Kubrick Crazy

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"These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants, walking the Earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss having anyone around that's worth shooting."

Crazy Earl (Kieron Jecchinis)

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I've seen enough Stanley Kubrick movies that I am pretty sure I could identify one even if I stumbled onto one I had never seen before while I was channel surfing.

Some directors are like that. They use certain styles — for example, certain types of lighting or camera angles — in all their films.

If you've seen some of Kubrick's movies, you're bound to recognize things like shots that show as much of a room as possible, giving the shot unusual depth.

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Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket," which was first shown on this day in Beverly Hills in 1987, was like that. I first saw it on the big screen and knew who directed it long before I went to see it. But if my first exposure to it had been a few years later when it was showing on TV and I stumbled onto it when it was already half over, I'm sure I could still figure out rather quickly who had directed it.

I always thought one of the most telling signs that it was a Kubrick movie was the performance of Vincent D'Onofrio who played an overweight Marine recruit.

The character's weight was an important part of the story. The character was originally written as a "skinny ignorant redneck" but was rewritten as fat and clumsy instead. This required D'Onofrio to put on 70 pounds — the greatest weight gain for a movie role ever (eclipsing Robert De Niro's record of 60 pounds for "Raging Bull"). Physical transformations are big in Kubrick movies.

More telling than that, though, are facial expressions. And D'Onofrio, a weak–minded overweight recruit who was ridiculed mercilessly by his sergeant (R. Lee Ermey, a Marine–turned–actor whose name became a household word with this movie), finally snapped.

When the audience caught up with him in the barracks lavatory late one night, the expression on his face was one Kubrick's audiences had seen before — most notably on the faces of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" and Malcom McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange."

But I've got to tell you. I thought D'Onofrio did Kubrick crazy best. Even better than Nicholson.

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D'Onofrio shot his sergeant, then shot himself so he wasn't a factor in what happened in the rest of the movie.

But there was plenty of Kubrick crazy in the second half of the movie.

The rest of the movie was about one of D'Onofrio's fellow recruits (Matthew Modine) and his participation in some of the atrocities of the Vietnam War at the time of the Tet offensive that essentially doomed the American war effort.

From what I have heard, just about everyone who served in 'Nam was at least a little Kubrick crazy — some more than others. And the experiences of the platoon with which Modine found himself in the city of Huế during the Tet offensive certainly seemed to bear that out.

In case you aren't up on your Vietnam War history, Huế was the site of one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the conflict. Fighting there lasted nearly a month. Thousands were killed or wounded on both sides.

It is always striking to me how violent the movie is — but, of course, you can't really make a movie about war that isn't violent, can you? And while it is tempting to criticize Kubrick for making an excessively violent movie, the nonfiction account of that war is filled with even worse.

It also occurs to me when I watch this movie that it must take a special mentality to fight a war. I suppose it has always been that way, even when the weapons in use were not as sophisticated as they are today (although the automatic weapons of today are certainly more efficient than the weapons that were used in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War). So many people are shot (graphically) in full view of the audience and the other characters in the movie.

I tend to put myself in the position of those other characters. Would I be able to carry on with an offensive after watching one of my best friends get killed in front of me? I feel like I would at least need some time to grieve before channeling my energies in another direction — so maybe it is a good thing that I was never called upon to fight in a war.

But in "Full Metal Jacket" — and probably in reality — there was no time to grieve, not even for Modine when a buddy from his boot camp days (Arliss Howard) was shot by a sniper and died in Modine's arms.

They found the sniper — turned out to be a young girl, probably in her teens. One of the guys in the platoon shot her and as she lay dying she begged for someone to end her life and her misery, repeatedly saying just two words — "Shoot me." Modine finally performed the mercy killing.

"Full Metal Jacket" was nominated for one Oscar — Best Adapted Screenplay — but lost to the big winner on Oscar night that year, "The Last Emperor."

The Story of a Scoundrel

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"Fate had determined that he should leave none of his race behind him and that he should finish his life poor, lonely and childless."

Narrator

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If there ever was a movie that proved how versatile its director was, the movie that premiered on this day in 1975, "Barry Lyndon," was such a movie.

