Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

Kubrick died in 1999, and this documentary came afterwards, from inside the family. Jan Harlan was both his brother in law and the executive producer of his late films, which is to say the person with access to the archive. That access is the film's main resource: Kubrick's home movies, on set footage, unpublished photographs and letters. Tom Cruise narrates. Among those speaking are Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Jack Nicholson, Malcolm McDowell, Sydney Pollack, Nicole Kidman and Kubrick's wife Christiane. Its function is corrective. The long circulating legend of the recluse and the obsessive is met here with footage from the family, in which he appears at home with his children and his dogs, on the telephone for hours. The cost of that is straightforward: the film is defensive rather than critical. Kubrick's difficulty on set, the endless takes, his handling of actors, all get mentioned and none get pursued. It arrived while Warner was reissuing the Kubrick films as a set, and was distributed alongside that box. Who it is for: viewers who know the filmography and want the making of it. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a critical portrait. This was plainly made with affection and does not ask the hard questions.