A group of cinemagraphs over at filmmakeriq.com caught my attention while browsing the internet today, they were all from films from one of my favourite film directors of all time, Stanley Kubrick. I decided they made a good lead in to an article looking at a few of his films and decided it would make a good thing to talk about.

Stanley Kubrick was born in 1948 in Manhattan, New York and got into making movies after a friend convinced him to try and make a documentary. Kubrick is considered by most to be one of the great movie directors and many of his films place on almost all lists made regarding the greatest films ever made. Today we’ll look at a few of them that are either very famous or that I love.

Kubrick’s first film in England, where he lived the rest of his life, was Lolita, a film adaptation of Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov’s novel by the same name. It was his first movie to cause a great controversy, though definitely not his last. Lolita, the book, is the story of an older man who loves his 12 year old step-daughter. Obviously very dangerous material to begin with Kubrick toned down a lot of the sexual tones of the novel as well he purposely choose an actress who looked like an older teen for the movie.

Lolita had mild success and mixed reviews by most critics as some found the movie dealt with a topic that was too shocking and others did not like that he removed some of the sexual elements from the book to satisfy the censors.

Widely considered to be one of the greatest satire movies of all time, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, yes that’s its full name, has become one of the most celebrated cult films ever made. It’s a satire which makes fun of the American military leaders who were seemingly eager to use the Nuclear Bomb against Russia. It stars a British Actor who was relatively unknown in the US at the time named Peter Sellers. Sellers has been called a chameleon as an actor meaning he can change and become whoever you need. In Dr. Strangelove, Sellers played three different roles, all with different accents and styles. He played his role so well many in the audience did not even realize all three were actually the same person.

This movie is considered Kubrick’s first major success and brought the quote “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” into our lives.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a classic of movie history, called one of the greatest and influential Science Fiction movies ever made it is famous for it’s lack of dialog, use of music throughout, special effects (for which it won an Academy Award) and it’s realistic view of space travel and scientific concepts. It’s not a light film, coming in at just under three hours long and slow in it’s pacing. It’s also not a movie you will probably understand the first time you watch it, but it’s also a movie that deserves a couple viewings in order to fully appreciate it.

A staple of any top 10 movies of all time, 2001: A Space Oddyssey is a movie that any movie lover should watch at least onece.

Another book adaptation, A Clockwork Orange is either a violent, horrible movie or a brilliant look at the violence in society. This is not a movie for the weak at heart, filled with violence, including a rape scene, but it is so well crafted as a movie it is still considered a beautiful work of art by many critics. It tells the story of a futuristic, and very violent, London, it follows the antics of Alex de Large and his gang of drug using hooligans who rob, rape and kill with ease. After a night out goes wrong Alex is captured and thrown in jail, only to find similar violence from the state where he lives as he used on the outside.

As I said, A Clockwork Orange is very violent and to many a disturbing movie, so one should keep that in mind if you watch it. If however you can stomach the violence, it is a truly mesmerizing movie about where the violence in our society comes from and how we view it.

Another novel adaptation (are you noticing a trend?), this time from the very successful author Stephen King, The Shinning is often held up as a great example of Kubrick’s perfectionist nature to film making. Many of the shots in the film were done hundreds of times and caused great stress of the leading actress, Shelley Duvall. The movie is quite different from the book and King disliked the movie, I would say the difference between the movie and the book is best summed up by critic Mark Browning who said the King novel is about a haunted house, but Kubrick’s film is about a haunted man.

This film also cemented film star Jack Nicholas as one of the top stars in Hollywood. If you enjoy a psychological horror movie, this one is for you.

Full Metal Jacket may be yet another Vietnam war movie but it is seen as most as one of the most authentic and stunning Vietnam war movie ever made. Again this is an adaptation of Gustav Hasford’s Vietnam War novel The Short-Timers, Kubrick chose this novel because he felt it was neither anti-war or pro-war, it was just the way things are. One of the most stunning scenes in the film happens in the first five minutes as we watch R. Lee Emery play a drill sergeant who is tasked with greeting the new military recruits. The scene was done unscripted and R. Lee Emery improvised a lot of what he said as the filming went along. Unlike most Vietnam movies Full Metal Jacket focuses on war in a cityscape instead of a jungle, this is because he filmed it in England and it’s hard to recreate the jungles of Vietnam in the countryside of England.

Though it recieved mixed reviews when it first was released, it has since become seen as one of the best made war movies of all time.

This time based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Freudian novella Traumnovelle, Eyes Wide Shut is a movie about love and marriage, while many view it as a dark and bleak look at the subject it is actually, in it’s way, a light at the end of the tunnel type movie. Staring Tom Cruise as Dr. Bill Harford and Nicole Kidman as his wife Alice, the story centers on the events following Alice admitting to thinking about having an affair earlier. It’s not one of my favourite Kubrick film but it’s still an interesting movie and very well crafted.

Kubrick worked 18 hour days for 15 months to ensure the movie made it’s deadline and a few days after editing was complete, Kubrick died of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 70.