Fantasies of the Art-House Audience
Kael delivers a sharp, witty indictment of contemporary film culture, targeting the perceived intellectual hypocrisy and pretension of mid-century art-house moviegoers and critics.
The Scraps Index
Film Essays
90 film essays in the Scraps archive.
Nolan’s the Odyssey and the Women Homer Built
Never mind the Cyclops. On the eve of Christopher Nolan's $250 million Odyssey, the only question that matters is three thousand years old: what…
Zeitgeist and Poltergeist; or, Are Movies Going to Pieces? | by Pauline Kael
Movies are becoming less coherent and more fragmented, and audiences are becoming more accepting of this because are no longer interested in traditional narrative…
Why Are Movies So Bad?
The movies have been so rank the last couple of years that when I see people lining up to buy tickets I sometimes think…
The Come-Dressed-As-The-Sick-Soul-Of-Europe Parties
La Notte, Last Year at Marienbad, La Dolce Vita
The Odyssey of Stanley Kubrick: Part 3: Toward the Infinite—2001
The strength of 2001 is that it confronts our civilization with an alien one while preserving the mystery of their encounter. The black monolith…
Pauline Kael: Numbing the Audience
"Numbing the Audience” is an open attack on the coarsely manipulative tactics of the studios' attempts to latch on to new viewers
Reading Stanley Kubrick: A Theological Odyssey
Kubrick’s films should be ‘read’ as opposed to ‘viewed’. Too often, the notion of film as something we view rather than read results in…
Paths of Glory: Screening the Novel
While Kubrick and writers Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson have changed the focus and toned down some of his narrative’s brutality, Cobb yet remains…
Pauline Kael: Trash, Art, and the Movies
There is so much talk now about the art of the film that we may be in danger of forgetting that most of the…
Protected: Eyes Wide Shut at 20
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Kubrick’s the Killing and the Emplotment of Death
Kubrick's films have leaned toward a kind of reluctant misanthropy which reveals the capability for self-destruction as the linchpin of man's existential predicament.
About Robert De Niro in the King of Comedy – By Pauline Kael
Robert De Niro’s Rupert Pupkin is Jake La Motta without his fists. In Raging Bull, De Niro and Scorsese had things boiled down, so…
The End of the Road: Film Noir and Lolita
The most evocative aural and visual descriptions in Lolita are in the manner of classic Forties films noirs, with their oppressive rain-washed nightscapes and…
Movies and Censorship: Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita” (1962)
Although passed without cuts, Lolita was rated "X" by the British Board of Film Censors when released in 1962, meaning no one under 16…
A Clockwork Orange: Viddying Metaphor
Whatever tempted Kubrick to adapt the novel A Clockwork Orange and deal with its extraordinary difficulties, his methods of rising to their challenges were…
Paths of Glory: Kubrick’s Graduation Piece
Paths of Glory finds Kubrick dealing in the wider realm of ideas with a relevance to man and society. Without casting off any of…
Stanley Kubrick: The Unbearable Brevity of Being
Kubrick’s virtuosity as a filmmaker, and the range of his subjects, have served to disguise his near-obsessive concern with these two matters—the brutal brevity…
Movies and Censorship: Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus”
SUMMARY Spartacus is based on an historical figure and is the story of the rise and fall of a slave living in Rome before…
Movies on Television
In the chopped-up world of television, where old movies now proliferate, the past has become meaninglessly present.
Aryan Papers: Stanley Kubrick’s Abandoned Holocaust Film
Aryan Papers is a project that was supposed to be directed and written by Stanley Kubrick but was never finished.
Faithfulness: A “Vision” of Stanley Kubrick’s Last Three Films – By Richmond B. Adams
Stanley Kubrick, it appears, has raised many of the same questions through his films as Nathaniel Hawthorne did with his writing. In fact, they…
Shining (1980) – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Vedere, rivedere, stravedere. Sarà possibile inventare uno «stravedere» come possibile ulteriore significato di «to overlook». In ogni caso, Shining è un film da vedere…
Kubrick and His Discontents – By Hans Feldmann
Since the recognized success of Dr. Strangelove, objections to Kubrick's obscurity, his enigmatic mind, his bleak view of man, his simplistic view of life,…
Laurence Olivier as Othello – By Pauline Kael
Olivier is the most physical Othello imaginable. As a lord, this Othello is a little vulgar—too ingratiating, a boaster, an arrogant man. Reduced to…
Barry Lyndon – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Barry Lyndon non ha bisogno di chiamarsi Settecento. Se il titolo in Bertolucci indica l’intenzione astratta di definire storicamente quello che – dalla schematica…
Cimino, Kubrick E Il Gioco Dell’identità E Della Differenza – DI Guido Barlozzetti
Da Nang è lontana da Montelepre. La storia di Salvatore Giuliano e la guerra del Vietnam non si consumano sotto lo stesso cielo. Ma,…
From Domestic Nightmares to the Nightmare of History. Uncanny Eruptions of Violence in King’s and Kubrick’s Versions of ‘the Shining’
The impact of past violence on the present is examined in the novel and film versions of The Shining. John Lutz’s essay pinpoints in…
Shining: Incertezza Morale – DI Giorgio Cremonini
Il presente contributo di Giorgio Cremonini è inserito nel numero monografico intitolato "Quel che resta nella cornice", dedicato alla descrizione di alcune tra le…
A Jewish American Monster: Stanley Kubrick, Anti-Semitism and Lolita (1962) – By Nathan Abrams
This article presents a case study of the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, considering how his films can be considered an emotional response to the Holocaust,…
Stanley Kubrick: La Soggettiva Del Cadavere – DI Vito Zagarrio
La Storia, diceva ancora Baudrillard, è uno scenario rétro, è un “cadavere” che si può mettere in scena, un "fossile” che può essere rappresentato…
Kubrick, Freud E La Coazione a Ripetere – DI Sandro Bernardi
Che Kubrick conoscesse Freud è fuor di dubbio; lo si ricava da tutta la sua opera, ma basterebbe anche solo quell’accenno al Perturbante che…
Il Dr. Stranamore – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Per molti versi, il film più «erotico» di Kubrick è 'Il dr. Stranamore' (1963) (girato anch’esso in Inghilterra), che segna la fine della collaborazione…
Lolita (1962) – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Che Kubrick punti molto di più sull’ossessione in sé che sul suo oggetto (Lolita), è dimostrato già dal principale spostamento operato rispetto al romanzo:…
Eyes Wide Shut: Introducing Sociology
Critical disappointment with Eyes Wide Shut was almost unanimous, and the complaint was always the same: not sexy. The national reviewers sounded like a…
2001: Kubrick in Space – Essay by Stephen Mamber
The pretentiousness of 2001: A Space Odyssey has been a considerable obstacle to appreciating its status as masterpiece. The collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke…
Barry Lyndon: Narrative and Discourse in Kubrick’s Modern Tragedy – Essay by Michael Klein
In this essay, Michael Klein elucidates the unique nature of Kubrick's modernist perspective, as evinced in Barry Lyndon
The Big Score. Fate, Morality, and Meaningful Life in ‘the Killing’ – By Steven M. Sanders
The essay discusses the Stoic philosophy which characterizes Kubrick’s early noir films, specifically in the way the protagonist from The Killing ultimately surrenders to…
Rapina a Mano Armata (the Killing, 1956) – DI Enrico Ghezzi
Sappiamo che Kubrick rifiuta un contratto della stessa casa [la United Artists] per produrre filmetti di seconda serie: non gli interessa arrivare in qualche…
The Perception of “History” in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon
Stanley Kubrick's film Barry Lyndon, spectacular as it is, flies in the face of an audience's usual expectations about "costume drama" as a cinematic…
Stanley Kubrick and the Aesthetics of the Grotesque – By James Naremore
“The grotesque,” which became a stylistic term in the Italian renaissance and later contributed significantly to all forms of modernist art, can help us…
Nihilism and Freedom in the Films of Stanley Kubrick
by Daniel Shaw Much critical ink has been spilled over the question of whether the worldview of archetypal auteur Stanley Kubrick is nihilistic, and…
Kubrick’s Anti-Reading of the Luck of Barry Lyndon
Since the completion of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick has repeatedly suggested that his films are inapplicable to verbal formulations. "I tried to create a visual experience,"…
‘The Awful Power’: John Updike’s Use of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in Rabbit Redux
In the following essay, DeBellis asserts that John Updike's references to 2001: A Space Odyssey in Rabbit Redux underline the major thematic concerns in…
