Initially tanking at the box office, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining garnered a cult following and high appreciation many years after premiering. The film, differing from Stephen King's original novel, lacked speed and coherence; however, fans accumulated after noticing small details that conveyed entirely different messages. The director dedicated attention to every detail, causing confusion after noticeable inconsistencies and pointless-seeming deviations from the book. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining spawned numerous discussions through multiple enigmatic, open-ended components and deep-reaching symbolism.
The film exhibits American issues of 1920s chauvinism as Jack, slowly adopting the bigots' life philosophies, attempts to join an “exclusive and eternal Fourth of July costume party where the whiskey flows free of charge” (Smith 302). Slowly losing his sanity, the father enters a conversation with the ghost of a previous caretaker in the bathroom; they discuss his interest in joining the party, when the apparition asks why his son, Danny, “brought an outside party into [the Hotel]” (302). Referencing an African-American man Danny sent to save himself and his mother, Wendy, from his murderous father, Jack realizes that he must “shed his enlightened liberal schoolteacher/writer personality and adopt the racist views....[of] wealthy, white, pre-Depression and pre-World War II American [males]” by killing the savior (302). He later succeeds, murdering the man en route to hunting down his son and wife. Furthermore, in the same conversation, Jack shows his narrow views as he references Wendy by calling her “the old sperm bank” (Metz 55). After his wife mentions a mysterious woman in one of the hotel rooms, the man seems inte...
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... theories possess great merit.
Works Cited
Ethan, Alter. "Shining Through." Film Journal International Apr. 2013: EBSCOHost. Web.
Hogan, Michael. "The Shining: 10 Best Conspiracy Theories." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 24 Sept. 2013. Web.
Jacobson, Mark. "'I Know What The Shining Is Really About': Inside the Crowded Cult at the Overlook Hotel." Editorial. New York Magazine 25 Mar. 2013 EBSCOHost.
Metz, Walter. "Toward a Post-structural Influence in Film Genre Study: Intertextuality and The Shining." Film Criticism 22.1 (1997): 38-61. EBSCOHost.
Smith, Greg. "`Real Horror Show': The Juxtaposition of Subtext, Satire and Audience Implication in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."" Literature Film Quarterly 1997: 300. EBSCOHost.
Trinh, Jean. "'The Shining': The Craziest Theories Behind the Film." The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 28 Mar. 2013. Web.
To begin with, some people would say they enjoy a horror movie that gets them scared out of their wits. They go see these movies once a month on average, for fun, each time choosing a newer sequel like “Final Destination” or “The evil Dead”. King says “When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie we are daring the nightmare” (405). As a writer of best-sel...
The Crucible by Arthur Miller The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in American history surrounding the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century, yet is as much a product of the time in which Arthur Miller wrote it, the early 1950s, as it is description of Puritan society. At that particular time in the 1950s, when Arthur Miller wrote the play the American Senator McCarthy who chaired the ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’ was very conscious of communism and feared its influence in America. It stopped authors’ writings being published in fear of them being socialist sympathisers. Miller was fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials and that human beings were capable of such madness. In the 1950s the audience would have seen the play as a parallel between the McCarthy trials and the Salem Trials.
Psycho is an American horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960 based on a 1959 novel with the same name. Alfred Hitchcock typically uses certain elements in almost all of his films. In Psycho the following elements appear; blonde woman, conversation that is not important to the story, alcohol, Hitchcock appearance, Mcguffin, pursuit, the camera looks around, a P.O.V., creating suspense by letting the audience in on a secret, mother figure, birds, stairs, and a narrow escape.
The human body and mind are the most complex and intricate tools known to man. The connection between the two are remarkable, the way body feels pain and the mind is able to understand from where and how the pain is being formed, the way the body lags and drops when the mind does not have enough sleep and rest. Most curiously, it is the way our body and mind speak to each other without really knowing. It is the uncomfortable feeling in your chest, the tenseness of your shoulders and the goose-bumps on your arms that are the very basics of human intuition. Intuition is knowing something without having a logical or reasonable explanation to follow the feeling. But it is when our intuition overcomes our ability to think that we become paranoid; constantly looking over our shoulders, noticing people and objects that were never noticed before, and having this retching feeling that someone is out to get you. Paranoia is a thought process where anxiety and fear accumulate to the point where the person suffers from irritation and delusions. It is often developed through an inner guilty conscience which threatens the self. It is that exact tingling sensation in your stomach, the tightness in your throat and the eerie feeling that you are being watched that makes James and Hitchcock's pieces realistically fantastical. The alternate worlds illustrated in these pieces are not of those of dreams and fairy tales, nor those people superheroes or chimeras, but a realist world, where the minds of the characters are exposed and the only source of reliability. James depicts a young woman who struggles to be a heroine for her wards, only to be torn between the lines of sanity as she questions the existence of two ghosts, while Hitchcock’s psycho can ...
