The three movies Stanley Kubrick regretted making
In the history of cinema, there were few film directors who epitomised the brilliance of the medium quite like Stanley Kubrick. A true auteur, Kubrick remains one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, known and loved for his visionary works of art in a wide range of genres.
Whether he was tackling science fiction in 2001: A Space Odyssey, horror in The Shining, the Vietnam War in Full Metal Jacket or even the erotic thriller in Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick proved his prowess as an artist time and time again, delivering genuine masterpieces across a career of genius.
Still, even the greatest directors with the most acclaim could occasionally look back on their careers with twinges of regret, reflecting on moments or scenes they might have made differently if given another chance, and Kubrick was no different, having pointed out three films he regretted making as he did.
The first of Kubrick’s biggest regrets arrived in 1952. Fear and Desire is Kubrick’s anti-war film and his directorial debut. It was a production marred by difficulty caused by a small team and widespread budgetary issues, so it’s rather remarkable that the film was released at all.
Still, that didn’t stop Kubrick from condemning his debut as a “bumbling amateur film exercise”. In fact, Kubrick hated Fear and Desire so much that he made Warner Brothers send a letter out to the journalism world claiming that the film was “boring and pretentious”, following up by actually trying to get the negatives burned.
Ten years later, Kubrick delivered his adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel Lolita, which admittedly split the critics because of its portrayal of sexual abuse. The film tells of a middle-aged English lecturer who becomes sexually interested in a young adolescent called Dolores Haze.
However, even though the film was indeed criticised by some corners, Kubrick had actually felt that the film ought to have been more erotic. Pressured by the Hays Code, Kubrick had to tone down the sexuality of Lolita, and he later said of the film, “I believe I didn’t sufficiently dramatise the erotic aspect of Humbert’s relationship with Lolita. I would have stressed the erotic component of their relationship with the same weight Nabokov did.” However, Kubrick didn’t, and he would be left to look back on the film with regret.
Even one of Kubrick’s most acclaimed movies would end up being hated by the director. 1971’s A Clockwork Orange is based on Anthony Burgess’ novel of the same name and tells of a young delinquent who undergoes a form of experimental psychological condition in order to reduce his violent behaviour.
Like Lolita, A Clockwork Orange was met with controversy, and swift censorship duly followed with worries that the film would incite the same violence it depicted. Kubrick was hurt by the overall reception of his work and proceeded to try to get the film banned from British cinemas. This was not an instance where Kubrick didn’t like the film that he had made, rather than a hatred for the kind of feedback it received.
Kubrick ought to have looked back on his work at the end of his life in 1999 with pride, seeing as so much of it was influential and revolutionary. However, even the master director had a few moments from his oeuvre that he wished might have gone differently, namely in the form of Fear and Desire, Lolita and A Clockwork Orange.