Kubrick’s photography/photojournalism – Nathan Abrams (Thursday 18 July 2019)

Nathan Abrams is a Professor in Film at Bangor University. He has systematically published on Stanley Kubrick over the last thirteen years.

·        In the year of 2006, Nathan Abrams wrote: Stanley Kubrick, the Holocaust and History.

·        In 2012 he wrote: "A double set of glasses": Stanley Kubrick and the midrashic mode of interpretation and Sub-epidermic Jewishness’: Stanley Kubrick’s Mythical Movie Jews.

·        In 2013: Kubrick’s Double: Lolita’s Hidden Heart of Jewishness and Lolita’s Hidden Heart of Jewishness.

·        In 2014: The Banality of Evil: Polanski, Kubrick, and the Reinvention of Horror, 'Dr. Strangelove’ and the Jewish question, The Myth of Tyranny: Stanley Kubrick's Working Practices, An Alternative New York Intellectual: Stanley Kubrick’s Cultural Critique, A Hidden Heart of Jewishness and Englishness: Stanley and A Jewish American Monster: Stanley Kubrick, Anti-Semitism and Lolita (1962)

·        In 2015: Becoming a Macho Mensch: Stanley Kubrick, Spartacus and 1950s Jewish Masculinity, Stanley Kubrick’s “agnostic prayer”: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove and the Final Solution’, The Future is Orange: Utopia and Dystopia in the Films of Stanley Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick: Midrashic Movie Maker.

·        In 2016: The Wandering Ape: Postscript to “Kubrick’s Double: Lolita’s Hidden Heart of Jewishness.” and Kubrick’s Double: Lolita’s Hidden Heart of Jewishness.

·        In 2017: What was HAL? IBM, Jewishness, and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Emilio D’Alessandro with Filippo Ulivieri, Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side. Translated by Simon Marsh. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2016.

·        In 2018: Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

·        In 2019: and Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film.

In 2020: Kubrick's Cube: Stanley Kubrick, Judaism, and His Jewish Heirs.

For more than a decade Nathan Abrams has consistently published on Stanley Kubrick. Currently he supervises Dion Wyn Hughes's dissertation on Childhood in the Films of Stanley Kubrick and Chris Bainbridge on Kubrick as Musician. He is responsible for the module Stanley Kubrick: Auteur at Bangor University. Nathan Abrams stands today as one of the leading scholars on Stanley Kubrick because of his immense body of research. [2,3]

Nathan Abrams can be contacted via email: n.abrams@bangor.ac.uk or via twitter: @ndabrams.

Nathan Abrams attending the Workshop dinner at Katwijk. Photo by Karen Ritzenhoff.

Presentation:

Nathan Abrams argued that there is a lack of study on Kubrick’s early life particularly as a young photographer and his early contributions to Look Magazine. There has been one notable academic who has written a full book on the subject matter. His name is Philippe Mather and the title of the book is Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine: Authorship and Genre in Photojournalism and Film. This book was published last year in 2018. There have been a couple of other publications that touched on the subject matter such as Christiane Kubrick’s Stanley Kubrick a Life in Pictures, (2002) Rainer Crone’s Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows 1945-1950 (2005) and Luc Sante’s Stanley Kubrick through a Different Lens (2018).  

Nathan Abrams understood that there might be some reticence to study this epoch of Stanley Kubrick's life. This reticence is due to the fact that Kubrick was still a commercial artist at this time working under other journalists, writers and editors. Therefore he did enjoy the full auteurism of his later films. However it was still Stanley Kubrick crafting the framing of these images. Therefore these images should be viewed as precursors to the framing Kubrick would use in his films at a later stage in his career.

With this in mind Kubrick's photojournalism and the time Kubrick spent at Look Magazine should be studied to understand when Kubrick began framing and shooting in specific ways.  Kubrick’s preference to using natural and practical lighting can be dated back to his shoots for the magazine. Therefore, there is a parallel between his early photography work and his directorial work. Furthermore, his experimentation with framing in photography would plant the seed for many of the compositions of his future films.  He went as far as to duplicate compositions from this era in his productions.

Nathan Abrams concluded that a study by the academic community was necessary in order to extract just how did Kubrick’s time at Look magazine influence him, his career and his style as a director. [1]

A young Stanley Kubrick takes a self portrait. [4]

Panel:

Peter Kramer began by the panel by reinforcing the point that Kubrick was indeed a hired hand at the magazine. He had no input as to what articles were being written and produced by the magazine. Furthermore, the magazine had an approximate audience of ten million readers per month. Therefore, Kubrick’s inclination to be concerned with how the finances and marketing of his film worked might have started at this point in the director's life time.

Dijana Metlic added that the work of Kubrick at this time should be viewed through a 1940’s New York photographer lens. Therefore, the work of Diane Arbus and Weegee also should be taken into account when analyzing Kubrick’s work, because the work of these prolific photographers might have in some way or another influenced Kubrick’s photography.

Robert Kolker added that the photographs taken by Kubrick for Look magazine should be viewed as documentary pieces and not as artistic creations because of their essential photo-journalistic nature. Therefore, a more direct comparison might be to photo-journalistic photographers of the United States East Coast in the 1940s. Such as the work of Todd Webb and Gordon Parks.

The famous phrase "In movies you don't try and photograph the reality, you try and photograph a photograph of the reality" was brought up during the discussion. This phrase was first coined by Jack Nicholson as something Kubrick said during the production of The Shining. However, Filippo Ulivieri warned the panel to not consider this phrase as having been authenticated. 

The panel concluded that the best way to move forward was to study Kubrick’s photography in order to understand just how much or how little it influenced his later career as a director. We can understand this by searching for potential dual compositions re-utilized from Kubrick's photojournalism employment at Look Magazine in his later films.

Nathan Abrams speaking during the general discussion. Photo by Karen Ritzenhoff.

Bibliogarphy:

1. Abrams, Nathan. “Kubrick’s Photography/Photojournalism.” Stanley Kubrick, Life and Legacy. 15 July 2019, Leiden.

2. “Research Portal.” Nathan Abrams - Bangor University, https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nathan-abrams(b8c6d91f-14c5-4862-8745-0f5d0e938a28).html.

3. “Research Portal.” Nathan Abrams - Bangor University, https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nathan-abrams(b8c6d91f-14c5-4862-8745-0f5d0e938a28).html.

4. Intellect Books. “Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine.” IQ Magazine, 5 May 2015, https://intellectquarterly.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/stanley-kubrick-at-look-magazine/.

Notes by: Roderick Munday.

Blog Post by: Miguel Mira.