Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)
Filed under the name Stanley · February 15, 2026
Stanley Kubrick directed that space picture, 2001, the one my son-in-law is always going on about, and from what I gather the man was famous for being meticulous almost to a fault — reshooting things over and over till they were exactly right. I never had the patience for that kind of perfectionism myself, not with four kids and a classroom full of eight-year-olds needing something different every five minutes, but I respect it in a person who's got the luxury of that kind of focus. Bold storytelling, they call his films, and I suppose that's true even if I couldn't sit through the whole thing myself — the Hallmark channel suits me better these days. Still, there's something to be said for a person who refuses to turn in less than their best, even when nobody but him could tell the difference. I've always told my students, and my own children too, that doing a thing right when you could've gotten away with doing it fast is its own kind of character.