After watching the first two movies on our list of The Killing and Paths of Glory, we found a website that has devoted itself to the greatness of Kubrick and breaking down every single aspect of his filmmaking technique. Like I explained to Evan and Danny prior to starting the film club's first films, the closest one can come to the same experience as viewing a film for the first time, with all that goes along with the initial reaction to what was just seen and breaking down the story, cinematography, music, acting, etc., is watching it again with someone who has never seen it. This experience for me is the closest I will come in observational critique to my first viewing of such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket.
While enjoying this experience of the film club, I have been reading everything I can get my hands on about Stanley Kubrick. He was a fascinating character and filmmaker who put everything he had intellectually, creatively, and emotionally into his pictures. I have always been willing to consider him one of the greatest movie directors of all time, but this experience is reminding me that "one of" might not even be necessary. It is hard to determine the greatest filmmaker of all time as it mostly is about one's opinion of what the director's job truly is. Is it more important to have great vision resulting in beautiful cinematography, be a good motivator for his/her actors in order to get compelling and believable performances, or is storytelling and entertaining the audience the greatest attribute a director can achieve? Obviously the greatest directors excel at all of these and many more duties of the general on set. I'm not sure who I would call the greatest director of all time as there are so many good ones who have achieved legendary status and provided us with some of the most entertaining movies of all time, but Kubrick is certainly in the conversation.
Following the remaining films of Kubrick, which include Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket, we will be moving on to Martin Scorcese.