Kubrick ‘Napoleon’ Book… Wow.

I read a small piece in New York magazine this week about filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, who spent decades researching, planning, preparing, writing and ultimately delaying what could have been another masterpiece for him: a film biography of the French general and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Unfortunately it never happened, but its legacy is revealed in a new book from Tacshen called Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made.

If you happen to be walking past their SoHo shop on Greene street, like I was… OK, that’s a lie, I went there specifically to see it, you should stop in and take a look - it’s a phenomenal project, a huge gilded $700 book held shut by leather thong, which opens to reveal a cold war era spy-like die-cut cavity holding several other books, each a history or collection of an aspect of the proposed film: one is filled with location hunting, one is costume design with test photographs, another has correspondence with studios, stars and anyone else Kubrick was reaching out to to include. Finally, there is a copy of the script, printed and bound like an early reader script always has been: standard-size paper sandwiched between some colored sheets. It’s so well-curated and printed you can suspend your disbelief and feel like you’ve actually run off with Kubrick’s own notes and recipe for Napoleon.

From New York Magazine: The book spread open, and an image of the steamer locker Kubrick kept his script revisions and notes in for Napoleon.

In the New York article, there is talk that this pile of information and research is being considered a roadmap to eventually finish the film, but I hope this project stays right where it is; resting with its master. Truthfully, anyone capable and qualified enough to do it really should know better, and hopefully sees it for what it is: not a chance to pick up the reigns and make a Kubrick movie, but rather a rare and fantastic opportunity to see the detail and devotion Kubrick put into making a film.