Customer Reviews:
One Awesome Book!.......2006-04-06
For fans of Kubrick's work, this book is essential. The man only did a few interviews in his existence and semed to despise every minute of them but this book provides some essential information and opinion from one of the greatest filmmakers ever. Hearing his philosophies alone completely blew me away! By the end of the book I was wishing there were more interviews. Get it.
The "Seinfeld" of Celebrity Interview Books.......2005-10-17
You've heard many times that "Seinfeld" was "a show about nothing." That's pretty much what you get here...
Kubrick loathed publicity and hated doing interviews even more. Since he himself had been a photojournalist, of sorts, before starting his career making movies, this is a little paradoxical, but understandable.
I don't doubt that just about every documented Kubrick interview ever done is, in some way, represented in this book - but it still ends up a mighty slim volume. Students of Kubrick will not learn much here that has not already been cited, in secondary source, in the great number of other Kubrick "biographies" and critical treatises.
And you cannot help believing that this is exactly what Kubrick wanted. Over and over again, in this book itself, he insists that the movies he made were to stand on their own merits. Talking about movies meant nothing to him - making them was everything.
Great source for Kubrick fans, but repetitive.......2005-03-09
There is a huge amount of Kubrick in this one. Parhaps the most complete collection of things he has uttered to the press throughout his career. It covers all his fascinations, all obsessions and great visions for the modern mankind - and it unveils the gradual loss of hope, dienchantement with how the modern world develops.
But, being a collection of interviews, it is also slightly repetitive and many topics are discussed several times, so for non-scholars this can be increasingly boring while they advance.
Excellent.......2002-09-20
In Stanley Kubrick: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi), we have more of the voice of Kubrick than anywhere else. The interviews go chronologically and run the gamut from short three-page profile throwaways to massive, 30-page question-and-answer marathons. Many are worth noting: Jeremy Bernstein's profile dates from 1966 but is still fresh and amazingly well-written and candid, and Eric Nordern's interview with Kubrick for Playboy is insightful and worth reading for the Master's (mostly incorrect) predictions of immortality and space travel by the year 2001. Another excellent interview comes from Joseph Glemis, who talks to Kubrick about all of his films up to Clockwork Orange, and there are two interviews with Gene Siskel that are worth reading, too.
Simply put, this is a fine volume that should belong to every Kubrick fan. Most of these interviews, if not all of them, are long out of print and the book is 98% worthwhile. Moreover, reading the words of Kubrick is like reading poetry-he did retain the right to extrapolate and modify his answers before any interview was published-with each sentence and word well chosen. Only complaint: there are no interviews with Kubrick regarding The Shining; why this film was left out is curious. Gorgeously printed with a spartan design, sturdily bound, set in Stone serif, rag right, this is a very reader-friendly book.
Vital to anyone's Kubrick library.......2001-07-24
Considering the fact that Stanley Kubrick rarely gave interviews, this book is a godsend. Compiling articles and interviews over a span of several decades, "Stanley Kubrick: Interviews" offers a fascinating insight into one of the cinema's greatest directors. Many of these have been widely reprinted already, but it's great to see them all in one collection. Once you've bought this book ...get the Stanley Kubrick Collection DVD box set!
Book Description
The classic study of Kubrick--available once again and fully updated
If Stanley Kubrick had made only 2001: A Space Odyssey or Dr. Strangelove, his cinematic legacy would have been assured. But from his first feature film, Fear and Desire, to the posthumously released Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick created an accomplished body of work unique in its scope, diversity, and artistry, and by turns both lauded and controversial.
In this newly revised and definitive edition of his now classic study, film critic Michel Ciment provides an insightful examination of Kubrick's thirteen films-including such favorites as Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket-alongside an assemblage of more than four hundred photographs that form a complementary photo essay. Rounding out this unique work are a short biography of Kubrick; interviews with the director, as well as cast and crew members, including Malcolm McDowell, Shelley Duvall, and Jack Nicholson; and a detailed filmography and bibliography.
