You Should Know Shelley Duvall's Name

When you talk about the film The Shining, two names usually come up: Stanley Kubrick, and Jack Nicholson. Kubrick, of course, directed the film, while Nicholson gave a career-defining performance as RP McMurphy with an axe (he would later go on to such iconic roles as RP McMurphy, but a gangster, and RP McMurphy, but he’s in the army this time). The name most people don't remember is that of Shelly Duvall, the actress who plays Jack Torrance’s wife. She is unquestionably the star of the film, and delivers possibly the most accurate portrayal of someone in utter terror that I have ever seen on film, largely because Stanley Kubrick bullied her into a near breakdown. 

    That’s probably why nobody remembers her - when she does get brought up, it’s usually as another example of how a brilliant male director treated his actors like shit, but damn it he got results. It was all for the art, don’t you know. And in every such article, whether it’s on Cracked,com, in the pages of Sight & Sound, or in any other cultural publication, there’s always the same implication that it was Kubrick who should really get the credit for Duvall’s performance. After all, he stressed her out so much that she started going bald and cried so much she suffered from dehydration - isn’t that why she plays such a convinced victim?

    No, it isn’t. When you take a bad actor, or even a mediocre actor, and put them under intense stress, you;ll get a bad performance. I’ve heard a lot of ex-military types say that noone “ever rises to the occasion” in stressful situations; rather, they descend to the level of their training. I’ll take their word for it when it comes to their line of work, but it’s definitely true in terms of performance. Shelley Duvall gave one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in a horror film (perhaps even better than Toni Colette’s in Hereditary) because she is an incredible actress. Nicholson, meanwhile, played the same character he’s been playing since One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - of course, like anyone who does the same thing over and over again, he’s become exceedingly good at it, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s essentially a one-trick pony.

TL;DR: Shelley Duvall should be a cinematic legend, and Stanley Kubrick was a bit of a cunt.