SOURCE: “The Last Emperor,” in The New Yorker, Vol. LXXV, No. 4, March 22, 1999, pp. 120-23.

In the following essay, Lake reflects on Kubrick's life and career.

It read like Agatha Christie: “The police were summoned to Mr. Kubrick's rural home in Hertfordshire, north of London, yesterday afternoon, when he was pronounced dead.” Thus ran the Times report on Monday, March 8th, confirming that the foremost man of mystery in modern cinema—the Howard Hughes of Hertfordshire—had retained the patent on his secrecy to the end. The myth of Stanley Kubrick is now intact, unlikely to be broken, and it can only add to the agonies of expectation that will attend the delivery of Eyes Wide Shut. Twelve years we've been waiting for a new Kubrick picture, and this psychodrama, with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, was set for release on July 16th. One wonders whether Warner Bros., out...