text:
The Shining (film)
The Shining | |
Theatrical release poster by Saul Bass
Directed by | Stanley Kubrick |
Produced by | Stanley Kubrick |
Screenplay by | Stanley Kubrick Diane Johnson |
Based on | The Shining by Stephen King |
Starring | Jack Nicholson Shelley Duvall Danny Lloyd Scatman Crothers |
Music by | Wendy Carlos Rachel Elkind |
Cinematography | John Alcott |
Editing by | Ray Lovejoy |
Studio | Peregrine Productions Producers Circle |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates |
Running time | 144 minutes[1] 119 minutes[2] (European cut) |
Country | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $19,000,000[3] |
Box office | $44,360,123[3] |
The Shining is a 1980 British-American psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Scatman Crothers. The film is based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, though there are significant changes.[4]
In the film, Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic, takes a job as an off-season caretaker at an isolated hotel called the Overlook Hotel. His young son possesses psychic abilities and is able to see things from the past and future, such as the ghosts who inhabit the hotel. Soon after settling in, the family is trapped in the hotel by a snowstorm, and Jack gradually becomes influenced by a supernatural presence; he descends into madness and attempts to murder his wife and son.
Unlike previous Kubrick films, which developed an audience gradually by building on word-of-mouth, The Shining was released as a mass-market film, opening at first in just two cities on Memorial Day, then nationwide a month later.[5] Although initial response to the film was mixed, later critical assessment was more favorable and it is now listed among the greatest horror movies, while some have even viewed it as one of the greatest films of all time. Film director Martin Scorsese, writing in The Daily Beast, ranked it as one of the 11 scariest horror movies of all time.[6] Film critics, film students, and Kubrick's producer, Jan Harlan, have remarked on the enormous influence the film has had on popular culture.[7][8][9]
The initial European release of The Shining was 25 minutes shorter than the American version, achieved by removing most of the scenes taking place outside the environs of the hotel.
Jack Torrance arrives at the Overlook Hotel to interview for the position of winter caretaker, with the aim of using the hotel's solitude to work on his writing. The hotel itself is built on the site of a Native American burial ground and becomes completely snowed in during the long winters. As a result the Hotel is closed from November to May. Manager Stuart Ullman warns him that a previous caretaker developed cabin fever and killed his family and himself. Jack's son, Danny, appears to have ESP and has had a terrifying premonition about the hotel. Jack's wife, Wendy, tells a visiting doctor that Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony, and that Jack has given up drinking because he had hurt Danny's arm following a binge.
The family arrives at the hotel on closing day and is given a tour. The African-American chef Dick Hallorann surprises Danny by telepathically offering him ice cream. He explains to Danny that he and his grandmother shared this telepathic ability, which he calls "shining". Danny asks if there is anything to be afraid of in the hotel, particularly Room 237. Hallorann tells Danny that the hotel itself has a "shine" to it along with many memories, not all of which are good. He also tells Danny to stay out of Room 237.
A month passes; while Jack's writing project goes nowhere, Danny and Wendy explore the hotel's hedge maze. Wendy becomes concerned about the phone lines being out due to the heavy snowfall and Danny has more frightening visions. Jack, increasingly frustrated, starts acting strangely and becomes prone to violent outbursts.
Danny's curiosity about Room 237 gets the better of him when he sees the room's door open. Later, Wendy finds Jack, asleep at his typewriter, screaming while in the midst of a horrifying nightmare. After she awakens him, he says he dreamed that he had killed her and Danny. Danny then shows up with a bruise on his neck and visibly traumatized, causing Wendy to accuse Jack of abusing Danny. Jack wanders into the hotel's Gold Room where he meets a ghostly bartender named Lloyd. Lloyd serves him bourbon on the rocks while Jack complains to him about his marriage.
Wendy later tells Jack that Danny told her that a "crazy woman in one of the rooms" tried to strangle him. Jack investigates Room 237, where he encounters the ghost of a dead woman, but tells Wendy he saw nothing. Wendy and Jack argue about whether Danny should be removed from the hotel and a furious Jack returns to the Gold Room, now filled with ghosts having a costume party. Here, he meets the ghost of the previous caretaker, Grady, who tells Jack that he must "correct" his wife and child, and that Danny has reached out to Hallorann somehow.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Hallorann has a premonition that something is wrong at the hotel and takes a flight back to Colorado to investigate. Danny starts calling out "redrum" frantically and goes into a trance, now referring to himself as "Tony".
While searching for Jack, Wendy discovers his typewriter; he has been typing endless pages of manuscript repeating "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" in different layouts. She is confronted by Jack, who threatens her before she knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat. She manages to drag him into the kitchen and lock him in the pantry, but this does not solve her larger problem; she and Danny are trapped at the hotel since Jack has sabotaged the hotel's two-way radio and snowcat. Later, Jack converses through the pantry door with Grady, who then unlocks the door, releasing him.
Danny writes "REDЯUM" in lipstick on the bathroom door. When Wendy sees this in the bedroom mirror, the letters spell out "MURDƎЯ". Jack begins to chop through the door leading to his family's living quarters with a fire axe. Wendy frantically sends Danny out through the bathroom window, but it will not open sufficiently for her to fit through it herself. Jack then starts chopping through the bathroom door as Wendy screams in horror. He leers through the hole he has made, shouting "Here's Johnny!", but backs off after Wendy slashes his hand with a butcher knife.
Hearing the engine of the snowcat Hallorann has borrowed to get up the mountain, Jack leaves the room. He kills Hallorann in the lobby and pursues Danny into the hedge maze. Wendy runs through the hotel looking for Danny, encountering several ghosts and a huge cascade of blood from an elevator. Meanwhile, Danny walks backwards in his own tracks and leaps behind a corner, covering his tracks with snow to mislead Jack, who is following his footprints. Wendy and Danny escape in Hallorann's snowcat, while Jack freezes to death in the hedge maze.
In a photograph in the hotel hallway dated July 4, 1921, Jack Torrance smiles amid a crowd of party revelers.
- Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance
- Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance
- Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance
- Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann
- Barry Nelson as Stuart Ullman
- Philip Stone as Delbert Grady
- Joe Turkel as Lloyd the bartender
- Anne Jackson as Doctor
- Tony Burton as Larry Durkin
- Barry Dennen as Bill Watson
- Lisa and Louise Burns as the Grady girls
In the shorter European cut, all of the scenes involving Jackson and Burton are cut (although their names still appear in the credits). Dennen is onscreen in both versions of the film, albeit to a limited degree (and with no dialogue) in the shorter cut.
The actresses who played the Grady daughters, Lisa and Louise Burns, are identical twins; however, the characters in the book and film script are merely sisters, not twins. In the film's dialogue, Mr. Ullman identifies them as "about eight and ten". Nonetheless, they are frequently referred to in discussions about the film as "the Grady twins".
The resemblance in the staging of the Grady girls and the famous "Twins" photograph by Diane Arbus has been noted both by Arbus' biographer, Patricia Bosworth,[10] and by numerous Kubrick critics.[11] Although Kubrick both met Arbus personally and studied photography under her during his youthful days as photographer for Look magazine, Kubrick's widow says he did not deliberately model the Grady girls on Arbus' famous photograph, in spite of widespread attention to the resemblance.[12]
Before making The Shining, Stanley Kubrick directed the 1975 movie Barry Lyndon, a highly visual period film about an Irish man who attempts to make his way into the English aristocracy. Despite its technical achievement, the film was not a box office success in the United States and was derided by critics for being too long and too slow. Kubrick, disappointed with Barry Lyndon's lack of success, realized he needed to make a film that would be commercially viable as well as artistically fulfilling.
After having chosen Stephen King's novel The Shining as a basis for his next project, and after a pre-production phase, Kubrick had sets constructed on soundstages at EMI Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, Britain – to enable chronological filming and changes during production, he used several stages at EMI Elstree Studios in order to make all sets available during the complete duration of production. The set for the Overlook Hotel was then the largest ever built at Elstree, including a life-size re-creation of the exterior of the hotel.[13] Some of the interior designs of the Overlook Hotel set are notable for being based on those of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.
While most of the interior shots, and even some of the Overlook exterior shots were done on studio sets, a few exterior shots were done on location by a second-unit crew headed by Jan Harlan: Saint Mary Lake with its Wild Goose Island was the filming location for the aerial shots of the opening scene.[14] The Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon was filmed for a few of the exterior shots of the fictional Overlook Hotel, and notably absent in these shots is the hedge maze – a nonexistent feature at the Timberline Lodge.
