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The UM Department of Screen Arts & Cultures presents

MAJOR DIRECTORS: STANLEY KUBRICK

Mondays at 7:00, September 17 through December 10
Series Schedule
SCHEDULE:
The Killing (1956) September 17
Paths of Glory (1950) September 24
Lolita (1961) October 1
Dr. Strangelove (1963) October 8
Spartacus (1960) October 22
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) October 29
Barry Lyndon (1975) November 5
A Clockwork Orange (1971) November 12
The Shining (1980) November 19
Full Metal Jacket (1987) November 26
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) December 3
Artificial Intelligence (2001) December 10


DETAIL:

THE KILLING

September 17 at 7:00
When ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) says he has a plan to make a killing, everybody wants to be in on the action. Especially when the plan is to steal $2 million in a racetrack robbery scheme in which "no one will get hurt." But despite all their careful plotting, Clay and his men have overlooked one thing: Sherry Peatty (Marie Windsor), a money-hungry, double-crossing dame who’s planning to make a financial killing of her own…even if she has to wipe out Clay’s entire gang to do it! Directed in a revolutionary story-telling technique by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, The Killing is tough, taut, tense, and one of the greatest crime thrillers ever made! Not rated. 85 minutes. 1956



PATHS OF GLORY

September 24 at 7:00
Safe in their picturesque chateau behind the front lines, the French General Staff passes down a direct order to Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas): take the Ant Hill at any cost. A blatant suicide mission, the attack is doomed to failure. Covering up their fatal blunder, the Generals order the arrest of three innocent soldiers, charging them with cowardice and mutiny. Dax, a lawyer in civilian life, rises to the men’s defense but soon realizes that, unless he can prove that the Generals were to blame, nothing less than a miracle will save his clients from the firing squad. A compelling masterpiece from world-class director/writer Stanley Kubrick and screenwriters Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson, Paths of Glory is a blistering indictment of military politics and "an unforgettable movie experience" (Newsweek). Not rated. 87 minutes. 1977.


LOLITA

October 1 at 7:00
Newly arrived in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, European émigré Humbert Humbert is smitten. He plans to marry Charlotte Haze. That way he’ll always be close to his dear one - Charlotte’s precocious daughter! Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick explores the theme of sexual obsession (a subject he would revisit 37 years later in Eyes Wide Shut) with this darkly comic and deeply moving version of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel. James Mason plays devious, deluded Humbert: wedded to needy Charlotte (Shelley Winters); rivaled by the ubiquitous Clare Quilty (chameleonlike Peter Sellers); and enraptured to his gelatinous core by the blithe teen (Sue Lyon) with that "lovely, lyrical, lilting name" — Lolita.

Not rated. 152 minutes. 1961.


DR. STRANGELOVE

October 8 at 7:00
Stanley Kubrick’s classic black comedy about a group of war-eager military men who plan a nuclear apocalypse is both funny and frightening - and seems as relevant today as ever. Through a series of military and political accidents, two psychotic generals - U.S. Air Force Commander Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) and Joint Chief of Staff "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott) — trigger an ingenious, irrevocable scheme to attack Russia’s strategic targets with nuclear bombs. The brains behind the scheme belong to Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), a wheelchair-bound nuclear scientist who has bizarre ideas about man’s future. The President (also Sellers) is helpless to stop the bombers, as is Captain Mandrake (Sellers once again), the only man who can stop them. Dr. Strangelove is truly a brilliant film classic. Not rated. 96 minutes. 1963.


SPARTACUS

October 22 at 7:00
This presentation of the powerful film classic features an additional five minutes of footage cut from the film’s original release, plus the original overture and extended soundtrack. Director Stanley Kubrick tells the tale of Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), the bold gladiator slave, and Varinia (Jean Simmons), the woman who believed in his cause. Challenged by the power-hungry General Crassus (Laurence Olivier), Spartacus is forced to face his convictions and the power of Imperial Rome at its glorious height. The inspirational true account of man’s eternal struggle for freedom, Spartacus combines history with spectacle to create a moving drama of love and commitment. Not rated. 198 minutes. 1960.


2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

October 29 at 7:00
2001: A Space Odyssey is a countdown to tomorrow, a road map to human destiny, a quest for the infinite. It is a dazzling, Academy Award®-winning visual achievement, a compelling drama of man vs. machine, a stunning meld of music and motion. It may be the masterwork of director Stanley Kubrick (who co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur C. Clarke)…and it will likely excite, inspire and enthrall for generations. To begin his voyage into the future, Kubrick visits our prehistoric ape-ancestry past, then leaps millenia (via one of the most mind-blowing jump cuts ever conceived) into colonized space, and ultimately whisks astronaut Bowman (Keir Dullea) into uncharted realms of space, perhaps even into immortality. "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." Let the awe and mystery of a journey unlike any other begin. Not rated. 160 minutes. 1968.


