Alison Castle – författare

In 1968, when Stanley Kubrick was asked to comment on the metaphysical significance of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he replied: “It’s not a message I ever intended to convey in words. 2001 is a nonverbal experience… I tried to create a visual experience, one that directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content.”Now available as part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, The Stanley Kubrick Archives borrows from the director’s philosophy. From the opening sequence of Killer’s Kiss to the final frames of Eyes Wide Shut, it allows the masterful visuals of Kubrick’s films to impress through a sequence of compelling, mesmerizing stills. We uncover Kubrick’s creative process through fascinating archival material, including set designs, sketches, correspondence, documents, screenplays, drafts, notes, and shooting schedules.Accompanying the visual and archival material are essays by noted Kubrick scholars, articles written by and about Kubrick, and a selection of Kubrick’s best interviews. The result is a visual, archival, and scholarly journey through masterworks of 20th-century cinema and the meticulous mind of the director behind them.

In 1966, during a brief stint as a receptionist for Town and Country magazine, Linda Eastman snagged a press pass to a very exclusive promotional event for the Rolling Stones aboard a yacht on the Hudson River. With her fresh, candid photographs of the band, far superior to the formal shots made by the band’s official photographer, Linda secured her name as a rock ’n’ roll photographer. Two years later, in May 1968, she entered the record books as the first female photographer to have her work featured on the cover of Rolling Stone with her portrait of Eric Clapton. She went on to capture many of rock’s most important musicians on film, including Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, The Who, The Doors, and the Grateful Dead.In 1967, Linda went to London to document the "Swinging Sixties," where she met Paul McCartney at the Bag O’Nails club and subsequently photographed The Beatles during a launch event for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Paul and Linda fell in love, and were married on March 12, 1969. For the next three decades, until her untimely death, she devoted herself to her family, vegetarianism, animal rights, and photography.From her early rock ’n’ roll portraits, through the final years of The Beatles, to raising four children with Paul, Linda captured her whole world on film. Her shots range from spontaneous family pictures to studio sessions with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, as well as encounters with artists Willem de Kooning and Gilbert and George. Always unassuming and fresh, her work displays a warmth and feeling for the precise moment that captures the essence of any subject. Whether photographing her children, celebrities, animals, or a fleeting moment of everyday life, she did so without pretension or artifice.This retrospective volume is a lasting and deeply personal testament to Linda's talent, produced in close collaboration with the McCartney family, with forewords by Paul, Stella, and Mary McCartney.

In 1968, when Stanley Kubrick was asked to comment on the metaphysical significance of 2001: A Space Odyssey, he replied: “It’s not a message I ever intended to convey in words. 2001 is a nonverbal experience… I tried to create a visual experience, one that directly penetrates the subconscious with an emotional and philosophic content.”Now available as part of our Bibliotheca Universalis series, The Stanley Kubrick Archives borrows from the director’s philosophy. From the opening sequence of Killer’s Kiss to the final frames of Eyes Wide Shut, it allows the masterful visuals of Kubrick’s films to impress through a sequence of compelling, mesmerizing stills. We uncover Kubrick’s creative process through fascinating archival material, including set designs, sketches, correspondence, documents, screenplays, drafts, notes, and shooting schedules.Accompanying the visual and archival material are essays by noted Kubrick scholars, articles written by and about Kubrick, and a selection of Kubrick’s best interviews. The result is a visual, archival, and scholarly journey through masterworks of 20th-century cinema and the meticulous mind of the director behind them.

During the post-production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick began working on his next project, a biopic on Napoleon Bonaparte. The dramatic rise and fall of the French emperor made for a great story, but it was his mind that most interested Kubrick, who couldn’t grasp how a brilliant tactician could fall victim to his own irrational temptations—and with devastating consequences.While working on the script, Kubrick read every book about Napoleon that he could obtain, consulted with history experts, and amassed a database of research material that was by any standards excessive, including over 30,000 illustrations and location-scouting photos. Costumes were researched and designed, including paper military uniforms (to keep costs down). But as production neared, first M.G.M. and then United Artists got cold feet; historical epics were too risky at the time. Surely they regret it now, but cost of production was, in their opinion, not worth the risk.Kubrick’s interest in Napoleon continued throughout the rest of his life, but the budget required to do the film the way he wanted was never realistic. Had he lived until the thousands of soldiers and horses he envisioned in the epic battle scenes could be convincingly rendered by computer, perhaps he would have made Napoleon. Perhaps it would have been his greatest achievement.TASCHEN’s 2009 Limited Edition featured ten books—Script, Reference, Notes, Correspondence, Chronology, Production, Text, Costumes, Location Scouting, and Picture File—inside of a carved-out book. This new volume brings all original elements together in one compact volume, including a facsimile of Kubrick’s complete screenplay. In over 800 profusely illustrated pages, this collection of goodies contains all the clues to Kubrick’s methods, ideas, motivations, questions, intentions, and obsessions—everything you could ever want to know about the project and more.

