AI, Kubrick, Spielberg etc

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Originally posted by docraven




Spielberg says that A.I. was originally a Kubrick project.

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He can try and seperate himself from it all he wants but it wasn't Kubrick who made that horrible film! The blame lies fully at the feet of the ego-maniacal Spielberg.

Spielberg is a genius and when challenged, as he was in "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" can produce fantastic films, but he needs to learn to quit meddling with the stories of others. He admits that he would have "shown the shark" in Jaws had it been functioning, but the limitation of NOT having everything forced him to be more creative! He turned "Jaws" from a potential B-movie into a classic. His extended ending of "Close Encounters" was awful. The studio was right to release the tighter version.

Spielberg had become this big icon of Hollywood and people don't have the stones to say "No! that's over the top." to him anymore.

Similarly, George Lucas has gone of the digital deep-end and become enamored with what he CAN do instead of what he should do.

As regards:

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Originally posted by stevetseitz
… I just get so tired of the lavish praise for what I see as excellent but not truly classic films (2001, Dr. Strangelove).

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I am placing a comment in the Kubrick forum.

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Originally posted by stevetseitz


He can try and seperate himself from it all he wants but it wasn't Kubrick who made that horrible film! The blame lies fully at the feet of the ego-maniacal Spielberg.

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Really interesting comments -- I’ve left a response to this in the new Kubrick forum.

D

First of all, that film was definitely a Kubrick idea. He started it but realized his own maticulousness and passed it on to Spielberg. The boy would have aged during filming. Second of all, that film was brilliant. Spielberg took what he knew as a master film maker and presented us with a piece of artwork to pay homage to his predicessor as, in my opinion, the greatest filmmaker around. Spielberg and Kubrick arranged for Spielberg to direct it for years, since right after Schindler's List if I'm not mistaken. It's all in the AI DVD and in the documentary, "Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures." Check these out for all the info you'll need to know on the back story. I know tons of people who don't like AI either. I just see it differently.

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Originally posted by jacobic216
First of all, that film was definitely a Kubrick idea. He started it but realized his own maticulousness and passed it on to Spielberg. The boy would have aged during filming. Second of all, that film was brilliant. Spielberg took what he knew as a master film maker and presented us with a piece of artwork to pay homage to his predicessor as, in my opinion, the greatest filmmaker around. Spielberg and Kubrick arranged for Spielberg to direct it for years, since right after Schindler's List if I'm not mistaken. It's all in the AI DVD and in the documentary, "Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures." Check these out for all the info you'll need to know on the back story. I know tons of people who don't like AI either. I just see it differently.

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The film was horrifically bad. A.I. was the perfect example of what happens to a director when no one around him has the guts to say,"Steven, that is too much." "Steven, your'e rambling." "Steven, that is over the top." Spielberg was so enamored with himself and his ability to use C.G.I. that he created a monster with no soul. It's like Spielberg has reached a level where no one dare question him. He works much better WITH limitations than without. (See: "Jaws") The film aside from neat design aspects lacked any redeeming qualities.

Here is an aside: After seeing the film, The audience in my theater sat quietly in stunned amazement, before the laughter broke out in the theater. Nearly everyone was shaking their heads while leaving the movie.

I was wonderfully touched and moved by AI and as a fan of sci fi, I felt that AI hit the themes and characterization of essence of sci fi very well. The movie he created was "a monster with no soul" but that is exactly the point. The human race had become a monster without a soul and it took an artificial person to demonstrate that to the audience. Perhaps, the audience didn't like the message but that is what makes AI so great. Sometimes people don't like a movie because they don't like what it's trying to say. The blend of Kubrick and Spielberg was fascinating and the ending haunting.

>>>The movie he created was "a monster with no soul" but that is exactly the point. The human race had become a monster without a soul and it took an artificial person to demonstrate that to the audience. Perhaps, the audience didn't like the message but that is what makes AI so great.<<<

I always have been wary of the tactic of using a criticism of a film as it's "secret weapon". It would be like me poorly filming and editing a movie with a camcorder. When critics said it is "raw and amateurish" I'd simply say, "Exactly!, that's the whole point!" If a message is worth saying it's worth saying it in a way that relates to the audience.

