Classics - Stanley Kubrick's The Shining
Boo! To celebrate Halloween, I wrote about maybe the best horror film ever made, its multiple interpretations, and some recommendations of other great horror films for Halloween tomorrow.
For the second time, I’ll examine a Kubrick film, this time: The Shining. Initially trashed in its released, it gained notoriety in the following years, even managing to gain entry into Sight & Sound’s 100 Greatest Films of All Time List.
Further down, I’ll make some recommendations of my favorite horror films to further celebrate Halloween or to continue watching these films if you’re a fan.
As always with analyses of classic films, this publication spoils the film. If you want to watch it beforehand, be sure to stream it on Max/HBO Max, or rent it through your preferred service.
The Madness Within: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
Production from the United States and the United Kingdom. Released in 1980.
It is always so recognizable when we watch that first aerial shot of the yellow Volkswagen driving through the mountainside while eerie music plays. So recognizable, in fact, that it is a fixture of pop culture, alongside many of the other shots, performances and pieces of dialogue from that same film, being featured in everything from TV shows, animated films, contemporary blockbusters, and more. That is the power of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s 11th film, which stands the test of time as maybe the best horror film ever made, with its greatest strength lying in its ambiguity, making its viewers provide multiple differing yet valid interpretations more than 40 years after its initial release.
The film’s story is originally adapted from Stephen King’s novel of the same name, but it became clear that it only uses the framework of the novel to tell something vastly different. King has publicly denounced Kubrick for making it so differently, so much so that as part of a deal to let King make a mini-series of the novel, one of the clauses stated that he needed to stop speaking out against the film. The story centers around a family of three: Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson), and his son Danny (played by Danny Lloyd) and wife Wendy (an amazing Shelley Duvall). Jack is a writer who was recently hired by the Overlook Hotel to look after it during the winter months, and he takes his family with him. During the job interview, the hotel manager tells Jack the story of a previous caretaker who went mad and killed his wife and daughters. That foreshadowing sets the stage for the rest of the film, where the question stops being if he will go mad, but rather when, how, and most importantly, why. And when he goes mad, is it because of his own mental health or because of the spirits within the hotel? (If you feel like you know this premise, that’s because you do: Hereditary takes some inspiration from The Shining to frame its story).
Being extremely meticulous in how he writes, frames, shoots and edits his films, one of the most important aspects of this story is not only in how Kubrick intentionally muddles the story, but also how he uses style to drive home this disorientation. The atmosphere given by the set design, the music, the camerawork and special effects do as much heavy lifting as the story itself. The steadicam gives the film’s most tense scenes an almost omnipresent and ghostly quality. The chase scenes also feel as if spiritual possession took place, or maybe the madness from within. The music strikes into so much of that same atmosphere, giving tons of scenes an overbearing sense of dread, much like one scene between Jack and Danny that should feel loving but is ultimately sinister.
The set design and the entire mise-en-scène is also very interesting in how it also disorients. Much has been said on how the sets are technically impossible. There are rooms that physically cannot be there, windows in rooms within rooms, hallways that change their layout between scenes, all again to maybe exemplify the haunted nature of the hotel, or the changing perspectives of characters due to their madness. Finally, the editing is intentionally slow, unlike most horror films released at the time, and takes its time to build up genuine scares instead of relying on jump-scares. So, instead of a random spirit jumping in your face, its images slowly reveal themselves and are upsetting, from the bloody elevator, Jack Nicholson’s face with an axe, room 237 and the elements within it, and the film’s final image, which should not be scary but is so skin-crawling it is impossible to forget.
As the Torrance family settles into the hotel, Jack takes the opportunity to start writing his next book. It doesn’t go well. He blames his wife for the distractions, but in fact it is his own mediocrity that prevents him from stepping up. The few scenes the viewer gets to see of the Torrance house reveals a home that lacks the comforts of upper-middle class life: something that Jack clearly aspires to. He is so mediocre as a professional that he cannot even comply with the basic tasks of caring for the hotel. The snowstorm engulfs it when he should have prevented that from happening. He only cares for staying there to posture as being a responsible adult and male provider. So when his wife asks Jack to leave so that their son can get medical attention, he scoffs at her, and finally succumbs to his own demons. Nicholson’s performance gives the character so much room to be expressive, and Kubrick’s prioritization of close-ups and zoom-ins on Jack, and inserts of his work lean into the mediocrity turning slowly into something more sinister that pays off towards the end.
