← New Books Network
New Books Network
J. W. Rinzler and Lee Unkrich, "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining" (Taschen, 2023)
00:56:47
An interview with Lee Unkrich
Loading summary
Transcript73 lines
- [00:01]
Lee Unkrich
So good, so good, so good.
- [00:03]
Nordstrom Rack / State Farm / VRBO Advertiser
New Year new gear. Thousands of fresh active styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now Save on top brands like Nike, Puma and free people starting at just $35.
- [00:14]
Lee Unkrich
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
- [00:16]
Nathan Abrams
There's always something new.
- [00:17]
Nordstrom Rack / State Farm / VRBO Advertiser
Plus join the Nordy Club to shop new arrivals first. Unlock exclusive discounts and more. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [00:59]
Jack Daniels Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and Old Number 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery Lynchburg, Tennessee.
- [01:24]
Lee Unkrich
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:28]
Nathan Abrams
Hello everybody and welcome back to New Books in Film Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Nathan Abrams, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to Lee Unkrich about his new book, Stanley Kubrick's the Shining. Lee is the Academy Award winning director of the animated features Toy Story 3 and Coco. During his 25 years at Pixar Animation Studios, he played a variety of key creative roles on nearly every feature film made at the studio. Lee and his fellow Pixar directors were honored at the 66 Venice International Film Festival with the golden lion for Lifetime Achievement. Lee, welcome to the show.
- [02:03]
Lee Unkrich
It's great to be here, Nathan, and.
- [02:05]
Nathan Abrams
It'S great to have you. I wonder if you could begin by telling us a little bit about yourself.
- [02:13]
Lee Unkrich
Well, you just kind of summed up kind of briefly my career. I grew up in the Midwest in the United States and came out to California to go to film school and worked in the film industry for several years before I ultimately moved up to the San Francisco Bay area to work at Pixar back in 1994 on the first Toy Story film and I started as a film editor on that movie and then I edited a couple more movies and then started directing co Directing several films, including Monsters, Inc. And Finding Nemo, and then started directing myself solo. And as you mentioned, I directed Toy Story 3 and Coco. And kind of during the last several years that I was at Pixar, last maybe five or six years, I started working on this book project kind of in my spare time.
- [03:14]
Nathan Abrams
So how did you come to the Shining?
- [03:18]
Lee Unkrich
Well, I first saw the Shining when I was 12 years old when it first came out in theaters in 1980. And I somehow became really transfixed with it immediately. A few days after I saw the film, I picked up a paperback copy of Stephen King's novel. I wasn't aware of Stephen King at that point, and I wanted to dive into the feeling of the movie more. So I read King's book, which I loved. But I also recognized that it was very different from Stanley Kubrick's film. But I enjoyed it in it, you know, in its own way, definitely. And one thing that I remember very early on is that in the middle of that paperback novel, there were a bunch of stills from the Shining. And at some point, I don't quite remember when I realized that one of the stills was from a scene that I didn't remember being in the movie. And I became kind of fascinated with that notion that maybe there were other scenes shot that weren't in the film. And at some point in there, I also learned about the fact that the Shining originally had a whole epilogue at the end of the film that Stanley Kubrick had decided to cut out of the film just a few days after it had been released in theaters in Los Angeles and New York. All I knew is that it was a scene that took place in a hospital where the hotel manager went to visit Wendy and Danny in the hospital. And again, I was fascinated by this notion that there was kind of more to this world than I had seen in the film. So that kind of coupled with kind of my burgeoning interest in becoming a filmmaker myself, which I. Which I can draw a line straight back to the Shining for that. It just remained kind of a really central interest and eventually obsession of mine for decades. And as people may know, Stanley Kubrick died in 1999 as he was finishing his final film, Eyes Wide Shut. And some years after he passed away, his family donated the contents of his archives to the London College of Communications in London. I got a chance to visit the archives when I was in London doing press for Toy Story 3 back in 2010. And for the very first time, I was able to kind of see this wealth of material having to do with the development of the film, I got glimpses into Stanley Kubrick's writing process with his co writer, Diane Johnson. And I also saw a lot of behind the scenes photographs I'd never seen. Stanley Kubrick was famously very private and protective of anything having to do with his films. He really just wanted the final films to speak for themselves. He didn't really want people to know how the sausage was made, so to speak. And so it was kind of a rare privilege to be able to kind of get a glimpse into this private world of Stanley and his creative process. And it was at that time that I first had the notion of creating a book on the making of the Shining. Because the Shining has been written about extensively over the years, but primarily from a critical analysis perspective, just kind of the theories about its meanings, et cetera. But there was very little about the actual production of the film. And so essentially it was a book that I wished was in the world, and it wasn't. And so I set off on this, what ultimately became a 10 year journey to create this book. I approached the Stanley Kubrick Estate in 2012 and spoke with Jan Harlan, Stanley's brother in law and the executive producer of the Shining. And I proposed the idea of me doing this book. And that was really the beginning of this journey. They were excited at the prospect of creating the book and were very supportive of me through this whole process.
- [07:36]
Nathan Abrams
That's great. Thank you. You went to the Archives in 2010. That must make you one of the earliest and sort of longest serving researchers in the archive over that period.
