(Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
(essay by Robert)
A good way to describe the Shining is: Intoxicating and Addictive. Perhaps the most common reaction is to first walk away feeling very unclear. Watch it again and you are impressed but still scratching your head. The next viewing is even more intriguing but the ambivalence lingers. After a while and multiple sittings it becomes easy to come back to and so very satisfying. No question about it, this is what makes Kubrick’s film so absolutely fascinating and a masterpiece of horror. Its open-endedness and ambiguity succeed in intriguing again and again. A seemingly simple storyline- A man with higher ambitions moves his young family into an isolated resort (with a history) to become the caretaker during the offseason. What unfolds onscreen over the next 2+ hours (about a month in the story) however is anything but simple.
Kubrick begins to build and build almost immediately by slipping important pieces of information in his conversations and visual. The hotel manager (Barry Nelson) explains to Jack that the previous caretaker developed cabin fever and killed his family. Jack nods this off by stating that the isolation is exactly what he is looking for. We then learn that Jack and Wendy’s son is not exactly normal and that the family itself is hardly picture perfect. On the tour of the hotel we learn that “All the best people stay here” and get a further insight that it was built on a Native American burial ground and that attacks had to be fended off while the hotel was being built. Kubrick uses wonderful lighting and décor to build on the “life” of the hotel and Danny (Danny Lloyd) asks: “Is there something bad here?”…of course there is. All of these pieces, all of this information, is important and add on to Kubrick’s opus.
Stylistically, The Shining is an enormous film. Enormous in the sense that all every ingredient seems larger than life. From the vast mountainous setting at the immense Outlook Hotel to the explosive soundtrack and operatic acting, Kubrick assaults each of our senses throughout the film. The sound, which I believe is critical to the film, each and every ping, gong, and screech, creates unease as the strain piles up. The whiteout conditions outside complete the solitude and desperation of the characters. Visually Kubrick actually stops short of showing a great deal of living violence choosing instead to show quick shots of blood and carnage tied with deafening explosions of sound. Jack’s one murder victim is the only outsider that is able to penetrate his physical prison. This one death scene is an absolutely huge axe blow to the chest of chef (and fellow shiner) Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers). There is also of course the intermingling of the living characters and phantom. Most of these interaction are with Jack and Danny but Wendy also catches glimpses after her eyes become opened to the real world around her. These specters pop up throughout the film seemingly naturally to Jack to offer advise but they appear abruptly (and sometimes bizarrely) to taunt Wendy and Danny. This is one of the many representations of Jack’s ongoing dilemma and its impact on Wendy and Danny.
The film uses multiple other mechanisms to pile on tension throughout. We are dragged through Jack’s torment toward the inevitable madness waiting for him. From the early signs of hostility (see Jack’s sarcastic expression in the car as they are driving to the hotel) to the toxic words he spits at Wendy, Jack’s journey is the main on screen focus. Even his moments of vulnerability- for example after Wendy wakes him from his nightmare- all show the gradual unfolding of his thinning sanity. It is the young child though that acts as our true guide through the hotel and story. Of course his gift of the “shining” allows the foresight to know things are not quite right, he leads us to room 237, his shocked expressions pop onto the screen to let us know when something really bad is going to happen, it is even Danny that cleverly entices Jack to his frozen grave and the ultimate aloneness that he so covets.
There is also the ongoing sense of the lurking larger presence so effectively created by the steady-cam use. This is most easily noticed as we again follow Danny on his big wheel as well as the wide tracking shots from above the mountain. Also notice and the abrupt black screen timeline transitions (Interview, Monday, Thursday, etc.). These simple transitions wonderfully inch us closer and closer to the climax and edges of our seats. Consider also the beautiful hedge-maze lingering in the background the entire film and which serves as Jack’s final demise. What a perfect metaphor for Jack’s winding battle against himself. Jack looking over the model of the maze is one of the most interesting and symbolic shots of the film and a classic horror moment.
This and the many other “classic” on screen moments themselves make the film unforgettable. Perhaps the most memorable is Jack’s manic axe through the door followed by his taunting domestic exclamation. My favorite though is the unveiling that Jack’s great novel is nothing more that the psychotic repetition of that one perfect telling line: “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy” This may act as the film’s turning point, when we know for certain that there is no turning back and that there is absolutely no way that a happy ending is in store for us. The wide shot of Jack “catching” Wendy is a perfect horror moment. You completely buy her fear and her scream when Jack asks her what she thinks.
Despite the hugeness of the film, the plethora of horror tools, and the legendary moments, The Shining is really a very human film. The striking dysfunction and hostility of the family is unmistakable. This is of course the backbone of the characters and it grows and builds throughout the film. Kubrick beautifully comments on the strain and pull of the domestic unit and the destruction of alcoholism. Reflecting on these core sentiments of the film are actually quite touching. In certain moments we almost feel badly for Jack under the burden of his own entrapment. His personal failures and the weight of his life passing him by drive him to lash out at those closest to him. His only true moments of pleasure seem to come from his fantasy moments with alcohol and his oh-so-willing embrace of the phantom bathtub woman. Most of his time though is repressed by his family, the pressures of his writing project and the “word” that he gave to his employers. It is interesting that throughout the film, we never really see Jack do any actual work on the hotel. Rather it is Wendy who picks up his slack representing Jack’s most obvious trait of unbridled and indissoluble selfishness. These very personal afflictions ring so true and are so recognizable. All the while, as Jack unravels, his wife and child walk on glass as they hope against hope. There is a moment in particular about mid-way through the film after both Danny and Jack have lost their respective grips, when you truly feel this. In this scene, as Danny is non-responsive to even his cartoons and Wendy is hopeless to reach him, her aloneness is most prominent and the torture of all their realities is undeniable.
