I am going with Paths of Glory. it had it all; Great cinematography, a great existential story and it moved, it had a heart beat. You can mention some pretty decent acting when it comes to Paths of Glory, too
This really comes down to what you mean by unappreciated.Full Metal Jacket, by and large has an audience, but is still widely misunderstood as being a cold and shallow film when a few (myself included) would argue its not. Pop audiences just seem to like it because of its entertainment value (nothing wrong with that either). The Shining is the same way. Barry Lyndon too has a bit of fan fare but its a film that critics seem to largely agree on now. Paths of Glory, 2001 and Dr. Strangelove are A.F.I list establishment classics, so they can’t qualify. Clockwork is too iconic (and is also on one of those lists as well), so scratch that.
My vote would be Eyes Wide Shut, a movie that still largely bewilders audiences and critics alike.
Runner up: Full Metal Jacket, Barry Lyndon
I think the others are about where they need to be in popular consciousness.
I disagree with everything Guy Lee Thys said except for the “Clockwork” comments, I see some truth in that. There is something suspect about making an anti fascist movie with fascist aesthetics ( Could that movie make violence appear any cooler?), so yes I’d say there is something a bit crypto fascist about it.
To second what Kifah says, I would say the last two-thirds of Full Metal Jacket—the bulk of the film after training—is widely unappreciated.
I would argue that “Full Metal Jacket” is Kubrick’s weakest film. I think the film peaks too early and loses direction. The most exciting, climactic scene in the movie takes place 45 minutes in, and nothing afterward is able to ratchet the tension back up for a satisfying conclusion. Also, once in Vietnam, Kubrick introduces us to a slew of prominent characters that never really get examined.
From a technical standpoint, however, I think “Full Metal Jacket” is among Kubrick’s most impressive works. The tracking shots in particular have seldom been used more perfectly. He also makes great work of the lighting to paint an abysmal portrait of Vietnam. My issues with the film are more on the lines of story structure, pacing, and character development. I’d still recommend the film. It’s a good movie, but it’s the only Kubrick film I’ve seen that isn’t a masterpiece.
I think Barry Lyndon is his most under-appreciated work. There are moments in it of perfect tension and sublime beauty. And, he had a lens engineered for the film so he could shoot the candle-lit scenes…by candlelight. It’s great length and slow pacing make it a challenge for many people, but if you give in to it, you find that it is utterly masterful and utterly what Kubrick wanted it to be, I believe.
I think almost every Kubrick film is generally under-appreciated. As I heard quoted somewhere else before:
“People never appreciated what was actually IN a Kubrick film, rather everyone complained about what WASN’T there”, which in my opinion is generally a disastrous way to appreciate a film.
As far as cinemaphiles go I would have to say probably Barry Lyndon is the most under-appreciated in my experience.
I’m with the Barry Lyndon-ites. I shamefully called myself a Kubrick fan yet had never seen BL until last weekend. I’m so, so, UTTERLY glad I waited. (I sound like some sort of abstinence advert. “Just say NO to Kubrick until you’re nearly 40”) I have been thinking about that movie since I saw it. I loved every single frame of it. I noticed the quirks and the suspension of disbelief, but was left reeling at how warm and human it was while being utterly merciless — utterly merciless. I am going to say it is my favorite Kubrick film, shoving aside “Strangelove.” Having said all that, I’m ready to give Kirk Douglas and his non-French French officer a try again.
I have to follow the trend and say Barry Lyndon. The pacing the imagery everything is just so lush.
Eyes wide shut,a mystic experience,
Would I be wrong in saying that The Shining is among the most underappreciated? I just watched the abysmal House of 1,000 Corpses recently, and that along with pretty much every horror movie out there reminds me that The Shining really is one of the top horror movies of all time. Top Kubrick movie? No, not really. It’s one of his better, I’d say, but I think it’s outclassed by 2001, Barry Lyndon, and A Clockwork Orange. On the other hand, I really love The Shining. Everything about it is great. It’s one of the few movies I’ll pull out multiple times a year just to relive the experience of. I know most people like The Shining nowadays; I won’t dispute that. But I feel like it sometimes gets ignored, strangely, in favor of (deservedly) more popular Kubrick movies.
