This superb biography opens on a hillside in California in high summer, where a film crew and 300 extras dressed as ancient Romans are, somewhat improbably, trying to recreate the feel of the year 71 BC. The director murmurs something to his assistant, who picks up a microphone. "Number 23. Move to the left," he orders. "Number 104 - writhe!" Number 104 remains motionless. More murmuring, then the microphone booms out again. "Stanley wants 104 to writhe." The assistant director picks his way through the crowd, then reports that Number 104 is a dummy. The director's expression doesn't change. He murmurs to his assistant once again. "Stanley says, put some wires on it and make it writhe." Stanley Kubrick was an enfant terrible who never grew up; he drove his colleagues to despair and reduced his stars to tears and made some terrific movies and it's all here, in glorious Technicolor prose, scary as The Shining (with Jack Nicholson - who else? - right), classy as 2001, OTT as Spartacus.
