Gesamtkunstwerk — a German word meaning “total work of art” used previously to describe Richard Wagner, could not have been more apt to encompass the body of work of Stanley Kubrick. The American auteur in his wake left world cinema to grapple with the mores of his creative brilliance which when afforded the licence could produce absolute everlasting classics.

From early films like Paths of Glory and Spartacus being a tad lacklustre, the filmmaker moved to the English countryside to film Nabakov’s supposedly unfilmable book Lolita and was afforded the unprecedented European freedom under which he blossomed and subsequently never returned to make another film in America ever again.

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It is important to reassess Kubrick in 2018 as we stand at the crossroads with filmmakers rehashing old ideas and running out of new themes to explore, perhaps taking a leaf out of Kubrick’s book could help brainstorm a path of filmmaking to come.

Chaplin’s silent slapstick humour, Lang’s expressionist style, Fellini’s neorealism to Besson with his cinema du look each possesses a signature sui generis.But, to be a chameleon, to perfectly blend styles and create anew, to be a genre of one’s own is what Kubrick achieved. His background as a photographer is perhaps to be credited for his cinematic achievements like the one shot perspective (it was used to show the famous “Come play with us, Danny” hallway scene in The Shining, the jogging scene in 2001, and Alex slurping spaghetti in A Clockwork Orange), the sudden zoom (most evident in Barry Lyndon and The Shining) and of course the Kubrick stare, perhaps one of the most visually unnerving camera compositions in cinematic history (Private Pyle in Full Metal Jackethas the stare when he’s in the bathroom. Alex has this stare at the beginning of A Clockwork Orange. Jack has this stare when looking out the window in The Shining. Nicole Kidman has this stare in Eyes Wide Shut as she peers over her glasses).

As previously ascertained, Kubrick’s films do not have a single thematic background, but to deny this auteur his philosophical proclivity would be a great travesty. External manifestations of internal emotions are an outlook that presents itself as the core of the conflict in Kubrick’s works.

Brecht, Nietzsche and Freud are all key literary and philosophical figures that influence Kubrick’s works immensely. Brecht’s distancing effect and the meditations on the “fourth wall”, Nietzsche’s Ubermensch theory of man and superman and Freud’s interpretation of dreams as a reflection of suppressed desires are thoughts that Kubrick obsessed over and that is prominent in his every work.

The most curious scene in the movie, Spartacus, is the bathroom scene, initially cut from the film but later included for the 1991 restoration. Antoninus (Tony Curtis) is giving Crassus a bath, when the master spontaneously starts asking his slave over whether he likes snails and oysters. The sexual undertones present are ahead of its times in its depiction of the private lives of its characters.

The intricate game of chess in Lolita is representative of the deep psycho- sexual themes and the Jungian Electra complex of the petite, promiscuous nymphomaniac. Like Nabakov, Kubrick too achieves the portraiture of the characters without critically judging them.

From his musical choices to his blatant use of irony to his use of contrast among characters to his often ambiguous depiction of dramatic storytelling, Kubrick always went for the absurd, the strange, the disturbing.

Dr. Strangelove plays with Cold War paranoia to unspeakable levels, as General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) orders a dangerous final solution against the Russians after a false missile alarm is taken seriously. While the novel from which the film got the plot motif is deadly serious, Kubrick decided to make it a comedy and hired co-screenwriter Terry Southern to create of the angriest and funniest comedies ever made, taking advantage once again the use of Peter Sellers as an actor with multiple screen personalities, one better than the other and vice-versa.

Thus Spake Zarathustra. Man. Superman. Space. Time. Hal 9000. 2001: A Space Odyssey… is a journey, with no discernable end, where we do not even desire one, and on its eventual, inevitable coming, we embrace the end of days as the beautiful disaster that was always meant to be. A film more profound and gloriously acute there never was, and Kubrick would have been considered a great only by the merit of this film only such is its stature.

Much darker and more pointed, A Clockwork Orange followed 2001 and continued it perfect use of classical music to contribute to the mood, tone, and philosophical depth of Kubrick’s filmography. Perhaps Kubrick’s most libertarian film, A Clockwork Orangeis primarily intended to comment on the growing power of the state and how it can abuse its power intentionally and unintentionally. Clearly though, Kubrick is commenting on free will and how attempts to take away or reduce free will always fail and backfire.

In Barry Lyndon, the principles behind Kubrick’s filmmaking style – always moving forwards, not towards the masters who gave him his basis, but on the essence of what they aspired to and found out throughout their journeys — are wonderfully clear.

The stream-of-consciousness free-flowing style reflects that of Nabokov (the writer of Lolita,the basis for Kubrick’s earlier adaptation bearing the same name) and conveys Kubrick’s interest in going outside of language to convey meaning, which was an almost novel thing in American film at the time.

Who else could possibly create a horror film almost entirely in daylight? The Shining is the most iconic Kubrick film in terms of camera movement. From the long shot of Danny riding his tricycle through the hotel corridors to the endless pursuits in the labyrinth, The Shining features a myriad of penetrating tracking shots, heavily symmetric and hauntingly glorious in their perfection.

The film seems to focus on three major philosophical themes: obsession, history, and a concept of retribution. Jack is clearly obsessed with his work and it becomes a convenient excuse for him to avoid his family and neglect his fatherly duties. In many ways, the events of the film are a result of Jack’s neglect and irresponsibility. Danny’s wanderings throughout the resort and different mishaps are certainly a by-product of his boredom and lack of parental supervision.

Full Metal Jacket is a jarring antiwar film following a platoon of Marines from their infancy in training to the front lines in Vietnam. Man’s ignobleness is revealed through the imperfections of his plans and methods, and the dire consequences that follow to varying degrees of impact and denouement deconstruct his life and ultimately bring things to a psychological collapse: both action and transformative reaction are important.

The anti-war sentiment is a philosophical return to Dr.Strangelove but unlike the satire, this film mirrors the aura of war while simultaneously upending it and undercutting it with a sense of finality and futility. Kubrick’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut follows NYC doctor William Harford (Tom Cruise), a man who heretofore led a normal life. Dismayed after discovering that his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) considered cheating on him, Harford decides to branch out of his marriage.

The structure of his journey, a twopart adventure into the heart of darkness, ultimately recalls the whole duality of Kubrick’s later films, from the post-Ludovico downfall of Alex DeLarge to Private Joker’s re-discovery of the problem with the military mind in Full Metal Jacket toBarry Lyndon’s two-part rise and fall.

As Bill returns to the same places he visited in the previous night in the light of day, a whole new perspective of his anterior choices strike his newly acquired ideas down, and he succumbs to his own conception of what happens between him and Alice.

To watch and rewatch Kubrick now will be no mean feat as he challenges our very perception of the normative and asks questions to which answers seem scattered, if any. But it is simply a glimpse of the zenith of consciousness, a transcendence of sort that Kubrick offers which is unparalleled and hitherto unseen in world cinema.