Full Description
This volume features a set of thought-provoking and long overdue approaches to situating Stanley Kubrick's films in contemporary debates around gender, race, and age—with a focus on women's representations.
Offering new historical and critical perspectives on Kubrick's cinema, the book asks how his work should be viewed bearing in mind issues of gender equality, sexual harassment, and abuse. The authors tackle issues such as Kubrick's at times questionable relationships with his actresses and former wives; the dynamics of power, misogyny, and miscegenation in his films; and auteur "apologism," among others. The selections delineate these complex contours of Kubrick's work by drawing on archival sources, engaging in close readings of specific films, and exploring Kubrick through unorthodox venture points.
With an interdisciplinary scope and social justice-centered focus, this book offers new perspectives on a well-established area of study. It will appeal to scholars and upper-level students of film studies, media studies, gender studies, and visual culture, as well as to fans of the director interested in revisiting his work from a new perspective.
Contents
Introduction; 1. The Problems with Lolita (1962); 2. Sue Lyon and the Consequences of the "Lolita Look"; 3. The Legacy of Spartacus (1960) in the Depiction of Ancient Slavery Onscreen: Draba and His Heirs; 4. From Female Stereotypes to Women with Agency: Elite Women and Slave Women in Howard Fast's 1951 novel, Spartacus (1960) and Starz Spartacus (2010-2013); 5. Fear and Desire, Casual Misogyny, and 1950s Art House Cinema; 6. The Shining and UK Feminist Activism; 7. Mothers Trapped Between Law, Economy, Society, and Desire; 8. A Feminist Kubrick? Or, What if Women Were the Main Character(s) in Stanley Kubrick's films?; 9. Kubrick's and Klimt's Femmes Fatales: Eyes Wide Shut and the Crisis of Masculine Identity; 10. Kubrick and Sex: Exploring the Gender Politics of His Cinema; 11. Kubrick's Crypto-Jewesses; 12. Misogyny and Music in A Clockwork Orange; 13. Wendy Torrance and Alice Harford, Shrews Who Will Not Be Tamed; 14. Violence and Power in Kubrick's Later Cinema; 15. Female Transgression and Discontent in Barry Lyndon; 16. Kubrick and Bergman: Scenes from a Marriage; 17. Someone to Care About: Children in Stanley Kubrick's Films; 18. Old Age, Ageing and Fatherhood in Kubrick
