Unlocking Kubrick’s secrets at a major LA exhibit

When director Stanley Kubrick died over a decade ago, he left behind a collection of polished films, shrouded in his well-known top secrecy: careers were made and broken on whether or not people could keep quiet about Kubrick’s ongoing work.

But the lid is open to Kubrick’s work methods as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents “The Stanley Kubrick Exhibition” now until mid-June 2013.

Those who’ve attended (like local directors Marie Jamora and Quark Henares recently) report that it’s a gas, especially for fans of Kubrick’s all-encompassing vision and attention to detail.

The single-floor exhibit charts Kubrick’s early career as a skilled photographer for Look magazine to his rise as an uncompromising film director whose distinct images have become cultural icons.

The Monolith from 2001. The white suit (complete with truncheon, bowler and eyeball wristband) worn by Alex in A Clockwork Orange. The outfits worn by two creepy little girls in The Shining. It’s all there, in one mind-blowing exhibit.

The $20 admission allows you to peel back the many layers that made up each Kubrick project: from source material (paperback books, usually, which Kubrick devoured) to early scripts, decorated with the director’s ongoing commentary, peppered with exclamation marks; from early risqué test shots of actress Sue Lyon, age 13 at the time she made Lolita, to the many versions of movie posters that Kubrick carefully reviewed before approval. What’s clear is that the Manhattan-born master called the shots, down to the tiniest detail.

The exhibit opens with a wall of movie posters, and you’re invited to turn left or right, to access the exhibit in any direction (a choice perhaps echoing the topiary maze in The Shining). The exhibit flows from room to room, touching on themes (“War,” for example, or “Satire”) and laying out a case for Kubrick’s brilliance.

Marie Jamora reports the early Look photos of city scenes were a revelation; she marveled at what a great photographer Kubrick was before taking on film. (Chess was another of his early passions.)

“It made me respect him even more,” says Jamora, who was in the States to screen her Cinemalaya audience award winner Ang Nawawala at Park City, Utah’s Slamdance festival. “It made me realize, whatever work we’ve put into our films, it’s nothing compared to the work Kubrick put into his films. Just the amount of detail, and the different genres he mastered: war, eroticism, satire…”

Marie’s eyes were wide open as she clocked a glass case full of Kubrick’s many special film lenses, including one designed by NASA to shoot candlelight in Barry Lyndon. She mugged with Quark inside a replica of the Korova Milk Bar set from A Clockwork Orange, complete with afro-ed nude sculptures. Then there was the Star Baby from 2001, suspended horizontally in one alcove while another showcased a replica of Dr. Strangelove’s “war room” (appropriately recreated in black and white). The visuals are eye-popping.

There’s Jack Torrance’s Adler manual typewriter on display; an inserted sheet reads: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” ad infinitum (a line, incidentally, that never appeared in King’s book). There’s the little red “combination Bible and Russian phrasebook” that Slim Pickens’ “Colonel Kong” instructed his pilots to deploy if captured behind enemy lines.

Another display includes an astronaut suit from 2001, an ape suit from the “Dawn of Man” sequence and a rather small version of the Monolith (calling to mind, perhaps, the diminutive “Stonehenge” set from This is Spinal Tap).

One major display contains a detailed replica of the room where astronaut Dave Poole ages rapidly and sees the Star Baby at the end of 2001. Elsewhere a model of the Discovery ship hangs from the ceiling.

The running exhibit touched down in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Melbourne and other cities before settling in Los Angeles. It’s unclear whether the exhibit contains actual props from the movies Kubrick made (his estate is managed by his widow in England). But the paper trail alone is fascinating.

There are original scripts everywhere. There is correspondence from people like Saul Bass, the famed credits designer who did numerous studies for The Shining that were shot down (Kubrick’s critical comments in the margins perhaps show why Bass’s style was not a good fit for the finicky director.) There’s a letter from the inventor of the Steadicam, making his initial pitch to Kubrick (the device was used to amazing effect in 1980’s The Shining). There are detailed charts and graphs designed to instruct actors playing apes in the “Dawn of Man” sequence on proper simian movements and behavior. The detail is staggering.

Behind the scenes, it’s obvious Kubrick invested a large chunk of his life in each new project. Some projects never saw light of day, such as his long-planned Napoleon (a lot of the period sets, camera lenses and research material later turned up in 1975’s Barry Lyndon). Another project that didn’t make it into the Kubrick oeuvre was Arayan Papers, a planned Holocaust film that the director abandoned after the release of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (test photos, early scripts and material are on exhibit). Then there are the detailed storyboards for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, a film Kubrick died before he got close to tackling (Spielberg inherited the project with Kubrick’s blessings; it’s worth noting how close the final version is to many of these storyboards).

Another intriguing script dated 1972 simply says “Chance: A Script Treatment by Stanley Kubrick.” One wonders if the films Kubrick chose not to make outnumbered the ones he actually finished.

Perhaps this quote by the director best captures how Kubrick approached each new monolithic project: “A director is a kind of idea and taste machine; a movie is a series of creative and technical decisions, and it’s the director’s job to make the right decisions as frequently as possible.”

For anyone interested in the magic behind the visual mastery of his films, the LACMA exhibit is a must.