Interesting. ( )

Interesting book. ( )

I interlibrary loaned this book on a whim after reading a quote from it in another text. When this book arrived a week later, I forgot what the quote was or why I wanted to read this book.

But alas, I love Stanley as much as the next guy and I dived right in.

It is basically a personal diary of Raphael's cordial but contentious relationship with Kubrick after K. solicited him to write the script for a then unnamed project that would become Eyes Wide Shut. Peter Christopherson once said that anyone who has anything to do with Hollywood is a complete wanker. This more or less proves true in this text, even of talents like K. and R. The process through which a high dollar film is produced is absurd enough to drive most the 99% to armed robbery. Despite these arbitrary machinations, K. does eventually coerce R. into slavishly building a script piece by piece without K. ever showing his thematic intentions or giving up the power of his hand as producer.

R. ends up wondering if a year of his life had been wasted, not being sure the film would even be made after so long at the beck and call of K. The rest is history.

R. is a polyglot. He possesses old school elite education and old world sense of language. Even his personal reminisces are smoothly rendered with an artisan's hand. (mixed metaphor?) It kind of makes me want to read his novels.

Obviously, this book is really only for scholars or hardcore K. or R. fans. How many people have you heard say "I'm a hardcore Frederick Raphael fan!"? Hahahahahaha. R. is a different universe than those kind of people. Though you will find out what it is like to work with K., you really won't find out what any of K.'s thought processes were during the production. ( )