Researching Napoleon did not consist solely of accumulating books. The surviving materials show an effort to organize events, connect people, and turn historical documentation into useful questions for a film.
A chronology makes it possible to compare what was happening at the same time
The Stanley Kubrick exhibition catalog reproduces the project’s chronological file. Its caption explains that students associated with historian Felix Markham organized events from Napoleon’s life and that color-coded tabs distinguished people. The photograph reveals a physical system for looking things up, not the full contents of every card. That distinction sets limits on what can be claimed based on the available reproduction.
The usefulness of a system like this depends on more than preserving dates. A biography read from beginning to end presents a sequence; a file makes it possible to return to a moment and connect it with several different lives. For writing a film, that can help raise questions about which people might have been together, what information was available, or how much time separated two decisions. These are organizational questions that a continuous narrative might leave scattered across widely separated chapters.
The tabs make it easier to retrieve information selectively. Their function should not be confused with a complete interpretation of events: identifying a person does not explain why they acted in a particular way. The physical arrangement offers an entry point into the documentation. It is still necessary to assess the contents of the sources, their discrepancies, and how certain each fact is. Classification makes the information easier to consult without automatically turning it into a definitive version of history.
The Kubrick archive and its document types helps put that distinction in context. A research file, a screenplay, and a production letter can be related, but they answer different questions. The first organizes references; the second proposes a narrative; the third may record an administrative matter or a decision. Reading them as if they were interchangeable evidence would obscure precisely the division of labor that their preservation allows us to study.
Markham: consulting an interpretation, not receiving a finished film
UAL’s SK/18/1 catalog identifies conversations with Felix Markham among the project materials. The TASCHEN edition’s presentation also announces transcripts of these conversations. These references document historical consultation; they do not establish that the historian wrote all the screenplay’s dialogue or let us reconstruct every conversation without consulting its contents. A specialist’s participation and authorship of a scene are questions that require different evidence.
A consultation can help frame a question more clearly before answering it. Dating an event, evaluating a personal account, and explaining a political decision do not call for the same kind of answer. Preparing a film means translating those differences into questions of representation: what will be shown, what a character can say, and what information will need to be conveyed another way. Consulting an expert provides context, but does not eliminate the choices involved in selecting material for the writing.
Nor does a match between a historical source and a scene allow us to infer exclusive reliance on that source. A particular phrasing may appear in several books or documents, and research can compare different versions. Attributing a specific decision to Markham would require locating the exchange or note that establishes the connection. This caution does not diminish the importance of his collaboration; it avoids reducing a system of consultation to a single explanation for everything that later appears in the text.
The Napoleon screenplay is where information becomes projected running time, dialogue, and action. Documentation provides alternatives; writing must select and organize them. That relationship cannot be measured only by the amount of information carried over. A document can be useful because it helps rule out a scene or sharpen a question, even when none of its wording appears directly in the surviving version.
Images address different questions than dates
Publications about the project bring together visual references, costume studies, and location photographs. Their variety matters more than a total number of images. A period reproduction, a photograph of a building, and a costume proposal do not have the same relationship to the past or to filming. The first depicts something through a historical perspective; the second records a place at another point in time; the third may explore a solution that has yet to be approved.
Comparing these materials requires asking where they came from and how they were used. A portrait can tell us about a character’s public image without providing a neutral account of their everyday appearance. A location scout photo can help us study a space, but does not prove that filming took place there. A costume proposal documents a material possibility. Preserving these distinctions prevents every image in the archive from being treated as evidence of a decision that was carried out.
The preparation of locations and production resources then requires another kind of translation. A reference may suggest a space and still pose challenges involving access, scale, or continuity. Historical research alone does not guarantee that a cinematic solution is feasible. Its value lies in providing an organized set of knowledge and alternatives on which to base those decisions, not in automatically anticipating their outcome.
The case makes it possible to study Kubrick’s preparation and revision method without reducing it to a label like “obsession.” Specific practices are visible: classifying events, distinguishing people, consulting a specialist, and gathering images from diverse sources. Each practice addresses a need and has limits. The file makes it easier to retrieve information; consultation helps assess it; visual references open up possibilities for representation. Documentary work gains meaning through these relationships, not as an accumulation whose sheer size would guarantee the film to come.
References: University of the Arts London, Stanley Kubrick Archive, catalog SK/18/1, “Napoleon.” Eva-Maria Magel, “The Best Movie (N)ever Made: Stanley Kubrick’s Failed Napoleon Project,” Stanley Kubrick exhibition catalog, pp. 156–159. TASCHEN, publisher’s presentation of Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, edited by Alison Castle.
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