HOWZAT

“He gave up officially after two years’ work because Steven Spielberg [a good friend] had started shooting Schindler’s List. But I think in truth he would have given up anyway and I was very glad of that.”

This can’t have been easy for a director with legendary stamina. “Even though he died at 70 he probably lived much longer than most people because he only ever slept for four or five hours a night,” says Christiane. “If people were ever exhausted by him it was never intentional. He just didn’t get tired.”

Did she find that difficult? “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” she admits. “Yes it was. During most of our marriage I fell asleep first and woke up after him. He didn’t like that very much. He would end up talking to people in California in the middle of the night.”

Kubrick is arguably destined to be most keenly remembered for his provocative visions of the future in films such as Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A.I. — a movie he hatched with Spielberg in mind to direct as long ago as 1989. Spielberg eventually shot and filmed the final version after Kubrick’s death on March 7, 1999. “If there is a theme that runs throughout Stanley’s films it involves people making enormous mistakes even though we’re aware that the choices they make are probably wrong. We are betrayed by brains that are too small. Our frustration and wickedness possibly derives from that fact.”

I ask her if she has ever been tempted to make a film herself. “No. My brother, Jan Harlan, made a very good documentary about Stanley called A Life in Pictures (2001). Warner Brothers wanted to make a picture about Stanley after he died, and we were just sitting here crying,” she gestures around the library, “and we realised that if we didn’t respond, some total stranger would do it. So we decided to do it ourselves. We knew at least it would be true.

“You have to realise that the press enjoyed portraying Stanley as a sour, woman-hating hermit, which was semi-funny when he was alive, but incredibly painful after his death. The reason Stanley didn’t give press interviews is that he thought he had absolutely no talent for it — certainly not chat shows or anything scary like that.

“It wasn’t coyness, or ‘I’m too wonderful to speak’ arrogance. Nothing of the kind. One day he was sent an article to correct and he said OK. He sat at his desk and after an hour he said to me: ‘Perhaps I should just cross out the lot and say No, no, in truth I’m good, kind, wonderful, charming, and brilliant.’ ”

She laughs. “You can’t praise yourself, and yet you feel a complete Charlie about how you are going to appear in print.”

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb will be screened on Oct 27 on TCM (3pm). The Shining will be shown by TCM on Oct 27 (9pm).

Dr Strangelove will be shown at the The Times BFI London Film Festival on Oct 29. See: timesonline.co.uk/lff

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