Highlighting the work of director Stanley Kubrick, Illinois State University’s William Thomas McBride of the Department of English will host the popular Six Week Film School starting February 20 and running through April 3 at the Normal Theater, 209 W. North St.
Showtimes are 7 p.m. The events are free and open to all.
Known as The Kubrick Spectacle, the series will include:
The Killing, February 20
Career criminal Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) recruits a sharpshooter (Timothy Carey), a crooked police officer (Ted de Corsia), a bartender (Joe Sawyer), and a betting teller named George (Elisha Cook Jr.), among others, for one last job before he goes straight and marries his fiancée, Fay (Coleen Gray). But when George tells his restless wife, Sherry (Marie Windsor), about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own. NR/84 min.
Lolita, February 27
With a screenplay penned by the author himself, Kubrick brings Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial tale of forbidden love to the screen. Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is a European professor who relocates to an American suburb, renting a room from lonely widow Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters). Humbert marries Charlotte, but only to nurture his obsession with her comely teenage daughter, Lolita (Sue Lyon). After Charlotte’s sudden death, Humbert has Lolita all to himself–or does he? NR/153 min. Six Week Film School (SWFS) curator Bill McBride and Stephanie Bridges from the YWCA Stepping Stones program will be on hand to discuss the film.
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, March 6
A film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button—and it played the situation for laughs. U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely insane, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He thinks that the communists are conspiring to pollute the “precious bodily fluids” of the American people. PG/95 min.
2001: A Space Odyssey, March 20
An imposing black structure provides a connection between the past and the future in this enigmatic adaptation of a short story by revered sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. When Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and other astronauts are sent on a mysterious mission, their ship’s computer system, HAL, begins to display increasingly strange behavior, leading up to a tense showdown between man and machine that results in a mind-bending trek through space and time. Fully restored 4K print. G/149 min.
A Clockwork Orange, March 27
In an England of the future, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his “Droogs” spend their nights getting high at the Korova Milkbar before embarking on “a little of the old ultraviolence,” while jauntily warbling “Singin’ in the Rain.” After he’s jailed for bludgeoning the Cat Lady to death, Alex submits to behavior modification technique to earn his freedom; he’s conditioned to abhor violence. Returned to the world defenseless, Alex becomes the victim of his prior victims. R/136 min. SWFS curator Bill McBride and Stephanie Bridges from the YWCA Stepping Stones program will be on hand to discuss the film.
The Shining, April 3
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer’s block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and his son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who is plagued by psychic premonitions. As Jack’s writing goes nowhere and Danny’s visions become more disturbing, Jack discovers the hotel’s dark secrets and begins to unravel into a homicidal maniac hell-bent on terrorizing his family. R/146 min.
Find out more on the Six Week Film School website.
