Eyes Wide Open : A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Portrait of the Late Director
Review: Fascinating portrait of the working Kubrick. No this is not the "end-all" biography of Kubrick (I still think the best one has not yet been written), but who really cares about his childhood, parents, etc.

I want to know about the director, his films, his obsessions, etc. and this book gives many insights and one view of Kubrick the writer and filmmaker. It details one screenwriters nuts and bolts, day-to-day working relationship with Kubrick. It certainly answers one question most Kubrick buffs are always asking: "Why does it take him so long to make a film?"

I'm sure if Tom Cruise had written the book it would be entirely different but by no means a more "complete" view of Kubrick.

Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading. Critics did too!
Review: Frederic Raphael's "memoir [emphasis here]" of the final years of Stanley Kubrick's life while making 'Eyes Wide Shut' either flies bluntly as a work of half-lies or is the single most important book ever written on Stanley Kubrick. If you have read anything about Kubrick then you have probably learned that he lived the life of a film-making hermit in one of England's largest estates where he barricading himself off from the rest of the world. Apparently, Stanley liked to use the phone a lot when talking to people and remained much to himself and family except for when it came to shoot, and that is another story entirely and what seems to be another different person described in many other limited biographies of the man himself.

If you trust Frederic Raphael then you can be rest assured that this book will reveal more to you about the mind of Kubrick than any other piece of literature that you can find on the topic. I have read endless books on this highly overrated director and each one of them does a good biography job but leaves the reader none the less wiser as to Kubrick's motivations and intentions. The director rarely, if ever, did interviews that lasted over a minute. He once worked for the press as a photographer but since then closed himself off entirely to that side of the universe. As one of the world's most celebrated film makers he certainly is an oddity... but that is something he seems to semi-enjoy.

Frederic's coverage is not as illusive as some may have you think. It does have its many moments and there are many indicators as to what makes Kubrick tick. Kubrick appears to be one of the most avid researchers you can find with a lot of time and patients on his hands. A man who likes to think about how other people think. A man who appears to like to study other people and their motives. There is something about his interest in the writer, Raphael, who while penning Eyes Wide Shut seemed to notice that Stanley had more of an interest in him than the material itself and this is why the book sheds more light on Kubrick than anything else you will probably find out there.

Raphael's conversations with Kubrick are done in film screenplay style and this will bolster approval from most readers of film making material for its inventiveness. There is much more to this book than first meets the eye and it certainly does merit a second reading. However Raphael sometimes interjects little moments of tabloid technique which only seem to reduce the overall integrity of the book. One example is where Raphael so easily states that he should be present on set when Kidman gets her kit off. It comes out of nowhere and seems a little dab exploitive of the director given the fact that he seems to resent talking about other people's private matters or his own life. Maybe he said it for a laugh but then again it is hard to imagine that this guy would giggle at such a thing while at the same time demanding straight-faced for material on Roman orgies.

Another thing which makes this book worthwhile is that most writers and crew members who worked on Eyes Wide Shut had to sign a contract which included a section on non-disclosure. This was omitted from Raphael's contract so he was set loose to scribe as he pleased while Warner Brother execs probably tore their hair out and fired a whole staff of legal employees for their mistake. Read it while you can. Stuff like this is a rare opportunity indeed!

By the way, Raphael never did get to go on set and this is not a biography about Kubrick. Raphael has been knuckle-wrapped for exploiting the man, in a manner which seems to make him out to know more than Kubrick. There is some truth to that. There is also truth in the matter that he released this just after Kubrick's death to make a buck. However there is something in this book which makes it more truthful than most would care to admit. There is plenty of material here which you can cross-reference with Arthur C. Clarke's revelations about his collaboration with the man on 2001 and much of Kubrick's methodology seems to fit there as it does here. And for die hard Kubrick fans who think that the director was such a lovely person who didn't deserve this - one need only to refer to the way he treated people on set, not to mention his highly overrated rape of Steven King's The Shining, while at the same time pulling the mickey out of American's with Dr. Strangelove. If the man could give a little then surely he could also take a little!

Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading. Critics did too!
Review: Frederic Raphael's "memoir [emphasis here]" of the final years of Stanley Kubrick's life while making `Eyes Wide Shut' either flies bluntly as a work of half-lies or is the single most important book ever written on Stanley Kubrick. If you have read anything about Kubrick then you have probably learned that he lived the life of a film-making hermit in one of England's largest estates where he barricading himself off from the rest of the world. Apparently, Stanley liked to use the phone a lot when talking to people and remained much to himself and family except for when it came to shoot, and that is another story entirely and what seems to be another different person described in many other limited biographies of the man himself.

If you trust Frederic Raphael then you can be rest assured that this book will reveal more to you about the mind of Kubrick than any other piece of literature that you can find on the topic. I have read endless books on this highly overrated director and each one of them does a good biography job but leaves the reader none the less wiser as to Kubrick's motivations and intentions. The director rarely, if ever, did interviews that lasted over a minute. He once worked for the press as a photographer but since then closed himself off entirely to that side of the universe. As one of the world's most celebrated film makers he certainly is an oddity... but that is something he seems to semi-enjoy.

Frederic's coverage is not as illusive as some may have you think. It does have its many moments and there are many indicators as to what makes Kubrick tick. Kubrick appears to be one of the most avid researchers you can find with a lot of time and patients on his hands. A man who likes to think about how other people think. A man who appears to like to study other people and their motives. There is something about his interest in the writer, Raphael, who while penning Eyes Wide Shut seemed to notice that Stanley had more of an interest in him than the material itself and this is why the book sheds more light on Kubrick than anything else you will probably find out there.

Raphael's conversations with Kubrick are done in film screenplay style and this will bolster approval from most readers of film making material for its inventiveness. There is much more to this book than first meets the eye and it certainly does merit a second reading. However Raphael sometimes interjects little moments of tabloid technique which only seem to reduce the overall integrity of the book. One example is where Raphael so easily states that he should be present on set when Kidman gets her kit off. It comes out of nowhere and seems a little dab exploitive of the director given the fact that he seems to resent talking about other people's private matters or his own life. Maybe he said it for a laugh but then again it is hard to imagine that this guy would giggle at such a thing while at the same time demanding straight-faced for material on Roman orgies.

Another thing which makes this book worthwhile is that most writers and crew members who worked on Eyes Wide Shut had to sign a contract which included a section on non-disclosure. This was omitted from Raphael's contract so he was set loose to scribe as he pleased while Warner Brother execs probably tore their hair out and fired a whole staff of legal employees for their mistake. Read it while you can. Stuff like this is a rare opportunity indeed!

By the way, Raphael never did get to go on set and this is not a biography about Kubrick. Raphael has been knuckle-wrapped for exploiting the man, in a manner which seems to make him out to know more than Kubrick. There is some truth to that. There is also truth in the matter that he released this just after Kubrick's death to make a buck. However there is something in this book which makes it more truthful than most would care to admit. There is plenty of material here which you can cross-reference with Arthur C. Clarke's revelations about his collaboration with the man on 2001 and much of Kubrick's methodology seems to fit there as it does here. And for die hard Kubrick fans who think that the director was such a lovely person who didn`t deserve this - one need only to refer to the way he treated people on set, not to mention his highly overrated rape of Steven King's The Shining, while at the same time pulling the mickey out of American`s with Dr. Strangelove. If the man could give a little then surely he could also take a little!

Rating:
Summary: A vile piece of dreck.
Review: Frederic Raphael's life is not particularly interesting. I wish he had delivered on the promise of the book's cover and written a book about Stanley Kurbrick instead, who's life certainly was interesting.

Raphael's writing is stilted, egotistical (in one segment he feels he must write in French to fully express his emotions), and downright boring.

There are several excellent biographies and film studies of Kubrick. Read one of these instead.

