Below the Line: Decentering Narratives from the Stanley Kubrick Archive (original) (raw)

2022, PhD - work in progress

My research focusses on decentering narratives from the Stanley Kubrick Archive (SKA) to challenge the hegemonic white, heterosexual, cis gendered male centric history of film production. I am considering how intersectional methods, defined by Kimberly Crenshaw (1989) can be used to recover marginalised voices from within the SKA and to explore these stories. By seeking out the histories of women, LGBTQ+ people and people of colour, the process of decentering the history contained within the archive can begin. Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) was an American film producer and director who made many of his blockbuster films in the UK, including 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Shining (1980) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The SKA, housed in the Archives and Special Collections Centre at University of Arts London, exists as a record of the development and production of his films, made and unmade, with material spanning his entire career from the 1940s to the 2000s, beyond his death in 1999. The SKA is a monolithic monument to Stanley Kubrick. However, within this “identity archive” are documents and work created by other contributors. People such as Joy Cuff, who built the moon models for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Chris Baker, who produced concept drawings for Eyes Wide Shut, Wendy Carlos who composed the memorable score for The Shining, and Arthur Jafa who took hundreds of photographs of New York streets for the preproduction of Eyes Wide Shut. Evidence of their work is housed in the SKA, often unattributed and unseen. These examples, and many others, demonstrate ‘below the line workers’ who were employed because of their skills and expertise. They worked with the director’s vision in mind, but creatively expressed themselves and developed their careers before, through and beyond their work with Stanley Kubrick. My aim is to research and repurpose narratives from marginalised voices within the SKA, looking mainly at these below the line film workers. My main objectives are: 1. To use the Stanley Kubrick Archive to uncover the histories of marginalised people who contributed creative labour to films directed by Stanley Kubrick 2. To collect, preserve and investigate the histories of under-represented people in the UK film industry 3. To challenge the hegemonic auteur-based history of film production by highlighting the hidden labour and collaborative practices of filmmaking This original contribution to knowledge will impact the narrative of Kubrick studies and film studies more widely. It will contribute to a developing paradigm shift in the teaching of film history and production studies making it more accessible and inclusive. This work also presents an example of ways that researchers and archivists can work together to address gaps and silences in identity archives, to challenge dominant narratives and to present multiple ways of viewing the past. It is my hope that this learning will allow the film workers of the future to see themselves in film history and that it will empower them to address the inequalities that still exist and begin to redress the balance of the dominant historical narrative.