Tape in the drawer

Memo, Feb 29 2004

TO: CSB
FROM: JDB
RE: Tape in the drawer

I found this tape in a drawer here at the office, but I don't have time to listen. It looks old and important, though. Why don't you transcribe it for me?

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

BRIT INTERVIEWER: A real treat today for you listeners out there, as I am interviewing legendary film director Stanley Kubrick on the set of his latest film, an adaptation of the novel Traumnovelle, entitled Eyes Wide Shut, featuring American film stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Mr. Kubrick, thank you for granting us this pleasure.

KUBRICK: Yes.

BA: Mr. Kubrick, you were one of the pioneers of the Steadicam, when you were the first to use it, predominantly in The Shining.

KUBE: I pioneered what?

BI: The steadicam? The apparatus used for balanced shots in film?

KUBE: What? Oh, right! Camera stick! I saw that guy with the camera stick and he was kind of a fattie, so when that kid took off in the big wheel I said "Fattie! Catch the kid!" I wanted to see how fast he could get with all that gear on! And the fattie's chasing the kid, and he can't catch the kid! Finally he gave up. I told him to do it again, but he collapsed. That was hilarious. Then someone told me the camera had been rolling the whole time. I fired fattie's ass on the spot. I said NOBODY wastes a reel on Kubrick's set! Unless his name is ME!

Maybe they used it, I don't know. I spent most of post-production in a kind of zen state that I call sleeping.

What, which film we were talking about? They all run together for me. Someone called it variations on a theme, but that's just jibbity-jabber. I like the one I made with the apes, but every time I watch it I fall asleep before it's over and when I wake up it's Star Trek or something.

BI: Are you speaking of 2001?

KUBE: Maybe if I knew what you were saying to me we'd get somewhere.

BI: Uh, your new film has two American movie stars--

KUBE: The girl's an Aussie, do your research!

BI: Right. How do you feel working with such famous people?

KUBE: It's difficult for them sometimes to stop pissing me off with their acting. They keep trying to act and I say STOP! ACTING! This is MY film, I will make the performance happen with the way I light it! You just say the words I wrote on this napkin and I'll direct, thank YOU. Then they have to respect you. It's like working with some manner of brain-damaged farm animal. Not like the crew. Usually the crew knows your job better than you do. And thank god for that, I'd forget the title if it wasn't written on that sheet everybody looks at in the morning.

BI: I thought you don't use a crew.

KUBE: Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there!

BI: Uh... Do you often shoot in continuity?

KUBE: With these words, speak English you twit! I shoot until the movie's done. That's how I shoot! If it takes me three days, that's how we do it. I think it usually takes me three days. Some people are a little put off by that.

BI: How long does editing take?

KUBE: Screw editing, it's SHOOTING that takes a long time! What do you like, tracking shots? Everybody loves it when the camera moves, like they never saw a damn moving camera before! If you want to impress people, just move your camera. But I like to challenge myself... I push the camera down the track and just let it go! If we get the shot, great! If the camera topples over, we DO IT AGAIN until we get it! We did the tracking shot in my Vietnam movie, I spent TWO YEARS getting that tracking shot! Working six day weeks, too! Finally, one day we got it. I said PRINT! And everybody fell to their knees, weeping. I inspire people.

We shot the rest of that movie over the weekend. I think it was called The Heartbreak Kid.

BI: Do you feel a strong need to connect to the audience?

KUBE: I think Hitch said it best when he said "You've got to play the audience like a violin."� I said to him, "Hitch, no one's bow is that big!" I thought that was clever of me. But he kept talking about English Muffins. The motivation is just an English Muffin, or something, I tuned him out. What am I going to learn from him, how to squirt chocolate sauce on a bimbo? Tom and Nicole are not my first choice, but they do provide the English Muffin for the audience.

BI: Who was your first choice?

KUBE: Oh shit, what's the kid's name, I saw him the other day--Forster! I wanted Forster, I loved him in Alligator! Which is my best film. Anyway, they said they'd only pay me if I cast Tom and Nicole, and seeing that this is basically my only source of income, I said "Fine. Cast the shrimp and his Aussie wife. As long as she walks around naked a lot I'll be happy."

BI: You directed a movie called Alligator?

KUBE: You won't see my name on it. Damn unions.