Rating:
Summary: shameless
Review: Gee, ain't it nice to cash in on a famous person--especially when that person is no longer alive to defend himself against greedy, here's-my-15-minutes-of-fame hangers-on? What precisely, I ask you, is little Freddy Raphael's motive--by first publishing his oh-so-perceptive accounts of his few hours of "intimacy" with Kubrick in all the papers and magazines in both the U.K. and the U.S., and then this, THE book--but to couple his own tired name to that of a genius? I have personally always found Raphael smugly self-satisfied--apparently he thinks himself a polymathic genius (you only have to read a few lines in his regular reviews for the TLS to know that Narcissus ain't got nothing on him), but he is of course entitled to his own vanity. And more power to him. But this book is something else entirely: it's a vile rip-off of another person's hard-fought achievement and even harder-fought privacy. Words like opportunism and intellectual fraud are too mild for this kind of para-tabloid treatment. What's next? A memoir of Wittgenstein because the author used to sit in the same chair at Cambridge as once did the touchy Austrian?

Rating:
Summary: Only redeeming quality is how funny it is...
Review: I bought this book the same week it came out, read it in about two days, and it's been sitting on a shelf for the past two years. Ever since I finished reading this piece of self-aggrandizing garbage, I was wondering if it was just me. From reading these customer reviews though, I see that it wasn't just me! Anyone who reads this book will get a glimpse of an ego so large that it could easily dwarf not just Kubrick's, but David Lean, Alfred Hitchcock, AND Steven Spielberg. Anyway... all the bad reviews are dead-on, if you must find out for yourself, you've been warned, but if you're just looking for some decent reading about Kubrick, a true cinematic genius, then read Vincent Lobrutto's book or even John Baxter's.

Rating:
Summary: Not a memoir of Kubrick so much as one of Frederic Raphael.
Review: I didn't know who Frederic Raphael was before I read this book, but I sure as hell know who he us now. This is an ego driven self glorifying one sided account of what was probably an interesting collaboration. I find it astonishing that he calls this book a memoir of Kubrick when it's obviously the book that Raphael wishes someone else would have written about him. As for insight into Kubrick's world, check out the current issue of Playboy, there's an excellent article that reveals far more in a few pages than Raphael does in this whole book. The pretentious and sometimes shameless name dropping only seems to point towards the fact that this writer seems to want his share of the limelight, and isn't afraid to thrust himself into it by disguising his memoir as being about someone people actually give a damn about.

Rating:
Summary: portrayal of a god-like artist as an earthly person
Review: I guess this review won't offer any new insights to this book, I rather felt like exploring some of the bitter and downright hateful reviews it received. What are the main points of criticism?

1. "This book is more about Fredric Raphael than about Kubrick." - True, at least in parts. But which movie or book review (including the ones listed here) is not? Raphael gives us his personal view of the various discussions (and confrontations) with Kubrick leading to the first draft of "Eyes wide shut". (I sadly missed a detailed analysis of the differences between Raphael's draft and Kubrick's reworkings.)

2. "This book is a quick cash-in on the release of the movie." - True. But what other date is there to publicize a book than the release of the film it is so closely connected to? Why is e.g. Michael Herr's book - merely a reprint of two magazine articles published about the same time - preferrable or less "exploitative"? Because it is more sympathetic towards Kubrick?

3. "Raphael draws an ungracious portrait of a great artist." - True. But what kind of portrait of this man have we been given in the past? I suppose the various rumours and anecdotes concerning Kubrick's "real self" led to a plethora of imaginings what this man ought to be like - of course many of these contrasted sharply with Raphael's portrait of a sensitive and intelligent artist, but also overprotective and self-assured businessman.

This is by no means an attempt to defend Raphael's attitude - obviously himself a very self-assured (if not narcissistic), intellectual (or better: well-read; his insights being rather eloquent than profound) character. More than once I had the feeling that Raphael, like any writer, is steadily on the hunt for punch-lines and literary pay-offs - too often the described events or persons appear too homogenic.

(Yet, how much do we expect this writer to love a director when confronted with a contract that enables the director to buy out the writer at any time he wants to, or even to claim the writer's contributions as his own? On the other hand, is Stanley Donen a better director than Kubrick only because he is more appreciative towards Raphael's contributions? - a good point made out in one review found here, which Raphael himself seems to have missed, overt as it is.)

