Kubrick Khaos

Stanley Kubrick

“All of Kubrick’s cinema is about a brain that malfunctions.”

Stanley Kubrick directed his first film in 1953, already challenging the form and style of films coming out at that time. While his first film is his least well regarded, it introduces one important theme that can be easily seen throughout the rest of his career- madness. Not a madness shown in man from birth, but a madness that slowly or quickly consumes, and changes the outcome of a life. The films that I will focus on are Fear and Desire, Dr. Strangelove, Lolita and A Clockwork Orange. All of these films feature a character whose mind degenerates, and causes their downfall. In two of the films, there are steps taken to reverse this, but to no avail. Kubrick loves the concept of human error, the madness that drives men to their downfall, and even in his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, it is something as simple as a mask lying on a bed that cracks the facade covering Bill’s madness and despair over the events that have taken place in his life recently.

Kubrick portrayed the manic feeling of war by using characters who represent darker aspects of humanity. One in particular who recites lines from The Tempest while fatally shooting a woman whom he tried to sexually assault previously in the film.Kubrick doesn’t show these men before their deployment in the war, but it is safe to assume that some of this madness was brought on by being so isolated in such a violent situation for a time. The film is roughly an hour long, and doesn’t make a lasting impression of completeness on the viewer. WHen the remaining men find their targets and kills them, the victims seem to look exactly like the soldiers Kubrick has been following. This could be an analogy for the war being pointless, and that our enemies are humans just like us, people with lives and families. It could also mean, which is what it is in my opinion, that the troops have lost their minds in this jungle. The enemies are their delusions, and the mirroring of themselves and their eventual fate in the war. The ‘mad’ sergeant who kills the villager is an early version of Sgt. Gomer Pyle in Kubrick’s masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket. He is someone who has lost all of their ‘humanity’ and now only exists with the madness driven violent instincts that war brought out in them. I believe that Kubrick continued to develop and explore this idea in later films. As far as technical skill, it is clear that Kubrick’s background in photography helped him greatly in this production.  The scenes are some points disorienting, and shot with an eerie stillness. Kubrick leaves the film’s ending open to interpretation, a technique he uses often in his later films; and something to represent the character’s own unsure endings.

In the very first shot that Humbert is seen, unknown to him, Quilty is also in frame. The odd-ball artist is hidden beneath a sheet on a chair, with a beer bottle balanced on his covered head. This is a bit of foreshadowing for the rest of the film, as Quilty will continue to be in Humbert’s life without the Englishman knowing it. Humbert walks by Quilty a number of times in this scene, before Quilty stirs and identifies himself. During Humbert and Lolita’s time together, Humbert was always jealous and accusing Lolita of spending time with other men. He is blind to the fact the Quilty has been following them for some time, and that he is the one who Lolita has been meeting with. Humbert’s thirst for revenge is perhaps misplaced in killing Quilty, as Humbert is far more likely to to have brought more pain into Lolita’s life than anyone. Humbert Humbert, on the other hand, begins the film as a man with a sick obsession with a young girl. He does nothing in the film but pursue a damaging relationship with Lolita, at the cost of lives around them. Lolita does what she can to escape this man, and in the end can be blamed for her actions having caused his downfall. When Lolita is taken from Humbert to the summer camp, we begin to see the true cracks showing in his personality. He becomes so degenerately obsessed with this girl that he does not seem at all negatively affected when his wife is killed. There is not a split second where he ever shows remorse for her death. Humbert’s jealousy only grows with his obsession of Lolita, moving her from school to school when he fears she may leave him or he will be forced to leave her. Even when Lolita leaves him, he continues to obsess over her for the rest of his life. The scene where he realizes that she has ‘been taken from him’ is the moment that we realize any rational thoughts from this man are gone. He has a very violent fit, causing orderlies to restrain him, before he pulls himself together. This is the danger with Humbert, that he is able to reign in his insanity and fool people into believing he is a normal step-father. Lolita is, of course, able to escape him- if only for the more eccentric than insane Quilty. When Humbert discovers that Quilty was the reason for his separation from Lolita, he kills the man. So many years later, and he never gave up his obsession with possessing Lolita; that is a truly degenerate mind.

Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, was a film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1964. The story is one of the time directly before a nuclear holocaust, and the humans at fault behind it. While Kubrick certainly showcases that human error will be the downfall of the world in this film, with outrageous characters behaving rather charismatically; his portrayal of one character specifically was incredibly interesting.

