Kubrick's Code


Book Description

In this book, author and independent researcher Isaac Weishaupt presents hundreds of images and analysis from Stanley Kubrick's most popular films- 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut. Learn all about the conspiracy theory of the secret message Kubrick tried to convey about the occult and the Illuminati before his untimely passing. This book lays out examples of scenes and covertly placed messages and themes within Kubrick's films that supports the idea he was privy to the Illuminati secret agenda. The full-color images taken directly from the films are explained with analysis that suggests Kubrick knew much more than many people believe. This book contains some adult themes, but some images (specifically the Eyes Wide Shut scenes) have been edited to ensure no full nudity.




Kubrick's Game


Book Description

What if Stanley Kubrick left behind more than just his classic films? What if he also left behind an elaborate puzzle cleverly buried within his films, which would lead the player toward a treasure that could change the course of human history? An often comedic, sometimes tragic, always entertaining look at an extraordinary "What If?" adventure.




Kubrick's Men


Book Description

A provocative re-reading of Stanley Kubrick’s work and its focus on masculine desire The work of Stanley Kubrick amounts to a sustained reflection on the male condition: past, present, and future. The persistent theme of his filmmaking is less violence or sex than it is the pressurized exertion of masculinity in unusual or extreme circumstances, where it may be taxed or exaggerated to various effects, tragic and comic—or metamorphosed, distorted, and even undone. The stories that Kubrick’s movies tell range from global nuclear politics to the unpredictable sexual dynamics of a marriage; from a day in the life of a New York City prizefighter preparing for a nighttime bout to the evolution of humankind. These male melodramas center on sociality and asociality. They feature male doubles, pairs, and rivals. They explore the romance of men and their machines, and men as machines. They figure intensely conflicted forms of male sexual desire. And they are also very much about male manners, style, taste, and art. Examining the formal, thematic, and theoretical affiliations between Kubrick’s three bodies of work—his photographs, his documentaries, and his feature films—Kubrick’s Men offers new vantages on to the question of gender and sexuality, including the first extended treatment of homosexuality in Kubrick’s male-oriented work.




The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick


Book Description

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.




Kubrick's Cinema Odyssey


Book Description

Author wrote bestselling bfi Publishing title David Lynch 'a joy to the reader of film criticism' Choice; 2001: A Space Odyssey to be re-released in cinemas in The Spring and highly likely to be the focus of much media attention in the new year; Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), based on Arthur C Clarke's novel, is one of the most ambitious films ever made, an epic of space exploration that takes in the whole history of humanity (as well as speculation about its future). A technical triumph that stands up today 2001 is topical also because of its meditation on the relationship between man, animal and machine. Haunting and enigmatic, it's a film that contains myriad images that seem to defy any explanation. In this multilayered study, acclaimed critic and theorist of film sound Michel Chion offers some keys to understanding 2001. Setting the film first in its historical and cultural contexts (the Space Race, the Cold War, 1960s psychedelia), Chion goes on to locate it within Kubrick's career. He then conducts a meticulous and subtle analysis of its structure and style, arguing that 2001 is an 'absolute film', a unique assemblage of cinema's elements, through which pulses a vision of human existence. 'Animals who know they will die, beings lost on earth, forever caught between two species, not animal enough, not cerebral enough.' In a supplementary chapter Chion argues that Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), is a return to 2001, a final statement of its concerns. And in a series of appendices Chion provides production details, an analytic synopsis, credits and a consideration of the legacy of 2001.




Red Alert


Book Description

This book was originally published in the U.K. under the title Two Hours to Doom (written by Peter Bryant, the penname of writer Peter George). This intricately plotted and well-thought out novel conjures the vision of apocalyptic threat of nuclear war and illustrates just how absurdly easy such an attack can be triggered. Dr. Strangelove is based on the novel.