Meshed with masterful integrity, the book's text and illustrations pay homage to one of the most visionary, original, and demanding filmmakers of our time.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent overview of entire Kubrick's career.......2004-01-11
With Stanley Kubrick dead and his final film released, Michael Ciment had the opportunity to update his biography/analysis of the great director's career. Rather than rewrite the entire book, he's decided to update it with new interviews and an additional chapter or two on Eyes Wide Shut. (The previous edition was updated to include Full Metal Jacket.) He's also added a lot more photographs --- stills from the films and images of Kubrick at work. The photos of Kubrick working on EWS are particularly interesting.
Early in the book, after a short biographical chapter, Ciment goes through a list of common motifs in Kubrick's films. These include the use of masks, actors in dual roles, character playing games such as chess and cards within the film, circular set design, and a close shot of a main character's eye. Because this section was not updated to include Full Metal Jacket or Eyes Wide Shut, you can decide for yourself if these motifs were carried on in the those two films. (In my opinion, many of the motifs are not found in his last two films.)
This is followed by an essay on 'Kubrick and the Fantastic,' a dull and pretentious piece that doesn't add much. It leads to the best part of the book, the second half, in which Kubrick and his collaborators are interviewed. Kubrick responds to questions with answers that are full of information, but he's evasive when he describes his own films. Later on, the author explains why: Kubrick felt his movies should be self-explanatory (after multiple viewings) and didn't like the "What's this movie about?" question.
The interviews with actors, set designers, co-writers, and costume designers are very good. Everyone has the same reaction: Kubrick exasperated them as he demanded their best work . . . but they wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the world. It's a testament to Kubrick that he choose people who were not petty. (The only sour note is Frederick Raphael, the co-screenwriter for Eyes Wide Shut. He seems smart, but not in Kubrick's league.)
If you're a casual Kubrick fan, this book is a worthwhile introduction. The photos are very good and, as an overview, it's excellent. It is, however, pretentious at times in the analysis of the films. For the hardcore Kubrick fan who has read (or is planning to read) everything on the director, this book ranks third or fourth. Read Baxter's and Herr's books first.
We were waiting.......2003-08-19
This book has been held in high regard ever since it first appeared. Earlier editions were becoming collectible and were always disappearing from libraries.
I guess it was safe for a reappearance following the passing of Stanley Kubrick and the completion of his body of work. The book has been reworked beautifully, including all of the amazing color photos, essays, and interviews from before plus some new additions, namely chapters on Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut chapters. There are additional interviews with various collaborators.
In short, in the wake of Kubrick books that sprouted up following the director's death in 1999, Ciment's Kubrick ranks right at the top. It's a gorgeous volume, and the interviews (done by Ciment following Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining) are some of the most enlightening words from the director.
Highly recommended for the Kubrick fan and the film buff. Also recommended is Thomas Allen Nelson's Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze.
DEFINITIVE, INDEED!.......2001-12-01
I am glad Mr. Ciment waited until Kubrick's oeuvre was completed before updating what is, indeed, the very last word on this very unique artist's films. Everything is here from the first edition which was out-of-print for quite awhile plus the films that were made after. With Stanley Kubrick's death we now have the very best study of the themes, techniques and recurring visions of a very singular artist. Anyone who wants to understand the evolution of Stanley Kubrick can disregard all the other flawed books out there and put this one on the shelf as a keeper. With detailed analysis and tons of pictures, any serious fan of his films will appreciate this as only the subtitle says it is - the definitive edition.
Most precious visual book about Kubrick........2001-01-02
I have this book. 5,6 years ago, I bought this at second hand book store. So book I have is second handed one, and Japanese special edition. As other reviewers say, it's very very great pity that this book is out of print now. I think some publisher had better make new edition title, added to a visualy wondeful film-Eyes Wide Shut!! If you have found it at bookstore and you are a Kubrician, you must take it, buy it, bring it your home, and enjoy these so many precious fotos or very important his interviews in this book. I have various books about Kubrick, but this Michel Ciment's Kubrick is the best book in published ones ever I think. Do your best for finding one!! All your efforts for this book would not be wasted, EVER!
