This essay examines the relations between documentary style and political sensibility in the cinema of William Klein. It is structured around cultural phenomena that have remained integral to his artistic career, and encourages a more thorough engagement with the work of this diverse, inventive, and important filmmaker.

ABSTRACT ““The grotesque,”” which became a stylistic term in the Italian renaissance and later contributed significantly to all forms of modernist art, can help us better understand the so-called ““coldness”” often attributed to Stanley Kubrick's films. The whole of Kubrick's art is designed to produce a grotesque clash of emotions, an unstable blending of humor and terror that derives ultimately from anxieties about the human body.