Leon Vitali is one of cinema’s unsung foot soldiers. After appearing as an actor in Barry Lyndon, he became Stanley Kubrick’s assistant for two decades, which in Kubrick years amounts to only three films (The Shining, Full Metal Ja_c_ket and Eyes Wide Shut). Tony Zierra’s conventional but compelling documentary offers rare on-set footage and surprising glimpses into the auteur’s MO, but the portrait that sticks is of Vitali himself.
Vitali had a career as a rising young heartthrob on British TV — in a documentary about cinema’s most rigorous auteur, it’s unsettling to see ’70s school sitcom Please Sir! — before a screening of A Clockwork Orange changed the path of his life. Getting cast as Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon, Vitali got a front row seat at Kubrick’s unflinching genius — during 30 takes of Lyndon beating Bullingdon senseless, Kubrick would tell Ryan O’Neal “You’re not hitting him hard enough” — but still decided to work with Kubrick behind the scenes on The Shining. Vital was asked to find young Danny Torrance in The Shining, the control-freak director in a rare case of delegation. He not only discovered Danny Lloyd, he also found the ‘twins’ who originally weren’t in the script.
A fascinating look at a man who took pride and pleasure in facilitating greatness.
In relaying Vitali’s work life, Zierra has amassed an impressive array of talking heads to spill the beans; O’Neal, Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey and the reclusive Lloyd, now a teacher. Zierra has also unearthed a treasure trove of behind the scenes photographs that is Kubrick fan gold. The film shows Kubrick being hard as nails but also suggests he was a deft politician, switching between matiness and coldness on a dime, presenting different sides of himself to get whatever he wanted.
At one point Matthew Modine describes Vitali as Igor to Kubrick’s Frankenstein and his sense of loyalty and blind faith to his boss is ever-present. But there is also a sense of Kubrick running his assistant ragged. Vitali called himself a Filmworker because there is not one all-encompassing term that adequately describes the multiplicity of roles he took on. He was on call on Christmas Day. On Eyes Wide Shut he literally worked 24 hours a day. The workload didn’t stop after the director’s death. Vitali has worked tirelessly to preserve the director’s legacy by being closely involved on restorations of Kubrick’s work. There is not enough on the toll of working for Kubrick took — his married life is totally ignored — but, now aged 60, Vitali remains a battered-but-not-bitter presence. Filmworker is a fascinating, tender look at a man who took pride and pleasure in facilitating greatness. And for that, we should be eternally grateful.