This film was among the first half-dozen to use the newly developed Steadicam (after the 1976 films Bound for Glory, Marathon Man, and Rocky), and was Kubrick's first use of it.[15] This is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera, which mechanically separates the operator's movement from the camera's, allowing smooth tracking shots while the operator is moving over an uneven surface. It essentially combines the stabilized steady footage of a regular mount with the fluidity and flexibility of a handheld camera. The inventor of the Steadicam, Garrett Brown, was heavily involved with the production. Brown published an article in American Cinematographer about his experience,[16] and contributed to the audio commentary on the 2007 DVD release of The Shining. Brown describes his excitement taking his first tour of the sets which offered "further possibilities for the Steadicam". This tour convinced Brown to become personally involved with the production. Kubrick was not "just talking of stunt shots and staircases". Rather he would use the Steadicam "as it was intended to be used – as a tool which can help get the lens where it's wanted in space and time without the classic limitations of the dolly and crane."
Kubrick himself aided in modifying the Steadicam's video transmission technology. Brown states his own abilities to operate the Steadicam were refined by working on Kubrick's film. On this film, Brown developed a two-handed technique which enabled him to maintain the camera at one height while panning and tilting the camera. In addition to tracking shots from behind, the Steadicam enabled shooting in constricted rooms without flying out walls, or backing the camera into doors. Brown notes that
"One of the most talked-about shots in the picture is the eerie tracking sequence which follows Danny as he pedals at high speed through corridor after corridor on his plastic Big Wheel tricycle. The soundtrack explodes with noise when the wheel is on wooden flooring and is abruptly silent as it crosses over carpet. We needed to have the lens just a few inches from the floor and to travel rapidly just behind or ahead of the bike."
This required the Steadicam to be on a special mount modeled on a wheelchair in which the operator sat while pulling a platform with the sound man. Brown also discusses how the scenes in the hedge maze were shot with a Steadicam.
The Shining had a prolonged and arduous production period, often with very long workdays. Principal photography took over a year to complete, due to Kubrick's highly methodical nature. Actress Shelley Duvall did not get along well with Kubrick, frequently arguing with him on set about lines in the script, her acting techniques and numerous other things. Duvall eventually became so overwhelmed by the stress of her role that she became physically ill for months. At one point she was under so much stress that her hair began to fall out. The shooting script was being changed constantly, sometimes several times a day, adding more stress. Jack Nicholson eventually became so frustrated with the ever-changing script that he would throw away the copies that the production team would give to him to memorize, knowing that it was just going to change anyway. He learned most of his lines just minutes before filming them. Nicholson was living in London with his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston and her younger sister, Allegra, who testified to his long shooting days.[17]
Nicholson was Kubrick's first choice for the role of Jack Torrance; other actors considered were Robert De Niro (who claims the film gave him nightmares for a month),[18] Robin Williams and Harrison Ford, all of whom met with Stephen King's disapproval.[19]
The opening panorama shots (outtakes of which were used by Ridley Scott for the closing moments of the original cut of the film Blade Runner) and scenes of the Volkswagen Beetle on the road to the hotel were filmed from a helicopter in Glacier National Park in Montana on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.
For international versions of the film, Kubrick shot different takes of Wendy reading the typewriter pages in different languages. For each language, a suitable idiom was used: German (Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen – "Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today"), Italian (Il mattino ha l'oro in bocca – "The morning has gold in its mouth"), French (Un «Tiens» vaut mieux que deux «Tu l'auras» – "One 'here you go' is worth more than two 'you'll have its'", the equivalent of "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"), Spanish (No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano – "No matter how early you get up, you can't make the sun rise any sooner"). These alternate shots were not included with the DVD release, where only the English phrase "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" was used.
During production, Kubrick screened David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977) to the cast and crew, to convey the mood he wanted to achieve for the film.[20]
The door that Jack chops through with the axe near the end of the film was a real door. Kubrick had originally shot the scene with a fake door, but Nicholson, who had worked as a volunteer fire marshal, tore it down too quickly. Jack's line, "Heeeere's Johnny!", is taken from Ed McMahon's famous introduction to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and was improvised by Nicholson. Kubrick, who had lived in England for some time, was unaware of the significance of the line, and nearly used a different take.[21] Carson later used the Nicholson clip to open his 1980 Anniversary Show on NBC.
Music and soundtrack[edit]
The film features a brief electronic score by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, including one major theme in addition to a main title based on Hector Berlioz' interpretation of the "Dies Irae", used in his "Symphonie Fantastique", as well as pieces of modernist music. The soundtrack LP was taken off the market due to licensing issues and was never released on compact disc release.[citation needed] In the film itself, parts of the soundtrack were overdubbed one atop another.[22]
Carlos and Elkind had composed a great deal of music for the film, however, Kubrick decided to go with classical music from other sources, as he had done on previous occasions. Some of Carlos' unused music appears on her album Rediscovering Lost Scores, Vol. 2.
The stylistically modernist art-music chosen by Kubrick is similar to the repertoire he first explored in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although the repertoire was selected by Kubrick, the process of matching passages of music to motion picture was left almost entirely at the discretion of music editor Gordon Stainforth, whose work on this film is known for the attention to fine details and remarkably precise synchronization without excessive splicing.[23]
The non-original music on the soundtrack is as follows:
- Lontano by György Ligeti, Ernest Bour conducting Sinfonie Orchester des Südwestfunks (Wergo Records)
- Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by Béla Bartók, Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon)
- Utrenja – excerpts from the Ewangelia and Kanon Paschy movements by Krzysztof Penderecki Andrzej Markowski conducting Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic, Warsaw (Polskie Nagrania Records)
- The Awakening of Jacob (Als Jakob erwachte...), De Natura Sonoris No. 1 (the latter not on the soundtrack album, Cracow Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Henryk Czyż) and De Natura Sonoris 2, by Krzysztof Penderecki (Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrzej Markowski, Polskie Nagrania Records)
- Home by Henry Hall and the Gleneagles Hotel Band (Columbia Records)
- It's All Forgotten Now performed by Ray Noble and His Orchestra, with Al Bowlly (not on the soundtrack album)
- Masquerade by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra (not on the soundtrack album)
- Kanon (for string orchestra) by Krzysztof Penderecki (not on the soundtrack album)
- Polymorphia (for string orchestra) by Krzysztof Penderecki, performed by Cracow Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Henryk Czyż (not on the soundtrack album)
- Midnight, the Stars and You by Jimmy Campbell, Reginald Connelly and Harry Woods, performed by Ray Noble and His Orchestra, with Al Bowlly (not on the soundtrack album)
Post-release edit and European version[edit]
After its premiere and a week into the general run (with a running time of 146 minutes), Kubrick cut a scene at the end that took place in a hospital. The scene shows Wendy in a bed talking with Mr. Ullman who explains that Jack's body could not be found; he then gives Danny a yellow tennis ball, presumably the same one that lured Danny into Room 237. This scene was subsequently physically cut out of prints by projectionists and sent back to the studio by order of Warner Bros., the film's distributor. This cut the film's running time to 144 minutes. As noted by Roger Ebert:
If Jack did indeed freeze to death in the labyrinth, of course his body was found – and sooner rather than later, since Dick Hallorann alerted the forest rangers to serious trouble at the hotel. If Jack's body was not found, what happened to it? Was it never there? Was it absorbed into the past and does that explain Jack's presence in that final photograph of a group of hotel party-goers in 1921? Did Jack's violent pursuit of his wife and child exist entirely in Wendy's imagination, or Danny's, or theirs?... Kubrick was wise to remove that epilogue. It pulled one rug too many out from under the story. At some level, it is necessary for us to believe the three members of the Torrance family are actually residents in the hotel during that winter, whatever happens or whatever they think happens.
For its release in Europe, Kubrick cut 25 minutes from the film.[24][25] The excised scenes made reference to the outside world, and to Danny's imaginary friend, Tony.
Home media[edit]
The US region 1 DVD of the film is the longer (144 minute) edit of the film. The European (including UK) region 2 DVD is the shorter (119 minute) version. On British television, the short version played on Channel 4 once and on Sky Movies numerous times in the mid-nineties. All other screenings, before and since these, have been on either ITV or ITV4 and have been the longer US edit. The German DVD shows the short version, as seen in German TV screenings.
