Hacker Cinema
Filmworker
2018 · Film · documentary · 94 min
Directed by Tony Zierra
The story of Leon Vitali, who surrendered his promising acting career to become Stanley Kubrick's devoted right-hand man.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
I highly recommend the documentary Filmworker to anyone interested in Stanley Kubrick's character.
It's about Leon Vitali, the actor who played Lord Bullingdon (the neurotic brother of Lady Lyndon) in Barry Lyndon. After filming Barry Lyndon, he quit acting and became Kubricks personal assistant / factotum for over 20 years. Although some would say he was Kubrick's personal slave. It is utterly shocking to see how badly Kubrick treated him at times. Vitali did the work of 4-5 assistants, completely neglected his family, destroyed his health, spend the best years of his life re-cutting scenes until 5 in the morning while listening to Kubrick's violent tantrums, and ended his successful acting career for him. But apparently he was paid so little by Kubrick that he ran into financial trouble after the director's death. Yet for some mysterious reason, he remained completely loyal to his master until his own death in 2022.
If you’re interested in this article / Kubrick, I highly recommend you watch the documentary Filmworker[0], which is a beautiful portrait of Leon Vitali [1], Stanley’s long term assistant quoted in this article.
He was cast in Barry Lyndon in 1974 and, after experiencing Kubrick’s genius and work ethic up close, gave up a promising acting career to devote his life to helping him achieve his vision— at great personal sacrifice. It’s moving, and helps explain the true cost of artistic excellence.
[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PEZ2r1YGKSA [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Vitali
I recommend anyone interested in Kubrick as a person check out the documentary Filmworker on Netflix, about his personal assistant Leon Vitali. (Warning that if you have a very black-and-white hero worship of Stanley, the film might disabuse some of your notions.)
Ian Watson, who was one of the writers who worked on AI, also wrote a bemused article about his experience working with Stanley:
https://www.ianwatson.info/plumbing-stanley-kubrick/
Good guess:
https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/filmworker/
> Leon Vitali was a rising British television actor when Stanley Kubrick picked him for the role of Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon. That first encounter with the famed auteur proved decisive — he swiftly resolved to devote the rest of his life working for the director, this time behind the scenes, and took on just about every job available: casting director, acting coach, location scouter, sound engineer, color corrector, A.D., promoter, and eventually restorer of Kubrick’s films. Tony Zierra’s affecting documentary profiles the devoted “filmworker” — Vitali’s preferred job title — as he enthusiastically recounts his days with the notoriously meticulous, volatile and obsessive director. The experiences brought both tremendous sacrifice and glowing pride.