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The Reflection of Kubrick’s The Shining
Many people today have read Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining and enjoyed his use of literary devices, but what about the techniques that transferred into Stanley Kubrick’s film? First, The Shining is about an already dysfunctional family, that move into a hotel because the father, Jack Torrence, has gotten a job as the caretaker of the hotel. Before taking the job, Jack is informed that the previous caretaker got “cabin fever” and killed his entire family. His son, Danny Torrence, is psychic and telepathic and begins to see and be bothered by the spirits living in the hotel. These spirits eventually possess Jack and he too tries to kill his family, which also includes his wife, Wendy Torrence.
In the film, Kubrick makes better use of symbolism and the archetypical characters in the story than King did. Stanley Kubrick has taken advantage of the words written by King and turned them into a genius image. The film is loaded with copies and cycles, individuals existing in two time periods with clashing personas, which are constantly battling each other throughout the movie.
The use of archetypical characters is utilized in the film and also in the novel. Jack Torrance most definitely has his own individual opposing selves to manage. At first he seems, without a doubt, to be a reasonably steady father and spouse, yet this starts to crumble the longer he stays at the Overlook Hotel.
Wendy is also portrayed as the very caring mother, but very passive wife. This is also extremely distinctive, but not exactly from the start of the movie. It is said that Stephen King didn’t particularly like how Kubrick portrayed Wendy’s character. He claimed that the character he wrote about in his n...
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The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd. Warner Bros., 1980. DVD.
Hoile, Christopher. "The Uncanny and the Fairy Tale in Kubrick's The Shining." Literature/Film Quarterly 12.1 (1984): 5-12. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski and Scott T. Darga. Vol. 112. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2014
Nolan, Amy. "Seeing is digesting: labyrinths of historical ruin in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining." Cultural Critique 77 (2011): 180+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Walters, C. T. "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining." Forum 26.3 (Summer 1985): 21-38. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski and Scott T. Darga. Vol. 112. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Source #3: Kennedy, X.J., and Dana Gioia. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 9th. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.
...X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, 8th Ed., edited by Joseph Terry. New York: Longman, 2002.
...n & Co., Inc., 1962); excerpted and reprinted in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 3, ed. Carolyn Riley (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1975), p. 526.
Big Fish. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Ewan McGregor. S GOLD The Entertainment Network, 2003. DVD.
Forum 19.4 (Winter 1985): 160-162. Rpt. inTwentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 192. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Nov. 2013.
The Shining is a 1980 horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick. The Shining starts with the Torrance family moving from their apartment in Boulder, Colorado, to the Overlook Hotel, located in the isolated Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Jack Torrance, the father has accepted a position as the winter caretaker of the hotel in its off-season. His wife, Wendy Torrance and son, Danny Torrance move into the hotel with him. As the film unfolds the hotel becomes a place of tension and menace. It is revealed that Danny has supernatural psychic abilities and can see the ghosts of the hotel and so does Jack. Jack's sanity begins to deteriorate due to the influence of the supernatural forces that inhabit the hotel, thus placing his wife and son in
Heberle, Mark. "Contemporary Literary Criticism." O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Vol. 74. New York, 2001. 312.
... time line of events. Which also goes hand in hand with Jacks insomnia, which shatters the barriers between reality versus fantasy, and memory versus dream for the spectator. Lastly the vast and bizarre camera angles from which the film was shot in help maintain the uncertain feeling for the spectator.
For this paper I chose to explore Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho because it has remained the only horror movie I’ve seen to date. I went into a couple others but immediately left; let’s just say horror is not my favorite genre of film. People may or may not always call Psycho a horror film, it may be more of a thriller to people nowadays, but I still believe the correct genre analysis is horror because it should always refer to the genre at the time the film was created and released. I chose Psycho because I spent multiple weeks in high school studying Hitchcock, and Psycho specifically, so I feel comfortable writing on it. I also thoroughly enjoy the film, its backstory, and the character development. Plus, it’s been roughly adapted into one of my favorite shows: Bates Motel, which I will also briefly explore.
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Linda Pavlovski and Scott T. Darga, vol. 106, Gale, 2001. 20th Century Literature Criticism Online, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/KSZNPN102098467/LCO?u=schaumburg_hs&sid=LCO. Accessed 14 Dec. 2017. Originally published in CLA Journal, vol. 31, June 1988, pp.
1980. Warner Bros. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Music by Wendy Carlos and Rcachel Elkind. Cinematography by John Alcott. Editing by Ray Lovejoy. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd.
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. Warner Home Video, 1980. DVD.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.
...s Joyce. The Modern Library. 1928. 5-11. Rpt. in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. ed. Dennis Poupard. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1985. 16:203-205.