Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side

Product Description

This intimate portrait by his former personal assistant and confidante reveals the man behind the legendary filmmaker—for the first time.

Stanley Kubrick, the director of a string of timeless movies from
Lolita and
Dr. Strangelove to
A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Full Metal Jacket, and others, has always been depicted by the media as the Howard Hughes of filmmakers, a weird artist obsessed with his work and privacy to the point of madness. But who was he really? Emilio D’Alessandro lets us see. A former Formula Ford driver who was a minicab chauffeur in London during the Swinging Sixties, he took a job driving a giant phallus through the city that became his introduction to the director. Honest, reliable, and ready to take on any task, Emilio found his way into Kubrick’s neurotic, obsessive heart. He became his personal assistant, his right-hand man and confidant, working for him from
A Clockwork Orange until Kubrick’s death in 1999.

Emilio was the silent guy in the room when the script for
The Shining was discussed. He still has the coat Jack Nicholson used in the movie. He was an extra on the set of
Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s last movie. He knew all the actors and producers Kubrick worked with; he observed firsthand Kubrick’s working methods down to the smallest detail. Making no claim of expertise in cinematography but with plenty of anecdotes, he offers a completely fresh perspective on the artist and a warm, affecting portrait of a generous, kind, caring man who was a perfectionist in work and life. The paperback edition has a new foreword by Matthew Modine, who is featured in the book and starred as Private Joker in Kubrick’s
Full Metal Jacket.

Review

“A weird, revealing delight . . . The accretion of details about this seemingly salt–of-the-earth working stiff and the eccentric artistic genius who paid him creates an irresistible picture of friendship, loyalty, and artistic temperament. . . .
I enjoyed every word.” —
The New York Times Book Review

“As good an insider’s view of middle- to late-period Kubrick as there is. . . . The book is funny and casual throughout. Of special interest are D’Alessandro’s set notes, revealing, for example, that the cat lady room in
A Clockwork Orange figured two decades later in
Eyes Wide Shut.” —
Kirkus Reviews

“Utterly charming . . . [A] sweet and sentimental record of service to a creative genius . . . the book’s invitingly conversational tone and descriptions paint an all-too-human portrait of a cloistered artist and ardent workaholic who expected everything and more from his employees and returned their devotion in kind.” —
Publishers Weekly

“Through detailed anecdotes and tender accounts of life both on location and off,
D’Alessandro sheds light behind the scenes of Kubrick’s famously controlled sets and offers a unique portrait of the man himself.” —
Vice

“Stanley Kubrick and Me is perhaps the most important book ever written about Kubrick. It offers a portrait full of warmth, a touching memoir about the filmmaker, and at the same time it clears away all the stupid and crazy stuff about him that has plagued his image for years.”—
L’Unità

“D’Alessandro tells about a generous man, caring, perfectionist in his work, demanding in every aspect of the daily life. […] It is
a delightful book indeed: gentle and delicate as the summer that slowly says goodbye and vanishes.” —
La Stampa

“This memoir is exquisite, not to be missed.” —
Il Sole 24 Ore

“This is
a story of genius and sweetness. It is an exciting book because it gives tons of detail about how Kubrick’s films were made, but it is also, and surprisingly, a sort of sentimental novel, beautifully written . . . a story of warm feelings—an oblique tale of two souls in which genius and humility are knit together and sometimes exchange places.”—Radio Capital

“Here is a perfect match, here are two men who greatly admired each other and are happy to show it. […] Stanley Kubrick