Waking the Dead

Comments (0) By J. Hoberman Tuesday, Jun 5 2001

photo: Martin Spelda

Living in a state of subterfuge: Anna Siskova and Csongor Kassai in Divided We Fall

Details

Divided We Fall
Directed by Jan Hrebejk
Written by Petr Jarchovsky, from his novel
Sony Pictures Classics
Opens June 8

The Wide Blue Road
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
Written by Pontecorvo, Franco Solinas, and Ennio De Concini
Milestone
Film Forum
June 6 through June 19

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures
Directed by Jan Harlan
Warner Bros.
Walter Reade
June 12

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Bordering on hagiography, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures was made by Kubrick associate Jan Harlan, in cooperation with the late filmmaker's family, and released by his longtime studio. The documentary portrait, which includes some fascinating childhood home movies of Kubrick and his kid sister as well as footage of the owlish potentate at work, leisurely tracks this supremely inner-directed and profoundly eccentric artist's journey from precocious success to reclusive legend. It's the legend, however, that is burnished with the elaborate care of the fastidious showroom lighting of Kubrick's last three movies.

Kubrick himself barely speaks—he hated interviews—but his technical genius is endorsed by everyone from Woody Allen to Jack Nicholson to Steven Spielberg to his wife and daughters, with Martin Scorsese's comments the most insightful. (Actually, the pithiest account of Kubrick's working method comes from Shelley Duvall: "Did you ever see the movie Groundhog Day?" she asks.) I confess to severely mixed feelings about nearly every movie in the Kubrick canon, from his disowned Fear and Desire to his unfinished Eyes Wide Shut, but the least I can say for Harlan's documentary is that it made me want to see them all again.