Watch “The Corridor,” a Tribute to the Music Video Stanley Kubrick Planned to Make Near the End of His Life

When Stan­ley Kubrick died, he left behind numer­ous film ideas that would nev­er see the light of day. There was his epic Napoleon film; an adap­ta­tion of a Jim Thomp­son nov­el; his long-talked about Holo­caust film Aryan Papers; and so much more.

But this was a new one to hear about: in 1996 Kubrick agreed to direct a music video for UNKLE’s upcom­ing Psyence Fic­tion album. You may recall, back when MTV played music videos, see­ing Jonathan Glazer’s “Rab­bit in Your Head­lights” video, or Jake Scott’s “Be There,” both from UNKLE’s album. Alas, Kubrick­’s video nev­er got made. He had start­ed film­ing Eyes Wide Shut and then passed away upon its release.

Now “The Cor­ri­dor,” a glimpse of which you can see above, is an attempt to bring Kubrick and UNKLE back togeth­er. It’s not what actu­al­ly might have been filmed by the direc­tor, but some­thing that cap­tures the project in spir­it. It’s also a lov­ing trib­ute to Kubrick’s career and his love of sin­gle-point per­spec­tive, which has been video essayed else­where.

Direc­tor Toby Dye, who has direct­ed videos like “Par­adise Cir­cus” for Mas­sive Attack and “Anoth­er Night Out” for UNKLE, took on the job of bring­ing “The Cor­ri­dor” to the screen, co-designed by Rid­ley Scott Asso­ciates, work­ing with Dye’s Black Dog Films.

“The Cor­ri­dor” uses the one song off Psyence Fic­tion that nev­er got a video, the Richard Ashcroft-sung “Lone­ly Souls,” as its back­drop. Dye has cre­at­ed four nar­ra­tives that play on Kubrick’s icon­ic films–The Shin­ing, A Clock­work Orange, Bar­ry Lyn­don,and 2001–but then inter­weaves time and char­ac­ter along a long cor­ri­dor track­ing shot, star­ring Joan­na Lum­ley and Aiden Gillen.

In addi­tion, “The Cor­ri­dor” is a video cen­ter­piece to what sounds like a very cool exhi­bi­tion. Curat­ed by Mo’Wax and UNKLE founder James Lavelle, “Day­dream­ing with Stan­ley Kubrick” opened yes­ter­day at Som­er­set House in Lon­don and runs through August 24, 2016. Along with the video, the exhi­bi­tion fea­tures art­works cel­e­brat­ing Kubrick’s influ­ence on gen­er­a­tions of artists. (The stack of heaters on top of the Over­look car­pet is great.)

Said Dye:

‘For me, the unblink­ing red eye of 2001 A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000 per­fect­ly encap­su­lates the cin­e­ma of Stan­ley Kubrick. For all his films share that same cool­ly ana­lyt­i­cal gaze, study­ing from afar mankind and all its many foibles. Kubrick’s cam­era nev­er appeared to fol­low the action, it was as if it moved of its own accord and the tableau of life sim­ply unfurled before it. It was his seem­ing­ly nev­er-end­ing cam­era zooms from Bar­ry Lyn­don that first sparked the seed of the idea behind “The Cor­ri­dor,” before that idea grew, and grew into some­thing that was, at times, infu­ri­at­ing­ly ambi­tious, but I hope in the best tra­di­tion of the man who inspired it.’

Those who can’t attend will have to wait and see if and when the full video for “The Cor­ri­dor” appears online. In the mean­time, Som­er­set House awaits.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Napoleon: The Great­est Movie Stan­ley Kubrick Nev­er Made

A Tour of Stan­ley Kubrick’s Prized Lens Col­lec­tion

The Shin­ing and Oth­er Com­plex Stan­ley Kubrick Films Recut as Sim­ple Hol­ly­wood Movies

Lost Kubrick: A Short Doc­u­men­tary on Stan­ley Kubrick’s Unfin­ished Films

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.