And its director, Stanley Kubrick, was such a director.

I've been a fan of Kubrick's work for a long time, and he was very versatile. Each movie was different from the others he made. He made some comedies, he made some dramas. He explored space, he explored nuclear war, he directed scary movies. He did it all.

"Barry Lyndon" was set in the 18th century, and it told the story of an Irish adventurer.

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It was one of those movies that wasn't particularly well received when it was showing at the theaters, but it has become more highly regarded in the years that have passed. In some surveys, it is regarded as Kubrick's finest work, eclipsing "Dr. Strangelove," "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "A Clockwork Orange."

Yes, I know, that is high praise, but I believe "Barry Lyndon" lived up to it. And I am a fan of all those movies.

The movie was based on a novel by English writer William Makepeace Thackeray, and apparently it followed the style of its day, which was to tell a character's life story as if it were a chronological biography, from birth to death. I never read the book, but the narrator spoiled any suspense by informing the audience of what was to come. Thus, when Barry's demise finally comes, it is no surprise to anyone.

Barry Lyndon led a checkered life, to be sure. He participated in duels, fought in war, married a countess (Marisa Berenson) and generally enjoyed the existence of a narcissist, spending his wife's money on excessive living, but eventually he was forced to end the marriage and leave England when his stepson seized control of the countess' estate.

The story was told with a detachment that may have been commonplace in the 19th century but probably came across as flat to audiences in the late 20th century. For Kubrick, though, it worked.

"Kubrick has directed Ryan O'Neal in the title role as if he were a still life," wrote film critic Roger Ebert. "It's difficult to imagine such tumultuous events whirling around such a passive character. He loses a fortune, a wife or a leg with as little emotion as he might in losing a dog. Only the death of his son devastates him and that perhaps because he sees himself in the boy."

Even though the movie took place in a different century than any of Kubrick's other movies — well, with the noteworthy exception of "Spartacus," I guess — I could see Kubrick's stylistic touches in "Barry Lyndon" that were recognizable in those other films. The camera angles he used and the way he utilized lighting in the scenes. Clearly Kubrick. His directorial fingerprints were all over "Barry Lyndon."

The great directors have certain touches that you know are theirs — and theirs alone. There may be other directors who seek to imitate them — but some things can't be duplicated.

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"It is certainly in every frame a Kubrick film," agreed Roger Ebert, "technically awesome, emotionally distant, remorseless in its doubt of human goodness."

"Barry Lyndon" in the hands of anyone else would never have been the same. Kubrick was nominated for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. "Barry Lyndon" was nominated for Best Picture.

The movie didn't receive Oscars in those categories — all three went to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" — but it was rewarded with Oscars for Best Costume Design, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score.

'Eyes Wide Shut' Was Psychological More Than Sexual

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Some people think "Eyes Wide Shut," which premiered 15 years ago today, was a fitting finale for director Stanley Kubrick.

Some folks don't.

I saw many trademark Kubrick touches in the movie, and the story was very much in his style — if Kubrick had a style. His movies differed so much in content from each other that I suppose it really isn't accurate to refer to his style in any context other than camerawork.

He could do comedy, he could do satire, and he could do drama.

He had something of a reputation, and so did the source material for his movie, an Austrian novella, "Dream Story," that was published more than 70 years earlier. "Eyes Wide Shut" dealt with the thoughts and personal conversions a Manhattan doctor experienced after his wife told him she had fantasized about having an affair.

Kubrick died shortly after the completion of filming.

I've never read the book so I don't know if the two are described in it as attractive or plain. I suppose it doesn't matter too much in a book, where a reader can imagine characters to be anything that isn't spelled out for them by the author.

It is different in a movie. A character's appearance leaves little to the imagination in a movie. If the book isn't specific — and even if it is — the viewer has to accept the appearance that is given in the movie. Through casting, acting, direction, even story revision, all of the heavy lifting is done for the observer; his/her images will be those created by the writer(s), director and actors.

In casting his movie, Kubrick put two actors in the roles of the husband and wife whose reputations for sexually charged performances preceded them — Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. At the time, they happened to be real–life spouses, which probably raised their level of intensity in the movie. They split up a couple of years later.