And, of course, Barry Lyndon. That movie is gorgeous from start to finish. I think most people are daunted by its pace and subject matter, but if you have the stomach for it, it’s a really amazing experience. I am in awe at every single candlelit scene.
A.I.
Rollie, this wonderful article might turn you around on FMJ: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0104.html. It posits Full Metal Jacket as a radical experiment in narrative. There’s a reason the film is structured like it is with the bootcamp training being the most exciting, structured, and engaging part of the film and the rest being slacken and wandering.
Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon
paths of glory. definitely.
Will go with ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ – I watch it every 6 months or so and am consistently amazed at its depth and complexity. Also I now have a soft spot for ‘Fear and Desire’, (just saw the pristine Eastman print), as it showcases many of Kubrick’s obsessions in a raw, almost half-baked state.
OK, count me in for “Eyes Wide Shut” now. I’m going to have to re-watch it now.
I was scared reading the first few comments not to see Barry Lyndon on there, isn’t that just proof that it is the most under-appreciated of Kubrick’s work? When someone can say that The Shining is under-appreciated (though he makes a decent argument), Barry Lyndon falls off the map for both audience and critic discussion. So I am glad to see all the Lyndon-ites speak up here on the lower section of this post. Definitely my number one.
Having said that, I have to take direct contest with what Rollie Schott’s evaluation of FMJ. I believe that a large part of why FMJ is so masterful is because it is a representation of what the soldiers go through. The most exciting and enjoyable part of the film is the first third because there is so much that the soldiers don’t know, there are so many possibilities, and while they are in a hellish environment, it is still a boy’s club, it is still a summer camp mentality. They are having fun, so we are having fun. Obviously that all ends when Pvt. Pyle kills himself and we are woken up to reality. The audience follows the characters descent into—not hell, because that’s not really what it is, but—purgatory; the same thing every day. New dead bodies, hopefully not yours, but that’s the only thing that changes—the faces. Even after the story picks up again in the last third, when we have another building up of tension with the sniper, it ends up being just another day, just another inhumane incident. By this time neither the audience nor the characters really have the heart left to be able to mourn the fact that they just killed a teenage girl. Ultimately even Joker isn’t able to hold on to the passion of his convictions.
The film ends with a bit of a confusing moment of the platoon walking along, singing the theme song to the Mickey Mouse club. Honestly, at first I thought that this was kind of a “happy ending” moment to give the audience something upbeat to walk out to, then there was the ironic reaction to it, that surrounded by all this killing, these men are reverting back to childhood, but I think it goes beyond both of these. I believe that there is nothing left. It’s another moment of nihilism in a long line of nothing. There was no preparing for the war, there was no preparing for what the soldiers would be forced to endure and enact, and in the end there is nothing. While these men were being massacred (physically and mentally), the people at home (at least at the beginning of the war) were joyfully spending their days as they always had. They were watching Mickey Mouse and other entertainment, hiding from the truths of the world so they wouldn’t have to worry about anything. What Kubrick is able to do with FMJ, is to make the audience actually experience some of what the soldiers did. By having to sit through the mundane, by having to see these horrors and how they ultimately no longer affect the soldiers, we are transformed at the end of the film. Mickey Mouse is no longer a cute song. We have passed through the looking-glass and can not see the innocence any longer. We began the film watching the entertainment, and ended enduring the hardships.
