“Endlessly interpreted, passionately admired, and, in some quarters, heatedly despised, Stanley has been brand-name fodder for polemical crossfire since at least The Making of Kubrick’s 2001, a compilation edited by the writer Jerome Agel in 1970. The first great American director to hone his craft outside the Hollywood studio system, Kubrick left behind a relatively spare legacy of 13 feature films in a 40-year career. But when he died, in 1999, at age 70, the hit-to-miss ratio was as impressive — and controversial — as any in motion-picture history.”