Given how long he took between pictures, a timeline that only increased with age, who knows how many more films we would have received from Stanley Kubrick had he not passed away at the age of 70. But the director always had multiple projects on the go at any given time, and it appears that even as he was working on “Eyes Wide Shut” (the filmmaker died four days after delivering his final cut), Kubrick has a couple of irons in the fire.
According to his longtime personal assistant and friend Emilio D’Alessandro, author of the book “Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side,” Kubrick had two projects brewing before he passed away: a big screen adaptation of Pinocchio and a WWII movie centered around Monte Cassino, a German defensive line that was finally broken by the Allies after four assaults, that resulted in a heavy loss of life in close quarter fighting.
“Stanley was interested in making Pinocchio. He sent me to buy Italian books about [him],” D’Alessandro told The Guardian, noting the director wanted to make something his grandchildren could watch. “He wanted to make it in his own way because so many Pinocchios have been made. He wanted to do something really big … He said: ‘It would very nice if I could make children laugh and feel happy by making this Pinocchio.’ ”
It’s an interesting revelation, especially considering sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss, who worked with Kubrick during the early stages of “A.I.” (eventually directed by Steven Spielberg), which was based on his short story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” complained that initial drafts were leaning too close to “Pinocchio,” and included The Blue Fairy.
Meanwhile, Kubrick had a long-running interest in the madness of war (“Paths Of Glory,” “Full Metal Jacket,”“Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb”), and he approach the Monte Cassino project with his usual rigor for research.
“He asked me to get hold of things … like newspaper cuttings and find out the distance from the airport, train stations. He had a friend who actually bombarded Monte Cassino during the war … It is horrible to remember those days. Everything was completely destroyed,” D’Alessandro recalled.
It wasn’t the only WWII project Kubrick looked at over the years. Following “Path Of Glory,” he considered “The German Lieutenant,” which would’ve been set in the dying days of the war and centered on two German soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines, quietly rig a bridge to explode, are captured by American soldiers, but keep their plan secret. The bridge does explode, but the war is lost, rendering the German mission ultimately meaningless. And then of course was the Holocaust drama “The Aryan Papers,” which Kubrick famously set aside when Steven Spielberg when ahead with “Schindler’s List.”
So a fascinating what-could’ve-been but Kubrick still has more coming — Cary Fukunaga will be bringing the director’s dream project “Napoleon” to life at HBO.