Leon Vitali's introduction to Stanley Kubrick came in 1973, when he auditioned for (and won) a role in the director's 18th century drama Barry Lyndon. Though he would only play a small part in the film, Kubrick befriended the young upstart and gave him a job on what would be his next film, The Shining - only this time behind the camera, not in front of it. In the years since, Vitali has worked with the acclaimed auteur on all his works up until his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, in 1999.

Throughout the years, Vitali served as a personal assistant to Kubrick, as well as supervising the original film-to-video transfers of most of Kubrick's titles. When it came to restore and remaster Kubrick's Warner oeuvre for a new and improved "Kubrick Collection" (due out from Warner Home Video on June 12th), there was only one man to call. However, given the the high level of disappointment the previous Kubrick Collection engendered from most enthusiasts, needless to say this was was not a job for the meek...

DVDFILE had the opportunity to talk with Vitali recently about his years with Kubrick, the auteur's relationship with technology, and remastering of this new collection. With the decision-making process that has gone on behind the scenes often misunderstood and still generating plenty of controversy, Vitali took time out from putting the finishing touches on the project to shed light on the fact, fiction and the rumor.

DVDFILE: While this is certainly an understatement, there has always been a lot of preconceptions about Stanley Kubrick, some true, some false. Obviously, he was a very private individual, but in the few years before his death in 1999, especially after the first Kubrick Collection DVD set was released to such disappointment, it seems the speculation turned very negative. That he was anti-technology, that lived as a hermit off somewhere in a castle...

Leon Vitali: Somewhere on the planet Pluto or something? (laughs)

DF: Right! No, especially after the first Kubrick DVDs, many thought and still believe that he hated stereo and surround sound, hated letterboxing, or that he didn't even know what high-def was. I was wondering if you could shed some light on the truth about Kubrick and his feelings towards technology.

LV: Absolutely. I can tell you right now in actual fact as early as 1996, we were very conscious of the fact that we were going to have to do this work. Because you know, high-definition was coming and is with us, and he was aware we were going to have to do it. And he was also aware that we were going to have to really start from the beginning and rethink the whole thing.

DF: Needless to say, most were pretty disappointed in the first Kubrick Collection on DVD. At the time, it was marketed as being all from Kubrick, but now here we are, only two years later, with this new set. Can you shed some light on the timeline and the process that went into the how and why these decisions were made?

LV: I'll tell you why. Originally, when we talked about doing this work that we're doing now, Stanley was right in the middle of the post production of Eyes Wide Shut. Though we did sort of set up stuff (for the restoration), and were going through elements and were going to get into it quite deeply, there just wasn't enough time yet to devote to the project. But in fact, Stanley had been in talks about a Kubrick Collection with Warner Home Video for many years, he just wanted to wait. I think the first discussion happened about two or three years after the release of Full Metal Jacket - when that film came out, (in 1987) home video was just really exploding and beginning to become an entity all unto its own. He got interested in that, and realized that maybe there was a way of marketing a collection. The idea was quite close to him and he wanted to do it.

But when he died, quite suddenly, Warner Home Video was given the greenlight to go ahead and do it (the first Kubrick Collection.) Now, whether or not we would have done it in a different way had he not passed away, I'm sure we would have. But the fact is they (Warner) were given permission to go off and do the first collection, and that they did. But I have to say that Warren Lieberfarb (President of Warner Home Video) was very conscious that what we are doing now with high definition is the way Stanley wanted it and there was never any question of not going back and revisiting it.

DF: So, after he died, the previous transfers were reissued with the knowledge they would eventually be revisited. How long after that did you start work on these new editions?

LV: Well, I'm tying up the loose ends now, and it has been two solid years of work...

DF: ...Almost two years since the last Kubrick Collection was released. Now, with this new Kubrick Collection, one aspect that has fans most excited are the new sound remixes. I believe that on all the titles except for Lolita, you have created new 5.1 surround sound tracks. But many think Kubrick only liked mono. Did he really hate surround sound? (laughs)

LV: First, let's clear up the whole sound question. 2001: A Space Odyssey was the only stereo film he made; everything else he did in mono. The reason he did 2001 in stereo was because it was shot in 70mm and you can't have a mono soundtrack for a presentation like that. (laughs) The reason he recorded everything else in mono was simply because up until Full Metal Jacket he did not believe that film houses around the world could have guaranteed good stereo sound. And a fact which was borne out of truth. For every Kubrick film we used to send people to a lot of major movie houses in the U.S. and the U.K. We covered all the film houses to check their sound systems, and it was absolutely true to say that you could get a guaranteed good mono track, but you could not get a guaranteed good stereo track. And if you had bad stereo, you're losing a large portion of your track. So that's why he released everything in mono, but he was not anti-stereo at all; in fact, he wished he could have done it.

With Full Metal Jacket, at first he was going to do it in stereo, but he still had this feeling that multiplexes weren't really operating at the level they are now; the sound was the last thing people thought about, often during production as well. With Eyes Wide Shut, that was recorded in stereo, and he was happy to do it once he realized he could probably say that most cinemas and multiplexes were as interested in getting the sound as right and good as they were in getting the picture right and good. So he was happy to understand that the sound was something we were going to approach again (with these new remasters), especially when you're talking about going to high-definition - it was something we were going to have to do (eventually), and now that's what we did.

DF: It is interesting that you mention Full Metal Jacket, because I think many people forget in this day and age of DVD, high-definition and "gigaplexes" is that surround sound exhibition, even as late as 1987 (when Full Metal Jacket was released) was still something of a rarity...

LV: When we released Full Metal Jacket in London at the time, Lucas was showcasing his THX system, and we were opening in a cinema that (was certified) as a THX theater. And I can tell many people didn't get that it (Full Metal jacket) was not in stereo sound. We didn't tell people it wasn't stereo, it was just a good mono mix, but really we did it (mono) for that reason only...the lack of quality exhibition.