The Shining (1980)

If any of my wonderful, devoted readers know me in person you will no doubt be aware of my fondness for the work of Stanley Kubrick.  Having written my undergraduate dissertation on 2001: A Space Odyssey I opened up the monolithic door to the mysterious world of Kubrick, leading me to plunge myself into the depths of the Stanley Kubrick Archives in London and the secretive scribbling’s of Mr Kubrick himself. It’s definitely worth booking yourself in to visit, but I highly recommend knowing what you are looking for as it would appear Kubrick never EVER threw anything away…

Anyway, seeing as its Halloween, I thought what better opportunity to discuss a Kubrick classic – The Shining. Appropriately, I went to see the newly released extra-long version, which had an added twenty-four minutes that have never been seen by a UK audience. Even more exciting is the documentary Room 237 which hit our art-house cinema’s this week, an apparently exposing feature uncovering never before discussed secrets of The Shining. Exciting no? Undoubtedly, it’s a great horror movie and despite pissing Stephen King off, Kubrick has most definitely pleased audiences worldwide for the last 30 years with this sinister little tale.

Starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall as Jack and Wendy Torrance, the film is about a family of three who are hired to be the winter care-takers of The Overlook Hotel, a secluded retreat that is closed off in the winter due to the dangerous conditions on the road leading up to it. What better setting for a horror movie; a secluded, massive old mansion house where someone once went nuts and murdered their family. Quite. Jack, Wendy and their 5 year old son Danny, who has an imaginary friend called Tony who ‘lives in his mouth’ drive to the house to begin their seven month stint in the hotel. Not long after the Torrance family arrive do strange and spooky things start happening in the hotel, especially to Jack as the house starts taking a sinister turn on him. He starts to see apparitions of people who used to live and work in the hotel, including the previous caretaker, Delbert Grady, who murdered his family. Danny also experiences some strange things and becomes aware of his telepathy, dubbed ‘Shining’ by head-chef Dick Hallorann who shares Danny’s gift. An unfortunate event in the hallway leads Danny to see the twins of the previous caretaker who appear to him both in full form, and as a bloody heap, all they want to do is play, what’s so horrible about that? Watch and see my friends. An even more unfortunate event takes Danny to Room 237, to which we do not bear witness to but he manages to land himself some fairly sinister bruises around his neck. Jack’s mind begins to warp and seeing Danny’s bruises, he too ventures to Room 237 and becomes exposed to the horrors within. I shall say no more. He denies to Wendy that there’s anything in Room 237 and he becomes increasingly nuts, remember: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.  Eventually he completely turns on his wife and son and tries to kill them, after a few bumps on the head, a few hours in the larder and an axe through a door, we come to the films iconic finale in the hedge maze.

Even though the extra scenes I watched last night didn’t add anything new to the story, I still felt quite privileged to be watching them and you can’t help but wonder why he cut them out. There weren’t many scenes, but enough to make the film feel fresh. The anticipation of being shown something I’d never seen before in something I’d seen hundreds of times almost completely distracted my from the heavy nose breather sitting next to me. Cinema’s eh? Some scenes certainly did open a few doors to the sub-plots that were more prominent in King’s novel, especially Jack’s alcohol dependency and the abusive nature of his personality before he quit drinking. My favourite cut scene however was definitely when Wendy is weepily staggering around the hotel with a kitchen knife looking for Danny. She stumbles across a room filled with skeletons, some at a table, some sitting on sofas and one of them was even strangely standing up. It didn’t add much, story-wise, but its gave it this ghostly element that it didn’t have before. All the ghosts we have seen up to this point have looked like real people, as if stuck in the time when they died. This scene was spooky and made the sense of death in the hotel smell sweeter. However, it did feel quite out of place for this very reason, and perhaps Kubrick wanted to keep the ‘ghosts’ as apparitions of real people so as not to disjoint Jack too much from his past life.

The Shining took almost a year to film and Kubrick certainly put his actors through their paces, Jack Nicholson was physically exhausted and Shelley Duvall emotionally drained. Kubrick and Nicholson would often fall out, but it was Duvall that Kubrick made life hell for. He would push her to her limits physically and psychologically to the point where she would often break down in tears on set. Kubrick is seen in the ‘Making Of’ documentary telling the production crew not to give her any sympathy,  Duvall says that he treated her this way to help her become her character of Wendy, an unappreciated and bullied housewife, even though it was a horrible experience, she has no regrets for doing it. Be that as it may, it was hard work for everyone and Kubrick’s relentless need for perfection resulted in 148 takes of the scene where Hallorann is explaining to Danny what ‘shining’ is. A world record. He wouldn’t stop at anything, even Stephen Spielberg breathing down his neck didn’t stop him and Spielberg was forced to put off filming Raiders of the Lost Ark until Kubrick was finished.

But was it all worth it? Stephen King would probably say no, as he has a serious distaste Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel, he didn’t like the casting, the script, the sets or Stanley Kubrick himself. This lead the film to be officially released as “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining” as it was so far removed from what King had envisioned for his adaptation, even the ending and body count was different to the novel…I think I prefer Kubrick’s ending though, sorry Stephen.

Nevertheless, it’s a blood curdling tale and houses some of the most iconic moments in horror cinema including its most famous and mimicked line ‘Heeere’s Jonny!’ A questionable source for this would be Jonny Cash, as he famously axed the door between his hotel room and that of his band mates, however there are many ideas for where Nicholson sprung this from. Lets not forget the brilliant exchange between Jack and Wendy on the stairs as she feebily swings a baseball bat at him as he tells her ‘I’m not gonna hurt ya, I’m just gonna bash your brains in. I’m gonna bash them right the fuck in’, I can’t help but laugh at the genius of Nicholson in this film, he encapsulates Dad gone mad brilliantly and even though terrifying in places, his facial expressions are undeniably humourous.

Impeccable writing, unrelenting direction and perfect acting, The Shining is Kubrick’s horror masterpiece, and a thoroughly entertaining watch. It has earned itself some of horrors most memorable moments and it will be cherished for ever.

And ever.

And ever…