Stanley Kubrick
Rainer Crone: Still Moving Pictures - Stanley Kubrick 
Alexander Walker: Stanley Kubrick, Director 
Stanley Kubrick: Eyes Wide Shut on DVD
Article added in April 2000

Alexander Walker's book on Stanley Kubrick has first been published in 1971. It is the only one ever written with Kubrick's cooperation. This new, revised and expanded edition includes all of Kubrick's film. The book is a visual analysis, fully authorized by Kubrick. It explains how Kubrick conceived, shot and created his fims. Walker examines the director's distinctive style which produced very different films, even when treating apparently the same genre, e.g. Dr. Strangelove was a nightmare satire, 2001: A Space Odyssey in Kubrick's own words a "mythological documentary". By the way, Kubrick let fifteen years go between his very first feature and his first film in color - 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 
Kubrick's pessimistic vision: If something can go wrong, it surely will. He was obsessed with the influences that "control people's perceptions and responses: by the synchronicitiy of time (The Killing), by military ambition (Paths of Glory), by the perversities of their own deviant natures (Lolita), by a 'fail-safe' defense device going  haywire (Dr. Strangelove), by a 'thinking' computer developing a survival instinct (2001), by the State's brainwashing techniques (A Clockwork Orange), by destiny in collusion with character (Barry Lyndon), by the power of the occult (The Shining). Full Metal Jacket includes just about every theme Kubrick had explored up to then - and more."
 
The analysis by Walker, Taylor and Ruchti is a must for people interested in the work of one of America's greatest directors. He was not a "graceful" man, but one who went his own way.


Alexander Walker, Sybil Taylor, Ulrich Ruchti: Stanley Kubrick, Director. W W Norton & Co., hardcover, 368 p., 1999. With a lot of film stills, from Killer's Kiss to Eyes Wide Shut. Get it from Amazon.com


Stanley Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell (as Alex), shooting A Clockwork Orange. Photograph from the book: Stanley Kubrick, Director.

Eyes Wide Shut is already available on DVD. Nicole Kidman explains in an interview included in the DVD's special features (at least in our German edition) that Kubrick was never interested in naturalistic acting. The many takes were not about right and wrong interpretations, but he was looking for something to happen. He explored all facets of a scene and actors could give all they had to give before Stanley went in the editing room. No actor could think: If only I had had the chance of another take. Editing, by the way, was his favourite type of work. Steven Spielberg explains that Kubrick wanted to tell stories differently. He never made a picture twice: he told very different stories that took place in different periods and they were even of different genres. His movies were perfect regarding editing, lighting, etc. One always wonders what is going to happen next. And even after having seen his movies for 15 times, one can still discover something new, explains Spielberg. Eyes Wide Shut is just another completely different film by one of the great directors, with a pessimitic ending: Let sleeping suspicions lie. Shut one's eyes instead of facing the truth. [For the film's story, see: Eyes Wide Shut].


Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Get the DVD from Amazon.com, Amazon Canada.


A Day in the Life of  Boxchamp Walter Cartier, January 1949. Photograph from the book Still Moving Pictures - Stanley Kubrick.