None, they’re all overexposed. His talent was exceptional. His films are great. None of them are under appreciated.
Unless you count:
The Seafarers (1953)
Fear and Desire (1953)
Day of the Fight (1951)
Rare and very difficult to find, these are pre-famous b-movies that Kubrick probably had suppressed. I conjecture that he couldn’t tinker with them throughout his life with full artistic control and so wrote them off as youthful sandbox creations.
>>The idea that any of Kubrick’s films are underrated is somewhat dubious premise<<
As I go through this thread and see various films cited & vigorously defended, I’m beginning to think none of his films are under-appreciated.
@Harry Long
Exactly.
The Killing
From what I’ve seen it’s Paths of Glory and The Killing, though I have yet to see Lolita.
There are some wackos in this thread.
I’ve always said, if you don’t appreciate Kubrick’s work, you either haven’t paid attention or need to grow a little more. Calling Kubrick overrated is like saying Picasso was sloppy; it just isn’t intellectually honest.
For my part, I would have to say Lolita since I didn’t like that film and need to give it another shot. But, yes, all of his early works are great little finds.
Josh, You know Kubrick rocks when you are saying his most under appreciated is the film by him you don’t care for. You are so confident of his skill, you assume that Lolita is better than you think, and you yourself are under appreciating it. That’s awesome.
That’s gotta be it, although every artist is allowed a failure—that’s usually part of the process (you learn from failure, not success). Still, since Lolita has its staunch defenders (people whose opinion I respect), I have to play by my own rules and think that it must be me.
I would love to rediscover that film and fall in love with it. It just didn’t happen the first time like it did with his other works (except for Spartacus, but that film’s poor quality wasn’t Kubrick’s fault).
Probably none. All of his films have so many followers. If anything I’d say Kubricks oevre as a whole is underappreciated, because not everyone kneels down in front of this cinematic god! But that’s of course only my opinion. ;-)
If you take away Kubrick from the history of cinema you have an incredible loss. Besides Chaplin and Hitchcock I can’t think of another director who so much defines what cinema is all about.
I agree with some: Eyes Wide Shut. But that film is making a comeback. Lately, Total Film named it the most underrated film of all-time.
Barry Lyndon is a masterpiece, but not really underrated, critics loved it. But under-appreciated by the public for sure.
Eyes Wide Shut definetely!
People like it, but in my opinion they don’t like it enough!!
Everything in that film is just amazing, the music, the settings, the atmosphere and the actors…
eyes wide shut most definitely. it’s kubricks best film, and one of the greatest ever.
Eyes Wide Shut for shure.. people and critics destroyed this movie and i really enjoy it, I do think it’s close to being perfect…
Barry lyndon
Barry Lyndon. I think it is one of the most beautifully photographed films of all time. He used Zeiss lenses that had wide apertures that allowed a lot of light onto the film. I think most period films, even a little after that, used artificial light for night scenes but Kubrick used actual candlelight. I like the fact that Kubrick used available light in a lot of his movies, eventhough I am not against using articial light at the same time. I love the music. I love the way the characters talk. The sets and the costumes are well designed. I think the length of the film is appropriate because things were more leisurely in that time period and it fits in with the way the story is told. Maybe it’s not for everybody, but I think there are a fair number of people that really appreciate this film, such as some professional cinematographers. Scorsese mentions on the Stantley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures documentary of how a zoom lens was used in a scene that relates to paintings at that time period or something along those lines. In fact, this film is Scorsese’s favorite Stanley Kubrick film.
Yes, in my opinion Barry Lyndon is easily Kubrick’s most underrated film. The more I watch it the more I start to question if it was Kubrick’s best film. I don’t think I need to laundry-list the reasons why to this crowd but I will mention that it’s the only period piece I’ve seen that screens like a (long) series of pantings which come to life one after another.
I’m still personally torn about Eyes Wide Shut. If I block out my initial repulsion to Tom and Nicole then I can see Kubrick’s genius trying to shine through, but they’re such bad actors that I’m baffled as to why Kubrick cast them in the first place. Tom might as well be wearing a sandwich board that reads: “LOOK HOW GOOD I’M ACTING!”, and Nicole, well, I’m not sure what the hell was wrong with her in that film but every time she spoke it grated on my soul.