In accordance with stipulations contained in Kubrick's will, DVD releases show the film in open matte (i.e., with more picture content visible than in movie theaters). The scene in which Wendy discovers her husband's work (consisting only of a simple proverb: "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" repeatedly typed on numerous pages) was shot with different proverbs in at least five languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian and German). Nevertheless, most DVD releases show the English version, disregarding the dub language.
DVDs in both regions contain a candid fly-on-the-wall 33-minute documentary made by Kubrick's daughter Vivian (who was 17 when she filmed it) entitled Making The Shining, originally shown on British television in 1980. She also provided an audio commentary track about her documentary for its DVD release. It appears even on pre-2007 editions of The Shining on DVD, although most DVDs of Kubrick films before then were devoid of documentaries or audio commentaries. It has some candid interviews and very private moments caught on set, such as arguments with cast and director, moments of a no-nonsense Kubrick directing his actors, Scatman Crothers being overwhelmed with emotion during his interview, Shelley Duvall collapsing of exhaustion on the set and a very playful Jack Nicholson enjoying playing up to the behind-the-scenes camera.[26]
Initial reception[edit]
The film had a slow start at the box office, but gained momentum, eventually doing well commercially and making Warner Bros. a profit. It opened at first to mixed reviews. For example, Variety was critical, saying "With everything to work with, [...] Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller."[27] It was the only one of Kubrick's last nine films to get no nominations at all from either the Oscars or Golden Globes, but was nominated for a pair of Razzie Awards, including Worst Director and Worst Actress (Duvall),[28] in the very first year that award was given. (At that time, the Raspberries were voted on by a handful of friends of Raspberry founder John Wilson. This was long before the voting body expanded to a large international committee that included reputable film critics and industry professionals.)[29][30][31][32]
Later reception[edit]
As with most Kubrick films, more recent analyses have treated the film more favorably. A common initial criticism was the slow pacing which was highly atypical of horror films of the time; viewers subsequently decided this actually contributes to the film's hypnotic quality.[33] Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 92% "Certified Fresh".[34]
Roger Ebert did not review the film on his TV show when first released,[35] and in print complained that it was hard to connect with any of the characters[36] but in 2006, The Shining made it into Ebert's series of "Great Movie" reviews, saying "Stanley Kubrick's cold and frightening The Shining challenges us to decide: Who is the reliable observer? Whose idea of events can we trust?" [...] "It is this elusive open-endedness that makes Kubrick's film so strangely disturbing."[37]
Analysis of change in perception[edit]
Jonathan Romney, writing about the film in 1999, discussed the originally lukewarm perception of the film and its gradual acceptance as a masterpiece: "The final scene alone demonstrates what a rich source of perplexity The Shining offers. At first sight this is an extremely simple, even static film. [..] Kubrick had put so much effort into his film, building vast sets at Elstree, making a 17-week shoot stretch to 46, and what was the result? A silly scare story – something that, it was remarked at the time, Roger Corman could have turned around in a fortnight. But look beyond the simplicity and the Overlook reveals itself as a palace of paradox...." Romney says "The dominating presence of the Overlook Hotel – designed by Roy Walker as a composite of American hotels visited in the course of research – is an extraordinary vindication of the value of mise en scène. It's a real, complex space that we don't just see but come to virtually inhabit. The confinement is palpable: horror cinema is an art of claustrophobia, making us loath to stay in the cinema but unable to leave. Yet it's combined with a sort of agoraphobia – we are as frightened of the hotel's cavernous vastness as of its corridors' enclosure. [...] The film sets up a complex dynamic between simple domesticity and magnificent grandeur, between the supernatural and the mundane in which the viewer is disoriented by the combination of spaciousness and confinement, and an uncertainty as to just what is real or not."[38]
Response by Stephen King[edit]
Stephen King has been quoted as saying that although Kubrick made a film with memorable imagery, it was not a good adaptation of his novel[39] and is the only adaptation of his novels that he could "remember hating".[40] However, in King's 1981 nonfiction book Danse Macabre, he listed Kubrick's film among those he considered to have "contributed something of value to the [horror] genre" and mentioned it as one of his "personal favorites."[41] Notably, before the 1980 movie King often said he did not care about the film adaptations of his novels.[4]
King thought that his novel's important themes, such as the disintegration of the family and the dangers of alcoholism, were ignored. King has admitted he was suffering from alcoholism at the time he wrote the novel, and as such there was an element of autobiography in the story. King especially viewed the casting of Nicholson as a mistake and as being too early a tip-off to the audience that the character Jack would eventually go mad (due to Nicholson's identification with the character of McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). King had suggested that a more "everyman"-like actor such as Jon Voight or Christopher Reeve or Michael Moriarty play the role, so that Jack's subsequent descent into madness would be more unnerving.[4]
At other times, King suggested that he disliked the downplaying of the supernatural element of the film, which he felt took the "bite" out of the story and made Jack a less sympathetic character. According to King, he viewed Jack as being victimized by the genuinely external supernatural forces haunting the hotel, whereas Kubrick's take viewed the haunting and its resulting malignancy as coming from within Jack himself.[42]
King's oft-cited remark about Kubrick being a man who "thinks too much and feels too little" has frequently been quoted as disparaging Kubrick's overly clinical and detached approach to directing actors, but in context it is really a reference to Kubrick's ambivalent skepticism about the reality of the supernatural which emerged in pre-production conversations between King and Kubrick. The full context of King's well-known quote is
Parts of the film are chilling, charged with a relentlessly claustrophobic terror, but others fall flat. Not that religion has to be involved in horror, but a visceral skeptic such as Kubrick just couldn't grasp the sheer inhuman evil of The Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn't believe, he couldn't make the film believable to others. What's basically wrong with Kubrick's version of The Shining is that it's a film by a man who thinks too much and feels too little; and that's why, for all its virtuoso effects, it never gets you by the throat and hangs on the way real horror should.[43]
Mark Browning, a critic of King's work, observed that King's novels frequently contain a narrative closure that completes the story, which Kubrick's film lacks.[44] Browning has in fact argued that King has exactly the opposite problem of which he accused Kubrick. King, he believes, "feels too much and thinks too little."
King was also disappointed by Kubrick's decision not to film at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, which inspired the story (a decision Kubrick made because the hotel did not have sufficient snow or electric power). King finally supervised the 1997 television adaptation also titled The Shining, filmed at The Stanley Hotel.
The animosity of King toward Kubrick's adaptation has dulled over time. During an interview segment on the Bravo channel, King stated that the first time he watched Kubrick's adaptation, he found it to be "dreadfully unsettling".
Establishment as classic[edit]
Horror film critic Peter Bracke reviewing the Blu-ray release in Hi-Def Digest writes
... just as the ghostly apparitions of the film's fictional Overlook Hotel would play tricks on the mind of poor Jack Torrance, so too has the passage of time changed the perception of The Shining itself. Many of the same reviewers who lambasted the film for "not being scary" enough back in 1980 now rank it among the most effective horror films ever made, while audiences who hated the film back then now vividly recall being "terrified" by the experience. The Shining has somehow risen from the ashes of its own bad press to redefine itself not only as a seminal work of the genre, but perhaps the most stately, artful horror ever made.
The Shining has become widely regarded as one of the greatest films of the horror genre and a staple of pop culture. Like many Kubrick films, it has been described as "seminal".[33][45] In 2001, the film was ranked 29th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list and Jack Torrance was named the 25th greatest villain on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list in 2003. In 2005, the quote "Here's Johnny!" was ranked 68 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list. It was named the all-time scariest film by Channel 4,[46] Total Film labeled it the 5th greatest horror film,[47] and Bravo TV named one of the film's scenes 6th on their list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In addition, film critics Kim Newman[48] and Jonathan Romney[49] both placed it in their top ten lists for the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. Director Martin Scorsese placed The Shining on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[50] Even mathematicians at London's King's College used statistical modeling in a study commissioned by Sky Movies to conclude that The Shining was the "perfect scary movie" due to a proper balance of various ingredients including shock value, suspense, gore and size of the cast.[51][52]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Award | Subject | Nominee | Result |
Razzie Award | Worst Actress | Shelley Duvall | Nominated |
Worst Director | Stanley Kubrick | ||
Saturn Award | Best Director | ||
Best Supporting Actor | Scatman Crothers | Won | |
Best Horror Film | Nominated | ||
Best Music | Wendy Carlos | ||
Rachel Elkind |
- American Film Institute Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #29
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Jack Torrance – #25 Villain
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
- "Here's Johnny!" – #68
- "Wendy, give me the bat." - Nominated
- "Come play with us, Danny. Forever and ever." - Nominated
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated[53]
Social interpretations of the film[edit]
Film critic Jonathan Romney writes that the film has been interpreted in many different ways; as being about the crisis in masculinity, sexism, corporate America, and racism: "It's tempting to read The Shining as an Oedipal struggle not just between generations but between Jack's culture of the written word and Danny's culture of images...." Romney writes, "Jack also uses the written word to more mundane purpose – to sign his 'contract' with the Overlook. 'I gave my word,' [..] which we take to mean 'gave his soul' in the [..] Faustian sense. But maybe he means it more literally – by the end [..] he has renounced language entirely, pursuing Danny through the maze with an inarticulate animal roar. What he has entered into is a conventional business deal that places commercial obligation [..] over the unspoken contract of compassion and empathy that he seems to have neglected to sign with his family."[34] These varied interpretations spawned the 2012 documentary Room 237 directed by Rodney Ascher that provides an in-depth exploration of various interpretations of, and myths surrounding, the film.
