Treatment

Treatment

There is an establishing shot of the nursing home from outside, a young boy and his mother visible walking down a pathway to the entrance. A cut to the young child sitting in a long hallway, a medium shot. We see the mothers legs and hand as she places a toy car down by the boy,. The mother's legs move as she walks out of frame. We then are from an medium angle from above behind the child, a one point perspective, as he sits in the hallway playing with his toy car. A  red balloon appears from the end of the hallway, a close up shot. We then cut to a medium shot of the boy from the front to catch his reaction. He is puzzled and starts to walk towards it in a tracking shot. During this tracking shot, it is interspersed with a cut of the medium shot of the balloon in the middle of the floor whilst ominous music plays . The boy reaches the  red balloon and looks round the corner of the hallway, we see it from the boy's POV tracking the wall until the slow reveal. A old man dressed in a suit holding a glass of drink. We then cut to a medium shot of the boy looking round the corner looking scared. We cut back to the boy's POV, the suit man is looking straight ahead, oblivious that the boy is there. He looks deadpan, straight ahead and says ''Isn't this place just grand...''.

He takes a sip of his drink, all the while, the ominous music plays in the background. The suit man sneers and takes a look at the boy menacingly. The red balloon enters the frame from the right and bounces until it is perfectly aligned with the suit man's foot.

''Shame about the balloons.''

In one swift movement, the man's foot comes down and pops the balloon. A loud POP! Suddenly, the boy's mother grabs the boy's arm in a close up of the boy. She sounds annoyed and asks him why he wandered off. The boy looks at her, her face is off frame, it's just her neck from below. The boy looks away from her to where the suit man was standing. POV shot of just a popped red balloon down the hallway. The boy's mother takes him by the hand and they walk back down to the corridor, a medium shot behind them.

A dissolve between them walking down the corridor and a establishing shot of the boy's house. A medium shot of the boy's bedroom, with the lights on. The boy opens his door and walks in, shutting the door behind him. He turns round and looks on his bed, sitting there is a black bow tie, resting on his pillow. Curious, he slowly walks over to his bed and sits down on it, picking up the bowtie. The same ominous music begins to play in the background. After a while, he puts it back on his pillow and stands up. This is all in one long take. He walks to his toybox and opens it, rummaging around, this is from behind in a medium shot.  Close up, he picks up a blue toy car and turns round. We cut to a medium shot of the boy facing his door. Standing in front of the door is another man, wearing a coat, trousers and gloves with a woolly hat on. The same reoccurring ominous music begins to play in the background. Close up of the boy's face, scared. The man rubs his gloved hands together and starts to speak.

''Hello young man..'' His tone is friendly. He takes one step forward towards the boy. He continues talking.

''My name is Albert... but my friends call me Baker.'' Baker smiles. ''You can call me Baker if you's like.''

Close up of the boy's reaction, he is uncertain confused, unable to move. Cut back to a shot of Baker. A medium shot of him standing in the small room. Baker looks to the side of him at the boy's bed. He points to the bow tie.

''You shouldn't have this.'' Baker's smile disappears. He looks back to the boy. The tone of Baker's voice changes, it is threatening. The ominous music starts to get louder.

''It has a bad...a bad trace on it...best to just put it away...put it away...somewhere far.''

Baker takes another step forward, it is still the long take.

''Somewhere far, somewhere far where no one find it.''

We see a close up of the boy's face, who looks scared, Cut back to Baker.

''You can do that for me...can't you boy.''

. Baker takes another step forward so he is now level with the boy's closet just in front of him. There is a silence. Cut to a close up of the boy, he is frozen with terror, still unable to move. Finally, he nods very slightly. Baker smiles and starts to talk.

''Good. Take it far.''

