Read Online Listening to Stanley Kubrick by Christine Lee Gengaro - Free Book Online

his last film, Eyes Wide Shut , were part of this new paradigm. Each of these films will be discussed at length in the following chapters.
    After the artistic, if not financial, triumph of Paths of Glory , Kubrick and his producing partner, James Harris, were looking for a new project. Marlon Brando was interested in working with Kubrick on a western loosely based on the life of Billy the Kid. It was while Kubrick worked on Brando’s screenplay for the western that Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita was published in the U.S. Although Kubrick and Harris were both excited about adapting the novel for the screen, Kubrick was committed to the Billy the Kid project, so while he worked on that, Harris attempted to buy the rights to Lolita . Kubrick and Brando were both strong creative personalities, and their collaboration was difficult. There are conflicting reports of exactly how Kubrick left the film, later called One-Eyed Jacks , but in the end, Kubrick moved on and Brando directed the film himself.
    Meanwhile, Kirk Douglas was preparing to bring Spartacus to the screen. Douglas, both producer and star, encountered plenty of problems on the way, everything from a similar competing project ( The Gladiators ) to an unusable screenplay to a difficult hunt for a leading lady. The studio funding the film, Universal, wanted Anthony Mann to direct even though Douglas had misgivings. Mann was known for his westerns, and it was his talent for filming outside that Universal felt would serve him well on Spartacus . Mann directed the opening section, in which Romans choose slaves for their gladiator schools, but in the sections that followed, Kirk Douglas found that he wasn’t satisfied with Mann’s work. Douglas fired Mann and suggested Kubrick (with whom he had recently made Paths of Glory ) for the job. One weekend after Mann’s last day, Kubrick began directing Spartacus. He reportedly filmed a scene on Monday and then spent the rest of the week rehearsing with the actors. 1
    Spartacus
    Some scholars have omitted Spartacus from discourse of Kubrick’s work since it was not a project he developed himself. James Naremore has said of the film that it “has very few moments when one can sense [Kubrick’s] directorial personality.” 2 Kubrick distanced himself from the film as well, painting himself as someone at odds with the material. In one of his lengthy interviews with Michel Ciment, Kubrick said of Spartacus , “I was up against a pretty dumb script which was rarely faithful to what is known about Spartacus.” 3 Kubrick fought for changes in the script, although he wasn’t satisfied with reactions to his input. In a 1973 interview, Kubrick said: “When Kirk offered me the job of directing Spartacus , I thought that I might be able to make something of it if the script could be changed. But my experience proved that if it is not explicitly stated in the contract that your decisions will be respected, there’s a very good chance that they won’t be.” 4
    One aspect of the filmmaking in which Kubrick had more of a say was the music. Kirk Douglas had engaged Alex North to write the score in pre-production, and North worked on it over the course of filming, which was an especially long time. Usually, film composers are given perhaps three months to complete a score, but according to North biographer Sanya Henderson, Douglas allowed North more than a year to complete the music. This not only allowed North to research ancient Roman music, but also gave him the opportunity to work out the themes in great detail and collaborate with Kubrick. 5
    When production on Spartacus began, North was an up-and-coming composer. Previous to his work on Spartacus , North had written some uncredited stock music, music for television, like the theme for the Playhouse 90 anthology television series, and some film scores. Among them were the score to Death of a Salesman (1951) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), both for director Elia Kazan. 6 He