Stanley Kubrick is rightly regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but what do we really know about the man himself? The standard thumbnail sketch goes something like this: an enigmatic genius, tyrant and mad recluse whose obsessive nature meant that he only managed to complete 13 films during his five-decade career.
Kubrick: An Odyssey, by Robert B Kolker and Nathan Abrams, is an exhaustive biography that may well be the definitive account of his life and work. It paints a far richer and more nuanced portrait. It forensically debunks various myths and falsehoods while placing the truth – Kubrick undoubtedly was an eccentric perfectionist – in a more considered context.
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It emphasises that the filmmaker always knew exactly what he wanted, and would take all the time required to achieve that vision. During those long gaps between films, he was constantly working, constantly thinking, a massive, voracious intellect in a perpetual state of research and creation.
It also refutes the notion that he was a technically brilliant yet soulless artist. The Kubrick we discover is a witty, warm, cynical pessimist who loved his family and had no desire to be a public figure. A rounded human being, no less.
Kubrick: An Odyssey by Robert B Kolker and Nathan Abrams is out now (Faber & Faber, £20). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.
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