Tony Zierra’s documentary should be titled ‘Leon Vitali: Filmworker’ and for once Leon would get star billing after working in the shadow of Stanley Kubrick. Yet, I doubt Leon would agree as he was all too pleased to work with the ‘master’ and do his bidding whether the task was at the extremes of his ability or utterly mundane.
Leon appeared in numerous TV programmes in the early 1970s and was best known for his role as of Peter Craven in ‘The Fenn Street Gang’, a spin-off of the ‘Please Sir!’ sitcom.
He progressed to appearing in small budget films and in 1975 landed the part of Lord Bullingdon in Kubrick’s production of ‘Barry Lyndon’. Leon describes shaking Kubrick’s hand, finding it so warm and gentle it sent a buzz through him.
Kubrick’s meticulous attention to detail and his striving for perfection impressed Leon. For anyone else, it sounds like torture. If you forgot your lines you would get sacked, and Kubrick might well rehearse a scene again and again only to abandon it and move on to another scene instead.
Even being given a good beating by Ryan O’Neal in 30 takes of the same scene did not put Leon off wanting to work for Kubrick in the future. Five years later he got his opportunity when Kubrick sought help in the production of ‘The Shining’.
From then on Leon was involved in every aspect of making Kubrick’s vision come to life on the big screen. He was in absolute heaven even though this meant committing himself body and soul to his ‘master’. The more Leon gave the more Kubrick wanted and if the last detail was not correct there would be trouble.
He went on to work on the casting of ‘Full Metal Jacket’ and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ as well as any other duties required of him. Leon recounts having the part of the Red Cloak in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ which required him to wear 6-inch high platform shoes. When Kubrick wanted to see footage shot a couple of weeks earlier, Leon had to dash along in his ungainly outfit to track it down to satisfy the impatient director.
The documentary has a good selection of images and sequences from Kubrick’s films to accompany the interviews with Leon, his family and film executives and actors. Having worked 18 hour days and being at the beck and call of the master for so many years, this film is a fitting tribute to Leon’s stamina and commitment to Kubrick’s maddeningly precise demands.
Leon literally gave everything to serving Kubrick and it is fitting that he still works to preserve his back catalogue and to supervise the latest 4k version of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’
FILMWORKER / DIRECTOR: TONY VIERRA / STARRING: LEON VITALI, RYAN O’NEAL, MATTHEW MODINE, R. LEE EMERY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (VOD), JULY 2ND (DVD)
