Stanley Kubrick鈥檚 films all had one thing in common: Jewishness
This article by Nathan Abrams, Professor in Film, at the School of Creative Studies and Media was originally published on . Read the .
Legendary director Stanley Kubrick was that he was not really a Jew, he just happened to have two Jewish parents. But though he may have tried to divert from this fact, Kubrick, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 70, was born and died a Jew, and Jewishness threads through and underpins all 13 of his films.
Kubrick was famously silent on the meaning of his movies, so their messages are open to interpretation on a number of levels. He covered many genres and topics 鈥� starting with war movie , and ending with marital drama in 鈥� and his films in cinematic style.
But Kubrick, who is possibly the most written about film director after Alfred Hitchcock, has rarely been thought of as a Jewish director. This is because few dedicated researchers have not bothered to probe his ethnic background in any detail.
Kubrick had a history of working with Jewish actors as his leading men and women. Notably , (three times), (twice), (twice), , , , and . He also worked with Jewish writers, including , and , and considered adapting the work of such Jewish authors as Arthur Schnitzler, Stefan Zweig and Louis Begley. He adored the work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and too. But this alone is not makes him a Jewish filmmaker.
Although Kubrick was never a practising Jew and the Jewish references and viewpoint are not explicit or obvious in his films, once you consider his films from the standpoint of his ethnicity, as well as his cultural and intellectual milieu, then some resonant themes emerge.
Though Kubrick famously worked on a Holocaust film, , which never came to fruition, his body of work went far beyond that in terms of Jewish references.
His first feature, Fear and Desire (1953) is his spin on the World War II platoon movie, which typically contained a range of ethnicities and races. True to form, Kubrick cast Mazursky as the shaky (Jewish) recruit Private Sidney. in 1955 is very much moulded in the tradition of the Jewish boxing movie 鈥� features such as , directed by Robert Rossen. Kubrick鈥檚 film noir, , could well have as its tagline the Yiddish proverb, 鈥淢an plans, God laughs鈥�. All three of these early films could also be described as existentialist, a philosophy popular with Jewish intellectuals , especially in Greenwich Village, New York City, where Kubrick then lived.
In dealing with a major incident of French military injustice during World War I, , recalls the antisemitic , a major cause c茅l猫bre of the 19th century. The epic posits a Moses-like liberator who leads Roman slaves out of bondage while also considering such issues as , the , civil rights, the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel 鈥� all issues of Jewish concern in the 1950s.
In 1964, conflated nuclear holocaust with the Holocaust, particularly through its titular character, the former Nazi Dr. Strangelove, at a time when the was fresh in people鈥檚 memories.
Looking further at Kubrick鈥檚 later films, 鈥� which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year 鈥� plays with the Hebrew Bible, Jewish liturgy, as well as Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. It is full of numerological references with the number four recurring frequently. explores Judeo-Christian ideas of choice and conveys a very traditional Jewish viewpoint on the issue of free will. And warns of the dangers of social climbing in places where you don鈥檛 belong 鈥� a traditional Jewish fear, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries.
鈥� Kubrick鈥檚 contribution to the horror genre 鈥� deals with the very biblical theme of the sacrifice of the son by the father, as found . And , while ostensibly about Vietnam, is, on one level, and man鈥檚 propensity to evil and genocide.
This is all capped off by Eyes Wide Shut, possibly Kubrick鈥檚 most Jewish film 鈥� given it was adapted of Jewish author Arthur Schnitzler and heavily influenced by the theories of his Jewish contemporary Sigmund Freud. It also contains the most explicitly Jewish character in any Kubrick film, Victor Ziegler (played by Sydney Pollack).
Kubrick鈥檚 films never offer up anything easy or obvious. He made few statements about them. But he spent a long time working on his movies. He was meticulous and paid great attention to detail. He was extremely cultured, well read, and cultivated. He certainly had views that he wanted to share but did so in the least obvious ways. He wanted to make viewers work to understand his deeper messages.
Kubrick鈥檚 films were not just about Jews, Jewishness and Judaism, they are far wider than any single theme. But even though the man himself tried to distract from his Jewish roots, it cannot be denied that some of this material was surely intentional.
Publication date: 12 March 2018