AIR May 2019

INSIDE THE
London’s Design Museum honours the
directorial brilliance of Stanley Kubrick –
by unpacking the master storyteller’s methods
WORDS: CHRIS UJMA
AIR
Johnny!” grins a
maniacal Jack Nicholson,
‘Here’s
peering through the
splintered hole he’s hacked into
the bathroom door, ready to hunt
down his cowering female prey.
This fraught scene from 1980’s The
Shining became a meme so iconic
it burst from the cinema and into
popular culture. But do audiences
remember the wood grain of the door
itself? Or the exact shape of the axe?
Across his directorial portfolio, Kubrick
poured just as much attention into the
minutiae of building a scene as he did to
developing complex character arcs, or
honing astute dialogue. While known for
embracing cutting-edge film techniques,
the Manhattan-born director was not
averse to some good old tireless research.
For 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, he
spent a year photographing every
house doorway in the Islington,
London, postcode to find a perfect
candidate for an fleeting scene. For the
ominous underground beatdown
in A Clockwork Orange, he tasked
different crew members with taking
thousands of photographs of London’s
tunnels, after which he studied every
single image (eventually plumping
for Wandsworth Underpass).
These anecdotes are symptomatic
of Kubrick’s meticulous attention to
every detail – however obscure.
Each frame of his 16-film career was
painstakingly crafted, drawing the
audience into an immersive visual world.
To honour the 20 th anniversary
of his passing, London’s Design
Museum hosts a six-month stint of
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition.
“Featuring more than 500 objects,
projections and interviews, the
exhibition brings to the fore Kubrick’s
innovative spirit and fascination
with all aspects of design, depicting
the in-depth level of detail that he
put into each of his films,” executive
curator Alan Yentob surmises. The
respected TV executive helped shape
the journey along with Deyan Sudjic,
director of the Design Museum,
and co-curator Adriënne Groen.
“When I delved through his
extensive archives, one of the things
I uncovered was his fascination with
stationery,” says Groen, opting for
a Kubrickian-level example of her
most interesting curatorial find.
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