Probably The Shining. It certainly is high camp of the most irritating order, but the social commentary is pretty daring for as commercial a venture as this, namely that the family is the ultimate horror. I find Jack to be by far the most empathetic character in the film, who realizes that his role as a father in a pop environment has killed all potential intellectual achievement. There was also an attempt of Kubrick’s (I think) to explore modern pop architecture as an externalization of the aforementioned zeitgeist. Both of these are explored rather superficially, unfortunately, but I still think they are such powerfully ambitious and underdiscussed themes in film that the effort alone makes this one of the better ones ever made.
Lolita. Is it the subject matter? It is unsettling and strange. James Mason, Shelly Winters and the fourteen-year-old Sue Lyon did very well. I do think Peter Sellers bordered on the absurd with his impersonations, especially the one of the high school psychologist.
Also, Killer’s Kiss. I have a real fondness for this one and I don’t think it gets much credit for being as good as it is. “To me you’re just an old man, and you smell bad.” That’s an under-appreciated quote.
eyes wide shut.
Barry Lyndon or Eyes Wide Shut
BARRY LYNDON although it’s a crime that there has been no decent DVD transfer yet. The recent re-boxing was the same DVD as the last, and the quality is atrocious. For a film that depends so much on its visuals, the DVD really takes away from the experience.
My personal favourite of his is PATHS OF GLORY. I also thought EYES WIDE SHUT was brilliant until it became a thriller.
I posted on here some 9 months ago and will stick with Paths of Glory, but for the life of me I do not understand all the love heaped on Eyes Wide Shut. Aside from Tom Cruise pathetic performance the film is a non-sensical mess. Worse still coming from a true master like Kubrick it’s not about anything at all. You can try and read between the lines all you want but it adds up to zip.
Ahh, Chris, take another look. It’s about as far from non-sensical as can be—very tightly structured (the film mirrors itself as Dr. Bill delves down into and up out of the depths of his sexual frustration.
And you don’t need to read between the lines to see it—it’s all right there. And it’s stunning. I rank it right up there with 2001 and Dr. Strangelove.
Paths of Glory is also a fantastic film, so I totally agree with you there.
Chris, if you’re interested, here’s a good critique of the film. I don’t agree with all of it, but it should tell you why some people value the movie so much.
Barry Lyndon for sure. Because it was just so good in comparison to say Eyes Wide Shut and equally as good as his most noteworthy films like Shining, FMJ, etc, this of course being a period drama, another genre film Kubrick mastered.
The one with Sterling Hayden in it …
I’m saying Full Metal Jacket. Yes, most people will tell you it’s a great film about the dehumanising process involved in preparing for – and then fighting – a war; but I think it is top-tier Kubrick, and up there with his best (I may be alone in thinking it is a better film than Clockwork ). It has an eerie quality unique to the genre, I think.
Neil McCauley: My only problem with FMJ was the unevenness of the two halves. And oddly, I liked the second half more than the first.
@Vellaem: I just caught up to this post and noticed that you mentioned Kubrick’s early doc, THE SEAFARERS.
A little personal history: After finishing my master’s degree at NYU, I got a job making films for the Seafarers International Union, AFL-CIO. I asked to see the other films made about the union and they screened THE SEAFARERS, a mediocre doc from the 1950s. When the credits came on, I was flabbergasted: PHOTOGRAPHED AND DIRECTED BY STANLEY KUBRICK.
I contacted my NYU prof, John Kuiper, who was head of the Library of Congress Motion Picture Division at the time, and told him about my find. Up until then, people only knew about K’s other two docs, A DAY AT THE FIGHTS and THE FLYING PADRE. At Kuiper’s request, I sent a 16mm print to the Library of Congress and received a Certificate of Appreciation in return. My best guess is that if you want to see THE SEAFARERS, you’ll probably have to go to the Library of Congress or, maybe, AFL-CIO headquarters—assuming that the film hasn’t turned to dust by now.
jaylo
Once again: Eyes Wide Shut. They should never have hired a phony Hollywood actor like Tom Cruise to play in a decent film like EWS (or Valkyrie for that matter).