Stanley Kubrick is in the house: LACMA exhibit

I went to see the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA again yesterday and my friend Laura and I were so impressed I decided to repost this blog I originally wrote back in October. 

If you are planning a trip to Los Angeles add a visit to LACMA , the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  Beginning November 1 and running through June 13, 2013 the museum is featuring an
amazing Stanley Kubrick exhibit.

There are film clips, extensive notes, sketches, designs, wardrobe, props from most of his movies. It's a thorough and fascinating multi-roomed show, each film getting the full treatment. I'd heard Kubrick was ferocious in terms of research and preparation but I was completely blown away to the degree displayed in the exhibit. I was also pleasantly surprised by just how many of Kubrick's films were based on books!

There's great personal memorabilia too including a handwritten note from Audrey Hepburn thanking Kubrick but turning down an offered part.  There's also a note from Sue Lyon, 30 years after playing the fourteen year old Lolita, happily married and living away from Hollywood. I was shocked to read that she herself was just 13 when they started filming Lolita, the controversial film based on Nabakov's book. I didn't remember that the character in the book was just twelve! Not so surprising then, that there are also letters from pastors and religious organizations asking Kubrick not to make this movie.

There's the typewriter WITH the sheet of paper in it from that wild and crazy scene in The Shining plus a model of the maze.

So many things to read and listen to and marvel at from:

Lolita based on Nabakov's book.
Barry Lyndon based on the novel of the same name (but sometimes called The Luck of Barry Lyndon) written by
William Makepeace Thackeray.
Eyes Wide Shut based on Arthur Schnitzler's Rhapsody: A Dream Novel written in 1926.
Full Metal Jacket based on the novel Short Timers by Gustav Hasford.
Clockwork Orange based on Anthony Burgess' masterpiece.
2001: A Space Odyssey based on the book by Arthur C. Clarke
And of course, The Shining from Stephen King - much to his disgust.