Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side

Stanley Kubrick, the renowned director of 2001: A Space Odyssey and many other films, is typically depicted as a cold, temperamental, and intensely private man. First-time author D’Alessandro complicates that portrayal with this informal and utterly charming account of what it was like to be employed by Kubrick for 30 years. D’Alessandro, a cabbie and aspiring race-car driver, was hired as Kubrick’s chauffeur during the making of A Clockwork Orange. Soon afterward, he became the director’s right-hand man. At first he was assigned to menial tasks such as shopping, cleaning, and feeding Kubrick’s many cats, but soon the unassuming Italian family man found himself transporting props to the set of Barry Lyndon, attending the shooting of The Shining, and even acting in the director’s last film, Eyes Wide Shut. The book includes a selection of D’Alessandro’s personal photos, including those of the numerous props he owns from Kubrick’s movies. This sweet and sentimental record of service to a creative genius may lack profundity, but 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. (May)