Stanley Kubrick Collection

[Niale]

If anyone has viewed this* video-of Jean Luc Godard critiquing Full Metal Jacket- or watches it now and speaks french, could you tell me the gist of Godard's opinion?
I expect it will be highly critical, as it appears that he is editing his ideal version of the film!

*http://youtu.be/tZ4zbuiXrFo

[criterion10]

If anyone has viewed this* video-of Jean Luc Godard critiquing Full Metal Jacket- or watches it now and speaks french, could you tell me the gist of Godard's opinion?
I expect it will be highly critical, as it appears that he is editing his ideal version of the film!

*http://youtu.be/tZ4zbuiXrFo

I got a friend of mine who speaks French rather well to translate for me. He's not an expert on film by any means, but he said that the main opinion of Godard was indeed very critical of FMJ. Godard criticized war movies in general, attacking the way they depict and glorify violence but fail to show the true, documentary side of the war. He said he was commenting about very specific things in the film, like the way Kubrick depicted the soldiers and their facial expressions to the ongoing violence. My friend did have trouble understanding some parts, but claims that Godard did say something to the effect of "Kubrick has more talent than this" and that his movie was "missing something". Based on a wild guess, my friend assumed Godard might have been criticizing Kubrick for failing to show the American sentiments towards the Vietnam war.

Edit: It appears that my friend has translated rather well, because after all the work I sent him through, I found a website that contains an even more accurate and thorough translation of the video. Godard really criticizes Kubrick's use of slow motion, and compares the violence in FMJ to that of Peckinpah, simply set in Vietnam.

[Mr Sausage]

Godard really criticizes Kubrick's use of slow motion, and compares the violence in FMJ to that of Peckinpah, simply set in Vietnam.

That seems pretty bone-headed as a criticism. The use of slow motion in both is plainly there to draw out the pain and suffering, isolating it against the sound and fury of the surrounding moments. There's a reason you remember the slow motion. The signal instance he points out from FMJ is when the sniper is maiming the downed soldier, and each separate injury is drawn out and expanded by the slow-motion so you really get a sense of the pain and the helplessness not only of the wounded soldier but of his friends who have to bear seeing and hearing it, knowing there isn't much they can do without getting themselves killed. If Godard isn't criticizing the slow-motion for doing precisely this, then he must be mistaking what it's really up to. That or he dislikes the balletic aspect that the slow-motion lends the scenes (I suspect this is it as he uses Peckinpah's name as a pejorative description), which I think is insensitive to a beautiful contradiction at the heart of aesthetics: that something can be both horrific and hypnotic at the same time.

I agree with Godard that FMJ is missing 'something,' but I don't find a single one of his reasons persuasive. But then I've never thought Godard was a particularly insightful film critic.

[Oedipax]

The signal instance he points out from FMJ is when the sniper is maiming the downed soldier, and each separate injury is drawn out and expanded by the slow-motion so you really get a sense of the pain and the helplessness not only of the wounded soldier but of his friends who have to bear seeing and hearing it, knowing there isn't much they can do without getting themselves killed. If Godard isn't criticizing the slow-motion for doing precisely this, then he must be mistaking what it's really up to. That or he dislikes the balletic aspect that the slow-motion lends the scenes (I suspect this is it as he uses Peckinpah's name as a pejorative description), which I think is insensitive to a beautiful contradiction at the heart of aesthetics: that something can be both horrific and hypnotic at the same time.

I think his criticism is more readily apparent if you view the clip itself, where he plays FMJ against 79 Primaveras by Santiago Alvarez. What immediately becomes apparent is Kubrick's control over the image, of the action as it unfolds onscreen; it's God-like in a way, time itself slowing down to magnify as you said certain aspects of the conflict, but basically (to simplify it a little) showing the American side of things. This is Godard's primary point of contention, not the use of slow-motion in itself (recall he made an entire film structured around said device a few years earlier). In other words Godard's feeling is that Kubrick's depiction or perhaps analysis of the war is seriously lacking something; it's lacking the Vietnamese. He points out that Hollywood actors often portrayed reviled Nazi generals in WW2 films, yet the same thing is basically unheard of in the case of the Vietnam war; the other side is essentially invisible. Whereas in the Alvarez film, you see the war from the side of the invaded, the peasants on whom our bombs were dropped, and there are no pretty slow motion shots, no studied compositions, it's chaotic and confusing and awful, generally, in a way that the form of Alvarez's film mirrors. To me that was always the heart of this particular criticism, that Kubrick's form, technically brilliant though it is, is ultimately masking up larger shortcomings in terms of actually speaking about the Vietnam war. So it's not about how the shot doesn't have the desired effect, he acknowledges Kubrick's formal talent but also his disappointment at how he's deployed it in this film.