AI appreared to be polished requiring a big budget. I loved how adult oriented the movie was. The problem with the movie was that it wasn't a children's movie that many people possibly expected. William Hurt wasn't a sympathetic character in the end which probably put people off, but it reflected a serious commentary on the "monster" of the humanity of man while it was the artificial child that ultimately represented humanity. Just because the audience couldn't "relate" to this adult movie because of the number of child attending expecting a family-oriented movie doesn't diminish the fact that its targeted sci fi audience could find many great ideas well-depicted and its hard-hitting commentary a tribute to Kubrick's social messages of past movies. Kubrick's movie are not expected to be box office sensations nor to attract great popular following. Spielberg did well by not turning Kubrick's original idea by watering down to the general public and turning it into a cute, entertaining movie experience.

I did not find it to be amateurish. Rather, I thought AI represented Spielberg attempting to direct in the style Kubrick shot it. I think he pulled it off marvelously. Kubrick's films are more often than not slammed by the critics. Kubrick's films are always very dark with an ending of immence contraversy. Spielberg kept Kubrick's legacy of art rather than money alive. It shows that even for a man like Spielberg, it's not entirely dollars and cents.

>>Kubrick's movie are not expected to be box office sensations nor to attract great popular following.<<

>>Kubrick's films are more often than not slammed by the critics.<<


Hmmm....it seems that depending on who you listen to Kubricks' films 1. Aren't popular with the audiences 2. Don't make money
3. Are slammed by the critics.

Heck, Joe Esterhas stumbled onto that exact combination with his screenplays for "Showgirls" and "Jade", does this mean that Esterhas ,like Kubrick, is a misunderstood genius? Or how about Ed Wood? His films were never popular with audiences, bombed at the box-office and were lambasted by critics.

Kubrick's career peaked early in his life and he never matched the glory or artistic achievment of his early work, and slowly descended into a mediocre auteur. His late efforts were inconsistent at the box office, typically unpopular with average audiences and recieved a mixed-bag of critical reviews.

While I understand that huge box office numbers can be the result of a marketing juggernaut like the Star Wars series, audience approval and overall critical acclaim are objective proof of the success of a film. If it doesn't have the box office, the audience or the critics on it's side, you have to wonder just how good a film really is.

For me a good movie, like AI, has to keep me constantly involved, allow me to understand and feel the characters and their emotions as well as their motivations, has a plot that I can follow and really absorb, entail serious, substantive matters/issues. The director who can make characters come alive, use acting (less talking), brings the images to life using cinematographic techniques is making a good movie regardless of its box office receipts/audience attendance or critic reviews. The message, the consistent serious undertone, the subtle twist at the end all lend to AI being a substantive work of art.

I felt the design in the film was great and the actual images were terrific , but the film lost me with unrealistic characters. I didn't get the sense that any of the characters were consistent and many were simply over-the-top caricatures. The machines were often more unpredictable than the humans. Like radiation in the 50's, Artificial intelligence has been exploited in movies as a "Frankenstein's monster" of the 21st century. It simply shows how little understanding of what real "a.i." is.

I agree with you about the exaggerated characterization of the artificial intelligence in the movie, but I didn't see that as a draw back. If the movie were taken more in terms of Alice in Wonderland fantasy, an imaginative adventure into a cautionary tale instead of an analysis of a realistic future of artificial intelligence. Used as an allegory, I found that the movie was entertaining in exposing the foibilities of humans not the weaknesses of the scientific technological gadgetry which was merely an exciting backdrop - more along the lines of Clockwork Orange. One of the interesting articles I read about computers nowadays is that they contain inherent flaws that computer experts and the computer industry know about and have decided that it makes economic sense just to leave them in. Similarly, the artificial intelligence in AI could be seen as just the result of the crazy mixed up and inconsistent world that we already exist in that the human created. The artificial intelligence just reflects what we already are but without deflection and artifice. The story is more about humans than about artificial intelligence and it isn't a statement about them at all.

