Friday, October 17, 2014

Stephen King Week: The Shining

"Here's Johnny!"

There is no other Stephen King movie that has provoked as much controversy as Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. Some have embraced it as a horror masterpiece while others dismissed it as inferior to the book due to the sweeping changes Kubrick made. Either way you look at it, this is definitely Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and not so much Stephen King's. 

Both the film and the book share the same basic premise. Jack Torrence (played by Jack Nicholson) gets a job as the winter caretaker at the secluded Overlook Hotel. He is joined by his wife, Wendy (played by Shelly Duvall) and their son Danny (played by Danny Lloyd). The hotel will be closed and the three of them will be the sole occupants of the hotel. Once alone, it slowly becomes apparent that the hotel is haunted as it's spiritual inhabitants start to reveal themselves to Jack and Danny. Danny is also revealed to have certain psychic abilities, which are explained to him by the hotel's cook, Dick Halloran (played by Scatman Corothers), while his parents tour the hotel. 

After that scene, the film jumps ahead a month and the Torrence family are now the sole occupants of the sprawling hotel. Jack is trying to write a novel while Wendy looks after Danny and helps look over the hotel. Slowly, the supernatural nature of the hotel is revealed to both Danny and Jack. For Danny, it's the frequent sightings of the twin girls who were murdered by the previous caretaker and a recurring image or a torrential wave of blood pouring out of one of the elevators that is quite spectacular. For Jack, it's a specter bartender, Lloyd, who keeps the liquor flowing to make it easier to ply Jack to their will (Jack is a recovering alcoholic). He also meets Grady, the previous caretaker of the hotel who murdered his family before committing suicide. As their time goes on, Jack begins to descend into madness, well on his way to following in Grady's footsteps. Scared, Danny reaches out to Dick via his Shining ability for help. Dick begins making the long trek from his winter home in Florida to try and save Danny and Wendy, but once again he goes alone because bringing back up is still a foreign concept to Stephen King characters. 

A lot of the credit for the success of this film has to go to the three principal cast members, who all turn in performances they don't get enough credit for. A common complaint is that Jack Nicholson goes completely nuts too quickly in the film, as though people only remember the last quarter of the film when he's chopping down doors and chasing Danny with the axe. When I re-watched the film for this essay, I was surprised at how even keel he was for a long stretch of the film. There are moments here and there where we get little flashes of what's to come, but the descent is a bit more subtle than he gets credit for. Shelly Duvall was always an interesting choice for the role of Wendy to me, but she gives a great performance as Wendy. She is playing a woman in a terrifying situation trying desperately to keep it together to keep her son safe. I also don't think Danny Lloyd gets enough credit as Danny. I'm not sure how much of it was just him or clever direction by Stanley Kubrick (who was quite protective of the boy on the set), but he does a good job of portraying Danny as a smart, capable boy and one who ultimately manages to survive the ordeal by outwitting his deranged father.

The real success of the film has to go to director Stanley Kubrick and screenwriter Diane Johnson. They took the broad strokes of King's novel and crafted a film that was based on a more psychological level with mostly subtle supernatural overtones. The film leaves much of itself up to interpretation. Are there actual ghosts in the hotel or is it all in their heads? You could read it either way. The filmmakers seem to relish keeping definitive answers just out of the audiences reach, making them make up their own minds. In no moment is this clearer than in the final parting shot of the film, where we clearly see Jack in a picture of a Fourth of July party from 1921, which has left audiences perplexed and ponderous for the last 34 years. 

This film is layered with subtle touches that audience may not even be aware of, at least with their initial viewings and these touches work almost on a more subconscious level. One big one is if you follow the characters movements through the hotel, the layout doesn't make any sense. The whole thing is intentional, meant to disorient and unsettle the audience. The frequent use of Steadicam as it follows our three principal cast members around the hotel, especially Danny on his Big Wheel, adds to the feeling of unease. There are also shots designed to amplify the tension in a given scene. No where is this clearer than the camera panning during every ax swing as Jack chops down the bathroom door, making the audience almost feel the impacts. This is paired with cuts to the interior with the ax looming large in the foreground as is comes through the door, with Wendy in the background screaming. It's such an iconic scene for a reason and one that left me wanting to see the film on the big screen to feel the full power of the sequence. 

These sort of things even inspired a documentary, Room 237, devoted to the subliminal messages perceived to be hidden in the film, including to one that suggests that hidden within the film is Stanley Kubrick's confession to helping fake the moon landing. Of course, it's clear that they're reaching when it comes to their evidence but yet the theories presented are fascinating food for thought.

There's also a couple elephants in the room I need to address. First off is the mini-series version of the novel that was produced by Stephen King and directed by Mick Garris. Yes, I have seen it a couple times and by and large I enjoyed it. It even has a couple things I liked over Kubrick's version, such as Rebecca DeMornay as Wendy. I'll take the strong and capable Wendy she portrayed over Shelly Duvall's hysterics any day. Steven Weber's performance as Jack is also much more rounded and as such, his descent into madness is more tragic than in Kubrick's film. But there is a fatal flaw in it and that is the film is simply way, way too long. It originally aired as a six hour, three part mini-series and when your story doesn't really kick into gear until the third part, you have problems. You could cut it down by half and have a really solid ghost story. As the saying goes, sometimes less is more. The other downside, as much as I hate to say it, is Courtland Mead as Danny. He's played as such a whimpering little brat it just annoyed me to no end and I know I'm not alone in that opinion either.

The other elephant, this one named Stampy*, is of course "The Shinning." On the fifth "Treehouse of Horror" episode of The Simpsons, they did a spot on parody of the Kubrick film. Naturally I loved it and have seen it so many times I have trouble keeping the two separate. I will even quote from "The Shinning" while watching The Shining when I'm watching it by myself. It has to do with how well the iconic scenes are recreated in the show, twisted and parodied while seamlessly integrating the Simpsons family into the story. We have Homer in the Jack role, Marge in the Wendy role, Bart substituting for Danny, and Lisa and Maggie along for the ride. It's got priceless dialogue too, some of which is quoted endlessly. It's seven minutes of pitch perfect hilarity as only The Simpsons could do. 

Overall, The Shining, is one of my all time favorite horror films. I love the way it uses unsettling atmosphere and ambiguity to challenge and engage the audience. It never gives simple or easy answers as to what exactly is going on. It mostly avoids cheap jump scares and instead creates an feeling of escalating dread. It's a masterfully made, iconic film and one that is well worth checking out. 

*Only hardcore Simpsons fans will get this joke. Everyone else can move along.

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