Stanley Kubrick Director: A Visual Analysis

Stanley Kubrick Director: A Visual Analysis

Alexander Walker, Sybil Taylor, Ulrich Ruchti

p.43

“As for Lighting, I should say that eighty-five percent of A Clockwork Orange was lit either by replacing normal light bulbs in existing lighting fixtures with photo floods, or by the use of very lightweight Lowell 1,000 watt quartz lights, bounced off either ceilings or special reflective umbrellas. At other times it was necessary to use brute arcs for which there is no substitute when large expanses have to be lit at night, or when a one source light effect has to be achieved in a large interior.”

A Clockwork Orange p. 196 – 223

p.198

When he holds a shot, Kubrick seems to hold it for measurably longer than one expects him to.

There is a recurrent use of low angles, so that the characters have a friezelike elevation.

p.199

Off for a bit of the old ultra violence, the gang’s shadows leaping before them advertise their intention.

p.201

Kubrick’s quick cutting and the acrobatic movements of the actors during the rape of he writer’s wife edit the assault into a weird ballet whose effect is consolidated by the masks that seem to combine the stock features of both tragedy and comedy. The viewer’s experience is highly disorienting. “There are dreams,” says Kubrick, “in which you do all the terrible things your conscious mind prevents you from doing.”

p.202

Up to the moment of his imprisonment for her murder, Alex is frequently presented in these low angle shots that enhance his menace. Later, the camera tends to dominate him as he is put in the position of victim

p.205

Kubrick’s consistency in lighting a scene with only the illumination one would expect to find in the actual environment.

p.222

A Clockwork Orange is nearer this dream state than any film Kubrick has made. Its lighting, editing, photography, and especially its music – for sound reaches deeper into the unconscious than even sight – are all combined with events in themselves bizarre and frightening.

The Shining p.268 – 314

p.287

The earlier scenes – a brief job interview, a tactful history of a particular place – resemble the professional exchanges between the space technicians in 2001. They are conducted in medium shot, low-key , the voices confidentially lowered. But the suspense they generate has already nudged the story’s center of interest away from Stephen King’s spooky premonitions toward a man’s interior demons.

p.289

It felt like an actual hotel, not a movie set open to overhead lighting racks and ‘breakaway’ walls that collapsed when accommodating camera setups.

p.290

Crucially, the illumination used throughout perfectly duplicated the lighting one would expect in a hotel.

p.291

To exploit fully the spaciousness of The Shining’s set, much of the action would have to be filmed in long continuous takes. Using cuts would have negated the impact of the grand design.

The Overlook’s long corridors and fixed walls made it impossible to lay camera rails on the floor, or overhead. Yet for Kubrick, these difficulties presented less of a problem than an opportunity. The shooting of The Shining exactly coincides with the introduction of the Steadicam into filmmaking.

p.300

Throughout, Nicholson’s features are lit from below, illuminated by the lighting panels in the car counter. This adds drama to Nicholson’s expressions, exaggerating every minor alteration in the actor’s incredibly complex orchestration of emotions in a way both realistic and slightly surreal.

The dialogue suggests depths beyond its superficiality.

p.306

Kubrick has said himself, “When one is looking at a film,  the experience is much closer to a dream than anything else”.

p.309

During such key moments in a character’s inner drama, Kubrick employs extreme formality and symmetry in his camera set up. Such a setup frames Wendy looming above the typewriter as she discovers, horribly, that her husband’s ‘creative’ writing consists of page after page containing the same two words: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Kubrick has positioned Jack’s typewriter in the foreground, shooting it from a low angle.