What directors did Kubrick try to support, and what advice did he offer to young filmmakers?
He tried to set Peter Weir (Picknick at Hanging Rock, Witness, The Truman Show) up with an adaptation of The Thorn Birds, and he was hoping that he would direct the film version of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two. When Mike Hodges ( Get Carter, A Prayer for the Dying, Black Rainbow) was having trouble with Warner Brothers executives over one of his films in the seventies he mysteriously found his path cleared one day. He managed to trace this back to a call which Kubrick had personally made to Warners after hearing of Mike’s problems. Kubrick seemed to have power over Warners top brass that was largely based on sheer force of personality. Kubrick was he was known to donate film stock to the National and London International Film School..
