Stanley Kubrik and THAT lens

[rumbliegeos]

Peter, thank you for posting this information. I had read about Kubrick's use of the very fast lens so that candle-lit interiors shots would be as authentic as possible, but it is very interesting to get more background. I thought Barry Lyndon was a trip for the mind and the senses because of the way it was made. Kubrick was capable of extremely bold moves to achieve visual effects: one example is a scene from Paths to Glory when Kirk Douglas walks and walks along a WWI trench while tension builds - it would seem to have been impossible to shoot in the days before steadicams. Another amazing scene is from Spartacus when the Roman imperial army advances on the slave army, and although the sequence breaks about every film-making rule of the time, it is breath-taking in its effect.

 

[Tony Whitney]

Last time I heard of one on sale was an auction in Hong Kong where it went for ~$35,000.

As an indicator, a set of Leica Summilux-C cinema primes costs more than $260,000, so imagine what the Kubrick lens would cost today...TW

 

[rumbliegeos]

Correction: "Paths of Glory"

 

[yesaroos]

There are lots of great scenes in the movie - even the little inconsequential ones. For example just after Barry Lyndon marries Marissa Berenson's character, a very rich widow of noble birth, they are riding in carriage and he is smoking a pipe which is obviously distressing her. She asks him quietly and politely if he will stop at least for a while. At which he blows smoke in her face. Instantly I thought "This is not going to end well for anyone". You knew exactly where this film was heading with that one tiny detail which revealed his character.

The other scene amongst many that really spoke to me was early in the movie with his first love in Ireland, when he was still innocent, before he became debauched. It captured exactly memories of my own first love - intoxication, nervousness, desire, headiness. I have never before seen this level of passion captured in a movie in a scene in which almost nothing happens. It is all suggested. That is great movie making. WOW.

Great movie making for sure & so many great scenes in the movie.. Another I like is the manic scene when Lord Bullingdon & his step brother walk into the middle of recital and so on till Barry get loose control.. I see it as 'elegantly chaotic' 🙂

 

[YYV_146]

As an indicator, a set of Leica Summilux-C cinema primes costs more than $260,000, so imagine what the Kubrick lens would cost today...TW

I stand corrected. The Hong Kong auction is much earlier than this auction from westlicht:

http://www.westlicht-auction.com/index.php?id=62

Apparently the hammer price was 90,000 euros, much higher than expected...

P.S I thought 35 grand wasn't too bad. If I sell all of my Leica lenses I only need a few grand extra to go...Now my folly is clear 🙁

 

[peterm1]

For those who have not seen it, Paths of Glory is a superb and powerful movie. In fact I think it would have to be close to being one of Kubriks' very best pieces of story telling. It was very unsettling. Others here have mentioned it I imagine for much the same reason. It is based on a true event that happened in the French army in WW1. Incompetent generals sent men over the top to their near certain death. Many were killed in the first few yards. So before the next attack, instead of learning from their mistakes the generals decided it was the men's fault and that the way to deal with it was by randomly selecting some survivors of the last attack, having a kangaroo court and shooting them for cowardice. Apparently this was designed to stop the others from cowardly dying so quickly the next time they attacked the German machine guns and heavy artillery. Kirk Douglas played the front line officer selected to act as their defence counsel (unsuccessfully of course given the result was a foregone conclusion). Very powerful.

A typical scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPtVNDvwGMo

An aside. I love the character of the early Australian Anzacs. The Australians on the Western Front were renowned for their skill and fighting spirit and as a result tended to be used much more than they should have been as shock troops. The cost in Australian lives was extraordinary and as measured as a percentage of its tiny population Australia lost one of the highest proportions of men amongst all the allies. Towards the end of the first war, so many had died on the Western Front that a decision was made to amalgamate some Australian battalions to bring them back up to fighting strength. The men objected on the grounds that it would be disrespectful to the memory of their mates who had died under the flags of those battalions that were now to be disbanded. So they went on strike! Of course in military terms that is called a mutiny.

