Film Studies: Four Decades of Stanley Kubrick
Few figures in Anglo-American cinema history have achieved quite such a monumental stature as the producer-director Stanley Kubrick (1929–1999). Revered as a visionary artist by those who admire him, reviled as cold and inhumane by those who don’t, he and his films still provoke argument and debate quarter of a century after his death.
Kubrick’s notorious perfectionism meant that he made few films: only thirteen completed features and three shorts over a career lasting nearly fifty years. Some of them are regularly acclaimed, by both critics and fellow filmmakers, as being among the greatest ever made. Yet for others his reputation is grotesquely inflated and an exemplar of everything that is wrong with a film culture built on excessive reverence for the Great Male Auteur.
Recent scholarly research – some of it based at Sheffield Hallam University – has sought to explore neglected aspects of Kubrick’s work by examining the contributions of his collaborators, who have not usually had the recognition enjoyed by the director himself. In this course we will consider the case for bringing the monument down from his plinth and building an alternative critical biography.
No previous experience of Film Studies is necessary – just an interest in cinema and enthusiasm for talking about it!
Presented in association with Sheffield Hallam University. Tutor: Dr Sheldon Hall.
Upcoming films & events
- Film Studies Season Pass: Four Decades of Stanley Kubrick 15
- This pass entitles you to access all events in this Film Studies season - 4 films, 4 lectures. Curated and delivered by Dr Sheldon Hall.
- Wed 2 Apr
- 18.00
- Film Studies: The Killing PG
- English
- Kubrick’s first few feature films were low-budget genre pictures, made independently of the major studios. The Killing, his third feature, was released by United Artists and really got him noticed.
- Wed 2 Apr
- 18.30
- Film Studies Lecture: Early Kubrick
- Wed 9 Apr 18:30
- In this first session we will consider the nature of Kubrick’s critical reputation and the esteem in which he is held by fellow filmmakers, before discussing his early work in the 1950s.
- Film Studies: Lolita 15
- English
- James Mason was the ideal actor to play writer Humbert Humbert, who becomes infatuated with his landlady’s 14-year-old daughter Lolita (played by the 15-year-old Sue Lyon).
- Wed 16 Apr
- 18.30
- Film Studies Lecture: Kubrick and Satire
- Wed 23 Apr 18:30
- Emotional coldness is a quality many critics feel severely limits Kubrick’s work. Romantic relationships in his films tend to be stunted and dysfunctional, nowhere more evident than in the perverse ‘love story’ that lies at the heart of Lolita (1962).
- Film Studies: Barry Lyndon 12A
- English
- Penniless Irish adventurer Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) embarks on a perilous, picaresque journey through Europe in the mid-1700s.
- Wed 30 Apr
- 18.30
- Film Studies Lecture: Kubrick and History
- Wed 7 May 18:30
- Costume dramas and science fiction alike tend to have a low reputation for physical authenticity and literary eloquence, but many critics make an exception for Kubrick’s.
- Film Studies: Full Metal Jacket 15
- English, Vietnamese with English Subtitles
- The new draftees at an American military barracks during the Vietnam War are put through their paces by a ferocious Gunnery Sergeant (an astounding debut performance by real-life army veteran R. Lee Ermey).
- Wed 14 May
- 18.30
- Film Studies Lecture: Late Kubrick
- Wed 21 May 18:30
- Reception of these late works followed an established pattern: initial disappointment and incomprehension, followed some time later by favourable re-evaluation.
