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Overview
For decades, the films of Stanley Kubrick have staked out a claim at the core of our cultural landscape. In the 1950s, he was one of the few American film makers to achieve the gravitas of European cinema with Paths of Glory. To 1960s audiences, he was the man who made both Dr. Strangelove, the influential anti-war movie, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the counterculture favorite. In the 1970s he created his hymn to urban violence, A Clockwork Orange, and in the 1980s he distilled the nature of private madness and collective insanity with The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. His first film of the 1990s will be Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise. Yet little is known of the man and the influence exerted by his private life on his public art. Born in the Bronx, Kubrick has lived since 1961 in seclusion in rural England. From in-depth interviews with a range of people who have known the man best, spanning from his childhood to the present, John Baxter now presents the most complete account available of Kubrick's life. The conflicts with partners and stars, the failure to make Napoleon, the failed marriages and broken friendships, the use and abuse of writers and other collaborators - this detailed and complex study addresses all these to reveal a man who, above all, has dared to live life on his terms.The Nobel laureate here tells the story of a father and son in conflict over their love for the same woman. Mauriac's flair for unraveling psychological motives when complicated by matters of conscience makes this one of his most accomplished works.
Synopsis
For decades, the films of Stanley Kubrick have staked out a claim at the core of our cultural landscape. In the 1950s, he was one of the few American film makers to achieve the gravitas of European cinema with Paths of Glory. To 1960s audiences, he was the man who made both Dr. Strangelove, the influential anti-war movie, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the counterculture favorite. In the 1970s he created his hymn to urban violence, A Clockwork Orange, and in the 1980s he distilled the nature of private madness and collective insanity with The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. His first film of the 1990s will be Eyes Wide Shut starring Tom Cruise. Yet little is known of the man and the influence exerted by his private life on his public art. Born in the Bronx, Kubrick has lived since 1961 in seclusion in rural England. From in-depth interviews with a range of people who have known the man best, spanning from his childhood to the present, John Baxter now presents the most complete account available of Kubrick's life. The conflicts with partners and stars, the failure to make Napoleon, the failed marriages and broken friendships, the use and abuse of writers and other collaborators - this detailed and complex study addresses all these to reveal a man who, above all, has dared to live life on his terms.
Publishers Weekly
The Bronx-born director of Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange has lived reclusively in England since 1961. This somewhat prosaic life serves as a breezy introduction to his acclaimed oeuvre, but does not bring us closer to the man than others have managed. Baxter, a British novelist and author of studies of John Ford, Steven Spielberg and other directors, focuses on the professional life of the filmmaker by tracing the development of each of his dozen feature films of the past 44 years. He acknowledges Kubrick's personal and professional flawshis ruthless exploitation of collaborators; his antiseptic, even misanthropic view of the world; his dependence on (and contempt for) the writers who provide him with stories to filmwhile emphasizing the visual flair and maverick independence that have made him one of the most admired figures in contemporary cinema. But there's little new in all of this. While Baxter interviewed some figures in Kubrick's circle (though not, unsurprisingly, the notoriously reclusive master himself), he relies heavily on the dozens of books that have discussed the director's life and work, many of them full-scale studies. This might not be a problem if Baxter had a clear and compelling interpretive contribution to make to this discussion, but his aim seems to be merely to collect all the known facts. Readers are more likely to find satisfaction in Vincent LoBrutto's longer, identically titled 1996 biography. Photos. 20,000 first printing. (Oct.) FYI: The book's release anticipates that of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's first film since 1987's Full Metal Jacket.