Stanley Kubrick

After having watched his films in this independent study, Stanley Kubrick has become my favorite director and my third-favorite screenwriter. What he is most well-known for in his writing style is heavy use of cynicism and ironic pessimism, often with seemingly heartless characters. With the exception of "Killer's Kiss," this can be seen from very early on in his career. In "The Killing," none of the men get away. "Paths of Glory" is quite pessimistic, although it has a different and unexpected sort of happy ending. "Spartacus," which Kubrick did not even write, has a very bittersweet ending. The characters in "Lolita" are very irrational but seem terribly realistic in all other respects. "Dr. Strangelove," well, if you've seen it you know what I mean. In "2001: A Space Odyssey," humans are presumably replaced by computers as the foremost emotional beings. "A Clockwork Orange" ends fairly ironically, as does "Barry Lyndon." Nothing in "The Shining" even makes sense. His last films have nothing short of pessimistic climaxes and ironic endings. Often, especially since the 1960s, particularly cynical sequences are contrasted with pleasant classical music, another of Kubrick's ingenious trademarks. Especially in "2001," the statement he makes with all of the negativity is left very ambiguous in his films, which makes one wonder if he actually wanted his movies to be controversial and debated. One of the things I love so much about Kubrick is he dedicated himself to his work. Not just to individual films (although he did), but he spent the majority of his life working with the same theme, a statement about people, tweaking it and inserting it into as many different settings as he could, always with some of the most interesting characters to ever appear in films. All put together in the end, it's a life's work to be proud of.