BI: Let's talk about music in your films--

KUBE: I wanted to do a movie of the book Barry Lyndon, and set it entirely to songs by The Clash. I had it all planned, the scene where he approaches the girl on the balcony:� "White riot/I want to riot/White riot, riot ahfmahone."

Unfortunately I couldn't get the rights. To the book Barry Lyndon. I shot it anyway but fortunately no one knows that. If anyone ever sees it I'm in a heap of legal trouble.

BI: Most of your movies are adaptations of books--

KUBE: I want to do the Lorax, y'know, Dr. Seuss? Once it was Sneeches, but these days I'm thinking Lorax. More opportunities for what I like. Would you call my films dialogue heavy? Sometimes I think they're too heavy. I usually send my first drafts to that Chicago guy, what's his name? Glenn Ross? Anyway, I say "Revise this, Glenn!" and then I take everything he cut out and put it back in and then cut out everything he left in and that's what we shoot. If it seems my dialogue is predominantly made up of pleasantries, blame Glenn Ross for being so unpleasant.

I met Connery for the Lorax. We tested him too. You should have seen him in that orange jelly-bean outfit with the mustache, it was embarrassing. He was beyond awful. Pacino was brilliant, I loved his improv, but financing fell through when they realized there was no market for Dr. Seuss adaptations filled with hardcore pornography. I stand by my vision, though, always, even when they make me cut it out.

BI: You work for Hollywood, though you live in England--

KUBE: Yes, you're such an easy people to dominate in conversation. I haven't met a Brit yet who could shout me down! Then again, I haven't met many Brits, I actually fly most of my friends in.

BI: I heard you're afraid of airplanes--

KUBE: Jesus! I heard you're afraid of women!

BI: I--

KUBE: And commitment!

BI: I--

KUBE: And disapproving mama, you little baby! Well I guess I am scared of planes, they're just so BIG and who knows how they fly? They never flap their damn wings.

BI: Have you made the definitive Kubrick film?

KUBE: I'm making it right now.

BI: Eyes Wide Shut?

KUBE: HELL NO, not Eyes Wide Shut! That crap is so boring I'm going to have to die for anyone to go see it. Which is the plan, but keep that under your hat.

But I am filming the definitive Kubrick film RIGHT NOW.

BI: Right now?

KUBE: Yes. The premise is a British Interviewer is interviewing a brilliant director. And slowly, the entire structure de-evolves--

BI: --de-evolves?

KUBE: Descends! Into MADNESS!

BI: Are you filming us right now?

KUBE: Does that mean you think I'm brilliant?

BI: Excuse me?

KUBE: Say it! SAY I'm brilliant!

BI: Me say it?

KUBE: SAY IT, bitch!

BI: You're brilliant!

KUBE: That was good. Do it again.

BI: You're brilliant?

KUBE: Good, good good. Do it again.

BI: You're brilliant.

KUBE: Good. Do it again.

BI: You're brilliant.

KUBE: Do it again. Hutcha!

BI: You're brilliant.

KUBE: Damn straight! Do it again! Hoot!

BI: You're brilliant!

KUBE: I pose no argument to that! Do it again!

BI: You're brilliant!

KUBE: Do it again!

BI: You're brilliant!

KUBE: DO IT AGAIN!

BI: You're brilliant!!

KUBE: DO IT AGAIN!!

BI: YOU'RE BRILLIANT!!!!

KUBE: DO IT AGAIN I'M SO BRILLIANT!!!!!

BI: Again?

KUBE: Don't fuck my process! MUSIC!

�Okay, I'm playing the music because I want to time this tracking shot. Get up.

BI: Uh--

KUBE: GET UP and move to the beat, you soulless limey!

BI: May I--

KUBE: GET UP and I said DO IT AGAIN!

BI: YOU'RE BRILLIANT!!!!

KUBE: Beautiful. Move to the beat.

BI: YOU'RE BRILLIANT!!!!

KUBE: MOVE TO THE BEAT!

BI: YOU'RE BRILLIANT!!!!

KUBE: I learned how to love!

BI: YOU'RE BRILLIANT!!!!

KUBE: BEFORE I COULD EAT!!!

BI: OH JESUS!

KUBE: CAN YOU HEAR THE HORNS?

BI: I HEAR THE HORNS!

KUBE: CAN YOU HEAR THE HORNS!!

BI: I HEAR THE HORNS!!

KUBE: NAH NAH NAH NAT-NAH NAH NAH NAH!!!! I'M A SOUL MAN!! With it!