Editing Stanley Kubrick (section)

=== Collaboration with Peter Sellers (1962–1964) ===
==== ''Lolita'' ====
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Kubrick and Harris decided to start production of Kubrick's next film ''[[Lolita (1962 film)|Lolita]]'' (1962) in England, due to clauses placed on the contract by producers [[Warner Bros.]] that gave them complete control over the film, and the fact that the [[Eady Levy|Eady plan]] permitted producers to write off the costs if 80% of the crew were British. Instead, they signed a $1 million deal with [[Eliot Hyman]]'s [[Associated Artists Productions]], and a clause which gave them the artistic freedom that they desired.{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=76}} ''Lolita'', Kubrick's first attempt at [[black comedy]], was an adaptation of the [[Lolita|novel of the same name]] by [[Vladimir Nabokov]], the story of a middle-aged college professor becoming infatuated with a 12-year-old girl. Stylistically, ''Lolita'', starring [[Peter Sellers]], [[James Mason]], [[Shelley Winters]], and [[Sue Lyon]], was a transitional film for Kubrick, "marking the turning point from a naturalistic cinema&nbsp;... to the surrealism of the later films", according to film critic [[Gene Youngblood]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/836-lolita |title=Lolita |publisher=Criterion.com |last=Youngblood |first=Gene |date=September 24, 1992 |accessdate=August 11, 2014 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140824085752/http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/836-lolita |archivedate=August 24, 2014}}</ref> Kubrick was impressed by the range of actor Peter Sellers and gave him one of his first opportunities to improvise wildly during shooting, while filming him with three cameras.{{Sfn|LoBrutto|1999|pp=204–205}}{{efn|The two got on during production, displaying many similarities; both left school prematurely, played jazz drums, and shared a fascination with photography.{{sfn|Baxter|1997|p=154}} Sellers would later claim that "Kubrick is a god as far as I'm concerned".{{sfn|Baxter|1997|p=185}}}}

Kubrick shot ''Lolita'' over 88 days on a $2 million budget at [[Elstree Studios (Shenley Road)|Elstree Studios]], between October 1960 and March 1961.{{Sfnm|1a1=Baxter|1y=1997|1pp=157, 161|2a1=Duncan|2y=2003|2p=80}} Kubrick often clashed with Shelley Winters, whom he found "very difficult" and demanding, and nearly fired at one point.{{Sfn|LoBrutto|1999|p=209}} Because of its provocative story, ''Lolita'' was Kubrick's first film to generate controversy; he was ultimately forced to comply with censors and remove much of the erotic element of the relationship between Mason's Humbert and Lyon's Lolita which had been evident in Nabokov's novel.{{Sfnm|1a1=LoBrutto|1y=1999|1p=225|2a1=Duncan|2y=2003|2p=77}} The film was not a major critical or commercial success, earning $3.7 million at the box office on its opening run.{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=80}}{{efn|Kubrick and Harris had proved they could adapt a highly controversial novel without studio interference. The moderate earnings allowed them to set up companies in Switzerland to take advantage of low taxes on their profits and give them financial security for life.{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=80}}}} ''Lolita'' has since become critically acclaimed.<ref name="Lolita">{{cite web |url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1012611-lolita/ |title=Lolita |website=Rotten Tomatoes |accessdate=August 17, 2015 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150822191218/http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1012611-lolita |archivedate=August 22, 2015}}</ref>

==== ''Dr. Strangelove'' ====
[[File:Kubrick on the set of Dr. Strangelove (1963 publicity photo, SLK.124.32).jpg|thumb|Kubrick during the production of ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' in 1963]]
Kubrick's next project was ''[[Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb]]'' (1964), another satirical black comedy. Kubrick became preoccupied with the issue of [[nuclear war]] as the [[Cold War]] unfolded in the 1950s, and even considered moving to Australia because he feared that New York City might be a likely target for the Russians. He studied over 40 military and political research books on the subject and eventually reached the conclusion that "nobody really knew anything and the whole situation was absurd".{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=87}}

After buying the rights to the novel ''[[Red Alert (novel)|Red Alert]]'', Kubrick collaborated with its author, [[Peter George (author)|Peter George]], on the script. It was originally written as a serious political thriller, but Kubrick decided that a "serious treatment" of the subject would not be believable, and thought that some of its most salient points would be fodder for comedy.{{sfn|Walker|1972|p=29}} Kubrick's longtime producer and friend, [[James B. Harris]], thought the film should be serious, and the two parted ways, amicably, over this disagreement—Harris going on to produce and direct the serious cold-war thriller ''[[The Bedford Incident]].''<ref name="in_the_trenches_spring2013_dga_org">Feeney, F. X. (interviewing [[James B. Harris|Harris, James B.]] ): [https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1302-Spring-2013/James-Harris-on-Stanley-Kubrick.aspx "In the Trenches with Stanley Kubrick,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227043243/https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1302-Spring-2013/James-Harris-on-Stanley-Kubrick.aspx |date=December 27, 2020 }} Spring 2013, ''[[DGA Quarterly]],'' [[Directors Guild of America]], retrieved December 8, 2020</ref><ref name="profile_of_harris_mubi_com">Prime, Samuel B. (interviewing [[James B. Harris|Harris, James B.]] ): [https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-other-side-of-the-booth-a-profile-of-james-b-harris-in-present-day-los-angeles "The Other Side of the Booth: A Profile of James B. Harris in Present Day Los Angeles,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227043142/https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-other-side-of-the-booth-a-profile-of-james-b-harris-in-present-day-los-angeles |date=December 27, 2020 }} November 13, 2017, ''[[MUBI]],''retrieved December 8, 2020</ref><ref name="bedford_incident_review_radiotimes_com">Freedman, Peter: review: ''[https://www.radiotimes.com/film/ndk7p/the-bedford-incident/ The Bedford Incident] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227043146/https://www.radiotimes.com/film/ndk7p/the-bedford-incident/ |date=December 27, 2020 }},'' retrieved December 8, 2020</ref>  Kubrick and ''Red Alert'' author George then reworked the script as a satire (provisionally titled "The Delicate Balance of Terror") in which the plot of ''Red Alert'' was situated as a film-within-a-film made by an alien intelligence, but this idea was also abandoned, and Kubrick decided to make the film as "an outrageous black comedy".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Development – Scripts |url=https://archives.arts.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=SK/11/1 |accessdate=July 28, 2021 |website=archives.arts.ac.uk|archive-date=July 28, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210728103811/https://archives.arts.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=SK/11/1|url-status=live}}</ref>

