I liked seeing how the film was made, but whoever uploaded the documentary edited Vivian’s version a whole lot, cutting out all the comparison scenes from the film that she had originally put in. One thing i noticed in the comments and doing some follow-up research is that Kubrick was being very aggressive and condescending towards Shelley Duvall, which is emphasized when she is sitting and smoking while he is telling her to get on the set. He follows this up by saying “don’t sympathize with Duvall” to the rest of the crew. She was being whiny, but he was being mean at the same time. Vivian said in another interview that Shelley’s health was declining as she was on the set for months at a time. I don’t know how much to believe, what not to believe, and what is true, but there was definitely some tension there. SOme theorize this may have helped her path to insanity later in life. Overall, it was interesting to see how a film set worked from behind the scenes, but I wish I could have been able to see the full version.

 

I saw another documentary right after this one that was made after the fact, so it didn’t have behind-the-scenes, but what it did show was why there was such a deep underlying fear that was so different from other films. There was a wide 18mm lens used, which both slightly distorted the faces and showed the solidarity of being alone in a big hotel. What I thought was the best thing about this documentary was that it showed that it wasn’t the hotel that was trying to kill the family, it was simply trying to drive them insane so that they would kill each other. It played off the fear that every parent and child feels sometimes, when they are so mad at another sibling that if pushed too hard they might hurt them, even though they don’t want to. It is this deep fear that draws people in and scares them so badly. It leaves the viewer to their own interpretations, and as many good film directors know, imagination is a person’s worst enemy.