{"id":406245,"date":"2026-04-19T06:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406245\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:29:15","slug":"a-reading-room-on-wheels-a-lovers-lane-and-after-11-pm-a-flophouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/406245\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A Reading Room on Wheels, a Lover\u2019s Lane, and, After 11 PM, a Flophouse\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, 18 April 2026<\/p>\n

Vittoria Benzine, at Artnet<\/a> (via Oliver Thomas<\/a>):<\/p>\n

The singular American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick saw the little
\ndetails. He even saw the future<\/a>. But, most of all, he saw
\npeople, with all their quirks. Kubrick\u2019s films, from Dr.
\nStrangelove (1964) to The Shining (1980), offer proof of this\u2009\u2014\u2009as do his earliest photos, produced during the 1940s. One new
\ntrove of 18 such images will get its first-ever outing next week,
\nwhen Los Angeles-based Duncan Miller Gallery presents the find
\nalongside works by contemporary photographer Jacqueline Woods at
\nthe Photography Show<\/a> in New York. […]<\/p>\n

The photos are some of the earliest images that the director made
\nfor Look. \u201cNew York\u2019s subway trains are a reading room on wheels,
\na lover\u2019s lane and, after 11 p.m., a flophouse,\u201d Kubrick\u2019s
\nsubsequent photo essay accompanying his subway visions opined.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen some of these before, but not all. (Which makes sense, if some of them have only now been discovered.)<\/p>\n

Mia Moffet, writing for Museum of the City of New York<\/a> back in 2012 (where you can see more of these photos):<\/p>\n

As you can see below, with the exception of iPods and smart
\nphones, activities on the train haven\u2019t changed much in the
\nlast 66 years, including shoving one\u2019s newspaper in everyone
\nelse\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n

My favorite:<\/p>\n


\n \"Black<\/a><\/p>\n

(Here\u2019s another from the same scene<\/a>, moments apart.)<\/p>\n

Moffet then quotes from this 1948 interview with young \u201cStan\u201d Kubrick<\/a>, regarding how he captured them:<\/p>\n

Indoors he prefers natural light, but switches to flash when the
\ndim light would restrict the natural movement of the subject. In a
\nsubway series he used natural light, with the exception of a
\npicture showing a flight of stairs. \u201cI wanted to retain the mood
\nof the subway, so I used natural light,\u201d he said. People who ride
\nthe subway late at night are less inhibited than those who ride by
\nday. Couples make love openly, drunks sleep on the floor and other
\nunusual activities take place late at night. To make pictures in
\nthe off-guard manner he wanted to, Kubrick rode the subway for two
\nweeks. Half of his riding was done between midnight and six a.m.
\nRegardless of what he saw he couldn\u2019t shoot until the car stopped
\nin a station because of the motion and vibration of the moving
\ntrain. Often, just as he was ready to shoot, someone walked in
\nfront of the camera, or his subject left the train.<\/p>\n

Kubrick finally did get his pictures, and no one but a subway
\nguard seemed to mind. The guard demanded to know what was going
\non. Kubrick told him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you got permission?\u201d the guard asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from LOOK,\u201d Kubrick answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, sonny,\u201d was the guard\u2019s reply, \u201cand I\u2019m the society editor
\nof the Daily Worker.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this series Kubrick used a Contax and took the pictures at 1\/8
\nsecond. The lack of light tripled the time necessary for
\ndevelopment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday, 18 April 2026 Vittoria Benzine, at Artnet (via Oliver Thomas): The singular American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":{"0":"post-406245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}