Room 237

[Wombaticus Rex]

Kubrick's job was not "Assistant to Stephen King."

[Col Quisp]

I watched the doc on Netflix recently - it's available for streaming. It was disappointing but fascinating at the same time. Too bad the filmmakers did not interview WWW, who in my opinion, has it all figured out.

[Carol Newquist]

Kubrick's job was not "Assistant to Stephen King."

Of course it wasn't his job, but I would imagine it's seen as a courtesy, or in the least, sit down with King and explain to him what you're going to do before you contract to use his book as the basis of your movie. If King has any reluctance or criticism, it can be dealt with then. It sounds like both guys had/have an ego, so this didn't happen, and King's book gets overshadowed and misrepresented.

[8bitagent]

I watched the doc on Netflix recently - it's available for streaming. It was disappointing but fascinating at the same time. Too bad the filmmakers did not interview WWW, who in my opinion, has it all figured out.

I would love to see Wrong Way even just interviewed...a Vimeo short documentary would rock. WWW's take on anything Kubrick blows away Room 237

[Joao]

Anyone care to provide a succinct overview of Wrong Way Wizard's take? A haphazard scan seems to indicate mythological/archetypal underpinnings...? A potential objection would be that archetypes theoretically underpin everything (at least in our psyches), and thus everything is therefore reducible to them, without adding much understanding of the artist's specific intent. I'm arguing from ignorance of the Wizard's actual material, of course.

[elfismiles]

So when my wife and I watched ROOM 237 she suggested, "couldn't Kubrick, who I've heard was quite the practical joker, have heard the rumors of his involvement in staging the moon-landings and decided to throw bread-crumbs into his work to further the joke?"

Which prompts me to ask: "what is the earliest varified whispering of the 'Kubrick faked the moon-landing' meme"?

[minime]

I would say that The Godfather is a horizontal movie, and The Shining is a vertical movie. The Godfather is about exteriors, and The Shining is more about interiors. Especially Kubrick's version. That is why Kubrick traded out the topiaries for the maze.

[The Consul]

A freed eye sees the maze everywhere and the mind as a vehicle that always wants to go backward, through itself, like a filing cabinet drawer that dreams of a curious hand.
Nothing is at it seems and there is no escape. You might have a moment or two where you fantasize you are not being fooled or led and these are called epiphanies or visions even portals that open to artistic or scientific achievement/realization. The same phantasms are share by others throughout time.
A child can see what is really here only so long as she is incapable of describing it with the definitions she is given that blot out the true magnetic reality that exists between us and the universe.
Madness is in control and desire. We fall into our own designs for which we are rewarded with new forms of suffering and ruin. Our wings melt on the mildest of days.
At the peak of our genius the odds against us do not go down. We have come to value ourselves by the proportion of how dangersous we have become weighed against perhaps our strongest trait: denial.
You get a butcher knife.
He gets an ax.
Good luck.

[Joao]

"what is the earliest varified whispering of the 'Kubrick faked the moon-landing' meme"?

The ever-helpful and impartial Wikipedia informs us:

The Flat Earth Society was one of the first organizations to accuse NASA of faking the landings, arguing that they were staged by Hollywood with Walt Disney sponsorship, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Further investigation somewhat supports this. The source cited is a dead link to a July 1980 article from Science Digest. (The Shining premiered on May 23 1980, for the record.) Searching the web for that article's title, we can find another which appears to be the same but as it turns out there is no mention of Kubrick, only Clarke ("The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet"):

the moon landings were faked by Hollywood studios. He even names the man who wrote the scripts: the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

It could be argued that Clarke's involvement almost necessarily implies Kubrick's, but no such claim is made overtly. (Maybe elsewhere in FES pulp of the time?). Perhaps that qualifies as a whisper, but who can say if it's really the first. In any case it's tough to imagine SK planting moon-hoax jokes in The Shining based on awareness that such a chintzy article was in the works. The timing would be pretty tight, too.

What is your source for Kubrick's affinity for practical jokes? I hardly doubt it but a cursory glance at the search results for "kubrick practical joke" (etc.) doesn't reveal much along these lines. I like his films but am not particularly familiar with the man.

