스탠리 큐브릭: 통일된 형식과 내용

Stanley Kubrick: Form and Content as Unity: the Case of Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket

Not many film directors have a conceptual talent to crystallize every film they make. It is the talent to construct a form that will exhibit filmmaker's vision in an unexpected way which seems to have been the only possible way when the film is finished. The relationship between form and content has always been one of the major topics in art history. The style of cinema that Stanley Kubrick created is not separated from its thematic concerns. Kubrick once said that anyone seriously interested in comparative film techniques should study the differences in approach of Sergei Eisenstein and Charlie Chaplin. According to him, Eisenstein is all form and no content, whereas Chaplin is content and no form. This obviously indicates Kubrick's deep personal concerns about form and content as unity. Kubrick believes that style is what a filmmaker uses to fascinate the audience in order to convey to them his feelings, emotions and thoughts. And the original intention is constantly modified as he tries to give it more objective realization. Kubrick tried to transform his thought and metaphysical concept into film language. To achieve this goal, he adheres to reality itself. In many cases, reality often depends on ambiguity, alienation, angst, and absurdity. Paths of Glory is a best example to discuss about Kubrick's style and content. Kubrick used the ironic blending of settings and action, words and images to express his own vision in Paths of Glory. In Full Metal Jacket, Kubrick tried for a certain degree of ambiguity. It allows the audience to fill in the visual experience themselves. Thus, the spectator eventually finds out what the true meaning of the scene was, satisfied with the movie. It is interesting to compare Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket since both films represent the ultimate human condition-not much about war itself, even though they are generally categorized as the anti-war movies. Kubrick's general themes are connected with his view of human nature and what is happening to humankind in the present time. One of Kubrick's main concerns is the boundary of humanity and those extreme situations that reveal its limits. It defines the nature of being human. As his own style was the result of the way his mind worked, he expressed those themes in complex styles as form.