Stanley Kubrick Essay

Stanley Kubrick’s sexual parody, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, illustrates an unfathomed nuclear catastrophe. Released in the midst of the Cold War, this 1964 film satirizes the heightened tensions between America and Russia. Many sexual insinuations are implemented to ridicule the serious issue of a global nuclear holocaust, in an effort to countervail the terror that plagued America at that time. Organizing principles, such as Kubrick’s blunt political attitudes about the absurdity of war and the satirical genre, are echoed by the film style of his anti-war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove.

In the film Inception one follows Dominic Cobb who is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the vulnerable subconscious while the mind is in the dream state. Cobb's rare ability has landed him a job with a corporate espionage to try and earn his way back home after he has lost everything he has ever loved. This final job could give him his life back but only if he can complete the seemly impossible task of inception. Cobb and his team of highly trained architects and extractors have one chance to complete their task. Now instead of stealing an idea they must supplant a new one. Failure is not an option for Cobb and he has taken extra care to exclude information

Surrealism is a movement that built off of the burgeoning look into art, psychology, and the workings of the mind. Popularly associated with the works of Salvador Dali, Surrealist art takes imagery and ideology and creates correlation where there is none, creating new forms of art. In this essay I will look to explore the inception of the surrealist movement, including the Surrealist Manifesto, to stress the importance of these artists and their work in the 20th century and beyond. I also will look to films from our European Cinema course to express how films incorporate the influence of surrealism both intentionally and unintentionally.

What I Learned Since I Stopped Worrying and Studied the Movie: A Teaching Guide to Stanley Kubrick 's Dr. Strangelove

Alfred Hitchcock is widely regarded as a prime example of an auteur, a theory that emerged in the 1950s by Truffaut, in the ‘politique des auteurs’ of Cahiers du Cinema (Tudor 121). The auteur theory, as defined by Andrew Tudor, is premised on the assumption that “any director creates his films on the basis of a central structure”(140) and thus, if you consider their films in relation to each other, commonalities can be found within them. These commonalities work to demonstrate the view of the director as “the true creator of the film” (Tudor 122). Evidence of an auteur can be found in examining a director’s creative tendencies, in their distinctive themes and motifs, stylistic choices,

Bart Layton built this doc not from one perspective, but from a collection of them. Some stories, like “The Imposter” need a panoptic approach to connect the audience to the film. The themes of manipulation, identity and love are the main themes conveyed by Layton. These themes are communicated through sounds and visual imagery.

For this paper, I have decided to compare two Hitchcock films. Ever since I can remember, I have seen Alfred Hitchcock films; Psycho, The Birds, North by Northwest, I enjoy his work because I like the suspense, and visual effects that he was able to accomplish. Out of all of his films, I believe that my favorite Hitchcock films would have to be Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), because I think that the two incorporate everything that is “Alfred Hitchcock”. Hitchcock films are known for being mysterious, cynical, as well as suspenseful and they are all similar because of his use of symbolism, light, repetitive actors, and repetition of theme.

“Kubrick’s work reveals deeper evidence of the personal involvement which distinguishes the true auteur. His develpment has been remarkably consistent through an apparently heterogeneous range of projects, and each film’s meaning becomes more confidently definable when one places it in relation to its fellows (page 561 paragraph 2).”

All films, regardless of their intended purposes, tend to capture a piece of history and culture within them. Film’s ability to capture images and produce a visual is truly unique, as other methods of storytelling, such as writing a book, fail to truly encapsulate the human experience. Using an aesthetic lens, film directors essentially preserve time, and bring us back to our roots. Through masterful manipulation of the aesthetic properties of film, Milos Forman succeeds in illuminating the historical and cultural significance of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, making it worthy of placement in the National Film Archive.

"I would not think of quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have found it always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself."

It is hard to imagine a person who has not heard of Steven Spielberg. He is one of the most renown, if not the most renown, American filmmakers of the century. His films have captivated and helped develop imaginations of contemporary society and remain among the most successful films ever made.

2001 originated from Clarke's short story, "The Sentinel." This, in no way, takes away from the originality of the film. An obvious benediction of the movie is Kubrick's use of music. The classical pieces intensify the sense of awe. From the ape man to the star child, the music detaches us from the events. We view them as we would events in a documentary. Kubrick deliberately adds, deletes and modifies. Hal never reads the lips of the astronauts in the book. This is a stroke of genius in the motion

The intention of this essay is to discuss the romantic notion of a film director who has etched their own cinematic vision into the body of their film work, and whether the theory and practice is dead and an infringement of the spectator’s imagination and is it the spectator who finds meaning in the film. I will be closely looking at critical material, primarily André Bazin and Roland Barthes and applying them to several case study films directed by Christopher Nolan including The Following (1998), The Prestige (2006) and Inception (2010), to examine whether Nolan possesses the qualities of an auteur and if so, does that imply an ideological view of what the auteur resembles or an artistic one.

Steven Spielberg is one of the most successful directors of all time (in fact, may people would argue that he is the most successful director there has ever been) and his movies have been some of the most profitable and well known in history. His opening sequences are noted for being captivating, gripping and often scary, building tension and suspense. Born in 1946 in Ohio, Spielberg has become elite among directors. The gross of the films he has directed is estimated at $8.5 billion, and three of his films – Jurassic Park, Jaws and E.T. the extra-terrestrial – have achieved box office records.

The film I picked for my critique is Red Tails, a historical World War II drama. The movie starred Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard and Gerald Mcraney, was written by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder, better known as the creator of the comic strip “the boondocks”, from a book by John B. Holway, directed by Anthony Hemingway and produced by George Lucas . In this paper the author will show how all elements of filmmaking