ABSTRACT
Kubrick was a doting father. Yet the adult/child relationships in his films vary widely. They are sentimentalized in Spartacus but sexualized in Lolita. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s daughter appears in a video link conversation, simultaneously reaffirming his own imbrication in family and the distancing of parents from their children during the space race. The Star Child in 2001 has been read as returning to Mother Earth. However, its origins are also parthenogenetic, suggesting humanity’s future is predicated on a parent-free state. Certainly, Alex’s relationship with P and M in A Clockwork Orange is ambivalent. Barry Lyndon’s devotion to his beloved Bryan is touching, but his stepson Lord Bullingdon is his undoing. Danny Torrance has to negotiate the all-out war between his parents in The Shining. In Eyes Wide Shut, daughters are both trafficked and cosseted, but even Helena is almost abandoned by her mother and strangely ignored by her father. Michel Chion says we “forget that Bill is himself a father.” Then there is the problematic relationship between David and his adoptive family in A. I. Artificial Intelligence. The chapter traces these ambivalent representations to discuss Kubrick’s difficult negotiation of caring relationships between adults and children.
