Though Stanley Kubrick was well-respected in his time, he did not win as many Oscars as you’d most likely assume. Certain, he acquired Greatest Director nominations for “Dr. Strangelove,” “2001: A Area Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” and “Barry Lyndon,” however he did not win any of these. One in all his most acclaimed films, “The Shining,” did not even obtain any Oscar nods in any respect. (The Razzie awards, however, have been comfortable to “honor” the movie, which says extra in regards to the Razzies than Kubrick’s horror traditional.)
Kubrick’s solely Oscar win was for Greatest Particular Visible Results for his 1968 sci-fi movie, “2001: A Area Odyssey.” The film competed towards “Ice Station Zebra,” an espionage thriller starring Rock Hudson that launched to blended critiques and a middling field workplace efficiency. If the Academy had some kind of grudge towards Kubrick, as some followers of his suspect, they nonetheless could not deny that “A Area Odyssey” deserved the win right here; even greater than half a century later, the film seems to be implausible.
What should’ve sealed the film’s win on this class was the Star Gate sequence within the remaining act, the place David (Keir Dullea) witnesses a nine-minute sequence of trippy lights. To make this scene work, Kubrick’s “2001” collaborator Douglas Trumbull needed to invent a particular “slit-scan” machine, which might later be utilized in reveals like “Physician Who” and “Star Trek.” With a sequence this visually beautiful, there was merely no method the Academy might keep away from recognizing the film on this class.
2001: A Area Odyssey gained an Oscar for its visible results, however what in regards to the different classes?
“2001” was additionally nominated for Greatest Unique Screenplay, however misplaced out this time to Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.” I believe this choice’s fairly comprehensible, given how dialogue-light Kubrick’s movie was in comparison with “The Producers,” however not everybody agreed. Critic Giles M. Fowles wrote within the ceremony’s aftermath, “I can consider just one all-out travesty — the collection of ‘The Producers’ as finest unique screenplay. It was a really humorous sketch, however clumsily ill-suited to its medium.”
In the meantime, Kubrick misplaced that yr’s Greatest Director race to Carol Reed, who gained for “Oliver!” (the British interval musical drama based mostly on the Charles Dickens novel, “Oliver Twist”). “Oliver!” additionally gained Greatest Image that yr, a class “2001” was excluded from completely. In hindsight, this looks as if the apparent mistaken selection, given how far more broadly “2001: A Area Odyssey” is remembered at this time. However even on the time, some critics appeared fairly dissatisfied by this consequence. As Giles M. Fowles wrote in an article after the ceremony:
“Maybe the worst blow from my standpoint, was the selection of Carol Reed as finest director. Reed can’t be faulted for his work, which was glorious, however he didn’t strategy the beautiful inventiveness of Kubrick in ‘2001.’ […] I hereby swear to not give the Academy awards one other thought or watch them once more, ever. Till subsequent yr.”
Kubrick himself by no means appeared to care a lot for awards, nonetheless. When he gained his Oscar for the visible results in “2001,” he wasn’t even there on the ceremony to choose it up. Followers can debate what film Kubrick deserved to win the Greatest Director Oscar for, however the precise filmmaker merely by no means put loads of inventory into how his footage have been acquired within the interval instantly after their launch. As he as soon as put it throughout an interview with movie critic Michel Ciment:
“From the very starting, all of my movies have divided the critics. Some have thought them great, and others have discovered little or no good to say. However subsequent vital opinion has all the time resulted in a really outstanding shift to the favorable. […] However, after all, the lasting and finally most vital status of a movie just isn’t based mostly on critiques, however on what, if something, individuals say about it through the years, and on how a lot affection for it they’ve.”