Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrickwas an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and photographer. Part of the New Hollywood film-making wave, Kubrick's films are considered by film historian Michel Ciment to be "among the most important contributions to world cinema in the twentieth century", and he is frequently cited as one of the greatest and most influential directors in cinematic history. His films, which are typically adaptations of novels or short stories, cover a wide range of genres, and are noted for...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth26 July 1928
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
You're constantly changing man. But the film's not changing. The film stays the same. That's the beautiful aspect of it.
I'm just an old man and I smell bad, remember?
If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? ...
The very meaningless of life forces man to create his own meanings. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
Some people demand a five-line capsule summary. Something you'd read in a magazine. They want you to say, 'This is the story of the duality of man and the duplicity of governments.' I hear people try to do it -- give the five-line summary -- but if a film has any substance or subtlety, whatever you say is never complete, it's usually wrong, and it's necessarily simplistic: truth is too multifaceted to be contained in a five-line summary. If the work is good, what you say about it is usually irrelevant.
Like the man said, can happiness buy money?
No philosophy based on an incorrect view of the nature of man is likely to produce social good.
Shooting a movie is the worst milieu for creative work ever devised by man.
One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.
Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved-that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.
The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.
I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists-neither takes life as it is. Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are.
When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
The greatest nations have all acted like gangsters and the smallest like prostitutes.