Stanley Kubrick, Life and Legacy

Pedagogy became a recurrent theme over the course of the workshop, so a session was dedicated to it on Friday morning. This took the form of a led discussion. James Fenwick asked the participants why they teach Kubrick. Daisy Baxter, a literature student, commented that her teacher chose Kubrick’s films because they lend themselves to textual analysis. Kubrick’s work is also a gateway to film studies in general. Kubrick is also a gateway into teaching more complex ideas, e.g. Nietzsche. His films still have resonance today, especially on the themes of environmentalism and violence. Nathan Abrams chose him for a course on Auteurs because his twelve films fitted neatly into a teaching semester.   Jeremi Szaniawski discussed the idea of Kubrick as a “bad object” for film studies, especially in the US. Kubrick’s status as a great white male, his violence and perceived misogyny and the subject matter (especially rape) require that his films are accompanied by trigger warnings, o...

Karen Ritzenhoff is a professor in the Department of Communication ofCentral Connecticut State University. Her research interests include war studies, gender and sexuality and Kubrick. She has recently co-edited The Handmaid's Tale: Teaching Dystopia, Feminism and Resistance Across Disciplines and Borders with Janis L. Goldie (Rowman and Littlefield 2019) and New Perspectives on the War Film , with Clementine Tholas and Janis L. Goldie. [1] Karen Rizenhoff can be contacted via email:  Ritzenhoffk@CCSU.edu Photo of Karen Ritzenhoff  presenting. Photo by Simone Odino. Presentation:   Karen Ritzenhoff  presented on Feminist approaches. Karen noted that Kubrick is often viewed as a misogynist. He repeatedly depicts male violence against women in his films. Feminism remains a guarded topic in Kubrick Studies. Research has generally taken a masculine focus: male violence against and objectification of women has received far more attention than the pligh...

Peter Kramer is the editor of Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives along with Tatiana Ljujic. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Masaryk University and at the University of Munich. He has also edited essays for Screen Acting and co-edited Silent Cinema Reader along with Lee Grieveson. [2,3] Peter Kramer can be contacted via email:  P.Kramer@uea.ac.uk Peter Kramer discussing with his pannel. Photo by Karen Ritzenhoff.  Presentation: Peter Kramer presented on the topic of marketing and audiences. He suggested an empirical study of Kubrick’s marketing, reception and influence and set out a list of possible research questions. Marketing: 1.       How did the distributors of Kubrick’s features market each of his films during their original theatrical release in the US? 2.       What influence did Kubrick have on the marketing of each of his films? 3.       Which demograph...

Dr. Lawrence Ratna ( Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust)  is a consultant psychologist working in mental health. In his research into Psychiatry and the Visual Arts, Dr. Ratna has investigated Hitchcock and is now interested in neurobiological approaches to Kubrick.  For more of Dr. Ratna’s research, see his website  http://lratna.com/index.html , which focuses on  The Shining .[3] Photo of  Dr. Lawrence Ratna  taken by Karen Ritzenhoff at the Workshop dinner at Katwij.  Presentation: Dr. Ratna presented on biographical approaches. In particular, he explored psychological approaches to Kubrick and his films. Dr. Ratna   is interested in Kubrick’s relationship to his mother and father. Both were Jews who fled Austria in the Nazi period and assimilated themselves into American life. Once in America, the Kubricks shed much of their Jewish heritage and assimilated into US culture. Dr. Ratna argued t...