This volume covering Marc Newson’s design career can, if you are ambitious enough, read like a catalog of how to live. Imagine waking up in the morning, taking a bath, drying your hair, getting dressed, putting on your glasses, spritzing yourself with perfume, sitting down to eat a breakfast of tea with eggs and toast, checking your watch, packing your suitcase, driving to the airport, catching a flight, and sailing off on a luxurious yacht. What’s remarkable about this scenario, aside from its opulence, is that everything in it could be a Newson design: the bed, bathtub, hair dryer, clothes, shoes, glasses, perfume bottle, electric kettle, teapot, toaster, skillet, spatula, cooktop, plates, utensils, watch, chair, table, lighting, suitcase, car, plane, and even the yacht. No project is too small or too great for Newson, and his career is a testament to what one person with limitless ambition, ingenuity, curiosity, and versatility can achieve. From mass-produced objects to limited-edition furniture to one-of-a-kind superworks, Newson has blurred boundaries, mapped new territories, and risen to the top of his field in the process. To call the contributions Newson has made to the design world groundbreaking and influential is hardly adequate—more accurately, his is now the benchmark against which other designers' work must inevitably be compared.This encyclopedic tome covers all of Newson’s works to date, beginning with foundational early pieces such as the Pod of Drawers and the Lockheed Lounge (which has broken the world record for the highest price paid for a piece of furniture by a living designer), in encyclopedia-style entries ordered chronologically by category: Objects, Furniture, Interiors, Transport, and Jewelry & Timepieces. Each description explores the story behind and the making of the piece, and is amply furnished with quotes from the designer himself. The book is rounded out by a visual index of Newson’s complete works, a chronology of his life, a bibliography, and his exhibition history.

In 1968, when 2001: A Space Odyssey was released, the world was watching and waiting for man to take his first step on the moon. Stanley Kubrick’s seminal film, with its innovative special effects and haunting score, offered audiences what felt like a realistic glimpse of the future.It served, more importantly, as a humbling testament to the limitations of human capabilities in the face of other life forms. From the dawn of man to outer space to contact with mysterious alien forces, 2001 takes the viewer on an epic, unforgettable, mind-expanding journey. This collection is part of the Making of a Masterpiece series, offering a behind-the-scene glimpse into cinematic milestones.This set includes:film stills, behind-the-scenes photographs, screenplay drafts, and other exclusive material from Stanley Kubrick’s archivesbackground about the making of the film, interviews with Kubrick, and an illustrated biography and filmographya fold-out film postera DVD of the remastered film

Based on the futuristic novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange is a masterwork of cinematic satire. When a flamboyant, Beethoven-obsessed, murderous gang leader agrees to undergo experimental violence-aversion therapy in exchange for early release from prison, he winds up “cured” of his own free will. The film’s highly stylized sets, choreographed brutality, and Moog synthesizer score—conceived to heighten the effect of each scene—were so ahead of their time that, to many, they obscured the overall message. In fact, so much controversy over the violent scenes ensued that the film’s notoriety became, itself, the stuff of legend.From a contemporary perspective, what stands out above all is Kubrick’s extraordinary gift for entertaining us while making us think. To quote Burgess: “Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?” The ethical queries so central to this visionary film are every bit as relevant today, and every bit as difficult to answer. This collection is part of the Making of a Masterpiece series, offering a behind-the-scene glimpse into cinematic milestones.This set includes:film stills, behind-the-scenes photographs, screenplay drafts, and other exclusive material from Stanley Kubrick’s archivesbackground about the making of the film, interviews with Kubrick, and an illustrated biography and filmographya fold-out film postera DVD of the remastered film