The Stanley Kubrick Anthology
Edited by Alison Castle
(Taschen) $200
The first and most obvious thing to say about this quantum compendium of impressions, images, sounds, and—thanks to 12 frames of actual celluloid cut from a 70mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey stuck in a plastic sleeve glued to the frontispiece—literal pieces of Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic oeuvre, is that you’re almost guaranteed not to buy it. It’s an exhaustive indulgence of a book, reserved for the hardest core, not just of cinephiles, or of Kubrickologists, but of completists: people who feel that their experience of a dead artist whose entire body of work is readily available on DVD must also include a $200 coffee-table book, a big, red, clothbound monolith of secondary source material so dense that it comes with its own cardboard carrying case.
The second, and only slightly less obvious, thing to say is that if you do buy it, it probably won’t be for the essays. Like all works from the Taschen catalogue, The Stanley Kubrick Archives is lavishly illustrated with beautifully reproduced photos, including more than 800 stills scanned directly from pristine prints of each of his 12 feature films, as well as 800 more visual artifacts from the artist’s extensive personal archive: script notes, production sketches, and best of all, a huge selection of photos from Kubrick’s days as a photojournalist. The stills are arranged chronologically, telling the stories of the films they represent like the most glorious storyboards you ever imagined—the tearful final moments of Paths of Glory, the terrifying cutaways from The Shining, the perpetual dream-state of Eyes Wide Shut (a brilliant film that aches for reappraisal), all rapturously frozen in time. This section of the book is an utter goldmine, allowing the aficionado to pause and appreciate every sublime detail of this most detail-oriented director.
While the writing, by proclaimed “Kubrick scholars” Gene D. Phillips, Michel Ciment, and Rodney Hill, among others, is thoroughgoing in an expository, film-by-film way, it’s no more insightful about Kubrick’s art than any of the dozens of scholarly/gossipy/vengeful/avenging studies that have been published in the past 50 years. (Though Michael Herr’s wonderful eulogy from Vanity Fair is included in the Appendix.) The mode isn’t critical; it’s encyclopedic. Each film is treated to a useful synopsis, with accompanying factoids about the project’s preparation, production, reception, and legacy. Several of these are followed by contemporaneous interviews (including a great audio recording from 1966 on a CD-ROM that also comes with the book) with the man himself. But to call the interviews or any of the supporting materials “revealing” isn’t quite right. The Stanley Kubrick Archive is a collection of facts and photos. It reveals only the trappings of his process, not the brains behind it.
The closest resemblance between the book and its subject matter is that both are unwieldy. Archives weighs around 10 pounds, and is physically uncomfortable to examine any other way than by laying it on a wide, flat surface. Its heavy rectangular pages, while conveniently scored and indexed, also feel fragile; one could be forgiven for being reluctant to actually turn them, for fear of mussing up the pristine gloss of the photo reproductions. This is one of many ways in which the book is impractical, if not unfriendly. Given the dynamics of Kubrick’s work, this is weirdly appropriate; was ever a director less friendly, less welcoming, less accommodating of any terms but his own? A book you’re afraid to touch might be the most suitable way to commemorate a filmmaker whom you would never think of touching, whose chief subject was the diminution of human contact, and the horrible price humanity has paid for it.
I mean, $200 is $200. ■
