Stanley Kubrick and the internationalisation of post-war Hollywood

Abstract

This essay examines the early career, up to 1960, of the Jewish-American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, covering his first five features as well as his short films, his unrealised projects and also, very briefly, his initial work as a photojournalist. With detailed references to Fear and Desire (1953), Paths of Glory (1957) and The German Lieutenant (a script that came close to production in 1959), it discusses Kubrick’s strong interest in twentieth-century German and Austrian culture and history, his ‘procedural’ approach to stories about World Wars I and II, and the increasing internationalisation of the content and production circumstances of his work. These developments are discussed in relation to box office trends and public opinion in the United States as well as to changes in Hollywood’s mode of production and key markets in the post-war era.