- [07:47]
Lee Unkrich
Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't actually. I should know what year it opened. I don't remember.
- [07:52]
Nathan Abrams
2007.
- [07:53]
Lee Unkrich
2007. Yeah. So it was pretty early on. I mean, of course, the moment I heard about it, I wanted to try to go there. And it's not easy to visit. You can't just walk in off the street. You have to have some kind of legitimate research purpose. So I kind of pulled some strings behind the scenes and managed to get in that first time. But of course, once I had the support of the Kubrick estate and Warner Brothers to do this book, they pretty much threw the doors wide open for me and allowed me to set up shop there and basically dive into every last thing that they had.
- [08:31]
Nathan Abrams
No, it's a fantastic resource. And I'd have to say that probably the study of Kubrick, it's a game changer for the study of Kubrick. You know, I don't think it's. I don't think it's very easy to not to write anything anymore and not look at what's in the archive.
- [08:45]
Lee Unkrich
At least you kind of have to. Yeah. And I don't. You know, I don't know how Stanley himself would feel about it. I actually spoke with his wife Christiana, in December because we had a big unveiling event for the book at Chiddickbury, the Kubrick estate. And. And I said to her, I said, I have very mixed feelings about being here, unveiling this book, because it's exciting to be in Stanley's space. And where we were having this event was in the part of the house where Stanley's private offices used to be. But at the same time, I said, I don't know that Stanley would have wanted this book to be in the world. And she said, no, no, no. I think he would be okay with it. I don't know that that's true. I don't know if she was just being nice to me. But Stanley. Stanley really worked hard to maintain a very. To maintain control over his vision, how people perceived him and how people perceived him as a director. And I think he liked to maintain this illusion that his. His films were just kind of birthed into the world fully formed. He never spoke a lot about the struggles that he absolutely went through on every film he made. And the Shining was no exception. So one of the things that was really interesting for me doing this book is it really humanized Stanley Kubrick for me, especially for me as a filmmaker. I was able to see him struggle through the creative process. You know, looking at all the different drafts of the screenplay and knowing that he hadn't figured out how he was going to end the film, even when he was well into production. Those are normal things for filmmakers to go through. But that's not something we think of when we think of Stanley Kubrick. You know, we just. We. You know, we put him up on this pedestal as being a brilliant filmmaker, which he absolutely is and was. But he was also a human, and he struggled and didn't always have the answers.
- [11:01]
Nathan Abrams
No, I completely. One thing I've learned about looking at his entire career is he struggled from film to film, and often in the earliest, even just to get the financing. But the interesting thing is, is I think he set himself such a high bar and didn't repeat himself. So each time he's dealing with a different genre and setting a high bar, I think that added an extra strain. Did that come across?
- [11:23]
Lee Unkrich
Well, I mean, I think it's, you know, 2001 a space odyssey was seen as such a unfathomably high watermark, not just for himself, but in cinema that, you know, he was rightfully branded a genius at that point. And you know, I'm sure on some level he had to be aware of that and you know, was very careful in what he chose subsequently to make so that he never repeated himself and so that he had the opportunity to continue to create interesting cinema. But it had to have been some degree of pressure for him for sure. I mean, again, he's human. So he, you know, he, I mean, not only was he a just kind of a creative filmmaker, but he was also a businessman. And you know, he had kind of carved out a very privileged way of working that most, not all, if not all directors in the industry have not been able to share. He had just had complete control over his films. Basically once the studio approved the screenplay, once he had finished a screenplay for any given film, his deal was such that the studio wouldn't see the film again until it was completely finished. And I, you know, I don't. Maybe there are a tiny handful of filmmakers now who can work that way, but not many. But he knew that having that privilege came with a responsibility to make the studios money. I mean, they weren't just going to throw money at him to make films and have him do kind of vanity projects that nobody wanted to see. I mean, he always, he tried to make things that were interesting to himself, of course, but he also knew that they needed to be commercial. And that's honestly part of the reason that he chose to make the Shining. Because his previous film had been Barry Lyndon in 1975 and it was a big commercial flop. And so Stan Lee definitely had a lot of pressure on himself to give the studio a hit. So that's a big reason why he chose to adapt Stephen King's novel. Because Stephen King was up and coming as a newly best selling author and very popular. And I think Stanley saw that as an opportunity to maybe create something that could be a bigger hit for himself and for the studio.
- [13:55]
Nathan Abrams
It's an interesting move to go from. As you mentioned, it's a science fiction in 2001 and I suppose we could describe A Clockwork Orange as a science fiction to a 18th century costume drama and then to a horror movie.
- [14:08]
Lee Unkrich
Well, again, he never wanted to repeat himself. The only way I can see that he ever really did repeat himself was that he'd made two war films between Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket. But of course we're talking about two very different wars and Paths of Glory really isn't a war film. It's more of a courtroom procedural in the end. So, yeah, he was aware of that. He did not want to repeat himself, and he also didn't want to make anything that he didn't deem original. You know, he. He was developing a film called the Aryan Papers for a long time, which was going to be his Holocaust film. But then when he saw Schindler's List, he. He put it away because he thought, I can't top that, and I shouldn't try to. You know, he thought that Spielberg had made the quintessential Holocaust film. And so he. Despite all the work he had put into the Aryan Papers, he. He decided to move on and find something different.
