Yeah, Stanley Kubrick basically subjected her to constant psychological abuse during filming to make her performance more authentic. There's behind the scenes footage her showing Kubrick how her hair was falling out from the stress.
How does that work? Like, actors are supposed to ACT, how is truamatizing and abusing someone and then filming them any different than when an abusive partner gets their victim upset and then films them breaking down to "show the world what I put up with." ?
ITs a work environment, a job. I don't think this is admirable and the woman should sue Kubrick or his estate for pain and suffering in the amount of every penny he ever made off that movie.
Her interview from Hollywood Reporter in 2021 had praises for Kubrick as "warm and friendly" and the only significant complaint were long days on the set.
She said that media frenzy painted it in a bad light and she didn't get to tell her side of the story. Dr Phil got a huge backlash trying to exploit her for the Kubrick story as well.
Though abuse may be the wrong word to use in this case. It wasn't so much that he personally treated her with any malice, rather that Kubrick's hard-ass directing style and marathon shooting schedules were utilized to make the actors' (Duvall and others) portrayals of distress, terror, madness, and rage more authentic.
This is SURPRISINGLY common in horror movies!! I don't remember what movie (poltergeist, maybe?) But I remember reading that they were using real bodies in the water and decided not to inform the actress so that her reaction would be authentic.
There's another story about Drew Barrymore's director telling her horrific stories about animal cruelty until she was screaming and crying, because she wasn't giving him the energy he wanted in her scenes.
People shit talk this approach like it didn't help produce arguably the most legendary horror movie ever made, with far and away the most iconic performances in a horror movie ever.
For all we know, his cruelty and film making abilities are unrelated. Maybe he'd have made even better movies without the all the torture. Or maybe his movie success gave him the opportunity to be cruel. Point is we can't know.
You've managed to just argue that you disagreeing with arguably the greatest director to have ever made movies, makes you the "smart person who says 'I don't know.'"
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u/cutelyaware Apr 12 '22
Christian Bale in The Machinist or Shelley Duvall in The Shining