Stanley Kubrick's The Shining

The Shining is often regarded as the best horror-suspense movie of all time, no doubt in part by its direction by Stanley Kubrick. Since its release, there have been multiple call backs to the movie ranging from television horror shows such as American Horror Story and Hannibal to animated shows like The Simpsons and South Park. The infamous “Here’s Johnny” scene has appeared countless times in popular culture. Curiously, when the movie first came out in 1980, the movie was met with mixed reviews, ranging from a jumble of a narrative to cinematic genius. In my evaluation I will be discussing why the latter is the truth. Stanley Kubrick is one of the highest regarded filmmakers in history. Having directed the transcendental film 2001: A Space

Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of Jack Torrance is so amazing, it truly makes you question the actor’s sanity off-screen. His slow descent into madness is gradual enough that at first it seems like odd behavior, but by the end, simply staring at the face of Jack Torrance is enough to give most people chills. Shelley Duvall plays the role of Wendy Torrance, Jack’s wife. At first she seems like simply a normal housewife who cares for her family, but across the span of the movie, she becomes something like the hero of the story, trying to save her son Danny from her husband’s rage (The Shining 1980). Her acting is spot on in the movie, and it should be. The shooting of the film took over a year, well past the projected seventeen weeks. Most have accredited this to Kubrick’s perfectionism. In the scene where Jack first begins to show his outward anger after Wendy disturbs his papers, you feel the terror coming from Duvall’s character. That scene alone was repeated 127 times (Room 237 2012). The look of fear on Wendy Torrance’s face was not acting, it was Duvall’s fear of having to go on repeating the scene. In order to stay in character, in the moments in between takes, Nicholson could be seen amping himself up to remain in a crazed state. All of this effort was not in vain, as it is truly what makes this film a masterpiece of

Often considered the master of horror writing, King has written fifty four novels, many others have been made into movies, such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. But The Shining differs from these movies in one major way, its director. In previous films adapted from books that Kubrick has directed, he has omitted certain parts, as most adapted movies do, but in The Shining he takes more than a few liberties, in fact he even goes as far as to insult King. In the literary novel The Shining, King makes it clear that what drives Jack Torrance insane is his alcohol addiction. His purpose for the story was to use it as an outlet to tell of the horrors of alcohol, and how it can tear families apart. While in the movie Jack’s alcohol problem is discussed, it is used as merely a plot device to introduce the ghosts of The Overlook Hotel to the story (The Shining 1980). From there on it is clear that Kubrick wants the reason for Jack’s madness to be the spirits of the hotel driving him crazy, thereby shoving King’s message aside. As mentioned earlier, some have speculated that Kubrick left a visual representation of this in his movie. In the novel, the Torrances drive a red Volkswagen Beetle, but in the movie they drive a yellow one. This may not seem to mean anything until later on in the movie when we see during a snowstorm, a semi has crashed into a red beetle reducing it to pieces, as if Kubrick