Dr. Strangelove- the film’s title character- was portrayed by the amazing character actor Peter Sellers. Previously, Seller had been seen in Kubrick’s 1962 film, Lolita, in which he played an arguably insane ‘artist’.  While Sellers does in fact take on three separate roles in Strangelove his wheelchair-bound German scientist is by far the most compelling. There is no doubt that Strangelove used to be a Nazi, and Kubrick uses two main clever techniques to show this. One is Sellers’ performance on his own. Constantly fighting with his gloved right hand to perform basic tasks such as smoking, and even having the hand go so far as to try and choke the Dr. while he is speaking. Physical manifestations of his mind losing a battle. This is meant to be representative of Dr. Strangelove having to overcome his Nazi past, and is fighting with that aspect of his personality. Or perhaps more accurately, struggling to conceal but not contain his past. Strangelove is presented as a brilliant- if slightly mad- man, and his mind is at war with a physical representation of his pat. By the end of the film, it seems that everyone has gone slightly insane from the tension of the bomb; showing their true natures. The highlight of Sellers’ performance was, of course, his aborted hiel to the President in the war room- which occurs multiple times in one scene. Kubrick didn’t leave all of the implication to Peter Sellers he also used his immense skill as a director to inform the audience of Strangelove’s past. Dr. Strangelove is about the end of the world, and is perhaps Kubrick’s most linear piece- the film taking place in real time. Aside from Strangelove, this film is full of characters who seem to lose their grip on humanity and reality as the clock ticks down.

A Clockwork Orange, which is Kubrick’s most hyper-violent film, is all about correcting brain malfunctions and human conditioning. Alex and his ‘Droogs’ engage in extremely violent crimes for fun, and until Alex is betrayed, they suffer no consequences from it. At first glance, one could sy that this film is about a degenerate mind that is cured and saved from insanity, but in the world of the film it has the opposite effect. Alex is subject to horrifying experimentations, and part of his mind is altered, or decayed. He begins to suffer from breakdowns throughout the rest of the film, whenever he is confronted by a reminder of his old behaviors. This destroys his life, and forces him to try and become something he is not. His ‘rival’ or ultimate undoing in this film is a writer whom he and his droogs assaulted earlier in the film. The writer himself has gone insane, living through the suicide of his wife and his own handicap as a direct result of the pain inflicted upon him by Alex. When the writer realizes that Alex is the one who attacked him, he has a very visible and disturbing melt down; then he decides to torture Alex to the point of his attempted suicide. The attempt to ‘right’ the brains of the wrongdoers in Kubrick’s film has the end effect of decaying their mind- it brings their downfall. In the very end, Alex’s mind is righted and he is free to commit any unsightly crimes he deems fit.

Stanley Kubrick’s films range from stories about small-time crooks planning a heist, to a haunted hotel and it’s ever-faithful caretaker. Kubrick deals with the downfall of humans by their own hands, but more importantly he focuses on their minds as their downfall occurs. If HAL 9000 had been human, his story would certainly have been one of a mind descending into madness. The way he regresses to a child-like AI brought on by his fear of dying was disturbing and miserable.  All of these films feature a character whose mind degenerates, and causes their downfall, and in most cases the downfall of those around them. Unfortunately for Kubrick’s characters- but fortunately for those of us who get to witness his worlds come to life- Kubrick knows that we are all too human after all; and being human means everything decays. People always say that the mind is the first thing to go.

“Although it is based on the Vietnam war, it culminates in an unvarnished description of the instinct of aggression that drives men. In this sense it is logically one with Kubrick’s earlier films.”

Stanley Kubrick made 13 feature films in his career, and while it could easily be argued that all of his films were about war in one way or another, he made three films directly related to this topic. Fear and Desire, his first and least well regarded film, Paths of Glory, and of course the subject of discussion, Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick’s first film, as mentioned above, is by no means an accurate showcase of his genius when it comes to portraying madness or human emotion. The film follows one battalion into war, madness, and eventual death. Though it does so in an arguably convoluted and confusing fashion. Kubrick again showcases the decay of madness in the mind of a soldier,but he also shows the mind thriving in war- in the form of Animal Mother.

Full Metal Jacket was directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1987, the film follows Private Joker through basic training and combat during the Vietnam War. In a more sophisticated manner than the following of the troops in his first film.  Kubrick introduces a range of interesting characters in the film; from the tragically flawed simpleton ‘Gomer Pyle’, to the sadistically dominant Sgt. Hartman. The ‘Island’, where the first half of the film takes place, frees men to obey their natural instinct for aggression; this will be either the foil or the saving factor in all of these men’s lives. Kubrick wants to showcase the importance of aggression and basic instincts in war.

Gomer Pyle is an example of mental conditioning for aggression gone wrong. When the men arrive at the basic training camp, they are still very much individuals- but individuals do not thrive in war. The task of Gunnery Sgt. Hartman is to break these men down to their base animal instinct and build them back up as conditioned killers. Gomer Pyle did not have enough humanity left in him to be treated as harshly, and violence bled into madness in his mind. In the wild, it could be argued that in order for the pack to survive, sometimes the weakest member has to be let go. Pvt. Joker tries his best to help Pyle strengthen himself for the good of the company, but in the end the troops give up on him and Pyle is left to thrive in his own madness. Ironically, Gunnery Sgt. Hartman praises Pyle at the gun range for finally finding something he was good at; and after graduation from the island, it is the same skill that ends both of their lives. It is worth noting that this scene takes place in the bathroom, a favorite reminder of Kubrick’s to the fatal flaws of man and an inability to escape mortality.  While the story goes on to focus on the sarcastic- arguably gutless- marine reporter, Private Joker, I believe one of the most important characters is Animal Mother.

