Author and Cinema Retro columnist Raymond Benson takes a look at two new books about a master filmmaker:
The Kubrick
Façade—Faces and Voices in the Films of Stanley
Kubrick by Jason Sperb (Scarecrow
Press, Inc.)
The Philosophy of
Stanley Kubrick edited by Jerold J. Abrams (The University Press of
Kentucky)
Stanley Kubrick has always been one
of those film directors who is often the subject of serious, scholarly
study. The reasons are simple enough—the
late artist’s work belongs in that rare category of Hollywood-produced popular “art
films,†made outside of the Hollywood system, that attracted spirited debates
among critics and audiences alike. No
one Kubrick film ever received unanimously positive (or negative) reviews; no
Kubrick film could be called a true financial “blockbuster†(but none were
considered “bombs†either); and no Kubrick film elicits the same reactions from
collective audience members. More books
have been written about the work of Stanley Kubrick than any other filmmaker
except, perhaps, Alfred Hitchcock. Two
more tomes hit the shelves this year and both are again serious, scholarly
studies published by non-mainstream, academic presses.Â
Two
more tomes hit the shelves this year and both are again serious, scholarly
studies published by non-mainstream, academic presses.
Stanley Kubrick has always been one
of those film directors who is often the subject of serious, scholarly
study.
The reasons are simple enough—the
late artist’s work belongs in that rare category of Hollywood-produced popular “art
films,†made outside of the Hollywood system, that attracted spirited debates
among critics and audiences alike.
No
one Kubrick film ever received unanimously positive (or negative) reviews; no
Kubrick film could be called a true financial “blockbuster†(but none were
considered “bombs†either); and no Kubrick film elicits the same reactions from
collective audience members.
More books
have been written about the work of Stanley Kubrick than any other filmmaker
except, perhaps, Alfred Hitchcock.
Author Jason Sperb teaches in the
Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University,
and it shows. His book, The Kubrick Façade, is much like a
lengthy doctorate thesis that attempts to dissect the “narrative ambiguity†in
the filmmaker’s work. For the most part,
Sperb presents well-founded points regarding Kubrick’s methods of using
voice-over narration and, oddly, the close-up of human faces to communicate a
film’s storytelling message. Kubrick’s
work has always been open to interpretation and Sperb uses this invitation to
expound at length on the artist’s “coldness†and how we, as an audience, must
learn to “feel†the films instead of merely watching them. Of particular interest is Sperb’s discussion
of Kubrick’s first feature film, Fear and
Desire, which is out of print and unavailable in any territory (Kubrick
himself withdrew all the prints from circulation). Fear
and Desire is atypical of Kubrick’s more straight-forward and accessible early
works in that it is an allegorical tale of nameless “Everyman†soldiers
fighting an unknown war in an ambiguous country. The film is more akin with, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey, than it is with
an early picture like The Killing or Paths of Glory (another war film). Fear
and Desire’s art-house qualities did nothing for Kubrick’s career at the
time of its initial release (1953), but it did point toward the kind of
thinking the man would eventually place behind his more well-known later
pictures.
Editor Jerold J. Abrams is an
assistant professor at Creighton
University, and he has
put together an interesting anthology of essays by various authors in The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. The book is broken down into five
sections—Part One is “The Subject at Warâ€, Part Two is “The Subject in Loveâ€,
Part Three is “The Subject and the Meaning of Lifeâ€â€¦ and so on. Each section contains two to three essays
covering its particular topic in relation to one or more of Kubrick’s
films. Thus, Part One features pieces
examining Fear and Desire, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full
Metal Jacket. Because this book holds
a variety of opinions and voices, I found it to be a more engaging read than Façade; but as with most scholarly works on Kubrick, the tone is often
deadly serious and lofty. I was pleased
to find an entire essay on Eyes Wide Shut,
Kubrick’s posthumous, final film (and one of his most controversial). In “Where the Rainbow Ends,†Karen D. Hoffman
presents an intelligent analysis of the picture that hits the nail on the head—perhaps.
It is certainly food for thought.
In short, hardcore Kubrick fans and/or
serious cinephiles will want to own these books, but the dry, academic nature
of them will turn away most everyone else. - Raymond Benson.
CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE KUBRICK FACADE FROM AMAZON
CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE PHILOSOPHY OF STANLEY KUBRICK FROM AMAZON