The Shining

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Horrorphile - April 2008

The Shining

April 24th 2008 05:39

I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) many years ago on VHS. I remembered watching the trailer on television as a twelve-year-old and the images of a terrified Shelley Duvall against a wall clutching a kitchen knife while a maniacal Jack Nicholson with a homicidal glint in his eye smashes through the adjacent bathroom door with a large axe were burnt onto my retina.

The movie didn’t quite live up to the expectations I had of a thoroughly harrowing horror movie experience. I found the visual style clunky, the dialogue rigid, and the production design both garish and jarring. Then I read Stephen King’s original novel and found it to be one of the most frightening and intense novels I’d ever read. I noticed on another viewing of the film that Kubrick had penned the screenplay adaptation with Diane Johnson. Later still I found out Stephen King had been commissioned to write the adaptation but that Kubrick had rejected it, much to King’s chagrin. I’d love to read King’s original script, since Kubrick and Johnson made a few radical changes which have always been a point of contention with King fans.

The Shining Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Jack Nicholson

Shelley Duvall as Wendy, Danny Lloyd as Danny, and Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance

The Shining is a ghost story, and one of the best ones. Man and family moves into a huge mountain hotel to maintain it over the closed winter months only to be driven crazy by the ghosts who inhabit it, thus terrorising his wife and son. The themes of madness and the supernatural gift of extra-sensory perception are strong.

The Shining Danny Lloyd Lisa and Louise Burns

Danny witnesses the ghosts of the O'Grady twins

The Shining as a movie is a superbly engineered piece of horror cinema, no doubt about that. Having seen it several times since reading the novel what I originally saw as raw and clunky I now interpret as very deliberate. It’s a stylistic Kubrick uses in many of his films; a precise mise-en-scene which steadily draws the viewer under hypnosis, a kind of slow burn trance. But it’s not just the camerawork and production design, it’s the sound design, in particular the score; in this case the brilliant and distinctly unsettling electronic soundscape created by Wendy Carlos (who was once Walter Carlos) with Rachel Elkind.

The Shining Jack Nicholson and Joe Turkel

Jack seeks solace in The Gold Room with Lloyd the barman (Joe Turkel)

And then there’s the cast and their performances. Kubrick was notorious for stubbornly coaxing extraordinary work from his actors, sometimes demanding up to 100 takes for a line of dialogue. In The Shining Jack Nicholson delivers arguably one of the very best performances of his career. The descent into rage and madness which consumes Jack Torrance is something to behold under the talent of Nicholson (even if King was opposed to the casting). Numerous scenes from the movie spring to mind as examples of Nicholson’s prowess, but probably most notably is the scene where a hysterical Wendy (Shelly Duvall) clutching a baseball bat is being advanced upon and edged up the Overlook Hotel’s large central staircase by an incensed Jack who is spouting a diatribe of poor-poor-pitiful-me.

The Shining Philip Stone and Jack Nicholson

O'Grady (Philip Stone) advises Jack to correct his family

But credit has to go to Shelley Duvall also; a love-it-or-hate-it performance, but it fits the tone of the movie like a glove (King also disliked her casting). Then there’s young Danny played with amazing control by Danny Lloyd (apparently Kubrick skillfully managed to direct Lloyd without him knowing he was in a horror movie). Scatman Crothers plays the old shiner Hallorann (unintentionally amusing images in Hallorann’s bedroom while he’s being shined by Danny has two large Afro-erotic framed photographs at each end of his room). It is his character’s arc which is the major departure from the novel.

Hotel chef Hollorann (Scatman Crothers) about to be shined by young Danny

Kubrick, also renowned for last minute revisions and re-shoots, kept tinkering with the film even after it had been released; removing a final coda sequence taking place in a hospital after the movie had already been in theatres for a week. He also shot a more graphic and prolonged death scene which he then cut back considerably. There are in fact two distinct versions of the movie, one running at just under two hours, and another running at nearly two-and-a-half. Kubrick decided to pare back what he felt were numerous unnecessary scenes of character development and exposition.

It's just rusty water Kubrick told the concerned trailer censorship advisory board

The film has many exceptional images and scenes that linger in the mind long after the movie has finished; the opening helicopter shots of the Torrance VW making its way up the mountain road to the Overlook Hotel, the birds-eye view of the huge hedge maze with a tiny Wendy and Danny playing in the centre, the outrageous carpet patterns, the lingering image of Jack’s deranged visage (seen immediately after the first heavy snow fall), the scenes between Jack and Lloyd the bartender (a superbly poker-faced Joe Turkel), the chilling exchange between Jack and Delbert O’Grady (Philips Stone) in the scarlet bathroom, the Steadicam tracking shots following Danny as he pedals along the carpeted/wooden hotel corridors, and of course, the blood pouring out from behind the opening elevators.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

The end of the movie – an old photograph from 1921 - can be a little confusing, a little obtuse, but it provokes some interesting questions about the nature of spectres and traces of evil, even re-incarnation, perhaps.

