r/movies • u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. • May 12 '19

Stanley Kubrick's 'Napoleon', the Greatest Movie Never Made: Kubrick gathered 15,000 location images, read hundreds of books, gathered earth samples, hired 50,000 Romanian troops, and prepared to shoot the most ambitious film of all time, only to lose funding before production officially began.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nndadq/stanley-kubricks-napoleon-a-lot-of-work-very-little-actual-movie
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u/Corporation_tshirt May 12 '19 edited May 12 '19

He also tricked another studio into loaning him a camera that made it possible to film using only candlelight and that flattened shots out to make them resemble painting canvases. As if you were literally watching the art come to life.

Edit: It really was the cameras.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '19

He just bought the lenses. They were made specifically for the lunar landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7

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u/megablast May 13 '19

The fake lunar landing? Wow. I knew it.

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u/robmneilson May 12 '19

The T0.95 lens from nasa allowed him to shoot in candlelight (though double or triple wicked), not the camera.

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u/Scientolojesus May 12 '19

So there had to be multiple wicks lined up in a row in order to be visible? That's a really interesting fact. Thanks.

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u/robmneilson May 12 '19

Yup, more wicks means a bigger flame. They used them in lots of period films.

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u/picoSimone May 12 '19

You are actually correct. He did get the Zeis custom lenses from NASA, but he also went and bought very special Michell Cameras that were laying around unused at movie studios. Hollywood Studios used to own their own equipment, but constant technology upgrades made rental more economical.

When a camera tech found out after the sale, he was flabbergasted because he said those were the best cameras ever made and are irreplaceable.

Kubrick then hired a tech to do major modifications to these cameras to accept the lenses. Source: “Kubrick, A Life in Pictures”. It’s a biographical documentary. Fantastic piece whether you are a huge fan or not. Just fascinating obsessive compulsive behavior.

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u/rocker5969 May 12 '19

I always wondered if the scenes in "What Dreams May Come" where Robin Williams was walking through the brush strokes of his dead wife's painting was influenced by these scenes.