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Anyway, the talk before "Eyes Wide Shut" made its debut was that it was going to be a sexy movie. Given the nature of the trailers that had been showing in theaters, that is certainly easy to understand.

But it occurred to me as I watched it that Kubrick may have taken a page from Alfred Hitchcock's playbook.

Hitchcock was known for his cameo appearances in his movies; when it was brought to his attention that audiences had been watching for his cameo and didn't settle in for the story until they saw him, Hitchcock began positioning his cameos earlier and earlier in his movies.

In Kubrick's case, audiences were expecting nudity so my guess is that he tossed them a crumb. The audience saw Kidman changing clothes for a party very early (and very briefly) in the movie.

To me, it was as if Kubrick was saying, "OK, there's the nudity. Now, let's focus on the story."

As nearly as I could tell, the story was about jealousy and obsession.

(I've seen this movie six or seven times, at least. I'm still not sure what it was trying to say. It seems to be saying something different each time I watch it.)

That wasn't the end of the nudity, of course.

In fact, the story was about sex and titillation — as well as jealousy and obsession — and nudity, too, but the nudity didn't tend to take the viewers where they probably thought they were going. It may seem like a strange dichotomy, but sex and nudity don't necessarily go hand in hand in the movies — especially a Kubrick movie. Nudity in "Eyes Wide Shut" was treated almost casually. So was sex, for that matter.

Make no mistake, though, there was lots of nudity — and there was some sex, too — but it was interesting that the next time the audience saw Kidman (only about a minute later), she was doing something decidedly not erotic (although some might argue that it was intimate) — sitting on the toilet — while Cruise put the finishing touches on his appearance.

And they were conversing in the way that married people do. She asked about her hair. Did it look all right? He said it looked great. She said he hadn't looked at it — so he did and repeated his compliment.

The night after the party — which was a nice blend of significant moments and red herrings — Cruise and Kidman fired up a joint and engaged in some candid conversation, in which Kidman told Cruise she had fantasized about having an affair — with an anonymous naval officer she had seen during their vacation in Cape Cod a year earlier.

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Kidman felt drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. "If he wanted me," she told Cruise, "I would give up everything." She expressed relief that one day he disappeared and never returned. It meant she wouldn't have to make such a choice.

That mental image really lit a fire under Cruise, and he embarked on a two–night odyssey through New York's sexual underworld.

The odyssey took him to many places, and he didn't have to look too hard to find opportunities to be unfaithful to Kidman. Such opportunities found him.

He dabbled in them, was tempted by them, nearly succumbed to them at times.

I guess this was the thing about "Eyes Wide Shut" that I found especially fascinating — Cruise's transformation from a kind of stuffy yet high–minded sort to a no–holds–barred sexual adventurer, all because his wife had told him that she had fantasized about having an affair.

And yet ...

He never gave in to the temptation.

At one point, while making arrangements for a costume to wear to an orgy (which was hosted by an unidentified secret society), Cruise met a young girl (Leelee Sobieski), the daughter of the owner of the costume shop. When Cruise came back the next day to return the costume, the shop owner strongly implied that his daughter was available for sexual favors.

(Some people think Sobieski, who was 13 when filming began and 16 when it ended, bears a resemblance to Helen Hunt, who was one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood at the time. I could see hints of a young Hunt in Sobieski's face in "Eyes Wide Shut," but, overall, as she has grown older, I see less and less of it.

(I guess that was consistent for me. I once worked with a woman who told me she was a dead ringer for Julia Roberts. I didn't see that, either.)

Other interesting angles of the story:

Sydney Pollack played the wealthy patient who hosted the first party and was revealed to have been one of the guests at the orgy. Originally, Harvey Keitel was cast in that role, but he dropped out — as did Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was cast to play Marion, the daughter of one of Cruise's old friends — because of another commitment.

Marion's father was dying, and Cruise was summoned to his side. In the movie, Marion tells Cruise she loves him and kisses him. Marie Richardson played the role instead.

Some movie reviewers classified "Eyes Wide Shut" as an erotic thriller. It was even marketed that way. But that really was misleading.

