Dissertation

DISSERTATION:

WAS SHELLEY DUVALLS ACCLAIMED PERFORMANCE IN THE SHINING WORTH THE ALLEGED UNETHICAL PRACTICES OF THE FILM’S DIRECTOR STANLEY KUBRICK?

THE BEGINNING

Is art ever worth a person’s wellbeing?

Art has been a core component of human existence ever since people began painting on cave walls. There is art everywhere, from Renaissance paintings in art galleries to flash mobs in train stations. Art has always been a way for people to express feelings, protest things and connect to others in a manner that basic communication sometimes cannot express.

Film is the world’s most popular art form, the moving image consumed by millions of people around the world each and every year. Film director Alejandro G. Inarritu once said “cinema is a mirror by which we often see ourselves.” (McNary, 2016). Films are so popular because they allow people to see into other worlds, to imagine themselves with other lives, going on great adventures. Whilst it is the director whose vision comes to life on the screen, it is the actors whom those watching connect with. Great screen actors such as Katharine Hepburn and Gene Kelly have become timeless – immortalised on the screen “like angels and ghosts” (Babylon, 2022).

One example of a timeless cinematic figure is Shelley Duvall, star of Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed 1980 horror film The Shining. Shelley Duvall was allegedly mistreated by her highly respected director when starring as Wendy Torrance, wife of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance. Duvall had a tough time on set due to director Stanley Kubrick allegedly using unethical practices on set. In this essay, I will be focusing on the way Duvall was treated and shall be interrogating the ethical issues surrounding said treatment. The aim of this essay is not to argue one side or the other, but to discuss all components of the question: was Shelley Duvall’s acclaimed performance in The Shining worth the alleged unethical practices of the film’s director Stanley Kubrick?

In this dissertation, I will explore the cultural impact of The Shining, as well as Shelley Duvall’s experiences working with Stanley Kubrick. The film itself follows the Torrance family, who are looking after the Overlook Hotel whilst it is closed for the winter. The film goes to dark places, with Jack Torrance lashing out at his wife Wendy, who is played by Duvall. Wendy is regularly tormented by her husband just as Duvall was reportedly tormented by her director. Her role in the film was very demanding on both sides of the camera, her on-screen part requiring deep levels of emotional vulnerability. I will also be exploring other examples of mistreatment of actors in the film industry, as well as actors who have risked their well-being for their roles.

THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHINING

To begin with, it is important to establish the cultural importance of The Shining. A widely acknowledged masterpiece of modern horror, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) is celebrated by film critics such as Roger Ebert (2006), who described it “cold and frightening”, horror fans who awarded it a 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and general film fanatics for its iconic imagery, dramatic performances, and for its place as one of the greatest films of all time (as demonstrated by its place at number 88 on Sight and Sound Magazine’s 250 Greatest Films of All Time list; a list compiled with the input of industry professionals, film critics and film academics). The Shining was released on the same weekend as The Empire Strikes Back, the first sequel to one of the biggest films of all time, Star Wars, but made more money per screen on average by $11,315. The “here’s Johnny” scene has been referenced in film and TV for years, in the likes of Pixar’s Finding Nemo and Fox animation’s Bob’s Burgers, and it is difficult to find someone who is not familiar with the image of the two Brady sisters stood eerily in the hallway. This signifies The Shining’s long-lasting appeal and cultural significance.

The film was so different to other horror films of the time, mostly because of its slow pace. This is something that Avalon Allen (2019) argues was actually a strength of the film: “the jarring moments of excitement occasionally interspersed throughout the story become so much more memorable and striking”. The themes of domestic abuse and the idea that the truest horror is in mankind is another of The Shining’s strengths. Kubrick’s film “focuses on the inner life of its three central characters as well as the inner life of the family they comprise”. (Lutz, 2018)

