“No entry”. The gigantic metal plaque placed on the gate of Stanley Kubrick’s property, near Saint Albans, in the Hertfordshire countryside, about thirty kilometers from London, leaves no doubt as to the desire of the former owner of the place to preserve his privacy. If the curious visitor ever misses the warning, two kilometers ahead a new plaque awaits, screwed to another even more imposing door: “Going further is prohibited.” These prohibitions once appeared as categorical imperatives intended to erect a wall between Kubrick and the rest of the world. The American director died in 1999, just after presenting the first “butt” of his last film, eyes wide closed, but signs of their desire for insularity survived.
Stanley Kubrick found himself, in 1977, in the midst of preparing for Bright when he found his own Overlook Hotel. In Stephen King’s novel it was an establishment isolated from everything in the middle of the mountains, where the writer played by Jack Nicholson was invaded by a murderous madness. For Kubrick, it will take the more rural form of Childwickbury Manor, purchased from a horse trainer. “Be careful, in Childwickbury you should not pronounce the “l””, insists Katharina Kubrick, the daughter that Christiane Kubrick, the filmmaker’s wife, had from a first marriage and whom the filmmaker adopted and raised. At the wheel of his 4×4, he passes a cattle ranch and then a herd of cows. A forest appears, but there are no houses on the horizon. However, Childwickbury is no mirage.
Katharina Kubrick resides there with her mother, who still works in her painting studio, and her nephew, Sam Kubrick, a heavy metal musician, son of her half-sister, Anya Kubrick, who died in 2009. Childwickbury was originally a mansion. a name whose relevance his daughter questions. “If it were a mansion, there would be a lord. My father was nothing like a gentleman. » Stanley Kubrick, alien to this aristocracy, nevertheless possessed all the qualities of a squire.
Buried on his property
Various parts of the building date from the Elizabethan period; today they are supported by a more recent building with visible cracks. The stables, once transformed by the filmmaker into an editing room and offices, are disused. Forests and pastures, as well as a surrounding wall, put the place out of reach. Stanley Kubrick’s Xanadu, his distant and isolated kingdom, undoubtedly gave its visitors the sensation of entering another dimension. This domain was meant to make him untouchable. “One day, remember Katharina KubrickA man knocks on our door, my father answers, the man asks: “I would like to meet Stanley Kubrick.” My father replied: “He is absent today.” And closed the door. »
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