Stanley Kubrick’s Perfection and the Divine Proportion

In cinematography, Stanley Kubrick is universally known as one of the most significant proponents. He experimented with several cinematographic styles: from noir to horror, from historic to science fiction, from psychological movies to war films. Obsessed with perfection, he was in absolute charge of every part of the making of his films (production, writing, filming and editing). In this paper, we underline how Kubrick loved to play with the symbolic meaning of his choices, with playful mechanisms and with perfect symmetries. His movies are also tightly bound to the other arts (painting, literature, music, theatre, architecture). Furthermore, one must not forget his strong relationship to mathematics, from which he takes logical rigour and expressive harmony. Through this research, we reveal an adherence to the sense of harmony and the magic of the golden section in unforgettable and strongly symbolic shots that characterise masterpieces like Barry Lyndon or A Clockwork Orange.