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he fanatics among you will know, by the time you
read this, that the long-awaited Stanley Kubrick
boxed set of seven films, released through Warner
Home Video, is a great big disappointment.
I am, at the time of this writing, just experiencing that
first wave of anger and incredulity. The DVD set was
released, officially, on the very day this article had to be
turned in, and I only managed by wit and ingenuity – hardy-
har – to scrounge the Kubrick package a few days earlier,
no thanks to Warner’s folks.
And small wonder.
The set consists of Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A
Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The
S h i n i n g , and Full Metal Jacket. MGM issued three other and
earlier Kubrick films separately: K i l l e r ’s Kiss, The Killing,
a n d Paths of Glory. K u b r i c k ’s director- f o r-hire flick, the epic
S p a r t a c u s , evidently had been disowned by the man.
I have no idea why the three earlier films weren’t
included in the “official” Stanley-approved set. Maybe, as in
the case of Spartacus, he didn’t consider them equal to his
best. What we were told, by Warner, was that Kubrick
designed the package and approved its contents. In which
case, double the mystery and double my doubts about cer-
tain of Kubrick’s judgments. None of the discs are “anamor-
phically” enhanced, which is a crying shame. And most of
the transfers have been done at relatively low bit rates,
which results, in too many cases, in soft pictures – even on
a standard monitor.
Lolita, Strangelove, and Barry Lyndon fare best in
terms of picture quality (read: definition), even though the
film stock used in shooting Lolita (as seen in the theater)
wasn’t of consistent quality: Exteriors are sometimes soft in
focus, while the interiors are just jim-dandy. Exactly the
same may be said for Strangelove, which also has more
speckles than you’d ever expect from an element that ought
to be in better shape. (But, then, so does The Shining in
places.) Lyndon looks spectacular, better than I’ve seen it
on any transfer. Note particularly the available-light scenes,
shot with only candles for illumination, which are now
sharply defined with much less color saturation and much
more natural skin tones.
2001 is regrettably exactly the same transfer (unen-
. . . . . . . . .
Special Editions:
Kubrick and The Space Monsters