Although The Shining stands proud as the celebrated movie it is, it wasn’t always so revered. At the time of its release in 1980, its critical reception was fairly mixed. Gene Siskel (1980) wrote for the Chicago Tribune that The Shining is a “crashing disappointment” and that “it contains virtually no thrills”. Siskel also mentions the book, by Stephen King, praising the author for his work and claiming that the source material is not the issue here. Stephen King was not a fan of Kubrick’s interpretation of The Shining. He disagreed with many of the choices that Kubrick made, and said that he completely missed the point of what a horror film was. King was so displeased with the film that he commissioned a 3-part series in 1997 to portray a version of The Shining that is much closer to the book (but not nearly as well known as Kubrick’s version). King also made a point about Shelley Duvall’s portrayal of Wendy, saying that she differed so much from the strong heroine of the book. He even went so far as to claim that she is “one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film. She’s basically just there to scream and be stupid, and that’s not the woman that I wrote about.” (Gompertz, 2013)

The Shining has become a reevaluated classic since its release in 1980. It is critically revered by respected film critics such as Mark Kermode (2017) and Roger Ebert (2006). Kubrick and Nicholson have both received tremendous praise for their work on the film. There was an entire floor of the London Design Museum dedicated to Kubrick’s work for an exhibition in 2019, within which there was a The Shining section. The film is shown in cinemas every Halloween. The British Film Institute sells socks with the pattern of the Overlook Hotel carpet on them. Martin Scorsese, director of acclaimed film Taxi Driver, named The Shining as one of his eleven scariest films of all time (Peaty, 2012). Numerous The Shining references can be spotted in Pixar movies, whether it’s the carpet in Sid’s house in Toy Story, or a copy of Jack’s axe in Coco.

Shelley Duvall has also had a long road to recognition. During the year of The Shining’s release, the actress received only one nomination for her performance: a nomination for worst actress at the Golden Raspberries. Although she didn’t win the award, the nomination was revoked in 2022 after the organisation recognised that she had a hard time on set, and that would have impacted her performance. Maureen Murphy, co-founder of the razzies, commented on regretting Duvall’s nomination: “Knowing the backstory and the way that Stanley Kubrick kind of pulverized [sic] her, I would take that back.” (Schager, 2022). Duvall’s performance has since been praised as “one of the great naturalistic performances in horror”. (Davidson, 2016)

SHELLEY DUVALL’S EXPERIENCE

To begin to discuss whether or not Duvall’s experiences on the set of The Shining were worth any potential abuse and the ramifications of such abuse, we must first establish what her experiences were. The filming of The Shining took more than one year – whereas “it was supposed to take six months” (Macnab, 2020). During that time director Stanley Kubrick, a widely acknowledged “perfectionist” (Freer, 2018), forced his actors to retake scenes up to and over 100 times. There is a scene featuring the young boy, Danny (played by Danny Lloyd, who was 7 at the time of filming), and the head chef of the hotel, Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers). The two characters are sharing ice cream and discussing their shared ability which Halloran calls ‘shining’ – a type of sixth sense that allows them to see visions of future events and to “hold conversations entirely without ever opening our mouths,” (The Shining, 1980). This scene broke the world record for the most number of takes with 148 takes (Guinness World Records, n.d.).

Following closely behind is the infamous staircase scene, featuring Duvall as Wendy swinging a bat at her crazed husband whilst she cries and backs up the staircase. At this point in the film, Wendy has just discovered that all of the work her husband has been doing over the few months they have been isolated at the hotel they are caretaking is nonsense and that he has repeatedly written “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” on countless sheets of paper. Wendy displays true fear as she backs away from her husband, who is shouting and mocking her and eventually threatening to “bash (her) brains in,”. This scene signifies the moment that Wendy realises her husband has lost his mind, and that she is in danger. It is shot through a first-person perspective, turning its focus towards Wendy as she swings her bat towards the camera.

Duvall said that Kubrick “didn’t print anything until at least the 35th take” (Abramavitch, 2021), and that some of the scenes were filmed over 100 times. Although this has been disputed by Lee Unkrich, the author of “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining” (2023), who has heavily researched The Shining for 12 years (Desowitz, 2023). Unkrich, a successful filmmaker in his own right, claims that the shot logs for the film report an average of 15 takes per scene and that there must have been some confusion between takes and rehearsals because Kubrick did like to rehearse a lot. It is reported by Unkrich via Indiewire (Desowitz, 2023) that Kubrick didn’t like it when the actors didn’t know their lines properly. He could tell in their faces and voices, in the moments of hesitation, that they didn’t know their lines as well as they could do. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This famous quote, often attributed to Albert Einstein, feels particularly appropriate when discussing the making of The Shining. Kubrick has often been referred to as a perfectionist, the attention to detail in his movies being praised often, and even being the subject of a conspiracy documentary: Room 237 (2012). But could it be that Kubrick intended to cause this feeling of insanity in his actors? Roger Ebert questioned this in his review of The Shining: “Was that “perfectionism,” or was it a mind game designed to convince the actors they were trapped in the hotel with another madman, their director? Did Kubrick sense that their dismay would be absorbed into their performances?” (Ebert, 2006).

