THE CINEMA OF STANLEY KUBRICK

by Norman Kagan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 31, 1972

A carefully organized -- perhaps overly organized -- synthesis of Kubrick's ""working: principles"" along with summaries of the films and the critical opinion generated. Kagan, who has taught film at the New School and is currently working toward a doctorate in Cinema Studies at NYU, obviously knows the Kubrick oeuvre well, nor is there any quarrel with his application of the auteur theory to the controversial director -- as Kagan correctly notes, ""Kubrick is clearly an auteur critic's dream."" What is questionable, however, is the flat-out consistency Kagan attributes to Kubrick's thematic inventory: ""imaginary worlds,"" ""futility of intelligence, errors of emotions,"" ""journey to freedom,"" ""triumph of obsessional, dedicated hero,"" and ""suicide-homicides"" are found in each film, according to Kagan, but the reader requires either a scatterbrained imagination or a willingness to bend these classifications out of focus to agree, for instance, that Davy's search for Gloria in Killer's Kiss is a freedom odyssey or that Alex in Clockwork Orange is triumphal in the end or that General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove accurately represents the futility of reason. On one occasion recently when responding to the more outre criticism of Clockwork, Kubrick wrote that ""The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen."" Nowhere in Kagan's bullying attempt to unify Kubrick's ""psycho-social model of the world"" do we find such a clear exposition of exactly what the filmmaker is up to; moreover, the effort to systematize Kubrick has led Kagan down the paths of glibness.

Pub Date: Aug. 31, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION