This research considers how intersectional methods can be used to find marginalised voices within the Stanley Kubrick Archive (SKA) and to explore their stories. By seeking out the histories of women, LGBTQ+ people and people of colour, the process of decentering the history contained within the archive can begin. ‘Decentering’ aims to de-emphasise privileged centres of narratives and analysis, abandoning the centre in favour of an approach suited to a multicultural, postcolonial and feminist world.
The SKA currently exists as a monolithic monument to Stanley Kubrick, with him firmly at the centre of the historical narrative. However, within the archive are documents and work created by collaborators such as the artists Joy Cuff and Chris Baker, the writer Diane Johnson, the composer Wendy Carlos, choreographer Yolande Snaith and director/photographer Lisa Leone as well as many other below the line movie workers. These examples, and many others, demonstrate people who worked independently with the director’s vision in mind but who expressed themselves and developed their careers through and beyond their work with Stanley Kubrick.
By reading ‘against the grain’ and exploring the gaps and silences that exist in the archive this research will foreground the work of Kubrick’s collaborators, moving away from the dominant (white, heterosexual, cis gendered male) “auteur” based narrative of cinema history. This fissure in the narrative will open up the possible uses of the SKA and other film archives for more inclusive research into film production, without a focus on the director