Just before filming began, Kubrick hired noted journalist and satirical author [[Terry Southern]] to transform the script into its final form, a black comedy, loaded with sexual innuendo,{{sfn|Duncan|2003|pp=87–9}} becoming a film which showed Kubrick's talents as a "unique kind of absurdist" according to the film scholar Abrams.{{sfn|Abrams|2007|p=30}} Southern made major contributions to the final script, and was co-credited (above Peter George) in the film's opening titles; his perceived role in the writing later led to a public rift between Kubrick and Peter George, who subsequently complained in a letter to ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine that Southern's intense but relatively brief (November 16 to December 28, 1962) involvement with the project was being given undue prominence in the media, while his own role as the author of the film's source novel, and his ten-month stint as the script's co-writer, were being downplayed – a perception Kubrick evidently did little to address.<ref>Hill, Lee (2001). ''A Grand Guy: The Life and Art of Terry Southern'', Bloomsbury. London, pp. 124–125. {{ISBN|0747547335}}</ref>

Kubrick found that ''Dr. Strangelove'', a $2 million production which employed what became the "first important visual effects crew in the world",{{Sfnm|1a1=Baxter|1y=1997|1p=191|2a1=LoBrutto|2y=1999|2p=233}} would be impossible to make in the U.S. for various technical and political reasons, forcing him to move production to England. It was shot in 15 weeks, ending in April 1963, after which Kubrick spent eight months editing it.{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=91}} Peter Sellers again agreed to work with Kubrick, and ended up playing three different roles in the film.{{Efn|Footage of Sellers playing four different roles was shot by Kubrick: "an RAF captain on secondment to Burpelson Air Force Base as adjutant to Sterling Hayden's crazed General Ripper; the inept President of the United States; his sinister German security adviser; and the Texan pilot of the rogue B52 bomber", but the scene with him as a Texan pilot was excluded from the final version.{{sfn|Baxter|1997|p=177}}}}

Upon release, the film stirred up much controversy and mixed opinions. ''The New York Times'' film critic [[Bosley Crowther]] worried that it was a "discredit and even contempt for our whole defense establishment&nbsp;... the most shattering sick joke I've ever come across",{{sfn|Kercher|2010|pp= 340–341}} while [[Robert Brustein]] of ''Out of This World'' in a February 1970 article called it a "[[juvenalian]] satire".{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=91}} Kubrick responded to the criticism, stating: "A satirist is someone who has a very skeptical view of human nature, but who still has the optimism to make some sort of a joke out of it. However brutal that joke might be".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-stanley-kubrick-lacma-20121028-story.html |title=2012: A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey at LACMA |work=Los Angeles Times |last=Ng |first=David |date=October 26, 2012 |accessdate=August 11, 2014 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150604145233/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-stanley-kubrick-lacma-20121028-story.html |archivedate=June 4, 2015}}</ref> Today, the film is considered to be one of the sharpest comedy films ever made, and holds a near-perfect 98% rating on [[Rotten Tomatoes]] based on 91 reviews {{As of|2020|11|lc=yes}}.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dr_strangelove/ |title=Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) |website=Rotten Tomatoes |accessdate=August 17, 2015 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150820234059/http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dr_strangelove |archivedate=August 20, 2015}}</ref> It was named the [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies|39th-greatest American film]] and [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs|third-greatest American comedy film]] of all time by the [[American Film Institute]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.afi.com/100years/movies10.aspx |title=AFI's 100 GREATEST AMERICAN FILMS OF ALL TIME |publisher=American Film Institute |accessdate=August 17, 2015 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150818175815/http://www.afi.com/100Years/movies10.aspx |archivedate=August 18, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.afi.com/100Years/laughs.aspx |title=AFI's 100 Funniest American Movies Of All Time |publisher=American Film Institute |accessdate=August 17, 2015|url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151116134020/http://www.afi.com/100Years/laughs.aspx |archivedate=November 16, 2015}}</ref> and in 2010, it was named the sixth-best comedy film of all time by ''[[The Guardian]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/18/dr-strangelove-kubrick-comedy |title=Dr Strangelove: No 6 best comedy film of all time |work=The Guardian |last=Patterson |first=John |date=October 18, 2010 |accessdate=August 17, 2015 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150807135457/http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/18/dr-strangelove-kubrick-comedy |archivedate=August 7, 2015}}</ref>