The final product was really more of a psychological thriller, partly because of things that were done in the editing process.

Apparently, the sexual content was even more graphic than people saw on their movie screens, but, to avoid an NC–17 rating, certain techniques were used to mute it.

That was done after Kubrick had died. Who knows if he would have agreed to what was done?

Of that attempt to mute the content, film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "[I]t is done well, even though it should not have been done at all. ... 'Eyes Wide Shut' should have been released as [Kubrick] made it."

Sounds a lot like the argument I made against "colorizing" black–and–white movies. A movie is a work of art, and the director is the artist. Since the advent of color in the movies, it has always been an artistic decision whether to use it — although the cost played an important role in that decision for many years.

The content of a movie is even more of an artistic decision so I agree with Ebert. The edits should not have been done at all — even if leaving the film as it was meant an NC–17 rating.

How Are Your 'Precious Bodily Fluids' Holding Up?

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Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers)

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I am a fan of movie director Stanley Kubrick's work. I really like all of his films — can't think of one that I don't like — but my absolute favorite is probably the one that premiered 50 years ago today, "Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Actually, "Dr. Strangelove" isn't my favorite Kubrick movie all the time. Sometimes my favorite is "2001: A Space Odyssey," and sometimes it is "A Clockwork Orange." Sometimes it's "The Shining."

Occasionally, it is "Lolita" or even "Eyes Wide Shut." Heck, as I say, I like 'em all.

But none of Kubrick's other movies match "Dr. Strangelove" in terms of producing lines that I love ...

Like when Peter Sellers, as President Merkin Muffley, tells an American military official (George C. Scott) and a Russian ambassador who have come to blows, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" (The American Film Institute named that the #64 quote in movie history.)

But, really, there are so many wonderful lines in "Dr. Strangelove" that I can't narrow it down to a single favorite line. I discover new lines to enjoy and appreciate every time I see it.

There are some lines, of course, that have amused me from the start.

Just about every time that Slim Pickens opens his mouth is funny, whether he is preparing his crew for "noo–klear combat, toe to toe with the Rooskies" or whooping while he rides a bomb to his death.

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Everything is built around a really simple premise — an Air Force officer, aptly named Jack Ripper, issues an order for bombers in the air to attack Russia, and the movie is about the attempts on the ground to stop that attack. A very similar movie, "Fail–Safe," was in the theaters that year as well, but, whereas Kubrick's movie was a black comedy, the other was definitely a drama.

I've always been an admirer of George C. Scott. His performance in "Patton" is one of the great portrayals of an historical figure in cinematic history, but I always enjoy watching him as Gen. Buck Turgidson, an adviser to the president. Scott was a complete actor, able to do comedy as well as drama.

The lines were great, but a big part of that was hearing them from the mouths of just the right people.

Peter Sellers has long been one of my family's favorites, but he was never funnier than he was in "Dr. Strangelove," in which he played three parts. Three times as many chances to be funny — and two were with foreign accents that he could exaggerate as he wished.

Still, some of my favorite scenes are when Sellers is playing the American president. At one point, for example, he asserts that Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is a psychotic.

"I'd like to hold off judgment on a thing like that," Scott's character replies, "until all the facts are in." (This is after Ripper has already sent the bombers on their mission.)

And, of course, it is always funny to watch Hayden rant that "I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

I also enjoy Ripper's description of his personal battle to protect those "precious bodily fluids."

"I first became aware of it," he tells Mandrake, his British attache, "during the physical act of love. A profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence."

Never fails to make me laugh.

As it is with every Peter Sellers movie I have ever seen, it gets better with each viewing, too. Perhaps that is because I know what is going to happen, and I can focus my attention on the lines that always make me laugh.

And that, in turn, permits me to "discover" other lines on subsequent viewings.

I thoroughly enjoy watching Sellers as Mandrake, timidly declining Ripper's order to help him fire his weapon at incoming troops. Sellers' gift for physical comedy was evident — even though he took no pratfalls.

But it is as the movie's title character, Dr. Strangelove, that Sellers is at his most entertaining.

