BIBLIOGRAPHY
To the best of my knowledge, this annotated bibliography includes every
English-language book written about or by Stanley Kubrick as of 7/16/99. It does not
include dissertations, theses, periodical articles, or unpublished screenplays.
Unpublished scripts for many Kubrick films are available from Script City (ph#:
213-871-0707) and Hollywood Scripts (ph#: 818-980-3545); on the Web, try Drew's Script-O-Rama.
Most of the following works are devoted entirely to Kubrick; books which discuss him
in just a chapter may not necessarily appear here. Only some of the following works
are in print; these include ISBN numbers.
To purchase out-of-print books, try Advanced Book
Exchange or Bibliofind; to borrow them, try
your library's interlibrary loan department.
- Agel, Jerome. The Making of Kubrick's 2001. New York: New American Library,
1970. A terrific resource for all things 2001 -- profiles of Kubrick,
technical details about the film, press reviews, letters from fans (and detractors),
interviews with the film's many consultants. Not as handsome as Bizony's book
(below), but more informative.
- Baxter, John. Stanley Kubrick: A Biography. London: HarperCollins,
1997. Highly readable, if a bit cynical. Notable for being the first book to
truly humanize Kubrick, warts and all. Baxter convinced many close Kubrick
acquaintances to talk, and he asks the right questions.
- Bizony, Piers. 2001: Filming the Future. London: Aurum Press, 1994
(ISBN: 1854103652). A beautifully illustrated guide to the world of 2001.
- Ciment, Michel. Kubrick. 1st American ed. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1983. One of the best guides to Kubrick's work. An
attractive large-format book with insightful visual and textual analyses of recurring
motifs in the films, as well as three lengthy interviews with Kubrick about A
Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining. Kubrick himself was
closely involved in the making of this book.
- Coyle, Wallace. Stanley Kubrick: A Guide to References and Resources.
Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980. A good source for pre-1980 bibliographies (including
periodical articles).
- DeVries, Daniel. The Films of Stanley Kubrick. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1973. A basic and very brief (75 pages) guide to the filmmaker's work, up
to A Clockwork Orange.
- Falsetto, Mario. Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis.
Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1994 (ISBN: 0275950824). Falsetto's critical study (which began
as a doctoral dissertation) argues that Kubrick's films are best understood as
explorations in duality.
- Howard, James. The Stanley Kubrick Companion. London: Batsford, 1999
(ISBN: 071348487X). A new book which I was not able to review.
- Jenkins, Greg. Stanley Kubrick and the Art of Adaptation: Three Novels, Three
Films. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997 (ISBN: 0786402814). Discusses the
problems of processes of adapting literature to the screen. Focusing on three
Kubrick films -- Lolita, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket -- Jenkins
comprehensively analyzes the films and source novels.
- Kagan, Norman. The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New expanded ed.
New York: Continuum, 1989 (ISBN: 0826404278). A solid introduction to the major
themes in Kubrick's films, though a bit simplistic. Provides lengthy synopses of
films no longer available for screening, like Fear and Desire and Kubrick's shorts.
- Kolker, Robert Phillip. A Cinema of Loneliness. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988 (ISBN: 0195053907). The chapter on Kubrick is highly
perceptive; Kolker is one of the best academic film critics.
- Kubrick, Stanley, and Frederic Raphael and Arthur Schnitzler. Eyes Wide Shut.
New York: Warner Books, September 1999 (ISBN: 0446676322). Includes the complete
screenplay by Kubrick and Raphael, the Schnitzler novella Traumnovelle on which the
film is based, and 16 pages of photos from the film.
- Kubrick, Stanley. Full Metal Jacket: The Screenplay. New York: Knopf:
Distributed by Random House, 1987. The full text of the script (dialogue and
description) and many color illustrations.
- Kubrick, Stanley. Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange': Based on the
Novel by Anthony Burgess. New York: Ballantine Books, 1972. An example of
what was once called a "published photoplay." Dozens of stills, but the
only text is the film's dialogue.
- LoBrutto, Vincent. Stanley Kubrick: A Biography. New York: D.I. Fine,
1997 (ISBN: 0306809060). The lengthiest biography of Kubrick to date, but not the
most revealing. Considerable detail about Kubrick's childhood and early adult years,
including many rare photos. Like Baxter (above), LoBrutto convinced many Kubrick
associates to talk, but he didn't find subjects as interesting as Baxter's, or perhaps he
didn't ask the right questions. For sheer amount of information -- trivial though
much of it is -- this book has no equal.
- Mainar, Luis M. Narrative and Stylistic Patterns in the Films of Stanley
Kubrick. Columbia: Camden House, 1999 (ISBN: 1571132643). A new book which
I was not able to review.
- Monaco, James. The Films of Stanley Kubrick. New York: New School
Department of Film, 1974. I could not locate a copy for review.
- Nelson, Thomas Allen. Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982 (ISBN: 0253202833). A scholarly study of
Kubrick's work, exhaustive but slow going at times.
- Perspectives on Stanley Kubrick. New York: G.K. Hall, 1996 (ISBN:
0816119910). A collection of previously published writing about Kubrick, including
technical pieces (Kubrick's groundbreaking cinematography in Barry Lyndon, for
example). Includes some of his best interviews, like the lengthy 1968 Playboy
interview about 2001.
- Phillips, Gene D. Stanley Kubrick: A Film Odyssey. New York: Popular
Library, 1977. A popular introduction to Kubrick's films, liberally illustrated with
photos, some rare. Includes an interview with the filmmaker.
- Raphael, Frederic. Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick. New
York: Ballantine Books, 1999 (ISBN: 0345437764). Kubrick's writing collaborator on EWS
ostensibly wrote this to explore the filmmaker, but Raphael ends up writing more about
himself. It's been greeted with mixed reviews, mostly hostile.
- Schwam, Stephanie, ed. The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey. New York: Modern
Library, 2000.
- Walker, Alexander. Stanley Kubrick Directs. Rev. and expanded.
New York: Norton, 1999 (ISBN: 039304601X). The best single introduction to
Kubrick. Walker, an astute film critic and personal friend to Kubrick, was given
rare access to the filmmaker. Critically insightful without being boring, well
illustrated, very readable.
- Wheat, Leonard F. Kubrick's 2001: A Triple Allegory. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
Press, June 2000.
Feedback: mboedicker@hotmail.com
Last Update March 13, 2007