"KUBRICK:
AN ODYSSEY”
By
Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams
(UK: Faber & Faber; ISBN: 978-0571370368; January
2024)
(US:
Pegasus Books; ISBN: 978-1639366248; February 2024)
“ANATOMY
OF AN ARTIST”
By
Raymond Benson
Several
biographies of filmmaker Stanley Kubrick have been published, as well as numerous
books on the director’s filmography, works on specific movies, and pieces of ephemeral
studies. It is said that more has been written about Stanley Kubrick than any
other important cinema artist except for Alfred Hitchcock.
Now
comes the hefty, superb tome by Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams, Kubrick:
An Odyssey. As someone who has been a Kubrick aficionado since the late
1960s, having read nearly all the existing titles about him, been to his estate
in England, visited his archives at London’s University of Arts, and currently know
members of his family, I can confidently say that Kubrick: An Odyssey is
the most outstanding biographical work on this enigmatic and challenging
filmmaker to date.
Previous
biographies, while admirable, suffered from the lack of enough material, due to
inaccessibility, about Kubrick’s personal life. Granted, Stanley Kubrick was an
extremely private individual and he guarded his privacy as if it were a fortress.
Most of the books out there are simply examinations and analyses of Kubrick’s
films (and many are excellent). The closest we got to an intimately personal
look at Stanley Kubrick was the 2012 memoir by his trusted driver and
assistant, Emilio D’Alessandro (co-written with Filippo Ulivieri), Stanley
Kubrick and Me.
The
new book by Kolker and Abrams changes that. With access to Kubrick’s archives
and to family members, the authors have penetrated the mountains of
correspondence and the treasure troves of boxes that Kubrick left behind after
his sudden passing in March 1999, four-and-a-half months before the premiere of
his final feature, Eyes Wide Shut.
It’s
a big book, one that covers every aspect of Kubrick’s life from childhood to death.
Thankfully, it is not written in an academic style; Kubrick: An Odyssey is
immensely readable, it moves through the years with surprising details that
many fans have never seen before. Want to know more about Kubrick’s first two
marriages or who he dated in-between them? You can find out here! Additionally,
the authors do not fawn over their subject; they are not afraid to uncover the
warts, such as his curious battles with co-screenwriters over ownership. And
yet, overall, Stanley Kubrick comes off as a human being who was devoted to his
family, his home, and above all else, his work. This biography is an anatomy of
an artist who insisted on carving a career path according to his own rules,
convention be damned.
Devotees
of the filmmaker will learn more about Kubrick’s unrealized projects throughout
the years. Many of these we knew about, but we perhaps didn’t have insight into
how he might have made such possible films as Burning Secret, based on a
Stefan Zweig novel about a rich baron who seduces a woman at a hotel spa by
befriending her twelve-year-old son. Its themes of jealousy, illicit affairs,
and confidences might have been an early take on what much later became Eyes
Wide Shut. Kubrick had always had an interest in the subject of marital
jealousy and had wanted to create something on that topic as far back as the
1950s.
Another
tantalizing tidbit, first mentioned by biographer John Baxter, is that in 1960,
Kubrick may have been speaking to executives at MCA about adapting for
television a detective series, Dr. Brilliant, created by none other than
Ian Fleming!
The
usual tropes of Kubrick’s perfectionism and obstinate penchant for multiple
takes on movie sets are discussed, and many are put to rest as myths. The
authors cannily peel back the façade that the press and PR have painted of
Kubrick. Underneath is a man of extraordinary intellect who deeply cared about
his art. He took great pains—and lengthy amounts of time—to first choose and
then come to grips with a project in order to develop the passion he required
to invest the energy into seeing them through to fruition. Coupled with this
fervor for cinema is Kubrick’s family man persona—once he had settled into his successful
third marriage, he was surrounded by women (his wife and three daughters) and
an abundance of dogs and cats (he was an animal lover, and that says a lot
about Stanley Kubrick’s personality).
For
the films themselves, there is plenty here about the morsels that generated
Kubrick’s cult of followers—Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey,
A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full
Metal Jacket, and all the others are discussed in depth.
For
anyone interested in cinema history, exceptional filmmaking, and a director who
rightly earned the label of auteur, Kubrick: An Odyssey is an
exceptional, thorough biography of one of the most renowned and controversial
names in motion pictures.
Click here to pre-order from Amazon USA
Click here to pre-order from Amazon UK