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He projects a very Nazi–esque demeanor when he rhapsodizes on the benefits of a Doomsday Machine, then chastises the Soviets for keeping their development of one to themselves.

"The whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost," he says, "if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world?"

In 50 years, it's never been a secret how funny "Dr. Strangelove" is. AFI ranks it #3 among the comedies (#39 overall).

Some of us might rank it higher than that. Much higher.

An Artistic Treat

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As was usually the case when I was growing up, "2001:A Space Odyssey" did not come to my central Arkansas hometown when it made its theatrical debut 45 years ago today.

In fact, I'm not precisely sure when I saw it for the first time. I am fairly certain that it had been out for quite some time when I saw it, but when I did see it, I saw it on a big screen, not on a TV screen.

And I give all the credit for that to my father.

He taught religion and philosophy at a small liberal arts college when I was a child, and he was on the committee that selected films to be shown in a series on campus one year. As a member of that committee, he lobbied for "2001" to be one of the movies on the schedule, and, apparently, he was persuasive because it was included.

The night that it was slated to be shown, he took the whole family — my mother, my younger brother and me — to the campus to see it.

I was impressed with it.

I wasn't old enough to understand some of the aspects of the story, but I remembered the name of Stanley Kubrick, whose directorial career may have hit its peak with "2001."

Perhaps not, though.

Three years later, he made "A Clockwork Orange" and followed that with "Barry Lyndon" a few years later. He made "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket" in the 1980s.

Clearly, he had more to say as a director after 1968.

He had a lot to say in "2001," for that matter.

Of course, that doesn't take into consideration movies he made before "2001" — like "Lolita" and "Dr. Strangelove."

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But never had Kubrick been so free to experiment with special effects — and the work he did in "2001" was groundbreaking. Cutting–edge stuff.

There are things in "2001" that probably could not be duplicated today, one of which was the remarkable development of an inanimate character, the manmade HAL 9000 computer. The American Film Institute ranked HAL 13th among movie villains, ahead of all other non–humans (like the shark in "Jaws").

I've never been a fan of science fiction movies, but even I knew Kubrick had redefined the genre. Sci–fi flicks that were made before "2001" were largely about monsters and alluring women, "2001" was more mentally stimulating.

A decade later, movies like "Star Wars" took sci–fi special effects in new and not always productive directions. But the effects in "2001" contributed mightily to the effectiveness of the story.

"2001" was an artistic treat.

'Lolita' Wasn't Funny

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Lolita: I'm really sorry that I cheated so much. But I guess that's just the way things are.

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Just about every summary that you will read of "Lolita," the film that made its theatrical debut 50 years ago today, describes it as a comedy/drama.

I've never thought of it as a comedy.

Certainly, it is a drama. And, I suppose, there is an element of comedy in the story. To be honest, though, I never found anything particularly amusing about it, not even the lines that were clearly intended to be humorous or ironic.

The characters, all of them, were more to be pitied. And there was something about each of the characters to which everyone could relate in some way.

Like the character of Humbert Humbert (played by James Mason), for example, I have been a college professor — although not of literature, which, I suppose, accounts for some of the ironies of the plot. But Humbert had had an obsession with young girls for a long time. Thus, his attraction to the underage Lolita was hardly surprising.

I've never known a male college professor yet who didn't notice the finer figures of the female students, but few ever acted on it. A few, like Humbert, yielded to the temptation, but most did not.

When I read the book (which I did before I saw the original movie), I felt a sadness for Humbert, and I continued to feel it when I saw the film. He was trapped by his obsession, and Lolita played that for all it was worth to her.

She was a conniving, manipulative woman–child who learned early, as the Eagles so aptly sang, "how to open doors with just a smile." And anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of something like that knows there is nothing remotely funny about the feeling of being a chump.

Again, most people probably knew conniving girls when they were young, but few had the audacity to act when faced with the opportunity. Lolita was an extreme exception to the rule; the readers (and, later, the movie audience) knew that Humbert and the slimy playwright Clare Quilty (played convincingly by Peter Sellers) had been among her lovers — but how many lovers the 12–year–old had had was never really clear.

