Nathan Abrams

Robert P. Kolker

An Odyssey

Kubrick

Twenty years since its release, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut remains a complex, visually arresting film about domesticity, sexual disturbance, and dreams. It was on the director's mind for some 50 years before he finally put it into production. Using the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts, London, and interviews with participants in the production, the authors create an archeology of the film that traces the progress of the film from its origins to its completion, reception, and afterlife. The book is also an appreciation of this enigmatic work and its equally enigmatic creator.

Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film

Eyes Wide Shut

The enigmatic and elusive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has not been treated to a full-length biography in over twenty years. Stanley Kubrick: An Odyssey fills that gap. It is based on access to the latest research, especially into his archive at the University of the Arts, London, and other papers as well as new interviews with family members and those who worked with him. It offers comprehensive and in-depth coverage of Kubrick's personal, private, public, and working life. We discuss not only the making of his films, but also about those he wanted but failed to make like Burning Secret, Napoleon, Aryan Papers, and A.I. We discover what he was doing when he was not making films. This biography will puncture a few myths about this allegedly reclusive filmmaker, who created some of the most important works of art of the twentieth century

Elizabeth Miller

Christopher L. Robinson

Blade Runner has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it anticipated with remarkable prescience the world in which we have lived for the past four decades. Ridley Scott’s breathtaking vision of a futuristic and cosmopolitan metropolis created an aesthetic and cognitive shock that continues to resonate to this day, not only in cinema but in multiple artistic and even scientific domains. The film is often cited in debates related to robotics, biopolitics, posthumanism, urban planning and critical theory. Denis Villeneuve's sequel, Blade Runner 2049, continues to explore these themes while introducing issues related to artificial intelligence, transhumanism and climate change. Blade Runner is often credited with having spawned several aesthetic trends, such as retrofuturism, techno-noir or future-noir and, most significantly, cyberpunk. To explore the origins and legacies of this monumental work, this essay collection brings together specialists from fields as diverse as film and media studies, comparative literature and mythology, photography, architecture, fashion studies, psychology, sociology and biopolitics.

'More Human than Human'

The Cultural Heritage of Blade Runner

Ian A. F. Bell

Jan Udris

Studying Film is an all-encompassing guide to cinema and film which explores the key concepts, terms and events that have shaped film study and criticism, all of which is illustrated by reference to classic and contemporary movies from around the world, from The Great Train Robbery to Pulp Fiction via Un Chien Andalou and Cinema Paradiso. This accessible introduction to the study of film aims to stimulate students' enjoyment and understanding of a wide range of different types of film, and to give them an awareness of the nature of cinema as a medium, as an art form, and as a social and economic institution. Contemporary film is seen in context by tracing its development from 1895 to the present, exploring film production in a variety of countries in a range of styles, and placing film next to other media.

Studying Film

Gregory Frame

The 1979 film Alien has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Directed by Ridley Scott, at the time known primarily for making advertisements, and starring then-unknown actor Sigourney Weaver in the lead role, it transcended its humble origins to shock and disturb audiences upon its initial release. Its success has led to three direct sequels, two prequels, one "mashup" franchise, a series of comic books, graphic novels, novelizations, games, and an enormous and devoted fanbase. For forty years, Alien and its progeny have animated debate and discussion among critics and academics from a wide variety of fields and methodological perspectives. This book brings together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore Alien through a contemporary lens. The chapters here demonstrate the extent to which its effects and reception are deeply multifaceted, with the Alien franchise straddling the lines between "high" and "low" culture, playing with generic categories, crossing media boundaries, and animating theoretical, critical, and political debates. Chapters touch on female agency and motherhood, the influence of H.R. Giger, the viscerality of Alien's body horror, the narrative tradition of the Female Gothic, the patriarchal gaze in the Alien video games, and the rise of in-universe online marketing campaigns. In so doing, the volume aims to debate Alien's legacy, consider its current position within visual culture, and establish what the series means--and why it still matters--forty years since its birth.

The Evolution of the Franchise

Alien Legacies

This is the first full history of the Jews in Scotland who lived outside Edinburgh and Glasgow. The work focuses on seven communities from the borders to the highlands: Aberdeen, Ayr, Dundee, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Greenock, and Inverness. Each of these communities was of sufficient size and affluence to form a congregation with a functional synagogue and, while their histories have been previously neglected in favor of Jewish populations in larger cities, their stories are important in understanding Scottish Jewry and British history as a whole. Drawn from numerous primary sources, the history of Jews in Scotland is traced from the earliest rumors to the present.

A Study of Seven Small Communities in Scotland

Caledonian Jews

As a period of film history, The American New Wave (ordinarily understood as beginning in 1967 and ending in 1980) remains a preoccupation for scholars and audiences alike. In traditional accounts, it is considered to be bookended by two periods of conservatism, and viewed as a (brief) period of explosive creativity within the Hollywood system. From Bonnie and Clyde to Heaven's Gate, it produced films that continue to be watched, discussed, analysed and poured over. It has, however, also become rigidly defined as a cinema of director-auteurs who made a number of aesthetically and politically significant films. This has led to marginalization and exclusion of many important artists and filmmakers, as well as a temporal rigidity about what and who is considered part of the 'New Wave proper'. This collection seeks to reinvigorate debate around this area of film history. It also looks in part to demonstrate the legacy of aesthetic experimentation and political radicalism after 1980 as part of the 'legacy' of the New Wave. Thanks to important new work that questions received scholarly wisdom, reveals previously marginalised filmmakers (and the films they made), considers new genres, personnel, and films under the banner of 'New Wave, New Hollywood', and reevaluates the traditional approaches and perspectives on the films that have enjoyed most critical attention, New Wave, New Hollywood: Reassessment, Recovery, Legacy looks to begin a new discussion about Hollywood cinema after 1967.

Reassessment, Recovery, and Legacy

New Wave, New Hollywood

I.Q. Hunter

Stanley Kubrick is one of the most revered directors in cinema history. His 13 films, including classics such as Paths of Glory, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining, attracted controversy, acclaim, a devoted cult following, and enormous critical interest. With this comprehensive guide to the key contexts - industrial and cultural, as well as aesthetic and critical - the themes of Kubrick's films sum up the current vibrant state of Kubrick studies. Bringing together an international team of leading scholars and emergent voices, this Companion provides comprehensive coverage of Stanley Kubrick's contribution to cinema. After a substantial introduction outlining Kubrick's life and career and the film's production and reception contexts, the volume consists of 39 contributions on key themes that both summarise previous work and offer new, often archive-based, state-of-the-art research. In addition, it is specifically tailored to the needs of students wanting an authoritative, accessible overview of academic work on Kubrick.

The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick

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.

New York Jewish Intellectual

Stanley Kubrick

What does the term "neoconservative" mean? Who are we talking about and where did they come from? Abrams answers those very questions through a detailed and critical study of neoconservatism's leading thinker, Norman Podhoretz, and the magazine he edited for 35 years, Commentary. Podhoretz has been described as "the conductor of the neocon orchestra" and through Commentary Podhoretz powerfully shaped neoconservatism. Rich in research, the book is based upon a wide range of sources, including archival and other material never before published in the context of Commentary magazine, including Podhoretz's private papers. It argues that much of what has been said about neoconservatism is the product of willful distortion and exaggeration both by the neoconservatives themselves and their many enemies. From this unique perspective, Abrams examines the origins, rise, and fall of neoconservatism. In understanding Podhoretz, a figure often overlooked, this book sheds light on the origins, ideas, and intellectual pedigree of neoconservatism.

Nathan Abrams

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