Böcker av Julian Rice

Kubrick's Story, Spielberg's Film looks at the evolution A.I. Artificial Intelligence-from a science fiction short story by Brian Aldiss to a screenplay and treatment by Stanley Kubrick, and finally to the finished work by Steven Spielberg.

There have been two common assumptions about Stanley Kubrick: that his films portray human beings who are driven exclusively by aggression and greed, and that he pessimistically rejected meaning in a contingent, postmodern world. However, as Kubrick himself remarked, 'A work of art should be always exhilarating and never depressing, whatever its subject matter may be.' In this new interpretation of Kubrick's films, Julian Rice suggests that the director's work had a more positive outlook than most people credit him. And while other studies have recounted Kubrick's life and production histories, few have offered lucid explanations of specific sources and their influence on his films. In Kubrick's Hope, Rice explains how the theories of Freud and Jung took cinematic form, and also considers the significant impression left on the director's last six films by Robert Ardrey, Bruno Bettelheim, and Joseph Campbell. In addition to providing useful contexts, Rice offers close readings of the films, inviting readers to note details they may have missed and to interpret them in their own way. By refreshing their experience of the films and discarding postmodern clichZs, viewers may discover more optimistic themes in the director's works. Beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey and continuing through A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut, Rice illuminates Kubrick's thinking at the time he made each film. Throughout, Rice examines the compelling political, psychological, and spiritual issues the director raises. As this book contends, if these works are considered together and repeatedly re-viewed, Kubrick's films may help viewers to personally grow and collectively endure.

Since the early 1980s, Jim Jarmusch has produced a handful of idiosyncratic films that have established him as one of the most imaginatively allusive directors in the history of American cinema. Three of his filmsDead Man (1995), Ghost Dog (1999), and The Limits of Control (2009)demonstrate the director's unique take on Eastern and Aboriginal spirituality. In particular, they reflect Jarmusch's rejection of Western monotheism's fear-driven separation of life and death. While these films address historical issues of imperialism, colonialism, and genocide, they also demonstrate a uniquely spiritual form of resistance to conditions that political solutions have not resolved.The impact of Dead Man, Ghost Dog, and The Limits of Control cannot be fully felt without considering the multicultural sources from which the writer/director drew. In The Jarmusch Way, Julian Rice looks closely at these three films and explores their relation to Eastern philosophy and particular works of Western literature, painting, and cinema. This book also delves deeply into the films' association with Native American culture, a subject upon which Rice has written extensively.Though he has garnered a passionate following in some circles, Jarmusch remains critically underappreciated. Making a case that this director deserves far more serious attention than he has received thus far, The Jarmusch Way thoroughly discusses three of his most intriguing films.