I suppose that was regarded, at the time the book was published and, a few years later, when the movie made its premiere, as part of the story's erotic appeal. (But perhaps I am an exception to the rule because there is nothing about a 12–year–old — no matter how well developed she may be — that I find erotic.)

The saddest character of the story, I thought, was Shelley Winters' role as Lolita's sexually frustrated mother. She so clearly craved a man's touch, but it was denied to her while her child needed to do nothing, really, to acquire it.

She was the real victim of the story. She was the one who was betrayed. She did none of the betraying. But she paid for it.

To be sure, Lolita was a tragic figure. Sue Lyon may have been cast in the part because director Stanley Kubrick thought she would lend the proper comic element to the role and the story, but I saw in her many girls I knew when I was growing up, and it made me wonder how many of them may have been sexually abused.

Lolita's activity could be explained as a survival mechanism. After all, she had been orphaned and left in the hands of an acknowledged pedophile. There isn't much a 12–year–old girl can do under such circumstances.

There is little — if any — humor to be found in such a situation.

And there is nothing funny about pedophiles.

A Clockwork Orange

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Alex (Malcolm McDowell): It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.

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Here's a little–known fact about "A Clockwork Orange."

Malcolm McDowell was 27 when he made that movie, but his character was 15.

I knew he was older than the character he played — but I never realized he was nearly twice as old — until recently.

Well, anyway ...

Director Stanley Kubrick said "A Clockwork Orange," which premiered 40 years ago today, was a "social satire," and I suppose that is true. By definition, I guess, a satire is something that is obviously exaggerated, and "A Clockwork Orange" was grossly exaggerated in parts.

But it was also a very disturbing movie — disturbing precisely because there was just enough truth in it to make it plausible — in addition to the fact that it featured a lot of violence, including a rape, whether they were plausibly presented or not.

I guess it was no surprise it got mixed reviews. As much as modern folks are inclined to complain about violence in movies and on TV, I'm sure it would get negative reviews if it was released today.

And that is kind of ironic, considering that many of the people in today's audiences were brought up on films like "Natural Born Killers," "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill: Vols. 1 and 2."

"A Clockwork Orange" still inspires strong feelings from viewers, even after four decades. Earlier this month, NPR published a list of cult classics and asked its audience to "weigh in on what was there and what was missing."

It should have come as no real surprise that several readers pointed out that "A Clockwork Orange" was missing. In the words of one reader, "Without that, the list is illegitimate."

No doubt, many people — including myself — would agree.

I guess a lot of that has to do with the utterly repugnant nature of the depravity depicted in the movie — the rape scenes, the savage beatings, the generally brutish activity of Alex (McDowell) and his Droogs. It simply wasn't acceptable, no matter how one might try to excuse it.

You could try to rationalize the violence — as some people did — by saying it was the inevitable result of life in a socialist state, one that was clearly modeled after the Soviet Union or perhaps one of its satellites.

Or you could rationalize it in several other ways.

But, eventually, you had to come back to the realization that Alex and his Droogs deliberately inflicted pain and suffering on those who were weak and vulnerable.

And that is clearly contrary to (at the very least) the implied guidelines of a civilized society — which must have come as something of a shock to audiences of that day. Their most recent exposure to Kubrick had been a few years earlier, in "2001: A Space Odyssey," which had some violence but, in general, offered an uplifting vision of the future with its fantastic glimpses of technological advances and human nature.

Alex's incarceration — and the experimental effort at behavior modification — went awry almost from the start. In an effort to make violence and forced sex unpleasant, the doctors who sought to rehabilitate Alex inadvertently conditioned him to have the same response upon hearing the music of his beloved Ludwig van Beethoven.

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Alex: No. No! NO! Stop it! Stop it, please! I beg you! This is sin! This is sin! This is sin! It's a sin, it's a sin, it's a sin!

Dr. Brodsky: Sin? What's all this about sin?

Alex: That! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music!

Dr. Branom: Are you referring to the background score?

Alex: Yes.

Dr. Branom: You've heard Beethoven before?

Alex: Yes!

Dr. Brodsky: So, you're keen on music?

Alex: YES!

