Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

The creator of some of cinema's most indelible and disturbing imagery, Kubrick (1928-1999) emerges as an arresting visual in his own right in this oversized book of photographs. It is, according to his widow, Christiane, a ""family album"" of pictures; it spans Kubrick's life from his Bronx childhood to his career directing such classics as Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In these mostly black-and-white photos of candid moments (many taken on his movie sets), Kubrick's heavy-lidded gaze ages from brooding intensity to owlish rumination. But the bland captions by Christiane, eager to ""correct the mistaken view of Stanley as some sort of isolationist misanthrope,"" will leave readers essentially in the dark about Kubrick the artist. She writes of his love for chess and cats and of his perpetually rumpled wardrobe, but offers little in the way of juicy back-stage gossip or insights into his directorial methods and the auteurist philosophy that estranged him from Hollywood. Still, the many pictures of Kubrick working on sets and camera angles and the sampling of his early work as a still photographer for Look magazine will appeal to Kubrick's considerable fans and perhaps as well to film buffs looking for clues to the development of his revolutionary aesthetic.