Stanley Kubrick Interviews

In Kubrick's view: "The emotions of people are far more similar than their intellects. The common bond is their subconscious emotional reaction. Watching a film is like having a daydream. It operates on portions of your mind that are only reached by dreams or dramas, and there you can explore things without any responsibility of conscious ego or conscience."

Mind's Eye: A Clockwork Orange, John Hofsess 1971

"I don't think that any work of art has a responsibility to be anything but a work of art. There obviously is a considerable controversy, just as there always has been, about what is a work of art, and I should be the last to try to define that. I was amused by Cocteau's Orphée when the poet is given the advice: Astonish me. The Johnsonian definition of a work of art is also meaningful to me, and that is that a work of art must either make life more enjoyable or more endurable. Another quality, which I think forms part of the definition, is that a work of art is always exhilarating and never depressing, whatever its subject matter may be."

Modern Times: An Interview with Stanley Kubrick, Philip Strick and Penelope Houston 1972

Stanley Kubrick Interviews, Gene D. Phillips