Considered by many, myself included, to be the greatest director that ever lived, Stanley Kubrick was the most meticulous, exacting, and brilliant filmmaker to ever grace us with his unique worldview. Kubrick began his career as a freelance photographer whose work was published by Look Magazine when he was still in high school. He moved into the world of moving pictures in the early 50s and began to craft a film legacy that's second to none.
Ever a man ahead of his time, Kubrick began his overt experimentation with pushing the boundaries of sexuality in film in the 60s, including his infamous "snails and oysters" bathhouse scene from 1960'sSpartacus which was excised in its initial release before being reinstated to the film in 1991. His films only got more overtly sexual from there, setting the stage for a career filled with some of the most explosive content ever put to film.
Kubrick constantly raised the bar in nearly every aspect of filmmaking, and his meticulous eye and attention to detail gave the sex and nudity in his films an edge few others have dared to copy. Let's dig through five of his films and look at the ways in which he used sex and nudity to enhance his narratives, and filmed them with suchpainstaking care, making sure that the audience knew when to be turned on... and when to be repulsed!
Lolita (1962)
Only a mad genius like Stanley Kubrick would have attempted to adapt Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel into a film in the days of the restrictive Hays Code. The story of professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) and his obsession with 14 year old Dolores Haze (Sue Lyons), whom he dubs Lolita.
Kubrick brilliantly dodged one of the story's most controversial elements byintroducing us to Humbert at the story's end—after he's murdered Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers). Ensuring that the audience already knows that Humbert is a reprehensible character prior to his involvement with the underagedDolores was a masterstroke—though had he not jettisoned Humbert's backstory involving two stays in a mental institution, that may have also done the trick. This also eliminated the need for some of the more unsavory elements of Humbert's "inner monologues" from the book.
The film's detractors will also point out that expanding the role of Quilty into that of the film's main antagonist makes Humbert more sympathetic by default, but I would steer clear of anyone who walks away from the film admiring Humbert. It's obvious that Kubrick reviles both characters, putting them on a level playing field that further illustrates their equally repulsive behavior.
Since the story's controversial sexuality couldn't be overt at the time, Kubrick came up with ways to artfully dodge it, but it didn't stop The Catholic Legion of Decency—a rather ironically named institution considering the church's dubious practices at the time—from condemning the film outright. It was Kubrick's first brush with controversy, but certainly not his last...
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Hays Code now dead and gone, Kubrick was finally free to let his inhibitions run wild, and that's exactly what he did with this adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange."Set in a nondescript future, A Clockwork Orange tells thestory of teenaged delinquent Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his band of droogs, as they engage in "a bit of the old ultraviolence." Alex's story takes him from orgiastic highs to murderous lows, with the character ending up in prison, participating in a curative treatment known as The Ludovico Technique, and finding himself go from a perpetrator of crimes to a victim of them.
Alex's exploits in the film's first actare seen through his eyes, so there's a celebratory nature to the sex and violence, which many of the film's staunchest critics using this as a weapon against the film. One would have to ignore the ensuing two acts entirely to take this message away from the film, which sadly plenty of young hoodlums at the time were all to happy to do.
Many scenes in this first portion of the film stand out, such as the "Singin' in the Rain" attack on Adrienne Corri (above), which is still effectively chilling. Then there's Alex's threesome with two girls he meets at a record shop, set to an electronica version of "The William Tell Overture." Nothing other than just watching the scene can do it justice, so set aside 45 seconds to watch one of the most unbridled and anarchic threesomes ever put to film...
There is nothing sexy about the nudity in A Clockwork Orange, a point driven homeat the hour and twenty three minute mark in the film. Alex, having successfully completedhis Ludovico treatment, is brought out in front of a crowd of academics to be humiliated. At one point in the demonstration, a topless Virginia Wetherell comes onstage...
When Alex attempts to grab her breasts, he becomes violently ill, hisbody now rejecting his mind's sexual impulses...
Alex then falls victim to several revenge attacks by those he had previously wronged in the film, leading to him attempting suicide and finally settling with the government for a large sum of money when they admit their techniques brought about his downfall. The film ends with an exuberant Alex fantasizing about sex (with the bustyKatya Wyeth) for the first time since undergoing treatment, proudly declaring, "I was cured all right!"
Grim stuff, no matter how boisterous and celebratory Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1" blaring on the soundtrack may make it seem.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Kubrick's meticulousness reached its zenith with his 1975 adaptation of William Makepeace Thackery's "The Luck ofBarry Lyndon." Born out of a failed attempt to bring the story of Napoleon to the big screen, the story of Irish rogue Barry Lyndon (Ryan O'Neal) gave the director the chance he always wanted to make a film that looked and felt like a Renaissance painting.
His use of natural lighting, archaic lenses, and impeccably designed costumes and sets is not everyone's cup of tea, but it's another film brimming with sexuality, while strangely keeping nudity at arm's length throughout. In fact, the only nudity in Kubrick's only PG-rated effort comes courtesy of Marisa Berenson's Lady Lyndon, who gives us a peek at her bush beneath the water of her bathtub at the hour and fifty-one minute mark...
There's plenty of cleavage throughout the film, as well, courtesy of the period accurate bodices that gave even the most modestly endowed women the look of a busty pin-up model. Though never really chaste, the film has a late 18th century approach to sexuality that perfectly places the film in that time and place. It's perhaps the sexiest movie you could watch with your grandmother.
The Shining (1980)
Five years later, Kubrick set his sights on Stephen King's "The Shining," a tale of paranoia that played like a haunted house film of old. Ever the fan of atmospheric chills over jump scares, Kubrick crafted a film that haunts the viewer and lingers in their mind long after it's over. The story of author turned winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), The Shiningbuilds dread like few other horror films, instilling in the audience a sense of unease that he manages to sustain for nearly two and a half hours.
Thereare all manner of psycho-sexual elements at play in this film, with many viewers interpreting an inappropriate relationship between Jack and his son Danny(Danny Lloyd) as the root of many of the family's problems prior to the events of the film. Kubrick once again manages to artfully dodge any sort of overt allusions to this, placing enough breadcrumbs trailing off in different directions as to make the film open to literally dozens of interpretations.
The film's big "sexual" scene takes place at the hour and thirteen minute mark in the fabled Room 237, where Jack goes to investigate a claim by Danny that there's something in that room. When he first enters, he discovers the gorgeous Lia Beldam sitting naked in the tub, before she stands up and approaches the caretaker for a little afternoon delight...
Kubrick abruptly returns to horror, however, replacing the beautiful Beldam with the hideously make-upped Billie Gibson, whose rotting corpse chases Jack from the room...
What does it all mean? Who knows? It could mean any number of things, but its main purpose to the story is to illustrate that the hotel wants Jack for its own, and will seduce him by any means necessary. Kubrick once more mixes sex and repulsive horror to unnerve the audience and further increase their dread.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
For what wouldend up being his final film, Kubrick enlisted Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidmanfor his adaptation ofArthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella "Traumnovelle," eventually titled Eyes Wide Shut. Far and away his most blatantly sexual film, Eyes Wide Shut tells the story of a wealthy doctor named Bill Harford (Cruise), whose wife Alice (Kidman) confesses one night to having thought about cheating on him with a young sailor at a resort the two were at on vacation.
Bill then sets out into the New York City night on an adventure to find out if he has it in himself to cheat on his wife. Like The Shining before it, Eyes Wide Shuthas a dreamlike structure and creeping sense of paranoia, in which you're never sure if anything you're seeing on screen is actually happening. Early in the film, Bill helps his friend Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack) deal with a buxom woman (Julienne Davis) who overdosed while preparing for sex with Ziegler...
Later in the film, Bill manages to work his way into an exclusive One Percenter orgy, where he finds himself drawn to a woman (Abigail Good) whom he thinks he recognizes as the same woman from Ziegler's house...
To his credit, Kubrick cast a different actress for this scene, so even though Ziegler later tells him point blank thatshe was the same woman he helped with the overdose earlier in the film, it's not the same actress, leading the audience to once again question the film's own logic.
About that orgy scene, though. Before the film's release, Kubrick sanctioned the use of digital bodies being placed in the frame in front of some of the more explicit scenes in order to secure a more commercially viable R-rating.This was later undone on the film's Blu-ray and DVD releases, giving us Kubrick's complete and untouched vision of the scene, a hint of which you can see here as Cruise and Good walk by a couple fucking on a couch...
Kubrick, of course, ends the film with a concise thesis statement of a single word spoken by Kidman to her husband in a toy store, cheekily sending the audience out into the warm summer night with a whole lot to think about...
Right up until the very end, Kubrick just loved messing with his audience and letting them know that there's no such thing as a tidy resolution in life. It's a messy world full of things that seem real but often aren't, and the only thing we can do to relieve ourselves from the pressures of this world is to get busy.
Let's end on a high note, with the song most closely associated with the film, Chris Isaak's "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing." Ever the master of pairing music and images, this is the perfect theme song for Kubrick's final masterpiece, and one hell of a way to send you back into the real world!