There is no way to access the copies of the unused takes, so there isn’t a way to verify that there was any difference in the quality of the performances between takes. However, the sheer number of takes assured that Stanley Kubrick’s power as a director was felt and that his control was imparted onto Duvall. To force anyone to do something 127 times is inarguably an act of control, but for Duvall to be forced to deliver an emotionally taxing and physically demanding performance, imagining all that trauma and threat, is something that could have been detrimental for an actress as inexperienced as Shelley Duvall was at the time, this being only her sixth feature film. This power imbalance between Duvall and Kubrick could play into the way that he constructed the shots, particularly for the staircase scene, which is shot in first person.

This could be interpreted as a perverse sort of realisation of the director’s intent behind his bullying, reflecting their imbalanced power dynamic.

In addition to this, it has been reported that Kubrick isolated Duvall, encouraging other crew members to ignore her. There is evidence of this in Making ‘The Shining’ (1980), in which he says “Don’t sympathise with Shelley,” in regards to her hair loss on set. He also apparently “ordered the production team to ignore her as much as possible” (Villa-Real, 2020). Placing her in a scene in which she was the focus and making her record it 127 times would have added to this feeling of isolation, making her feel responsible for stopping the crew from going home, halting the progress of the film.

This is something that Kubrick was not unfamiliar with. As director of Eyes Wide Shut (1999), the experienced filmmaker reportedly had unusual and arguably unethical on-set rules for his cast, particularly Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The couple, who were married at the time, played a married couple who were experiencing some distance from each other in their relationship. In order to encourage this reality, Kubrick isolated the actors from one another, forbidding them from talking to each other off set.

According to SlashFilm (Siebold, 2022), “Kidman and a male model filmed naked for six days, posing in 50 unique sex positions…Kidman was forbidden to tell Cruise about her experiences filming the sex scenes.” This shows how Kubrick was familiar with the concept of pushing other people into uncomfortable situations. It is therefore not unrealistic to assume that the ways in which he forced Duvall into unusual circumstances (isolating her, making her do so many takes) was a purposeful decision made with the intent of affecting her mental state.

Duvall also suffered ill health throughout her filming of The Shining, something that she claims is because of the stress of the role: “From May until October I was really in and out of ill health because the stress of the role was so great and the stress of being away from home.” (Kubrick, V. 1980). Duvall reported in a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter (Abramovitch, 2021) that her boyfriend of 3 years, Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel, with whom she had a very public relationship), broke up with her at the airport, right before she was due to board the plane to London to begin filming The Shining. The article reports that “she cried for the entire journey across the Atlantic – what, it turns out, would be just a warm-up for the emotional marathon that lay ahead.”. This suggests that Duvall was already in a fragile state when she arrived at the set of The Shining, but the emotional strain of filming The Shining was even greater. It is not clear whether or not director Stanley Kubrick knew about Duvall’s breakup, so we cannot assess whether that had any effect on how Kubrick chose to deal with Duvall. However, we can infer from this that Duvall probably felt more isolated than other cast members. The same Hollywood Reporter interview states that “Duvall rented a flat by the studio in Hertfordshire, where she lived for the length of the shoot with only a dog and two birds as companions,”. Anjelica Huston (who was dating and living with Jack Nicholson at the time of filming) commented “Nobody does that…you go back and forth from London, even though you could get stuck in two-hour-traffic going in and out… she was just terribly dedicated and didn’t want to shortchange herself or anyone else by not giving over fully to her commitment.”. Duvall has also mentioned the toll that doing so many takes took on her: “Thirty-five takes, running and crying and carrying a little boy, it gets hard. And full performance from the first rehearsal. That’s difficult.” (Abramovitch, 2021). Many of the clips from Vivian Kubrick’s Making ‘The Shining’ (1980) highlight Duvall’s experience on set. There is a moment in which she holds up a few strands of hair that have come out whilst filming a scene. Hair loss can often be a symptom of stress – this is one of the causes mentioned on the NHS website. (NHS Choices, 2019)