- [15:08]
Nathan Abrams
Just to go back to something you said earlier about what motivated you on this project, the discovering the stills of the hospital epilogue. It's a hospital. I know. Well, actually, the Royal Free in North London. The counterfactual question, had he kept that in, how do you think it would have changed the film? Do you think the film's better for not having it?
- [15:29]
Lee Unkrich
I haven't seen it, so it's really impossible for me to say. I have read the scene. You know, I've read the screenplay, and I've talked to people who saw it there. There were some people who actually got to see it in theaters before Stanley cut it out. And honestly, most of the people say that they thought it was not necessary. And it ended the film on an odd note. And I think Stanley. I know that Stanley struggled himself with whether it should be in the film or not. During the editing process, he kept repeatedly taking it out and putting it back in. And it was actually his daughter Vivian who convinced him at the 11th hour to put it back in. But clearly, a few days after release, he changed his mind and decided it really needed to be out of the film. So he took the unprecedented move of having a couple of editors, one on each coast, drive around in a limo to all the theaters where the Shin was playing and physically cutting the scene out of the print. I don't. I don't think that's ever happened ever on any other film. I've never heard of anything like that.
- [16:43]
Nathan Abrams
Before I ask you to describe the book. I just got another question. The Shining has attracted a lot of theories. I mean, out of all of Kubrick's movies, probably the most written about and maybe alongside 2001, what do you think it is about the Shining that's attracted all this? All these theories, like those in room two in the film run 237. But there's. There's many more besides. Why do you think that's the case?
- [17:11]
Lee Unkrich
Well, I think several reasons. One of them is that Stan Lee, on all of his films, worked very hard to not tie things up in neat little bows. You know, he wanted the audience to think about what they'd seen and interpret it however they wanted to. You know, I know that he made decisions on all of his films, and I know specifically many of the decisions he made on the Shining of things, too, that he thought were important. At one point, he had written them, he had gone through the effort of filming them, only to ultimately cut them out of the film. And in every case, I think it was in an effort to make the film more enigmatic, to just not answer all the questions. And anytime you have a film that's like, not neatly answering all the questions for the audience, you're opening yourself up to, of course, a lot of interpretation and analysis and people kind of contemplating meanings. So that was also coupled with the fact that on the Shining specifically, Stanley, early on, when he was writing the film with Diane Johnson, they spent a lot of time talking about a lot of other kind of inspirational source material. And one of those pieces was an Essay on the Uncanny written by Sigmund Freud. And Stanley spent a lot of time reading that, thinking about it, talking about it. The essay essentially talked about Freud's theories, about what elicits a feeling of uncanniness in a person and the fact that the world of art, specifically is best suited for creating a feeling of uncanniness. So Stanley absorbed that, and I think it guided a lot of decisions he made on the film. I mean, you can't argue that the film is a very uncanny film. It gets under your skin and you feel unsettled watching that film, certainly. And that's, I think, because of a lot of the choices that Stanley made. And some of them are really kind of in the subconscious. One of the things that Freud talks about in his essay is the use of kind of repeating things, like things that shouldn't repeat. Repeating, for instance, the idea that somebody might live at a certain address and you see that man leave that address and then he gets on a bus, and the bus happens to be the same number bus as the person's address and so on and so on. Encountering the same number throughout. Throughout the day in a way that maybe you don't even notice, but subconsciously you feel it. And it gives an uncanny feeling of somebody kind of Pulling the strings behind the scenes like a greater force somehow. And so Stanley played with that in the Shining. I have notes of his where he's writing down numbers on pages and figuring out places where he can repeat numbers. And so he most definitely was doing that kind of thing. And once people are aware that he was doing some kind of manipulation behind the scenes, that then opens them up to thinking that everything in the film was by design, which is not the case. People look at a chair disappearing in the background of a scene and they think, oh, what is Stanley doing there? What is he trying to say by that chair disappearing? When in reality it was either a continuity mistake or in many cases, Stanley. He was so concerned with individual photographic compositions that he wouldn't hesitate to remove something from the background if he thought it was messing with the composition. He never anticipated a day and age where people would be able to digitize his films and overlay frames and do the kind of microscopic analysis that people have done with his films. And again, they want to try to ascribe meaning to all of it. But, you know, in most cases. I don't know if I'd say most cases, but quite a few of the cases there, there's really nothing. There's no there there behind it. And even Stanley was aware that by the Shining that people were going to really dig into his films. I have an anecdote in the book where they were shooting a scene, and after they cut, Stanley turned and winked at a crew member and said, let's let the French film critics figure that one out. So he, you know, he was aware of it and he toyed with it. But at the end of the day, I mean, none of it was being done frivolously. I mean, it was all done for an end purpose, you know, even if it was a decision he was making long after production was over, during the editorial process.
- [22:09]
Nathan Abrams
I think in part, it attests to his sort of godlike reputation that there could be no intentional errors that you alluded to earlier when you talked about Stanley's reputation.
