THE SHINING (1980, R)
RATING: 8.5 / 10 --> Really great movie
Terrifyingly, amazing achievement in filmmaking and the art of
terror, this movie classic graces us with one of director Stanley
Kubrick's sporatic directing gigs, only 5 years after his last
acclaimed feature, BARRY LYNDON, and 10 before his timely
masterpiece CLOCKWORK ORANGE (9/10). This movie is based on
author Stephen King's best-selling novel of the same name, and
stars the always-interesting Jack Nicholson.
PLOT:
A nice man, his wife and young boy, take on the task of
overlooking a winter resort during its off season. The nice man
is there for peace and quiet, as his profession as a writer
requires just that. The boy has a special skill called "the
shine" which allows him to hear and see things that others
cannot. As their time in the grand hotel ticks away, the mansion
begins to exude thoughts of the past and chills of the present.
In time, the nice man transforms into a "not-so-nice"
man, and begins to terrify his own flesh and blood.
CRITIQUE:
Chilling, majestic piece of cinematic fright, this film combines
all the great elements of an intellectual thriller, with the
grand vision of a director who has the instinctual capacity to
pace a moody horror flick within the realm of his filmmaking
genius that includes an eye for the original shot, an ice-cold
soundtrack and an overall sense of dehumanization. This movie
cuts through all the typical horror movies like a red-poker
through a human eye, as it allows the viewer to not only feel the
violence and psychosis of its protagonist, but appreciate the
seed from which the derangement stems. One of the scariest things
for people to face is the unknown and this film presents its
plotting with just that thought in mind. The setting is perfect,
in a desolate winter hideaway. The quietness of the moment is a
character in itself, as the fermenting aggressor in Jack
Torrance's mind wallows in this idle time, and breeds the devil's
new playground. I always felt like the presence of evil was
dormant in all of our minds, with only the circumstances of the
moment, and the reasons given therein, needed to wake its violent
ass and pounce over its unsuspecting victims. This film is a
perfect example of this very thought.
And it is within this film's subtle touches of
the canvas, the clackity-clacks of the young boy's big wheel
riding along the empty
hallways of the hotel, the labyrinthian garden representing the
mind's fine line between sane and insane, Kubrick's purposely
transfixed editing inconsistencies, continuity errors and set
mis-arrangements, that we discover a world guided by the
righteous and tangible, but coaxed away by the powerful and
unknown. I have never read the book upon which the film is based,
but without that as a comparison point, I am proud to say that
this is one of the most terrifying films that I have ever seen. I
thought that the runtime of the film could've been cut by a
little bit, but then again, I am not one of the most acclaimed
directors in the history of film, so maybe I should keep my
two-cent criticisms over a superb film, to myself. All in all,
this movie captures your attention with its grand form and
vision, ropes you in with some terror and eccentric direction,
and ties you down and stabs you in the heart with its cold-eyed
view of the man's mind gone overboard, creepy atmosphere and the
loss of humanity.
Little Known Facts about this film and its
stars:
Jack Nicholson has been recorded as having really "lost
it" during
several filming scenes of this movie, as Kubrick's meticulously
over-precise filming manner, apparently led to many takes (he
demanded
127 takes from Shelley Duvall in one particular scene) and plenty
of
mind games. Jack apparently had to be physically restrained after
one
particularly famous scene, in which he was chopping into a door
with an
axe. Nicholson apparently ad-libbed the now-infamous line
"Here's
Johnny!"
Jack Nicholson has also been quoted as saying about Kubrick:
""He gives
a new meaning to the word meticulous". Kubrick apparently
had Nicholson
do fifty takes of a scene where he "simply" walks
across the street.
Author Stephen King was known to have disliked Kubrick's version
of his
novel, to the point where he himself decided to write a 6-hour
made-for-TV version of it in 1997, starring Stephen Webber, of
TV's
"Wings" sitcom. King was never allowed to publicly
denounce Kubrick's
interpretation of his work, due to contractual clauses, but his
version
didn't fare much better with critics either.
During the making of this movie, director Kubrick was known to
have
called author Stephen King up at 3am and ask him questions like
"Do you
believe in God?"
Background on film: Stanley Kubrick had a large stack of books
that he
was looking through to find a movie project. For a couple of
hours, his
secretary could hear him pick up a book, read it for about a
minute,
and then hurl it into the wall. She then noticed that this hadn't
happened in a while, so she went in to check on him, and found
him
reading Stephen King's "The Shining". King says that
this is really
strange, because the start of the book is very slow, and doesn't
have
much to do with the rest of the story.
A fun site that some of you may want to visit, is the Ultimate
Simpsons
Stanley Kubrick Reference Archive at
http://www.nh.ultranet.com/~mcollier/kubrick.html The many
writers on
TV's "The Simpsons" apparently follow and admire many
of Mr. Kubrick
greatest cinematic works.
And is "The TITANIC an homage to THE SHINING?" Go to
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/3181/titanic.html to
find
out.
Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon, which was used for the
exterior
shots of this film (but not the interiors, which were all
specially
built), doesn't actually have the infamous "Room 237"
from the movie,
as the lodge owners' specifically requested the number 217 used
in the
book be changed to a nonexistent room number.
Review Date: December 25, 1998
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson (based on a novel by
Stephen King)
Producer: Stanley Kubrick
Actors: Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance
Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance
Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance
Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann
Genre: Thriller
Year of Release: 1980
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(c) 1998 Berge Garabedian