Kubrick Celebrated with New Film Installation

Back in 2010 Mo’Wax and UNKLE founder, artist and DJ James Lavelle launched Daydreaming With... an art exhibition series dedicated to the creation of unique and multi-sensory experiences, pushing the boundaries of creativity.

Returning for the first time since 2010, this year's exhibition saw Lavelle and a host of contemporary artists, filmmakers and musicians create projects inspired by the work of visionary director and cinematic auteur, Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick had agreed to direct the video for a track on UNKLE's 1998 Psyence Fiction album, but died before he could do so, leaving only one track (Lonely Souls featuring Richard Ashcroft) without a video. Made with the blessing of Kubrick's estate, The Corridor is that video.

Created as the centrepiece of the Daydreaming With... show, RSA/Black Dog director Toby Dye and 4Creative ECDs Chris Bovill and John Allison devised The Corridor - a ground breaking film installation inspired by Kubrick's work.

Starring Joanna Lumley and Aidan Gillen, the film features four distinct films in which four narratives blend together in an epic tale of power and corruption. Celebrating the legendary filmmaker’s themes and stylistic devices, the installation plays on a continuous loop, providing an immersive, interactive experience that enables the viewer to self-edit the narrative, creating a new perspective on each subsequent viewing. 

To find out more shots spoke to Dye, Bovill and Allison about the project, what inspired them and the challenges they faced.

How did you become involved in the project?

TD: James Lavelle approached me a couple of years ago to ask me if I was interested in creating something for the exhibition. I said I was. I pondered on it for a while and I came up with the basic concept behind The Corridor. James loved it and we took it from there.

JA & CB: Toby wanted us to take his ideas of an endless zoom and the theme of Sisyphus and run with it. 

What appealed to you about it?

TD: Many things appealed to me about the project, but significantly it was its insane – almost Kubrickian – ambition. For this film installation we’ve created a room, where each of that room’s four walls is entirely filled with a projection of a never-ending tracking shot travelling down four identical corridors and, within each of those four never-ending tracking shots, four very different characters travel on four different narratives, that interconnect with each other, whilst invisibly looping back on themselves for infinity. In retrospect I can’t believe we even attempted it.

Have you ever been involved in a filmic installation project before, and what were the challenges in directing this over a more traditional film?

TD: No, I’ve never made a film installation before and I have to say that the biggest challenge in creating work for this arena is that you have to approach it with a totally different mind-set to traditional film work.

Any film, from commercial to feature film, is a linear experience for the audience – there’s a beginning a middle and the end – but in a gallery setting that model is not going to work as there is no scheduled start time for your piece, it’s always on.

So I think for film work to be successful in this environment it has to be non-linear. Hence why The Corridor was devised from inception as a non-linear series of narratives and visuals that invisibly looped back on themselves (in theory for infinity).

It doesn’t matter when you start watching The Corridor as each story that is unfolding on each of the four walls of the room invisibly loops back on itself – there is no beginning, middle or end.

JA & CB: It’s a first for us. The challenges are self-made. It couldn’t be Kubrickian if it wasn’t ambitiously technical and very immersive.

Why was Kubrick chosen as inspiration and how did you evolve the concept?

TD: The choice of Kubrick as inspiration was not mine, it was that of the mastermind behind this exhibition, James Lavelle.  He is a lifelong Kubrick fan and I think his idea of creating an art exhibition of work based around how leading creative minds respond to the work of one of the icons of arguably the 20^th Century’s greatest art form is a wonderfully fresh way to look at both Stanley Kubrick and also the cyclical nature of how art influences culture.

As far as evolving the concept from that initial idea, that has really been a matter of the different creative forces that became involved in the project and developed it with me.

Significantly the involvement of John Allison and Chris Bovill in crafting the script with me, took the project on in ways I could never have envisaged, especially in adding to the labyrinthine levels of interconnectivity between the various narratives, and post production facility MPC's amazing work in crafting the never-ending corridors has also been a major factor to the successful evolution of the project.

JA & CB: The film is part of an exhibition celebrating the work and influence of the great man. We wanted to create something that wasn’t just a fan-boy ode. It delved into his technical obsessions as well as his thematic obsessions. There is a tiny nod to Room 237 in there, if you can spot it.

As a filmmaker, how has Kubrick been an influence on you?

TD: I think Kubrick has been an influence on most filmmakers that came after him and I’m no exception. For me, what best encapsulates the cinema of Stanley Kubrick is the unblinking red eye of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

All Kubrick’s films share that same coolly analytical gaze, studying from afar mankind and all its many foibles. That’s what I love about Kubrick’s approach to filmmaking and I think it’s always at the back of mind when I am crafting my own work.

JA & CB: His influence on culture is virtually unparalleled. Fashion, music, art and so on. You see references to him everywhere. What we’ve always loved is that he made things difficult for his audience. He created huge, grey areas. Beautifully ambiguous. This means his work lives on.

Why did you think Aidan Gillen and Joanna Lumley were right for this project, and how easy/hard was it to get them on board?

TD: We wanted to be bold with our casting and Joanna and Aidan were both at the fore front of our minds when we thought about the right talent for these roles. So we were over the moon when they both said yes.

We were very fortunate that they both happened to be big Kubrick fans and loved the project. They are both very physical actors with huge screen presence - you can’t take your eyes off them when they are on screen.  

How has the Daydreaming with.. project evolved since its inception, and how do you see it moving forward?

TD: I guess from my own perspective I’d love to see more Daydreaming with… in the vein of this exhibition – taking cultural icons and looking at them through the prism of new work that is inspired by them. I think it’s a fascinating new approach.

JA & CB: It stayed true to the original ideas that we chatted to Toby about. Four characters, four corridors and one cycle of violence and power. However, it evolved as more people came on board.

When Aiden and Joanna came on board, they breathed life into their characters. It started as purely film and thanks to some great collaboration it has evolved into something more performance based. It’s quite an intense trip.

Daydreaming With… Stanley Kubrick runs from 6^th July – 24^th August 2016 at Somerset House in London. For more infomation visit Daydreaming With...