MovieChat Forums > Stanley Kubrick Discussion > Starting with 2001, his movies became ve...

Starting with 2001, his movies became very cold and distant.


Kubrick's earlier films, such as Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita and Dr. Strangelove have a much warmer, human feeling than everything he did after 2001. He seems to have adopted a very cold, distant and impersonal style for his futuristic film and just hung onto it for the rest of his career, regardless of the genre he was working in. Even his other historical epic besides Spartacus, Barry Lyndon, has this inhuman coldness and impersonality to it.

It's very difficult to look at his later films and accept that the same man who made Spartacus and Paths of Glory also made 2001, Barry Lyndon, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket.

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Are you saying it's a bad thing or that he just changed his style and it's still great?

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Both styles are good, but so very different that it seems impossible for them to be done by the same man. Also, his style seems not to have changed at all post-2001. It's like the rest of his career just sprang into being full-blown with 2001. You can't really even see a progression towards the second style.

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I never noticed a stylistic difference, but I do prefer his films from 2001 on.

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