Glad to see this back and in such fine form........2000-04-21
It's a pleasure to see this book back in print. Although Ciment's analysis is a little heavy on the semiotic side, he does an interesting job of illuminating the various thematic threads in Kubrick's work. Profusely illustrated, the book juxtaposes various stills to show the recurrance of visual motifs in each and every one of Kubrick's films (though he manages to miss my absolute favorite -- the imaculate bathroom). There are roughly two essays in the book, one dealing with Kubrick the modernist and the other on Kubrick's use of the fantastic. However, the real gems of this tome are the various interviews, three conducted with the man himself (four if you count a Q&A conducted by mail) following the releases of Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and The Shining. Somehow the author got Stan to open up in a way, that I've never seen him do in any other interview (the exception being the one for Playboy in '68). This edition also contains some fine interviews, some recently added, with Ken Adam, Jack Nicholson, Malcolm McDowell, Diane Johnson and Marisa Berenson. There is an added chapter on Eyes Wide Shut (which in part explains why it took him so long to do the film) and a memorial essay which gives a fine and tender goodbye to a great director and good friend.
Book Description
In this study Brian Bosworth looks at the critical period between 329 and 325 BC, when Alexander the Great was active in Central Asia and what is now Pakistan. He documents Alexander's relations with the peoples he conquered, and addresses the question of what it meant to be on the receiving end of the conquest, drawing a bleak picture of massacre and repression. At the same time Alexander's views of empire are investigated, his attitude to his subjects, and the development of his concepts of personal divinity and universal monarchy. Analogies are thus drawn with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, which has a comparable historiographical tradition and parallels many of Alexander's dealings with his subjects. Although of concern to the specialist, this book is equally directed at the general reader interested in the history of Alexander and the morality of empire.
Book Description
The brightest and most original minds in America offer a penetrating analysis of the state of the union and the policy challenges facing the nation as the 2004 election approaches.
Resulting from a collaboration between The Atlantic Monthly magazine and the New America Foundation, The Real State of the Union features 18 original essays on the most important facets of our national well-being. Written by many of our nation's most insightful observers, the essays provide an objective and penetrating analysis of the most critical challenges facing America as well as innovative solutions to many of them.
The State of the Union Address is among the nation's oldest rituals, but one that has deviated from its original purpose: Rather than a candid assessment of the country or a meaningful self-evaluation by the current administration, it has become a political spectacle marked by self-congratulation and spin. The Real State of the Union seeks to turn an empty exercise into a more meaningful national dialogue about the social, political, and economic health of our country. Rejecting the political correctness of both parties, this volume tells the American public what it needs to know about the real problems that plague the country and why the political solutions that are offered too often fail to address the real nature of those problems.
Customer Reviews:
First Class Thinking, Morally Sound, Offer Hope.......2006-09-06
The contributing editors, Ted Halstead and Michael Lind, again shine as "hubs" for blending diverse thinkers, including James Pinkerton of the right, and I believe they are completely correct when they say that the State of the Union address has become shallow, partisan, and trivialized. More substantively, they might have offered a piece on the ten reasons to impeach Bush-Cheney, and another on the failure of Congress, which has struck out with the American people: strike one is incumbents shaking down lobbyists for cash; strike two is the extremist leaderships (Democratic as well as Republican) forcing "party line" votes that are totally against the Constitutional intent of having Representatives represent their CONSTITUENCIES; and strike three is the extremist Republicans serving as foot soldiers to a mendacious White House, instead of, as the Constitution intended with Article 1, being the FIRST branch of government. The extremist Republicans (I am a moderate Republican) and nothing less than Constitutional perverts, and I use the term advisedly. (See my reviews on books about these two topics in last two months).
