Web posted on: Monday, March 08, 1999 5:20:58 PM EST

From Reviewer Paul Tatara

"Paths of Glory"

"Spartacus"

"Dr. Strangelove"

"The Shining"

"A Clockwork Orange"

"Full Metal Jacket"

(CNN) -- Stanley Kubrick's unexpected death this past Sunday is a real tragedy, and the film world will rightfully shed tears for the loss of an unwaveringly committed artist. I have to say, though, that (with a couple of extremely major exceptions) I seldom felt that Kubrick was a great artist. There's a knee-jerk tendency among film fanatics to lump important directors under the heading of "genius" as a matter of course, and Kubrick was right up there with the big guys -- Welles, Kurosawa, Truffaut, etc.

I can understand that. Certain men are so brimming with a distinct world-view, it's difficult to suggest that maybe there's an emotional flaw in their perceptions. They're wearing blinders, but what they manage to see is profound if you're focused on the same pinpoint of light (or darkness) that so fascinates them. Everyone else in the audience, though, is left to wonder where the rest of the world went. Surely, you think to yourself, it's not all that simple.

De-humanizing effects

To me, Kubrick's inherent fault as a director was that he consistently wanted to deal with the de-humanizing effects that society can have on modern man, but seldom wanted to display the ripe emotions that he felt were being systematically pounded out of us. We never saw anyone turning into robots in Kubrick's work; they were usually robots when he got there. There's no denying that he poured his heart into his films, but it was a heart that, from a dramatic perspective, seemed forever on the verge of freezing solid.

This near-calcification of the soul works to Kubrick's advantage in what I consider to be his two most startling achievements -- "Dr. Strangelove" and "2001: A Space Odyssey." Both films, though radically different on the surface, deal with mankind's retreat into a more "stable" world, a world where computers and strategic thought are seen as viable substitutes for conversation and human interaction.

In "Dr. Strangelove," this reliance on machinery (both social and mechanical) leads to the most horrifyingly amusing moment in the history of film. Slim Pickens riding that nuclear bomb like it's a buckin' bronco, whooping and hollering his way (and, not incidentally, ours) into the abyss, is a pivotal moment in the development of what would become the punk aesthetic. Previous films about nuclear terror centered on giant ants or spiders that stood in for the Russians as they obliterated water towers with their glowing tentacles. Kubrick would have none of this, choosing instead to let the ultimate symbol of American trail-blazing -- the cowboy -- carry us into the final frontier. Who needed over-grown bugs or homicidal aliens? "Dr. Strangelove," far from fantasy, was a political cartoon where you and I die at the end. You can't get any more realistic than that.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was also, to some degree, a political cartoon. However, Arthur C. Clarke's influence may have led Kubrick to the single most hopeful moment in his oeuvre. Coincidentally, I watched the last hour or so of "2001" just two nights before Kubrick passed away, and I was absolutely enthralled. There's no denying that much of the film is pristine to the point of lifeless-ness. Again, that was Kubrick's intention, because his films consisted of nothing but Kubrick's intentions.

Ice age

This test tube environment, however serves the story well. Those silent, uncluttered surfaces in the space craft, and HAL the computer's de-flavorized sense of wisdom, set the table for a regeneration of mankind into an unknowably profound being. Yes, there's a bit of hippie-dippy-ness to the gesture (and maybe even a touch of Aryanism, if you want to get testy), but this rare glimpse of Kubrick attempting to expand his own consciousness sells the idea. If you're in the right mood, it can bring tears to your eyes. And, if you're in the wrong mood, you still can't help but marvel at the reckless ambition of trying to make a movie about the evolution of our collective spirit. It's the only time that Kubrick's cold trail leads the way to Santa Claus.

Then the ice age sets in for good. "A Clockwork Orange," "Barry Lyndon," "The Shining," and "Full Metal Jacket" followed in not-so-short order. Kubrick liked to cultivate the genius vibe by taking three times longer to make a movie than anybody in their right mind actually needed to take, and was often blindly praised for the ruse. You'd have to be an idiot, though, to deny the technical brilliance of these movies. "A Clockwork Orange"'s somehow spermicidal sense of future-cool is especially memorable, but Malcolm McDowell's Beethoven and "ultra-violence"-loving thug finally pulled Kubrick's trigger for good.

Now he started rubbing our faces in it, no longer showing any desire to move beyond bloodless calculation. Sure, there are tons of dramatic wide-angle shots in his post-60's output, and he liked to run for miles with a steady-cam, but Kubrick's movies finally started to feel like he was scrubbing the cobwebs out of his own head with a bucket of disinfectant. The most likable character in "The Shining," after all, is Jack NicholsonŐs ax-murderer. Nine years earlier, film critic Pauline Kael sagely pointed out that that was exactly what was wrong with "A Clockwork Orange." Kubrick no longer even made gestures towards dealing with salvation, and he wasn't suggesting, as he did in "Dr. Strangelove," that we were all victims of some kind of sick cosmic joke.

In a word, he just got nasty.

In the end, though, that was Kubrick. His fingerprints are all over his films -- you can't watch five seconds of one of them without knowing who was behind the camera -- and that's what art is all about. He never made concessions towards the mass market, and, as a result, we've got a couple of hugely important films and a bucket full of fascinating individual moments to peruse for the rest of our lives.

Given his death's-head sense of humor, Kubrick would surely find it amusing that the most commercial thing he ever did was pass on shortly before the release of his next opus, "Eyes Wide Shut," starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It's his final grim punchline.