Dr. Brodsky: Can't be helped. Here's the punishment element perhaps.

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Then, in what was a delicious twist of fate, the rehabilitated Alex, whose physical well being depended upon maintaining harmonious relationships with those around him, was released to the not–so–tender mercies of the outside world.

"A Clockwork Orange" was controversial at the time, and Kubrick voluntarily withdrew it from British theaters after learning that it was being blamed for copycat crimes.

Kubrick is often mentioned as a primary influence on film directors even though he only directed about a dozen films in his lifetime, and each was quite different from the rest, but there are some generalizations that can be made about his directorial career, the most significant of which (I believe) is this:

Before "A Clockwork Orange," it could fairly be said that most of his movies offered a more upbeat presentation of humanity; the general mood of his films (if not the themes themselves) grew much darker after "A Clockwork Orange."

But if one must find similarities between a film and its director's other works, then I would have to say this about "A Clockwork Orange." Of all the films Kubrick made, it probably had the most in common with "Dr. Strangelove," which was made nearly a decade earlier.

It's hard to pick a favorite from Kubrick's films. His body of work was diverse and included the first attempt to bring "Lolita" to the screen, "Dr. Strangelove," "2001," "The Shining," and "Full Metal Jacket."

Being asked to choose a favorite Kubrick film — as far as I am concerned — isn't even like being asked to pick between peaches and apples. It's more like being asked to pick between But I think I would choose "Dr. Strangelove" as my favorite, and "Clockwork." much like "Strangelove," was a fascinating tap dance between really terrifying violence and ethical ambiguity.

In fact, if he had been considerably younger when "Clockwork" was made, I could see Peter Sellers (a star of both "Strangelove" and "Lolita") in McDowell's role. But, by 1971, he was too old (45) to plausibly play a teenager.

One could argue, I guess, that "Clockwork" was the logical next step in Kubrick's departure from comedy. But I don't think he ever left comedy. His comedy just took on a darker edge that could be seen in his later films.

I guess there were times when you really had to look for it, but it was always there.

Not to be Overlooked ...

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There was a lot of anxiety in America at this time 30 years ago.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens was still in the news. So was the battle between President Carter and Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination. And the hype was steadily building for the June 1 debut of Cable News Network.

Speaking of hype, I don't know if there had ever been as much hype as there was for the sequel to "Star Wars," but "The Empire Strikes Back" actually lived up to the hype — and may have exceeded it — when it was released to the theaters on May 21, 1980.

And then things really began to heat up — literally.

At some point in June, a devastating heat wave settled in over North America and stayed until September. I spent part of that summer in Dallas, where temperatures way over 100 became the daily norm.

Movie theaters provided a cool oasis, as they always do in the summer, but "The Empire Strikes Back" wouldn't give you that delicious chill down your spine that a real suspense/horror flick would.

And that is where "The Shining" — which made its theatrical debut 30 years ago yesterday — comes in.

Now, at this point in the ongoing cultural conversation, it probably goes without saying that a lot of things have changed in 30 years.

These days, some movies are barely in theaters a few days before they're yanked and redistributed to make more money via video tape and DVD sales and rentals. But in 1980, much of the emphasis still was on theaters. DVD technology was many years in the future; heck, home VCRs were still rare so there was no rush to cash in on video sales.

Sure, there were premium movie channels from which some money could be made, but cable television was not as widespread in 1980 as it became only a few years later.

So, in 1980, I guess most of a movie's revenue came from the box office. And, in that category, "The Empire Strikes Back" certainly dwarfed everything else.

(That was probably to be expected. It received that family friendly PG rating, and, weeks before "Empire" hit the big screens, toy stores all over America were selling little Luke, Leia, Darth Vader and Han Solo action figures. I don't remember if Yoda was included in the line before the movie came out, since his character hadn't been introduced in the story yet. But, let me tell you, after "Empire" made its debut, that puppet was a real stud.)

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Anyway, the point I was leading up to is this: Both "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Shining" were released to theaters in late May — and you could still see them in theaters a couple of months later. And, as I recall, it was sometime in late June that my mother and I went to see "The Shining."

