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From his landmark early films like PATHS OF GLORY, LOLITA and DR. STRANGELOVE, through his futuristic nightmare A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and on to his late masterpieces THE SHINING, FULL METAL JACKET and EYES WIDE SHUT, director Stanley Kubrick (1928 – 1999) created an unmistakable vision of a world both primitive and alarmingly advanced, plagued by war and constantly in search of some transcendent vision of harmony. His recurrent theme of the dehumanization of mankind was often juxtaposed against the exquisitely beautiful images he framed with his camera.

Born in the Bronx to Jewish parents, Kubrick was introduced at a young age to chess and photography by his physician father; both would become lifelong obsessions. At age 17, he joined the staff of Look magazine as a photographer, and after directing several short documentaries, made his first low-budget feature, FEAR AND DESIRE in 1953, followed quickly by KILLER’S KISS and THE KILLING.

Notoriously private but intensely loyal to friends and family, Kubrick spent much of the last four decades of his life at his home in England, surrounded by camera equipment and meticulous notes on the making of his films; he passed away there in 1999, just prior to the release of his final film EYES WIDE SHUT.

FULL METAL JACKET, 1987, Warner Bros., 116 min. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. A remarkably faithful and powerful adaptation of Gustav Hasford’s novel The Short Timers, flavored with equal parts black humor and pathos, following green Marine recruits Mathew Modine and Arliss Howard from basic training to Vietnam inferno. Includes some of the most jawdropping portrayals of military madness ever to grace the screen, courtesy of raw recruit Vincent D’Onofrio and real-life drill sergeant R. Lee Ermey.

Saturday, November 5 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

PATHS OF GLORY, 1957, UA (Sony), 86 min. Aided by writers Jim Thompson and Calder Willingham, Kubrick fashions what still remains one of the most biting, potent and eloquent anti-war films ever made. During WWI, French officer Kirk Douglas finds himself in a maze of catch-22 contradictions when he decides to defend three of his men against charges of cowardice from insane general George Macready. Featuring great performances from Adolphe Menjou, Ralph Meeker and Timothy Carey.

THE KILLING, 1956, UA (Sony), 83 min. Kubrick’s tough-as-nails heist film about a robbery at a racetrack features an incredible rogues’ gallery of great character actors, including Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor and Timothy Carey. One of the most entertaining crime films ever made, propelled by Kubrick’s no-nonsense approach and screenwriter Jim Thompson’s biting, chiseled-in-stone dialogue (based on Lionel White’s novel Clean Break).

BARRY LYNDON, 1975, Warner Bros., 183 min. Winner of four Academy Awards, including one for d.p. John Alcott’s marvelous cinematography (the all-candlelit interiors must be seen to be believed), BARRY LYNDON stars Ryan O’Neal as Thackeray’s flawed 18^th-century soldier of fortune, struggling to find his place in a rigidly structured (and beautifully coiffured) social hierarchy. Here, Kubrick recreates a bygone romantic era with a bittersweet wistfulness and a wealth of nuance and realistic detail. With Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger.