deciding factor that turns this seemingly perfect plan into a horrible failure (without giving too much away).  Although one may be dissapointed that Kubrick never really goes beyond genre conventions of Windsor's character, I honestly think it's a minor criticism of a film that still manages to keep the viewer guessing the whole time.

Cook and Windsor as husband and wife.

I want to go back to this word which I have referred to many times in this review already, and that word is "perfect", and this is were I think the existential nature of the film lies. Johnny Clay thinks he has planned the perfect heist, and throughout the film that would appear to be the case. But there's one element that he didn't counter on: the human factor. None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes or screw up in our lifetimes. And I feel like this is might be the one theme that truly connects The Killing with the remainder of Kubrick's work: his characters are always searching for perfection, wether it be the perfect doomsday machine, the perfect computer, the perfect behaviour modification technique etc. But they're always let down by the decisive human factor. So in a sense, we're all burdened by our own humanity in search for perfection, which is what happens to the characters in many of Kubrick's films, including The Killing. The film also demonstrates that perhaps we may not be in control over our fates, and we will never know what will happen to us in the future.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of The Killing is the level of influence it has had on future American crime films, wether conciously or not. Quentin Tarantino credits The Killing as a source of inspiration for his own heist film Reservoir Dogs (1992), which similairly tells a non-linear and labyrinthine story of a heist gone wrong. I also suspected that Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie might have used The Killing's non-linear structure as an inspiration for The Usual Suspects (1995), but McQuarrie told me on Twitter that he hadn't seen it yet at that point, so I was wrong. Finally I think you can definitely see the influence of The Killing on the works of Christopher Nolan, a huge Kubrick fan, who actually referenced it directly in the beginning of The Dark Knight (2008) with the bank robbers wearing clown masks.

The bank robbery going down.

To sum up this review, I would like to say that I think The Killing is a great and very entertaining film that definitely shows the promise of a brilliant filmmaker at the beginning of his career. And although the film in the end was no commercial success, it was well received by critics who praised Kubrick's storytelling and camera work. The master was now ready to make embark on his first masterpiece!

To be continued with: Paths of Glory (1957)