Duvall wasn’t the only member of the cast who was allegedly tormented. According to Lee Unkrich in Indiewire (2023), “Stanley Kubrick found out that Jack Nicholson didn’t like cheese sandwiches, and so he made him eat cheese sandwiches through the entire shoot to keep him in a bad mood.”. Although this was likely unpleasant for Nicholson, it is not at all equal treatment to being isolated and harassed in the way that Duvall allegedly was. Jack Nicholson has said of the experience that he and Kubrick “had a good, friendly relationship,” but that “he was a completely different director with Shelley.” (Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, 2001)

Kubrick may have made these decisions based on the fact that Nicholson was a much more experienced and reputable actor at the time. By 1980, he had already won an Academy Award for his performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), and had been nominated four more times before then. Duvall, however, was just starting out in her acting career. She had received the award for Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival for her performance in 3 Women (1977) – which incidentally was the performance that caught the eye of Stanley Kubrick. But The Shining was only Duvall’s 6th film, whereas Nicholson had been performing since 1958, with over 30 feature films to his credit before The Shining, which was incidentally Kubrick’s 11th feature film of his 29 year career to this point. Duvall’s comparable inexperience to her co-star could be the reason that Kubrick pushed her so hard – perhaps he thought she needed the encouragement more than Nicholson did. Equally, her inexperience could suggest that she was more powerless and easier to take advantage of. Not only that, but because Nicholson was more experienced and a bigger star, he was the selling point of The Shining – he was the big name to draw the fans in and was therefore more of a risk to manipulate. Duvall was more expendable.

THE SHINING IS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT

The alleged mistreatment of Shelley Duvall is not the only instance of something like this happening in the American film industry. Judy Garland, star of The Wizard of Oz (1939), was groped by cast members on set and was on a strict diet of “coffee, cigarettes and chicken soup,” (Taylor, 2021). Tippi Hedren was also subjected to unusual directing methods by Alfred Hitchcock during filming of The Birds (1963). Hedren had been told by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used for the filming, but Hitchcock ordered for real birds to be used. When Hitchcock retaliated to the doctor’s order of a week’s rest for Hedren, the doctor “questioned if he was trying to kill her.” (Newbridge Silverware Visitor Centre, n.d.). Garland and Hedren were both relatively inexperienced during their on-set ordeals, just as Duvall was for The Shining.

This isn’t an issue exclusively reserved for inexperienced actresses, however. Since the release of The Shining, more difficulties have arisen. Amy Adams had a problematic time working with director David O. Russell on the set of American Hustle (2013). Adams said of Russell: “he was hard on me, that’s for sure. It was a lot… I was really just devastated on set.”(McGurk, 2016). Adams is an example of a powerful actress, working with a powerful director. The power dynamic was different, but the unusual practices were as prominent and affecting.

Though there is a gendered dynamic to the majority of these cases, there are examples of men in the industry who have been subjected to unusual working conditions courtesy of their directors. Bryan Singer, the director of Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), was fired from his position after his frequent “tardiness and absences” (Masters, 2018). The situation escalated into an “on-set altercation” (Masters, 2018) between Singer and Malek, and Singer was fired shortly thereafter.

In addition to the people taken advantage of, there are also many actors who have committed themselves to a role at the cost of their own wellbeing. Similarly to how Duvall was “terribly dedicated,” (Abramovitch, 2021) and lodged close to the film set (which inflated her own sense of isolation), Heath Ledger committed himself to such a level of method acting that it affected his health – for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), he “sat around in a hotel room in london for about a month, locked (himself) away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices,” (Richards, 2007). The role caused him to lose sleep, and shortly before the film was released in 2008, Ledger was found dead due to a lethal mix of medication – one of which was to help him sleep. It is not uncommon for an actor to dedicate themselves to a role so wholeheartedly: Natalie Portman trained for almost a year before filming Black Swan (2010) to learn ballet, and she also lost “20 pounds to achieve the slender ballerina frame despite already possessing a slim build.” (Ferrier, 2023)

