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| Iconic poster for Stanley Kubrick's The Shining |
The Shining is, in my opinion, great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's (Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)) best film and one of the 3 best horror films of all time, (the other two being The Exorcist (1973) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)).
It is an adaptation of Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name.
Jack Torrance moves with his wife Wendy and son Danny into the grand, isolated Overlook Hotel to be its caretaker over the winter when it sits empty. Warnings of tragedies in its past do not keep away the little family, but the hotel has its way of creeping in...
The title refers to Danny's special ability to 'shine'; a psychic power to see things in the future and past and to communicate telepathically with other 'shiners' like the kind hotel cook Mr. Hallorann.
The reasons for The Shining's superiority and definite status as a cinema masterpiece are manifold:
Right from its sweeping, first aerial shot, any right-minded audience will get almost hypnotized by its visual power. Kubrick and photographer John Alcott (Barry Lyndon (1975)) serve one staggering, unforgettable tableau after the next, often in wide angles. The Shining's overwhelming 46 week shoot (expanded from the planned 17 weeks!) is seen in the film's level of attention to every detail. One of the ludicrous criticisms of its time, - The Shining received no Oscar- or Golden Globe-nominations, but was nominated for Worst Director and Worst Actress (Shelley Duvall) at the first Razzie Awards, - is that Kubrick merely does in 46 weeks and many more screen-minutes, what Roger Corman (The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)) could pull off in a fraction of the time. - Which, as much as I love Corman, just isn't true. Kubrick achieves something with stronger resonance, partly due to the extreme care and time he put into his work. - A time that is not affordable for most filmmakers.
The extremely lengthy shoot must also have heightened the performances, which are all spectacular. Perhaps a sense of the cabin fever from the plot also actually manifested itself in the lead player:
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| Icy Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining |
Jack Nicholson (Chinatown (1974)) gives a portrayal of downfall into madness and masculine despair and anger and violence that is so primordial that it continues (after many watches) to give me goosebumps over most of my body for long stretches of the movie.
Danny Lloyd is Danny, and was picked out of reportedly 5,000 (!) boys, especially because of his speech (close to his on-screen parents), and his remarkable concentration ability. Lloyd, 5 at the time, had no idea he was in a horror movie, and only did one other minor TV movie role after; then became a pig farmer and a biology teacher! You can see him today here.
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| Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining |
Shelley Duvall (Annie Hall (1977)) gives a performance which, like Nicholson's, has been much debated and is disliked by many. I have heard her character described as cartoonish, and it isn't completely wrong: Duvall's movements and facial expressions are very particular in a way that might be called cartoonish, but only in the primordial sense that Nicholson also plays, I should add. - Duvall is great. She portrays a weak woman, who is inarguably subjugated to her patriarchal husband. When he loses his mind and descends into tyranny and finally homicidal rage, the wild fear and anxiety is pouring out of Duvall and straight into every audience member. Authority derails. Wendy's weakness, on the other hand, can be debated, for she does SPOILER fight back (more than once), and finally flees and thereby manages to save her son and herself.
Finally, Scatman Crothers (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)) is unforgettable as the very likable, good-hearted Dick Hallorann. He performs, as the others, career-defining scenes like the one in bed, where he gets a message from Danny in the hotel that enthralls him in sheer terror:
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| Scatman Crothers in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining |
The details:
The Shining's formidable status also comes from its remarkable location, enormous set pieces, evocative production design and use of colors, - and its meticulous music. There is gore and really horrifying imagery, but I believe it is the music, performances, care and importance with which every scene is presented that makes us sit on pins for the movie's entire playtime.
The Shining is dizzying and truly frightening. Kubrick himself has said of its themes: "There's something inherently wrong with the human personality. There's an evil side to it. One of the things that horror stories can do is to show us the archetypes of the unconscious; we can see the dark side without having to confront it directly" The perplexing use of inter-titles, - frequently establishing times that may seem random in the context of the movie, only works to heighten the dizzying qualities of the film.
Stephen King, - notoriously inept at judging the film versions of his own novels, - have had tremendous problems with Kubrick's film. Originally hating it and criticizing Kubrick's departure from his book seven ways from Sunday, -i.e. by saying that his film isn't as terrifying as the book, because Kubrick "thinks too much and feels too little" and isn't able to believe (hinting at Kubrick's atheism) and therefore isn't able to imagine the horrors that King sees himself as able to imagine. This nonsense even made King instigate his own version of The Shining, which was made as an alright but essentially forgettable mini-series in 1997. King has since left much of his critique and acknowledged Kubrick's film's power.
The Shining is full of mysteries and things that will not be seen on the first watch, and is really a film that can be watched over and over again. The double motifs, the illogical interior of the hotel, the time paradoxes, the ending etc. - Some of it is presented here and some in the recent documentary about the film, Room 237 (2012).
The Shining is a work of art and an incredibly scary film. Mandatory watch!
Related reviews:
Stanley Kubrick: Based on his concept: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) -A robot fairytale with both heart and mind
Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) oe, Humanity and Space
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| Anxiety in a picture: The blank page from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, staring back at us, at Jack, saying, what do you know, what can you tell, who are you, what are you worth? |
Watch the trailer here
Budget: 19 mil. $
Box office: 44.3 mil. $
= Box office hit
What do you think of The Shining and Stephen King's version?
Do you agree with my all time horror top 3?
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