[elfismiles]

Thanks for doing that digging Joao - very helpful.

Twas perhaps just my wife remembering comments to that effect within the ROOM-237 doc itself, which I believe alludes to his quick wit and joking spirit. I'll ask her if she remembers where else she may have seen/heard that suggestion. Bare in mind, she thinks EYES WIDE SHUT is an extreme laugh-riot. Seriously, she claims she laughed out loud in the theater.

"what is the earliest varified whispering of the 'Kubrick faked the moon-landing' meme"?

The ever-helpful and impartial Wikipedia informs us:

The Flat Earth Society was one of the first organizations to accuse NASA of faking the landings, arguing that they were staged by Hollywood with Walt Disney sponsorship, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Further investigation somewhat supports this. The source cited is a dead link to a July 1980 article from Science Digest. (The Shining premiered on May 23 1980, for the record.) Searching the web for that article's title, we can find another which appears to be the same but as it turns out there is no mention of Kubrick, only Clarke ("The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet"):

the moon landings were faked by Hollywood studios. He even names the man who wrote the scripts: the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

It could be argued that Clarke's involvement almost necessarily implies Kubrick's, but no such claim is made overtly. (Maybe elsewhere in FES pulp of the time?). Perhaps that qualifies as a whisper, but who can say if it's really the first. In any case it's tough to imagine SK planting moon-hoax jokes in The Shining based on awareness that such a chintzy article was in the works. The timing would be pretty tight, too.

What is your source for Kubrick's affinity for practical jokes? I hardly doubt it but a cursory glance at the search results for "kubrick practical joke" (etc.) doesn't reveal much along these lines. I like his films but am not particularly familiar with the man.

[Carol Newquist]

I would say that The Godfather is a horizontal movie, and The Shining is a vertical movie. The Godfather is about exteriors, and The Shining is more about interiors. Especially Kubrick's version. That is why Kubrick traded out the topiaries for the maze.

Yes, of course. I liked both movies, but I thought it was interesting that King didn't like The Shining, especially since it was his book the movie was based off. As I mentioned, that probably could have been easily rectified with a discussion about Kubrick's intent when he bought the rights to turn the book into a movie. And let's face it, Coppola, if he was a jerk, could have taken that story and turned it into a Cheese Factory. Thankfully, he didn't, and instead we got a masterpiece. I will also mention that The Godfather is not bereft of vertical dimension. As with any good story, both movies deal with profound character transformations, just as Breaking Bad does.

[Col Quisp]

A freed eye sees the maze everywhere and the mind as a vehicle that always wants to go backward, through itself, like a filing cabinet drawer that dreams of a curious hand.
Nothing is at it seems and there is no escape. You might have a moment or two where you fantasize you are not being fooled or led and these are called epiphanies or visions even portals that open to artistic or scientific achievement/realization. The same phantasms are share by others throughout time.
A child can see what is really here only so long as she is incapable of describing it with the definitions she is given that blot out the true magnetic reality that exists between us and the universe.
Madness is in control and desire. We fall into our own designs for which we are rewarded with new forms of suffering and ruin. Our wings melt on the mildest of days.
At the peak of our genius the odds against us do not go down. We have come to value ourselves by the proportion of how dangersous we have become weighed against perhaps our strongest trait: denial.
You get a butcher knife.
He gets an ax.
Good luck.

Brilliantly spoken, Cionsul! You have the soul of a poet warrior.

[jingofever]

The director of Room 237 has a new movie about sleep paralysis, The Nightmare.

The documentary focuses on eight people suffering from sleep paralysis, a phenomenon where people find themselves temporarily unable to move, speak, or react to anything while they are falling asleep or awakening. Occasionally this paralysis will be accompanied by physical experiences or hallucinations that have the potential to terrify the individual. In the film Ascher interviews each participant and then tries to re-create their experiences on film with professional actors.

I am watching it right now. "When things like that happen it's very difficult to be like yeah I'm going to get a regular job", a guy says that, if what he described is accurate I would agree. I would probably look for a job testing amphetamines or cocaine. I am not sure how available it is right now. The one I am watching is not exactly legal, I suspect.