Nathan Abrams wrote a chapter on Stanley Kubrick’s Jewish identity in the Kubrick anthology New Perspectives in 2015, which he expanded in 2018 in his book Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual. His central thesis is that, although Kubrick was secular in his outlook, there is a “hidden Jewish substratum” in Kubrick’s films.
Abrams “plumbs the depths of Kubrick’s Jewishness”, decoding apparent references to Judaism throughout the Kubrick filmography, and identifying instances of Kubrick removing explicitly Jewish elements in pre-production. The book challenges “the conventional dogma that while Kubrick was born a Jew, he was not a Jewish director”, though Abrams also acknowledges that “Kubrick never perceived himself as a Jewish director”, which seems to invalidate his argument.
If this approach sounds familiar, that’s because Geoffrey Cocks has previously written about The Shining’s supposed coded references to the Holocaust. Like Cocks, Abrams over-analyses Kubrick’s films, and their joint methodology — imposing an overarching Jewish interpretation on unconnected minor details — feels forced and unconvincing.
Abrams is on firmer ground when discussing Eyes Wide Shut, as the identity of that film’s central character, Bill Harford, was verifiably changed from Jewish to non-Jewish. (Kubrick discussed this issue with Frederic Raphael, and Raphael quotes their conversations in his memoir, Eyes Wide Open.) But even in this case, Abrams goes too far, such as his absurd misinterpretation of Harford’s name: “Harford also sounds like the town of Hertford in England, near where Kubrick lived, and his home country of Hertfordshire, which, as he’d have known, has a high concentration of Jewish residents.”
This is the third Kubrick book by Abrams that I’ve read, and all three were based on extensive research, especially on material from the Kubrick Archive. But the referencing systems in all three books are somewhat unconventional. New York Jewish Intellectual has very detailed endnotes, though the numbered references in the text are often not placed next to the quotations they refer to. In his book on the making of Eyes Wide Shut, quotes are attributed in the text as (for example) “[Tom] Cruise says...”, falsely implying that each source spoke to him personally. His Kubrick biography has a bibliography but no endnotes, so it’s not clear which quotes are taken from which sources.
Abrams also co-edited The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick. The anthology includes an essay by Marat Grinberg on Kubrick and Jewishness, and a chapter by Cocks on Kubrick and the Holocaust.
Abrams “plumbs the depths of Kubrick’s Jewishness”, decoding apparent references to Judaism throughout the Kubrick filmography, and identifying instances of Kubrick removing explicitly Jewish elements in pre-production. The book challenges “the conventional dogma that while Kubrick was born a Jew, he was not a Jewish director”, though Abrams also acknowledges that “Kubrick never perceived himself as a Jewish director”, which seems to invalidate his argument.
If this approach sounds familiar, that’s because Geoffrey Cocks has previously written about The Shining’s supposed coded references to the Holocaust. Like Cocks, Abrams over-analyses Kubrick’s films, and their joint methodology — imposing an overarching Jewish interpretation on unconnected minor details — feels forced and unconvincing.
Abrams is on firmer ground when discussing Eyes Wide Shut, as the identity of that film’s central character, Bill Harford, was verifiably changed from Jewish to non-Jewish. (Kubrick discussed this issue with Frederic Raphael, and Raphael quotes their conversations in his memoir, Eyes Wide Open.) But even in this case, Abrams goes too far, such as his absurd misinterpretation of Harford’s name: “Harford also sounds like the town of Hertford in England, near where Kubrick lived, and his home country of Hertfordshire, which, as he’d have known, has a high concentration of Jewish residents.”
This is the third Kubrick book by Abrams that I’ve read, and all three were based on extensive research, especially on material from the Kubrick Archive. But the referencing systems in all three books are somewhat unconventional. New York Jewish Intellectual has very detailed endnotes, though the numbered references in the text are often not placed next to the quotations they refer to. In his book on the making of Eyes Wide Shut, quotes are attributed in the text as (for example) “[Tom] Cruise says...”, falsely implying that each source spoke to him personally. His Kubrick biography has a bibliography but no endnotes, so it’s not clear which quotes are taken from which sources.
Abrams also co-edited The Bloomsbury Companion to Stanley Kubrick. The anthology includes an essay by Marat Grinberg on Kubrick and Jewishness, and a chapter by Cocks on Kubrick and the Holocaust.
