Editing Stanley Kubrick (section)

=== Directing style ===
{{quote box|width=30em|align=right|quote=They work with Stanley and go through hells that nothing in their careers could have prepared them for, they think they must have been mad to get involved, they think that they'd die before they would ever work with him again, that fixated maniac; and when it's all behind them and the profound fatigue of so much intensity has worn off, they'd do anything in the world to work for him again. For the rest of their professional lives they long to work with someone who cared the way Stanley did, someone they could learn from. They look for someone to respect the way they'd come to respect him, but they can never find anybody&nbsp;... I've heard this story so many times.|source=—
Michael Herr, screenwriter for ''Full Metal Jacket'' on actors working with Kubrick.{{sfn|Herr|2001|p=56}}}}

==== Multiple takes ====
Kubrick was notorious for filming far more takes than is common during [[Feature film|feature production]] and his relentless approach often placed large demands on his actors. Jack Nicholson remarked that Kubrick would frequently require up to fifty takes of a scene before the director felt justice had been done to the material.{{sfn|Ciment|1980|p=38}} Nicole Kidman explained that the dozens of takes he often required had the effect of suppressing an actor's conscious thoughts about technique, diffusing the concentration Kubrick said he could see in the eyes of an actor who was not yet performing at the peak of their ability and helping them to enter a "deeper place".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index4.html |title=The Kubrick FAQ Part 4 |website=Visual-memory.co.uk |date=February 22, 2002 |accessdate=November 24, 2011 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130524201007/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index4.html |archivedate=May 24, 2013}}</ref> Kubrick echoed this sentiment, saying, "[a]ctors are essentially emotion-producing instruments, and some are always tuned and ready while others will reach a fantastic pitch on one take and never equal it again, no matter how hard they try".{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=94}}

While Kubrick's high take ratio was considered by some critics to be irrational he firmly believed that actors were at their best during filming, as opposed to in rehearsals, saying, "[w]hen you make a movie, it takes a few days just to get used to the crew, because it is like getting undressed in front of fifty people. Once you're accustomed to them, the presence of even one other person on set is discordant and tends to produce self-consciousness in the actors, and certainly in itself".{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=73}}{{Sfn|LoBrutto|1999|p=403}}

In 1987, when Kubrick was asked about his reputation for excessive takes by ''[[Rolling Stone]]'', he replied that it was exaggerated but that when it was true, "[i]t happens when actors are unprepared. You cannot act without knowing dialogue. If actors have to think about the words, they can't work on the emotion. So you end up doing thirty takes of something. And still you can see the concentration in their eyes; they don't know their lines. So you just shoot it and shoot it and hope you can get something out of it in pieces."<ref name="Cahill-2011" /> He likewise told biographer Michel Ciment that, "[a]n actor can only do one thing at a time, and when he learned his lines only well enough to say them while he's thinking about them, he will always have trouble as soon as he has to work on the emotions of the scene or find camera marks. In a strong emotional scene, it is always best to be able to shoot in complete takes to allow the actor a continuity of emotion, and it is rare for most actors to reach their peak more than once or twice. There are, occasionally, scenes which benefit from extra takes, but even then, I'm not sure that the early takes aren't just glorified rehearsals with the adding adrenaline of film running through the camera."{{sfn|Duncan|2003|p=153}}

[[Matthew Modine]], who played Joker in ''[[Full Metal Jacket]],'' echoes these assessments of even a world-renowned actor's delivery on a Kubrick film. In an [[oral history]] gathered by [[Peter Bogdanovich]] after the director's death Modine recalled that, "I once asked [Kubrick] why he so often did a lot of takes. [...] And he talked about Jack Nicholson [saying] "Jack would come in during the blocking and he kind of fumbled through the lines. He'd be learning them while he was there. And then you'd start shooting and after take 3 or take 4 or take 5 you'd get the Jack Nicholson that everybody knows and most directors would be happy with. And then you'd go up to 10 or 15 and he'd be really awful and then he'd start to understand what the lines were, what the lines meant, and then he'd become unconscious about what he was saying. So by take 30 or take 40 the lines became something else."<ref>{{Cite news |date=July 4, 1999 |title=What They Say About Stanley Kubrick (Published 1999) |language=en |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/magazine/what-they-say-about-stanley-kubrick.html |access-date=August 18, 2023 |archive-date=May 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528194131/https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/magazine/what-they-say-about-stanley-kubrick.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

