Interesting New Insight on Stanley Kubrick and Shelley Duvall's Relationship While Shooting THE SHINING
Hardcore fans of The Shining know that director Stanley Kubrick and Shelley Duvall had quite an intense working relationship. Most of the information we have to go off of in regard to that is from Vivian Kubrick’s making-of documentary, which features footage of Kubrick always getting actress and Duvall emotionally and frantically reacting.
There’s been a lot of discussion over the years about that with people explaining that the reason he was so hard on her was to get that amazing performance from her. Pixar filmmaker Lee Unkrich has spent the past 12 years working on a book titled Stanely Kubrick’s The Shining, which is a 2,200-page detailed account of the creation of the classic horror film.
During a recent interview with Variety, Unkrich shared some information he came across and one thing he shared was some fascinating additional insight into the relationship between Kubrick and Duvall. Diane Johnson, Kubrick’s co-screenwriter, revealed that the friction led Kubrick to focus more on Jack Nicholson’s character Jack, and cut back on the development of Duvall’s Wendy. She said:
“The reason that [Wendy’s] not more developed in the script finally was because he didn’t get along with Shelley Duvall. They just clashed. And so he removed a lot of her scenes. The dialogue that I wrote for Wendy was pretty much [taken from] Stephen King, in which she talks like a normal person and has interesting perceptions and so on. And the reason that she comes off as just so kind of hysterical is to do with Kubrick and Duvall.”
Kubrick’s Portrayal of Wendy is something that The Shining author Stephen King also hated about the movie. He previously talked about Wendy’s depiction, saying:
"Shelley Duvall as Wendy is really one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film, she’s basically just there to scream and be stupid and that’s not the woman that I wrote about."
Unkrich actually talked with Duvall about what it was like for her working with Kubrick, and he explained: “Ultimately, the most important person to hear from was Shelley herself,” he says. “And Shelley loves Stanley.” He added:
“I think of it like that story about all the blind men touching an elephant, and each one only has one part, and they’re describing what they think they’re touching and none of them have it right, because they’re not seeing the totality, and I think that’s what happened with that film, honestly, is that people just assume that the whole thing must have been harrowing like that for her.”
He went on to explain what Shelley told him, saying:
“Shelley will tell you that it was a very difficult shoot. And she’ll also say that she didn’t necessarily agree with Stanley’s tactics at times for getting a performance from her. But she admits that he got an amazing performance out of her.”
That performance is amazing, but it’s also absolutely exhausting watching her. Seriously, whenever I watch this movie it triggers anxiety in me! It’s so interesting to learn new things about this movie, and it’s nice to hear that Duvall has no hard feelings against Kubrick for the way he treated her.
You can see some behind-the-scenes footage of Kubrick interacting with Duvall below.