Kubrick the machine.

Though I know I shouldn't talk about Kubrick until I see Barry Lyndon, it's funny that in this 1969 interview the famously "cold" director keeps talking about people as being "essentially" objects:

"Actors are essentially emotion-producing instruments, and some are always tuned and ready while others will reach a fantastic pitch on one take and never equal it again, no matter how hard they try."

And later:

"A director is a kind of idea and taste machine; a movie is a series of creative and technical decisions, and it's the director's job to make the right decisions as frequently as possible. Shooting a movie is the worst milieu for creative work ever devised by man. It is a noisy, physical apparatus; it is difficult to concentrate -- and you have to do it from eight-thirty to six-thirty, five days a week. It's not an environment an artist would ever choose to work in. The only advantage is has is that you must do it, and you can't procrastinate."

Via Kottke.

By the way, I'm finally going to watch 8 1/2 this weekend.