The Genius and Madness of Stanley Kubrick | Joe Rogan and Whitney Cummings

You know? There's people that want to forgive people though for things like... Remember when there was a lot of Roman Polanski apologists? Oh, I don't think I caught them. There was quite a few. Yeah, I mean... Wait, in Hollywood? Yes, like legitimate actors and actresses that were saying, you know, it's time to let it go. He's an amazing artist. And if so... He fucking raped a 13-year-old! I'm good! Rosemary's Baby's fucking great movie, but I think he's done it. It's a wrap. But there are people like, you know, Stanley Kubrick, who is arguably my favorite. One of the greatest geniuses ever in filmmaking. By the way, I was reading that the guy that directed Ex Machina kind of loosely based the guy on Stanley Kubrick. Oh wow. Did you ever see... And then as soon as I thought about that, I was like, oh yeah, totally. Alex Garland, I think is the guy's name that wrote it. I thought that was interesting. But have you ever seen the videos of Kubrick directing Shelley Law and all the stories about how he terrorized her throughout the production to get her into a... I mean, he didn't want her to sleep. He wanted her to have bags under her eyes. Oh wow. He would wake her up in the middle of the night and he'd scream at her and call her a cunt. And then he'd be like, action! And then he'd be like, action! And then she'd be like, fuck! Like, it was... Her performance is unbelievable. Wow. And it's like, was terror... Today that would be a hostile of work environment. She went from that to being Olive Oil in the Popeye movie with Robin Williams and then she just quit. Yeah, I mean... I mean, I don't think she quit. But she was so good in The Shining and then she didn't do a lot of other movies. Does emotional abuse make great art? I don't know. I know the same thing happened with Ricky Schroeder and the Champ. John Voight was like really shitty with him. He was a little kid. He was like six, seven years old. Yeah. He was really shitty and mean to him before the scenes. Yeah. So you start crying. Yeah. I mean, there's also... There's a director who... There was an explosion in a movie and the actor... You know, it's a fake explosion and you're going, ah! And then one take, he was like, just make it real. Just don't tell him. And the fucking take was amazing. And the actor got all pissed off, but the fucking work, you know, you get to get credit for that. So it's... It is this tricky thing. Like, I did a show called Adam Ruins Everything. You know that show? It's... He's just a smart dude. He asked me to do a little guest spot and I had to play a flight attendant in the 50s who was getting sexually harassed. Like, that was the scene. Right. And because that's what, I guess, airlines used to do that. They would sort of pimp out their flight attendants. If you were engaged, you weren't allowed to wear your ring. Really? You had to floor. Yeah. It was like the episode's really interesting. Well, they were supposed to be really hot, right? There was the whole thing about flight attendants. You had to be a certain size and you had to be young and then you had to kind of like... Boy, did they let that go. It was kind of a... It was a... Last flight attendant had was a man. You've been playing Delta? He weighed 235 pounds. He was 5'4". Nice guy, though. But it was like a dating service back then, basically. And Adam did the whole thing on it. And I was in there and it felt very much... Everyone was like, okay, whatever, you feel comfortable with. And it was like, no, we have to do... We have to make this feel uncomfortable, you know? Like, don't worry about my feelings right now. Right. You know? It's like... You know, so there is a lot of... It's like, it's like... It's like, it's like... It's like, it's like... It's like, it's like... It's like, it's like... You know? It's like... You know? So there is just this conversation about like a no hostile work environment and everyone needs to feel emotionally safe. Like... Well, can you get to that place... Could you make the shining today? Yeah. Well, can you get to that place without being harassed if you're a really good actress? Like, if you're really crazy? Of course. But I just... You know, you still have to do it. You know, go for it. I mean, isn't that the argument about great actors? That they kind of have to be crazy. Like a Daniel Day Lewis type acting. Right. Like, you have to kind of be... Like, that's why they're method actors, right? Yeah. They have to stay in that mindset because to maintain that mindset is really the only way to