Customer Reviews

Stanley Kubrick: Drama & Shadows

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The photographs in this book are worth the price of it. If you're a Kubrick fan, you can't do without it. The photographs teach more about film than a dozen histories.

The editors of this book were wise in prominently placing the photo that you see here on the cover. It is the most distinct and mysterious image in a book of otherwise indistinct work. Most of the photos are commercial and are interesting in so far as they reveal little hints of Kubrick's budding genius for mis-en-scene. But as photos the work doesn't stand alone very well, nor was it intended to.

I first learned of this book on Wikipedia, when I saw the self-portrait of Kubrick taken with his Leica camera (it's right before the opening essay). Being a photographer myself as well as a Kubrick fan, I never knew that Kubrick had worked for look. Everyone knows about his films and can talk about those, but hardly anyone I talked to knew that he had been a photographer before being a film director (like me). I open it up often for inspiration, especially when I intend to shoot black and white.

Many of the photos have a story to tell and quite a few of them are entrancing (like the cityscape shot on page 233). Even if this is a small sample of his work (12,000 archived negatives, according to the book), the photos were chosen very well. The opening essay is insightful and the photo showcase is a wonderful treat. The written commentary at the beginning of each photo set talks about themes in certain pictures that Kubrick explored (like adopting a child's eye view at the Palisades Amusement Park), the nature of the photo set (like a trip to Portugal) or technique (how he did casual photography in the subway). In any case, one can see the incredible amount of care he took in creating the picture. Kubrick himself said in an interview that his being a photographer served him well as a filmmaker.

Only one or two of the photos might be a little commercial, as suggested by another reviewer, but the grand majority show a missing link in Kubrick's career: and that is his humble beginnings.

I highly recommend this book for Kubrick fans and those who love photography.