Stanley Kubrick, 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 publication of a book which dared to discuss flaws in his films.

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 he did.

Now, 25 years after his death, the book Kubrick did not want anyone to read is being published, more than half a century late.

The Magic Eye: The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick by Neil Hornick now has three prefaces reflecting its subject’s ruthlessness in trying to block publication and control his image.

Hornick, now 84, from London, said Kubrick’s legal threats had come as a shock: “I regard it as a painful episode.”

  • treefrog@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I liked his stuff until I actually read the Shining and realized what a heartless shit he is. He turned a (believe it or not) heartfelt story into Hollywood murder porn and abused Shelly Duvall in the process. I get why Stephen King couldn’t stand the guy.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      There are so many absolutely horrible movie directors that make amazing movies that you’d probably never see half the greatest films of all time if you avoided them all. Hitchcock was a rapist. Polanski raped a child. John Landis killed an adult and two children to get a good shot. We won’t even go into Woody Allen. Fucking John Lasseter was a sexual harasser. And that’s just a small sampling.

      • treefrog@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        Yet I still quit listening to Lizzo because she turned out to be a piece of shit. Plenty of other great artists that don’t treat their staff like shit.

          • treefrog@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            They both turned out to be creeps. I don’t need to know much more about their art. Art comes from the heart so if your heart is creepy I don’t really give a shit about your art right

      • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Polanski raped a child.

        Multiple children. A number of other now adult women have later accused Polanski of raping them when they were teenagers. Right now he’s back in legal trouble right now for another, earlier victim that has now come forward. Not sure what it will accomplish as it’s a civil trial, he doesn’t have to come back for it, but at least this accuser will get her day in court, and if she wins she can garnish/levy any US assets he may hold or generate.

        And Woody Allen . . . DELETED because I will not give pedophile apologists a springboard for defense of his sick shit.

        EDITED TO ADD: The asshole who defended him on this thread just downvoted like thirty of my posts in the last hour, apparently thinking downvotes are private in his vast personal command of technology. Seriously. I just attached screenshots. This is hilarious! I want you to know I will go to bed tonight laughing because I pissed off a pedophile apologist enough for him to hunt me down and girly bitchslap as many of my comments with downvotes as he could reach, lol. Go git the rest of 'em, lil buddy. There’s only like 1200+ more to go, and I know you’ve been working up that hand strength, so give it a shot. Wear yourself out, seriously. And then follow me like a sad puppy for the rest of your online days because hiding in the shadows is what the people you defend love the most.

        SECOND EDIT to add Imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/I6QUrtx

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          he was never that good anyway

          I can’t agree there. He directed some masterpieces. But I can’t bring myself to watch them anymore. Maybe after he’s dead…

        • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          he married his step-daughter

          “In 1978, Mia Farrow and her then husband, André Previn, adopted Soon-Yi and took her to the United States.”

          “Previn has said that Allen “was never any kind of father figure [to her]” and that she “never had any dealings with him” during her childhood.[16] The findings of the judicial investigation carried out during the custody trial between Farrow and Allen determined that before 1990, Previn and Allen had rarely spoken to each other”

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soon-Yi_Previn

          I get that many people think their relationship is icky but making stuff up isn’t helpful.

          • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I don’t have to make anything up, and I note that you did not post a single word of what Mia Farrow or Ronan Farrow had to say about it either.

            Posting one side of a very heated and ongoing family squabble does not an adequate rebuttal make.

            EDITED TO ADD that I have deleted my original comment because I will not knowingly give pedophile apologists a springboard to launch their twisted defense of him.

            • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              I don’t have to make anything up

              But you did. She wasn’t Woody Allen’s adoptive daughter.

              “In 1992, Previn said that Farrow had physically abused her.[16] In 2018, Previn’s brother Moses Farrow has said that he too was physically abused by Farrow.”

              I have no dog in this fight but I don’t buy the narrative that Mia Farrow is an angel and Woody Allen is the devil.

              • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                From https://lemmy.world/u/ChunkMcHorkle

                EDITED TO ADD that I have deleted my original comment because I will not knowingly give pedophile apologists a springboard to launch their twisted defense of him.

                I should note that all I did was quote from Soon-Yi’s wikipedia page. This asshole got caught spreading lies and is now acting out instead of taking responsibility.