Notes from Kubrick Study Day

By Gordy Hoffman

I recently was very fortunate to attend the Kubrick Study Day at the BFI in London. All day people from the Kubrick family or scholars would present on various topics, ten years after the master's death.

Jan Harlan, executive producer of many Kubrick films, opened the day, and later we would hear Alison Castle, the editor of two Taschen books on Kubrick, and Anthony Frewin, who was his assistant for decades, along with the staff from the recently opened Kubrick Archive.

The biggest treat was hearing from his daughter, Katherine, who provided many touching, revealing details on her father.

I jotted down a few tidbits from the day below:

EYES WIDE SHUT was first screened on March 1, 1999 for the heads of Warner Brothers, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in New York. Kubrick died later that week.
Kubrick saved everything, and eventually following his passing, his family left the records created and collected by and for Kubrick during his working life with the University of London. The main purpose is academic study, and over 2000 visits have been made. There are over 850 linear meters of shelves. Thirty five percent of the collection are photographs, there are drafts and ideas of the marketing ideas, and a huge collection of his press clippings.
Huge amounts of material has been collected from the unmade films, including Napoleon and Aryan Papers. (Jane and Louis Wilson have been commissioned to make an artists response to the archive's materials on Aryan Papers, and Taschen will release a book solely on the development of Napolean later this year.)
They are also developing a book on the drawings created by Chris Baker in support of AI.
Cassius Matthias gave a presentation on the screenplay, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
This movie was one of many firsts for Kubrick. It was his first movie set in UK. It was the first written by Stanley only. It was the first movie he made with Warner Brothers. It was also the first time he used a computer!
The doorbell of the Kubrick archive sounds like the doorbell of the writer in Clockwork Orange.
Kubrick commissioned Burgess to write a screenplay. Terry Southern also wrote a draft. Kubrick rejected these two drafts.
The first page of Kubrick's script is a column of works down the center of the page. The column of the page looks like the tracking shot. Very lean use of words. He timed the 80 or voice overs in the script, marking how long they were down to the second.

Anthony Frewin gave these interesting bits of trivia:

Stranglove was named after an editor named Lovejoy.
He started working with Kubrick in 1965 at the age of 17.
Kubrick thought THE SHINING was a feel good movie, because it presupposes life after death.
He felt the great failing of 2001 was poor characterization.
He said one of Kubrick's favorite questions was "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
In the afternoon, they gathered a panel of folks involved with the making of Barry Lyndon. Gay Hamilton was an actress in the movie. She never met him, did a screen test to get into the movie, and the first time she did meet him was on the set. She said Kubrick always gave notes in private and did lots of takes!
Brian Cook, Kubrick's first assistant director, said Kubrick often found actors looked different when they showed up in person than they did on tape. He felt Kubrick should've met the actors in person.
When attacked by critics, Kubrick would say "I might have to seek solace in box office returns."

A final quote:

"I've did enough rehearsing on THE SHINING for the rest of my life."

----Jack Nicholson.

More to come........

Bio of Gordy Hoffman

Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival for LOVE LIZA, Gordy Hoffman made his feature directorial debut with his script, A COAT OF SNOW, which world premiered at the 2005 Locarno Intl Film Festival. The movie would go on to win the Domani Vision Award at VisionFest, held at the Tribeca Cinemas. He has conducted screenwriting workshops all over North America, Poland and the UK.He recently taught screenwriting at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the University of Kansas, and he's serving as a panelist for the 2010 IFP Script to Screen Conference in New York City, as well as a judge for the 2010 McKnight Screenwriting Fellowships. He's attached to direct CORDELIA, written by Melissa Brandt, a love story inspired by KING LEAR, and he's writing a comedy set in the Gaza Strip. Gordy Hoffman founded the BlueCat Screenplay Competition in 1998 and remains its sole judge.

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