From The Shining to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick's grandiose movies have always been about being a jerk and taking it to extreme measures.
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From The Shining to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick's grandiose movies have always been about being a jerk and taking it to extreme measures.
Not to say that his films weren’t good, since Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest directors to have ever lived; however, there is indeed a recurring pattern visible in his movies. From The Shining to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s movies have had a repetitive theme of a central guy… being a jerk.
In this article, we shall examine how Kubrick created this grand illusion of things larger-than-life while focusing mainly on a singular character who just needs therapy and some snacks, maybe.
A military film that glamorized the theme of the dehumanizing effect of military training and the horrors of war, Full Metal Jacket was an iconic film by Stanley Kubrick that dealt with several issues.
The character at the center of it all was Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Being charged with the training of the men for war, Sergeant Hartman (portrayed by R. Lee Ermey) was a creative verbal abuser who broke down boys and molded them into men, ready for war.
However, his entire persona is developed around being a jerk. Believing that his task is to follow the system and break down teenage recruits, Sergeant Hartman is one of the baddest jerks in Stanley Kubrick’s movies.
A 1964 film that revolved around the events of the Cold War, Dr. Strangelove was Stanley Kubrick’s answer to paranoid bureaucratic jerks who prioritized their ego over the survival of humanity.
The film dealt with General Jack Ripper & Brigadier General Jack Turgidson, who brought the world to the brink of catastrophe by ordering an attack on the Soviet Union. The film showcased the ‘jerks’ as paranoid, believing conspiracy theories, and fueling their political egos rather than thinking about the larger cause.
Kubrick slyly took a dig at the chain of bureaucracy that is fueling entire nations and how fragile it is with Dr. Strangelove.
Released in 1971, A Clockwork Orange featured a story about a psychopathic delinquent who is sentenced to prison for murder and r*pe. In order to reduce his sentence, Alex volunteers for a government-supervised therapy program, but things go horribly wrong.
The central character, Alex, portrayed by Malcolm McDowell, is a teenage sadist who only enjoys inflicting pain and singing show tunes while doing it. He is the kind of jerk who revels in his own actions until society forces him to be a different kind of jerk, one that is a morally neutered one.
Despite the film talking about issues like free will, societal control, and ultraviolence as an art form, it’s really about a teenage sadist who enjoys his simple pleasures of killing and having fun while doing it.
Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in leading roles, Eyes Wide Shut depicted the themes of decadence and secret desires of the ultra-rich. With Kidman’s character telling Dr. Bill Harford that she fantasized about another man, Harford and Alice join a secret group obsessed with s*x.
Dr. Harford soon realizes that he cannot get out of the group and goes down a jealous, reckless, and thoroughly selfish journey that not only endangers their marriage, but also their lives. Dr. Bill Harford’s journey happens only to satisfy his wounded male ego and is kind of a jerk throughout the movie, just to soothe his wound.
Arguably one of his most famous movies, 2001: A Space Odyssey, featured an omniscient AI who decides to be a petulant, obsessive, passive-aggressive killer just because his feelings are hurt, i.e., Pinocchio is not a real boy. The AI, called HAL 9000, is not alone in this odyssey as his passive-aggressiveness is challenged by an equally jerky astronaut, David Bowman.
Dave Bowman sacrifices the entire mission purely out of his self-stubbornness and self-preservation against the AI, HAL 9000. The obvious choice was to discard both of them from the spaceship and complete the mission.
Lastly, the biggest example of a jerk character in any Stanley Kubrick movie is Jack Torrance in The Shining. Living alongside his family at the Overlook Hotel. Things take a turn for the worse as Jack Torrance gets visitations from all the spirits of the Overlook Hotel.
Being maniacal and possessed, Jack Torrance starts showing erratic behavior and uses his “art” to avoid responsibility, making him a petty, narcissistic jerk who gets worse with an axe. It wasn’t just the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel that made Jack Torrance break down the door and yell, “Here’s Johnny”, he was always hateful to his wife and his kid. The film talked about the deeper meaning behind writer’s block and the terrifying consequences of isolation. However, Jack Torrance could have solved the problem by simply going to a rage room.
