Stanley Kubrick - Room 237 and Books

upstairs for coffee

Just after watching Room 237 and it is very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHE5YUNkssQ

Amazing the amount of detail Kubrick went into.

Just wondering if there are any good books on Kubrick himself?

Cheers

bellinter

I'm sure if the man himself was alive today he'd have a good laugh at some of the absurd 'theories' in that film! The one where the "Letter tray = a boner, obviously!" was my favourite.

As far as I know there isn't a definitive biography out there. There is one that I read years ago that was OK but you'd probably learn more about him from Wikipedia.

Sad Professor

I have the Stanley Kubrick Archives book from Taschen. Expensive but pretty cool and extremely well produced. Focus on books that explore his work and steer clear of the biographies. There are too many stupid myths about him to get an accurate picture of the man himself.

Check out some of the interviews he gave in the '60s and ‘70s. Most of them are available online and there’s some audio ones on YouTube. Shame he stopped doing interviews as he had an incredible intellect and was fascinating to listen to.

As for Room 237, it’s a vaguely entertaining if utterly ludicrous exercise in subjectivity and over-analysis. Kubrick wouldn’t have agreed with it but he would have loved that his work inspired such thought.

bellinter

I must check some of those out myself SP, cheers.

Technocentral

Just added to Netflix US.

roanoke

Definitely watch this if you can find it.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htQq3oYO5sI

Also, I read "Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by John Baxter" and thought it was pretty decent.

Room 237 is a joke.

opr

I think for the most part people miss the point with Room 237. I don't think it's suppose to be a serious documentary on the Shining but rather for the most part it's about human obsession, seeing patterns in anything and how we draw meaning in so many different ways from just about anything. The most important message being how we all find something different in art.

That said some of the Holocost stuff I found interesting as he was obsessed with it for quite a period of his life. Given he was an incredibly smart man whose attention to detail was second to none, it would be silly to think that the film doesn't contain some deeper underlying themes.

+1 To the boxes doc posted above.

Opr

sabat

I found Room 237 really disturbing and a decent chiller film in its own right. It's about a group of real people who actually have been driven insane by the Overlook Hotel unlike the fictional Jack Torrance who as a character never quite separated himself from Nicholson's persona IMO. The constant repetition of some of the creepiest scenes accompanied by a haunting score and the voiceovers of people who aren't 100% compos mentis made this one an instant stoner classic.

roanoke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hOiasRsrA

This is definitely worth a watch. However be warned, there is an excessive amount of "number nonsense" going on in it (the maker is absolutely determined to see the number '11' everywhere he looks, to the extent that he almost undermines his whole argument) but apart from that it presents a much more interesting and coherent message than Room 237.

After watching 'The Shining Code' I wasn't convinced that Kubrick was behind the moon landings but I'm now entirely convinced that this is a movie regarding the faking of the Apollo 11 mission and that there is multiple messages deliberately placed in it by the director that he wants people to pick up on.

Further, I haven't looked into it yet but I'd be willing to bet that all these "Stanley Kubrick faked it with the moon" conspiracy theories originated before the release of The Shining rather than after it. Point being I reckon all that is going on in The Shining is Stanley Kubrick doing his version of Paul is Dead. He has basically been presented with a conspiracy theory regarding himself by members of the public and is just having a little fun with it and his audience by giving them back exactly what they seem to want to hear.

Anyway, once again, 'The Shining Code 2.0' worth a watch and far better than Room 237 imho.

chucksandstorm

Some of the people in Room 237 are cracked