Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

Taschen published The Stanley Kubrick Archives as a limited coffee-table book in 2005. Then, in 2009, came their collector’s edition of Kubrick’s Napoleon, limited to 1,000 copies: ten volumes inside one enormous book. Another collector’s edition followed in 2014: the making of Kubrick’s 2001, limited to 1,500 copies in a metal slipcase. Of course, these books were far from cheap, though last year’s collector’s edition on the making of Kubrick’s The Shining (limited to 1,000 copies) cost a prohibitive $1,500 (almost as much as the other three titles combined).

Fortunately, a year after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is now available in a more modest edition, costing around a tenth of the original price. The new edition consists of two substantial volumes in a slipcase: a book of photographs (many previously unpublished) styled to look like a scrapbook; and The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a comprehensive account of the film’s production.

The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is credited to both J.W. Rinzler and Lee Unkrich, though Rinzler wrote the majority of the text. During the project’s gestation, there was some confusion around the authorship: Unkrich (a Pixar film director) initially referred to it as his book, without mentioning Rinzler’s input, and then implied that he had hired Rinzler. In fact, Rinzler had begun the manuscript independently, and the two later agreed to collaborate.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining benefits both from Rinzler’s expertise as a writer of making-of books (such as The Making of Alien), and Unkrich’s passionate interest in The Shining. (He wrote the introduction to Danel Olson’s book, also titled Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.) The original collector’s edition also included supplemental volumes such as a Saul Bass sketchbook and a reproduction of the film’s continuity script.