I mean, he was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and was a veteran of the film business. So it's doubtful that he was all that frightened by Kubrick.
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Stanley-Kubrick-get-away-with-treating-Shelley-Duvall-so-terribly-while-filming-The-Shining/answer/Jon-Mixon-1
Probably. The question is: why should he do that?
shareNicholson does not have a reputation for being helpful and chivalrous with the ladies, so yeah.
Why he should have been helpful and chivalrous in this case?
shareA lady was in distress on the set of "The Shining", and that was a circumstance where some people would have been helpful or even chivalrous.
But we're talking about Jack Nicholson here.
In this case, the distress was not gratuitous. Kubrick wanted to get the best performance she could give, and that made her give the best performance of her life, far better than anything she'd ever done. This role made her enter the History of Cinema, with capital letters.
The most important role she ever had was Wendy Torrance in The Shinning. If you check her highlighted movies in imdb, her second most important role was Olive, the wife of Popeye the Sailor. That was the gap between her role in The Shinning and the rest of her career.
So, again, why should Nicholson screwed it by being helpful and chivalrous in this case?
Well, there's this thing called "common decency".
People who arent part of Holltwood may have heard of it.
You're applying the modern left moral compass to a different period and a different society. In traditional western societies (at least center and north European ones), professional excellence was more important than personal distress. In traditional western society, and 80s was still part of it, what Kubrick did was acceptable.
Don't apply your moral book to a different society.
My sympathies to anyone who is both is distress, and around you.
shareMy sympathies to any worker who is both trying to be professional, and around you.
shareFYI civility towards one's co-workers and the ability to put a stop to any disruptive behavior is usually counted as part of "professionalism". My sympathy to *your* co-workers, if you don't know that.
But seriously, I completely disagree with the point you're clumsily attempting to make: the ability to make great art does NOT remove one from the obligations of civility or professionalism. I realize this belief is not widely shared in Hollywood, but as the Hollywood power structure has been shaking in its boots for the last year because some people who've suffered because of this belief have gone public, perhaps attitudes there should change.
Apparently chivalry, honor, decency are all modern concepts, lol.
share[deleted]
Oh, please. You act like Kubrick beat the shit out of her. The truth is, she was emotionally weak, not to mention a whiny primadonna. That said, she was paid incredibly well for her “torment”, and will go down in cinema history because of it. Feeling bad for this woman is absurd.
shareIf Karma were real, you'd immediately find yourself working for a boss who tormented you and made your working days so hellish that you sobbed and trembled in public on the job, as he sneered at you for bring weak, and said that he was giving you enough money and opportunities to make up for any misery he might be causing you.
It's such a pity that Karma isnt real, because you'd learn SO much from your karmic comeuppance!
The best performance of her life, kuku?? If that's true, it means every one of her other performances must have been complete and utter trash!
I watched it again last night, and there were times when I actually cringed in embarrassment for the poor lass.
I mean, I sympathise with her and all, but man, her "acting" in this movie was not even up to amateur theatre standards. It was just plain BAD. I could hardly believe that SK actually passed her scenes.
In fact, I think everybody's acting in this film verged on the amateur. Somehow SK had them speaking their lines as if they were doing a preliminary read-through of the screenplay. Slow, halting, mechanical, and wooden. Except for Nicholson and the boy, everybody seemed to be thinking, "I wish to hell I wasn't here!"
Beats me why Kubrick gets the kudos that he does. I can imagine him thinking, "What morons people are! And how easy is it to dupe them!"
So it's doubtful that he was all that frightened by Kubrick.
Well he (Nicholson ) either didn't give a shit or he was oblivious to it
I should preface this by saying that I absolutely adore The Shining. I've probably watched it at least a dozen times and every time I do I notice something that I didn't before. It's just an absolute masterpiece from beginning to end.
However, I don't agree with how Stanley Kubrick treated Shelley Duvall. I understand what he was trying to do (get the best performance out of Shelley Duvall as possible) but I don't think his methods were morally correct. Shelley was very disturbed during and after working on this film and it's something that she's never quite recovered from. There is such a thing as going too far when it comes to trying to realize your vision as a filmmaker and unfortunately, I think Kubrick did cross that line a bit while making this film.
But all that being said, he is still one of my all-time favourite Directors and I do think Shelley's performance turned out great, despite what she went through during the making of it.
Now, should Jack Nicholson have stepped in and try to support Shelley? Probably. But what you have to understand is that the film was hard on everyone involved, not just Shelley. And that does include Kubrick himself to some extent. He suffered too because he was such a meticulous perfectionist. That's why the film holds the world record for the highest number of takes for a scene: 127.
But back to Nicholson. It's possible that Jack could have been going through his own problems/struggles on set and that, combined with trying to have enough energy just to get through the day and stay in character (days on a film set can be as long as eighteen hours sometimes) maybe he just didn't have it in him to help Shelley out. Or he may have wanted to confront Kubrick about it, but couldn't find the right time or place to do so. None of us were there. We don't know what was going on.
It was a very difficult process for all involved, so frankly its a miracle that the film turned out as good as it did.
I hated this movie. Horrible and was not at all scary.
That aside, Jack Nicholson has stated in several interviews about the movie that he was completely against Shelley Duvall's casting. So I seriously doubt he would have stepped in at all. Yes, it would have been nice and the decent thing to do but I suspect he hoped it would drive her away and they could recast with the actress he wanted.
He stepped in for Scatman Crothers so he could have I suppose, whether or not he wanted to is anyone's guess. I tend to think that he didn't give a shit about Duvall.
shareObviously Kubrick could be a real jerk in the pursuit of film perfection, but in that aspect he has a lot of company among great artists. If you watch the BTS documentary it's clear that Duvall was making a lot of mistakes (missing cues and so forth), so it's not as if Kubrick was completely without reason to criticize her. What, you'd like to have seen him jailed? It's also not clear to me that Nicholson witnessed any of the severe criticism and had any good opportunity to step in had he so chosen. Is this known?
shareJack had his own issues with cocaine during filming.
shareDuvall has since said that she doesn’t regret Kubrick’s treatment because his methods ultimately worked.