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Director Stanley Kubrick, whose films include 2001: A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove, once planned to emigrate to Australia, so concerned was he about the threat of nuclear war in the northern hemisphere, according to a university researcher.
Murdoch University Associate Professor Mick Broderick said he became aware of the plan when researching his new book, Reconstructing Strangelove: Inside Stanley Kubrick's 'Nightmare Comedy'.
"He'd be thinking all throughout the 1950s that New York, where he was living, was definitely going to be a target," Associate Professor Broderick said.
"In 1949, the Soviets acquired their first atomic weapons. America had had a monopoly for four years.
"But then it was a race, a nuclear arms race, and then New York would be one of the first places to be annihilated in any future conflict with the Soviet Union.
"He'd looked into potential places that might be safe havens from nuclear attack, and this is before real concerns about fallout had entered the popular consciousness."
However, Associate Professor Broderick said, this changed in the 1950s, and it became clear that a major nuclear attack in the northern hemisphere would affect everyone.
So Kubrick, whose other well-known films include A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Lolita, Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket, looked at the southern hemisphere.
"He decided that Perth was the least likely place to be either affected by a direct nuclear attack or subject to radioactive fallout from a northern hemisphere war," Associate Professor Broderick said.
Kubrick was attuned to nuclear science and strategy and would have been aware of tests occurring off Western Australia and in South Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, he said.
But compared to what may have happened in the northern hemisphere in the event of an all-out war, Australia was considered to be a place of much lower risk.
So, he made plans to move to Australia.
"The documentation I've discovered shows that he made real plans and in fact went about transferring funds from his bank accounts into Australian bank accounts, he went to Australia House (in London) and met with various embassy officials about obtaining visas for himself and for his family," Associate Professor Broderick said.
"And he actually booked passage to take a trip in 1962.
"So from August 1961 to August 1962, when he ultimately deferred that travel — didn't cancel it, he was very clear in his messages that he was deferring his trip to Australia — he'd made a conscious effort to continue his filmmaking practice, this is between Lolita and the development and the pre-production of Dr. Strangelove.
"At one point he said to the editor of Lolita, who became the editor on Dr. Strangelove, Tony Harvey, 'Hey, you know, do you think you could get on the boat with us if we have to go to Australia?'
"Tony Harvey recalls this story, the idea being that if the balloon went up, he would be on a boat with Kubrick and his family, potentially working on that film for that six weeks during that sea voyage."
And the reason he didn't? It seemed the privacy of the bathroom was more important than the privations of a bomb shelter.
"There's a lovely anecdote by his wife Christiane, the final nail in the coffin for him deciding not to go was when he learnt that booking passage would mean he'd have to share a bathroom with other guests for those six weeks," Associate Professor Broderick said.
"And this was intolerable!"
Associate Professor Broderick said he could not extract himself from the work on Dr. Strangelove.
He said there was also evidence that if he did come to Australia, Kubrick may have undertook to shoot a version of Ned Kelly.
Kubrik had sent a memo to an assistant to get information about the story of Ned Kelly, including the 1906 film version.
Presumably Kubrick would have shot without Mick Jagger in the lead role.
Topics: film-movies, nuclear-accident, perth-6000
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