Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams, "Kubrick: An Odyssey" (Pegasus Books, 2024)

Jan 24, 2026

Guest

Nathan Abrams

Guest

Robert P. Kolker

Robert P. Kolker, veteran cinema scholar, and Nathan Abrams, film professor and Kubrick specialist, discuss Stanley Kubrick’s life and craft. They trace his Bronx upbringing to his photojournalism start. They explore his obsessive rehearsal methods, long-lost projects like Napoleon and Aryan Papers, the AI-to-Spielberg handoff, and the intimate origins of Eyes Wide Shut.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Artistry Paired With Commercial Savvy

Kubrick combined artistic ambition with a commercial sense and wanted audiences to see his films.
He actively managed reproductions (video/DVD) knowing his films would build reputations over time.

INSIGHT

Early Errors Taught Subtlety

Fear and Desire taught Kubrick camera mechanics and working with a skeleton crew but showed him to be too explicit in theme.
He learned to hide his intentions and disappear more fully behind the film.

INSIGHT

Spartacus Shaped His Production Style

Spartacus taught Kubrick to manage large-scale productions but also that he lost control under studio constraints.
The film influenced his later use of improvisation and preference for British actors who knew their lines.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

The definitive biography of the creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange, presenting the most in-depth portrait yet of the groundbreaking filmmaker.

The enigmatic and elusive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has not been treated to a full-length biography in over twenty years.

Kubrick: An Odyssey (Pegasus Books, 2024) fills that gap. This definitive book is based on access to the latest research, especially Kubrick's archive at the University of the Arts, London, as well as other private papers plus new interviews with family members and those who worked with him. It offers comprehensive and in-depth coverage of Kubrick’s personal, private, public, and working life. Stanley Kubrick: An Odyssey investigates not only the making of Kubrick's films, but also about those he wanted (but failed) to make like Burning Secret, Napoleon, Aryan Papers, and A.I.

This immersive biography will puncture the controversial myths about the reclusive filmmaker who created some of the most important works of art of the twentieth century.

Robert P. Kolker, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, taught cinema studies for almost fifty years. He is the author of A Cinema of Loneliness and The Extraordinary Image: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and the Reimagining of Cinema; editor of 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays and The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies; and co-author of Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of his Final Film.

Nathan Abrams is a professor in film at Bangor University in Wales. He is a founding co-editor of Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal, as well as the author of The New Jew in Film: Exploring Jewishness and Judaism in Contemporary Cinema, and Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual, and co-author of Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of his Final Film.

Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers and articles on G. K. Chesterton and John Ford, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found here on the New Books Network and on X.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture