From across the
River Ij, standing lone and distinguished, EYE Film Institute Netherlands looks
like a geometrized fish, or an upside down yacht, or the elongated helmet of a
Stormtrooper. A center for film culture and history, EYE links film with other
audiovisual media through its innovative exhibits and aims to bring film and
conversation about film to the forefront of the arts scene in Amsterdam.
If the museum
looks like a helmet, in its cranium resides a temporary exhibit on Stanley
Kubrick (until September 9, 2012), one of the U.S.’s most eminent filmmakers of
the 20th Century. In fact, EYE’s is the first international
exhibition on Kubrick’s work. While EYE also has a standard movie theater with
current, mainstream movies, a trendy restaurant, a gift shop, and a permanent
interactive film art exhibit in its basement, the Kubrick exhibit is the
museum’s current focal point.
What makes this
exhibit exceptionally successful is how well it conveys Kubrick’s filmmaking
style and influence on the film world; both Kubrick and the exhibit pay close
attention to aesthetics and import principles from visual art to blur the
boundaries between visual art and film. Apparently Kubrick was extremely
meticulous, perhaps even obsessive, in preparing for and executing production;
this is demonstrated by the color-coded spreadsheets for each film displayed
throughout the exhibit. But this perfectionism was an indication of an eye for
the aesthetic quality of storytelling; he carefully planned cinematography to
reflect the mood of the scene and drew from visual art influences in the set,
prop, and costume design of his films. For instance, he uses a variety of
distorted camera angles in reference to the dystopian world of A Clockwork Orange, shaky handheld
perspective during a war scene in which soldiers are running through a
minefield in and out of trenches (Paths
of Glory), and scenes heavily shrouded in darkness to convey mystery in a
film noir scene of a ballet dancer in almost complete darkness, save for her
pirouetting back and forth across the screen in all white (The Killer’s Kiss). In addition, Kubrick was extremely
conscientious of design and aesthetic value; he hired a graphic designer for
the storyboarding and fight scene choreography for Spartacus, he was inspired by the Pop Art scene and commissioned
sculptors to create iconic pieces for A
Clockwork Orange, and he would make meticulous design sketches for fairly
insignificant props. Kubrick even went as far as to commission a life-size
centrifuge for the set of 2001: A Space
Odyssey; it cost more than $750,000 to engineer but allowed him to alter
the camera angles to create the illusion of weightlessness aboard the ship.
Clearly Kubrick highly valued design down to the last detail in creating the
worlds within his films.
This value for
aesthetics is echoed in the exhibit. Like the rest of EYE, the exhibit is clean
and modern, but the Kubrick exhibit displays superb, conscientious design
intended to frame and augment his style and skill as a filmmaker; after a short
introduction with a brief history of Kubrick’s early life and career, the main
body of the exhibit is a series of thirteen spaces each devoted to a different
film. These are partially separated by charcoal-colored dividers set at oblique
angles to create the sense of individual galleries; however, sound, light, and
people are easily able to move between adjacent spaces. The exhibit takes great
care to create a complete, multidimensional experience of the artistic value of
Kubrick’s films; it allows the visitor to see how interrelated different
mediums such as art and music are and how important each is in producing a
film. In addition to the film itself, each gallery has a combination of
sculpture, photography, costume and set design, and history. Beyond original
artifacts from the film, the curators have added unique touches that make the
exhibit feel like an art exhibit as well. For example, in reference to the
iconic Star Child, a plastic fetus hangs from the ceiling over visitors’ heads
as they enter the 2001: A Space Odyssey
gallery, and a stylized banner hangs behind the typewriter from The Shining with the phrase “All work
and no play makes Jack a dull boy” repeated down the height of the wall,
alluding to the psychopathic delusions of Jack. The creators even created a
wall piece with translucent photographs of outer space illuminated from behind;
although inspired by 2001: A Space
Odyssey, it stands on its own as an autonomous work of art. These choices
by the curators solidify that EYE not only intends to display film as art, but
to enhance it so that it transcends the confines of the screen by utilizing
visual and audio media as well.
Walking through the
exhibit, I was struck by how many people were there on a weekday afternoon; one
man, a self-admitted film buff, commented that he had made a special trip to
see the exhibit and was impressed. The crowd varied in age, from young, edgy
teenagers to older, conservatively dressed couples who looked out-of-place
sitting in a gallery amongst props from A
Clockwork Orange (which include naked female mannequins and an oversized
sculpture of male genitals). Yet, with the amount of overt sexual stimulus one
encounters walking around the streets of Amsterdam, these objects of graphic
eroticism do not seem surprising or vulgar here. Perhaps it is the tradition of
openness of the Red Light district or Amsterdam’s rich art scene where art on
almost any subject is accepted, but the most popular films in the exhibition,
the galleries with the largest groups of people watching the film clips, were Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, and Eyes Wide Shut, three of Kubrick’s most
erotic and controversial films.
The exhibit was
successful in conveying Kubrick’s talent and impact as a director, the range of
his films, and his creativity in manipulating visual and audio elements to
create a novel viewing experience. This exhibition portrayed Kubrick and his
work in a unique light, enhanced by the museum’s own artistic choices in how it
chose to present his work.
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