Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis

To date, this is the only major book made with the cooperation of Kubrick himself. The photographs in each chapter are taken from still frames from the actual films. The author provides brief summaries for each photograph, showing its use of lighting, camera placement or relation to another Kubrick film (Slow Motion shots, light used is from the light source one would expect at the actual location).

According to the author, anything in Kubrick's movies has symbolism or some meaning to it, and this is where the book's only flaw is. Camera angles, lighting, set design and decoration even phrases numbers and placements of objects can be interpreted to have some meaning. He also has interesting ideas about the movies (One of my favorites is his belief that the soldiers in Full Metal Jacket's boot camp are lab mice being experimented and reconditioned on). However, this can also be very, very helpful to understand the films more. The author shows that each Kubrick film can have more depth than meets the eye (If you still think "2001" is only about boredom, you need this book). Just make sure you have seen the movies before reading for there are major plot spoilers.


Not definitive but still intriguing   August 31, 2001
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is an interesting book, with a huge number of photographs detailing most of Kubrick's films. (The only ones not examined in depth are 'Fear and Desire,' 'Killer's Kiss,' 'The Killing,' 'Spartacus,' and 'Lolita.') The book is organized chronologically, with a small section in the middle of the book about Kubrick's use of color and an epilogue detailing Walker's personal encounters with Kubrick at the end. It is fun to read about Walker's stories about Kubrick, which shed some all-too-needed light on the personal life and motivations of the reclusive filmmaker.
On the whole, Walker's analyses of Kubrick's films are good, not great: I think he is really off-base in praising Tom Cruise's acting in 'Eyes Wide Shut' and in denigrating Kubrick's use of the occult in 'The Shining.' However, his analyses of 'Barry Lyndon' and 'Full Metal Jacket' were astute, and he successfully links certain themes and motifs throughout all of Kubrick's films.
Finally, although normally I don't like a huge amount of pictures in a book because of how they always jack up the price, here the pictures are well-chosen and either help jog your memory about the films or help you understand them if you haven't seen them. I will say that some of the pictures were much larger than they needed to be - I didn't need a full two-page spread of the atomic bomb exploding in 'Dr. Strangelove' - but that's a minor criticism.
All in all, a generally fun book.


Full Paper Jacket   November 6, 2000
S. Hendricks (New York, NY)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

This may be, as the notes above claim, the "most
comprehensive" book yet written on Kubrick. And it's clear the
author's personal relationship with him enhances understanding of his
films. But it's also obvious that the book was rushed onto the shelves
to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Kubrick's last film and the
director's death -- unless, of course, the typos and printer errors
are an artistic statement about mankind's pointless quest for
perfection...

The strongest part of the book is in finding subtle
similarities among the films, both in style and content, and in
tracing the evolution of the director's ability to put his ideas
onscreen.

But the writing is occasionally overblown, presenting
obvious points as if they were major revelations. The section on
'Kubrick's Use of Color' is almost laughable, looking like a
four-color decoy for the rest of the book's cheaply done b/w. its
analysis pretty much boils down to 'He used a lot of red.'

An
editorial description above refers to 'frame-by-frame' analysis, but
that's pretty misleading. There is some detailed technical insight,
but not for every film. And in sections that discuss particular
sequences, the accompanying photos are often on different pages. The
section on EWS is pretty splapdash.

But there is also some really
interesting stuff here. It's just too bad they didn't spend a little
more time sealing the cracks.



Uma Analise Visual   April 22, 2000
S. C. Rocha (Aracaju,SE Brasil)
2 out of 13 found this review helpful

O melhor livro sobre Kubrick se voce pretende ter uma visao mais acurada das imagens e intencoes de seus filmes. Bem mais gratificante do que ler a biografia feita por LoBruto. Walker analisa o trabalho de Kubrick para esplicar o autor e nao o contrario, como o acima citado autor. So na analise das cores nos filmes e que o livro e um tanto rasteiro, pedindo por uma ampliacao. Mesmo assim, e melhor do que nada, visto a escassez desse tipo de discussao em outros livros sobre o autor.


good, but not as exceptional as Cimet's book   December 10, 1999
Jerad Walters (Wheat Ridge, Colorado)
8 out of 10 found this review helpful

This book doesn't quite stand up to Michael Cimet's long out of print book on Kubrick from the 80s, but it does a fine job. The analysis of the films are in-depth, but lack a true piercing analysis that would otherwise make it a masterpiece. Most of the book is in black and white, with a lone color section providing stills from 2001, Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut. The accompanying essay about Kubrick's color use is somewhat shallow and could use a lot more detail. This book is also loaded with pictures from the films, many of them behind the scenes, about 90% of them individual frame enlargements. Although they are black and white, they are clearly printed. If you've read other Kurbick books, you already how most of them use the same stills over and over and over. Since the subject is a film director, they took the time to gather together a ton of photographs.