Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History

by Geoffrey Cocks (Editor), James Diedrick (Editor), Glenn Perusek (Editor)

Overview

    Director of some of the most controversial films of the twentieth century, Stanley Kubrick created a reputation as a Hollywood outsider as well as a cinematic genius. His diverse yet relatively small oeuvre—he directed only thirteen films during a career that spanned more than four decades—covers a broad range of the themes that shaped his century and continues to shape the twenty-first: war and crime, gender relations and class conflict, racism, and the fate of individual agency in a world of increasing social surveillance and control. 
    In Depth of Field, leading screenwriters and scholars analyze Kubrick's films from a variety of perspectives. They examine such groundbreaking classics as Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey and later films whose critical reputations are still in flux. Depth of Field ends with three viewpoints on Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, placing it in the contexts of film history, the history and theory of psychoanalysis, and the sociology of sex and power. Probing Kubrick's whole body of work, Depth of Field is the first truly multidisciplinary study of one of the most innovative and controversial filmmakers of the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299216139
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	08/01/2006
Series:	Wisconsin Film Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Geoffrey Cocks is the Julian S. Rammelkamp Professor of History at Albion College. He has written and edited many books, including The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, and the Holocaust. James Diedrick is associate dean at Agnes Scott College and author of Understanding Martin Amis. Glenn Perusek is the Royal G. Hall Professor of the Social Sciences at Albion College and editor of Trade Union Politics: American Unions and Economic Change.

Table of Contents

<table of contents, p. vii> Contents Acknowledgements 000 <LINE SPACE> Introduction: Deep Focus Geoffrey Cocks, James Diedrick, Glenn Perusek 000 <LINE SPACE> First Take: Words and Pictures The Written Word and the Very Visual Stanley Kubrick Vincent LoBrutto 000 Writing The Shining Diane Johnson 000 The Pumpkinification of Stanley K. Frederic Raphael 000 <LINE SPACE> Mazes and Meanings Kubrick's Armies: Strategy, Hierarchy, and Motive in the War Films of Stanley Kubrick Glenn Perusek 000 Subjected Wills: The Anti-Humanism of Kubrick's Later Films Pat J. Gehrke and G. L. Ercolini 000 2001: A Cold Descent Mark Crispin Miller 000 Deviant Subjects in Foucault and A Clockwork Orange: Criminological Constructions of Subjectivity Pat J. Gehrke 000 Pictures, Plurality, and Puns: A Visual Approach to Barry Lyndon Bille Wickre 000 Death by Typewriter: Stanley Kubrick, the Holocaust, and The Shining Geoffrey Cocks 000 Full-Metal-Jacketing, or Masculinity in the Making Paula Willoquet-Maricondi 000 <LINE SPACE> Final Take: Eyes Wide Shut In Dreams Begin Responsibilities Jonathan Rosenbaum 000 Freud, Schnitzler, and Eyes Wide Shut Peter Loewenberg 000 Introducing Sociology Tim Kreider 000 <LINE SPACE> Filmography Bibliography Contributors Index

Editorial Reviews

"While the essays underscore Kubrick's well-known jovial and pessimistic vision, they also point to his filmic perfectionism along with his outraged yearning for a better order. The book will appeal to Kubrick's avid aficionados, general cinephiles, and all those involved in cultural debates."—Alain J.-J. Cohen, University of California, San Diego

From the Publisher