Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)

Born in New York (1928), because of his poor results at school, Stanley Kubrick was introduced by his father  to chess (scacchi). Kubrick soon became a skilled player (abile giocatore).  His father also introduced little Stanley to the cinema giving him a camera for his thirteenth birthday: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer. In the next few years, he became a voracious movie-goer (frequentatore di cinema). In 1950 he took all his savings (risparmi) and made a documentary Day of the Fight (1951), soon followed by Flying Father  (1951), The Seafarers (Il Marinaio, 1953), and Fear and Desire (1953) shot in California. The success came with Killer’s kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) which brought him (lo portarono) to the attention of Hollywood, and in Path of Glory (Sentieri di Gloria, 1957) starring Kirk Douglas who called him as producer of Spartacus(1960).  Soon Kubrick grew disenchanted (si disamorò) with Hollywood and moved permanently to England where he directed Lolita (1962), Dr Strangelove (Il Dott. Stranamore, 1964) two films quire risky for their topics. But they both were very successful and  allowed Kubrick the financial and artistic freedom to work on any project he desired. He made 2001:  A Space Odissey (1968), followed this with A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975). Meanwhile his insistent demands of dedication and perfection of cast had become legendary. Shining (1980), the first horror movie by Kubrick was criticized by the writer Stephen King who didn’t like Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel. Full Metal Jacket (1987) continued Kubrick’s tradition of solid critical acclaim, and profit at the box office. While producing the work AI: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the 1990s Kubrick announced his next project as Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring the then-married (allora sposati)  Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Unfortunately during the production of A.I. – Intelligenza artificiale  Kubrick tragically suffered a fatal heart attack (morì per un attacco di cuore) in his sleep on March 7th, 1999 and Spielberg completed the last Kubrick project.