Free Kubrick App

Fans of the exhibition Stanley Kubrick will likely find the free app for iPad/iPhone that we released last week to be the next-best thing to a trip to the Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London. Thanks to the Archive, the app includes photos and documents that provide rare insight into the director’s working process.

Dress rehearsals for the spaceship crew for 2001: A Space Odyssey, with costume design by Hardy Amies, London. © Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc., Photo courtesy of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London.

Some of the highlights included in the app are outright amusing. Take, for example, the correspondence around the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, regarding the computer HAL. “Does IBM know that one of the main themes of the story is a psychotic computer?” Kubrick asks Roger Caras.

Letter, courtesy of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London.

We also included Kubrick’s handwritten notes and drawings describing the movement of the Australopithecus characters in the film, along with dozens of other script documents, production notes, and images.

Kubrick’s detailed notes regarding the Australopithecus characters in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Courtesy of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London.

The app features excerpts from a rare 1965 interview with Kubrick courtesy of interviewer Jeremy Bernstein. Kubrick talks about everything from his early childhood (“I was a school misfit…“) to working in Hollywood (“Film directing is a misnomer for anybody who seriously wants to make films…“).

And we included exclusive video interviews with Stan Douglas, Chris Nolan, David Slade, Terry Semel, and Douglas Trumbull. Trumbull reflects on the special effects work he did for 2001: A Space Odyssey and, like the others, pays tribute to the legacy of a director who helped define the art of film.

Amy Heibel