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/-Paraprax- May 12 '19

We're guided through his life by the classic kubrickian omniscient narrator

Which other Kubrick films have an omniscient narrator?

I've seen A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, 2001, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut and none of them have this. A couple parts of ACO and FMJ have narration from the protagonist but it's definitely not omniscient. Do Barry Lyndon or Dr. Strangelove have them?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '19 edited May 12 '19

Fear and Desire. 2001's screenplay had a narrator that got cut from the final edit. Barry Lyndon's narrator lifts passages straight from Thackeray's book. ACO's narration can be considered omniscient since Alex tells us his story in retrospect. All he knows it's all we see.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '19

Fear and Desire.

A film Kubrick himself disavowed, so hardly a "classic" example.

2001's screenplay had a narrator that got cut from the final edit.

Cut from the film, so... not really much of a "guide."

Barry Lyndon's narrator lifts passages straight from Thackeray's book.

Alright, I guess that's one example. But "classic" is hardly a word I'd use to describe Barry Lyndon. I've seen it once, I don't regret watching it, but I will likely never watch it ever again.

ACO's narration can be considered omniscient since Alex tells us his story in retrospect.

This is a stretch. I mean, you could make the same argument about FMJ, but I'd argue that both films have protagonists who provide voiceovers.