One of the most famous images in modern horror history

However The Shining is an acquired taste, like all of Kubrick’s films. If you don’t like Jack Nicholson or Shelley Duvall, steer well clear, but if you like a truly haunting horror movie with flashes of graphic darkness then The Shining is the perfect, unhinged, late night treat. And it rewards with repeat viewings.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the scary original trailer, so here's Jack's first visit to The Gold Room, a classic scene:

[HTMl3456]

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

10 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by JohnDoe

April 24th 2008 05:57

Film & TV on DVD

Bringing the big dogs out to play I see Bryn,

The Shining for me is still one of the most cinematically frightening films ever...the way the camera moves, the use of colour in the frames, the sound design and some intense focused insanity from all the cast...I like the deviations from the novel in order to tackles Kubrick's trademark themes and as you know ambiguity is my friend, the ending still gives me shudders.

Ridiculous that the Shining opening footage was cut into the finale of the original cinema release of Blade Runner to give it a happy ending.

On a side note- didn't Stephen King end up filming his script with the guy from Wings, either way the TV version he wrote and Directed was atrocious in every way.

As usual superb and insightful writing!

Comment by Bryn

April 24th 2008 06:55

Horrorphile

Cheers cine-maestro!

Comment by Damo

April 24th 2008 08:07

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

In its day it was billed as the new wave in horror,

Good review.

Comment by Bethany

April 25th 2008 07:09

Martian Movies

I'm a major Stephen King fan as well as a Stanley Kubrick fan, and this film is one of my favorites- arguably one of the best screen adaptations from a King novel (Carrie and 1408 are also on my list). They just haven't fared well. And I've never believed that a director has to follow everything in the book, word for word. It's impossible, they're two different mediums entirely.

If there is one thing I dislike about this movie (and I suppose there is, since I'm even bringing it up) is the way that Wendy Torrance is portrayed. Watching her run that weak-wristed hand-flopping girlie run (there's no other way to describe it) always makes me wince. I understand why, but it made me want to cheer for Jack.

It is a great movie, and I think did great things for the genre, but I still want to strangle Wendy Torrance.

Comment by Alysonhill

April 25th 2008 07:19

I've never really enjoyed Kubrick's choppy filmic style, The Shining was the only one of his films that worked for me, although that may have had something to do with watching it from behind my hands. As visual as King is, he is a novel writer and I can see how difficult it must have been for him that Jack and Shelley didn't fit his ideal of the characters, after all they lived in his head for the duration of writing the novel. It'd be like someone replacing your wife with a stanger at a family dinner and telling you that no matter what you thought, it was indeed the woman you married. Great review,

they sure don't make horror like that anymore.

Comment by tlcorbin

April 25th 2008 17:49

Coffee Quip
A Global Citizen
Paranormal Paranormal
Is Why
Alaska Chronicle
Sleezer's World

Ya got me with this one Bryn, Jack was amazing in this role and set the bar pretty darn high for those coming after him in this genre of films. I give the Shining 3 thumbs up. eh? Oh, that, . . . I borrowed an extra thumb from the mortuary.

Raven

Comment by D. Armenta

April 29th 2008 21:53

The Florida Keys and Everglades
The Black Sheep Chronicles
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The male mystique
Debate Fan

We must be the same age, Bryn..you gave yourself away! I remember seeing what has to be (for me) one of the scariest and most disturbing trailers I've ever seen; the elevator pouring out blood. No sound, no music; just that on the television trailer for the movie.

I'd already read the book and had my doubts as to how it would follow through, but this movie truly does give you something every time you watch it.

Great review as always!

Comment by Bryn

April 30th 2008 01:20

Horrorphile

Armenta ... yeah, let's just say I have a rather significant birthday at the end of the year

Comment by subliculous

June 4th 2008 22:37

chalk another one up on the list - i remember seeing that trailer at the theatre with my dad, the image of the blood silently gushing out of the elevator. i remember my dad saying "grape juice".

Comment by Bryn

June 5th 2008 04:45

Horrorphile

sub, methinks Stanley probably spent a little more than the cost of grape juice

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