Full Metal Jacket (1987) – Recensione DI Fernaldo DI Giammatteo
Saggio critico di Fernaldo Di Giammatteo su "Full Metal Jacket", pubblicato nel numero monografico su Stanley Kubrick della collana Il Castoro Cinema
Arancia Meccanica – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Saggio critico di Enrico Ghezzi su "Arancia Meccanica", pubblicato nel numero monografico su Stanley Kubrick della collana Il Castoro Cinema
Photographing Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon
Interview with Director of Photography John Alcott Among all the film-makers of the world, there is no one quite like Stanley Kubrick. To be…
Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo DI Marcello Garofalo
di Marcello Garofalo Una località isolata battuta dal vento. Due uomini scendono da cavallo avanzando verso un terzo, loro complice: insieme entrano in un…
Family Life and Leisure Culture in “the Shining”
A recent variation in the horror movie genre has been a series of films about middle class life in America in which the source…
Genre Theory and “the Shining”
Toward a Post-structural Influence in Film Genre Study: Intertextuality and The Shining. Essay by Walter Metz
The Three Faces of Lolita, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Adaptation
Lolita’s path from novel to the Stanley Kubrick's and Adrian Lyne's film adaptations. Essay by Rebecca Bell-Metereau
From ‘Traumnovelle’ (1927) to Script to Screen—’Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)
Stanley Kubrick came very late in life to the screen adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s novella, though he had read it and been intrigued by…
Kubrick: La Guerra E La Storia
Il film di Kubrick "Paths of Glory" visto nel contesto della cinematografia più critica verso la Grande Guerra
Cobb and Kubrick: Author and Auteur: (Paths of Glory as Novel and Film)
Not the least of the virtues of Stanley Kubrick’s movie version of Paths of Glory is that it has been a chief help in…
Dr. Strangelove (1964): Nightmare Comedy and the Ideology of Liberal Consensus
In the following essay, Charles Maland discusses how Dr. Strangelove functions as a response to the American nuclear policy of the early 1960s
A.i. Intelligenza Artificiale: Un Mondo Senza Pietà – Speciale Cineforum
"A.I." delinea l'immagine di un mondo (futuro?) in cui "nascere" robot aiuta forse a capire, ma non a sconfiggere il destino di solitudine e…
Full Metal Jacket: Paint It Black – Essay by Michael Klein
Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) presents a very different vision of the Vietnam War, one with enhanced perspective.
Bodies in Space: Film as Carnal Knowledge – By Annette Michelson
Annette Michelson in her famous 1969 essay, Bodies in Space: Film as 'Carnal Knowledge' in which she explored the phenomenal impact of 2001: A…
2001: Odissea Nello Spazio – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Il 1968 fu un anno memorabile. Il primo Giro vinto da Eddy Merckx, Beamon che a Città del Messico salta 8,90 in lungo, il…
Eyes Wide Shut E Vertigo: Erotismo, Morte E Metafisica in Kubrick E Hitchcock
Eyes Wide Shut (1999), capolavoro postumo di Stanley Kubrick, condivide con Vertigo (1958), di Alfred Hitchcock, non solo le linee tematiche di sviluppo, ma…
Stanley Kubrick: Quest for Perfection
Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic collaborators recall the man and his very unique methods
Campane a Morto
Dopo il dramma dei bombardamenti, l’avvocato cagliaritano Giuseppe Musio annunciò nel quotidiano sassarese “L’Isola” la definitiva scomparsa della sua città
Il Settecento DI Barry Lyndon E DI 2001: Odissea Nello Spazio
Avvisaglie della fine impossibile di Francesco Cattaneo «…è l’individuo tale quale, elementare e tortuoso, vomitato dal Caos in piena Versailles“. E.M. Cioran (1). «La…
Male Bonding, Hollywood Orientalism, and the Repression of the Feminine in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket
Susan White investigates the problem of gender in Kubrick’s "Full Metal Jacket"
Mythmaking in Kubrick and Fellini
Irving Singer compares Kubrickean and Homeric epics and analyzes in depth the self-referential mythmaking of Federico Fellini in many of his movies, including 8½
Kubrick – By Michael Herr
The screenwriter of "Full Metal Jacket", Michael Herr, pays homage to his longtime friend, director Stanley Kubrick
Orizzonti DI Gloria (1957) Saggio Monografico DI Guido Fink
Saggio monografico del 1971 - ormai quasi introvabile - dedicato al film di Stanley Kubrick "Orizzonti di Gloria"
Mr. Klein E Eyes Wide Shut: Umiliazione E Vertigini Dell’identità
Nelle loro rispettive peculiarità, Mr. Klein e Eyes Wide Shut si collocano entrambi sotto il segno di una velenosa e sottile ambiguità
Film Come Conoscenza Carnale DI Annette Michelson
Traduzione italiana del famoso saggio di Annette Michelson del 1969 su "2001: Odissea nello spazio" di Stanley Kubrick
Sergio Leone and the Construction of Myth
Peter Babiak on how Leone in "Once Open a Time in America" used an archetypal cultural genre - the gangster film - in order…
Weller and Kubrick: Two Forms of Exile
James Naremore's thought-provoking paper on Welles and Kubrick and the artistic effects of them leaving the U.S.