Native Americans[edit]
Among interpreters who see the film reflecting more subtly the social concerns that animate other Kubrick films, one of the earliest and most well-known viewpoints was discussed in an essay by ABC reporter Bill Blakemore entitled "Kubrick's 'Shining' Secret: Film's Hidden Horror Is The Murder Of The Indian," first published in The Washington Post on July 12, 1987.[56][57] He believes that indirect references to American killings of Native Americans pervade the film as exemplified by the Indian logos on the baking powder in the kitchen and Indian artwork that appears throughout the hotel, though no Native Americans are ever seen. Stuart Ullman tells Wendy that when building the hotel a few Indian attacks had to be fended off since it was constructed on an Indian burial ground.
Blakemore's general argument is that the film as a whole is a metaphor for the genocide of Native Americans. He notes that when Jack kills Hallorann, the dead body is seen lying on a rug with an Indian motif. The blood in the elevator shafts is, for Blakemore, the blood of the Indians in the burial ground on which the hotel was built. As such, the fact that the date of the final photograph is July 4 is meant to be deeply ironic. Blakemore writes,
As with some of his other movies, Kubrick ends The Shining with a powerful visual puzzle that forces the audience to leave the theater asking, "What was that all about?" The Shining ends with an extremely long camera shot moving down a hallway in the Overlook, reaching eventually the central photo among 21 photos on the wall. The caption reads: "Overlook Hotel-July 4th Ball-1921." The answer to this puzzle, is that most Americans overlook the fact that July Fourth was no ball, nor any kind of Independence day, for native Americans; that the weak American villain of the film is the re-embodiment of the American men who massacred the Indians in earlier years; that Kubrick is examining and reflecting on a problem that cuts through the decades and centuries.
Blakemore also sees this film as similar to other Kubrick films where evil forces get weak men to do their bidding.
Film writer John Capo sees the film as an allegory of American imperialism. This is exemplified by many clues; the closing photo of Jack in the past at a 4th of July party, or Jack's earlier citation of the Rudyard Kipling poem "The White Man's Burden."[58] The poem has been interpreted as rationalizing the European colonization of non-white people, while Jack's line has been interpreted as referring to alcoholism, from which he suffers.
Geoffrey Cocks and Kubrick's concern with the Holocaust[edit]
Film historian Geoffrey Cocks has extended Blakemore's idea that the film has a subtext about Native Americans to arguing that the film indirectly reflects Stanley Kubrick's concerns about the Holocaust (Both Cocks' book and Michael Herr's memoir of Kubrick discuss how he wanted his entire life to make a film dealing directly with the Holocaust, but could never quite get the handle on it that satisfied him). Cocks is a cultural historian best known for describing the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent Western culture. Cocks, writing in his book The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust, proposed a controversial theory that all of Kubrick's work is informed by the Holocaust; there is, he says, a strong (though hidden) holocaust subtext in The Shining. This, Cocks believes, is why Kubrick's screenplay goes to emotional extremes, omitting much of the novel's supernaturalism and making the character of Wendy much more hysteria-prone.[59] Cocks places Kubrick's vision of a haunted hotel in line with a long literary tradition of hotels in which sinister events occur, from Stephen Crane's short story "The Blue Hotel" (which Kubrick admired) to the Swiss Berghof in Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain,[60] about a snowbound sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps in which the protagonist witnesses a series of events which are a microcosm of the decline of Western culture. In keeping with this tradition, Kubrick's film focuses on domesticity and the Torrances' attempt to use this imposing building as a home which Jack Torrance describes as "homey."
Cocks claims that Kubrick has elaborately coded many of his historical concerns into the film with manipulations of numbers and colors and his choice of musical numbers, many of which are post-war compositions influenced by the horrors of World War II. Of particular note is Kubrick's use of Penderecki's The Awakening of Jacob[61] to accompany Jack Torrance's dream of killing his family and Danny's vision of past carnage in the hotel, a piece of music originally associated with the horrors of the Holocaust. As such, Kubrick's pessimistic ending in contrast to Stephen King's optimistic one is in keeping with the motifs that Kubrick wove into the story.
Cocks' work has been anthologized and discussed in other works on Stanley Kubrick films, but sometimes with skepticism. In particular, Julian Rice writing in the opening chapter of his book Kubrick's Hope believes Cocks' views are excessively speculative and contain too many strained "critical leaps" of faith. Rice holds that we cannot really replicate or corroborate what went on in Kubrick's mind beyond a broad vision of the nature of good and evil (which included concern about the Holocaust), but Kubrick's art is not governed by this one single obsession.[62] Diane Johnson, co-screenwriter for The Shining, commented on Cocks' observations and holds that preoccupation with the Jewish Holocaust on Kubrick's part could very likely have motivated his decision to place the hotel on a Native American burial ground, although Kubrick never directly mentioned it to her.[63]
Literary allusions[edit]
Geoffrey Cocks notes that the film contains many allusions to fairy tales, both Hansel and Gretel and the Three Little Pigs,[59] with Jack Torrance identified as the Big Bad Wolf, which Bruno Bettelheim interprets as standing for "all the asocial unconscious devouring powers" that must be overcome by a child's ego.
The saying "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" appeared first in James Howell's Proverbs in English, Italian, French and Spanish (1659).[64]
Ambiguities in the film[edit]
Screenwriter Todd Alcott has noted:
Much has been written, some of it quite intelligent, about the spatial anomalies and inconsistencies in The Shining: there are rooms with windows that should not be there and doors that couldn't possibly lead to anywhere, rooms appear to be in one place in one scene and another place in another, wall fixtures and furniture pieces appear and disappear from scene to scene, props move from one room to another, and the layout of the Overlook makes no physical sense.[65]
Roger Ebert notes that the film does not really have a "reliable observer", with the possible exception of Dick Hallorann. Ebert believes various events call into question the reliability of Jack, Wendy, and Danny at various points.[66] This leads Ebert to conclude that:
Kubrick is telling a story with ghosts (the two girls, the former caretaker and a bartender), but it isn't a "ghost story," because the ghosts may not be present in any sense at all except as visions experienced by Jack or Danny.
