Kubrick´s favourite?


Stanley Kubrick has praised a film named Girlfriends. Is it this one???

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This may be a somewhat tardy reply, but yes this film was praised by Kubrick in an interview I read linked to the Taschen website (publishers of the Kubrick Archives)where he referred to the film as "Claudia Weill's" Girlfriends. The interview was done around 1980, which sounds right.

He said of it: "That film, I thought, was one of the very rare American films that I would compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe."

Wow. Is this thing on DVD?

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As a matter of fact I got the info from Taschen, too, and sort of wanted to confirm it from another source. But thanks anyway.

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Yes, I have a copy on good old VHS-- they should put it out on DVD... it is one of the last great films of the 70s

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Here is some more that Kubrick had to say about Girlfriends (this is taken from The SK Archives, a massive book).

"It wasn't a success, I don't know why; it should have been. Certainly I thought it was a wonderful film. It seemed to make no compromise to the inner truth of the story, you know, the theme and everything else."

"This film that Claudia Weill did, I think she did on an amatuer basis; she shot it for about a year, two or three days a week. Of course she had a great advantage, because she had all the time she needed to think about it, to see what she had done. I thought she made the film extremely well."

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Hmmmmm. I think Kubrick is mistaken in one respect. It WAS a big hit (for a while) on the art house circuit. At least it was here in Massachusetts. This was one of those rare art house films that actually played in suburban theatres around here!

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It also came to London and people & critics raved about it. I saw it in a West End cinema. But I can't imagine it made much money.

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I've just finished reading the interview to Kubrick in "The Stanley Kubrick Archives", and was curious to read about this film he nominates several times.
Well, I think it's just a film of the period he watched and for some reason he liked, but didn't survive to time and is pretty unknown now.


I'm Winston Wolf, I solve problems

And no dream is ever... just a dream...

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It's still a wonderful film. All too often, good work is inexplicably forgotten, while mediocre work is remembered.

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Strangely did not get reviewed by Siskel & Ebert, which might have helped a lot.

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It's on TCM tonight at 11:30 PM, EST if you are still looking for it.











"You met me at a very strange time in my life"

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