During production on the film, the two struck up a friendship that led to Vitali becoming Kubrick’s lifelong personal assistant. Vitali worked on all of Kubrick’s subsequent films, has been one of the keepers of his legacy, and is the person charged with ensuring that all of Kubrick’s films are not only properly preserved for all time, but that they’re seen on all new video formats in a way that Kubrick would wish. Vitali supervises all Kubrick transfers, remasters, and color grading and most recently slaved over Warner’s new 4K Ultra HD release of 2001: A Space Odyssey (reviewed here). Watching the documentary, it’s clear that all Kubrick fans owe Vitali an incalculable debt. What’s more, there’s a fascinating sequence in the film that talks about the original and much-maligned DVD release of the Kubrick films (in 1999) and also the properly restored releases in 2001. It even features interview clips with Ned Price, Vice President of Restoration at Warner Bros, and Warren Lieberfarb, who was then the President of Warner Home Video and who is widely regarded as “The Godfather of DVD” (and an old friend of The Bits). I highly recommend you all check out the film if you haven’t yet.

And in honor of this, I’ve actually re-shared today an interview that Todd Doogan and I did with Leon Vitali here at The Bits back in 2001, when the properly remastered Stanley Kubrick DVD Collection was released. It was fun for me to go back and revisit the interview after watching the film, so I thought you might enjoy it as well.

And that’s all for now. Back tomorrow to catch you up on the latest news. Cheers!

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