achieve it. Like, you almost kind of have to be there all the time. Well, and also the being in character thing. Like, when people like, you know, bitch about like when Christian Bale had his... Meltdown. Meltdown and stuff. It's like, I mean, it's just, there's so many people on a set and there's so many distractions. Right. And, you know, at some point you're just like, I have... It's impossible to fucking focus. And there's also, there's losers on set sometimes that fuck things up and they get in the way. That's right. That does happen. Yeah. The fact that they recorded him screaming at that guy, it's like, well, I want to know what that guy did and who was that guy. That guy might be a moron. Hadn't he been starving himself for like seven months or something? I don't think that's the mechanic. I don't think it's the same movie. It's just like, you know, he's... Not the mechanic. What is it? The machinist. Machinist, right. It's like, I'm the face of this fucking movie. I'm under all this pressure. I have to get this thing. We're losing light. And this fucking guy's cell phone goes off. I don't know exactly what happened. Right. It doesn't happen. I think it's like, I'm not going to say Louis is like, I'm calling me Mr. Link or nobody talked to me. It might just be his way of being like, just fucking stop asking me if I want hummus. Like just let me fucking focus. You know? But I think for like really intense roles, which I've never done, so I'm just completely talking out of my ass. I would think that you might have to maintain some really crazy state of mind to get there. So it doesn't look fake because you know how, you know, like you see, you ever see the movie Punch Line with Sally Fields? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So when Sally Fields is killing, I'm like, get the fuck out of here. Like that's, no one's laughing at that. It's not real. Okay. When actors do stand up, I think real stand ups are like, okay. What? You know who's nails it though? That lady who plays the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Mrs. Maisel. She's amazing. I love her. Rachel Brosnahan. Yeah. I love her. It seems legit. It does. Well, it's also in the fifties. Yes. You know, I think, right? But even the guy who plays Lenny Bruce is great in that movie. The one on Showtime, Cast Real Comics. Remember Eric Griffin was on it and Al Madrigal was on it, that one on Showtime. Oh yeah. Dying up here. Dying up here. Yeah. You know, just like Cast Real Comics. Yeah. But the writing one, that was like a little shoddy. Do I see? But I'm sure it's different for everyone, but I do think though sometimes, you know, you've been on sets. Like if you have to do a scene with somebody where you're screaming and you hate each other, if you're hanging out all day on Instagram and then it's just like, it's hard to unfake like chemistry or knowing someone. So I just think it's interesting, like, you know, Stanley Kubrick probably would be canceled today. Probably. Yeah. Well, especially by people who don't understand what's required in order to achieve what he's trying to get. Yeah. Kubrick was a mad man though. I mean, he used to do complex mathematics in his spare time. Yeah. Like as a hobby, right? Yeah. Like a complex calculus and stuff like that. He would do shit where he would, I think on Eyes Wide Shut, he did like do 80 takes of Tom Cruise walking through the door and then I'll show up. Like he didn't want actors acting. Like he wanted them, he wanted them in the actual state of mind instead of acting like they were in that actual state of mind. Like he wanted that. So he really wanted Tom Cruise to be like exhausted and fucking pissed off and annoyed. So he's like, go piss him off and then let me know when he's in that state. I mean, he would like terrorize Shelly Duvall. It's like kind of famous and she looks fucking terrified. Yeah. You know? And also she's working with Jack Nicholson. There's a great video of him preparing for one of the scenes. Oh fuck. And he's jumping up and down and throwing his arms in the air and going, ah, ah, ah. He's like, like freaking out. You know, you could see him working himself up before the scene. I mean, he, it's like those scenes that he did, especially like the acts through the bathroom door, you can't just go into that cold. You've got some of that in here. Yeah, it worked up. Yeah. It's wild. Like I'm, I'm so obsessed with that movie because like the little things he did to make you feel uneasy in a subliminal way. He's getting ready for the scene. He's like jumping her up and down. She's like, okay, I'm in