The Shining was the first, and only, book that I stayed up all night reading with the lights on (admitedly, reading it with the lights off would be really hard on the eyes). That experience colors my opinion of the movie, which I’ve only been able to watch in fits and starts because it is so exasperating when compared to the movie.
I can get over the maze vs. the topiary, I can get over the axe vs. the croquet mallets, but I can’t get past Shelley Duval. She is so, so, so, SO wooden in that movie. I see her character as being the anchor of the whole thing - she’s the only thing keeping the situation from completely imploding and yet I couldn’t have cared less if Shelley Duval’s Wendy had been hit by a truck before they ever left for the Overlook.
About a week before it was released, I was sitting at a cafe and some guy behind me suddenly screamed out loud. Everyone looked over and I could tell he was more than a bit embarrassed for screaming like a little girl. I vaguely knew the guy (another American) and he said, “I am reading the Shining before the film comes out next week”.
Well, that was an indication to me that at least the book was scary.
So, not having read the book, I went to see the premere of The Shining at the big Berlin theater where it was showing. Packed house.
It was the first, and so far the last time I have been so creeped out by a film. I actually felt nauseous when I left the theater. So yeah, I would have to rank it as the all time scariest film I have ever seen.
(I thought Pycho was kind lame, Exorcist was a joke, Jaws had a few jump from your seat moments, and The Birds was fun during the jungle gym scene. Oh, and the first 5 minutes of Mother’s Day pretty much had me sit up quickly. Wish there were more good horror/scary films that weren’t about 6 kids stuck in a cabin in the woods and then blah blah blah, all dead.)
I’ve seen the movie two or three times, and each time I’m left with one thought: “Is that it?”
To me, the movie is utterly forgettable and incosequential. It didn’t scare me. It didn’t disturb me. It didn’t creep me out. It didn’t entertain me. I’m not bothered by the fact that it wasn’t like the book–most movies based on books aren’t like the book, and I can totally accept that. Even though I adore the book and I’m surprised every time I read it by how good it is ( even as King fan I’m surprised).
No, The Shining is just the one Kubrick film I really don’t like.
I like the kid in the Kubrick version. He’s much better, and scarier, than that other dorky kid. Though the kid in the mini-series version singing “I like snow” when he was playing outside kind of gave me the shivers. Just not the good kind. Just my opinion, of course.
I just watched the shot in question ( re: Trunk’s giving me props for knowing…heh ).
The intercutting involves Jack whamming at the door, while Wendy is inside and gathers up her son into her arms. The shots of Jack whamming with the ax are done with a straightforward fluid head on a tripod. Normal set-up. One simply loosens the drag on the head and whips back and forth with Jack. Keeping in mind that my version isn’t widescreen, the panning feeling is even more accentuated. In 1:1.85, the panning is there but not as drastically felt because his movement fills the rectangular screen rather nicely.
The footage inside the apartment of Wendy and Danny is shot with a Steadicam. It may not have been shot by Garrett Brown. Some sequences were shot by an operator named Ray Andrew stood in for about a month during the autumn of production, while Garrett Brown was back in the USA working on Rocky II. It is unknown to me who shot the apartment work in the film. It’s a bit wobbly, it may have been Mr. Andrew.
I remember the scenes recounted in the book, the moment in the parking lot when Jack broke a student’s arm? He was drunk, the boy egged him on? Yes? He not only had history as a drinker, but history in the novel as an angry mean drunk.
Wendy was a tough character to play, but you know what? If you think about it, many of us know someone emotionally incapable of removing themselves from a situation just like this. They’re cowed and beaten, frightened and worn out and cautious and endlessly hopeful that today is the new leaf, about to be turned.
Pretty much what Duvall and Kubrick did with the Wendy character, IMHO.
It’s also one of the many departures from the book, in which the point is made that it’s interference from the hotel itself causing Hallorann to take so long. This sense is lost in Kubrick’s movie.
Wow…I’m either short-sighted, or that’s a stretch. I’m not even gonna mention my interpretation of that final scene, for fear of looking like a total moron.
It mentions at that site that the manager says that the hotel was rumored to have been built on Indian burial grounds. Also a brand of baking soda, called Calumet, is seen on the shelves. The logo features an Indian head.
Indians ARE mentioned in the movie, but they are not mentioned at all in King’s novel. According to this theory, that is more evidence that Kubrick was actually trying to tell the story about the genocide of the Indian people.
I just noticed something strange in ‘Redrum’ scene when ‘Tony’ writes it on the door.
Duvall is asleep on the bed with a lamp on the bedside table turned on.
When Danny walks over to the mirror to get the lipstick there is a lamp reflected in the tv screen. It is not the lamp on the bedside table. It has a different shaped shade. When Danny is writing on the door, behind him and on the far side of the bed are some doors that have glass panes on them. The lamp is reflected there also. But it is not the lamp that is by the bed. I don’t know if this is something about ‘reflections’ or if there is a lamp that isn’t shown.
Along with the Indian theory, the manager who interviews Jack at the beginning has a litttle American flag on his desk. It really stands out color wise.
The Calumet logo does feature prominatly behind Jack when he is being talked to in the dry goods room. Jack holds perfectly still in a particular spot with the Indian heads right behind his.
Someone says the hotel was built on an old Indian burial ground (one of the clichés of haunted house literature). And a box of Calumet baking soda is in one scene.
In the book, Jack broke Danny’s arm when he was a toddler because Danny messed up his manuscript. I think he just punched the student in the parking lot.
That, and all of the Native American decorations in the lobby. Although I always thought that was the result of a brief fad in the '70s for interior decorations with a “native” theme.
Reading it over, and considerring the importance directors place on hidden meanings, I would say it is serious. It may be seeing more then is really there, but it does makes sense to think that such hidden clues are possible.
Well, there we go! Obviously, I have a hidden Indian agenda as well! One that’s so skillfully crafted, even I don’t know anything about it. I am a true artiste. (Of course I don’t…or do I? Mwaahaahaahaahaa!)
Sometimes, Dr. Freud, the cigar train riding a banana into the dark tunnel is just a cigar train riding a banana into the dark tunnel. :eek:
[QUOTE=Cartooniverse]
I remember the scenes recounted in the book, the moment in the parking lot when Jack broke a student’s arm? He was drunk, the boy egged him on? Yes? He not only had history as a drinker, but history in the novel as an angry mean drunk.
QUOTE]
[Pointless nitpick] Jack only broke Danny’s arm; he hit the student. The student was slashing Jack’s tires. [Pointless nitpick over]
I only remember that because The Shining is probably my favorite horror novel of all time. I read it as a teen and it scared me to death. I still love it. I thought Kubrick’s version was very stylistically interesting and creepy, but was far, far inferior to the book.