Ebert ultimately concludes that "The movie is not about ghosts but about madness and the energies". Likewise, film critic James Berardinelli (who is generally much less impressed with the film than Ebert), notes that "King would have us believe that the hotel is haunted. Kubrick is less definitive in the interpretations he offers." He dubs the film a failure as a ghost story, but brilliant as a study of "madness and the unreliable narrator."[67]
Ghosts vs. cabin fever[edit]
In some sequences, there is a question of whether or not there are ghosts present. In the scenes where Jack sees ghosts he is always facing a mirror, or in the case of his storeroom conversation with Grady, a reflective, highly polished door. Film reviewer James Berardinelli notes "It has been pointed out that there's a mirror in every scene in which Jack sees a ghost, causing us to wonder whether the spirits are reflections of a tortured psyche."[68] In Hollywood's Stephen King, Tony Magistrale writes:
Kubrick's reliance on mirrors as visual aids for underscoring the thematic meaning of this film portrays visually the internal transformations and oppositions that are occurring to Jack Torrance psychologically. Through...these devices, Kubrick dramatizes the hotel's methodical assault on Torrance's identity, its ability to stimulate the myriad of self-doubts and anxieties by creating opportunities to warp Torrance's perspective on himself and [his family]. Furthermore the fact that Jack looks into a mirror whenever he "speaks" to the hotel means, to some extent, that Kubrick implicates him directly into the hotel's "consciousness," because Jack is, in effect, talking to himself.[69]
Ghosts are the implied explanation for Jack's escape from the locked storeroom. Kubrick scholar Michel Ciment has written
It seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural in such a way as to lead you to think that the supernatural would eventually be explained by the psychological: 'Jack must be imagining these things because he's crazy.' This allowed you to suspend your doubt of the supernatural until you were so thoroughly into the story that you could accept it almost without noticing...It's not until Grady, the ghost of the former caretaker who axed to death his family, slides open the bolt of the larder door, allowing Jack to escape, that you are left with no other explanation but the supernatural.[70]
The two Gradys[edit]
Early in the film, Stuart Ullman tells Jack of a previous caretaker, Charles Grady, who, in 1970, succumbed to cabin fever, murdered his family and then killed himself. Later, Jack meets a ghostly butler named Grady. Jack says he knows about the murders, claiming to recognize Grady from pictures; however, the butler introduces himself as Delbert Grady.
Gordon Dahlquist of The Kubrick FAQ argues that the name change "deliberately mirrors Jack Torrance being both the husband of Wendy/father of Danny and the mysterious man in the July Fourth photo. It is to say he is two people: the man with choice in a perilous situation and the man who has 'always' been at the Overlook. It's a mistake to see the final photo as evidence that the events of the film are predetermined: Jack has any number of moments where he can act other than the way he does, and that his (poor) choices are fueled by weakness and fear perhaps merely speaks all the more to the questions about the personal and the political that The Shining brings up. In the same way Charles had a chance – once more, perhaps – to not take on Delbert's legacy, so Jack may have had a chance to escape his role as 'caretaker' to the interests of the powerful. It's the tragic course of this story that he chooses not to."[71] Dahlquist's argument is that Delbert Grady, the 1920s butler, and Charles Grady, the 1970s caretaker, rather than being either two different people or the same are two 'manifestations' of a similar entity; a part permanently at the hotel (Delbert) and the part which is given the choice of whether to join the legacy of the hotel's murderous past (Charles), just as the man in the photo is not exactly Jack Torrance, but nor is he someone entirely different. Jack in the photo has 'always' been at the Overlook, Jack the caretaker chooses to become part of the hotel. The film's assistant editor Gordon Stainforth has commented on this issue, attempting to steer a course between the continuity-error explanation on one side and the hidden-meaning explanation on the other; "I don't think we'll ever quite unravel this. Was his full name Charles Delbert Grady? Perhaps Charles was a sort of nickname? Perhaps Ullman got the name wrong? But I also think that Stanley did NOT want the whole story to fit together too neatly, so [it is] absolutely correct, I think, to say that 'the sum of what we learn refuses to add up neatly.'"[71]
The photograph[edit]
At the end of the film, the camera moves slowly towards a wall in the Overlook and a 1921 photograph, revealed to include Jack Torrance seen at the middle of a 1921 party. In an interview with Michel Ciment, Kubrick overtly declared that the photograph suggests that Jack was a reincarnation of an earlier official at the hotel.[72] Still, this has not stopped interpreters from developing alternative readings, such as that Jack has been "absorbed" into the Overlook Hotel. Film critic Jonathan Romney, while acknowledging the absorption theory, wrote "As the ghostly butler Grady (Philip Stone) tells him during their chilling confrontation in the men's toilet, 'You're the caretaker, sir. You've always been the caretaker.' Perhaps in some earlier incarnation Jack really was around in 1921, and it's his present-day self that is the shadow, the phantom photographic copy. But if his picture has been there all along, why has no one noticed it? After all, it's right at the center of the central picture on the wall, and the Torrances have had a painfully drawn-out winter of mind-numbing leisure in which to inspect every corner of the place. Is it just that, like Poe's purloined letter, the thing in plain sight is the last thing you see? When you do see it, the effect is so unsettling because you realise the unthinkable was there under your nose – overlooked – the whole time."[38]
Comparison with the novel[edit]
This section possibly contains original research. (October 2013) |
The film differs from the novel significantly with regard to characterization and motivation of action. The most obvious differences are those regarding the personality of Jack Torrance (the source of much of author Stephen King's dissatisfaction with the film).[39][73][74]
Motivation of ghosts[edit]
The novel and the film differ as to whether the primary motive of the ghosts is to control the spirit of Jack Torrance (as in the film) or that of his son Danny (as in the book). In the novel, Danny's tremendous supernatural "shining" ability is the main factor motivating the ghosts who want to possess Danny's soul, and the ghosts use Jack Torrance as an agent in order to get him to kill Danny – his "shining" ability will be absorbed along with all the other awful energies that manifest there[75] and so they would become far more powerful.[76][original research?] In turn, Danny gains insight into dynamics of his father's troubled psyche, especially when he is able to restore his father to sanity, which never occurs in the film. Thus Danny's maturing and transformation as a result of these harrowing experiences is a prime focus of the novel.
In the film, the motive of the ghosts is apparently to "reclaim" Jack (even though Grady expresses an interest in Danny's "shining" ability), who seems to be a reincarnation of a previous caretaker of the hotel, as suggested by the 1920s photograph of Jack at the end of the film and Jack's repeated claims to have "not just a deja vu".[77] The film is even more focused on Jack (as opposed to Danny) than the novel.
This plot difference re-contextualizes the line "You've always been the caretaker," which in the novel is a lie told by the ghosts of the hotel to bolster Jack's ego,[78][original research?] but may in some sense be literally true in the film.
Room Number[edit]
The room number 217 has been changed to 237. There are fringe analyses relating this to rumors that Kubrick faked the first moon landing, as there are approximately 237,000 miles between the earth and the moon.[79]
Jack Torrance[edit]
The novel presents Jack as initially likable and well-intentioned but haunted by the demons of alcohol and authority issues. Nonetheless, he becomes gradually overwhelmed by the evil forces in the hotel. At the novel's conclusion, the hotel forces have possessed Jack's body and proceed to destroy all that is left of his mind during a final showdown with Danny, leaving a monstrous entity that Danny is able to divert while he, Wendy and Dick Halloran escape.[78] The film's Jack is established as somewhat sinister much earlier in the story and dies in a different manner. Jack actually kills Dick Hallorann in the film, but only wounds him in the novel. King attempted to talk Stanley Kubrick out of casting Jack Nicholson even before filming began, on the grounds that he seemed vaguely sinister from the very beginning of the film, and had suggested Jon Voight among others for the role.[80][81]
Only in the novel does Jack hear the haunting heavy-handed voice of his father with whom he had a troubled relationship.[82] In both the novel and film, Jack's encounter with the ghostly bartender is pivotal to Jack's deterioration. However, the novel gives much more detail about Jack's problems with drinking and alcohol.
The film prolongs Jack's struggle with writer's block. Kubrick's co-screenwriter Diane Johnson believes that in King's novel, Jack's discovery of the scrapbook of clippings in the boiler room of the hotel which gives him new ideas for a novel catalyzes his possession by the ghosts of the hotel, while at the same time unblocking his writing. Jack is no longer a blocked writer, but now filled with energy. In her contribution to the screenplay, she wrote an adaptation of this scene, which to her regret Kubrick later excised, as she felt this left the father's change less motivated.[83] Kubrick showed Jack's continued blockage quite late in the film with the iconic scene of Jack's "novel," which is not in the novel.
Stephen King has openly stated on the DVD commentary of the 1997 mini-series of The Shining that the character of Jack Torrance was partially autobiographical, as he was struggling with both alcoholism and unprovoked rage toward his family at the time of writing.[84] Tony Magistrale wrote about Kubrick's version of Jack Torrance in Hollywood's Stephen King:
Kubrick's version of Torrance is much closer to the tyrannical Hal (from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Alex (from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange) than he is to King's more conflicted, more sympathetically human characterization.[85]
Danny Torrance[edit]
Danny Torrance is considerably more open about his supernatural abilities in the novel, discussing them with strangers such as his doctor.[86] In the film, he is quite secretive about them even with his prime mentor Dick Halloran who also has these abilities. (The same is true of Dick Halloran who in his (book) journey back to the Overlook talks with others with the "shining" ability while in the film he lies about his reason for returning to the Overlook.) Danny in the novel is generally portrayed as unusually intelligent across the board.[87] In the film, he is more ordinary, though with a preternatural gift. In the novel, Danny is much more bonded to his father than in the film.
