Turner Classic Movies released the latest season of their film podcast The Plot Thickens today. The new series, Stanley, will cover the life and work of Stanley Kubrick in eleven episodes. (The podcast narration refers to Kubrick only by his first name, which feels inappropriate.)
What makes the series especially interesting is that it includes exclusive audio extracts from a Kubrick interview recorded by Joseph Gelmis in 1972 which, as narrator Ben Mankiewicz says, “has never been heard by the public.” Gelmis taped the conversation as research for his article headlined “Why Kubrick Thinks ‘A Clockwork Orange’ Ticks” for Newsday magazine (published on 27th July 1972).
Similarly, audio clips from Kubrick interviews recorded by Michel Ciment in 1975, 1980, and 1987 appear in Grégory Monro’s documentary Kubrick by Kubrick (Kubrick par Kubrick). Longer extracts from Ciment’s recordings were broadcast on French radio in 2011.
Other Kubrick interview recordings have also been released in recent years. The collector’s edition of The Stanley Kubrick Archives included a CD featuring a 1966 Kubrick interview by Jeremy Bernstein for The New Yorker. A 1987 Kubrick interview by Tim Cahill for Rolling Stone was issued as an episode of The Kubrick Series podcast. Japanese TV producer Jun’ichi Yaoi interviewed Kubrick by telephone in 1980, and VHS video footage of the interview was released online in 2018.
The first episode of Stanley features plenty of familiar Bernstein interview clips, but only a few short extracts from the previously unreleased Gelmis interview. It also has too much background material on 1930s social history that’s only tangentially related to Kubrick.
What makes the series especially interesting is that it includes exclusive audio extracts from a Kubrick interview recorded by Joseph Gelmis in 1972 which, as narrator Ben Mankiewicz says, “has never been heard by the public.” Gelmis taped the conversation as research for his article headlined “Why Kubrick Thinks ‘A Clockwork Orange’ Ticks” for Newsday magazine (published on 27th July 1972).
Similarly, audio clips from Kubrick interviews recorded by Michel Ciment in 1975, 1980, and 1987 appear in Grégory Monro’s documentary Kubrick by Kubrick (Kubrick par Kubrick). Longer extracts from Ciment’s recordings were broadcast on French radio in 2011.
Other Kubrick interview recordings have also been released in recent years. The collector’s edition of The Stanley Kubrick Archives included a CD featuring a 1966 Kubrick interview by Jeremy Bernstein for The New Yorker. A 1987 Kubrick interview by Tim Cahill for Rolling Stone was issued as an episode of The Kubrick Series podcast. Japanese TV producer Jun’ichi Yaoi interviewed Kubrick by telephone in 1980, and VHS video footage of the interview was released online in 2018.
The first episode of Stanley features plenty of familiar Bernstein interview clips, but only a few short extracts from the previously unreleased Gelmis interview. It also has too much background material on 1930s social history that’s only tangentially related to Kubrick.
