{"id":3292,"date":"2011-07-28T17:18:01","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T21:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3292"},"modified":"2011-07-28T17:18:01","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T21:18:01","slug":"film-stanley-kubricks-boxes-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3292","title":{"rendered":"Film: Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>S<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Documentary \/ Stanley Kubrick \/ Film History<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Filmmaker Jon Ronson chronicles his rare foray into the Kubrick archives at the family’s estate.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who has every been privileged to direct a film also knows that although it can be like trying to write ‘War and Peace’ in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.\u201d — Stanley Kubrick<\/em><\/p>\n

As recounted at the top of this Channel 4 documentary, in 1996 Jon Ronson received a mysterious phone call from a man called “Tony,” requesting a copy of a Holocaust documentary Ronson had made. After much stalling, Tony eventually confessed his unnamed employer was Stanley Kubrick. Ronson sent a tape, hoping it would lead to a meeting at Kubrick\u2019s compound near St. Albans<\/a>, but nothing transpired.<\/p>\n

A few years after Kubrick\u2019s death, upon reading one of Ronson\u2019s books, the mysterious Tony \u2013 Anthony Frewin, the director\u2019s assistant for 31 years – remembered his 1996 phone conversation, and invited Ronson to the family house.<\/p>\n

The buildings were in disrepair, and to accommodate an active restoration, key contents were housed in portable cabins. What Ronson saw inside the compact sheds were thousands of boxes, many unopened for decades, and when he asked if he could examine some of their contents, the family agreed.<\/p>\n

That opportunity began a 5-year odyssey where Ronson discovered not only the bureaucratic remnants of Kubrick\u2019s film productions, but glimpses into the mind of a methodical, ever-active man who obsessed over infinite details of his films.<\/p>\n

Once freed from the studios and allowed to deliver his finished work to Warner Bros., Kubrick could (and did) indulge in extraordinary levels of research, much of which lay packed up in boxes and cabinets after the films had been completed, or a project was either aborted or in stasis.<\/p>\n

Although a fan\u2019s treasure trove and a film historian\u2019s heavenly chest of historic goodies, the family was concerned that what emerged through the media could be selectively extracted and exploited into an article or film that could worsen Kubrick\u2019s reputation as a recluse, or turn him into what daughter Anya Kubrick characterized as some kind of \u201cmonster.\u201d<\/p>\n

What emerged was a 2004 article Ronson penned for The Guardian<\/a>, and this 2008 doc \u2013 both supporting the public\u2019s perception of Kubrick as an eccentric, private man, but also providing a deeper glimpse into the psyche of a remarkable mind whose perfectionism was both baffling, and sometimes amusing.<\/p>\n

Frewin reads from vintage memos banged out late at night by Kubrick during the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/strong> (1968), and while he’s inured to the peculiarity of Kubrick\u2019s odd requests, he does recognize their quirkiness \u2013 such as the director wanting the specific barometric pressure readings of an afternoon period from a<\/em> week prior<\/em>, and its relation to the monthly average a year earlier<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the fan letters \u2013 all of them<\/em> \u2013 which Kubrick personally read and branded, including \u201ccrank\u201d letters, just in case someone ever tried to harm him or his family. Incredibly, Ronson tracked down one \u2018crank\u2019 author, and confronted him with his 30+ year old rant.<\/p>\n

More fascinating are thousands of stills from which Kubrick selected the ideal set designs for his films. Nephew Manuel Harlan was charged with photographing various gates, streets, doors, and sleazy corners frequented by hookers in Islington \u2013 oddly, the same area where Ronson lives \u2013 as well as the interiors of certain apartments for the pre-production of Eyes Wide Shut<\/strong> (1999), and it\u2019s a methodology, according to Frewin, which began as early as Lolita<\/strong> (1962).<\/p>\n

Ronson\u2019s goal wasn\u2019t to make a doc about Kubrick, but rather let the boxes reveal aspects of the film icon. The emerging portrait is funny, surreal, but also humanistic: Kubrick was a beloved father, and like any aging, brilliant mind, certain eccentricities became more enriched.<\/p>\n

Examples include the aforementioned memos, Kubrick’s peculiarly keen interest in the newest stationary at his local shop in town, and the custom storage boxes he designed and ordered by the hundreds from a local manufacturer to ensure the lids would come off more easily.<\/p>\n

The family ultimately donated the archive of boxes to the University of the Arts in London (profiled here<\/a>, and here<\/a>), which will help in their healing process, but there\u2019s no doubt the house will feel strange, knowing large remnants of the family\u2019s patriarch are no longer present in every room.<\/p>\n

Ronson covers a fair deal in the doc, and there are film clips, plus a rare snippet from Sue Lyon\u2019s Lolita<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] audition, and a newsreel extract showing valets wearing heart-shaped glasses greeting the VIPs.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also extracts from Vivian\u2019s Kubrick\u2019s 18 hours worth of 16mm film, shot during the making of Full Metal Jacket<\/strong> (1987). In one delightfully profane extract, Kubrick and Frewer deal with the crew\u2019s insistence on taking one tea break too many. There\u2019s also an excerpt from a 1998 acceptance speech, where Kubrick thanks (via videotape) members of the Director\u2019s Guild of America for awarding him the D.W. Griffith Award (see quoted extract at top of review).<\/p>\n

Most of the archival extracts are seen in brief, and the doc could easily have run a full 90 mins. Perhaps it was a desire to deliver a tight running time or the family\u2019s request to use extracts and samples selectively, but the doc merely whets the appetite for more, and one hopes the archives will spin-off separate documentaries (preferably to beef up future Blu-ray editions), if not books, much in the way the minds of former studio production chiefs Darryl F. Zanuck and David O. Selznick were captured in published collections culled from surviving production memos.<\/p>\n

At present, Stanley Kubrick\u2019s Boxes is not available on DVD. Director Jon Ronson is also an author, and is best known for the book The Men Who Stare at Goats<\/strong>, which was made into a film in 2009.<\/p>\n

In 2010, the Museum of St. Albans housed Kubrick: A Film Makers Odyssey<\/a>, featuring \u00a0materials from the Kubrick archives.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em><\/em><\/em>\/\u00a0S<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ S . Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Documentary \/ Stanley Kubrick \/ Film History Synopsis: Filmmaker Jon Ronson chronicles his rare foray into the Kubrick archives at the family’s estate. Special Features: n\/a . . Review: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[619,620,189],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-R6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3292"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3296,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3292\/revisions\/3296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}