More than half a century after the perfectionist director swore he would block it, The Magic Eye: The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick is released in the US on April 30. Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), the relentless perfectionist who directed some of cinema’s greatest classics, was so sensitive to criticism that, in 1970, he threatened legal action to block the publication of a book that dared to discuss the flaws of his movie.
The director of Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey warned the book’s author and publisher that he would fight “tooth and nail” and “use every legal means at his disposal” to prevent its publication. And so it was. Now, 25 years after his death, the book that Kubrick didn’t want anyone to read is being published, more than half a century late. Neil Hornick’s The Magic Eye: The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick will be published on April 30 with three prefaces that reflect its subject’s ruthlessness in trying to block publication and control his image. Hornick, now 84 from London, said Kubrick’s legal threats were a shock: “I consider it a painful episode.” Kubrick was initially helpful, sharing copies of his films that were otherwise inaccessible. But after seeing a draft of the book, the director changed his mind and blocked its publication. The filmmaker complained that the book contained “a summary of the good things about each film followed by a summary of the bad things, which, in Stanley Kubrick’s opinion, always outweigh the good things because of the overly emphatic way in which such criticisms are presented.”
The publisher had signed an agreement with Kubrick stating that the publishing house would not publish anything “until the entire contents have been approved in writing by me.”
Kubrick estimated that “unacceptable” criticism amounted to a third of the 70,000-word manuscript.
But he never specified what had caused this offense to become so incurable.
