The World Tonight: Space Odyssey Events -
"Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" -
the San Francisco International Film Festival,
May 2, 2001
Courtesy of Jeff Grote,
Published on May 9, 2001, The World Tonight, Issue 28.

I had the pleasure of attending the North American premiere of "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures" at the San Francisco International Film Festival on May 2, 2001. I attended the screening with Dennis Gonzales and Wally Fields, primary consultants for the '2001: A Space Odyssey' Collectibles Exhibit currently being displayed at the San Jose Tech Museum, and with Randy Jensen, an A.I. researcher here in California. I think I can safely say that there was no bigger group of rabid '2001: A Space Odyssey' fans/geeks in San Francisco's Japantown on May 2nd.

I'd like to share just a few impressions and observations about the film and the Q & A session that Jan Harlan held after the screening.

As you've certainly heard by now, the documentary itself is a very sympathetic portrait of Kubrick, starting in his early childhood, examining every major piece of work that he accomplished, and then concluding with artists' and critics' comments on Kubrick's legacy. As we'll soon see when the DVD is released, there's plenty of behind-the-scenes footage from 'Spartacus' through 'EWS', interviews with almost all of the principals in his films, and lots of personal insights offered by his family and friends. I'll leave it to you to form your own opinions about the work, but I'd like to say that I was surprised by how much the documentary seemed to be trying to remove the mystery and myth surrounding Kubrick. As one might expect, there was very little of the warts-and-all portrayal that we found in John Baxter's book, and it seems that Harlan was trying to convey the portrait of a very complex, kind family man who was consumed by his work. It wouldn't surprise me to see future documentaries which are a little less charitable and sympathetic towards Kubrick, but this serves as a brilliant (and long overdue) point of departure for investigating the legend.

I was also pleased to attend the Question & Answer session with Jan Harlan. Given the decades of secrecy and speculation surrounding Kubrick, waves of unreality were rolling over me as I realized that we finally had the opportunity to pose questions to a member of Kubrick's family. I'm sorry to say that I got distracted when I was shooting pictures and video of the event, and am not able to remember everything that was said. Dennis Gonzales has already written about a few of the questions, and I can offer several other additional paraphrasings, below:

Q: Why was Tom Cruise chosen as the narrator?
A: He was the last actor to work with Stanley, and they were very close.

Q: Were Ligeti and Kubrick finally on good terms?
A: Yes, Ligeti seems to have misunderstood how his music was legally free to be manipulated by Kubrick, and after some financial oversights were cleared up, they mended their fences. (Ligeti seems downright effusive in the film, I might add.)

Q: What is the Kubrick estate's attitude towards the release of Stanley's writings, outtakes, and other assorted film paraphernalia?
A: We are currently going through his personal archives and are inclined to release documents and writings which would be pertinent to the film community. We would certainly never release any outtakes from his films - - if Stanley edited them out of his work, then they should never see the light of day. I've been asked repeatedly to release the pie-throwing scene from 'Dr. Strangelove', and we will never, ever do that.

Q: Did anyone decline to be interviewed for the documentary?
A: The only person who declined to be interviewed was Ryan O'Neal.

Click on the thumbnails to download Real Media movie files.

	Real Media Movie 1. (2 MB).		Real Media Movie 2. (3.7 MB).

Movies courtesy of Jeff Grote.

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