Actor manipulator

Rating: 7/10 (31 December 2002)

Stanley Kubrick tended to manipulate actor like puppet to serve his camera, that's why I never like his work very much. He had been eager to show off his mise-en-scene ability, which became more and more obsessive in his later films.
Early in this over-praised movie, two generals, played by Adolphe Menjou and George Macready, has a conversation about attacking German-occupied Ant Hill. Kubrick makes them walk around in the room without any motivation, just to move the actors so that he can pan his camera to reveal the well-designed set.
Later, Kirk Douglas is talking to someone on the staircase of the headquarter, Macready walks up and joins him, then they move higher while carrying on conversation, so the camera can change its angle to pick up other parts of the huge set without cutting. After their dialogue is over, Macready steps down the stairway. (Why he leads Kirk to walk up in the first place?)
Not having military background, Kubrick doesn't know soldiers don't talk that way. If a general wants to talk to a colonel, he would simply yell, "Hey, colonel, come over here!" He would never go to a subordinate officer in real life. Moving the actor up and down for no reason seems rather ludicrous.