The University of Wisconsin Press


Film Studies / Biography

 

Depth of Field
Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History
Edited by Geoffrey Cocks, James Diedrick, and Glenn Perusek



Wisconsin Film Studies

Patrick McGilligan, Series Editor

A wide-open view of a cinematic enigma

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.

"While the essays underscore Kubrick's paradoxical 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

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.

Contributors: Geoffrey Cocks, James Diedrick, G. L. Ercolini, Pat J. Gehrke, Diane Johnson, Tim Kreider, Vincent LoBrutto, Peter Loewenberg, Mark Crispin Miller, Glenn Perusek, Frederic Raphael, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Billie Wickre and Paula Willoquet-Maricondi.

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cover of Depth of Field is blue and orange with a black and white photo of Kubrick behind the camera inset in a circle.

April 2006
352 pp.  6 x 9
25 b/w illus.

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Paper $27.95 t
ISBN 978-0-299-21614-6
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