Defining Kubric's Style

In a thoughtful, thorough, multi-paragraph essay, perform the following task:

Define Stanley Kubrick's style.

Consider the following when constructing your response:

• Your notes - cinematography, editing, sound, and mis-en-scene (everything...and that's a lot)
• The images collected below from the film
• Any other Kubrick films you might have seen on your own (for a list of his films, click here)
• Check out clips of Kubrick's films online (Youtube, etc.)

Your essay won't be due until the Thursday after break, so you can either work on it over break if you have time or work on it the four days we have back at school. Your choice. If you have any questions, please let me know. 

Butch and Sundance - Extra Credit

If you'd like some extra credit, view the video and comment below.

Butch and Sundance

Below you will find eight comments by respected critics on the film. Your task is the following:

1. Read all of the comments and decide on which three you have the strongest reaction - agreement, disagreement, curiosity, befuddlement...whatever.
2. Copy and paste those three comments into a document of your own.
3. Respond thoughtfully and thoroughly to each of the comments in full paragraphs. (Your job here is not to merely repeat or paraphrase the quotations; your task is to react, to expand, to argue, to ponder. Be specific in your responses. Use examples from the film. These quotations are diving boards. You need to dive in the pool and swim and around, get some exercise, and have some fun.)
4. Print out your responses and turn them in to class. Be ready to discuss them with the class.

Dave Kehr - Chicago Reader

“You have to admire the craft and assurance of the thing even as its artificiality hits you in the face.”

Time Magazine

“Every character, every scene, is marred by the film's double view, which oscillates between sympathy and farce.”

Whitney Williams - Variety

“The John Foreman production is episodic, but George Roy Hill's direction is so satisfying in catching the full value of the Goldman screenplay that a high degree of interest is sustained.”

Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun-Times

“William Goldman's script is constantly too cute and never gets up the nerve, by God, to admit it's a Western.”

Vincent Canby - New York Times

“Very funny in a strictly contemporary way-the last exuberant word on movies about the men of the mythic American West who have outlived their day.”

James Berardinelli - ReelViews

“Although Butch Cassidy wasn't the first movie to pair up a couple of wisecracking best friends in an action/adventure setting, this film became the model of how well that approach could work when done right.”

Kevin Carr - 7M Pitures

“Looking at the film with a totally modern set of eyes, completely detached from the hype of Newman and Redford in the late 60s, I didn't find a connection to the movie.”

Bob McCabe - Empire Magazine

“Note-perfect performances, a screenplay steeped in both nostalgia and a timely sense of insight, and anti-heroes you can't help but love: it's no surprise that the always re-watchable Butch And Sundance was once labelled the most likeable film ever made.”

Realism vs Formalism

If any of you are interested, here is my presentation on Realism vs Formalism. Feel free to comment bellow for extra credit.

Night of the Hunter - Extra Credit

I've been struggling with an idea, and I just can't wrap my head around it enough to present it to you. It has to do with the balance of light and dark - about the balance of positive and negative shapes (positive being the dark spaces, the spaces where somethig IS; negative being the light spaces, the spaces where something ISN'T). There's something about them in this movie.

There's an artictis princial called 'balance.' Balance with when the right side is given roughly the same 'wieght' as the left side, or the top and bottom. There are two kinds of aesthetic balance. There's symmetrical. That's when one side looks like the other - they are, to a large degree - mirror images of one another.

 

Then there's asymmetrical balance. This is when two sides are balanced, but by different sized shapes.

But even this idea of balance doesn't cover all the bases of what I'm trying to grasp at. I don't know. There's just something about the images of the film. There's almost no gray - it truly is a nearly all black and white movie.

Here's what I would like you to do. Just look at the following images. Take your time.

Now look at the following pairs of images. Most come one right after the other. Again, take your time.

  

Okay. So we touched on it in class. What's going on here? What's going on in terms of balance, positive and negative space, aesthetic tension vs. dramatic tension? Help me out. We need some theories on the subject...

Post your responses in the comments section below. The most your post, and the more thoughtful your responses, the more extra credit you will earn. Have fun...