The book is ably summed up in the Preface, which states that neither party has proven capable of offering a coherent, honest, or forward-looking agenda to guide America. Peter Peterson, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Running on Empty," would certainly agree, as do I. It is my hope that this group might coalesce around someone like Senator Collins (R-MA) running with Governor Warner (D-VA), and announcing a coalition cabinet and one commitment: to electoral reform. Karl Rove knows how to steal close elections, the only way to beat him is to field a multi-party TEAM that can win by a LANDSLIDE. America is ready for that, and the ideas in this book are all implement able by such a team approach to what might be called "networked governance."
While I have six pages of notes on this excellent volume, still relevant to the future, I will touch on just a few highlights:
1) Mass middle class is vital, and Washington has destroyed that base for democracy.
2) American people are not as polarized as their extremist political leaders
3) Our humans are productive but our processes are not. I am reminded of the book in the 1980's on "Human Scale." The federal government has indeed become dysfunctional, running at 3-5 mph while the rest of us are going 100 mph.
4) Need a new social contract. Authors identify the first one as building a nation, the second as healing from the civil war, and the third as building a middle class. We need to re-build the middle class with governance that again represents the citizens and their communities rather than predatory corporations.
5) Private sector, not just government, needs reform.
6) Health care can shift from business to government, and in the process we can find $60 billion a year in savings by using information to create metrics to reduce waste and over-treatment. The author discussing this suggests that 20-30% of what we spend on health care is waste. They do not discuss medical tourism, which I find quite interesting as a trend.
7) We need a nation-wide industrial policy that restores the relationship between business, community, and family, while also restricting the mobility of capital unless it restores the social contract with labor.
8) Radical tax reform could yield $200 billion a year (the author's say this is a low estimate, I agree, import-export tax fraud alone is $50 billion a year, I think the number is closer to $500 billion a year).
9) Take back the airwaves in the public interest.
10) James Pinkerton is brilliant in explaining the three eras of education as agricultural (nine-month school year), industrial (rote learning) and experimental (nostrums at expense of basics). See also Derek Bok's piece on "Reinventing Education at Forbes.com. James missed the opportunity to discuss how free universal access to all knowledge, and using serious games to educate on a just enough, just in time basis, in all languages, could reconfigure education world-wide.
11) Matthew Miller (see my review of his superb book, "The One Percent Solution") outlines what $30 billion could buy in terms of moving teachers up the food chain. Just in passing, if we cut our grotesquely ineffective intelligence community back from $60 billion a year to $30 billion a year, we can create a truly smart nation (see my book coming out on 11 September, "The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest," and in passing get better secret intelligence in the context of a national Open Source (Intelligence) Network that feeds not only the spies and diplomats, but also the schoolhouses, statehouses, and social clubs.
12) A thread that I found interesting throughout the book is how we lack the information needed to make smart choices. We lack statistical information on medical treatments and results that might allow "evidence-based medicine." As I have pointed out elsewhere (Google for
), the U.S. Government is remarkably ignorant and uninformed across all these areas.
13) The rest of the book on aging productively, incentivizing exercise and penalizing fast food, on rebuilding the heartland with information infrastructure, on mixed races where third generations inter-marry at a 55% rate, on conflicted Muslims, on "opportunity lost" in foreign affairs and national security, all top notch.
The book ends brilliantly, as it began, with a commentary on the dysfunctional duopology of the extremist Republicans where dogma trumps honesty, and the divided Democrats trapped in the past. As the founder of a small non-rival party, Citizens-Party.org, I consider this book, and the New America Foundation, to be the people's voice at a time when the Congress and the White House most certainly are not.
Great. Still relevant after the election........2006-03-09
This book is great at presenting problems and, perhaps more importantly, solutions facing our country today. Although it appears to be focused mainly on the last presidential election, the issues are still relevant today. It has been over a year since the 2004 presidential election and many of the concerns in this book have not been addressed by either side of the aisle. Each article is managable to the average fan of politics and yet it is detailed enough to make the most involved citizen think in different ways. Of particular note are the chapters on education. They are well written and offer very insightful solutions. This is an excellent book for you to read to get in touch with some of the real problems in America.