Although Danny has supernatural powers in both versions, the novel makes it clear that his apparent imaginary friend "Tony" really is a projection of hidden parts of his own psyche, though heavily amplified by Danny's psychic "shining" abilities. At the end it is revealed that Danny Torrance's middle name is "Anthony".[88][original research?]
Wendy Torrance[edit]
Wendy Torrance in the film is relatively meek, submissive, passive and mousy; this is shown by the way she defends Jack even in his absence to the doctor examining Danny. It is implied she has perhaps been abused by him as well. In the novel, she is a far more self-reliant and independent personality who is tied to Jack in part by her poor relationship with her parents.[89] In the novel, she never displays hysteria or collapses the way she does in the film, but remains cool and self-reliant. Writing in Hollywood's Stephen King, author Tony Magistrale writes about the mini-series remake:
De Mornay restores much of the steely resilience found in the protagonist of King's novel and this is particularly noteworthy when compared to Shelley Duvall's exaggerated portrayal of Wendy as Olive Oyl revisited: A simpering fatality of forces beyond her capacity to understand, much less surmount.[90]
Co-screenwriter Diane Johnson stated that in her contributions to the script, Wendy had more dialogue, and that Kubrick cut many of her lines, possibly due to his dissatisfaction with actress Shelley Duvall's delivery. Johnson believes the earlier draft of the script portrayed Wendy as a more-rounded character.[91]
Stuart Ullman[edit]
In the novel, Jack's authority issues are triggered by the fact that his interviewer, Ullman, is highly authoritarian, a kind of snobbish martinet. The film's Ullman is far more humane and concerned about Jack's well-being, as well as smooth and self-assured. Only in the novel does Ullman state that he disapproves of hiring Jack but higher authorities have asked that Jack be hired.[92] Ullman's bossy nature in the novel is one of the first steps in Jack's deterioration, whereas in the film, Ullman serves largely in the role of expositor.
In Stanley Kubrick and the Art of Adaptation, author Greg Jenkins writes "A toadish figure in the book, Ullman has been utterly reinvented for the film; he now radiates charm, grace and gentility."[93]
Family dynamics[edit]
Stephen King provides the reader with a great deal of information about the stress in the Torrance family early in the story,[94] including revelations of Jack's physical abuse of Danny and Wendy's fear of Danny's mysterious spells. Kubrick tones down the early family tension and reveals family disharmony much more gradually than does King. In the film, Danny has a stronger emotional bond with Wendy than with Jack, which fuels Jack's rather paranoid notion that the two are conspiring against him.
Plot differences[edit]
In the novel Jack recovers his sanity and goodwill through the intervention of Danny while this does not occur in the film. Writing in Cinefantastique magazine, Frederick Clarke suggests "Instead of playing a normal man who becomes insane, Nicholson portrays a crazy man attempting to remain sane."[95] In the novel, Jack's final act is to enable Wendy and Danny to escape the hotel before it explodes due to a defective boiler, killing him.[96] The film ends with the hotel still standing. More broadly, the defective boiler is a major element of the novel's plot, entirely missing from the film version.
Because of the limitations of special effects at the time, the living topiary animals of the novel were omitted and a hedge maze was added,[97][98] acting as a final trap for Jack Torrance as well as a refuge for Danny.
In the film, the hotel possibly derives its malevolent energy from being built on an Indian burial ground, while in the novel, the reason for the hotel's manifestation of evil is possibly explained by a theme present in King's previous novel Salem's Lot as well as Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: a physical place may absorb the evils that transpire there and manifest them as a vaguely sentient malevolence.[99] In the novel, Jack does a great deal of investigation of the hotel's past through a scrapbook,[100] a subplot almost omitted from the film aside from two touches: a brief appearance of the scrapbook beside the typewriter, and Jack's statement to the ghost of Grady that he knows his face from an old newspaper article describing the latter's horrific acts.
Some of the film's most famous iconic scenes, such as the ghost girls in the hallway and the torrent of blood from the elevators, are unique to the film. The most notable of these would be the typewritten pages Wendy discovers on Jack's desk.[101] Similarly, many of the most memorable lines of dialogue ("Words of wisdom" and "Here's Johnny!") are heard in the film only.
Film adaptation commentary[edit]
Although Stephen King fans were critical of the novel's adaptation on the grounds that Kubrick altered and reduced the novel's themes, a defense of Kubrick's approach was made in Steve Biodrowski's review of the film.[102] He argues that as in earlier films, Kubrick stripped out the back story of the film, reducing it down to a "basic narrative line," making the characters more like archetypes. His review of the film is one of the few to go into detailed comparison with the novel. He writes, "The result ...[is] a brilliant, ambitious attempt to shoot a horror film without the Gothic trappings of shadows and cobwebs so often associated with the genre."
In popular culture[edit]
Both parodies and homages to The Shining are prominent in U.S. popular culture, particularly in films, TV shows and music.[103][104][105][106] Images and scenes frequently referenced are: the Grady girls in the hallway, the word "Redrum", the blood spilling out of the elevator doors[107] and Jack sticking his head through the hole in the bathroom door, saying, "Here's Johnny." The tricycle scene in which Danny sees the Grady girls and the "here's Johnny" scene are seen on a drive-in theatre screen in the movie Twister just before a tornado rips the screen down.[108]
Director Tim Burton (who credits Kubrick as an influence) modeled the characters of Tweedledee and Tweedledum on the Grady girls in his version of Alice in Wonderland (like so many viewers of the film, Burton identifies the girls as twins in spite of Ullman's dialogue to the contrary).[109]
The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror V" includes a parody titled "The Shinning." In addition, Sherri and Terri, the twins in Bart's 4th grade class, are visually similar to the Grady girls.[110][111]
Remington Steele episode "Etched In Steele" includes a reference to "The Shining" when Steele uses one of his customary cinematic references to explain the concept of writer's block to his colleague Laura Holt.[112]
Five episodes of the drama Gilmore Girls reference the film. One episode contains Lorelai's line "Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there's no dancing, no walking, and we'd starve. It'd be all work and no play. Have you not seen The Shining, Mom?"[113]
Kate Bush's 1982 album The Dreaming contains the song "Get Out of My House," inspired primarily by the novel.[114] Sound clips of Ullman warning Jack about cabin fever with Jack's reassurances appear in Swedish goth band Katatonia's song "Endtime" on the album Brave Murder Day.[115] The plot of the film is referenced in the music video for "The Kill" by Thirty Seconds to Mars.[116]
"Here's Johnny!" was parodied by British comedian Lenny Henry in a controversial advertisement for Premier Inn.[117]
See also[edit]
- A Nightmare on Face Time, a 2012 episode of South Park parodying the film
- Room 237, a 2012 documentary about interpretations of The Shining
- Treehouse of Horror V, a 1994 episode of The Simpsons that features a sketch parodying the film
- ^ "THE SHINING (15)". BFI Films. British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
- ^ "THE SHINING (X)". Columbia-Warner Distributors. British Board of Film Classification. July 21, 1980. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
- ^ a b "The Shining, Box Office Information". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 9, 2012.
- ^ a b c "Kubrick v. King". TheIntellectualDevotional.com. October 29, 2008.
- ^ LoBrutto, Vincent. Stanley Kubrick: A Biography, p. 449
- ^ Martin Scorsese (2009-10-28). "11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2010-09-15.
- ^ "Kubrick #3 – The Shining (1980) " The Hollywood Projects". Thehollywoodprojects.com. 2010-07-26. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ "Brent Wiese". Public.iastate.edu. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ My Movie Mundo (2010-02-28). "Jan Harlan (producer) – The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, etc". My Movie Mundo. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ Bosworth, Patricia (255). Diane Arbus: a biography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31207-2.
- ^ including Webster, Patrick (2010). Love and Death in Kubrick: A Critical Study of the Films from Lolita Through Eyes Wide Shut. McFarland. p. 115. ISBN 9780786459162. and Kolker, Robert (2011). A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman. Oxford University Press. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-19-973888-5. and several others.
- ^ Webster, p. 115
- ^ Kubrick's The Shining - Closing Day idyllopuspress.com
- ^ "The Shining (1980) - Trivia". IMDb. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- ^ Serena Ferrara, Steadicam: Techniques and Aesthetics (Oxford: Focal Press, 2000), 26–31.
