Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick, director of Vietnam film classic 'Full Metal Jacket' is a big influence and inspiration on our final production. Kubrick's style is similaur to our own, with battle scenes featuring little to no music, creating a more realistic and harrowing atmosphere. Kubrick is essentially a legend of the war film genre, with classics like 'Paths of Glory', 'Barry Lyndon' and of course 'Full Metal Jacket'.

A distinctive feature of all of Kubricks films is his harrowing and realistic style that presents things in a brutal and believable fashion. 'The Shining' is a good example of this, with the creaking of the rocking chair as Jack Nicholson descends into madness, and the famous bathroom break-in scene. The action on screen is brutal and shocking, yet the lack of music or over done special effects really captures a realistic atmosphere.

However, the main influence for our opening are Kubricks aforementioned critically acclaimed war films, 'Paths of Glory' and 'Full Metal Jacket'. Despite the former being set in the trenches of World War 1, and the latter set in Vietnam, there are stylistic similarities. The use of natural lighting is pretty distinctive and quite unconventional. Rather than providing a 'rose tinted' cinematic look, engineered to make shots look attractive to an audience, Kubrick's films appear gritty and realitsic, making his war films in particulaur a harrowing and immersive expierience. Whereas Spielberg immereses his audiences with beautiful cinemtography and lighting and effects engineered into eye pleasing perfection, Kubrick immereses his audiences by filming something as it is. Both styles take skill and both are effective.

Kubrick's war works are almost docu-dramas. This is why he is a main inspiration for our own practical production, as realism and intesinty are things we aim to capture. But also, with a low budget and relativley limited equipment, making a film more in the style of Kubrick is a more realistic prospect for us. Utilisng natural lighting and using only essential special effects. The brutality of 'Full Metal Jakcet' is another aspect that makes it such an emotive and powerful Vietnam War film, and another reason why it is an inspiration. As a result, our opening will have some fairly graphic tendancies.

So it Stanley Kubrick's 'less is more' minimalisitc, yet emotive and realistic approach that has inspired some of the ideas for our practical production. 'Full Metal Jacket' in particulaur has been very impressionable on us, and is one of the best war films ever made.