Toiling laboriously for over four decades before his death in 1999, directorStanley Kubrick’s career was defined by many hallmarks: a devotion to seemingly pointless minutiae, a love of classical music, pushing the boundaries of technology, and unflinching realism. Yet there’s one more relatable facet of his personality that is never deeply considered when dissecting his career and subject material in the Criterion box-set.Many of his later films reflect, and were arguably shaped by, the cats in his life. All seven of them, to be exact.
Look closely, and you can see the cat hair clinging to his films. His purported favorite cat, Polly, was featured in a large portrait hanging in the NYC apartment foyer belonging to the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman couple in his final movie,Eyes Wide Shut. For film geeks teasing every single scene of his filmography for hidden messages and obscure clues insinuating secret Illuminati schemes, ignore the feline symbolism stuff. That’s just Stanley Kubrick showing you pictures of his pets. The doomed Cat-lady character fromA Clockwork Orangeis more autobiographic than you’d think. Kubrick’s house was full of pampered felines, himself an overprotective owner who had nagging trust issues with the outside world.
The Cuddly Side of an Intimidating Control Freak
Though not amenable to most of the humans he worked with —especially Shelley Duvall— he did occasionally make meaningful connections. Most famously,he bonded with long-time collaborator and composer Wendy Carlos through their mutual love of felines. Carlos observed that when not behind the camera nitpicking Jack Nicholson’s acting, he would usually be toting around a cat in his arms at day’s end. Meanwhile, in his office, it wasn’t unusual to see a cat sprawled across his editing table.
This is a different aspect of his life that humanized the prickly artist, who was generally deemed a pain-in-the-ass by most of his actors, sometimes tormenting performers to the point of a mental collapse on set. At home, the New York exile bent over backwards to appease Freddie, his tomcat. In the documentaryStanley Kubrick’s Boxes, assistant Tony Frewin shared an anecdote about inventing a special collar that would break away in the case of an emergency if a cat got snagged on a tree branch, saving it from injury, per Kubrick’s design specifications.
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Stanley Kubrick’s Guide to Pet Care
In later years, he seldom left his house in England, presumably spending all his free time playing with his cats whilescrutinizing beer commercials frame by framein glorious hermit fashion.According to friends, this homebody tendency could be due to anxiety over proper pampering of his pets, typing out and re-editing a lengthy instruction booklet on how to care for them in his absence.Which might go a long way in explaining why he only had the inclination to go on location and film two movies in the last 19 years of his life. Making notations in the margins to clarify, he made sure that his pets were safe and didn’t get into fights, according to the bookStanley Kubrick and Me, written by a close friend and house-sitter.
With liberal use of caps lock, numerous typos, and dripping with passive-aggression, he dictated how his household was run.Rule number six comically includes the line: “Think ahead and be smarter than the animals, if you possibly can.“Protocols cover feeding schedules, nightly checks to ensure electrical cords were unplugged, contingencies for fires, how to separate unruly animals, and which lights were to be switched on, designating specific rules for individual family members or caretakers. Yes,even at home, he was still bossing everyone around, browbeating his daughter to keep her rowdy party guests away from his neurotic cat Penny to save her unnecessary stress. They say owners begin to resemble their pets over time, and we can believe it.
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Part-Time Filmmaker, Full-Time Cat Psychic
If it wasn’t already clear, he had a very special connection with the animals under his roof, and it manifests in some of his films in surprising ways.He expressed a belief thatESP and mind readingwere demonstrably real phenomena despite no valid scientific data, pointing to his own relationship with his temperamental cats as proof, as he revealed during aFrench radio showinterview. In the 1980 film,The Shining, when the character Dick Hallorann tells Danny that he had conversations with his grandmother without ever opening their mouths, and that most people don’t want to admit to the existence of the supernatural out of embarrassment, Kubrick was confiding his innermost thoughts.
Likewise, Hallorann’s irrate remark about “completely unreliable” caretakers wreaking havoc seems a little too on the nose with what we know about Kubrick’s endless lists of housekeeping standards and best practices.Hinting that his particular interest in Stephen King’sThe Shiningand themes (balancing family and work, perfectionism, isolation) resonated with him, reinforced by personal observations.Just when you thoughtThe Shiningrabbit-hole couldn’t get any more preposterous, toss in cat telepathy. Looking back, it’s more accurate to say that the cats owned him, but as any cat lover will admit, that’s completely normal.