- [22:19]
Lee Unkrich
Yeah, yeah. No, but he, you know, he didn't always know what he was doing. And he was constantly asking questions of everyone around him, not only to learn from them, you know, absorb their knowledge, but he was constantly asking people what they thought of different scenes. And, you know, I know in Full Metal Jacket, he didn't know how he was going to end the film for a very long time. And he was constantly bringing the actors together and having conversations about how they felt the film should end. So he was. People don't think of him as a collaborative director, but he was a very collaborative director. In the end, of course, he was making all the decisions that he wanted to make as the director of the film. But he. He questioned everybody, I think, to try to kind of create as much fodder for him to chew on and, you know, make the final decisions that he was going to make about his films.
- [23:07]
Nathan Abrams
Just to go back to the numbers that Kubrick was doodling, what numbers did you come across?
- [23:14]
Lee Unkrich
I have one instance where, you know, in the movie, the hotel room where the woman is in the bathtub is room 237, but in Stephen King's novel it's 217. And so on, kind of early galleys of Stephen King's novel before Stanley later changed the room to 237, I have notes of him writing down that number 217 and speculating maybe that 217 could be the Torrance family address in Colorado of their apartment. At the beginning of the movie, he, you know, he kind of gleefully noted that his initials S.K. were the same as Stephen King's initials, S.K. i think he took some delight in that coincidence. And I think he also took delight in the fact that Jack's name in the book, Jack, is the same as Jack's name, Jack Nicholson. And then the one kid that they managed to find out of the thousands that they auditioned ended up being named Danny, the same as in the novel. So he. Yeah, he just. I think he delighted in that.
- [24:17]
Nathan Abrams
I thought what was very smart in a change from the novel is that Jack drinks Jack Daniels. It's Martini's in the novel. It's another little thing.
- [24:27]
Lee Unkrich
And he didn't even make that change until quite late. You know, I note in the book that they brought in a bartender from the Savoy to teach actor Joe Turkel how to make martinis. And he spent all this time learning how to make martinis only at the last minute for. For Stanley to change it and have him serve him Jack Daniels at the bar.
- [24:48]
Nathan Abrams
I haven't heard that one about you. To go back to the numbers, are you familiar with Geoffrey Cox's theory of the multiples of seven leading to the number 42 that requires a movie?
- [25:01]
Lee Unkrich
Yeah, and I think there has to be some truth to that. There's no record of it in the archives, and I spoke with Diane Johnson about that and she didn't have any particular memory of that. But Stanley didn't discuss everything. There was a lot that was just in his head. But you. You kind of can't deny that. Yeah, that number seven. And multiples of seven play a part in the film. You know, when. When the Timberline lodge wrote to Stanley and asked him to change the hotel room from 217 because they had a room 217 and they were worried people wouldn't want to stay there. After the movie came out, he changed it to 237. Why? 237? It could have been anything. Could have been any number. But he picked 237. And that's when things start getting interesting. Because if you multiply 2 times 3 times 7, you get 42. And the number 42 figures into the film in different ways. Danny has a 42 number on his shirt in his first scene at the beginning of the movie. There's a later scene where Wendy is watching the summer of 42 on a television in the lobby. Half of 42 is 21. And it's 1921 where the July 4th ball takes place that Jack appears in. In the photo at the very end of the film. So again, there's so much craziness talked about having to do with the Shining that it's easy to look at this and say, oh, well, that's just crazy too. But there's enough evidence and there are too many coincidences to just kind of write it off out of hand the way you would say the crazy Apollo 11 faking the Apollo 11 landing theories go. So again, it just adds to the. It adds to. You know, Kubrick. He kind of brought it on himself because he did some of this in the film. Again, people want to. You know, people like to solve puzzles and I think they see the Shining as kind of one giant puzzle to be solved.
- [27:00]
Nathan Abrams
I mean, I've heard Jan Harlan say that, you know, the idea that the Shining is about the Holocaust is absurd, which is Jeffrey Cox's theory. But, you know, this recurrence of the 42 is whether he considered it as being the date of the Final Solution or not. You know, and that sort of repetition in the movie does lend itself to this kind of.
- [27:21]
Lee Unkrich
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the linking it to the Holocaust seems like a major stretch to me. Unless it was something completely subconscious for Stan Leam, he would have had. I don't. I just don't see any reason why he would have done that. But the other essay about the connections to the Native American genocide, I mean, that was very much true. A lot of that. Stanley did discuss that with Diane Johnson. And there are a lot of Native American motifs that are used design wise all over the film. And Stuart Allman, the manager, even discusses the fact that the Overlook was built on ancient Indian burial grounds. So that was something that Stanley was thinking about for sure. But to call the film kind of a metaphor for that genocide I think is an overstretch in my opinion.
- [28:13]
Depop Advertiser
This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you might want to sit down. Right now loads of people are searching the following on low rise jeans, halter top, velour, tracksuit, puka shell necklace, disc belt. You likely place these in the dark of your closet in 2004, never to be seen again. But if you can find it in yourself to dust them off, there are a lot of people who will give you money for them. Sell on Depop where taste recognizes taste.