[knives]

Though I think that is Godard missing the trees for the forest as I don't think Kubrick was concerned at all with talking about Vietnam and just using it as a setting. The soldier and the soldier alone is Kubrick's subject.

[Oedipax]

Though I think that is Godard missing the trees for the forest as I don't think Kubrick was concerned at all with talking about Vietnam and just using it as a setting. The soldier and the soldier alone is Kubrick's subject.

That's a fair criticism I think. Godard throughout this period especially (i.e. during and leading up to Histoire(s) du Cinéma) is much more interested in reading images in a way that's not necessarily tied to the narrative of a particular film or the professed/implicit intentions of the filmmakers responsible for them. So he's viewing it less as, say, a Kubrick scholar who is aware of various recurring themes and motifs and more as a product of Hollywood, or rather a symptom of the Hollywood system's way of looking at the world. And it's particularly ripe for criticism with something like the Vietnam war, which is clearly still a delicate subject for Godard the former 60s radical.

[Mr Sausage]

Godard, once again, seems to have no real interest in the actual effect of certain formal or narrative choices, preferring to make easy and not very rigorous political comments. The point is right there in his contrast between the way Nazis were portrayed in Hollywood films and how the Vietnamese were being portrayed: the enemy (like the goals and the reasons and the projected outcomes of the war) was invisible and uncertain, not so much an army but a populace. This fact allowed for the Vietnamese to become dehumanized for the American soldiers, which in turn dehumanized the soldiers even further than was done in their initial training (think of the scene where animal mother shoots civilians from the helicopter).

This is all building, aesthetically and thematically, to the sniper scene, where the soldiers finally confront an invisible enemy face to face and realize, for the first time, who they're actually fighting.

[criterion10]

Although Kubrick is my favorite director, I would argue that FMJ is one of his lesser works. It still is a very good film, but after the many times I have seen it, I would definitely agree that it is missing something it, although I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it is missing. Ironically, I actually think the shooting at Hue City, with its glorious slow-motion shots intact, is one of the greatest sequences in the film, so I have to greatly disagree with Godard on this point.

The use of slow motion in both is plainly there to draw out the pain and suffering, isolating it against the sound and fury of the surrounding moments.

I agree with this entirely. It was one of the moments that really stuck out to me when I first saw the film. The slow-motion really helped make the sequence all the more disturbing.

[jindianajonz]

Fuck WB at this point, really. I'll just pirate Boxes if this is how you're going to release it, thanks.

If anybody is still looking for it, it is up on Vimeo

[aox]

Modern warfare is the only topic that Kubrick revisited and it has always been baffling to me (Yes, I know Barry Lyndon has "war" in it). Of all of the topics, why this? And why this late in his career? He had already done a perfect job with Paths of Glory and his return to war with FMJ has always annoyed me. I find FMJ is also missing something, but as with other posters, I have such a hard time articulating my problems with it. Every time I view it, I find almost every scene good to great; however, as a whole it has never congealed for me into a solid work. I think it is his worst film post-Killers Kiss.

[jindianajonz]

If you're going to include Barry Lyndon as a war movie, you also have to include Spartacus, and Fear and Desire is just as "war-ry" as anything he did. Add in Dr Strangelove, and he actually did quite a bit on war.

I wouldn't call it the only subject he revisited, though- Killer's Kiss, the Killing, and Clockwork Orange all visit the underworld/noir, and Lolita and Eyes Wide Shut are both explorations of love/temptation. I think you can also link The Shining into those as well, since it explores relationships falling apart like EWS does.

[aox]

If you're going to include Barry Lyndon as a war movie, you also have to include Spartacus, and Fear and Desire is just as "war-ry" as anything he did. Add in Dr Strangelove, and he actually did quite a bit on war.

I didn't include BL. And wouldn't include those at all. And, i didn't want to. I used "modern" specifically. I have not viewed F&D and don't consider Spartacus a "Kubrick" film.

