Which are the biggest influences Stanley Kubrick had (filmmakers)

Let’s discuss this, but with facts and proves.
Some names I’ve heard: Eisenstein, Ophuls, Lang, Ford… but no one can prove why.

Well, there’s The Phantom Carriage, for starters:

I’m not talking about ‘tributes’ or copied scenes.

Ok… why don’t you specify what you are talking about then?

I also appreciate what you mean, but I’m more about ideas, cinematography, editing, general style etc..

He wrote a fan letter to Bergman in 1960 saying that he thought he was the best filmmaker at work back then. I’ve also heard that I Vitelloni (Fellini) was his favorite film, but he also later said Eraserhead (Lynch) was his favorite, and that that was a huge influence on The Shining.

His favs here: http://mubi.com/lists/stanley-kubricks-favorite-films
Huston, Kurosawa or Lean may have been an influence for his epics, and how about Antonioni for Eyes wide shut?
About ‘tributes’ we have an easy on Full metal jacket (Kobayashi)

The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut both look very influenced visually by Last Year at Marienbad.

Antonioni and Ophuls for sure

I’d love to see a study of Kubrick and Lynch. I maintain that the movies he made since he saw Eraserhead (The Shining on) are noticeably more Lynchian than what came before, right down to the shade of blue light he sometimes used in Eyes Wide Shut.

@ CINETHESIA (AKA DUNCAN)

You should check out Rob Ager’s site, collativelearning.com

You’ll find many a film analysis, and some of them for free to view on the website.

I have a half baked theory that Kubrick was influenced to some degree by Joseph Losey’s cinema, I have been told by someone infinitely more knowledgable on the subject of Kubrick than myself that he said as much but I have not found where the great man stated this and what films of Losey’s he was referring to. Its probable though that he was referring to Losey’s British period of the 60’s. I sense though a link between an earlier Losey film (his last American one) The Prowler(1951) and Kubricks 2001 both films revolve around an acousmatic presence that is set in opposition to the characters onscreen. The Prowlers version of HAL9000 is a cheery radio personality whose wife is up to no good with a local cop, the rub being that for the lovers to be certain they are alone must keep the radio playing, the husbands homely late night radio voice slowly driving the lusty couple mad. The radio sets have a backlit dial that anticipates HAL’s glowing ‘eye’ but its in the compositional choices that the link between the two films is most striking. At the risk of offending Alex’s ‘no tribute’ brief for this topic here is comparison of the two shots;

!!

The mechanical representation of the acousmêtre in each film is positioned in the centre of the frame, the blocking of the actors to either side facing each other, making a cross between the gazes of the characters and the gaze of the acousmetre with the viewer. During these scenes in both films the acousmêtres are noticeable by their uncharacteristic watchful silence, as it views the characters conspire against its wishes, its eye invisible to them but like a bulls eye to our own.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/07/you-are-greatest-film-maker-at-work.html

The letter Kubrick wrote to Bergman.

I know that Kubrick recommended the book Film Technique by Vlesepod Pudovkin for people who wanted to make films.

dp

Not a filmmaker, but he loved Cagney:

Kubrick asked Spielberg to pick his top five actors of all time, which included Spencer Tracy and Henry Fonda. “Ah, but you didn’t pick James Cagney!” Kubrick rebutted, using that example as a more pronounced, vivid acting style that goes beyond humdrum naturalism. The anecdote, in microcosm, illustrates the specific nature of Kubrick’s taste. Slant

^
That looks really funny for some reason.

Also, Kubrick’s The Killing is obviously influenced by John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle:

I can’t prove it, but Kubrick seems to use close-ups in a similar style as Huston did.

I just recently visited the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA, and one of the sections had a blurb that mentioned Fritz Lang as an influence. I’ve searched online for information to corroborate this claim, but I couldn’t find any. Does anyone know if this is true?

Kubrick cited Pudovkin as one of his main influences.

http://www.amazon.com/Film-Technique-Acting-V-Pudovkin/dp/0394174577

I’ve read speculation that Hanns Walter Kornblum’s Wunder der Schöpfung (“Our Heavenly Bodies,” 1925) may have influenced Kubrick (tho I know of no confirmation that he had even seen the film). Some of the special effects artists who later contributed to Metropolis worked on this film.

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Whoa! That I have to watch soon.

His biggest influence was Max Ophuls. Particularly “La Ronde.”

I’ve always had the suspicion that Kubrick took a lot from Stanley Donen’s Singin in the Rain.
-Alex singing the song in A Clockwork Orange
-During the Good Mornin’ scene the three actors pose just like the Three Jesus figurine in Clockwork
-There’s a part in Singin in the Rain with a painted door that looks exactly like the red eye of HAL in 2001
-A lot of central perspective. I know Donen didn’t create the central perspective, but still.

But overall, I think Kubrick was just as influenced by films as other directors but the thing with him was he never took DIRECTLY from other movies. There are times when I’m watching some classic films and I think “that’s such a Kubrick thing to do,” even though I can’t point out exactly what it is, visually or thematically.

What I’m saying is unlike other directors (Scorsese, Spielberg) who take past uses of film grammar and apply it to their own stories, Kubrick took the ideas behind past uses of film grammar and applied it to his stories.