General Pompey Elliot, an Australian commander who was a good and competent leader and who was respected by his men but who was renowned for his hot temper and strong language lined the men up and told them very bluntly that unless they obeyed the order to join the new amalgamated battalions he would follow the example of the French and randomly select men to be shot. This was an empty threat as Australian authorities were unlikely to approve it but by then tempers were frayed. At this, a voice came from the ranks "We've got guns too, you *******!" I love it - that just sums up the Aussie spirit of that time. These men were real individuals who were dedicated to each other and damn the authorities if they got in the way. (Eventually cooler heads prevailed and the situation was defused but I think some of the leaders were still disciplined for this "mutiny".

 

[filmtwit]

Two of the lenses in question

 

[telenous]

For those who have not seen it, Paths of Glory is a superb and powerful movie. In fact I think it would have to be close to being one of Kubriks' very best pieces of story telling. It was very unsettling. Others here have mentioned it I imagine for much the same reason. It is based on a true event that happened in the French army in WW1. Incompetent generals sent men over the top to their near certain death. Many were killed in the first few yards. So before the next attack, instead of learning from their mistakes the generals decided it was the men's fault and that the way to deal with it was by randomly selecting some survivors of the last attack, having a kangaroo court and shooting them for cowardice. Apparently this was designed to stop the others from cowardly dying so quickly the next time they attacked the German machine guns and heavy artillery. Kirk Douglas played the front line officer selected to act as their defence counsel (unsuccessfully of course given the result was a foregone conclusion). Very powerful.

A typical scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPtVNDvwGMo

...

The execution in Paths of Glory echoed somewhat the Roman practice of decimation (literally "removal of a tenth"), a form of military discipline intended to punish capital offences committed by large groups of soldiers (e.g. desertion, mutiny). Even obdurate, thick-skinned military men of the ancient world like the Romans did not use it that often, and the practice largely fell into oblivion until Crassus revived it in his successful campaign (the so-called Third Servile War) against Spartacus. It's a coincidence (but a curious one nonetheless) that Kubrick's next filmic assignment right after Paths of Glory was Spartacus .

The random nature of decimation is naturally shocking, if not downright incomprehensible to us, even in as an absurd situation as in a war. But it seems it has been performed now and then and as recently as during WWII.


.

 

[agmo]

As an aside here is another example of his manic nature and quest for authenticity. In "The Shining" at one point the mad character (a writer) played by Jack Nicholson was found to have typed over and over and over the words "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of paper. Most directors would have had someone type this down a single page as many times as it would fit, then photocopy as many pages as needed. Not Kubrick. He made his assistant sit in front of a typewriter and type these words over and over all day every day for months and months to get the number of pages required. Apparently he felt it gave authenticity, even though no one in the world would have known or noticed or cared for that matter.

I don't think this is an example of Kubrick's perfectionism - remember that the movie was made in 1980 and photocopiers were nowhere as good as they are now. The sheets are shot quite closely and you would have been able to recognise photocopies of the era. Also, every sheet seen is typed differently anyway!

 

[Nokton48]

My favorite Kubrick is "Paths of Glory".
I have them all on DVD. I also have a wonderful DVD documentary on Kubrick;
In it the optical genius/repairperson extraordinaire explains how they had to completely "ruin" two Mitchell 35mm BNC rear projection motion picture cameras (the only two of their kind in the world and absolutely priceless) in order to accomodate the 50mm T/0.7 Zeiss Planar NASA satellite lens. Stanley didn't care about the BNC cameras; He said "Do It" and the rest is history. Barry Lyndon is amazing and I need to watch it again (it's a long one).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPtVNDvwGMo

Interestingly, this lens could not be accurately focused with the reflex viewfinder (if the BNC's even had one, they were tri-color cameras!). The lens had to be scale-focused, and as a result the lens was literally marked out in inch-increments on the focusing helical. A lot of testing and talent was required to use this thing. Amazing the amount of work required to get the results they did with it.

 

[santino]

It's time for a Lomo remake of that lens 😉 10k would be a fair price...