An interview with Stanley Kubrick
By Vicente Molina Foix
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Right. Reading the novel, I constantly felt he was trying to explain why all those horrible things happened, which I think is wrong, since the main force of the story lies in its ambiguity. At the same time, you have avoided the many references to Poe in the book, especially to his mask of the red death, and in fact, your film escapes completely Poe's influence and gets, I believe, much closer to Borges, particularly in its conclusion. To me, it's a major shift from the novel.
The most major shift is really the last thirty minutes of the film, because King's climax really only consisted of Jack confronting Danny, and Danny saying something like "you're not my father," and then Jack turns and goes down to the boiler and the hotel blows up. The most important thing that Diane Johnson and I did was to change the ending, to shift the emphasis along the lines you've just described. In terms of things like Jack's father and the family background, in the film a few clues almost do the same thing; when Wendy tells the doctor about how Jack broke Danny's arm, you can tell she's putting a very good face on the way she tells it, but you realize that something horrible must have happened. Or, for instance, when Ullman, the manager, asks Jack "How would your wife and son like it?" and you see a look in his eyes meaning he thinks "what an irrelevant question that is!" and then he smiles and just says "They'll love it." I mean, I think there are lots of little subtle points that give you at least subconsciously the same awareness that King works so hard to put in. Also I think that he was a little worried maybe about getting literary credentials for the novel; all his Poe quotes and "Red Death" things are all right but didn't seem necessary. He seemed too concerned about making it clear to everybody that this was a worthwhile genre of literature.
How do you normally work with the actors? Do you like to introduce their improvisations on the set?
Yes. I find that no matter how carefully you write a scene, when you rehearse it for the first time there always seems to be something completely different, and you realize that there are interesting ideas in the scene which you never thought of, or that ideas that you thought were interesting aren't. Or that the weight of the idea is unbalanced; something is too obvious or not clear enough, so I very often rewrite the scene with the rehearsal. I feel it's the way you can take the best advantage of both the abilities of the actors and even perhaps the weaknesses of the actors.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Right. Reading the novel, I constantly felt he was trying to explain why all those horrible things happened, which I think is wrong, since the main force of the story lies in its ambiguity. At the same time, you have avoided the many references to Poe in the book, especially to his mask of the red death, and in fact, your film escapes completely Poe's influence and gets, I believe, much closer to Borges, particularly in its conclusion. To me, it's a major shift from the novel.
The most major shift is really the last thirty minutes of the film, because King's climax really only consisted of Jack confronting Danny, and Danny saying something like "you're not my father," and then Jack turns and goes down to the boiler and the hotel blows up. The most important thing that Diane Johnson and I did was to change the ending, to shift the emphasis along the lines you've just described. In terms of things like Jack's father and the family background, in the film a few clues almost do the same thing; when Wendy tells the doctor about how Jack broke Danny's arm, you can tell she's putting a very good face on the way she tells it, but you realize that something horrible must have happened. Or, for instance, when Ullman, the manager, asks Jack "How would your wife and son like it?" and you see a look in his eyes meaning he thinks "what an irrelevant question that is!" and then he smiles and just says "They'll love it." I mean, I think there are lots of little subtle points that give you at least subconsciously the same awareness that King works so hard to put in. Also I think that he was a little worried maybe about getting literary credentials for the novel; all his Poe quotes and "Red Death" things are all right but didn't seem necessary. He seemed too concerned about making it clear to everybody that this was a worthwhile genre of literature.
How do you normally work with the actors? Do you like to introduce their improvisations on the set?
Yes. I find that no matter how carefully you write a scene, when you rehearse it for the first time there always seems to be something completely different, and you realize that there are interesting ideas in the scene which you never thought of, or that ideas that you thought were interesting aren't. Or that the weight of the idea is unbalanced; something is too obvious or not clear enough, so I very often rewrite the scene with the rehearsal. I feel it's the way you can take the best advantage of both the abilities of the actors and even perhaps the weaknesses of the actors.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
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The Stanley Kubrick Archives
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Kubrick's universe: the most comprehensive study of the filmmaker to date
Eyes Wide Shut: Tom Cruise, Kubrick, and Julienne Davis (as the corpse) with director of photography Larry Smith (right). (c) The Stanley Kubrick Estat