Welles. Hitchcock. Kubrick. These names appear on nearly every list of the all-time greatest filmmakers. But what makes these directors so great? Despite their very different themes and sensibilities, is there a common genius that unites them and elevates their work into the realm of the sublime? 

 

The Extraordinary Image takes readers on a fascinating journey through the lives and films of these three directors, identifying the qualities that made them cinematic visionaries. Reflecting on a lifetime of teaching and writing on these filmmakers, acclaimed film scholar Robert P. Kolker offers a deeply personal set of insights on three artists who have changed the way he understands movies. Spotlighting the many astonishing images and stories in films by Welles, Hitchcock, Kubrick, he also considers how they induce a state of amazement that transports and transforms the viewer. 

 

Kolker’s accessible prose invites readers to share in his own continued fascination and delight at these directors’ visual inventiveness, even as he lends his expertise to help us appreciate the key distinctions between the unique cinematic universes they each created. More than just a celebration of three cinematic geniuses, The Extraordinary Image is an exploration of how movies work, what they mean, and why they bring us so much pleasure. 

 

ROBERT P. KOLKER has been teaching and writing about film for over forty years. He is the author or editor of A Cinema of Loneliness (4th ed.,); The Altering Eye; Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays; The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies; The Cultures of American Film; and Film, Form, and Culture. 

"The most refreshing quality of The Extraordinary Image is its respect for the humanist tradition. Kolker’s bottom-line insistence on the deeply rooted humanity of the greatest cinema is invigorating, especially when he connects his emotions about movies with his longtime effort to share his insights and enthusiasms with students and readers."

"For a book of criticism, [The Extraordinary Image] is wonderfully accessible, less like a lecture and closer to a conversation. [Kolker's] observations reflect both the consensus of critical thought on these films, and his personal connections to the images ... this collective study adds a distinctive tone that will make this of interest to fans of any of these filmmakers."

"The Extraordinary Image takes as a welcome point of departure the notion that filmmaking is essentially the craft of building images, and telling stories by way of their composition and juxtaposition. Kolker’s project is especially well-tailored to that insight, as the directors under consideration are among the most purposefully cinematic of filmmakers... The book is littered with keen observations readily savored."

"Robert P. Kolker takes readers on a fascinating journey into the lives and work of these three directors, examining the unique visual themes—and finding the common threads of genius—in their cinematic worlds."

"This book offers far more pleasures than we can easily count, all reflecting the author's passion for film and his ability to get it into highly personal writing. He shows us how Hitchcock, Kubrick and Welles brought excitement and light to the cinema, however dark or distraught their films became, and there is something quite dazzling about the way he keeps picturing these three figures as belonging together and yet entirely different from each other."

"Like the three masters he loves, Kolker brings power and passion to his brilliant study of this trio of closely related and unforgettable filmmakers. It is a supremely sublime achievement."

"Kolker ingeniously brings together three dissimilar filmmakers—Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick—and deftly manages to make them convincing subjects of a comparative study… Kolker writes with such fluency and grace about these filmmakers that he makes the feat of discussing their quite distinct and challenging respective oeuvres seem easy... Kolker's study makes one hungry to experience its subjects' creativity anew, inspiring one to revisit the oeuvres of three great, distinctive, and distinct filmmakers whose bodies of work, as Kolker persuasively argues, converge in the creation of lasting and, indeed, extraordinary images."

"This is not the first book to consult when studying Kubrick, but Abrams provides enough compelling insights and revisions of well-trodden territory to make one go back to the films. His study doubles as a general intellectual biography of Kubrick, and one of its pleasures is learning what books were on Kubrick’s shelf."