- [28:42]
Nordstrom Rack / State Farm / VRBO Advertiser
Did you know you can opt out of winter with VRBO? Save up to $1,500 for booking a month long stay with thousands of sunny homes. Why subject yourself to the cold? Just filter your search by monthly stays and save up to $1,500. Book now@verbo.com.
- [29:00]
Nathan Abrams
All right, I've skirted around talking about the book, but let's get to that now. So you've done this decade of research and it's a mammoth volume and would you like to tell us how you've structured the book and also its sort of unique design features?
- [29:15]
Lee Unkrich
Sure. I should back up and mention my co author on the book, Jonathan Rinzler. J.W. rinzler. When I first approached Jan Harlan about doing the book, he said, great, yes, we'd love to see a book like this, but the problem is we've just been approached by someone else who's proposed a similar book and we can't support two, so you need to figure this out. I said, well, I don't know, reach out to this person and see if they would be willing to talk with me and perhaps there can be some kind of collaboration. So Yan did introduce me to Jonathan and as it turned out, Jonathan also lived in the San Francisco Bay area where I lived, and so I invited him to Pixar to have lunch and we hit it off and that began what became a multi year collaboration. I had never written a book before and Jonathan had written many books on the makings of big films, but he also did not have any research at that point about the Shining. And I had amassed quite a bit and had started doing some interviews. So it really, you know, we were kind of two pieces of a puzzle that fit together quite nicely on this project. We didn't know we were going to be publishing with Tashin right out the gate. That was our desire because Taschen had already published a number of other books in conjunction with the Kubrick estate. But at the time, they weren't willing to commit to another one because they still hadn't released their book on the making of 2001. And I think they wanted to see how that was going to do first. So I forged ahead and basically self financed the writing of this book and all of the research with the hope and expectation that somebody would publish it eventually. And again, I hoped it would be Taschen. Ultimately, as we got deeper into the project and the 2001 book came out and was a big success, I approached Taschen again. And I ended up having a meeting with Benedict Taschen down in Los Angeles. And he was very much interested in doing the project and moving forward with it. So. So after some degree of negotiations, we finally worked out a deal to do the book. And we continued to work on it, we continued to write it. And at some point later in the game, we started meeting with the design firm MM in Paris. They had also designed the Taschen Napoleon book and the 2001 book. And so they seemed like a good fit to do the Shining book. I actually met with them very early, early on, before I even had the deal with Taschen. Because I knew they had done these other books. And I was trying to figure out how to put together the most compelling presentation to Taschen. And so I got them involved a little bit to help with that. And I think Benedict was happy that I had already been talking with them. And I seemed like I was being very proactive with the project. One of the things that I remember talking about with the two men at MM was this scrapbook. In Stephen King's novel, there is a scrapbook that kind of recounts the sordid history of the Overlook. And it's a big part of the book. And it actually, at one point, was a big part of the movie. There were many, many scenes shot having to do with the scrapbook. And Jack finding the scrapbook and starting to become obsessed with it. And his obsession with the scrapbook ended kind of mirroring his slow descent into madness. And for some reason, Stanley decided to edit that completely out of the film at some point. I think it most likely had to do with time. But I think, again, it probably had to also had to do with him wanting to be more enigmatic about why Jack was descending into madness. But the thing is, many scenes had been shot that had the scrapbook in it that, you know, he couldn't remove the scrapbook from the shots. So when you watch the film now, you can see this scrapbook. You can see it laying open on Jack's writing table in quite a few scenes. And I became kind of fascinated with this notion of, like, these kind of ghostly echoes being left behind in the film, of ideas that didn't make it into the finished film. And as it turns out, they had a scrapbook in the Kubrick archive. I eventually figured out that it wasn't the scrapbook that was actually used in the film. It was more of a mock up, like a proof of concept that had been created. But I told the guys at MM about this, and they became really fascinated with this notion. And so they, pretty early on wanted to do some kind of facsimile of this scrapbook and have it be part of the book project. So ultimately, they came up with the idea of initially doing two books. That there would be a book that would be very text heavy, that would be the actual making of the Shining. But then there would also be this scrapbook which would be essentially a photo folio, just featuring one photo per page. A big, oversized, beautiful scrapbook. And eventually I had ideas about including more ephemera with the book, with a special edition, at any rate. And so we designed this third volume, which is kind of a facsimile of Jack's box of typing paper. And when you open that box, you have copies of all the original typewritten, hand typewritten pages. All work and no play. Makes Jack a dull boy. But when you lift those out, there are a number of other sub volumes, different kind of booklets and things in that box. And it allowed us to kind of include some material more in depth, for which there really wasn't another place in the other books. So, yeah, the final Taschen special edition is three volumes. The box of typing paper, the ephemera box, then the making of and then the scrapbook that we created.
- [35:43]
Nathan Abrams
Yeah, I should point out at this point that I think the making of sections some 900 pages long it is.
