An extraordinary treasure trove of props and production work from the master auteur’s iconic films is a pleasure to see
There are numerous reasons why, twenty years after his death, the influence and reputation of film director Stanley Kubrick are even bigger than when he was alive.
A lot of it is down to his independence and perfectionism which are an easy stick to beat modern movie makers with.
Plus he is massive with the Fake News Nutters who believe that he filmed the fake moon landing and was murdered because his final film Eye Wide Shut revealed the truth about how the Illuminati run the world.
Just as when you get hit by Mike Tyson, you stay hit; when Kubrick made a film, it stayed made.
His films really stand apart, they brush off the passing of time. Whatever their flaws, they are definitive statements.
Which other filmmaker could be the subject of a show like this which takes up a floor in the Design Museum in Holland Park?
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition finally arrives in the country where he spent most of his working life after having done something of a world tour.
It’s an extraordinary treasure trove of pre-production art, props, memos and filmmaking paraphernalia, organised into eleven rooms.
The first room is an overview and the remainder covers the last ten of his thirteen films, from Paths of Glory onwards.
The exhibition, which runs until September 15th attempts to show the extremes of his perfectionism.
In the Eyes Wide Shut section, there are six composite photos of the Commercial Road in the East End, all shot by nephew Manuel Harlan who, to get the angle Kubrick demanded, stood on a twelve-foot ladder that he had to keep moving down the entire road.
Predominantly though, the pleasure is seeing all those great toys up close. It’s all here: the typed pages of “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy” from The Shining, the Born To Kill helmet from Full Metal Jacket, Ken Adam’s model of the war room from Dr Strangelove. The only thing missing is the monolith from 2001. I wonder who nabbed that?
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