We then cut to a long take in the same medium shot. Baker bangs his gloves together, turns to the left so he faces the boy's closet and opens it. He takes one look at the boy, but it looks like he is looking at the audience, and walks into the closet. He shuts it behind him. Then silence. The camera cuts back to a long shot of the boy standing alone in his room. The ominous music starts to get louder and louder. The boy slowly in front of his closet, we cut to a medium shot behind him as he quickly opens both doors, The ominous music stops. There is nothing there, except the boy's shirts and coats.

A medium shot from inside the closet looking out at the boy. He takes a deep breath and shuts the closet. We then cut to a close up of the back of the boy's head, he slowly turns around, whilst deep breathing and the same ominous music starts to play in the background. The boy turns around until he is facing the camera. We then cut to a medium shot of the boy's bed, the black bow tie laying on the pillow.

We cut to the boy's bedroom door from outside in the hallway. The hallway looks a lot different than what the boy's bedroom looked like, different colour scheme, carpet. The boy opens his door, and he exits his room, walking down his hallway, bow tie clenched in his hand. It is a tracking shot following him down the hallway from the front, similar to how he walked down the hallway.

We cut to a POV shot of the boy opening the door and looking into his bathroom. The bathroom has a sickly green colour scheme. There is lots of mirrors and reflective surfaces in his bathroom. Cut to a medium shot from the side, with the boy's toilet located to the left of the frame. The boy walks in to the frame and sticks out his hand, dropping the bow tie into the toilet. There is an audible quiet splash and the boy quickly flushes it. There is a loud flushing noise and the boy slams the seat down. POV shot of the toilet seat being put down. The boy turns to leave but the ominous music flares up loud and the boy stops dead in his tracks. Cut to a medium shot of Baker standing in front of the closed bathroom door.

Baker is angry, his eyes underneath his brow in a menacing gaze directed at the boy. He shouts out ''NO!''. The camera starts to slowly zoom in on Baker's face. There is a quick cut to the boy's face to show he is scared and then back to the zoom in. He starts to speak, a snarl on his face,

''I told you's to take it far...take it...far...''

The camera cuts to a medium shot from the side of them, showing the height difference between the boy and Baker. Baker starts to talk, a low rumble, far different from the friendly voice he used in the boy's bedroom.

''Seeing as you don't listen, I want you to reach into the toilet.... and pick it up...and give it to me.''

We cut back to a close up of the boy who looks back at the  shit toilet seat and then back at Baker. Cut to a low angle POV shot, Baker's hand is stuck out awaiting the bow tie, his face a grim snarl. Cut back to a medium shot of the boy and the toilet to the left of the frame, the ominous music gets louder. The boy lifts the toilet seat up and looks inside. Cut to another POV looking down upon the bow tie in the toilet bowl, floating. The boy looks up at Baker, his hand still stuck out looking impatient. The boy reaches in slowly.

Suddenly the bathroom door opens behind the boy, the boy's mother walking in, Baker is gone. We are seeing this from the side medium shot, the boy's mother is standing where Baker was standing. She gasps and shouts in a condescending tone, ''What are you doing Danny?!''. Cut back to a close up of the Danny's face, confused. Cut back to the side shot, the mother grabs Danny's arm and yanks him over to the sink. She lifts his arm up and starts scrubbing it with a sponge and soap. As she is busy scrubbing, Danny looks in the mirror and his jaw drops, We cut to a close up of Danny looking in to the mirror and he can see the suit man from earlier standing in the open doorway, glass in hand, a menacing grin on his face. Ominous music becomes louder and louder, The camera is still aimed onto the mirror, we see the suit man pull out a green balloon from behind him and he drops it. It slowly floats to the ground, the suit man never breaks contact with Danny. The balloon falls on the floor, and a leathery black sole hovers about it, just ready to pop.

Suddenly, the ominous music stops and Danny's mother lets him go. His mother tells him to go to bed and Danny looks at her. This a medium shot from the doorway. Cut to a close up of Danny's face and he looks aghast. In the hallway, is a single green balloon.