By contrast, during the filming of ''Full Metal Jacket'' the former [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] [[drill instructor]] [[R. Lee Ermey]] often satisfied Kubrick in as few as two or three takes. The director praised Ermey as an excellent performer, later saying to ''Rolling Stone'' that Ermey's intense familiarity with the role had perfected his delivery and fluency of improvisation to a level he could not have hoped to discover in a professional actor, no matter how many takes they were given.<ref name="Cahill-2011">{{Cite web |last=Cahill |first=Tim |date=March 7, 2011 |title=The Rolling Stone Interview: Stanley Kubrick in 1987 |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/the-rolling-stone-interview-stanley-kubrick-in-1987-90904/ |access-date=August 18, 2023 |website=Rolling Stone |language=en-US |archive-date=August 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818003207/https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/the-rolling-stone-interview-stanley-kubrick-in-1987-90904/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Kubrick repeated his praise to the ''[[The Washington Post|Washington Post]]'', saying he had, "always found that some people can act and some can't, whether or not they've had training. And I suspect that being a drill instructor is, in a sense, being an actor. Because they're saying the same things every eight weeks, to new guys, like they're saying it for the first time – and that's acting."<ref>{{Cite web |title=washingtonpost.com: Kubrick 1987 Interview |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/movies/features/kubrick1987.htm |access-date=August 18, 2023 |website=www.washingtonpost.com |archive-date=November 4, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104173552/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/movies/features/kubrick1987.htm |url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Discussions with actors ====
On set, Kubrick would devote his personal breaks to lengthy discussions with his actors. Among those who valued his attention was [[Tony Curtis]], star of ''Spartacus'', who said Kubrick was his favorite director, adding, "his greatest effectiveness was his one-on-one relationship with actors."{{sfn|LoBrutto|1999|p=193}} He further added, "Kubrick had his own approach to film-making. He wanted to see the actor's faces. He didn't want cameras always in a wide shot twenty-five feet away, he wanted close-ups, he wanted to keep the camera moving. That was his style."{{sfn|Baxter|1997|p=2}} Similarly, Malcolm McDowell recalls the long discussions he had with Kubrick to help him develop his character in ''A Clockwork Orange'', noting that on set he felt entirely uninhibited and free, which is what made Kubrick "such a great director".{{sfn|Ciment|1980|p=38}} Kubrick also allowed actors at times to improvise and to "break the rules", particularly with Peter Sellers in ''Lolita'', which became a turning point in his career as it allowed him to work creatively during the shooting, as opposed to the preproduction stage.{{sfn|Walker|1981|p=136}}
During an interview, Ryan O'Neal recalled Kubrick's directing style: "God, he works you hard. He moves you, pushes you, helps you, gets cross with you, but above all he teaches you the value of a good director. Stanley brought out aspects of my personality and acting instincts that had been dormant&nbsp;... My strong suspicion [was] that I was involved in something great".{{Sfn|LoBrutto|1999|p=385}} He further added that working with Kubrick was "a stunning experience" and that he never recovered from working with somebody of such magnificence.<ref name=tribute>{{cite web |title=Stanley Kubrick: Five legendary stories of the filmmaker 'with the black eyes' |url=http://www.ew.com/article/2012/11/09/stanley-kubrick-stories |work=Entertainment Weekly |last=Breznican |first=Anthony |accessdate=October 20, 2013 |date=November 9, 2012 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151006054445/http://www.ew.com/article/2012/11/09/stanley-kubrick-stories |archivedate=October 6, 2015}}</ref>