Kubrick’s correspondence – Mick Broderick (Tuesday 16 July 2019)

Michael (Mick) Broderick is Associate Professor of Media Analysis at Murdoch University, Western Australia. A specialist in nuclear culture, the apocalyptic and the mediation of trauma, he is author-producer of over 100 scholarly works including research monographs, journal articles, book chapters, curated exhibitions, art instalations and digital media productions. His major publications realting to Stanley Kubrick include The Kubrick Legacy (2019), Reconstructing Strangelove: Inside Stanley Kubrick’s ‘nightmare comedy’ (2017) and the "Post-Kubrick" dossier for Screening the Past (2017).

Mick Broderick can be contacted via email: M.Broderick@murdoch.edu.au
URL: http://profiles.murdoch.edu.au/myprofile/michael-broderick/

Mick Broderick during his pannel on Kubrick's Correspondence. Photo by Karen Ritzenhoff.

Presentation: 

On 26^th of June 2019 in preparation for his presentation Mick Broderick asked that each workshop participant send me "one or two representative sample letters/ memos/ cables/ faxes/ emails from Stanley Kubrick that you feel indicates something special about Kubrick's personality, working methods, buisness relationships, and/or freindships."

Mick then built his presentation with all of the information provided by the conference. He began his presentation discussing the moral and legal dilemma of publishing correspondence between Kubrick and living correspondents.  What was intended as correspondence between two individuals is now open to the public and this has the potential of creating defamatory content.

Therefore, should all of Kubrick’s correspondence be accessible? If not, how do we outline these restrictions? Should the lines of restriction be drawn at the familial, the financial or legal level? Furthermore, how do we guarantee fair usage when using correspondence as a source?

There is a significant amount of information that can be learned by studying Kubrick’s correspondence. Namely we can learn how Kubrick's collaborative relationships evolved. How his projects either flourished or were abandoned. Because of the letter's dating we can timeline when decisions were made and these can either confirm or disprove in Mick’s words “Stanley Kubrick Mythology”. This textual evidence is brought to light by the correspondence and can lead to more definitive claims.

Because of technological advances in communication that occurred during Kubrick’s life time we have multiple sources of correspondence. These include: telegrams, telexes, faxes and emails. Kubrick's letters fall into multiple categories. These are: personal, production, project development, financial and legal. Furthermore, these were sent out to numerous groups of people. Collaborators, producers, authors, actors, friends, estates, extended family and wives are just a few of the groups of people who exchanged correspondence with Kubrick.

This leads us to an organizational dilemma. How do we collect, arrange and organize all of Kubrick’s correspondence? Should it be done chronologically? Should it be published online or in book format? Should we organize it by project or production?

Mick delivering his presentation of Kubrick's correspondence. Photo by Photo by Karen Ritzenhoff.

Panel: 

The panel began discussing the question of correspondence in accordance to the issues Mick brought up during his presentation. Kubrick’s extensive correspondence does deserve studying. There are lessons to be learned regarding Kubrick’s work habits and interpersonal connections. But in order to distill these lessons effectively from Kubrick’s correspondence a framework must be established.

The panel then discussed just what would be the best way to organize Kubrick’s correspondence. Mick’s suggestion, of using a chronological approach, seemed to be the best. In fact, Kubrick had used a similar approach when studying the life of Napoleon. He did so to facilitate the writing process for the script for his unmade film on Napoleon's life. Perhaps a similar approach in which academics and scholars calendarize Kubrick’s life, day by day, might lead to more insight into the mind of Stanley Kubrick, both the director and the person.

However, there is missing correspondence. Kubrick frequently communicated over the phone because of the phone's immediacy. Furthermore the Stanley Kubrick Archive does not have all of the letters sent to and from Kubrick.

So, there is the need to address the missing correspondence. The Stanley Kubrick Archive has only kept the correspondence sent out by Kubrick himself. Many of the letters sent out by Leon Vitali on behalf of Stanley Kubrick are not at the archive. Replies to collaborators are not in the archive as well. As such there is a need to reach out to correspondents for two reasons. The first step is to gain permission to utilize and publish Kubrick’s full correspondence and the second is to confirm the validity of the letters sent back and forth between Kubrick and his correspondence. This way scholars can disprove letters (such as the infamous “don’t fuck with me” letter) and use correspondence to supplement their arguments on Kubrick and his oeuvre. [1]

Bibliography:

Broderick, Mick. “Kubrick’s correspondence.” Stanley Kubrick, Life and Legacy. 16 July 2019, Leiden. [1]

Broderick, Mick. “Associate Professor Michael (Mick) Broderick.” Murdoch University Staff, http://profiles.murdoch.edu.au/myprofile/michael-broderick/. [2]

Blog post by: Miguel Mira