While reading three articles about the play called "The Crucible" I noticed many interesting facts. Many questions as well came to mind. The main question was “What was the Arthur purpose for writing The Crucible”? Well let’s start of by saying Arthur Miller was a extremely American play writing. Miller born in 1915, but where was his childhood? He grew up in New York with a Jewish family. Arthur Millers’ play went on Broadway at the Martin Beck. This occurred in the year of 1953. The play was called The Crucible. Was The Crucible even one of his best places? Well it was yet one of his best second plays. What were the events of the play of Miller had done? The event of the play had to do with the events that took place in Salem. What happened in Salem was a witch craft trial. Most unfavorable people felt as though the play was a play about a terrible period in the American history.
Life in Salem, Massachusetts back in 1692 could prove very difficult for its residents. John Proctor, a married man living in this setting has to combat his society for what he believes is just and right, and in doing so sacrifices his life for it. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller illuminates the conflict between the individual and society by using John Proctor as his protagonist. Despite the fact that Proctor does die in the end, Arthur Miller believes that the individual does triumph over society in the end.
Far-Reaching History of The Shining The world of The Shining is a supernatural one, a world in which ghosts are real and can directly affect the living world. Yet this Supernatural world is also intended to be rational, one with “verisimilitude”, (“Writing The Shining” pg 60). What makes the ghosts in The Shining feel real? They mimic the less literal ghosts of the real world. As Diane Johnson, screenwriter of The Shining, remarks: “To what extent supernatural forces existed and to what extent these were psychological projections was something [Kubrick and I] discussed at length, finally deciding that the ghosts and magical apparitions at the Overlook Hotel were both” (“Writing The Shining” 58).
The crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials and how people react to hysteria created from the fear of witches. In the play, after hysteria breaks out, the Salem government starts persecute and hang people it believes are witches. This prompts people to start to accusing people of witchcraft. Some people who accuse others of committing witchcraft are Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam. They do not accuse people of witchcraft to stop witchcraft, but for personal gain or to hurt others. Thomas Putnam, one of the many characters who takes advantage of the witch trials, is able to use the fear of witches to bend the court to his will. Hysteria causes people to believe claims that are clearly false. This allows Putnam to persecute his enemies. He and many other are able to get away with this because hysteria driven persecutions are not run like regular courts and the fact that witchcraft is an invisible crime allows evidence to be made up. The theme of The Crucible is when any persecution is driven by fear and people can and will manipulate the system so they can gain and hurt another.
The film, Vertigo (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is classified as a genre combination of mystery, romance, suspense and thriller about psychological obsession and murder. Filmed on location in San Francisco and on the Paramount lot in Hollywood, California in 1957, the cultural features of the late 1950’s America were depicted in the films mise en scène by costume and set designs current for that time period. The film was produced at the end of the golden age of Hollywood when the studio system was still in place. At the time Vertigo was produced, Hollywood studios were still very much in control of film production and of actor’s contracts. Hitchcock’s groundbreaking cinematic language and camera techniques has had great impact on film and American popular culture and created a cult following of his films to this day.
The Mccarthy era was a very drastic time during the 1950’s when ideas about communism disseminated throughout the United States, particularly the government. Author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, was very critical of this time and used characters, plot events, setting and literary terms and features to convey his message. Miller creates an allegory by using Witchcraft as a controversial topic similar to how communism was during the McCarthy era, characters such as Danforth, Hathorne and Hale to compare to organizations and more characters such as Abigail and Procter to delineate specific people from The Great Fear.
Abigail Williams has a low reputation in the small village, and can be easily accused for witchcraft, yet she finds a way to avoid this.Abigail uses peoples reputation to her advantage, and accuses many others of witchcraft, taking the attention away from her. During the trials How does Abigail Williams and Danforth demonstrate the value of a “good” reputation in a puritan society? How does it relate to McCarthyism? And how did Abigail use it to her advantage? In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams, a young girl in a small community, is accused to be a “Witch” after someone claims to have seen her dancing in the woods with the devil. Abigail is extremely significant character to this story, as she lead the small puritan society in Salem to the Salem Witch trials, which later on reveals each character's deepest value: Their Reputation. In this play, someones reputation can cost their lives, since the witch trials started, people with lower reputations are more vulnerable to be accused to be a “Witch”. Abigail, one of the accused victims, finds a way to use the power of reputation to control the outcome of her trial. She is the best example for explaining how reputation is so important.
Konow, David. "The Shining and The Steadicam." Tested RSS. N.p., 16 Aug. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.
In examining popular, tragedy-style theater pieces, it becomes apparent that human morality is a prevalent theme, as it consistently appears throughout various stories. William Shakespeare’s notable play Macbeth, to provide an exemplar, contains such a matter; the literary masterpiece explores the issues of guilt, and the loss of one’s integrity. A perfect display of these conflicts occurs in Act III, scene IV, during which Macbeth struggles with the realisation that he has become a murderer, and will remain forever bound to his crimes:
Through unique camera shots, Stanley Kubrick vividly captures and displays an emotional roller coaster of the facial expressions of Jack, Wendy, and Danny as they experience horror straight from hell. The Shining goes above and beyond the average horror film because of Kubrick’s brilliant vision and technical understanding of camera, lighting, and film. His choice of actors is phenomenal, and the script is changed in ways from the book that benefit the film medium and pulls on the emotions of its viewers.
...n (Director) mistakenly seems to believe can carry the whole film. On the strength "based on a true story", he has rejected attention-grabbing characters, an imaginative plot, and unforgettable villains.