Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon

Stanley Kubrick owes his fame to movies like 2001: A Space Oddyssey, A Clockwork Orange (poster design Bill Gold), Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. But for 40 years his fans wondered about the director’s mysterious unmade film on Napoleon Bonaparte. From the 1960s Kubrick spent years on intensive research and was nearly obsessed with the matter, resulting in approximately 15,000 location scouting photographs and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. One minor detail was overlooked: historical epics were out of fashion and therefore film studios decided the project was too risky. Taschen turned the majestic research into an amazing book. One glimpse on that and you will agree this fellow was called a ridiculous perfectionist for a reason. The book contains the full script on facsimile and comes with a key card that accesses the downloadable online research database of 17,000 images. What a beautiful clash of technology.

The € 50,00 version is based on the limited edition, a carved out reproduction of a Napoleon history book with 10 smaller books (one for each chapter) tucked inside. That version is sold out.