I have to say that the scene when Jack first walks into the ballroom and over to the bar is probably one of my favorite pieces of cinematography ever. I’ll put Kubrick’s version up on a pedestal for that shot alone.
Unnggh… Film geek must… resist posting to… film thread… unngghh…
:failure:
:sigh:
Okay, fine. Can’t resist the pull.
This, I think, is key, for reasons I’ll explain in a bit…
Kubrick went into The Shining because it gave him an opportunity to do something he hadn’t done before, which is engage in atmospheric, psychological horror. His take on the film story is fundamentally different than King’s novel.
To start with, he rejects King’s basic notion that horror happens when an evil force, supernatural and non-human in origin, invades some idyllic community and puts the good-guy people in danger. Think back over King’s canon; in virtually all cases, you have regular people who are confronted by an extranatural invasion of some kind. Sometimes it’s obvious (Christine, Salem’s Lot, It, Tommyknockers), and sometimes it’s muddled (Rose Madder), but it’s usually the case. He has a separate subgenre, stories like Misery and Gerald’s Game, where he’s really writing suspense thrillers instead of horror, so I don’t really count those. And I’m sure people can propose specific counterexamples (it’s interesting, for example, that his first book, Carrie, doesn’t fit the mold); the overall point is still valid, that King tends to gravitate toward stories in which people are confronted by something terrible outside themselves.
Kubrick doesn’t buy this. He thinks horror is far more effective when the dangerous elements come from within ourselves (a view he shares with Cronenberg), or where terrifying things are happening and you don’t know WHY or WHERE they came from. That’s what he was getting at with The Shining. If you look simply at the film, it’s impossible to tell exactly what happened or why. It’s possible to support an interpretation that when the Nicholson character gets to the Overlook, he’s already somewhat unstable, and just goes stir-crazy; all the ghosts and stuff he runs into are his hallucinations. The monkey wrench, of course, is the creepiness that Danny runs into as well (the twin girls, etc.), but given Kubrick’s filmmaking track record, that could be justified as some sort of weird metaphor. Of course, it’s equally possible to suggest that, in the film, the Overlook is indeed haunted, and Jack is possessed and manipulated by supernatural power.
The point is, Kubrick deliberately leaves it ambiguous. In many ways, there’s a corollary between The Shining and The Blair Witch Project (dozens of people just rolled their eyes, I know), because they both rely for their effects on implication, suggestion, and atmosphere, rather than a specific, definable threat. It’s another generalization, and I’m sure somebody will follow on this thread to say, “Not me!” but I’ve found that people who were disturbed by The Shining also appreciate Blair Witch, while those who thought Kubrick’s Shining was pretentious and dull also thought Blair Witch was loud, repetitive, and boring.
It’s really about two different philosophies of storytelling. Kubrick rejected King’s approach because he thought making the Overlook’s malevolence the explicit villain of the film turns it, essentially, into a monster movie, and he doesn’t think monster movies are horror – they’re monster movies. King, on the other hand, believes monster movies can be horror (read Danse Macabre), so he has no problem making the Overlook the bad guy. Kubrick thinks that sort of specificity dilutes the horror elements; he believes viewers can be more disturbed if they don’t know specifically what’s going on, and therefore leaves it ambiguous. This thread is a perfect example: “It was a ghost story!” - “Yes, but what about…” - “Oh, so it’s about a crazy man!” - “Yes, but what about…” - “Well, hell.” - Some people like this; some people don’t.
As in all things, the reality of what makes something frightening is somewhat more complex than either King’s or Kubrick’s exclusive approach would suggest. Some people like stories that make them fill in the gaps, and don’t provide all the answers; they are more receptive to ambiguous, psychological horror like what Kubrick was attempting. And other people don’t like doing that work; they want to know (1) what’s going on, (2) where’s the threat, (3) who’s good and who’s bad and why, and then sit back and watch the story. These sorts of viewers prefer Alien and similar stories where it’s never uncertain what’s going on, and why.
Trust me on this one. I’ve been doing a lot of research into the psychology of horror film and fiction, preparatory to attempting to write a horror play, an actual live theatrical piece designed to disturb the live audience, something that’s very, very hard to do. And in all of my reading, the dichotomy between “ambiguous horror” and “monster movie” is made very clear.
I don’t remember it being a giant resort at all. I don’t even remember a ski lift. Plus, I’m fairly sure that Crothers used a Snow Cat, not a snowplow…
Did anyone see the making of the newer version that Mr. King did? They filmed it in the actual hotel in CO that gave Stephen the inspiration for the book. It’s not that big. Some of the film crew even said that creepy things really did happen during filming.
About the movies and the commercials: sometimes, the trailers are made and run before the final cut of the movie is made.
I don’t remember that scene, though…but someone said it WAS there? THAT would be neat!
Cervaise, excellent post. I absolutely agree with your observation about viewers of The Shining and Blair Witch. I had seen tons and tons of pre-Blair hype, beginning with Harry Knowles’ reports on AICN, and I still thought it was effective. (I told my wife that, to me, the genius was that the filmmakers understood that we live in a time where if these events truly had happened, people would be lining up around the block to satisfy their voyeuristic need to see that film. Look at what hot rentals the Mondo Cane and Faces of Death titles were in their heyday.)
I’d love to read your play once you’ve written it. I’m not a huge fan of the stage, but it would be nice to see real stage horror that isn’t Grand Guignol or Sweeney Todd.