At the time, I was living with my parents and my brother in Fayetteville, Ark., in a house on a hill with a spectacular view of the valley below. The city's elevation (1,400 feet) isn't nearly what it is in Denver (5,280), but it's high enough. And, speaking as one who grew up in the lowlands of Arkansas, I can assure you the elevation of Fayetteville worked in its favor during the summer months.

Usually.

Hundred–degree days were rare in Fayetteville that summer, but what you have to understand is that typical summer days in Fayetteville are in the mid– to upper 80s — warm but not unpleasantly so. Once in awhile, it might get up around 90 — but the nights ordinarily were mild enough that you could sleep with your windows open.

That summer, though, the daily highs were frequently 10 degrees warmer — and temperatures in that range in the thin atmosphere of Fayetteville were as tough to handle as the 110° days that became routine in Dallas (elevation 430) and my hometown in central Arkansas (elevation 312).

For that reason more than any other, I suppose, I really enjoyed going to movies that summer. It's the last summer I can remember when I could enjoy one of the simple summer pleasures of my childhood — feeling the perspiration disappear in an icy cold theater on a hot summer day.

And, sometimes, if the movie was especially suspenseful, the sweat would be replaced by goose bumps.

"The Shining" was especially suspenseful.

I don't remember why I hadn't yet seen "The Shining." It seems like I had seen most of the hits that came out earlier that summer — "Airplane!" "Urban Cowboy," "The Blues Brothers" — along with some of the lesser known flicks. Maybe "The Shining" hadn't been showing long in Fayetteville.

We may have gone at Mom's suggestion. She was in her Stephen King phase, and, as I recall, she had just finished reading the book on which the film was based.

I had been reading some of Stephen King's books by that time, too, but I had not yet read "The Shining." Still, Mom insisted on pointing out to me where the book and the movie differed.

Granted, there were variations. There always were when Stanley Kubrick adapted a story to the big screen. He always did things his way.

And so much of a Stephen King plot seems to be cerebral. Until the fairly recent maturation of film animation and computer–generated graphics, there were always variations in film adaptations of King's stories. I was aware of the difficulties posed by attempts to make movies of King's tales long before "The Shining" hit the big screen.

In keeping with the hype surrounding "The Empire Strikes Back," "The Shining" had hype of its own. No action figures or lunch boxes or anything else — but cover articles on the major news magazines, which were still thriving in 1980 in that pre–CNN, pre–internet time.

Anyway, whatever the reason, I hadn't yet seen it so, on a late June evening in 1980, I sat next to my mother, and we watched "The Shining" in a cold (and crowded) movie theater in Fayetteville, Ark.

Mom had a distinctive habit. Whenever she went to a suspenseful movie, she would latch her hands like claws around the upper arm of anyone who was sitting next to her during the most suspenseful parts — and she would release her grip only when the suspense subsided.

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But, in typical Stephen King fashion, the suspense just got more and more intense — and, by the time we left the theater, I had bruises on my arm.

I guess I should have known better than to see that movie with Mom. I had seen "Alien" with her the summer before!

Mom was really taken by the film account of the possessed Overlook Hotel and decided to give that name to our home in Fayetteville that summer. When old friends visited around the Fourth of July, Mom took them on a tour of the "Overlook," which concluded at the room in which they would be sleeping.

As an inside joke, Mom taped a piece of paper on the door labeling it "Room 237" (if you don't know the significance of that number, you need to see the movie).

Well, May 23, 1980, was a big day for Kubrick and his cast and crew, which notably included Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall — but it also happened to be the 70th birthday of co–star Scatman Crothers.

Consequently, yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Scatman's birth.

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I guess he's mostly remembered today for his work in the movies and on TV, but he was, first and foremost, an entertainer who sang and danced through most of his life and only began making movie and TV appearances in his 40s.

He died nearly a quarter of a century ago, but he continues to influence children whenever his voiceovers in cartoons like "Hong Kong Phooey" are shown. He can still be seen in reruns of popular television shows, like Bewitched, Dragnet, Charlie's Angels and Sanford and Son.

And, of course, as Dick Hallorann, the chef at the Overlook Hotel.