Stanley Kubrick Quotes

I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.

If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.

Observation is a dying art.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, '2001' shows that what some people call 'god' is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call 'god' -Stanley Kubrick, interview, 1963

I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.

The dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.

If chess has any relationship to film-making, it would be in the way it helps you develop patience and discipline in choosing between alternatives at a time when an impulsive decision seems very attractive.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later?" Stanley Kubrick

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but the best thing that young filmmakers should do is to get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.

You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever.

The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale.

If you really want to communicate something, even if it’s just an emotion or an attitude, let alone an idea, the least effective and least enjoyable way is directly. It only goes in about an inch. But if you can get people to the point where they have to think a moment what it is you’re getting at, and then discover it, the thrill of discovery goes right through the heart.

The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle.

You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.

When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.

If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective — who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled — can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache.

The most terrifying fact about the universe not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent

The book can also be a hat.

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

Never, ever go near power. Don’t become friends with anyone who has real power. It’s dangerous.

The lasting and ultimately most important reputation of a film is not based on reviews, but on what, if anything, people say about it over the years, and on how much affection for it they have.

Think [Schindler's List] was about the Holocaust?... That was about success, wasn’t it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. ‘'Schindler’s List’' is about 600 who don’t. Anything else?

One man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony. It is essential that one man make a film.

I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized "realistic" story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its "realist" style.

I've never achieved spectacular success with a film. My reputation has grown slowly. I suppose you could say that I'm a successful filmmaker-in that a number of people speak well of me. But none of my films have received unanimously positive reviews, and none have done blockbuster business.

Maybe I don't like people as much as the rest of the world seems to. Seems like the human race is in love with itself. What kind of ego do you have to have to think that you were created in God's image? I mean, to invent the idea that God must be like us. Please. As Stanley Kubrick once pointed out, the discovery of more intelligent life somewhere other than Earth would be catastrophic to man, simply because we would no longer be able to think of ourselves as the centre of the universe. I guess I'm slowly becoming one of those crusty old cranks that thinks animals are better than people. But, occasionally, people will pleasantly surprise me and I'll fall in love with one of them, so go figure.

Take a stress pill and think things over-- HAL in 2001

The director Stanley Kubrick, no doubt attracted by the unusual visuals of urban combat, set Full Metal Jacket in Hue, although in his film the battle is just a backdrop.

The destruction of this universe would have no significance on a cosmic scale.

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids. —Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

The purpose of bayonet training is to awaken your killer instincts. The killer instinct will make you strong. If the meek ever inherit the earth the strong will take it away from them. The weak exist to be devoured by the strong. Every Marine must pack his own gear. Every Marine must be the instrument of his own salvation.

I have a wife, three children, three dogs, seven cats. I'm not a Franz Kafka, sitting alone and suffering.

I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists, neither takes life as it is. Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are.

Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved—that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.

[When asked if he had ever learned anything about his work from film criticism] No. To see a film once and write a review is an absurdity. Yet very few critics ever see a film twice or write about films from a leisurely, thoughtful perspective. The reviews that distinguish most critics, unfortunately, are those slambang pans which are easy to write and fun to write and absolutely useless. There's not much in a critic showing off how clever he is at writing silly, supercilious gags about something he hates.

As sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole truth.

You know, Michael, it's not absolutely true in every case that nobody likes a smart ass.

[...] el cine se mueve en un nivel más cercano a la música y a la pintura que a la palabra escrita. Por eso, las películas ofrecen la oportunidad de explicar conceptos y abstracciones sin la tradicional dependencia de las palabras. En dos horas y cuarto , hay tan sólo cuarenta de diálogo [en 2001: una odisea del espacio] Stanley Kubrick Entrevista al New York Times el 1 de abril de 1953

If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility.

Barry was born clever enough at gaining a fortune, but incapable of keeping one. For the qualities and energies which lead a man to achieve the first are often the very cause of his ruin in the latter case.

Don't bury personal obsessions. Capitalize on them. ``The connection between personal obsession and the work you do is the most important thing.'' -- Be yourself. ``Singularity is what you need.'' -- Avoid self-censorship: ``We are very self-critical in a way that can be very destructive. In our culture there are voices in our head which have taught us to say, `Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you.' Don't ever think about anybody peering over your shoulder.'' -- Don't be afraid to show off, even if you think, ``I'm very close to making a complete fool of myself.'' -- Don't be afraid to entertain. ``I want to entertain. I don't want to lose people. I feel responsible as I write to give people the best time I can.'' -- ``Love your failures'' instead of beating yourself up over them. -- ``Learn to love the process'' of writing. -- Just do it. Barker likes something director Stanley Kubrick said: ``If you want to make a film, pick up a camera.

Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory

(Stanley Kubrick) worked more like an essayist than a director.

A film is -or should be- more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the motion, the meaning, all that comes later.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent... if we come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death -- however mutable man may be able to make them -- our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

I don't have the slightest doubt that to tell a story like this, you couldn't do it with words. There are only 46 minutes of dialogue scenes in the film, and 113 of non-dialogue. There are certain areas of feeling and reality—or unreality or innermost yearning, whatever you want to call it—which are notably inaccessible to words. Music can get into these areas. Painting can get into them. Non-verbal forms of expression can. But words are a terrible straitjacket. It's interesting how many prisoners of that straitjacket resent its being loosened or taken off. There's a side to the human personality that somehow senses that wherever the cosmic truth may lie, it doesn't lie in A, B, C, D. It lies somewhere in the mysterious, unknowable aspects of thought and life and experience. Man has always responded to it. Religion, mythology, allegories—it's always been one of the most responsive chords in man. With rationalism, modern man has tried to eliminate it, and successfully dealt some pretty jarring blows to religion. In a sense, what's happening now in films and in popular music is a reaction to the stifling limitations of rationalism. One wants to break out of the clearly arguable, demonstrable things which really are not very meaningful, or very useful or inspiring, nor does one even sense any enormous truth in them.

Minister: As I was saying, Alex, you can be instrumental in changing the public verdict. Do you understand, Alex? Have I made myself clear? Alex: As an unmuddied lake, Fred. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, Fred.

In a 1972 story titled “The Big Space Fuck,” Kurt Vonnegut names his spaceship with “eight hundred pounds of freeze-dried jizzum in its nose” the Arthur C. Clarke, “in honor of a famous space pioneer.” Its mission is to impregnate the Andromeda Galaxy.

You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.

„Dieser Faktor künstlerischer Vision ist so real und offensichtlich, dass ein Film selbst dann seine unbestreitbare Brillanz behält, wenn ein Regisseur wie Stanley Kubrick einen so ärgerlichen, perversen und enttäuschenden Film wie SHINING macht; sie ist einfach da.

[On Dr. Strangelove]: My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. [...] What could be more absurd than the very idea of two mega powers willing to wipe out all human life because of an accident, spiced up by political differences that will seem as meaningless to people a hundred years from now as the theological conflicts of the Middle Ages appear to us today?

People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction. The longer the bomb is around without anything happening, the better the job that people do in psychologically denying its existence. It has become as abstract as the fact that we are all going to die someday, which we usually do an excellent job of denying.

Why does Kubrick always chill our blood, and make us huddled up scared stiff with eyes wide shut? Because even dead he's still "Shinnying" with his old hand and his eye-catching plots.

Ghost stories appeal to our craving for immortality. If you can be afraid of a ghost, then you have to believe that a ghost may exist. And if a ghost exists, then oblivion might not be the end.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death — however mutable man may be able to make them — our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

In 1960, for example, the Committee for Long Range Studies of the Brookings Institution prepared a report for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration warning that even indirect contact—i.e., alien artifacts that might possibly be discovered through our space activities on the moon, Mars or Venus or via radio contact with an interstellar civilization—could cause severe psychological dislocations. The study cautioned that “Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they have had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior.

Kubrick told his visitors that, in his view, there were three factors to consider in every film: Was it interesting? Was it believable? And, was it beautiful or aesthetically superior? At least two of the three had to be in every shot of the film. He

2001’s production notes contain a number of startlingly prescient glimpses of the world we live in today. As of mid-1965, approximately the same time that the US Department of Defense was conceiving of the internet’s direct predecessor, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), Kubrick’s intrepid band of futurists had seemingly already visualized important aspects of the new technology’s implications. One document sent from Tony Masters to Roger Caras on June 29 listed matter-of-factly—under a letterhead replete with the roaring MGM lion—nine props that he asked Caras to help him with. Number one was “2001 newspaper to be read on some kind of television screen. Should be designed television screen shape; i.e., wider than it is high.

Throughout, Kubrick and Clarke remained locked in dialogue. One strategy they’d agreed on in advance was that their story’s metaphysical and even mystical elements had to be earned through absolute scientific-technical realism. 2001’s space shuttles, orbiting stations, lunar bases, and Jupiter missions were thoroughly grounded in actual research and rigorously informed extrapolation, much of it provided by leading American companies then also busy providing technologies and expertise to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA.

