[ad_1]
This week the Hollywood Reporter posted a new interview with the actress Shelley duvall. To say “a rare interview” is an understatement. Duvall largely disappeared from the public eye in the ’90s and remained so until Phil McGraw and his team of quacks and opportunists subjected her to one of the the most abusive interviews Dr Phil the story, and that says something.
In THR’s play, Duvall was asked about her experience with Stanley Kubrick doing The brilliant. Kubrick’s treatment of Duvall during filming is a legend; it might be called abject cruelty, but it is generally called “art”. When the writer Seth Abramovich asked her if she saw it that way, that he was unusually brutal towards her, she replied, “He has that tendency in him. He definitely has that.
Ever since Tippi Hedren endured physical injuries and psychological damage in the hands of Alfred Hitchcock during filming The birdsHollywood history is filled with tales of male directors torturing their actresses, apparently in an attempt to get them to perform as best they can like an infected tooth. The way their actions are portrayed softens over time, as words like ‘push’ are used to describe what the director has done, as if he’s taking her hand and gently leading her into the role. But in light of a few recent stories, it’s time to reconsider what this “push” really looks like, and why we’ve long accepted that this is exactly what genius directors do and that their actresses should be grateful for. After all, Hedren’s performance has been praised. But it is Hitchcock who is most associated with the film. His hands are on every element of his designs, including, without consent or desire, his actresses – and as such, they are his.
This is called “author’s theory(As we understand it today), when administrators have full control over their projects and, to that end, are seen as the beginning and the end of the product. They are seen as wholly and singularly responsible – and, therefore, the one artist worthy of celebration – in all aspects, from script to performance to visual style and beyond. Their films are not a collaborative process, but the work of one man and the many people who have helped him realize his vision. With that, a lot of the women around them are collateral damage, just in the way of this powerful and passionate art.
G / O Media can get commission
Watching the backstage documentary by Vivian Kubrick, Make it shiny, has always been uncomfortable. Duvall’s fragility emanates from the screen, his palpable anxiety and trauma are all dismissed by the director while being encouraged. To keep her at that level, he warned those on set, “Don’t sympathize with Shelley.” To get the best performance as Wendy Torrance, Kubrick seemed to believe that she should be treated like Wendy Torrance.
“Doing terrible work day in and day out. Almost unbearable, ”she told Roger Ebert in 1980. “The character of Jack Nicholson must have been mad and angry all the time. And in my character, I had to cry 12 hours a day, all day, the last nine consecutive months, five or six days a week. I was there for a year and a month, and there must be something about Primal Scream Therapy because after the day and after crying for my 12 hours, I came home very happy. It had a very calming effect. During the day I would have been absolutely miserable.
She was unhappy. The doc shows her hair is falling out, and she said later she was “in poor health and in poor health because the stress of the role was so great.”
What Duvall and so many other actresses in history experienced as normal would be concerning these days (we hope). In this interview with Ebert, Duvall took a break from a pinch of pain – which she told Ebert she only had “twice” twice a week at that time – and recounted a story on the set of Terry Gilliam. Time bandits. “And the scene called for six dwarves to come crashing down on the roof of a medieval car, but the dwarves were a little afraid to jump off the scaffolding, and so Terry didn’t think, he just jumped, and it weighs 180 pounds and landed on my head. I could have been paralyzed. As it is, there is just a pain that goes from my ears to my eyes and then goes away. I am sure this can be fixed. “
She casually shares these stories, stopping to ask Ebert what he thinks of the tea she made or the trees in her house. But looking back with the knowledge we have now, of what Duvall would later become, these stories are not casual. They are horrible.
This sentiment was echoed by Anjelica huston, Nicholson’s girlfriend at the time who was present for The brilliant was filmed. “I had a feeling, certainly through what Jack was saying at the time, that Shelley was having a hard time just dealing with the emotional content of the room,” Huston said. THR. “And they didn’t seem very likable. It was as if the boys were ganging up. Maybe it was completely my misreading of the situation, but I just felt it. And when I saw her during those days, she generally looked a bit tortured, shaken. I don’t think anyone paid particular attention to her.
After all of this, Duvall wondered if it was worth it. “After having done The brilliant, all this work, hardly anyone even criticized my performance, even to mention it, it seemed to me, ”she told Ebert. “The reviews were all about Kubrick, like I wasn’t there. It was Duvall who suffered, and it was Kubrick and Nicholson who were saluted. Author Stephen king, who hated Kubrick’s interpretation of his novel, described Duvall’s performance as “A screaming dishrag.”
Even now, it’s easy enough to look back on it all as “just how it was”. To put Hitchcock and Kubrick in that box as eccentric geniuses who were allowed to mistreat actresses while their work remains praised to this day. But it is not relegated to the past. If the MeToo and Time’s Up movements We have learned something is that countless men in power have used this power to hurt women. Again this week we received a stern reminder that this includes even modern men whose work has been hailed countless times as “feminist.”
After several months of Justice League actor Ray fisher alleging abuse by the manager Joss whedon (and others he says are guilty) while working on this film, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Charisma carpenter expressed his support for actor Cyborg. You might already know that she had her own story to share. Using her social media accounts, she explained the abuse she says she received from Whedon on the sets of Buffy and angel. In one case, Carpenter says she was asked to film at 1 a.m. while she was pregnant, which subjected her to physically demanding labor and ultimately sent her into Braxton Hicks contractions. Carpenter called this “retaliation”. Carpenter’s statement was echoed and supported by co-stars Amber Benson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Michelle Trachtenberg, who was only 15 when she started Buffy, and who wrote on Instagram that Whedon was not allowed to be alone with her, and that it has been “submitted. For many. ”
Of course, Fisher’s experience tells us that Whedon’s treatment was not limited to women, and abusers are not just men, but very rarely the author’s theory includes women, for a number of reasons. . Women are not cheap as many opportunities as their male peers, and “difficult women” are Hollywood outcasts while difficult men are simply artists.
Whedon’s name and imprint are everywhere in every element of every project he has ever completed. It’s called the Whedonverse, after all. And his name, his authorship, has opened countless doors. It was handed over the avengers movies and given chances to write scripts for Wonder woman and Bat girl. He took back Justice League by Zack Snyder, and it wasn’t just Fisher who said their time with the director wasn’t great. Gal Gadot told the LA Times, “I have had my own experience with [Whedon], which wasn’t the best, but I took care of it there and when it happened. I took it to the higher ranks and they took care of it. But I’m glad Ray comes up and tells his truth.
But, according to Benson, the “Whedonverse” women still heal after all these years. Fisher and Carpenter have been telling their stories for a long time, and while it’s awesome we are finally all listening, why has it taken so long? Well, probably because to admit that this individual is a problem is to admit that our favorite shows and movies are tainted. But Buffy, angel, Firefly, Avengers, and everything Whedon has done is greater than him, as are the works of any other harmful individual who is a part of the art that we appreciate, even if it is a large part.
It’s time to let go of the idea that an iconic designer is responsible for everything we love about a property they’re involved with. Because with so much power comes individuals who will wield it for evil.
Do you know where I first learned this? Joss Whedon.
To find out more, be sure to follow us on our Instagram @io9dotcom.
[ad_2]
Source link