Many people performing in horror films (like The Shining) have experienced trauma from their roles. Alex Wolff starred in Ari Aster’s debut horror film Hereditary (2018), in which his character accidentally kills his younger sister, causing the family to lose their minds and turn against each other. Wolff said that the film “did about as much damage to me as a movie can do,” (Lammers, 2021). A similar thing happened to Janet Leigh who featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The famous shower scene in which her character was stabbed caused Leigh to stop taking showers and only take baths. She said “I’m always facing the door, watching, no matter where the shower head is,” (Gross, 2018). It could be inferred that performing in a role in which the character goes through something traumatic is traumatic for the actor as well.

There is a theoretical model developed by cognitive scientists Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich. This model proposes the idea of thoughts belonging in boxes in a person’s head. For example, if a person believes in fairies then their Belief Box contains fairies. There is also a “Possible World Box” which contains things a person might think but are not true, such as ‘humans can fly’. This is something that is explained by Samuel Kampa (2019) for Big Think. He proposed that this theory could extend to “character immersion”. A person who is playing a character, and is fully immersed in this character, would not pay attention to their truth boxes, such as their belief box. Instead, they would pay attention to their “Possible world boxes” which would contain the thoughts and feelings of their character. Whilst this is all theoretical, it suggests that in moments where Wendy Torrance is terrified, Shelley Duvall is also terrified. This theory relies upon the actor being “fully immersed” (Kampa, 2019), and we can’t know for sure whether Duvall was. However, with the amount of takes she was forced to do, it is possible that at some point this may have occurred, and that if it did she was forced to experience that much too often for it to be considered safe.

In the years since The Shining’s release, changes have been made for the betterment of actors in the entertainment industry. 2017 saw the #MeToo movement, following the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Weinstein was a prominent film producer who was sexually abusing and harassing women who were trying to make it in the film industry. He paid off a number of these women to not speak about their allegations against him. This was until people began to come forward about their experiences with Weinstein and his company Miramax, and the New York Times published an exposing investigation about Weinstein’s misconduct (Kantor and Twohey, 2017). This was the beginning of the #MeToo movement, in which people began to come forward about the ways they had been mistreated in not only the film industry, but in all walks of life. What has happened since then is that people are more open to having these conversations. Powerful people in the film and tv industries are being called out for their inappropriate behaviours towards the people who have less power than them. Actor Kevin Spacey was ‘cancelled’ in modern-day terms, and was dropped from the final season of House of Cards (2013-2018) after allegations of sexual assault emerged against him (Shanfeld, 2022).

Following the Weinstein scandal in 2017, the use of intimacy coordinators became law in the film and tv industry in the United Kingdom, with it becoming policy for some studios in the United States.(Kantor, 2021). Although they had been employed in theatre for decades, it was because of the #MeToo movement that these coordinators began to be used in filmed media. In October 2018, one of American television’s most prominent television producers, HBO, announced that they would be using intimacy coordinators for all shows with intimate scenes. The job of an intimacy coordinator is to “choreograph and supervise scenes involving sex, intimacy and nudity.” (Sorensen 2022). They cover things such as making sure that intimacy patches and clothing are available for the actors, in case they want to cover up between takes. They are also in charge of coordinating “closed sets” where only key crew members are there for the filming, and they make sure protective mats and kneepads are available if needed. The introduction of these intimacy coordinators means safer working environments for the actors who engage in sex and nudity scenes. In spite of having only one nude scene (which didn’t feature Duvall), The Shining cast may have benefitted from someone who was looking out for “the safety, dignity and wellbeing of the cast and crew.”, as intimacy coordinators do. If someone was actively looking out for the well-being of the performers, then perhaps Duvall wouldn’t have been pushed to a point where she “resented Stanley at times because he pushed (her) and it hurt,” (Kubrick, V. 1980).

With all this in mind, it is important to consider how Shelley Duvall might have benefitted from the #MeToo movement. There are no allegations against Kubrick from Duvall that accuse him of sexually assaulting her, but perhaps if The Shining was made in the post-#MeToo age then Duvall may have been treated with a bit more kindness on set. Perhaps Kubrick’s controlling behaviour would have been called out, and Duvall wouldn’t have been pushed so hard.

