Stanley Kubrick

On December 27, 1899, Kubrick's great-grandfather Hersh Kubrick arrived at Ellis Island via Liverpool by ship at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife and two grown children (one of whom was Stanley's grandfather Elias) to start a new life with a younger woman.

He was the first of two children of Jacob Leonard Kubrick (May 21, 1902 – October 19, 1985), known as Jack or Jacques, and his wife Sadie Gertrude Kubrick (née Perveler; October 28, 1903 – April 23, 1985), known as Gert.

Elias followed in 1902.

At Stanley's birth, the Kubricks lived in the Bronx.

His parents married in a Jewish ceremony, but Kubrick was not raised religious and later professed an atheistic view of the universe.

His father was a physician and, by the standards of the West Bronx, the family was fairly wealthy.

Jack, whose parents and paternal grandparents were of Polish-Jewish and Romanian-Jewish origin, was a homeopathic doctor, graduating from the New York Homeopathic Medical College in 1927, the same year he married Kubrick's mother, who was the child of Austrian-Jewish immigrants.

Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer.

Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or short stories, spanning a number of genres and gaining recognition for their intense attention to detail, innovative cinematography, extensive set design, and dark humor.

Born and raised in New York City, Kubrick was an average school student but displayed a keen interest in literature, photography, and film from a young age; he began to teach himself all aspects of film producing and directing after graduating from high school.

Kubrick was born to a Jewish family in the Lying-In Hospital in New York City's Manhattan borough on July 26, 1928.

His sister Barbara Mary Kubrick was born in May 1934.

Soon after his sister's birth, Kubrick began schooling in Public School 3 in the Bronx and moved to Public School 90 in June 1938.

His IQ was discovered to be above average but his attendance was poor.

He displayed an interest in literature from a young age and began reading Greek and Roman myths and the fables of the Grimm brothers, which "instilled in him a lifelong affinity with Europe".

He spent most Saturdays during the summer watching the New York Yankees and later photographed two boys watching the game in an assignment for Look magazine to emulate his own childhood excitement with baseball.

When Kubrick was 12, his father Jack taught him chess.

The game remained a lifelong interest of Kubrick's, appearing in many of his films.

Kubrick, who later became a member of the United States Chess Federation, explained that chess helped him develop "patience and discipline" in making decisions.

When Kubrick was 13, his father bought him a Graflex camera, triggering a fascination with still photography.

He befriended a neighbor, Marvin Traub, who shared his passion for photography.

Traub had his own darkroom where he and the young Kubrick would spend many hours perusing photographs and watching the chemicals "magically make images on photographic paper".

The two indulged in numerous photographic projects for which they roamed the streets looking for interesting subjects to capture and spent time in local cinemas studying films.

After working as a photographer for Look magazine in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he began making low-budget short films and made his first major Hollywood film, The Killing, for United Artists in 1956.

This was followed by two collaborations with Kirk Douglas: the anti-war film Paths of Glory (1957) and the historical epic film Spartacus (1960).

In 1961, Kubrick left the U.S. due to concerns about crime in the country, as well as a growing dislike for how Hollywood operated and creative differences with Douglas and the film studios; he settled in England, which he would leave only a handful of times for the rest of his life.

He made his home at Childwickbury Manor, which he shared with his wife Christiane, and it became his workplace where he centralized the writing, research, editing, and management of his productions.

This permitted him almost complete artistic control over his films, with the rare advantage of financial support from major Hollywood studios.

His first productions in England were two films with Peter Sellers: an adaptation of Lolita (1962) and the Cold War black comedy Dr. Strangelove (1964).

A perfectionist who assumed direct control over most aspects of his filmmaking, Kubrick cultivated an expertise in writing, editing, color grading, promotion, and exhibition.

He was famous for the painstaking care taken in researching his films and staging scenes, performed in close coordination with his actors, crew, and other collaborators.

He frequently asked for several dozen retakes of the same shot in a movie, often confusing and frustrating his actors.

Despite the notoriety this provoked, many of Kubrick's films broke new cinematic ground and are now considered landmarks.

Freelance photographer Weegee (Arthur Fellig) had a considerable influence on Kubrick's development as a photographer; Kubrick later hired Fellig as the special stills photographer for Dr. Strangelove (1964).

While many of Kubrick's films were controversial and initially received mixed reviews upon release—particularly the brutal A Clockwork Orange (1971), which Kubrick pulled from circulation in the UK following a media frenzy—most were nominated for Academy Awards, Golden Globes, or BAFTA Awards, and underwent critical re-evaluations.

For the 18th-century period film Barry Lyndon (1975), Kubrick obtained lenses developed by Carl Zeiss for NASA to film scenes by candlelight.

With the horror film The Shining (1980), he became one of the first directors to make use of a Steadicam for stabilized and fluid tracking shots, a technology vital to his Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket (1987).

A few days after hosting a screening for his family and the stars of his final film, the erotic drama Eyes Wide Shut (1999), he died from a heart attack at the age of 70.

The scientific realism and innovative special effects in his science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was a first in cinema history, and the film earned him his only Academy Award (for Best Visual Effects).

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg has referred to 2001 as his generation's "big bang" and it is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.