Stanley Kubrick and Me


Book Description

This intimate portrait by his former personal assistant and confidante reveals the man behind the legendary filmmaker—for the first time. Stanley Kubrick, the director of a string of timeless movies from Lolita and Dr. Strangelove to A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and others, has always been depicted by the media as the Howard Hughes of filmmakers, a weird artist obsessed with his work and privacy to the point of madness. But who was he really? Emilio D'Alessandro lets us see. A former Formula Ford driver who was a minicab chauffeur in London during the Swinging Sixties, he took a job driving a giant phallus through the city that became his introduction to the director. Honest, reliable, and ready to take on any task, Emilio found his way into Kubrick's neurotic, obsessive heart. He became his personal assistant, his right-hand man and confidant, working for him from A Clockwork Orange until Kubrick's death in 1999. Emilio was the silent guy in the room when the script for The Shining was discussed. He still has the coat Jack Nicholson used in the movie. He was an extra on the set of Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's last movie. He knew all the actors and producers Kubrick worked with; he observed firsthand Kubrick's working methods down to the smallest detail. Making no claim of expertise in cinematography but with plenty of anecdotes, he offers a completely fresh perspective on the artist and a warm, affecting portrait of a generous, kind, caring man who was a perfectionist in work and life.




Film Technique and Film Acting


Book Description

This vintage book contains two pioneering volumes on the subject of film making by V.I. Pudovkin. Considered two of the most valuable manuals of the practice and theory of film making ever written, these texts will prove invaluable for the student or film enthusiast, and are not to be missed by discerning collectors of such literature. The chapters of this volume include: 'The Film Scenario and Its Theory', 'Film Director and Film Material', 'Types Instead of Actors', 'Close-Ups in Time', 'Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film', 'Rhythmic Problems in my First Sound Film', 'Notes and Appendices', 'Film Acting', et cetera. Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin (1893 – 1953) was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and actor, famous for developing influential theories of montage. This volume is being republished now complete with a new prefatory biography of the author.




We'll Meet Again


Book Description

Unique and often startling encounters between music and the moving image in the films of Stanley Kubrick are trademarks of his style; witness the powerful effects of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" in 2001: A Space Odyssey and of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in A Clockwork Orange, each excerpt vetted by Kubrick himself. We'll Meet Again argues that, for Kubrick, music is neither post-production afterthought nor background nor incidental, but instead is core to films' effects and meanings. The book first identifies the building blocks in Kubrick's sonic world and illuminates the ways in which Kubrick uses them to support his characters and to define character relationships. It then delves into the effects of Kubrick's signature musical techniques, including the use of texture, form, and inscription to render and reinforce psychological ideas and spectator responses. Finally it presents case studies that show how the history of the music plays a vital and dynamic role for the films. As a whole, the book locates Kubrick as a force in music reception history by examining the relationship between his musical choices and popular culture, and reveals the foundational role of music in his filmmaking.




Stanley Kubrick


Book Description

Although Stanley Kubrick adapted novels and short stories, his films deviate in notable ways from the source material. In particular, since 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), his films seem to definitively exploit all cinematic techniques, embodying a compelling visual and aural experience. But, as author Elisa Pezzotta contends, it is for these reasons that his cinema becomes the supreme embodiment of the sublime, fruitful encounter between the two arts and, simultaneously, of their independence. Stanley Kubrick's last six adaptations—2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)—are characterized by certain structural and stylistic patterns. These features help to draw conclusions about the role of Kubrick in the history of cinema, about his role as an adapter, and, more generally, about the art of cinematic adaptations. The structural and stylistic patterns that characterize Kubrick adaptations seem to criticize scientific reasoning, causality, and traditional semantics. In the history of cinema, Kubrick can be considered a modernist auteur. In particular, he can be regarded as an heir of the modernist avant-garde of the 1920s. However, author Elisa Pezzotta concludes that, unlike his predecessors, Kubrick creates a cinema not only centered on the ontology of the medium, but on the staging of sublime, new experiences.




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