7:30 Report Australian TV 11/24/05

Mary Gearin: Why did you want to do this exhibition?

Christiane Kubrick: We were discussing the amount of rubbish we owned. It was a fire hazard of the worst kind. You know, you put a tray down, some books on top and then, it's your bookshelf. It grows very quickly.

Mary Gearin: The more than 1,000 pieces in the collection create a picture of a man utterly absorbed by his work.

Christiane Kubrick: Well, they certainly reveal the truth about working very hard, being very interested and having an almost child-like mind in the way he prepared himself.

Malcolm McDowell: Obsessive, paranoid, charming when needed, but mainly dogged determination. Never-give-up spirit, and a brilliant intellect. This was actually my cricket trousers. This was a cricket jock strap supporter thing that he goes, "Well why don't you wear it outside?"

Mary Gearin: The film's explosive content led to death threats against the Kubricks. In fact, controversy followed most of Kubrick's films, reflected in the correspondence he stored away. How much was that a part of your life, as well, the disapproval, the being on the outside, in that sense?

Christiane Kubrick: Yeah, the head in the sand is good. You read something because you're curious and you wish you hadn't read it. So, the next morning you don't read and then you read it - it's neurotic.

Malcolm McDowell: Stanley always had a knack of being just ahead of what was happening. Stanley's favorite expressions, by the way, were "Action!", "Cut!" and "Do it again". Any reason, Stanley? Could you give me any...? "Do it again." At one time, we sat around for five days without turning the camera on before we shot the 'Singin' in the Rain' sequence, which is one of the most famous in the whole film.

Mary Gearin: Christiane Kubrick's brother, Jan Harlan, was Kubrick's long-time executive producer and made a documentary on his life. He agrees Kubrick's total immersion in his films led to extraordinarily long shooting periods, but a superior end result.

Jan Harlan: Stanley always said you have to be in love with a story and that's what he meant, because it translates into a feeling. We all know what it means, because it creates enormous energy and the ability to overcome obstacles if you're in love. And he had to be in love with a story to find the energy to stick with it, because he took a lot of time.

Mary Gearin: Kubrick's perfectionism went to the extreme for one of the most famous films never made - an epic on the life of Napoleon. Financial backers didn't share his vision. Kubrick compiled and catalogued details right down to the weather conditions for every Napoleonic battle gleaned from what's thought to be the world's largest library on the French emperor.

Christiane Kubrick: It was really a life-long obsession. That's the right word and he was swallowed up by it. We came out of our hole because we wanted to contradict the gossip about him, which was really ludicrous, and we thought if we didn't say anything, it will be engraved in stone and the press will just repeat that stuff and it will go on the Internet and on and on.

Mary Gearin: What sort of gossip?

Christiane Kubrick: That he was hard, he was a loner, a woman hater, a nerd - you name it.

Jan Harlan: A big censorship issue was in 'Eyes Wide Shut' was this so-called orgy. Oh, this so-called orgy is no orgy at all, it's really a look into hell.

Malcolm McDowell: Look at the films and you will see an extraordinary man. You know, you will see his extraordinary mind working.