This is what Kubrick is doing in all of his films: attempting to wake his audience up, to make them actually see what is surrounding them. Yes, perhaps “Clockwork” is crypto- or proto-fascist, but it ultimately is asking the viewer to take sides. He is not saying that this is good or bad, he is showing the desire and the revulsion and leaving it up to the audience to say I want to be a Droog or not. This is the main reason why it was banned in the UK, and why Kubrick went along with the ban. He may have seen that he stepped too far. He did not give the audience a lifeline, he assumed that his viewers would be intelligent enough to be able to decide for themselves. He did what most filmmakers would be too scared to do, he made movies for the elites, for the cinephiles, he did not stoop to the lowest common denominator, which is why EWS is so underrated as well. Whether or not it is a complete vision, it is at least 95% there, and I think a telling swan song.
I think The Shining is because a lot of critics just hated that movie! Even Stephen King couldn’t find a reason to like it! But i love it :)
Barry Lyndon. Oft under-mentioned.
Love the way the camera attempts to scrutinise the subject with the zoom in-outs but we are left distant and cold with the characters’ impenetrability .
Kubrick was going for greatness with this one.
Everyone’s saying Barry Lyndon, which I just rented. Now I’m pumped to watch it.
Definitely Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut. EWS would be a far greater film if Kidman didn’t destroy it. Not to say she is a bad actress, but that wasn’t good.
I thought Kidman was brilliant in Eyes Wide Shut
I’d say Barry Lyndon or the Killing (both brilliant).. But his best work can be seen in 2001 and Dr. Strangelove.
I love ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ but i didn’t think it was underrated. i think critics didn’t like it for good reasons. it wasn’t that much more than “rich people get on the piss behind closed doors”. I think that Stanley Kubrick kind of has a weird thing for getting women to take their clothes off on screen, and it was a great director’s piece for turning a dumb plot and storyline into something exciting and stylish. i don’t think it was underrated, it was rated perfectly, i just personally liked it because some of the scenes including the very last and the John Lee-Hooker sequence because they were great fun. cool director, not an underrated film. Got to watch Barry Lyndon!
Barry Lyndon. Maybe One of the Greatest Epics of all time. Schubert’s music and it’s mood are just great.
Eyes Wide Shut and Barry Lyndon, two of my favorite films. The first one because it only builds up sexual tension without ever releasing it and the second one because of its overwhelming cinematography and Barry´s personality, which seems to fit our times, again, perfectly (at least that goes for Germany).
Numerous books, essays, columns and blogs have cited almost all of the films mentioned so far, thus they hardly qualify as under-appreciated. “The Killing,” his noirish thriller about a racetrack heist, displays early on all the Kubrickian bells and whistles. It deserves reappraisal and, dare I say it, a Criterion release.
Barry Lyndon is really great, but in my opinion, it lacks a certain something to elevate it to the level of, say, 2001. I really like it and greatly enjoyed watching it, but it’s missing something that would make it a masterpiece. Still excellent, though, and I definitely agree that most people just kind of forget about it. Maybe because it wasn’t as outwardly impressive as Kubrick’s others: The Shining had its terrifying moments, 2001 had the minutes-long color sequence near the end, and A Clockwork Orange was bursting at the seams with interesting stylistic choices. What does Barry Lyndon have? On the surface, nothing, but if you stop looking for extremely impressive standout shots, you start to notice that nearly all of the shots are just amazing. The lighting is beautiful, the composition is great, and you can tell that Kubrick spent all the time in the world making it look as natural and beautiful as it does. It may not have a specific moment that you can point to as the pinnacle of the movie, but the point is that the whole movie is a high point. It’s like a three hour money shot, basically.
Also, The Killing is less appreciated than it ought to be. I know plenty of people like it (Tarantino pretty much built a career off of it), but it seems like it just gets lumped into the category of Early Kubrick. And it is, but it definitely has something to it that Killer’s Kiss, Fear and Desire, and all of Kubrick’s other fledgling works didn’t. It’s not his best movie by a long shot, but it’s a solid entry in a solid filmography. I think more people ought to watch it/rewatch it, because it really is awesome.
Mark
Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut are both under-appreciated. Barry Lyndon would certainly be in my top 10 films of all time. As for Guy Lee Thys, what is he smoking?