Thanks to the generosity of the Bangor Fund, a group of second- and third-year film and media students recently visited the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the London College of Communication as part of a module exploring the director.
Led by Professor Nathan Abrams in School of Arts and Humanities, a renowned Kubrick scholar himself, this trip allowed the students to gain insight into the enigmatic director’s inner workings by viewing the props, notes, and pre-production materials ranging from Kubrick’s time working at Look Magazine in New York to his final film, Eyes Wide Shut, and including The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Students saw some of the masks from Eyes Wide Shut, as well as an original manuscript for Stephen King’s 1977 book, The Shining, entirely annotated by Kubrick himself, which laid bare the difficulties and frustrations a filmmaker encounters when adapting someone else’s work. They were also able to look through the hundreds of typewriter pages drafted for the same film, in multiple languages, showing the amount of work put into such a small scene. The students also gained an understanding of the role of an archivist, how archives really work, the effort it takes to catalogue thousands of materials, and the temperature control they must be kept under to ensure their longevity.
One of the students in attendance, William Mitchell, said,
This trip was incredibly eye-opening, on account of the amount of materials available for us to see. The fact that we were able to read through and hold the same notes Kubrick himself wrote all those years ago made me feel closer to his body of work and humanized the director, rather than uphold the image he had made for himself as an impatient bully. I am incredibly grateful to both the archivists and Professor Nathan Abrams for allowing us the opportunity to visit here.
Nathan said,
I am grateful to the Bangor Fund for once again supporting this visit to the Kubrick Archive. It’s a great experience for the students.
The Bangor Fund is made up of alumni donations and administered by the Development and Alumni Relations, with the primary purpose of providing an element of additionality to the student experience.
