Editing Stanley Kubrick (section)

== Career influences ==
[[File:Eisenstein Potemkin 2.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A woman with broken glasses and blood running down her face.|As a young man, Kubrick was fascinated by the films of [[Sergei Eisenstein]] and would watch films like ''[[Battleship Potemkin]]'' (1925) (pictured) frequently.]]

{{Blockquote|text=Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film knows that, although it can be like trying to write ''[[War and Peace]]'' in a bumper car at an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling.|author=Stanley Kubrick|source=accepting the [[D. W. Griffith Award]]{{Sfn|Duncan|2003|p= 9}}}}

As a young man, Kubrick was fascinated by the films of Soviet filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and [[Vsevolod Pudovkin]].{{Sfn|LoBrutto|1999|p=55}} Kubrick read Pudovkin's seminal theoretical work, ''Film Technique,'' which argues that editing makes film a unique art form, and it needs to be employed to manipulate the medium to its fullest. Kubrick recommended this work to others for many years. Thomas Nelson describes this book as "the greatest influence of any single written work on the evolution of [Kubrick's] private aesthetics". Kubrick also found the ideas of [[Konstantin Stanislavski]] to be essential to his understanding the basics of directing, and gave himself a crash course to learn his methods.{{sfn|Walker|1972|p=21}}

Kubrick's family and many critics felt that his Jewish ancestry may have contributed to his worldview and aspects of his films. After his death, both his daughter and wife stated that he was not religious, but "did not deny his Jewishness, not at all". His daughter noted that he wanted to make a film about the Holocaust, the ''Aryan Papers'', having spent years researching the subject.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.empireonline.com/features/unmade-stanley-kubrick/6.asp |title=Unmade Stanley Kubrick: Aryan Papers |work=Empire |accessdate=August 11, 2014 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213135846/http://www.empireonline.com/features/unmade-stanley-kubrick/6.asp |archivedate=December 13, 2013}}</ref> Most of Kubrick's friends and early photography and film collaborators were Jewish, and his first two marriages were to daughters of recent Jewish immigrants from Europe. British screenwriter [[Frederic Raphael]], who worked closely with Kubrick in his final years, believes that the originality of Kubrick's films was partly because he "had a (Jewish?) respect for scholars". He declared that it was "absurd to try to understand Stanley Kubrick without reckoning on Jewishness as a fundamental aspect of his mentality".{{sfn|Raphael|1999|pp=107–8}}
Walker notes that Kubrick was influenced by the tracking and "fluid camera" styles of director [[Max Ophüls]], and used them in many of his films, including ''Paths of Glory'' and ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. Kubrick noted how in Ophüls' films "the camera went through every wall and every floor".{{Sfn|Kagan|2000|p=2}} He once named Ophüls' ''[[Le Plaisir]]'' (1952) as his favorite film. According to film historian John Wakeman, Ophüls himself learned the technique from director [[Anatole Litvak]] in the 1930s, when he was his assistant, and whose work was "replete with the camera trackings, pans and swoops which later became the trademark of Max Ophüls".{{sfn|Wakeman|1987|pp=677–83}} Geoffrey Cocks believes that Kubrick was also influenced by Ophüls' stories of thwarted love and a preoccupation with predatory men, while Herr notes that Kubrick was deeply inspired by [[G. W. Pabst]], who earlier tried, but was unable to adapt Schnitzler's ''Traumnovelle'', the basis of ''Eyes Wide Shut''.{{sfn|Herr|2001|p=27}} Film historian/critic [[Robert P. Kolker|Robert Kolker]] sees the influence of [[Orson Welles]]' moving camera shots on Kubrick's style. LoBrutto notes that Kubrick identified with Welles and that this influenced the making of ''The Killing'', with its "multiple points of view, extreme angles, and deep focus".{{sfn|LoBrutto|1999|pp=126, 318}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0048.html |title=An enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an anorak |author=Curtis, Quentin |year=1996 |work=The Daily Telegraph |location=UK |accessdate=January 21, 2011 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628195118/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0048.html |archivedate=June 28, 2011}}</ref>

Kubrick admired the work of [[Ingmar Bergman]] and expressed it in personal letter: "Your vision of life has moved me deeply, much more deeply than I have ever been moved by any films. I believe you are the greatest film-maker at work today [...], unsurpassed by anyone in the creation of mood and atmosphere, the subtlety of performance, the avoidance of the obvious, the truthfulness and completeness of characterization. To this one must also add everything else that goes into the making of a film; [...] and I shall look forward with eagerness to each of your films."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ingmarbergman.se/verk/kubrick-letter/media/22041 |title=Kubrick letter |website=www.ingmarbergman.se |language=sv |accessdate=August 20, 2018 |archivedate=December 27, 2020 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227043144/https://www.ingmarbergman.se/verk/kubrick-letter/media/22041|url-status=live}}</ref>

When the American magazine ''Cinema'' asked Kubrick in 1963 to name his favorite films, he listed [[Federico Fellini]]'s ''[[I Vitelloni]]'' as number one in his Top 10 list.<ref>Ciment, Michel. [http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/milestones.html "Kubrick: Biographical Notes"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181220082715/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/milestones.html |date=December 20, 2018 }}; accessed December 23, 2009.</ref>{{clear left}}