Depth Of Field

There have been analyses of Kubrick's entire career by individual writers, and isolated studies of his individual films, though Depth Of Field: Stanley Kubrick Film & The Uses Of History (edited by Geoffrey Cocks, James Diedrick, and Glenn Perusek) presents, for the first time, an anthology of Kubrick's films and themes by a broad range of different authors.

In his essay The Pumpkinification Of Stanley K, Frederic Raphael punctuates extended classical allusions with occasional references to his disappointment upon viewing Eyes Wide Shut, the film he co-wrote. He is unrepentant regarding the criticism he received for his self-serving memoir, Eyes Wide Open.

There are essays on Kubrick's antihumanism (Subjected Wills, by Pat J Gehrke and GL Ercolini; 2001: A Cold Descent, by Mark Crispin Miller), though are they really necessary? It would have been more radical to reassess this traditional view and present a humanist interpretation instead. In particular, with so much literature on 2001, a more original reading of the film is surely required. Kubrick's Armies (by Glenn Perusek) analyses several of his war films, and includes extracts from his unpublished Napoleon screenplay, though films such as Dr Strangelove also deserve (yet do not receive) individual chapters.

The most bizarre essay is Death By Typewriter, in which Geoffrey Cocks homes in on tiny, insignificant details in order to demonstrate (unsuccessfully) that The Shining is actually a metaphor for the Holocaust. His line of reasoning makes irrational connections between unconnected facts, and he demonstrates an obsessional interest in trivial minutiae. (For some unclear reason, he wants us to realise that the number seven recurs throughout the film, in increasingly obscure and unlikely manifestations.) Hilariously, he suggests that, in A Clockwork Orange, the line "You see that shoe?" is a deliberate echo of "You see that, Jew?". [In Annie Hall, this kind of paranoia is played for laughs: "Not 'Did you eat?', 'Jew eat?'!".] His essay includes a rare reprint of one of Kubrick's Look photos (twin girls, plausibly inspiring the twins in The Shining), though its connection to the Holocaust is tenuous.

The book provides a useful opportunity to explore Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, in more detail, reassessing its initial critical response. Tim Kreider does this most successfully in the final chapter, Introducing Sociology. (Most of Kubrick's films received mixed reviews on first release, only to be re-evaluated as masterpieces several years later - now Eyes Wide Shut is due for a similar reassessment.) Kreider, and other Depth Of Field writers, makes isolated references to Eyes Wide Shut as a dream film, though an extended analysis of its dream-logic has yet to be published.