The world’s most demanding film / movie director

Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) could be the world’s most demanding film / movie director ever. Universally regarded as one of the greatest movie directors who ever lived, he directed several all-time classics such as 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Shining (1980).

He is known for his seemingly wasteful shooting ratio and many takes.

According to imdb.com: he reportedly exposed an incredible 1.3 million feet of film while shooting The Shining (1980), the release print of which runs for 142 minutes. Thus, he used less than 1% of the exposed film stock, making his shooting ratio an indulgent 102:1 when a ratio of 5 or 10:1 is considered the norm.

While making The Shining:
- Kubrick asked actress Shelley Duvall to do 127 takes in one scene.
- Kubrick shot the scene where blood poured from the elevators in only 3 takes. However setting it up took more than a week, because every time the doors opened, resulting in pouring out of blood, he’d say, “it doesn’t look like blood.” In fact, they’d tried shooting the scene for a year already.
- Due to Kubrick’s repetitive takes, lead actor Jack Nicholson would often return from a day’s shooting, walk straight to the bed, collapse onto it and would immediately fall asleep.
- Kubick ordered more than 120 takes in the scene where the camera simply slowly zooms in on Scatman Crothers as he “shines” in his bedroom.
- Kubrick originally wanted approximately 70 takes of the scene where Halloran gets killed by Jack Torrance, but Jack Nicholson talked Kubrick into going easy on the 70-year-old Crothers and stopping after 40. At one point during the filming, Crothers became so exasperated with Kubrick’s notorious, compulsive style of excessive retakes that he broke down and cried, asking “What do you want, Mr. Kubrick?”

While making A Clockwork Orange:
- the character Frank’s bodyguard was played by professional bodybuilder David Prowse. Even so, he was near exhaustion after the repeated takes of him carrying Frank and his wheelchair down the stairs.

While making Full Metal Jacket:
- Anthony Michael Hall was originally set to play Pvt. Joker, but was fired for objecting to Stanley Kubrick’s perfectionist style of directing. He was replaced by Matthew Modine.

source:
imdb.com

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