It's not a remarkable note except for one thing. The typeface Tony used to print it is the exact typeface Kubrick used for the posters and title sequences of 'Eyes Wide Shut' and '2001'. 'It's Futura Extra Bold,' explains Tony. 'It was Stanley's favorite typeface. It's sans serif. He liked Helvetica and Univers too. Clean and elegant.' 'Is this the kind of thing you and Kubrick used to talk about?' I asked. 'God, yes,' says Tony. 'Sometimes late into the night. I was always trying to persuade him to turn away from them. But he was wedded to his sans serifs.

White men's stories continue to be considered Important and Universal. If the films of Quentin Tarantino, Stanley Kubrick, or Christopher Nolan don't "speak" to you, you are considered by other filmmakers and creatives to be a philistine of the highest order, one who is simply too ignorant to grasp the depth of their genius. But men can hardly be expected to sit through the films of those female filmmakers most radically plumbing the depths of the female experience—Karyn Kusama, Jane Campion, Tamara Jenkins. After all, they are telling "small" and "personal" stories.

Seventeen aliens—featureless black pyramids—riding in an open car down Fifth Avenue, surrounded by Irish cops.” Although the form of what would eventually become 2001’s monolith hadn’t yet been established—and wouldn’t for more than a year after much shape-shifting—its color (black) and quality (featureless) had already emerged.

About the only law that I think relates to the genre is that you should not try to explain, to find neat explanations for what happens, and that the object of the thing is to produce a sense of the uncanny. Freud in his essay on the uncanny wrote that the sense of the uncanny is the only emotion which is more powerfully expressed in art than in life, which I found very illuminating; it didn’t help writing the screen-play, but I think it’s an interesting insight into the genre. And I read an essay by the great master H.P. Lovecraft where he said that you should never attempt to explain what happens, as long as what happens stimulates people’s imagination, their sense of the uncanny, their sense of anxiety and fear. And as long as it doesn’t, within itself, have any obvious inner contradictions, it is just a matter of, as it were, building on the imagination (imaginary ideas, surprises, etc.), working in this area of feeling. I think also that the ingeniousness of a story like this is something which the audience ultimately enjoys; they obviously wonder as the story goes on what’s going to happen, and there’s a great satisfaction when it’s all over not having been able to have anticipated the major development of the story, and yet at the end not to feel that you have been fooled or swindled.

Redrum by Stewart Stafford A Winter's tale of horrors profound, The haunted hotel's dark tapestry, Supreme isolation's moonscape snowbound, A father gripped by homicidal history. He sought to write, heal, absolve sins, Overlooked the hotel’s Redrum plans, Vomiting up daymares of phantom twins, His mind possessed by unseen hands. Room Two Three Seven, malevolent, Forbidden to enter its dark hole, Where ageless ladies bathed decadent, Luring caretakers to an adulterer's role. His wife and son sensed the danger, A bloody elevator with nowhere to run, A father's warpath with axe and anger, He became the monster, the devil's son. It might horrify 42 ways from Sunday, Only his shining son grasped the fact, May as well be across the galaxy, As in a labyrinth with that maniac. He failed to kill, he froze, met his fate, The hotel consumed his spirit as its own, Purgatorial torture in damnation's bait, He smiled in the photo, eternally alone. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

Asked if he felt the pervasive spread of technology was beginning to dehumanize us, Clarke replied, “No, I think it’s superhumanizing us.

Accordingly, Dan had established a brutal physical training regimen—boot camp for man-apes. Every day, they met in the fields behind the studio, ran laps, and performed calisthenics.

I had seven magnets hidden in the teeth. Who other than Stuart Freeborn could have produced such a phrase?

At its best, science fiction takes our post-Enlightenment way of understanding the world and extrapolates, using the findings of science and projections concerning the future of technology and putting them at the service of truths expressible through fiction.

As for HAL singing “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two),” this, too, was Clarke’s contribution, including the song’s gradual devolution to near incomprehensibility at the end. The idea originated in a visit he’d made in 1962 to Bell Laboratories, where he’d heard John Kelly’s voice-synthesizer experiments with an IBM 7094 mainframe, which had coaxed the machine to sing Harry Dacre’s 1892 marriage proposal—the first song ever sung by a computer.

