Shortly after writing my post a couple of months ago on Stanley Kubrick, I realized it was time to read The Stanley Kubrick Archives:
This is a massive, coffee-table sized book that weighs in at over 7 pounds and has over 500 pages. It barely fits on our bookshelves. Wendy bought this for me years ago, but I had never read it. Now the time was right.
The first third of the book was completely wordless, instead offering a bunch of images from each of Kubrick's movies. Flipping through these pages was like watching the movies all over again. The last two-thirds of the book had a chapter for each movie, featuring all kinds of information: interviews, quotes, reviews, behind-the-scenes photos, and never-before-seen notes from Kubrick's archives. I read every word and studied every photo and loved all of it. The book was spectacular.
It took a couple of weeks to finish reading it, and during that time I had all kinds of weird Kubrick coincidences:
One night I decided to watch the movie The Big Clock (1948). It had nothing to do with Kubrick; I watched it because I saw people online talking about how good it was. During the final scene, I suddenly realized one of the actors in it (George Macready) played one of the main characters in Kubrick's movie Paths of Glory. Even weirder, the next chapter I was about to read in The Stanley Kubrick Archives was Paths of Glory!
Another night I decided to do a word search puzzle. I opened the puzzle book to a random puzzle and the theme was "Ancient Rome". One of the words I had to find was Spartacus. Weirdly, the next chapter I was about to read in The Stanley Kubrick Archives was Spartacus!
One day I had to run a quick errand. I was in the car for maybe a total of 5 minutes. During that time, the DJ on the radio station started talking about Kubrick's movie of Lolita. When was the last time you heard a DJ talking about a Kubrick movie? And I just happened to hear it during the few minutes I listened to the radio that day?!
In the chapter on 2001: A Space Odyssey, there was an interview where Kubrick quoted Frank B. Salisbury, a plant scientist who believed if a planet contained vegetation, it was logical to assume it would have creatures that feed on it. Weirdly, I had just read an article about Frank B. Salisbury and how he helped to popularize UFO legends in Utah, and eventually ran afoul of the FBI.
While reading the chapter on Full Metal Jacket, I learned that the "Hello Vietnam" song in the opening scene was written by Tom T. Hall. I had just learned about Tom T. Hall about a month prior, after hearing a sweet song on the radio called "I Love" which I'd never heard before. Wendy's parents were visiting at the time, and when I described the song, Bill immediately replied it was by Tom T. Hall.
Finally, shortly after finishing the book, our local library announced that they now offered free access to the Kanopy movie-streaming service. When I signed up and looked at what movies Kanopy offered, I discovered they had Fear and Desire, the first feature-length movie Kubrick ever made, and the only one which I'd never seen. I think Kubrick tried to block distribution of it for a while, since it was such an amateurish work. I watched it, and while it was an amateurish work, it was still much better than I expected. And with that, I had seen every Kubrick movie.
That was a lot of coincidences!