Animal Mother is introduced about an hour into the film, as a member of what becomes Cowboy’s squad. Mother instantly butts heads with Joker, calling him out on never having seen any ‘action’ in the war.  In the intense boot camp scenes, the first hour of the film, Kubrick made sure to show Sgt. Hartman breaking apart any aspect of individuality that these men had. By the time we actually see Joker in the war, there is only one distinguishing physical feature between all the men- that is what they have put on their helmets. I bring this up because this is the most clear display of individuality that we have in the film among the soldiers. Joker has written ‘Born To Kill’ across the front of his helmet but wears a peace sign on his chest. When asked about these two items Joker responds that he was trying to  make a statement about the duality of man. Joker seems to have many ideals about the war he is in and its representation, but he doesn't have the ‘guts’ to follow through or actively participate in warfare.

Animal Mother comes in as an extremely polarizing soldier to Joker. Mother’s helmet is also written on, giving the audience some clue into his person. His helmet reads ‘I Am Become Death.’ Which, if I’m not mistaken, is a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, or Hindu scripture.  The full quote is, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I believe the importance behind Animal Mother’s chosen quote is that it shows not only evidence of a life before war, but also his commitment to killing and fighting in Vietnam. While Joker still has this childish notion that he was ‘born to kill’, Animal Mother accepts that he must ‘become death’ in order to survive Vietnam. Further showing the need for violence in Joker’s life to validate him as a soldier, the other men keep talking about a ‘1000 yard stare’, and saying that Joker isn’t a real soldier until he has the same stare. This is a look that a man gets in his eyes after one of two things have happened: 1. He kills someone. 2. He sees people die. While Joker has been in the war, he has not fought, and the soldiers who have been literally risking their lives everyday frown upon Joker’s involvement in Vietnam thus far. The act of killing bonds the men together, and they view themselves as ‘brothers’; willing to not only kill for one another, but to die for one another as well.  Kubrick shows that Animal Mother understands the war, perhaps better than the others, in his own base-instinct way; which is that they are not fighting for some idealistic dream of freedom. He seems to make off-color remarks towards his fellow soldiers while they are advancing in their mission, but the moment one of them needs his help he runs in ‘guns blazing’ to save them. They are in a war, and the soldiers, especially Joker, need to realize the reality of that situation. The need to stay in a pack to survive is another example of how these men have been brought down to their instincts, at least in Kubrick’s Vietnam.

Animal Mother, in the end, inherits the squad and succeeds in moving them forward in their charge. Proving that his loyalty and aggression was everything the troops needed to advance in their mission and stay alive- even if Cowboy was not so lucky. (In a truly amazing last scene, marching through fire-ridden Vietnam in their ranks singing the Mickey Mouse song.) The song is something that these men would have heard growing up, seeing the members of the Mickey Mouse Club on television; it is something that connects them to the world back home. It is also uncanny how much this song sounds like a military chant, perhaps denoting the conditioning from an early age for these men to ‘march to the beat of the same drum’, or something that was worked into their conditioning for aggression and violence from day one. Animal Mother is everything that a soldier needs to be to survive in Kubrick’s Vietnam, he is ruthless, he is conditioned to violence, and he is a killer. By the end of the film, judging by the ‘1000-Yard stare’ that he displays, Joker has finally become what Animal Mother has been presented to us as all along: A Destroyer of Worlds. Kubrick follows Joker’s transition into the world of a Vietnam Soldier, first through the island then the war. Tracking his transition from a smart-mouthed man to a hardened soldier in the end, choosing to kill a girl rather than let her live and suffer.  I’m almost certain that had Animal Mother been under Gunnery Sgt. Hartman’s command, he would have been the star pupil.

As for Animal Mother as the byronic hero (similar to an anti-hero, someone who is socially dominant, jaded, deeply sarcastic) of the film, he is the man who leads that charge that saves everyone from being perpetually caught in the sniper’s trap. More traditional heroes would be the leads in their stories. I find it hard to refer to Joker as the hero of any situation, and though Animal Mother is only in the latter 50 or so minutes of Full Metal Jacket, his character proves to be strong willed enough to survive- and become the highest-ranking living officer in his squad. Even in the last scene, Animal Mother can be seen in the background walking parallel to Joker, wielding his enormous rifle as if he is always ready to fight. His training made him a leader, but it didn’t make him a killer. The men is Kubrick’s Vietnam were conditioned to listen to instincts they already had, but that society had told them to quiet. Some. like Pyle, should not have been freed in this way. But others, like Animal Mother, thrived and live don as soldiers. “Man was a killer before he ever served a God.”

Tanya Evanchak