- [35:49]
Lee Unkrich
And I said it was text heavy, which it is, but it's also very loaded with photographs and documents as well. Yeah, it was about 900 pages. Taschen has never published a book like that that's so text heavy. They traditionally are very image forward with minimal captions or sometimes some essays. But I told Benedict from the beginning, if we were going to do this book, you know, I set out to create the definitive text on the making of The Shining. And that's what I wanted to do. And he was supportive from the beginning and MM was very on board for the challenge of designing that book as well. So that's part of why they made that book smaller. It's. It's very hand holdable. It's kind of an oversized paperback almost. We wanted a book that people could sit in a chair and read and not have to sit at a table, which you definitely have to do with the scrapbook volume.
- [36:49]
Nathan Abrams
Well, it's kind of amazing that you convinced the publisher to give you 900 pages just on the making of the Shining. I mean, I think any number of authors out there would love that space. To go through all of Kubrick's films, let alone any other filmmaker, I should.
- [37:02]
Lee Unkrich
Say that the text was probably about a third again, longer the first draft. So we did have to make a lot of judicious cuts to get it down to fighting. Wait. But it still is quite long, but hopefully engrossing for people that are interested in Kubrick and the film.
- [37:17]
Nathan Abrams
Oh, I certainly enjoyed it. Now I'm desperate to know what. What got left out in that final edit.
- [37:24]
Lee Unkrich
Just a lot of little things all over the book. We probably, I think we. We spent a lot more time talking about Vivian Kubrick's documentary. Stanley's daughter, who was 17 at the time. He tasked her with filming a documentary on the making of the film. So she was on set nearly every day through the whole production filming and amassed nearly 50 hours of footage, which was ultimately edited down into a, you know, maybe 25 minute film or so. So we, you know, we spent more time probably talking about that documentary. I remember cutting out a lot of material having to do with that, so. But I'm glad it exists. I'm glad that I have this kind of longer version, which maybe is truly the quintessential definitive version. But what people are getting with the book is as close to that as we could come.
- [38:18]
Nathan Abrams
What's interesting about the documentary, just to sidetrack a sec, is that it's often praised as of unvarnished window into Kubrick at work. And it's some of the only footage we have, apart from a little bit of footage from Full Metal Jacket. And it doesn't always present him in the best light, yet he edited it. Do you have any thoughts on that?
- [38:37]
Lee Unkrich
Sure, yeah. He actually didn't edit it, but he most assuredly had control over it and what ended up in it. As I said earlier, Stanley very much was in control of his own image. And with the documentary I think here's what I've kind of learned about Stanley. One of the things I learned about Stanley is that he actually was very introverted. He could wheel control on the set, but he was ultimately an introverted man. He wasn't highly social. And I know from many accounts that he often felt intimidated around Jack Nicholson because Jack was just such a big personality and very social. And Stanley, I think, felt, I don't know, like he needed to go toe to toe with him a little bit with the documentary. Yes. It's interesting to note what kinds of moments are in the film that show Stanley working. And in pretty much every case, there are moments where he's being a little tough. And I know that that was not how he was on the set all the time. He could get that way if he was frustrated or somebody had messed up or any number of reasons. But by and large, he was a. You know, he was a kind, methodical man who treated his crew really well, and they were very devoted to him. And his actors, for the most part, love him as well. So, yes, you look at those moments in the film, like, where he's kind of admonishing Shelley Duvall for missing a cue and messing up a shot and other moments where he's being kind of a little more firm. And I have to think that he. You know, those moments are in the film because he wanted them there, because I think he thought it made him look like the director that he knew people thought him to be. You know, he didn't. He didn't want to be shown being vulnerable, even though he was filmed being vulnerable many times. And unfortunately, that's led to some. Some problems because, like with the Shelley Duvall moment in particular, people look at that moment where he's kind of raising his voice with her. I don't think he's being abusive. He's just. He's raising his voice because he's frustrated. And she had messed up a shot that was very difficult. And it was done toward the end of production when everybody was very burnt out and crispy. So he raises his voice with her, and people look at that moment in the film, and they extrapolate out. Oh, he must have been like that all the time. That must be how he treated everybody. And that just must be how Stanley Kubrick was as a person. And again, not the case. You know, people like to write endlessly about how abused Shelley Duvall was on the film. And they blame the experience for the mental illness that she suffered later in life. And it's all really Just crazy. When I discuss this, I really like to kind of put the power and the voice with Shelley, which is where it deserves to be. And Shelley herself has spoken many times on this subject throughout the year. And in every case, she only has nice things to say about Stanley. She acknowledges that it was a very difficult shoot, at times very challenging for her, and that she maybe didn't always agree with Stanley's methods. But at the end of the day, she realized that everything was a means to an end. And Stanley was just always pushing her to give the best performance that she could give. And she. You know, she talks a lot about how much she learned from Stanley and how he helped make her a better actress. And so, anyway. But again, that's another example of Stanley making a decision to portray himself in a certain way. And, you know, decades later, it came back to bite him because people make a lot of assumptions because of those few fleeting moments that you do see him being tough and raising his voice in the documentary.
- [42:42]
Nathan Abrams
It's interesting because he did. I don't think he liked how the British tabloid press, which is kind of unique, treated him, particularly in the wake of A Clockwork Orange. And yet some of the decisions he made sort of fed into that, like presenting himself almost as the ogre figure in this documentary.
