Kubrick's Mitteleuropa: The Central European Imaginary in the Films of Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was arguably one of the most influential American directors of the post-World War II era, whose Central European Jewish heritage, though often overlooked, greatly influenced his oeuvre. Kubrick's Mitteleuropa explores this influence in ways that range from his work with Hungarian and Polish composers Béla Bartók, György Ligeti, and Krzysztof Penderecki to the visual inspiration of artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and other Central European Modernists. Beyond exploring the Mitteleuropean sensibility in Kubrick's films, the contributions in this volume also provide important commentary on the reception of his films in countries across Eastern Europe.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: Kubrick and Mitteleuropa, or, a Source of Fascination and Anxiety  Jeremi Szaniawski and Nathan Abrams Chapter 1. Kubrick’s Kunstwollen: Fin-de-Siècle Vienna and the Erotics of Authorship in Eyes Wide Shut Maxfield Fulton Chapter 2. The Reverberations of War: Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front and the Cinema of Stanley Kubrick Jason Doerre Chapter 3. From Caligari to Kubrick: Programmed Children in Weimar Cinema and Stanley Kubrick’s Science Fictions Joy McEntee Chapter 4. Kubrick and Kafka: The Corporeal Uncanny Brigitte Peucker Chapter 5. A Dark Meditation on the Human Condition: The Shining and Mitteleuropa Geoffrey Cocks Chapter 6. Kubrick/Schulz: Echoes of Poland in The Shining Jeremi Szaniawski Chapter 7. Penderecki and Kubrick Krzysztof Kozłowski  Chapter 8. Restricted Area: On the Distribution and Reception of Stanley Kubrick’s Films in the Polish People’s Republic Konrad Klejsa Chapter 9. “A Sentimental Postcard to his Forefathers?”: Stanley Kubrick’s Aryan Papers (1991-1993) Nathan Abrams

About the Author :
Nathan Abrams is a professor of film, as well as thelead director for the Centre for Film, Television and Screen Studiesat Bangor University in Wales.He is a founding co-editor of Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal, and his most recent books include Kubrick: An Odyssey (Pegasus Books, 2024), Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual (Rutgers University Press, 2018), as well as the edited collections Eyes Wide Shut: Behind Stanley Kubrick’s Masterpiece (Liverpool University Press, 2023), and The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick (Bloomsbury, 2021).

Review :
“Scholarship on film director Stanley Kubrick has grown substantially since his death in 1999. Abrams…leads the field by exploring the connections between Kubrick's upbringing and subtle Jewish manifestations in his films. [This volume] seeks to break fresh ground by building on those connections through the lens of Kubrick's Central European ancestry… The editors succeed in crafting a fresh contribution to the study of Stanley Kubrick… Highly recommended.” • Choice “With some fascinating insights into an unusual topic new to Kubrick studies, this wide-ranging collection of essays firmly and persuasively situates Stanley Kubrick's work in the art and culture of Central Europe.” • Robert Kolker, the University of Maryland, author of A Cinema of Loneliness, co-author of Kubrick: An Odyssey “An admirably multisided, cultured and suggestive inspection of some of the key ways in which works and intellectual traditions associated with Mitteleuropa cast shifting shadows across the oeuvre of Stanley Kubrick. Mitteleuropa here is not only Germanic but also embraces the rich non-Germanic, post-Habsburg cultures of early twentieth century art, music and literature, whose branchings are traced as often intertwining with the mysteriously unnamed presence in Kubrick’s work of his Jewishness.” • Paul Coates, Western University, Ontario, Canada, author of Comparative Cinema: Late and Last Things in Literature and Film and editor of Lucid Dreams: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieślowski “This collection of essays provides informative, impressively researched commentary on an important but neglected aspect of Stanley Kubrick’s films. Again and again, the authors show us how deeply his pictures were influenced by the middle-European origins of his family. We learn this was true even in such ostensibly unrelated examples as 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining. His entire work is discussed here, along with the most fascinating of his late-career projects, The Aryan Papers. There are intriguing essays on the Polish reception of Kubrick’s films and his special use of Kafka and Penderecki. The result is a major contribution to the growing literature on Kubrick’s art.” • James Naremore, Indiana University Bloomington, author of The Magic World of Orson Welles, More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts, and On Kubrick.