Topic: The Films of Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999, was a unique and paradoxical
figure. Although he rarely appeared in public, he achieved a kind of
stardom. One of the few mainstream directors of the past fifty years who
was both popular and respected by intellectuals, Kubrick maintained a good
relationship with movie studios and remarkable degree of personal control
over his most expensive projects. His pictures seemed both hand-made and
technically sophisticated, and despite his apparent eccentricity and
iconoclasm, he became a valuable show-business commodity. From the 1960s
onward, he lived in exile from both Hollywood and America, creating
visions of US space travel, the Vietnam war, and New York city, all within
a few miles of his English country home. The long silences between his
later projects, which were shrouded in secrecy, created great public
interest in what he would do next, simply because he was responsible for
some of the most admired movies ever made.

This course will offer a retrospective view of Kubrick's career,
covering all thirteen of the feature films he directed: Fear and Desire,
Killer's Kiss, The Killing, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita, Dr.
Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The
Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. The lectures and
discussions will treat these films from a variety of perspectives, dealing
with such matters as social and industrial history, personal style,
technology, production methods, gender and sexual politics, and public
reception. Readings will include a packet of critical writings on Kubrick
and at least one or two novels by writers who provided sources for his
films (probably Jim Thompson and Vladimir Nabokov). Students will be
required to submit a two-page essay, an eight-page essay, and two written
exams.