- [43:02]
Lee Unkrich
Well, he didn't do a lot to fight it, for sure. And if anything, especially after Clockwork Orange because he actually was worried for his life and his family's life after the reaction to that film, he became. Became incredibly private after that. That was really the trigger point for him to become as private as he ultimately became. But, yeah, he. Yeah, he did often. Well, here's the other thing is, if you read any interviews with Stanley Kubrick over the years, he was always in control of those interviews. I mean, his deal, you know, he would only agree to do interviews if he had the opportunity to edit the interview because, again, he wanted to make sure that he sounded intelligent. And I think that he didn't trust himself speaking extemporaneously in an interview to not sound anything less than brilliant. So you read these interviews and you're like, wow, he is so well spoken and has thought all of these details through. But again, the reality is that was another construction, in a way. I mean, it's still himself, it's still his voice, and it's still his ideas, but it's very curated. The only thing I heard about that he actually really got upset about. Christiana would talk about how Stanley was endlessly annoyed with people's obsession with how Many takes he shot on his films. And first I should say that, because I have the receipts and I know how many takes he shot on every single shot in the entire film. Stanley was not obsessive with the number of takes. He shot very few scenes where he went into high numbers. And in most of those cases, it was because Scatman Crothers couldn't remember his lines properly. But Stanley did sometimes shoot a lot of takes, and he. He just did not understand why anybody cared about that. He would say to Christiana, you know, nobody asks a painter why they used a certain number of brush strokes to create their painting. No, it's irrelevant. All that matters is the finished work. And he didn't understand why people had this odd obsession. And I'm sure he probably spins in his grave knowing that it still happens. I mean, it's like you hear Stanley Kubrick, and for a lot of people, they immediately think, oh, lots of takes.
- [45:24]
Nathan Abrams
Yeah. And often my understanding is, like you say, he had a preference for classically trained British actors who remembered their lines, and not all non theater actors remembered their lines. So, you know, that was the basic thing. But then he wanted something interesting. So if you're getting your lines wrong at first and it's uninteresting and you're getting your lines wrong, and then you get your lines right and it's uninteresting, then of course, it's not always his fault, is it?
- [45:53]
Lee Unkrich
No. And again, what's fault? I mean, what does it matter how long it takes to get there? I mean, Stanley. Stanley was responsible with his budget. So he knew that to be able to work the way he wanted to work and to potentially go long on his schedules, you know, where do you. Where do you find the money to support that? And he found it by having small crews. He didn't have massive crews on his films. There were times on the Shining where there were only a handful of people on the set. And he did that so that he wasn't paying a bunch of people money that. That he would rather see up on screen.
- [46:28]
Nathan Abrams
Indeed. The final question. Well, sort of penultimate question. What, in this course of the research, is there something you've come across, the, you know, revelatory discovery that kind of changed your view of the film or gave you deeper insight in this decade plus that you've been spending on it?
- [46:53]
Lee Unkrich
Well, there are a lot of small, specific things. You know, I mentioned the scrapbook. But there were other story ideas that Stanley shot and ultimately abandoned. And you see kind of ghostly echoes of those left behind. In the film as well. My experience watching the film now is very different than prior to creating this book because I now see the. The production of the film and the scenes that he shot that aren't in the film. I kind of see all that as I watch the film. So it's kind of forever changed my relationship with the film. And it's interesting. I interviewed Steven Spielberg for the book and ultimately he agreed to write the foreword. And one of the things he said in his foreword, he said, basically, you have to read this book and the moment you finish it, watch the Shining again. And I don't care if you've seen it 50 times, you'll know. See it the same way again. And I think he's speaking to just what I was talking about, that the book exposes you to so many moments and images and just the whole path of developing the film and writing it and shooting it and ultimately editing it that it's just not the same. And I don't know that that's a good thing, necessarily. I mean, I do respect that Kubrick just wants the films to exist as they are. David lynch is very much the same way. He doesn't like to talk about his films. He doesn't like to talk about how they were made. He just wants them to exist and to be interpreted as people want to interpret them. And Kubrick was similar in that regard. But I don't know. I'm a film fan, and I'm a fan of Kubrick and a fan of the film. And I wanted to create this. And I think if nothing else, I hope it continues to inspire future filmmakers and help them learn about Stanley's methodologies, how he worked and how he created the brilliant films that he created. And I wanted to offer a window into that. At the end of the day, my biggest revelation, I think, honestly, is what I said earlier is that it humanized Stanley Kubrick. I feel like I know Stanley in a way that I didn't prior. And in as much as this book is about the making of the Shining, it's also very much about Stanley Kubrick. There are a lot of sidebars in the book that talk about different aspects of how he worked and his relationships with actors, et cetera. And there's a lot of material in there that I've never seen before anywhere else. So I think that it will also give scholars and fans of Kubrick kind of new insights into who he was as a person in the filmmaker.
- [49:30]
Nathan Abrams
And do you have a theory about.
- [49:31]
Lee Unkrich
The film in terms of meanings? Yeah. No, I don't.
- [49:38]
Nathan Abrams
You don't put your neck out. I have one.