- ^ Brown, G. (1980) The Steadicam and The Shining. American Cinematographer, August, 61 (8), pp. 786–9, 826–7, 850–4. Reproduced at [1] without issue date or pages given
- ^ Huston, Allegra. Love Child, a Memoir of Family Lost and Found. Simon & Schuster (2009) p. 214
- ^ Robert De Niro (speaking about which films scared him), B105 FM interview on September 20, 2007
- ^ Stephen King, B105 FM on November 21, 2007
- ^ Roberts, Chris. "Eraserhead, The Short Films Of David Lynch". uncut.co.uk. Retrieved August 28, 2012.
- ^ Jack Nicholson in interview with Michel Ciment in Kubrick: The Definitive Edition" p. 198
- ^ "The Shining (1980) – Soundtracks".
- ^ "Barham, Jeremy. "Incorporating Monsters: Music as Context, Character and Construction in Kubrick's The Shining." London: Equinox Press. ISBN 978-1-84553-202-4". Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ A detailed shot-by-shot account of the differences is in Monthly Film Bulletin – Nov 1980 – Vol. 47 No. 562
- ^ IMDb.com, The Shining (1980) – Alternate versions
- ^ Making "The Shining", film by Vivian Kubrick, video
- ^ The Shining – Excerpt from Variety.
- ^ Tom O'Neil (2008-02-01). "Quelle horreur! 'The Shining' was not only snubbed, it was Razzed!". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
- ^ Lindrea, Victoria (February 25, 2007). "Blowing raspberries at Tinseltown". BBC News Retrieved 2009-05-04.
- ^ Larsen, Peter (January 20, 2005). "The Morning Read – So bad, they're almost good – A love of movies lies behind the Razzies". The Orange County Register: p. 1.
- ^ Germain, David (Associated Press) (February 26, 2005). "25 Years of Razzing Hollywood's Stinkers". South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sun-Sentinel Company): p. 7D.
- ^ Marder, Jenny (February 26, 2005). "Razzin' The Dregs of Hollywood Dreck – Film: Cerritos' John Wilson Marks His Golden Raspberry Awards' 25th Year With A Guide To Cinematic Slumming". Long Beach Press-Telegram: p. A1.
- ^ a b "Blu-ray Review: The Shining (1980) | High-Def Digest". Bluray.highdefdigest.com. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ a b "The Shining". Rotten Tomatoes.
- ^ "Sneak Previews: Titles and Airdate Guide". Epguides.com. 2013-09-09. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
- ^ DiMare, Philip (2011). Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 440. ISBN 9781598842975.
- ^ "Great Movies: The Shining". Chicago Sun-Times.
- ^ a b "Sight & Sound | Stanley Kubrick 1928-99 Resident Phantoms". BFI. 2012-02-10. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ a b "Kubrick FAQ - The Shining". Visual-memory.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "Writing Rapture: The WD Interview", Writer's Digest, May/June 2009
- ^ King, Stephen (1981). Danse Macabre. Berkley Press. pp. 415–417. ISBN 0425104338.
- ^ Stephen King (interviewee), Laurent Bouzerau (writer, director, producer) (2011). A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King (Television production) (in English). Turner Classic Movies.
- ^ "Quoted in". Thewordslinger.com. 2008-03-01. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ Stephen King on the big screen by Mark Browning p. 239
- ^ "Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures". Documentaryfilms.net. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "100 Greatest Scary Moments: Channel 4 Film". Channel4.com. Archived from the original on March 9, 2009. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ Jamie Graham (2005-10-10). "Total Film – Shock Horror!". Totalfilm.com. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ Kim Newman's choices in the Sound and Sound Top Ten poll 2002
- ^ Jonathan Romney's choices in the Sound and Sound Top Ten poll 2002
- ^ Scorsese, Martin (October 28, 2009). "11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 15, 2009.
- ^ "Shining named perfect scary movie". BBC News. 2004-08-09. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "King's College News "Mathematicians declare The Shining perfect scary movie"". Kcl.ac.uk. 2004-08-09. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) Ballot" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "Den svenska filmens Guldålder" (in Swedish) Thorellifilm
- ^ Original Scene from "The Phantom Carriage" on YouTube
- ^ Blakemore's essay has gone on to be discussed in several books on Kubrick particularly Julien Rice's Kubrick's Hope as well as a study of Stephen King films Stephen King on the Big Screen by Mark Browning. It is also assigned in many college film courses, and discussed ubiquitously on the Internet
- ^ Blakemore is best known as a spearhead for global warming issues and having been ABC News' Vatican Correspondent since 1970.
- ^ Capo, John (2004-09-27). "Tailslate.net". Tailslate.net. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ a b Geoffrey Cocks, James Diedrick, and Glenn Perusek, ed. (2006). Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History (1st ed.). Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-0299216146.
- ^ Cocks, Diedrich & Perusek 2006, p. 201.
- ^ Cocks, Diedrich & Perusek 2006, ch. 11.
- ^ Rice, Julian (2008). Kubrick's Hope: Discovering Optimism from 2001 to Eyes Wide Shut. Scarecrow Press, pp. 11–13
- ^ Cocks, Diedrich & Perusek 2006, p. 59, Writing The Shining, essay by Diane Johnson.
- ^ "James Howell Quotes". Famousquotesandauthors.com. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ Todd Alcott (November 29, 2010). "Todd Alcott:What Does the Protagonist Want?". Todd Alcott. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
- ^ Roger Ebert (June 18, 2006). "The Shining (1980)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
- ^ James Berardinelli (February 18, 2009). "The Shining (1980)". REELVIEWS.com. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
- ^ "Reelviews Movie Reviews". Reelviews.net. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ Hollywood's Stephen King by Tony Magistrale Palgrave Macmillan 2003 pp.95–96
- ^ Kubrick by Michel Ciment, 1983, Holt Reinhart Winston
- ^ a b "Kubrick FAQ - The Shining Part 2". Visual-memory.co.uk. 1921-07-04. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "The Kubrick Site: Kubrick speaks in regard to 'The Shining'". Visual-memory.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ Movie Junk Archive: Stephen King's The Shining
- ^ TV Guide, April 26 – May 2, 1997
- ^ Cinema of the occult: new age, satanism, Wicca, and spiritualism in film By Carrol Lee Fry p. 230.
- ^ The motivation laid out overtly in Chapter 55, That Which was Forgotten.
- ^ Among many other places, this is suggested in The Modern Weird Tale by S.T. Joshi, p. 72.
- ^ a b See Chapter 55, That Which Was Forgotten.
- ^ Segal, David (March 27, 2013). http://www.webcitation.org/6KnOGPMEU "It's Back. But What Does It Mean? Aide to Kubrick on 'Shining' Scoffs at 'Room 237' Theories". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2013.
- ^ King discusses this in an interview he gave at the time of the TV remake of The Shining in the New York Daily News"The Shining By the Book".
- ^ Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide By Stephen Jones Published by Watson-Guptill, 2002 p. 20
- ^ Magistrale, Tony. Stephen King: America's Storyteller, p. 120. ABC-CLIO, 2010. ISBN 9780313352287. See also novel, Chapter 26, Dreamland.
- ^ Johnson essay 2006, p. 58.
- ^ DVD of The Shining TV mini-series directed by Mick Garris Studio: Warner Home Video DVD Release Date: January 7, 2003
- ^ p. 100 of Hollywood's Stephen King By Tony Magistrale Published by Macmillan, 2003
- ^ Rasmussen, Randy. Stanley Kubrick: Seven Films Analyzed p.233. McFarland.See novel's Chapter 17, The Doctor's Office, and chapter 20, Talking with Mr. Ullman
- ^ Rasmussen, 233-4. See also novelChapter 16, Danny.
- ^ Tony's real identity is revealed in Chapter 54.
- ^ Bailey, Dale. American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction, p. 95. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299268732. See also the novel Chapter 5, Phone Booth, and Chapter 6, Night Thoughts.
- ^ Magistrale, p. 202.
- ^ Johnson essay 2006, p. 56.
- ^ Jack's disdain for Ullman is the main subject of Chapter 1 of the novel, setting up Jack's authority issues.
- ^ p. 74 of Stanley Kubrick and the Art of Adaptation: Three Novels, Three Films by Greg Jenkins, published by McFarland, 1997
- ^ Rasmussen, 233-4. See also novel Chapter 6, Night Thoughts.'
