DR. STRANGELOVE: Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!
Kubrick was not a director who wore his heart on his sleeve.
Except for this film:
Many people peg Kubrick as being indifferent to human suffering, and
indeed his art supports that viewpoint.
But Kubrick’s love of beauty points that he was a sensitive soul.
He expressed his philosophy through many ironic statements on subjects like war and human
nature and in his unmistakable and stylish use of music.
But the common thread across all his films is his sharp and wicked sense of humor.
LOLITA: Sieg heil!
Kubrick’s early films demonstrated an affinity for written irony, such as in signage that
comments humorously on the story or characters.
His imagery from this period is also spiked with the philosophy that man’s elaborate
plans can be undone in unexpected and ironic ways.
No other director captures the insanity of war better than Kubrick.
Not only because of his battle scenes, but for his depiction of a primitive, belligerent
way of thinking.
PATHS OF GLORY: There are few things more fundamentally encouraging and stimulating
than seeing someone else die.
Kubrick’s targets were the leaders who perpetuate war, and the tragic results for the men who
have to fight and die for an absurd cause.
PATHS OF GLORY: See that cockroach?
Tomorrow morning we’ll be dead and it’ll be alive.
FULL METAL JACKET: You write born to kill on your helmet and you wear a peace button.
What’s that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
But Kubrick’s anti-war stance extended to a critique of violence and aggression in general.
Kubrick films seem to say that violence is irrational but unavoidable.
To this effect he lampoons violence, most brutally in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE: (singing) Let the stormy clouds chase…everyone from the place.
Kubrick’s ironic style holds up so well…it can often seem downright beautiful.
And some ironic scenes work if you take them seriously or humorously.
Which is why a contemporary reading of his films should address...
not just irony
but post-irony.
FEAR AND DESIRE: - What’s the matter?
- And then we’re an island.
Before I was a general and now I’m a fish!
Hooray for the magicians!
Is this supposed to be funny or serious?
Often, it’s both!
There are many academic readings of A Clockwork Orange that point to it’s ironic use of
classical music in violent situations.
But perhaps a post –ironic reading is more true to Kubrick’s intentions as an artist:
the director sees the action as beautiful as well as terrible.
So the musical accompaniment supports the interpretation that the scene is both beautiful and terrible.
This effect produces a post-ironic mixture of emotions.
Getting back to this scene, yes it’s heartwarming – but the song is German, and these are
French soldiers fighting a war against the German people.
Sincerity and sarcasm are muddled once again. .
Years later, Kubrick films can read as premonitions of the future.
The masks in EYES WIDE SHUT are loud and expressive,
yet the humans behind them are silent and unemotional
They judge without revealing themselves, a predictor of social media
and the Internet sensibility
Post-ironic communication dominates the Internet because it is often unclear when someone is
sincere or sarcastic.
Who else could humanize a computer to the point of being more sympathetic than the men
who kill it?
Kubrick’s grand statement that a machine can be an art connoisseur, a polite chess
champion and be afraid of death –
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY: I’m afraid.
- is an ironic thought from 1968 that seems more plausible than ever.