- [49:40]
Lee Unkrich
I mean, I don't have, like. I don't have, like, crazy theories. I have theories about why he made some of the choices he made in terms of changing Stephen King's novel. I have theories about, say, you know, there's this moment at the end of the film where Shelley Duvall is running around the hotel and the hotel is kind of throwing all these scary images at her. And one of them is her running into the lobby and seeing all these cobwebs and skeletons. And it's a moment that's very out of character with the rest of the film. And Stanley actually ended up cutting it out of the subsequent European release of the film. And most people I talk to just hate that moment and they don't understand why it's there. And even people who worked on the film never understood why he put it in, but I feel like I know why he put it in. And it was a case where he then kind of second guessed that choice and took it out. But. Do you want me to talk about that for just a second?
- [50:34]
Nathan Abrams
Yeah.
- [50:35]
Lee Unkrich
So there's a moment early in the film when Jack is being interviewed for the job at the hotel. And after he's been told about the grisly history of the hotel, specifically the former caretaker who killed his family with an ax, the manager asks, what Jack. You know how Jack's wife will be with all this information. And Jack says, she'll love it. She really will. She's a confirmed ghost story and horror film addict. And my thinking is that that line is there for a reason. And I think on this is my interpretation, I think that Stanley saw that as a moment where the hotel was hearing what Jack had to say. And at the end of the film, the hotel desperately wants Danny and wants his power, his shining. And the only possible person that can save him after Dick Halloran is murdered by Jack is Wendy. And so the whole climax of the film is Wendy running around the hotel trying to find Danny to desperately trying to save him. And the hotel is throwing everything it can at her to try to stop her. And one of the things, I think it's just trying anything that it can. And one of the things it tries throwing at her are these kind of stereotypical ghost story images of cobwebs and skeletons. And again, it's totally out of keeping with the style and lighting and design of the rest of the film. It's a. You know, it's a horror film that's Shot in bright light. Yet here is this kind of spooky, heavily shadowed moment. Blue light, cobweb skeletons. And why is it there? I mean, it does freak her out in the moment, but it doesn't work. She keeps going and keeps trying to find him. So I think that's what that was about. You could argue whether that's successful or not. I think the fact that so many people have a problem with it maybe means it wasn't. And Stanley probably recognized that. And that's why it was one of the things he decided to remove when he did the European cut of the film.
- [52:34]
Nathan Abrams
Yeah, I only grew up with the. I grew up with the European car and I only saw the. The longer North American version much later in life. And obviously, having grown up with one version I sort of prefer it, as people do.
- [52:47]
Lee Unkrich
Everyone I talk to who grew up with the European version will fight tooth and nail that that's the best version. And I prefer the longer one for a number of reasons. I mean, it's the version I lived with for decades before I ever saw the European cut. And there are things in it that I think are mistakes to remove but it doesn't matter. I mean, at the end of the day, I asked Leon Vitale, Stanley's longtime assistant which version Stanley thought was the definitive finished version. And he said, well, definitely the European version. Because he was fighting against the clock at the end to get the movie cut and finished on time. And he never felt like he had quite enough time to cut the film the way he wanted to. And so I think the. The fact that the film opened to such negative reviews initially gave Stanley license to keep working on it and keep shaping it. I asked Leon why, if the long, the shorter version was the definitive version why does the longer American version still exist in the world on video? And he said that Stanley had a rule that if a movie was released in a certain way in a certain territory that that was the version that should always be in that territory in the world. So that was his thinking. And it's very interesting because I don't know that I can think of any other movie where two different versions exist.
- [54:17]
Nathan Abrams
I suppose there's all the versions of Blade Runner which have a connection to the shiny.
- [54:21]
Lee Unkrich
Yeah, Blade Runner, yes. But I mean that. Yes, they exist but that Ridley would probably just want whatever he finally ended up on to be the only version that's out there.
- [54:35]
Nathan Abrams
My theory about the scenes you mentioned in the North American version is that Shelley can shine just as Jack and Danny can shine. And so what she's seeing when she sees those images are images from the past.
- [54:51]
Lee Unkrich
Well, definitely. I mean, it came from somewhere. Right. You know, Danny's ability to shine. So she. Don't all mothers have some small bit of shining in them? I think so. So it makes sense. I mean, Jack has some in him too, because he sees things in the hotel anyway. Yeah.
- [55:12]
Nathan Abrams
Again, well, that's great. Thank you. Thank you very much for your. For your time. For your time today. But before we go, are you going to be working on another book anytime soon?
- [55:22]
Lee Unkrich
No, I don't have any plans for another book. I don't know that I have another one in me after working so hard on this. I think this was the thing that I needed to get out into the world. But I've. I've long learned that anytime I think I'm done or I'm not going to do something again, you know, if the right thing comes along, I'll. I'll. I'll consider it. So you never know. I know Tashin would like to work with me again.
- [55:46]
Nathan Abrams
That's great. Another Kubrick or someone else entirely.
- [55:49]
Lee Unkrich
I'll leave that to somebody else who's obsessed with another film.
- [55:54]
Nathan Abrams
Well, that's great. Thank you very much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed it. And take care.
- [55:59]
Lee Unkrich
Absolutely. Great talking with you. Bye. Bye.