He's quite an idiosyncratic director, so it's understandable that he's not everyone's cup of tea. But, no, he isn't overrated.
I think the main thing that I personally appreciate about Kubrick is that he was always attempting to alter the form while still remaining popular enough to be a household name. He had a wide and deep impact precisely because he was relatively mainstream.
Fairly easy to be innovative, screw around with narrative conventions and lean heavily into formalism if you're on the arthouse circuit and your films are playing to cinephiles (or 'hoity-toity film snobs', if we must). A different thing altogether to gain the power to make those films for Warner Bros.
But, yes, people really do like his movies. Hopefully, no-one over the age of about 12 is faking their taste in films in order to impress their peers. That would be a rather pathetic thing to do. But people do like different things.
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Oblivioid (1482)
4 months ago
I like how he made films his way. They were filmed until he was happy with it. There was no such thing as ' this movie will be released on arbitrary X date' that was set by the studio, like most films are today. Films today are manufactured straight off the assembly line.
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capuchin (3182)
4 months ago
Well, he accumulated extraordinary power even for back then. I mean, he was effectively releasing arthouse movies through a major Hollywood studio. Directors working in the Hollywood system at any point in its history -- with the possible exception of the 1970s when studios lost control for a while -- were rarely afforded the kind of autonomy that Kubrick routinely had.
I think living and working in London helped him with that, as he was over 5,000 miles away from interfering Warner Bros execs, but it's mostly due to the reputation he was able to build for himself (especially thanks to 2001) and the contracts he was therefore able to sign.
But you're right: there's faff all chance that Stanley Kubrick would be allowed to be quite so idiosyncratic -- or take so long over his process -- under a major studio in the 2020s. He'd have to go indie or get his funding from Europe.
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Oblivioid (1482)
4 months ago
Makes me wonder about Akira Kurosawa and how his late career juxtaposed with Kubrick in that way, regarding funding. Kurosawa had to get funding privately for his later masterpieces, which seems weird when his body of work was arguably even more robust. Even turning to the Soviet Union for Dersu Uzala.
I will admit to not being up to speed on Kurosawa's entire history, perhaps he wasn't as celebrated as Kubrick was, publicly. But, his films leave no doubt as an artistic equal.
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