WAS IT WORTH IT?

Shelley Duvall was active during a pre-#MeToo era. This was a time when women couldn’t speak up about their experiences as freely as they can now. This meant that she couldn’t do anything about the way that Kubrick was treating her on set. This was also an age before easy access to the internet and social media. This not only means that she was isolated from communicating her struggles but that she also couldn’t access information that might have alerted her to the toxicity of Kubrick’s behaviour.

Before The Shining, Duvall was an up-and-coming Cannes-winning actress. She had unlimited potential as an artist and a lot of potential as a sellable asset for films – given the notoriety she would’ve accrued from The Shining and from being in a relationship with Simon of Simon & Garfunkel. After The Shining, Duvall spent 20 years in the film and television businesses, before retiring from acting and disappearing from the spotlight.

Many people have speculated that performing in The Shining is what drove Duvall away from acting, but she spent another 20 years in the public eye before disappearing back home to Texas. A lot of her performances after The Shining were aimed towards children. She hosted, produced and occasionally starred in children’s TV show Faeire Tale Theatre (1982-1987), and then later starred in Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories (1992-1995). It could be possible that performing as Wendy Torrance was so distressing that Duvall completely abandoned horror, and took a sharp turn towards the emotionally milder end of performing.

In retrospect, there are many reviews to be found of The Shining that praise Duvall’s performance, labelling her as “the heart of the film” (Jalali, 2021). Many comments have been made about how effective her performance was, and have linked this effectiveness to the way Kubrick treated her. Sam Sewell-Peterson wrote for The Film Magazine (2019) that “she shouldn’t have been put through the physical and emotional turmoil Kubrick insisted on, but it did result in the reality of her fragile nature”. It seems clear that what Duvall went through was worth the resulting art to many people.

In Vivienne Kubrick’s Making ‘The Shining’, Duvall herself says ““If it hadn’t been for that volley of ideas and sometimes butting of heads together it wouldn’t have come out as good as it did.”

It could therefore be argued that the art was worth the pain simply to create something good and lasting. The Shining is so famous and well-known, and it has been referenced in such abundance across other media that it is undeniably a part of our cultural zeitgeist. If the aim of making a movie is to create something impactful, The Shining achieved that.

Duvall has since made comments about how Kubrick seems to be getting all the credit for The Shining. In conversation with Roger Ebert (2006), she said “after all that work, hardly anyone even criticized [sic] my performance in it, even to mention it, it seemed like. The reviews were all about Kubrick, like I wasn’t even there.”. It seems clear that Duvall felt she wanted some more recognition for everything that she went through. She felt like all of the “hard work” was for the benefit of someone else.

Duvall herself believes her performance wouldn’t have reached its potential if she hadn’t been pushed so hard – and for this reason it could be argued that the turmoil was worth it for the sake of the film, for Duvall’s shot at immortality. For the sake of the art. The Shining takes a very important place in history, and has influenced modern filmmakers such as Stephen Spielberg (Ready Player One) and Jordan Peele (Nope). The fact that people are still discussing the impact of The Shining, and the ethical implications on Duvall’s part, could mean that it was all worth it in the end. It is a great feat to be a part of something timeless.

After a period of absence of no less than two decades, Shelley Duvall has recently made her return to acting in the upcoming horror film The Forest Hills (2023). In an interview with YouTube channel grimmlifecollective, Duvall mentioned how natural it felt to return to acting. In another interview with People Magazine, she said “Acting again – it’s so much fun. It enriches your life”.

This is perhaps a reflection of how Duvall herself thinks her experience on the set of The Shining was worth it to her. Although she did also admit that she wouldn’t want to repeat the experience, in spite of how valuable it was.

It is important to note that it is possible to encounter trauma in any profession. It is not something that is exclusive to actors. It is also important to note that actors are greatly financially compensated in a way that allows them to pay for therapy, and this is not something that other professions often allow the resources for. This amount of money gives actors the option to step away from things, whereas in many other professions this is not an option. This does not mean, however, that stepping away from something that is traumatic is an easy thing to do. The situation is not always as simple as recognising that something is bad for you and stepping away from it – and this may have been the case with Shelley Duvall.