I wouldn't call it the only subject he revisited, though- Killer's Kiss, the Killing, and Clockwork Orange all visit the underworld/noir, and Lolita and Eyes Wide Shut are both explorations of love/temptation. I think you can also link The Shining into those as well, since it explores relationships falling apart like EWS does.

I think all of that is a stretch. I am really trying to be basic. For example, IMO, The Shining is his only "horror" film and touching that genre.

[knives]

Beyond being a marketing tool I don't think the use of genre really mattered that much to Kubrick and for the most part shouldn't be the be all end all of criticism to him. It's obvious by looking at all of his work that the attraction to Full Metal Jacket is how it rejects blind adherence to authority while at the same time beautifying the horrors of man. Thematically it very much fits with his entire output. As to genre I think it is fair to say that war (and noir) most easily fit into these themes while at the same time not taking much effort to be successful at the box office. Now the question of the film's quality is an entirely different story and one that I'm not passionate enough to argue.

[peerpee]

Does anybody have a copy of the 1999 DVD of THE SHINING (UK or US version or preferably both) but importantly the one with the original mono soundtrack (ie. not the reissue issued in the year 2001 with the 5.1 soundtrack) that they could either lend/sell/burn me?

[EddieLarkin]

I intended to buy all of the old Kubrick releases for the mono tracks but never got around to all of them. I ordered A Clockwork Orange from the Amazon seller zoverstocks, and they did send me the correct 1999 version. They have the 1999 disc of The Shining for a few quid.

[Koukol]

Does anyone know what Kubrick thought of FMJ?
I agree that while a good film something is missing.

I'm curious if he was happy with the final cut.

[peerpee]

I intended to buy all of the old Kubrick releases for the mono tracks but never got around to all of them. I ordered A Clockwork Orange from the Amazon seller zoverstocks, and they did send me the correct 1999 version. They have the 1999 disc of The Shining for a few quid.

Thanks. I've ordered it, but I'm almost certain I'll receive the one from 2001. I'll let you know!

[EddieLarkin]

Zoverstocks have a separate listing for the 5.1 disc, at a much cheaper price (implying they have a bigger amount?), and their listing for the 1999 ACO was correct when I bought it, so I'd be hopeful. Fingers crossed!

[Gregory]

Does anyone know what Kubrick thought of FMJ?
I agree that while a good film something is missing.

I'm curious if he was happy with the final cut.

The film was a financial success, and Kubrick told the New York Times, "I'm happy with the picture. My films have all had varying critical opinion and it's always been subsequent critical reaction that settles the scores. . . . The only thing I can think of is that everbody's always expecting the last movie again, and they're sometimes angry—I mean some critics—often put off because they're expecting something else." See NYT June 21, 1987, and Stanley Kubrick: Interviews (2001).

[Oedipax]

Does anybody have a copy of the 1999 DVD of THE SHINING (UK or US version or preferably both) but importantly the one with the original mono soundtrack (ie. not the reissue issued in the year 2001 with the 5.1 soundtrack) that they could either lend/sell/burn me?

I'm pretty sure I've got the 99 versions still kicking around - I've bought all the Kubrick films so many times on disc I must've had those at some point. I'll take a look and see.

[domino harvey]

You could always try messaging them. Amazon actually makes sellers reply back within 24 hours or else their overall score gets penalized, so you'd get a response (though that might be a canned one, sure)

[peerpee]

Zoverstocks have a separate listing for the 5.1 disc, at a much cheaper price (implying they have a bigger amount?), and their listing for the 1999 ACO was correct when I bought it, so I'd be hopeful. Fingers crossed!

Is the 1999 ACO a US-only disc? I remember the UK cinema re-release in 2000, less than a year after Kubrick had died, and the film subsequently came out for the first time on home video in the UK after that.

[Oedipax]

Damn, no luck. I must've sold the 99's when the 2001 box set came out, not realizing the difference at the time.

[Koukol]

Does anyone know what Kubrick thought of FMJ?
I agree that while a good film something is missing.

I'm curious if he was happy with the final cut.

The film was a financial success, and Kubrick told the New York Times, "I'm happy with the picture. My films have all had varying critical opinion and it's always been subsequent critical reaction that settles the scores. . . . The only thing I can think of is that everbody's always expecting the last movie again, and they're sometimes angry—I mean some critics—often put off because they're expecting something else." See NYT June 21, 1987, and Stanley Kubrick: Interviews (2001).

Cheers!

[Gregory]

Glad to help and sorry about the typo, "everbody's"