The Cultural Productions of ‘a Clockwork Orange’
Janet Staiger's essay on the cultural effects of watching A Clockwork Orange
The Brutality of Military Incompetence: Paths of Glory and King and Country
Essay by Andrew Kelly published in "Cinema and The Great War"
Orizzonti DI Gloria: “Foyer” Critico Della Rivista Bianco E Nero
Contributi critici del regista cinematografico Michelangelo Antonioni, del critico letterario Giulio Cattaneo, dello storico del cinema Fausto Montesanti e dello sceneggiatore Giorgio Prosperi. Con…
La Ragione Evanescente: Nel Labirinto DI Shining – DI Francesco Cattaneo [Cineforum]
Saggio di Francesco Cattaneo su Shining, pubblicato dalla rivista italiana Cineforum nel 2003
Patterns of Space, Sound and Movement in Paths of Glory
Essay by Eric Eaton published in "Stanley Kubrick: Essays on His Films and Legacy"
Dossier Eyes Wide Shut – Segnocinema
Speciale Eyes Wide Shut pubblicato dalla rivista italiana SegnoCinema, Gennaio-Febbraio 2000
Eyes Wide Shut: Kubrick’s Eye – Speciale Cineforum
Speciale su Stanley Kubrick pubblicato dalla rivista italiana Cineforum nel 1999 in occasione dell'uscita di Eyes Wide Shut
Speciale Leone – C’era Una Volta in America
Speciale Sergio Leone pubblicato nel 1984 dalla rivista Cineforum (238) in occasione dell'uscita di C'era una volta in America
Barry Lyndon – Speciale Cineforum
Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon special published by Italian magazine Cineforum n.160, December 1976
C’era Una Volta in America – Analisi DI Marcello Garofalo
Marcello Garofalo analizza il film di Sergio Leone "C'era una volta in America" nel suo libro "Tutto il cinema di Sergio Leone"
Arancia Meccanica – Speciale Cineforum
Speciale Arancia Meccanica pubblicato dalla rivista Cineforum nel 1973
Orizzonti DI Gloria – DI Enrico Ghezzi [Il Castoro Cinema]
Saggio critico di Enrico Ghezzi su "Orizzonti di Gloria", pubblicato nel numero monografico su Stanley Kubrick della collana Il Castoro Cinema
Full Metal Jacket – Speciale Cineforum
Speciale sul film di Stanley Kubrick "Full Metal Jacket", pubblicato dalla rivista Cineforum nel 1987.
2001: Odissea Nello Spazio [Cineforum]
Review and analysis of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, published by the Italian magazine Cineforum N.82, February 1969
What About Jack? Another Perspective on Family Relationships in Stanley Kubrick’s the Shining
In the following essay. Manchel examines the protagonist of The Shining. Jack Torrance, contending that “there are mitigating circumstances for his diabolical role in…
Kubrick’s Personal Stamp on Spartacus
Spartacus had a powerful star and a politically committed screenwriter. So how did Stanley Kubrick put his personal stamp on the film, asks Henry…
Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill and the Vietnam War
One dark legacy of the nation that had still not been put to rest by this time was the Vietnam War, which is evident…
Fear and Desire: Kubrick “Rimosso” – DI Paolo Cherchi Usai
Speciale sul film di Stanley Kubrick "Fear and Desire", pubblicato dalla rivista Segnocinema nel 1989
Dossier Kubrick – Duel 70
Series of articles about Stanley Kubrick published by the Italian magazine Duel on the n.70 issue, June 1999 Perché Kubrick è un classico: Stanley…