Why Kubrick didn't write original scripts

When Stanley Kubrick made his first feature film, Fear and Desire, he took on almost all the key work behind the camera, serving as cinematographer, editor, and producer of the anti-war drama. However, the screenplay was not written by him, but by Howard Sackler.

Sackler wrote an original story for Kubrick's first film, but this would soon become an exception in the director's career. His next film, "Kiss of a Killer," marked the beginning of a long-standing practice of basing almost all of his films on literary works. He maintained this approach until the very end of his career, which he concluded with "Eyes Wide Shut," a modern adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's novella "A Dream Story."

Kubrick found it difficult to objectively evaluate a story you create yourself. He believed that it was easy for an author to become too attached to his own idea and lose track of whether it would actually work on the screen. He therefore preferred to choose existing works of literature so that he could see them from the audience's perspective and assess whether they had enough twists and turns to keep the audience's attention.

This does not mean, however, that he did not have original ideas. On the contrary, he was extremely involved in adaptations. For example, together with Arthur C. Clarke, he developed the script for “2001: A Space Odyssey”, based on several of Clarke’s short stories. It was similar with the film “Eyes Wide Shut”, which he wrote together with Frederic Raphael, moving the action from Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century to New York in the 1990s.

The books he chose were very diverse, from contemporary horrors like Stephen King's "The Shining" to classics like "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" by William Makepeace Thackeray.

And the way he chose the material was surprisingly simple.

As he once recounted, he would order books from the US or go to bookstores, close his eyes, and randomly pick books off the shelves.

"I read. If I don't like it after a few pages, I don't finish it. I like books to surprise me," said Kubrick.

This approach was particularly evident in the late 1970s, when he was looking for a novel to adapt as a horror film. According to Stephen King, Kubrick's secretary listened as books one after another ended up on the pile of rejected manuscripts after the director had read only a few pages.

"One day she noticed that she hadn't heard another book hit the wall in a while. She walked into the office and found Kubrick completely engrossed in reading the manuscript of 'The Shining,'" King recalled.

In the end, it turned out that Kubrick found his future film projects through trial and error - reading dozens of books until he came across one that would completely captivate him. Judging by the films he made later, this method almost never failed.