Screenplay

Synopsis

Essay First Draft

In a 1969 interview, Stanley Kubrick said that ‘‘where each viewer brings his own emotions and perceptions to bear on the subject matter, a certain degree of ambiguity is valuable because it allows the audience to ‘fill in’ the visual experience themselves.’’ In regards to this, how does the spectator theory influence Stanley Kubrick as an auteur?

In a interview with Joe Gelmis about his film ‘’2001: A Space Odyssey’’, he states that ‘ambiguity is valuable because it allows the audience to ‘fill in’ the visual experience themselves.’ [1] This quote reveals Kubrick’s interest in giving his audience agency into his films. In a review of ‘A Clockwork Orange, Tim Brayton said ‘’His mode here is primarily diagnostic: we observe without taking part, either by rejoicing in the nastiness of it all or recoiling at the obscenity.’’ [2] Brayton is reinforcing Kubrick’s aim to make the audience part of the viewing experience, by his own position as the spectator. By considering these two quotes, this essay will answer my question of how the spectator theory influenced Stanley Kubrick as a director and to what extent it was prominent in all his films, if his status as a ‘’auteur’’ of film is justified.

The six films I will be looking at are Kubrick’s films from 1968 onwards,

2001: A Space Odyssey- an epic sci-fi film about space, technology and humanity

A Clockwork Orange-  Kubrick’s most controversial film, Alex, a young sociopath obsessed with classical music is arrested for murder and is reconditioned by the government so he can no longer commit violence.

Barry Lyndon- a period film chronicling the rise and fall of Redmond Barry, an Irish peasant in the 18^th century who slowly ascends to wealth and royalty.

The Shining- modern day horror film about a family who spend the winter looking after the haunted Overlook hotel. However the ghosts drive the father insane and he attempts to kill his wife and child.

Full Metal Jacket- Vietnam War film. It follows the protagonist Joker, a pacifist and war photographer through basic training and the Tet offensive.

Eyes Wide Shut- a man finds his marriage, his family and his own life in danger after attending a secretive masked ball orgy.

Reviewers critically acclaim nearly all these films with the exception of Eyes Wide Shut. [3] Kubrick’s rarely stuck to one genre with his films, with Barry Lyndon being a period film set in the 18^th century, The Shining a modern day horror film and Full Metal Jacket, a war film about Vietnam. His versatility and effectiveness in filmmaking meant he could execute each genre of film seamlessly.  My secondary texts will consist of reviews of his films, spectatorship theorists like Baudry, Metz and Mulvey and audience perceptions of his films through websites like IMDB.

In order to answer my question of whether the spectator theory is prominent in Stanley Kubrick’s works, I will have three research questions to help me discover it.

My first research question is ‘’Can Stanley Kubrick’s title as an auteur be justified?’’ An auteur is defined as a director who has complete creative control over a film so that the end product is his ‘vision.’ This could be certainly said about Kubrick’s later films where he had very little interuptance from Hollywood producers during the production of his films. His eye for perfectionism meant that the studios allowed him as much time as he wanted to make a film, Eyes Wide Shut took 2 years of filming to make.

My second research question is ‘’Is the theory of spectatorship influential in all of Stanley Kubrick’s films or is it specific to certain films?’’ The theme of spectatorship in Kubrick films is apparent. In A Clockwork Orange, we are forced into watching horrific acts of rape and violence during the film as the spectator, a direct parallel with Alex’s Ludovico technique, where he is forced to watch violent images in order to make him averse to violence. However can the theory of spectatorship be applied to less apparent films of Kubrick like Barry Lyndon and The Shining?

My final research question is  ‘’How has the audience reception and reaction changed to Stanley Kubrick’s films?’’

It is noticeable during Kubrick’s lifetime that his films when they initially came out were not well received, The Shining was given a Golden Razzy nomination for worst picture and criticised for being not scary enough. However, if we come to the present time now, numerous film critics and audience members have put The Shining on their top 10 horror movies lists or even their best films of all time lists. It is curious to see how reaction has changed over time and could it be due to the spectator theory of the audience building their own narrative construct and interpretation of the film?