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