While Jack is in his downward spiral, Danny explores the hallways of the hotel to enjoy himself. He strikes a connection with Dick Hallorann the day before the hotel closes, who shares a special telepathic power with Danny. This power doesn’t move the plot forward so much as it puts a target on Danny’s back. If the film were read as a clear-cut ghost story, his telepathic ability would be taken at face value as something valuable for the ghosts to acquire. However, it is more interesting to see Danny and Mr. Hallorann through the eyes of Jack, who eventually becomes their victimizer. Maybe their ‘shine’ is a source of resentment for different reasons: Danny for being a constant reminder of Jack’s failures, and Mr. Hallorann maybe for being another successful figure, or maybe because of racial intolerance. Eventually Danny becomes traumatized by the hotel or by Jack, and it is his mother who gives him the support to survive and escape.
Wendy takes center stage towards the end of the film, where she finally sees Jack’s true madness through the famous line: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” After constant abuse during their stay at the hotel -and maybe even beforehand- she meekly takes a stand for herself. Her triumph over Jack lies in the latter’s perception of her. He sees her as so inferior to him that he does not imagine a possibility in which she is resourceful and able to find a way out of him. The voices talking to Jack seem to reflect his way of thinking, saying that she is more capable than they thought.
Wendy is ultimately not so much a character but a reflection of Jack’s flaws, and Shelley Duvall through Kubrick’s direction, gives a tour de force performance of someone traumatized by abuse. She genuinely cares for her husband and son, but when it comes to it, through her actions and Danny’s smarts, both escape the hotel, and Jack. One of the more interesting takes in the final minutes when Wendy takes center stage is when she witnesses a person with a bear costume seemingly engaging in a sexual act with an older man. Maybe they are actually the ghosts of the hotel, but maybe they are exteriorizations of Wendy’s own anxiety taking over her senses. It is highly disorienting, as much so as the bloody elevator that pays off in the end, but it is very interesting to watch nonetheless.
So far, my reading is one more focused on showing how the hotel only served as a catalyst for Jack to act out on his sociopathic tendencies and his resentments, rather than one of ghosts haunting, possessing and taking a hold of Jack for their own purposes. The ghostly elements are there, but for me they serve a more symbolic purpose to give the film a more aesthetic value. However, most readers would probably disagree with me, but not because there is a more accepted theory, but rather, because The Shining is so inherently ambiguous in its construction, a great many theories are not only justifiable, but are an active part of the discourse surrounding it
For example, there is the more simple reading that Jack simply goes mad due to cabin fever, which I guess is the one I most stand by not because of its simplicity but more because of how it manages to use such a simple structure to convey dense themes surrounding resentment, ego, abuse, mediocrity and codependency. There is also the reading of the film as a plain ghost story, which falls more in line with the novel’s intent. However there are many more theories that people stand by that are very interesting in their own right. Some argue that, because the Overlook Hotel was built over Native American grounds, the whole film reads as a critique of American genocide over Native Americans (and much of the sets’ imagery seem to support this theory). Another theory is that the film is about the sexual abuse that Jack inflicts over Danny (there is a very interesting YouTube video about this), with many props and character blocking suggesting that Jack abused Danny when the latter got a lesion in his neck. Finally, there is the all too popular theory that the entire film is Kubrick ‘admitting’ that he directed the moon landing -there is a documentary film about this called Room 237-.
The final shot of the film is the one that has caused the most debate within the film, showing a picture of a party in 1921 with Jack Torrance seemingly in the center doing a devilish pose. For my interpretation, Jack’s madness transcended himself, and for Danny and Wendy, their trauma has become so entrenched with the Overlook Hotel that they see both as one and the same. However, I know that this probably is not the answer, and maybe we will never know the truth of Kubrick’s intent when making the film. The important thing is that the debate surrounding it is so rich that The Shining became so much more than a horror film: it is a cultural touchstone for all kinds of film lovers. Bridging the gap between art cinephilia and pop culture, The Shining is a ‘shining’ ambassador for film in the new age.
More horror? You bet!
If you’re looking for something else to watch in Halloween, there is a lot to choose from. From modern horror classics such as Ari Aster’s Hereditary, new self-aware horror in Zach Cregger’s Barbarian, even the more arthouse fare in David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, which isn’t a horror film as much as it uses horror clothes to serve as a philosophical examination of human action (one of my favorite films of last year). There are also newer films such as the Philippou brothers’ Talk to Me and Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN, both which I felt a little mixed on but gained their acclaim.