Stan has decided to kill off all the crew of Discovery and leave Bowman only. Drastic, but it seems right. After all, Odysseus was the sole survivor.

Of filmmakers then active, Kubrick valued Ingmar Bergman above all—so much so that he wrote the Swedish director a fan letter in 1960, praising his “unearthly and brilliant contribution,” and stating, “Your vision of life has moved me deeply, more deeply than I have ever been moved by any films.

Fastidious about personal hygiene, he couldn’t stand to be around anybody who was ill. If this was unavoidable, he insisted that they—and everybody else on the set or in the office—wear surgical masks to lessen the danger of germs spreading.

One day he observed to Roger Caras that being brave was stupid; why would you risk the only chance you have at life, simply to prove something?

this key moment halfway through the shoot, Clarke’s nine-point plan became a blueprint the director largely followed, though he cut them down a bit further, in part by incorporating some into the astronauts’ pod dialogue, which hadn’t been shot yet. In much the same way that Lockwood’s and Dullea’s dialogue improvisations had methodically been reduced to their essence, Clarke’s suggestions stripped down and clarified the story.

Actually, I do not agree with you that Stanley is insensitive to the needs of others—he is very sensitive, but his artistic integrity won’t allow him to compromise.

I don’t know what you did,” he said, “but Stanley wants to triple your salary and get you a union ticket. Come back as soon as possible.

What great control! I reach for something, the movement begins in the very center of my body. I stand up, turn, and run—all the movement starts from my center. Moving this way does many things. It

It’s how they reached the border between the known and unknown—that place science is always probing like a tongue exploring a broken tooth.

Yes, I’d like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.

He proposed that they abandon their prior idea that the monolith (still called “the Cube” in the letter) should be seen overtly transmitting audiovisual lessons to the man-apes.

you were having an extraterrestrial in your bottle in your chemistry lab, and you wanted to make it comfortable so you can observe it,

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” —STANLEY KUBRICK, legendary American filmmaker

Later, when he arrived in Seoul, Ki-yong saw Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Watching Jack Nicholson go crazy in a cabin in the snow-covered Rockies, he remembered his mother, which he hadn't done in a long time. As Jack Nicholson typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over on several hundred pages, he imagined Mother, sitting alone in her store, tittering like an idiot.

Cynicism, loss of spiritual values, two world wars, the communist disillusionment, psychoanalysis, have forced the 20th century writer to keep his hero uninvolved, detached, burdened with problems relating to life.... If the modern world could be summed up with a single word, it would be 'absurd.' The only truly creative response to this is the comic version of life.

In other words, there is no ‘original’ form of human society. Searching for one can only be a matter of myth-making, whether the resultant myths take the form of ‘killer ape’ fantasies that emerged in the 1960s, seared into collective consciousness by movies like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; or the ‘aquatic ape’; or even the highly amusing but fanciful ‘stoned ape’ (the theory that consciousness emerged from the accidental ingestion of psychedelic mushrooms). Myths like these entertain YouTube watchers to this day.

Este temor estará muy presente en la ciencia ficción literaria y cinematográfica: Un mundo feliz de Aldous Huxley o 2001: Odisea en el espacio de Stanley Kubrick son ejemplos ilustrativos.

WITH THE ADVENT of the computer and the dawn of the space race, the sixties brought futuristic visions of life to the mainstream consciousness. The Soviet satellite Sputnik had led to the formation of NASA to oversee America’s space program. In prime time on ABC, Americans could tune in to catch the animated cartoon The Jetsons, about a space-age family who lived with their housekeeping robot, Rosie, and dog, Astro. A couple of years later, Desilu, I Love Lucy’s production company, premiered Star Trek on CBS. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had a near-omniscient computer named Hal manipulating its astronauts. By the midsixties, the concepts of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars were no longer in the realm of magic or science fiction—they were seen as the logical, inevitable outcome of the American trajectory.

The Soviet satellite Sputnik had led to the formation of NASA to oversee America’s space program. In prime time on ABC, Americans could tune in to catch the animated cartoon The Jetsons, about a space-age family who lived with their housekeeping robot, Rosie, and dog, Astro. A couple of years later, Desilu, I Love Lucy’s production company, premiered Star Trek on CBS. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had a near-omniscient computer named Hal manipulating its astronauts. By the midsixties, the concepts of artificial intelligence and self-driving cars were no longer in the realm of magic or science fiction—they were seen as the logical, inevitable outcome of the American trajectory.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. If we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death, our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light. . . . If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space.