Most of us probably only need one reason to watch The Killing: Stanley Kubrick. But Criterion’s gone ahead and come up with three anyway, and none of them are as simple as “Kubrick,” and all of them are very valid. Interestingly, they don’t include the fascinating and in some ways groundbreaking narrative approach of having the main heist action repeat from the variety of viewpoints provided by all the different participants. But that would be one of my reasons. The Killing is now available on Criterion DVD and Blu-ray.
“The Heist Movie Everyone Rips Off”
Not sure if I 100% agree with it, but I will say that the creators of QUICK CHANGE took one aspect of the film and went with in a decidedly comic way.
Yeah, I think Rififi is much more in a position to claim “the heist movie everyone rips off” then The Killing, but they’re both well worth watching.
I’d go with that. But Kubrick’s entry is a solid one, and that clown mask worn by Sterling Hayden (the lead man) is pretty awesome, and probably pretty ripped off in other films/pop cultural….
In my experience, this film is not very widely seen for a Kubrick film.
The clown mask may be an iconic image but what about the use of an airport as the stage for the climatic scene?
I think what puts The Killing above other heist films is its meticulous (maybe overblown) use of timing, synchronization and transitions. The essay by Haden Guest that comes with the Criterion dvd is a really good read and I recommend giving it a look.
Agreed on the Guest essay, Alechs; I quite enjoyed reading that. You can read the essay on the Criterion Current, as you can with most of the essays included on Criterion DVDs. It’s wonderful they put those online for us to read even if we haven’t been able to get the disc yet.
That is a good essay (if a bit ‘ret-con?’-ish with things at times….comparing it to Last Year at Marienbad? Seriously? I’d buy that from the Shining, but not The Killing.
But yes, I admit in my ‘wow, that was simply a solid, slightly novel heist movie’ first assessment of the film, takes on a bit of new meaning when one considers the heist itself as a horse-race, with a big ‘pay out’ at the end.