here. And he's like, fucking yeah. Who's this guy? I don't know. Yeah. There's nine people that want to like ask him if he needs any hand sanit. Yeah. That's a guy with the walkie talkie going in there. He's really dressed up like golfers back there. What the fuck? What a fucking preppy asshole. It's a great goddamn movie. You know that movie, Stephen King didn't like that movie. Well, well that's why they say that the car on the road that's crashed on the road, there's a red car in the beginning of the movie that's crashed on the side of the road. And then Stephen King's version, there was a red car. So Kubrick crashed that car and then it was a yellow car. So he actually put shit in the movie to like troll Stephen King. Kind of amazing. But he did shit that was so fascinating, like little things to make you feel uneasy, like continuity errors. Like he'd cut to a scene, there'd be a, like if there was a chair behind you, cut away, cut back and there'd be no chair. Shit you wouldn't really notice in case you were like dissecting it. But there's also a lot of weird references in that movie to the Apollo moon landing. That's right. Like saying that. A lot of weird shit. And the Native American genocide was apparently a pretty big theme in it. But yeah. It's a great fucking movie. And the way that he, I mean there's a whole documentary about this, but that the carpet, when the kid is riding the bicycle around the carpet, that he shot it both ways and intercut them. So with the continuity is not working and it just makes you feel, yeah, he was fucking. There's a great documentary about the guy who followed Kubrick around. He was like his assistant. He was an actor and he was acting and something that Kubrick did and Kubrick wind up hiring him as an assistant. And then he just did all Kubrick's movies and hung out with him all the time. It's really strange. Is he still alive? Yeah. Get him on. The documentary is really good. What is it? Do you know what it is? It's not the room two, three, six, one. What is it? The lost tapes? I think it's on Netflix, I believe, right? No. No, no, no. The guy who hung around with Stanley Kubrick. It's about him. I think it's film workers. Is that it? Maybe that's it. A life in pictures 2001. No, no, no, I don't think so. Just Google the guy who worked. Filmarker. That's it. Filmarker. Right. I just sort of realized somewhere along the line, like, oh man, I'll never be able to make a fucking movie. Like I'll never be able to do what he's doing, so I'm just going to start working with him. So he's his personal assistant. He started out as an actor and he just worked with Kubrick through all of his movies. Oh, wild. Yeah. Somehow or another, they just clicked together, so he wanted to work in for him. So it's like, you probably don't know the name, Leon Vitali. Scroll down, please. Stop. You don't know the name Leon Vitali, but the upcoming documentary film worker hopes to change that forever. Yeah. British actor. Yeah. Handpicked by Stanley Kubrick to play the role of Lord Bullingdon in Barry London. Yeah. It's interesting because this guy sort of devoted his life to work with Kubrick. It's interesting. And that was also back in the day. I think Kubrick would do like a movie every five years or something. That's back when you made a movie when it was ready. Now everyone's like, pfft, pfft, the movie every eight months in the noon. Well, you know the Apocalypse Now story, right? No. The movie took forever. Oh, right, yeah. The movie took like seven fucking years to make. Did Oliver Stone write that? No. No. That's Francis Voor Coppola. Oh, okay. That's like, I don't think Oliver Stone wrote that. Maybe I'm wrong. I think he was involved in some way. I don't think so. I'm kind of obsessed with Oliver Stone. Yeah? Mm-hmm. I think that's what my honor ceases in college about. So fucking dorky. The postmodern implications of the movie JFK. I was just obsessed with that movie. At the time it had the most edits in any movie ever. And the way that they just did mix me. I just fucking loved the movie and I just wanted to write about it and dissect it. It's a great movie, but the problem is they sort of, he makes it seem like you know exactly what happened. Right. The reality is we don't know exactly what happened. We don't know who killed JFK. It was very likely that it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald though. Yeah. And if it was, that if Lee Harvey Oswald did take a shot, he didn't take the only shots. There was other people shooting at it. Right. It's just so fucking blew my mind the way that he makes movies.