BARRY LYNDON

November 5 at 7:00
How does an Irish lad without prospects become part of 18th-century English nobility? For Barry Lyndon (Ryan O’Neal) the answer is: any way he can! His climb to wealth and privilege is the enthralling focus of this sumptuous Stanley Kubrick version of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel. For this ravishing, slyly satiric winner of 4 Academy Awards®, Kubrick found inspiration in the works of the era’s painters. Costumes and sets were crafted in the era’s designs, and pioneering lenses were developed to shoot interiors and exteriors in natural light. The result? Barry Lyndon endures as a cutting-edge movie that brings a historical period to vivid screen life like no other film before or since. Not rated. 184 minutes. 1975.


A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

November 12 at 7:00
Stomping, whomping, stealing, singing, tap-dancing, violating. Derby-topped teddy-boy hooligan Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has his own way of having a good time. He has it at the tragic expense of others. Alex’s journey from amoral punk to brainwashed proper citizen forms the dynamic arc of Stanley Kubrick’s future-shock vision of Anthony Burgess’ novel. Unforgettable images, startling musical counterpoints, the fascinating language used by Alex and his pals — Kubrick shapes them into a shattering whole. Hugely controversial when first released, A Clockwork Orange won the New York Film Critics Best Picture and Director honors and earned four Academy Award® nominations, including Best Picture. The power of its art is such that it still entices, shocks and holds us in its grasp. Not rated. 136 minutes. 1971.


THE SHINING

November 19 at 7:00
Think of the greatest terror imaginable. Is it a monstrous alien? A lethal epidemic? Or, as in this harrowing masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick, is it fear of murder by someone who should love and protect you - a member of your own family? From a script he co-adapted from the Stephen King novel, Kubrick melds vivid performances, menacing settings, dreamlike tracking shots and shock after shock into a milestone of the macabre. In a signature role, Jack Nicholson ("Heeeere’s Johnny!") plays Jack Torrance, who’s come to the elegant, isolated Overlook Hotel as off-season caretaker with his wife (Shelley Duvall) and son (Danny Lloyd). Torrance has never been there before - or has he? The answer lies in a ghostly time warp of madness and murder. Not rated. 143 minutes. 1980.


FULL METAL JACKET

November 26 at 7:00
A superb ensemble cast falls in for action in Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant saga about the Vietnam War and the dehumanizing process that turns people into trained killers. Joker (Matthew Modine), Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin), Gomer (Vincent D’Onofrio), Eightball (Dorian Harewood), Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and more — all are plunged into a boot-camp hell pitbulled by a leatherlung D.I. (Lee Ermey) who views the would-be devil dogs as grunts, maggots or something less. The action is savage, the story unsparing, the dialogue spiked with scathing humor. Full Metal Jacket, from its rigors of basic training to its nightmare of combat in Hue City, scores a cinematic direct hit. Not rated. 116 minutes. 1987.


EYES WIDE SHUT

December 3 at 7:00
Tom Cruise plays Dr. William Harford, a man who plunges into an erotic foray that threatens his marriage - and may even ensnare him in a lurid murder mystery - after his wife’s (Nicole Kidman) admission of sexual longings. As the story sweeps from doubt and fear to self-discovery and reconciliation, Kubrick orchestrates it with masterful flourishes. Graceful tracking shots, controlled pacing, rich colors, startling images: bravura traits that make Kubrick a filmmaker for the ages are here to keep everyone’s eyes wide open.Not rated. 159 minutes. 1999.

A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

December 10 at 7:00
Based on the 1969 short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, by Brian Aldiss, this science fiction fantasy bears similarities to Pinocchio (1940) and originated as a long-gestating project of director Stanley Kubrick that passed to his friend Steven Spielberg after Kubrick's death. Haley Joel Osment stars as David, a "mecha" or robot of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and submerged many coastal cities, causing worldwide starvation and human dependence upon robotic assistance. The first mecha designed to experience love, David is the "son" of Henry (Sam Robards), an employee of the company that built the boy, and the grief-stricken Monica (Frances O'Connor). David is meant to replace the couple's hopelessly comatose son, but when their natural child recovers, David is abandoned and sets out to become "a real boy" worthy of his mother's affection. Along the way, David is mentored by a pleasure-providing mecha named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) and a talking "super toy" bear named Teddy. His adventures take him to the Roman Circus-style "Flesh Fair," where mechas are destroyed for the amusement of humans; Rouge City, where Gigolo Joe narrowly avoids capture by police; and finally a submerged New York City, where David's creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt) reveals the secrets of the boy's creation. Brendan Gleeson and narrator Ben Kingsley co-star in A.I., which was adapted from Kubrick's treatment by Spielberg, in his first crack at screenwriting since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. [Synopsis by Karl Williams, All Movie Guide] Not rated. 146 minutes. 2001.

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