11:15a-12:30p TR (20)

THIS COURSE MEETS WITH COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE C326.

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 U.S. 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.