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Stanley Kubrick: A Cinematic Odyssey

STANLEY KUBRICK: A CINEMATIC ODYSSEY at TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King West) from Friday (October 31) to January 18. tiff.net/cinematheque. Rating: NNNNN


A decade and a half after his death, is there anything left to say about Stanley Kubrick?

Well, sure. His filmography is remarkable for its resonance, continuing to reveal new secrets and meanings every time it’s explored. His predatory tracking shots and clinical framing have become a genre unto themselves the term “Kubrickian” instantly communicates the idea of an austere vision, dispassionate or even merciless, in which human protagonists struggle against systems they barely understand.

What is the meaning of 2001: A Space Odyssey? What’s really going on in The Shining? How can the same artist have made A Clockwork Orange, which embraces anarchy and hedonism, and Full Metal Jacket, which suggests the depersonalization of military training is the only thing that enables men to survive the chaos of war? And what’s the deal with the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut?

I’m happy to spend hours discussing everything but the last question. Eyes Wide Shut is a terrible, terrible movie, its ludicrous eroticism laughably defended as dreamlike and surreal by people who really should know better. But I digress.

In support of Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition – opening at the Lightbox Friday (October 31) after an acclaimed run at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – TIFF Cinematheque is launching a full retrospective of Kubrick’s work. Everything’s here, from his earliest short films to the post-mortem projects A.I. Artificial Intelligence (a long-gestating Kubrick project picked up by Steven Spielberg after his friend’s death) and Room 237, Rodney Ascher’s documentary dissecting the supposed hidden meanings that lurk within Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining.

TIFF launches the series with a weekend of special guests. Long-time Kubrick producer Jan Harlan introduces The Shining Friday (October 31) a fairly impressive double bill on Saturday (November 1) offers a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey in the presence of Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, who played the film’s beleaguered astronauts, and Harlan and his sister Christiane Kubrick – the director’s widow – discuss their final collaboration, Eyes Wide Shut.

Other scheduled guests include visual effects designer Douglas Trumbull on 2001: A Space Odyssey (November 7), Positif editor Michel Ciment on A Clockwork Orange (November 8), UCLA archivist Jan-Christopher Horak on Spartacus (November 15), actor Alan Cumming on Eyes Wide Shut (December 1), Toronto film critic Adam Nayman on Full Metal Jacket (December 12) and Jesse Wente, the Lightbox’s director of programming, on The Killing (January 18, 2015).

I’m most intrigued by the inclusion of Kubrick’s rarely screened international version of The Shining, which plays just once on November 25. At 25 minutes shorter than the North American release, TIFF describes it as “a more enigmatic and oblique version of the film.” (The domestic cut is pretty enigmatic and oblique as it is, so you can imagine my curiosity.)

If you care about cinema, you’ve likely seen most of Kubrick’s films already. See them again they can take it. And if you’ve never seen 2001, you’re going to want to address that immediately TIFF’s 70mm print – which screens for a week beginning November 7 – is a thing of endless, majestic beauty.

normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner

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