Actors are put under a lot of very different pressures to what those in other professions are. In many cases, actors will have to simulate distressing emotions and situations that they likely wouldn’t encounter in their everyday lives. As Duvall stated, “To wake up on a Monday morning, so early, and realize [sic] that you had to cry all day because it was scheduled – I would just start crying” (Abramovitch, 2021). It is possible to argue that there are so many actors who are traumatised from their roles that it is something that is simply unavoidable; as if it is just a part of life and so it is to be expected, and the experience of being part of the movie is not to be blamed. This was the argument that the facilitators of the little Albert experiment made when they conditioned him to be afraid of rabbits. They argued that the rough and tumble of playing as a kid would have exposed him to the same type of experience that they were giving him. This has been disputed in the years since the experiment was carried out, and has since been referred to as “one of the most controversial experiments in the field.” (Bokhari and Bartunek, 2015). Many people argue that it is still, in spite of all their protests, unethical to purposefully give someone a fear of something, even if it allows for a scientific breakthrough. We can argue the same for Shelley Duvall in The Shining. Even though all that she experienced on the set may have led to an incredible performance, it is still unethical to treat someone that way for the sake of art.

CONCLUSION:

Answering whether the art of Shelley Duvall’s performance is worth the allegedly unethical behaviour of her director Stanley Kubirck is not as simple as a “yes” or “no”. Furthermore, it is worth questioning which person or collection of people decide this.

As the author of this dissertation, it is important to recognise that my own exploration is limited in a number of ways. First of all, I was not present for the filming of The Shining, so I can’t know for certain what occurred on set between Duvall and Kubrick. Therefore, my assessment is limited to sources that are closely related to the filming of The Shining – such as interviews with Duvall herself. Secondly, I am limited in my word count – I cannot possibly explore the full depth of whether the alleged unethical practices were worth the performance in only 4000 words. I recognise that I have made a start, and begun to explore some of the issues that are involved in my question – was what happened on set actually abuse? Do all actors effectively sign up for trauma? Would Duvall have been treated the same way in a post-#metoo world? – but that further research including one-to-one interviews with Duvall would be required to comprehensively cover the debate with this particular case study.

Maybe, then, it’s important to recognise the importance of the conversations that are being had about Duvall. There are countless articles and videos online discussing the trauma that Duvall experienced on the set of The Shining. In this dissertation, I have written about Shelley Duvall, praising her performance and raising concern for her wellbeing. This is perhaps something important to consider – that she is relevant. She is known so well for being in one of English language cinema’s greatest horrors.

Despite spending two decades out of the spotlight, she is still being discussed today. This is proof enough that her performance was of a standard that so few actors ever reach. It has had a lasting effect on people. Whilst it brings a sense of melancholy to the viewers’ experiences, it also brings something real. It is truly something powerful to be able to watch someone experiencing so many intense emotions and to feel like you know that there is something real going on there.

Maybe nothing is true. So many publications profit from gossip and exploiting people. Lee Unkrich claims that all of this talk of Shelley Duvall being abused is nonsense, and that it has all been very exaggerated over the last 40 years or so. It is difficult to recognise in this day and age, more than forty years later, what is and isn’t true. We can try to find sources that come directly from the set of the film, such as Making ‘The Shining’, and we can try to find exactly what Duvall has said about the experience, but none of us were there.

I would like to choose to believe that there is some level of truth to what happened to Shelley Duvall on the set of The Shining, and that regardless of whether or not she was emotionally abused there remains a contemporary relevance to her experience as a woman in the film industry during our current #MeToo era.

These are Shelley Duvall’s experiences, and it is not my place to decide for her whether she is traumatised or not, whether the alleged trauma was ‘worth it’ for the success of The Shining. This is something that is personal to Duvall, that only Duvall herself can decide. It is up to Shelley Duvall whether Stanley Kubrick can be forgiven for the way that he treated her. It is up to her to decide whether her art is worth her emotional turmoil.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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CONTENTS:

THE BEGINNING
THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHINING
SHELLEY DUVALL’S EXPERIENCE
THE SHINING IS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
WAS IT ‘WORTH IT’?
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY