Reception -- Jeremi Szaniawski (Wednesday 17 July 2019)

Jeremi Szaniawski is the editor of After Kubrick A Filmmaker's Legacy (Bloomsbury, 2020). He has alos published on Kubrick in Senses of  of Cinema, including the article After Kubrick (1927-1999): a Cinematic Legacy (2019),  as well as interview with  Gaspar Noé entitled “The absolute and ultimate manifestation of the power of the mind over technology”: Gaspar Noé talks 2001: A Space Odyssey (2018). He is the Amesbury Professor at UMass Amherst, Massachusetts, and also teaches at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in the Department of Information and Communication Studies. [3]

He can be reached via his LinkedIn: https://be.linkedin.com/in/jeremiszaniawski.

Jeremi Szaniawski attending the Workshop dinner at Katwijk. Photo by Karen Ritzenhoff.

Presentation:

Jeremi Szaniawski presented on Kubrick’s reception and “afterlife.” Firstly, we can consider Kubrick’s afterlife in the context of his immediate reception by film critics. Contrary to the popular belief that all Kubrick’s films were negatively reviewed, he received a mixed reaction from critics. Kubrick received praise from contemporary filmmakers such as Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard, generally for particular films rather than his whole oeuvre.

Szaniawski discussed the development of Kubrick’s cult status. It be attributed both to particular circumstances (e.g. drug busts at screenings of 2001: A Space Odyssey) and to carefully engineered marketing campaigns (The Shining as a prototype film for the VHS decade). Szaniawski linked Kubrick’s control of his own reception to his interest in immortality and the afterlife: “The concept of the ghost presupposes life after death. That’s a cheerful concept isn’t it?” (Kubrick to Stephen King, American Film magazine).

Another potential research topic is Kubrick’s reception and contemporary issues. Szaniawski listed a range of ideas:

• We could consider Kubrick’s online reception (e.g. as faking the Apollo 11 moon landing) in relation to the tropes of codes and secret societies which recur in his films, and relate this to the contemporary issue of conspiracy theories and fake news.
• The film’s depiction of domestic and sexual violence (e.g. in Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining) in relation to the #metoo movement.
• The Shining and millennial “burnout.”
• Transhumanism (2001: A Space Odyssey and AI: Artificial Intelligence)
• Space conquest (2001: A Space Odyssey)
• The environment (Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)

Szaniawski then turned to filmmakers influenced by Kubrick. Examples of these include Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Alex Garland, Yorgos Lanthimos and Paul Thomas Anderson. Some directors seem only to cite Kubrick (e.g. John Carpenter’s use of the “Dawn of Man” font for the title card of The Thing). Others authorize their films with explicit Kubrickian signatures (e.g. The Shining sequence in Spielberg’s Ready Player One). This can be compared to directors who rather infuse their films with a Kubrickian sensibility: Szaniawski defined this as a sense of epic and irony and gave the Coen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson as examples. [1]

Photo of Jeremi Szaniawski taken by Karen Ritzenhoff of his presentation.

Panel:

The group started trying to define and contextualize reception. Reception can be by critics, directors and fans. We perceive some receptions as active adaptations, which are a sign of auteurism (they make another text “their own”). Others we see as passive imitations, “blank parody.” However, we should investigate and historicize these ideas of reception. It was suggested that Kubrick straddles the Barthesian binary of writer and reader.

The discussion then turned to questioning the idea of citation. Given that certain motifs can just be part of the political zeitgeist, how do we know when filmmakers have chosen to imitate Kubrick? The idea of cultural memory was raised as a solution to this. It was also noted that Kubrick’s films are unusual in that their reception spans the range from highbrow to lowbrow culture.

There are some dangers in understanding Kubrick’s reception from the perspective of Kubrick studies. We can get the impression that Kubrick is the origin of all things, when he himself was influenced by other directors (e.g. Ophüls) and those who quote him refer to other directors as well. There is perhaps a self-perpetuating loop, whereby we teach Kubrick as central to the canon. Film students consequently copy him and his central position is reaffirmed. Kubrick’s dominance in UK film studies risks excluding students’ access to other directors from diverse backgrounds. Director Maximillian Oppenheimer, also known as Max Ophuls.

Director Maximillian Oppenheimer, also known as Max Ophuls. [2]

The group then returned to the central question of why people to quote Kubrick. There were a range of ideas. Some of the group suggested that these references serve to reinforce legitimacy and cultural capital; others see them as admiration for Kubrick as a technician and consummate professional. Citations of Kubrick can also be understood in terms of cult status and exploitation, cinematic language and interpretation of his films.

Bibliography: 

1. Szaniawski, Jeremy. “Reception.” Stanley Kubrick, Life and Legacy. 17 July 2019, Leiden.

2. “Max Ophuls (Creator).” TV Tropes, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/MaxOphuls.

3. “Jeremi Szaniawski.” Google Scholar, googlescholar.com, https://scholar.google.be/citations?user=PF1YFysAAAAJ&hl=en 

Article by: Daisy Baxter

Images, Captions, Bio & Bibliography: Miguel Mira