- ^ Clarke, Frederick (1996). Cinefastique 28.
- ^ Bailey, Dale (1999). American nightmares: the haunted house formula in American popular fiction. Popular Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-879727-89-5.
- ^ "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining". Pages.prodigy.com. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "Stanley Kubrick's – The Shining – By Harlan Kennedy". Americancinemapapers.homestead.com. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ Cinema of the occult: new age, satanism, Wicca, and spiritualism in film, by Carrol Lee Fry, notes similarities to both the Jackson story and Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher (p. 230).
- ^ The chapter is analyzed at length in Magistrale, Toney (1998). Discovering Stephen King's The shining:. Wildside Press. pp. 39–following. ISBN 978-1-55742-133-3.
- ^ "KevinBroome.com". Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "The Shining (1980) Review". Hollywood Gothique. Retrieved 2010-04-17. Biodrowsky is a former editor of the print magazine Cinefantastique
- ^ "'Secret Window' achieves horror with suspense, silence". Western Herald. 2004-03-15. Retrieved 2007-05-21. ""The Shining" has cemented a spot in horror pop culture."
- ^ Simon Hill. "The Shining Review". Celluloid Dreams. Retrieved 2007-05-21. "This film has embedded itself in popular culture..."
- ^ Mark Blackwell (2005-11-24). "Deep End: Christiane Kubrick". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2007-05-21. "Images from his films have made an indelible impression on popular culture. Think of [...] Jack Nicholson sticking his head through the door saying 'Here's Johnny' in The Shining."
- ^ "Shining tops screen horrors". BBC News. 2003-10-27. Retrieved 2007-05-21. "The scene in The Shining has become one of cinema's iconic images..."
- ^ "Stephen Chow's "Kungfu Hustle" salutes to Kubrick's "The Shining" (in Chinese)". 2004-12-12. Retrieved 2009-03-28.
- ^ Janet Maslin (May 10, 1996). "Dorothy and Toto Had It Easier". New York Times. Retrieved 24 March 2011. "Mr. de Bont has the gleeful opportunity to stage an elaborate sequence at a drive-in theater playing "The Shining," and then blow Mr. Nicholson's famously evil grin right off the screen."
- ^ Geoff Boucher (February 10, 2010). "Tim Burton took a 'Shining' to Tweedledee and Tweedledum". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
- ^ The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Gary Westfahl states, "While the scope of reference to fantastic fiction in The Simpsons is vast, there are two masters of the genre whose impact on The Simpson supersedes that of all others: Stanley Kubrick and Edgar Allan Poe." p. 1232
- ^ "The Family Dynamic". Entertainment Weekly. 2003-01-29. Retrieved 2007-03-03.
- ^ "Etched in Steele transcription". Retrieved 2013-09-27.
- ^ Calvin, Ritch (2008). Gilmore girls and the politics of identity: Essays on Family and Feminism in the Television Series. McFarland. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-7864-3727-6.
- ^ "Gaffaweb - Kate Bush - THE GARDEN - Kate's KBC article - Issue 12 (Oct 1982) - About The Dreaming". Gaffa.org. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ "Katatonia – Brave Murder Day". Hailmetal.com. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
- ^ Thirty Seconds to Mars A Beautiful Lie CD/DVD, "Making of The Kill music video" – Jared Leto and Matt Wachter talk about the song's meaning.
- ^ "Premier Inn 'horror' ad banned from children's network". BBC News. 2010-03-24. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
External links[edit]
This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (November 2012) |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Shining (film) |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Shining (film). |
- The Shining at the Internet Movie Database
- The Shining at the TCM Movie Database
- The Shining at Box Office Mojo
- The Shining at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Shining at Metacritic
- The Kubrick Site
- The Kubrick FAQ
- Detailed comparison of American cut with European cut
- Kubrick on The Shining, An interview with Michel Ciment
- Detailing of alternate takes and different footage, as well as ABC's disclaimer the first time it was on national TV
- In Depth Analysis of the Film
- 'Staircases to Nowhere', an oral history of the film as told by several crew members
- Whatever Happened To: Lisa and Louise Burns
- 1980 films
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- 1980 horror films
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- British horror films
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- Films directed by Stanley Kubrick
- Screenplays by Stanley Kubrick
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Rotate Images Examples
View examples demonstrating the JavaScript Image Rotator on this page. Information specific to each implementation is also included. Click the links on the right to see.
Just Rotate
This example demonstrates the JavaScript Image Rotator with unlinked images.
Since the image is not linked it will not respond to mouseovers or clicks. Other examples do provide these features and more.
The options for this example are set up as follows:
var rotator1 = { path: "images/", // path to your images id: "r1", // id assigned in image tag speed: 4500, // rate of rotation images: ["smile.gif", "grim.gif", "frown.gif", "bomb.gif"] }
Rotate Linked
This example demonstrates the Rotate Images code with linked images. The destination URL is the same for each image that is swapped in. Each image could have a separate destination URL, as another example demonstrates.
The options for this example are set up as follows, with the optional pause/resume feature included:
var rotator = { path: "images/", // path to your images id: "r1", // id assigned in image tag speed: 4500, // rate of rotation bMouse: true, // pause/resume onmouseover/out images: ["swans.gif","deco.gif","crystal.gif", "mex-sun.gif", "om.gif", "astro.gif"] }
Rotate Linked with Distinct URLs
In this example each image swapped in has a corresponding URL assigned. The options for this example are set up as follows, with the URL for each image specified in actions
var rotator = { path: "images/", id: "r1", bMouse: true, images: ["swans.gif","deco.gif","crystal.gif", "mex-sun.gif","om.gif","astro.gif"], actions: ["index.html", "documentation.php", "http://www.dyn-web.com/code/rotate_images/", "http://www.dyn-web.com", "demos.php", "http://www.dyn-web.com/business/terms.php"] }
Specify the initial URL in the link's href attribute:

Notice that the first action
listed for rotator
is the same as the href attribute of the link surrounding the image in the document. Also notice that the number of images
and the number of actions
are equal.
Random Rotation
This example demonstrates the images rotating at random. The image appearing first is also selected at random.
When you want the first image that displays in the document to be selected at random, rather than place that image in the document with an img
tag, you include a script segment and a call to a dw_getRandomImage
function where you wish the image to appear in the layout.

Set the bRand
property true in the properties list:
var rotator1 = { path: 'images/', id: 'r1', images: ["smile.gif", "grim.gif", "frown.gif", "bomb.gif"], bRand: true, // other properties ... }
An example is included in the download file. More detailed instructions are provided with a license purchase.
Rotate Titles with Images
In this example the title attribute content is swapped along with the image. Pause with your mouse over the image; observe the changing title upon repeating.
For setup, include the first title in the image tag.

A demo and further instructions are provided with a license purchase.
Multiple Instances
This example demonstrates support for multiple instances.
The process for setting up multiple instances essentially repeats that for setting up a single instance. Keep in mind that each image tag would need a unique ID:

Set up a separate set of properties for each instance, the id property matching that in the associated img
var rotator_1 = { path: "images/", id: "r1", images: ["swans.gif","deco.gif", "crystal.gif","mex-sun.gif"] } var rotator_2 = { path: "images/", id: "r2", images: ["turtle.gif", "cave-art.gif", "sunset.gif", "mandala1.gif"] }
An example is included in the download file. Further instructions are provided with a license purchase.
More Information
See the documentation for setup instructions. The examples are provided in a download file.


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What if the NHL and NHLPA threw a party and I went and watched the Syracuse Crunch instead?
If the 2012 NHL lockout were to end, as a growing optimistic sentiment suggests, the Lightning may already have its opening-night roster with nary a call-up.
While the situation isn't exactly "no news", it's close. Perhaps you can have a shred of hope that a resolution is forthcoming. At least, for the moment.
Representatives of the NHL and NHLPA continue talking late into the night on Saturday.
The NHL may have lost the Winter Classic but it doesn't mean as much as you might think.
TSN's Bob McKenzie picks Cory Conacher as a would-be Calder Award winner
Months of posturing and rhetoric and hard-line stances have given away to what should have been a starting point in labor negotiation talks between the NHL and NHLPA. So what changed that led to the league dropping it's hardline stance?
Bolts fan protest coincides team's cancelled season opener.
Searching for a sign that the 2012 NHL lockout will cease sooner rather than later,
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