When defending "Eyes wide open", I'm less concerned with the author but the book itself. Finally, here is a memoir that is unaltered by the portrayed person himself. Kubrick was not only very eager to protect his private life, but also his artistic image in public. Michel Ciment's much appraised book on Kubrick, published for the first time in 1980, contained interviews which were re-edited on Kubrick's demand. An 8-hour interview on "2001", led by "Book" magazine in 1968, was - again on his insistance - shortened to 4 (four) sentences. Of course the publishing of Raphael's book would have met considerable opposition by Kubrick (and received harsh words by Kubrick's family), although there is really nothing he could have been sued for, the only offence being the portrayal of a god-like artist as an earthly person.

And, yes - it's an entertaining read.

Rating:
Summary: portrayal of a god-like artist as an earthly person
Review: I guess this review won't offer any new insights to this book, I rather felt like exploring some of the bitter and downright hateful reviews it received. What are the main points of criticism?

1. "This book is more about Fredric Raphael than about Kubrick." - True, at least in parts. But which movie or book review (including the ones listed here) is not? Raphael gives us his personal view of the various discussions (and confrontations) with Kubrick leading to the first draft of "Eyes wide shut". (I sadly missed a detailed analysis of the differences between Raphael's draft and Kubrick's reworkings.)

2. "This book is a quick cash-in on the release of the movie." - True. But what other date is there to publicize a book than the release of the film it is so closely connected to? Why is e.g. Michael Herr's book - merely a reprint of two magazine articles published about the same time - preferrable or less "exploitative"? Because it is more sympathetic towards Kubrick?

3. "Raphael draws an ungracious portrait of a great artist." - True. But what kind of portrait of this man have we been given in the past? I suppose the various rumours and anecdotes concerning Kubrick's "real self" led to a plethora of imaginings what this man ought to be like - of course many of these contrasted sharply with Raphael's portrait of a sensitive and intelligent artist, but also overprotective and self-assured businessman.

This is by no means an attempt to defend Raphael's attitude - obviously himself a very self-assured (if not narcissistic), intellectual (or better: well-read; his insights being rather eloquent than profound) character. More than once I had the feeling that Raphael, like any writer, is steadily on the hunt for punch-lines and literary pay-offs - too often the described events or persons appear too homogenic.

(Yet, how much do we expect this writer to love a director when confronted with a contract that enables the director to buy out the writer at any time he wants to, or even to claim the writer's contributions as his own? On the other hand, is Stanley Donen a better director than Kubrick only because he is more appreciative towards Raphael's contributions? - a good point made out in one review found here, which Raphael himself seems to have missed, overt as it is.)

When defending "Eyes wide open", I'm less concerned with the author but the book itself. Finally, here is a memoir that is unaltered by the portrayed person himself. Kubrick was not only very eager to protect his private life, but also his artistic image in public. Michel Ciment's much appraised book on Kubrick, published for the first time in 1980, contained interviews which were re-edited on Kubrick's demand. An 8-hour interview on "2001", led by "Book" magazine in 1968, was - again on his insistance - shortened to 4 (four) sentences. Of course the publishing of Raphael's book would have met considerable opposition by Kubrick (and received harsh words by Kubrick's family), although there is really nothing he could have been sued for, the only offence being the portrayal of a god-like artist as an earthly person.

And, yes - it's an entertaining read.

Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been Better
Review: I was tempted to give this two stars, but Raphael is a good writer, and the reader is pulled through the book very comfortably.

My main problem with the book is that it doesn't tell us very much about Kubrick - despite the teasing of the back cover; the author relates some phone conversations and a couple of visits, as well as some faxes, but that's about it.

He spends way too much time talking about himself, and I became rather suspicious - about half way through - that the title was just a ruse to get the Kubrick faithful to buy the book. If he had called it "A Memoir of Frederic Raphael", no one would have bought it. But, it's more that than a memoir of Kubrick, who figures in about half of the book.

It's not expensive, it's small, and it's a day's read, so if you're into Kubrick you should probably pick it up. But don't expect the five-star rating some are giving it: be content with it within its limitations and you should be happy.