Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis - Hardcover

Walker, Alexander; Taylor, Sybil; Ruchti, Ulrich

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039304601X ISBN 13: 9780393046014

Publisher: Norton, 1999

Synopsis

Illustrated with eight pages of color and black-and-white photographs, an expanded edition of a study first published in 1971 follows the career and directorial techniques of Stanley Kubrick, including his most recent picture, Eyes Wide Shut.

About this title

About the Author:

Alexander Walker is the author of over twenty books about the cinema and its stars, including bestselling biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Peter Sellers and Audrey Hepburn. He has also written standard works on the coming of the Talkies, a monograph on Stanley Kubrick, and the fullest account to date of the British film industry from 1960 to 1985. He has been the London "Evening Standard's" influential film critic since 1960 and has been named "Critic of the Year" three times in the British Press Awards. A prolific broadcaster on television and radio, he wrote and narrated four series of "Film Star" for the BBC. Alexander Walker was born in Ireland, and educated there, on the Continent and in the United States. He lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

A longtime friend of Kubrick's who remembers the days when the great director was mysteriously collecting Japanese science fiction movies in what turned out to be preparation for 2001, Walker rankled Warner Bros. and the Kubrick estate when he printed a rave review of Eyes Wide Shut weeks before the movie was released. In this book, he offers a similarly enthusiastic tour through the Kubrick oeuvre, from the first film (Fear and Desire, 1953) to the last (Eyes Wide Shut, 1999). Walker describes Kubrick as a guarded, suspicious, obsessive, controlling, paranoid workaholic, and makes us feel that he's bestowing a compliment. Each movie is given a thorough analysis, reinforced by the extensive use of stills in each case. He explains what that black obelisk in 2001 is and elaborates the various parallels between Kubrick and the character Jack Torrance in the filming of The Shining. Perhaps unavoidably, however, the section on Eyes Wide Shut seems merely to be a synopsis and lacks the detachment and detail that characterize the other chapters. One can only wish that Walker had waited for some critical perspective on his friend's final work. Nevertheless, its eulogistic tone aside, Kubrick fans everywhere will relish this as the definitive book on the director. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Norton
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 039304601X
• ISBN 13: 9780393046014
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 376