Movie:
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures is a new documentary directed by Jan Harlan, who worked with Kubrick for over 30 years. Narrated by Tom Cruise, the documentary features interviews with numerous people that Kubrick worked with throughout his career as a filmmaker. The documentary, which runs slightly over 140 minutes in length and contains previously unseen footage, is only available in the new Stanley Kubrick DVD Collection Box Set.

The documentary starts by exploring Kubrick's early home life and his interest photography, an interest he also shared with his father. Through photography, he found a job at Look magazine and soon his interest developed into cinematography. While still employed at Look, he made his first film in 1950, Day of the Fight, after becoming interested in the subject while he was taking pictures for an article on boxing. Soon thereafter, he made his first feature film, Fear and Desire. However, it wasn't until his breakout film, Paths of Glory, that he became recognized in the industry. He then went on to direct nine more feature films, the last of which was 1999's Eyes Wide Shut.

The documentary does a terrific job of exploring the life and films of Stanley Kubrick through mixing archived footage, clips from his films, and interviews of his family, friends, and the actors he worked with to provide an interesting and informative overview of the often controversial and uncompromising filmmaker. Though I haven't seen even half of his films, I was thoroughly engaged throughout the documentary and plan on renting some of the films I haven't seen in the near future.

Each of his thirteen feature films, his first film, the two films he didn't shoot, and A.I. are all given screen time, though some are covered more in depth than others. The complete list of films discussed in the documentary includes:

Day of the Fight
Fear and Desire
Killer's Kiss
The Killing
Paths of Glory
Spartacus
Lolita
Dr. Strangelove
2001: A Space Odyssey
Napoleon (Not Filmed)
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket
Aryan Papers (Not Filmed)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Eyes Wide Shut

Picture:
A Life in Pictures is presented in a variety of aspect ratios. The most common is 1.33:1 full frame: the majority of the film clips, the old home video footage, and some of the interviews are in this ratio. As the documentary is complied from a variety of source materials, the picture quality does vary, especially in the old video footage and the clips from his older films, which tend to have noticeable grain, marks, and lines. But just being able to see the old home video clips is a treat in itself, despite the flaws. There are a few compression artifacts and some slight edge enhancement in some of the newer footage, though they barely distract. The interviews, which are quite recent, look terrific.

Sound:
A Life in Pictures is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround in English. The film itself is dialogue heavy; the 5.1 is really only used for the music, which sounds rich and full. Dialogue throughout is crisp and clean with no distortion that I detected. Optional subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Extras:
A cast and crew list for the documentary is the sole extra feature.

Summary:
Warner Brothers has provided an excellent reason to pick up the new Stanley Kubrick Collection Box Set in the form of this fantastic documentary. My only hope is that it is released separately eventually, so that those who have bought the previous set can add this to their collection. A Life in Pictures comes highly recommended for both casual and diehard fans of Stanley Kubrick.