I have a problem listening to critics when it comes to my preference in movies, or anyone else but myself for that matter. Critics are known to be harsh on the artistic genius that many directors have. They typically like a "Hollywood" type film without the added contraversy. I admit, Kubrick's greatest films were done between 1964 amd 1971 (Strangelove, 2001 and Clockwork). That doesn't mean that his later movies were amateurish or diserved any lack of respect from the community at large. My least favorite of his movies was Barry Lyndon, his followup to A Clockwork Orange. I found to be long, boring and one of the hardest movies ever to sit through. That doesn't mean it's bad, it's just not fun to watch, and that's what its about for me. AI and Eyes Wide Shut are not as popular because it's not the way anyone else wants the films to be. Well, I call bullshit on that. The movies done by a true artist are just that, a work of art by the film maker. He did movies in his vision, not the vision of what the audience wanted. If someone doesn't like it, I say go make your own movie. At least then if you don't like it you have no one to blame but yourself.

As for Showgirls, there is not a single redeming quality about that film. I'd rather watch Barry Lyndon every day for the rest of my life than sit through that film one more time. Believe me, I've tried. Ed Wood is a cult phenomanon who seemed to make bad movies on purpose. Verhoven didn't to do it on purpose. Basic Instinct, Total Recall and RoboCop are terrific films, the latter two contributing quality pictures to the sci-fi tone of 20th century film making.

When box offices, critics and audiences are not in favor of a particular film, it doesn't always mean it's bad. Many people loved Pearl Harbor, I thought it was one of the worst movies since Showgirls. One of my favorite horror flicks is The Stuff, which is inherently a bad film but it knows it, makes fun of it, has very high entertainment value, and it's fun to watch every time I do. Therefore its is a good movie.

I'll also mention about Star Wars, I liked The Phantom Menace but there is no way I would have if it came out first. By itself, it is a horrible film. As a part of the Star Wars saga, it adds much of the needed story that Lucas is telling. But, like any film, we can't tell Lucas how to make Star Wars. If something in it isn't the way we wanted it to be, get over it. I've been generally let down by the new Star Wars movies. The original three blow these two out of the galaxy. Still, they tell the story we all asked to hear and I'm entertained to watch it and along with the others. If the original hadn't been the phenomanon it was, we'd never have seen Jar Jar Binks (which may not have been a bad thing).

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Originally posted by jacobic216
I have a problem listening to critics when it comes to my preference in movies, or anyone else but myself for that matter … movies done by a true artist are just that, a work of art by the film maker. He did movies in his vision, not the vision of what the audience wanted. If someone doesn't like it, I say go make your own movie. At least then if you don't like it you have no one to blame but yourself.

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Of course we all feel strongly about the films we like and dislike. No one here is demanding that you agree with them. You seem to imply that “true artists” have the right to make films and the rest of us have no business criticizing them. Really! Filmmakers depend on ticket sales to pay for the films they make. If you buy a ticket you have the right to make a judgement on the value received. Besides, how are we to know who these “true artists” are? Just which directors belong to that magic pantheon of “true artists?” How many are there, and who decides?

Kubrick and Spielberg, and Paul Verhoeven for that matter, can certainly withstand whatever comments we may make here. Don’t forget that critical commentary also plays a part in creating a given director’s standing and reputation.

Criticism is part of the process. It is interesting to read differing views. You aren’t particularly fond of “Barry Lyndon.” Well, look in the Kubrick Forum archive. There are others who agree with you, and there are a couple of people who consider it their favorite film, and they give their reasons. There are those who like or dislike every film Kubrick has made. They are not wrong. They just have different sensitivities. And the arguments are enjoyable.

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Concerning A.I., Kubrick, and Spielberg

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What a hoot! This thread concerning “Metropolis” has outlasted the Kubrick Forum spinoff on the main page.

After reading all these comments (here and elsewhere on FilmWurld) about A.I., I went back to the film for a review. I could still see characteristics which seemed to reflect both Kubrick and Spielberg. For the most part I like the film, but I have to agree with steveseitz that it is seriously flawed. The last 25 minutes seem out of sync with the rest of the film. The futuristic robots which echo Spielberg’s “Close Encounters” beings appear as cartoonish, paper cutouts, and certainly add little depth that I can perceive. William Hurt’s character (Professor Allen Hobby, the Visionary) just disappears leaving a number of issues unresolved, and the film takes off into a new “Alice in Wonderland” tale. I would have preferred that the film end with David in the bottom of the sea.