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August 30, 2010

Missing Kubrick

This profile of Christiane Kubrick from The Guardian is sad and lovely.

One time, she and Anya spotted me riffling through one of his old notepads in the stable block. She said: "I get very upset at seeing some of his old things. The paper is so dusty and old and yellow. They look so sad. The person is so very dead."

It was at the apex of my Kubrick obsession that I attended the Berlinale Talent Campus five years ago and, along with twenty or thirty other fellows of the program, got a personal tour of the master's archives from Christiane and her brother Jan Harlan. As I recall, before we stepped into the exhibit hall, Harlan proposed that she guide half of our group and he the other; but when it came time to split up, everyone crowded around Christiane, through whom, I suspect, we all thought might all get a little bit closer to our hero. They ended up joining forces and taking us through together.

The Kubrick Collection has since traveled around the world and been viewed by many, but at that time it was an exhibit that had not yet gone public, and the fact that I'd be seeing the Star Child in person was something I was completely unprepared for. Were I to get writerly about it, I'd suggest that staring that foam rubber infant dead the eye might have something to do with why I haven't revisited any of Kubrick's work these past few years, and why he's become less of an immediate icon to me and my own processes. But that just isn't the case.

Posted by David Lowery at August 30, 2010 1:51 PM

Comments

Posted by: mutinyco at August 31, 2010 11:05 PM