The Shining (1980)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick | 115 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, Joe Turkel, Anne Jackson, Tony Burton, Lia Beldam, Billie Gibson, Barry Dennen, David Baxt, Manning Redwood, Lisa Burns

With the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel “The Shining”, Kubrick first ventured into a horror film. Just like in film noir, war, drama, and science fiction, he shows that he can manage well in this genre, while again clearly putting his own stamp on the production.

It has become both a physical and a psychological horror film. The literal threat that Jack Torrance ultimately poses to his family is terrifying, but works mainly because of its psychological background, which is manifested by the effective build-up of tension, culminating in Jack’s mental demise.

The film immediately starts with atmospheric helicopter shots, where we follow Jack’s car, as it drives through the mountains, on its way to his job interview at the Overlook Hotel. The great isolation and threat emanating from the high mountains and the narrow, winding roads, together with the strange music and noises, create an ominous atmosphere. There is a feeling that something bad is about to happen. Once Jack arrives at the hotel, we see a scene in which his wife and son Danny are sitting at home at the breakfast table, talking about Jack’s potential job. Danny has a bad feeling about it, and says through the voice in his head he calls Tony that he doesn’t want to go to the hotel. After this, Jack learns that a previous sitter at the hotel had gone mad and massacred his family. Another bad harbinger. Jack doesn’t care. In fact, he declares that he is looking forward to his stay at the hotel.

Then the harbingers take on a visual form. Danny stands in front of the mirror talking to the imaginary Tony – with whom he communicates via his index finger – after which he has a vision of the hotel. We see the elevators of the Overlook Hotel, from which liters of blood flow, splashing against the walls. For a moment, as the elevator hall fills with blood, we also see an almost subliminal image of two girls in identical blue dresses holding hands and looking straight into the camera. It is especially these two girls, who will come back regularly later in the film, that provide goosebumps. They often just stare at Danny as they stand motionless in the room. The personified innocence of the children, against a background of horror, makes the viewer feel very uncomfortable. It’s an almost unreal contrast.

The ghostly apparitions are not clearly distinguishable from reality for the viewer. They don’t look traditionally shadowy; nor are they clearly placed in the frame of one’s perception. They appear in the hotel as if they were people of flesh and blood, in the way the characters themselves see them. This is what makes it so disturbing.

Danny can see these images through a gift he has called the “shining” by the cook. It is, in fact, a sixth sense, a capacity for extrasensory perception, through which it can see things in the past and in the future. The hotel contains disturbing “remains” from a few years ago, when a family came to a horrific end. Some of these remains haunt the hotel, waiting for a willing victim to use for the hotel’s evil intentions. Jack’s mental state is perfect. He is embittered by his failure as a writer, he lives with a woman for whom he feels nothing but contempt, and he hates his son.

A fascinating aspect of the film is the tension between the psychological and paranormal interpretations of the story. For a long time you may think that Jack sees all those strange images because he is going mad, thus rejecting the supernatural explanation. Until Jack is in the freezer room and is released by Grady’s ghost. Then there is no going back.

The first moment that Jack starts seeing the apparitions takes place after a telling statement. Jack sits down at the bar and says he’s willing to give up his soul for a drink. At that moment the bartender appears. It’s the beginning of the end, the actual loss of Jack’s soul.

As usual with Kubrick’s work, the film is again a joy to watch. Especially the inspired use of the steadicam, which had just been invented, makes for fascinating pictures. The steadicam makes it easier to track people (or objects) in narrow spaces or on tight bends, and that a lower angle and lower camera angle can be used. This allows for example the beautiful shots where we follow Danny riding his go-kart through the corridors of the hotel, and the thrilling shots of Danny running through the snowy maze, chased by Jack.

But other shots are also impressive. For example, notice the shot from below when Jack is in the freezer and bangs against the door. Or the shot where Jack looks at a model of the maze and sees his wife and child walking there, like playthings of his power.

Jack’s acting in the film is always captivating. We may especially remember Jack’s eventual over-the-top mode, with the iconic image of the ax through the door, but he shows a whole range of emotions, and his monologues and conversations with the ghosts are often brilliant in their nuances. mood swings. Shelley Duvall is well cast as an insecure, fragile woman who doesn’t know what hit her, although she does act very scared here and there. Danny Lloyd, finally, is a discovery as the smart, introverted little boy who is “blessed” with the gift of the shining.