Earlier this month, we featured the Criterion Collection’s new edition of Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 breakthrough, The Killing. A few days later, kottke.org pointed us toward another Kubrick find: a half-hour documentary about The Shining, filmed by the director’s own daughter, Vivian.
Vivian Kubrick was just 17 when she made Making ‘The Shining.’ But she captured a wealth of material. You’ll see Jack Nicholson letting his guard down (and speaking, quite brilliantly, about his craft), and Scatman Crothers crying tears of joy (he’s as delightful here as he is in the actual movie). Stanley Kubrick’s mother, Gert, makes a cameo appearance. And Kubrick himself gives an on-camera “bollocking” to his leading lady, Shelley Duvall (who was at her wits’ end for much of the notoriously long and difficult shoot). “If it hadn’t been for that, you know, volley of ideas, and sometimes butting of heads together, it wouldn’t have come out as good as it did,” Duvall explains. “And it also helps get the emotion up, and the concentration up, because it builds up . . . anger, actually. And then you get more out of yourself.“
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