However, I want to recommend more classic horror films that stand the test of time and are still very scary to watch, and their filmmaking is also top notch.
Rosemary’s Baby (dir. Roman Polanski, 1968)
I always read about Mia Farrow’s amazing performance in this film, and one of her famous final lines “What have you done to it!?” And yes, she was in fact amazing, what most surprised me the most was John Cassavetes and his brilliant performance as the poster boy for toxic relationships and gaslighting.
Examining the terrifying world of pregnancy, it follows Farrow’s character Rosemary as her husband and his new friends engulf her life, take control of her pregnancy and maybe has devilish undertones. For me, much more scary than the actual devil is the central relationship, and how greed, and utter disrespect for someone’s partner can lead to atrocity. It’s the oldest film in this short list, but the thrills are the same.
The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973)
Does this film even need an introduction? By the late great William Friedkin, The Exorcist uses demonic possession as a framing device to examine faith in our contemporary times. The performances are great (Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair more than deserved their Oscar nominations, and Max von Sydow has a short but very memorable role as a priest), and the screenplay is note perfect in how it paces the entire story.
What works the most for me is how primal it all feels. The entire film provides the right amount of exposition, thrills and whip-smart dialogue. The initial confrontations with the possessed Regan feel like an out-of-body experience. And when the exorcism finally happens, it is impossible to look away from the screen. Like many of Friedkin films, The Exorcist is a shot of adrenaline directly to the veins.
The Thing (dir. John Carpenter, 1982)
There is so much to say and to think about what John Carpenter achieved in making this. In a technical sense, its maybe one of the best looking films of all time, with the special effects by Rob Bottin taking the cake. There are no limits to his imagination in all of the extremely repulsive forms that the thing took, and how scary it all felt when the thing wasn’t there at all. The performances are also great, with the best coming from Keith David (no surprises there).
However, what I find most interesting is in what it has to say. The team needs collaboration to survive, but they also know that any one of them could be secretly the alien that consumes them. Their actions, ones opting for individuality, others extreme desperation, the group making questionable choices, mob mentality, is a good representation of the film’s initial subtext: a reflection of its contemporary international affairs, with the Cold War on the back of people’s minds. However, with current polarization and culture clash generating far more distrust on a more local level, The Thing gains new meaning as an examination of what to do when people are not sure who to trust, and are hard-wired to find and eliminate who they perceive as an enemy.
Videodrome (dir. David Cronenberg, 1983)
If people provide an outlet for others to live out their violent repressed desires from the safety of their homes and without actually harming anyone else, does that calm their needs, numb them, or condition them to act upon their desires more? If some people had the chance to eliminate those who tangibly embrace these violent desires, is it justified? What is the ethical limit between both of these questions? This is the thesis of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, which uses sex, body horror, self-harm, hallucination and more to examine these questions, and give no easy answers.
Upon first viewing, it is easy to think and see this as a black-and-white moral issue. The people promoting the Videodrome television program are not justified of course because it is very easy to conclude that promoting death is not the answer to society’s problems. However, the other side of the political battle is just as unsettling. O’Blivion’s philosophy of television (and technology) becoming an essential part of our existence has in part become true, but its implications are questionable to say the least. No one is in the right truly, and it is hard to be in a world where morals are so grey. But wow is it fun to behold in Cronenberg’s eyes.
The Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Is this a horror film? Is this a thriller? Yes and yes. Demme crafted an amazing feature that went on to win the big five Oscars (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay). What is most interesting is how it balances its tone between a criminal investigation and the genuine horror of another serial killer aiding, obsessing and finally escaping. Anthony Hopkins of course is the most memorable part of the film as Hannibal Lecter, and his utter commitment to the role is worth alone the price of admission.
However, Jodie Foster embodies so much more, and it is amazing how in multiple viewings, viewers can pick up more of the film’s subtext, such as the sexism that exists within male-dominated lines of work, and women’s need to overcompensate and work thrice as hard to achieve anything. Demme knows to focus on his actors and relies on tons of close-ups on both of them to get the best performances on film. However, his style goes beyond it in the best of ways, especially in the final 20 minutes, which are more chill inducing than most modern horror films.