Stanley Kubrick was up to something. But neither his fiercest admirers nor his harshest critics ever suspected what it was. His movies were the means. So what was the end? In this experimental analysis of the work of Stanley Kubrick, Jasun Horsley unpicks the cult of Kubrick, taking a unique approach as he delves into the deeper - and often darker - reasons as to why the director has achieved such admiration over the years. The Kubrickon maps an unholy merger of computer and behavioral sciences that has shaped not just politics but all of modern society over the past decade (e.g. Cambridge Analytica). It explores Stanley Kubrick’s intensive, secret, insider involvement in the building of an architecture of algorithm-directed technology that has steadily encroached into our inner realms, cementing a symbiotic relationship between human consciousness and technology, with culture as the binding medium of an attention economy. Throughout The Kubrickon Horsley uses Kubrick’s critically acclaimed films such as Eyes Wide Shut and 2001: Space Odyssey to provide a fascinating and revelatory overview of the cultural obsession with Stanley Kubrick, as well as on a wider scale providing illuminating criticisms of society’s consumption of culture and media. For those who dislike Kubrick movies, The Kubrickon will finally absolve you of all uncertainty and guilt. For those who adore Kubrick movies, The Kubrickon will challenge you to the core, and may just set you free. For those who are indifferent to Kubrick movies, The Kubrickon will reward you by making you care about, and nurture, your indifference.

An engrossing biography of one of the most influential filmmakers in cinematic history Kubrick grew up in the Bronx, a doctor’s son. From a young age he was consumed by photography, chess, and, above all else, movies. He was a self†‘taught filmmaker and self†‘proclaimed outsider, and his films exist in a unique world of their own outside the Hollywood mainstream. Kubrick’s Jewishness played a crucial role in his idea of himself as an outsider. Obsessed with rebellion against authority, war, and male violence, Kubrick was himself a calm, coolly masterful creator and a talkative, ever†‘curious polymath immersed in friends and family. Drawing on interviews and new archival material, Mikics for the first time explores the personal side of Kubrick’s films.

Stanley Kubrick is generally acknowledged as one of the world’s great directors. Yet few critics or scholars have considered how he emerged from a unique and vibrant cultural milieu: the New York Jewish intelligentsia. Stanley Kubrick reexamines the director’s work in context of his ethnic and cultural origins. Focusing on several of Kubrick’s key themes—including masculinity, ethical responsibility, and the nature of evil—it demonstrates how his films were in conversation with contemporary New York Jewish intellectuals who grappled with the same concerns. At the same time, it explores Kubrick’s fraught relationship with his Jewish identity and his reluctance to be pegged as an ethnic director, manifest in his removal of Jewish references and characters from stories he adapted. As he digs deep into rare Kubrick archives to reveal insights about the director’s life and times, film scholar Nathan Abrams also provides a nuanced account of Kubrick’s cinematic artistry. Each chapter offers a detailed analysis of one of Kubrick’s major films, including Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. Stanley Kubrick thus presents an illuminating look at one of the twentieth century’s most renowned and yet misunderstood directors.

Surveys the director's life and career with information on his films, key people in his life, technical information, themes, locations, and film theory.

In the course of fifty years, director Stanley Kubrick produced some of the most haunting and indelible images on film. His films touch on a wide range of topics rife with questions about human life, behavior, and emotions: love and sex, war, crime, madness, social conditioning, and technology. Within this great variety of subject matter, Kubrick examines different sides of reality and unifies them into a rich philosophical vision that is similar to existentialism. Perhaps more than any other philosophical concept, existentialism—the belief that philosophical truth has meaning only if it is chosen by the individual—has come down from the ivory tower to influence popular culture at large. In virtually all of Kubrick’s films, the protagonist finds himself or herself in opposition to a hard and uncaring world, whether the conflict arises in the natural world or in human institutions. Kubrick’s war films (Fear and Desire, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket) examine how humans deal with their worst fears—especially the fear of death—when facing the absurdity of war. Full Metal Jacket portrays a world of physical and moral change, with an environment in continual flux in which attempting to impose order can be dangerous. The film explores the tragic consequences of an unbending moral code in a constantly changing universe. Essays in the volume examine Kubrick’s interest in morality and fate, revealing a Stoic philosophy at the center of many of his films. Several of the contributors find his oeuvre to be characterized by skepticism, irony, and unfettered hedonism. In such films as A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick confronts the notion that we will struggle against our own scientific and technological innovations. Kubrick’s films about the future posit that an active form of nihilism will allow humans to accept the emptiness of the world and push beyond it to form a free and creative view of humanity. Taken together, the essays in The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick are an engaging look at the director’s stark vision of a constantly changing moral and physical universe. They promise to add depth and complexity to the interpretation of Kubrick’s signature films.

An analysis of Stanley Kubrick's thirteen films is complemented by a photo essay, a brief biography, a detailed filmography and bibliography, and interviews with the director, his casts, and his crews.