Clarity for Readers.......2005-06-13
The Real State of the Union is an extensive discussion on the issues that currently face the United states. This book is no action packed thriler, yet it is a very thoughtful and well put together.Each issue is taken apart and thorougly evaluated. The out- of-the-box thinking gives readers something to think about while "they" analyze the situation. The clarity of this book is its greatest quality. There is a simple setup in each chapter in which; the author explains the problems with the issue, gives examples, and then provides a solution. Besides this, many chapters include graphs to visually help explain some of the complex issues, such as radical tax reform and public capital stock.
Shoddy scholarship.......2005-01-11
The title enticed me and I had high expectations to glean some insight into modern economic problems - or at least hear some different perspectives. The book is not a bad read, but it suffers from two continual errors that, as a scholar, I find really annoying. First, in many of the graphs presented, they are not numbered, cited in the text, associated with legends NOR are the axes labelled. The trends are obvious, of course, but I had no idea what the heck I was looking at. There is also a lot of jargon thrown at the reader without explanation.
Second, there are no references for many of the statements made in the book. It would be nice to know where they got their data or even IF they are making a claim based on real data (I assume they are, but without references, who knows?). You may like this book and, again, it's not a bad read, but I got so frustrated with the shoddy scholarship that I just set it down halfway through and gave up. I really don't care to listen to opinions as much as I enjoy examining positions and arguments... and those require some scholarship whereas anyone can throw out an opinion.
Buy this book. You will not regret it........2004-04-19
Instead of blaming the right or the left for the country's problems, this book offers solutions.
In the past couple of years I've gotten more interested in politics. I've read books on how different parties and people are dragging this country down, but nothing on how things could be turned around. Our country has change drastically since the New Deal. The old Republican/Democrat political vision is outdated. This book offers new thinking and ideas to get this country on track.
This Real State Of The Union makes sense. I'd like to buy a copy for every government official in Washington if I could.
Amazon.com
Not long ago, while waiting to board a plane, environmental scientist Jason van Driesche noticed a Hawaiian tourism poster that showed a lush ravine carpeted with flowering trees and shrubs, "an exotic destination if ever there was one." If, that is, "exotic" means "alien," for the plants in the picture were all invaders from other continents: African tulip trees, Indian kahili ginger, and other non-native species that thrive on ecological disturbance and the willingness of humans to transport plants and animals from one ecosystem to another without pausing to consider the consequences.
Those consequences, write van Driesche and his fellow scientist and father Roy van Driesche, are enormous. The ever-increasing globalization of agriculture and commerce is remaking the earth into a "planet of weeds," replacing biological diversity with a seemingly inescapable sameness of forms. In Nature Out of Place, they catalog some of these losses, showing how humankind's preference for the "best" species is yielding catastrophe on every continent. More helpfully, they offer a program of action for people to stem and even undo some of that destruction by landscaping with native plants, shunning exotic pets, eating locally grown foods, and protecting old, biologically rich habitats close to home. Clear-headed and illuminating, their book makes a useful tool for anyone concerned with environmental restoration and preservation. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Though the forests are still green and the lakes full of water, an unending stream of invasions is changing many ecosystems around the world from productive, tightly integrated webs of native species to loose assemblages of stressed native species and aggressive invaders. The earth is becoming what author David Quammen has called a "planet of weeds.
Nature Out of Place brings this devastating but overlooked crisis to the forefront of public consciousness by offering a fascinating exploration of its causes and consequences, along with a thoughtful and practical consideration of what can be done about it. The father and son team of Jason and Roy Van Driesche offer a unique combination of narratives that highlight specific locations and problems along with comprehensive explanations of the underlying scientific and policy issues.
Chapters examine Hawaii, where introduced feral pigs are destroying the islands' native forests; zebra mussel invasion in the rivers of Ohio; the decades-long effort to eradicate an invasive weed on the Great Plains; and a story about the restoration of both ecological and human history in an urban natural area. In-depth background chapters explain topics ranging from how ecosystems become diverse, to the characteristics of effective invaders, to procedures and policies that can help prevent future invasions. The book ends with a number of specific suggestions for ways that individuals can help reduce the impacts of invasive species, and offers resources for further information.
By bringing the problem of invasive species to life for readers at all levels, Nature Out of Place will play an essential role in the vital effort to raise public awareness of this ongoing ecological crisis.
Customer Reviews:
Great intro to bioinvasions.......2005-08-07
I found this book to be a refereshing look at biological invasions. It takes in not only ecology but social factors, such as regular folks who have to deal with these pest species.
I feel this book is a step up from other popular-science books on the topic, such as Out of Eden by Alan Burdick.
An Interesting Topic Written in an Interesting Style........2001-08-14
Global ecology books are generally interesting because they gather diffuse and disparate data about the dynamics of terrestrial life into a syncretic whole which allows us a glimpse of events occuring on a global scale. This book, released last year, is probably a fairly current snapshot of certain pressing global happenings regarding native and invasive species, and provides sufficient corroborating resources for the hard scientist (no troublesome endnote numbers in the text, but the supporting references do appear in the endnotes at the back of the book). The popular science reader is well attended to as well in this book by the lack of distracting endnote numbers in the text and the moderate but sufficient statistical data intercalated into the text.
The other interesting aspect of this book is the style in which it is written. The authors are a father and son team who write alternating chapters in two distinct styles that nonetheless blend well with one another and are rather self-enhancing rather than distracting. The father portion of this duo, Roy Van Driesche, teaches biological control at UMass, Amherst, and tackles the essay-style chapters on more general subject matter. The son, Jason Van Driesche, a graduate student of environmental studies at UWis, Madison, writes the 1st-person particular accounts of specific, ongoing invasive species problems. The alternating styles tend to break up what could have become a dessicated excercise in patience into a more palatable and enjoyable romp through the ecology of noxious invasive species and the current human responses to them.
The thesis of the book is, of course, how hundreds of years of unchecked waves of invasions by people and their concomitant pests, whether by invitation or as stowaways, is leading to a species homogenization, whereby the unscrupulous and hardy experts of survival: humans, rats, feral cats, weeds, fungi, etc. have and continue to decimate the more delicate and isolated species that simply cannot compete against the obviously hardier and more adaptable species. It's ecological whining at its finest, but the facts, as always, carry the day.
I particularly enjoyed son Jason's chapters, which are largely based on interviews with the locals who must deal with such problems. For example, leafy spurge on the great plains of the United States has been claiming untold acres of land generally used for grazing lands for ranchers (whose wards traditionally munch on, as it were, some invasive grass species of yore, you just can't win). Cattle shun leafy spurge, so the sustainable number of cattle per acre has diminished, distressing local cattle men and forcing them to take action or suffer the consequences (these are not your typical tree-huggers, but macho cowboys who probably smoke Camel non-filters). This setting is then revealed as a success case of biological control, father Roy's bailiwick, wherein asian beetles were imported to counterattack the otherwise indescriminately spreading green plague. The two styles really compliment one another in this regard. The discussions of island ecology regarding Hawai'i, Guam, New Zealand, and Santa Cruz island are also timely, interesting, and well covered. It's edifying to read in this book how public and private groups are beginning to take heed of these serious problems and actually legislate in favor of resistance to invasive species once and a while, but it's also frightening to realize such political action is occuring in mostly developed nations, and that vast, uncharted ecological and political events in undeveloped nations are generally not even under consideration. Apparently it's a jungle out there and the jungle is being remodeled at a blistering pace. All in all, a good read any bonified naturalist will admire.
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Kubrick: The Definitive Edition
Stanley Kubrick, Director: A Visual Analysis
Quentin Tarantino: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)
Steven Spielberg: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)
Martin Scorsese: Interviews (Interviews With Filmmakers Series)