The Shining is utterly complex and yet from another angle completely straightforward and engaging. Kubrick creates an impressive level of depth with a minimal cast and setting. In a way, The Shining can be thought of as an exploration of horror. Kubrick uses so many different aspects of the genre to build and build. The film still today has a feeling of ambiguity that cannot be pegged. Multiple viewings still leave you wondering what exactly did Kubrick mean? Why was Jack in the photo in the final shot? Were there really ghosts OR are the ghosts a mere figment of Jack’s torment? Notice the mirrors in each “ghost” scene. Was Danny’s “shining” truly a sixth sense or merely a child’s intuition of something wrong within his family? Like so many of Kubrick’s films, The Shining is timeless and seems to get better each time. This is one of those rare films that can truly intrigue both at the character and concept level while still managing to create those dark emotions in its audience. See my definition of horror and introductory comments regarding the genre. This is classic Kubrick and this is classic horror…what a combination!
(this film appeared on Robert’s list at #12, Troy’s at #20, Kevin’s at #35, and Jamie’s at #34)
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Writers/Founders
“Stylistically, The Shining is an enormous film. Enormous in the sense that all every ingredient seems larger than life. From the vast mountainous setting at the immense Outlook Hotel to the explosive soundtrack and operatic acting, Kubrick assaults each of our senses throughout the film. The sound, which I believe is critical to the film, each and every ping, gong, and screech, creates unease as the strain piles up. The whiteout conditions outside complete the solitude and desperation of the characters.”
Robert, this essay is your magnum opus for this countdown. Brilliant observations throughout, though I included only one passage here. I’ve frankly been expecting to see this appear any time now, and even anticipated the possibility of a top spot placement. Time will support the perception that this is one of Kubrick’s greatest films down the road, and his artistry was so personalized that even the more conventionally-minded King voice his disdain for it, preferring instead the vastly inferior television version. I won’t even attempt to rain on your parade by broaching a number of points, which you’ve broached in one way or another (the issue of the use of sound is especially vital, as is the superlative emplyment of snow) in this masterful review. I’ll only reitorate this film is an essential choice fore any horror countdown, and is one film I can watch anytime, any place and any number of times.
Well, some fine points made here about a film that gerows more and more incredible with every repeat screening. I’LL HAVE ALOT MORE TO SAY ABOUT THIS FILM WHEN I RETURN FROM WORK AND SIT AT THE PC. However, and quickly, this is a perfect example of a film based on a classic novel that actually bests its souce. THE SHINING also houses one of three of Jack Nicholson’s signature performances and vies for placement as his very best turn. Not enough is said for the marvelously hysterical performance of Shelly Duvall. Again, I’ll further elaborate later today… If the horror genre in film has a true epic, then this film is surely the one. Like I said on earlier selections, if the numbers really meant something I’d surely be screaming bloody murder….
One of my four or five favorite horror films of all-time. Yes, a great review by Robert.
This is my choice for the best horror movie of all time, my #1, my #3 movie of all time, my #1 Kubrick film.
I have seen this movie many times and I agree with Robert here, it does attract me because of its uneasyness, its attempt to go with a message and wrapping it under layers and layers of beauty and horror.
I loved this video:
And a friend who just came from USA got me The Shining Blu ray. Coincidence? Don’t think so.
What each individual viewer must understand in a film of this artistic magnitude, is that by portraying horror within the confines of isolated normalcy will only breed, birth and grow the evil that is at the center of the story from places nobody has thought of looking. Kubrick’s use of a widescreen lense for this film, in perfect tandem with the steadi-cam, allows the director to show off the massive size of the hotel and the weather engulfing it and yet is jolting us with the kind of hand-held movement only ever seen in documentaries at the time. The steadi-cam smooths the movements out, but in large spaces, only helps to intensify the movement through corridors, hall-ways and rooms of gigantic proportion. As applied to horror, this only allows Kubrick to define the so-called ”normal” surroundings his characters are in and, thus, doesn’t allow a viewer to ever guess where a strike or a lunge towards us, or a more sympathetic character, may occur (by placing the camera low to the ground, the immensity of the hotel is magnified to it’s greatest point as Kubrick follows Danny on the tricycle-the sound here is also unnerving, as the wheels hit hard floor, then carpeting, then hard floor, then carpeting-the intensity of the building insanity become almost too much to take-this sequence is a master-stroke by the director). When the character of Halloran walks alone through the dimly lit but emmence lobby of the hotel near the finale of the film, we have no idea where Jack and his razor sharp axe are going to jump out from. We know that Halloran is a dead man the moment he set off on his journey back to the hotel. We know that Jack has snapped and is hot to start his killing of the wife and kid and anyone else that might get in his way. But where and when he will strike is anyone’s guess. Normalcy is a key ingredient to the visual style of THE SHINING, but normalcy of a very limited kind. Yes the rooms and the corridors and the snow are all natural and normal settings…. The films look is as everyday as mayonaisse on white bread, and I keep thinking of Norman Rockwell combined with the latest clothing and furniture section of a J.C. Penny catalogue. But while Rockwell was pure Americana, normalcy to the max, he is not the artist I feel Kubrick bases alot of the visuals in THE SHINING on.
Diane Arbus (1923-1971) photographed the hideous and the bizarre against “normal” back-drops. Circus freaks, transvestites, deformed people in subways, in front of white clap-board houses. Looking at her work at a quick glance, one often mistakes the photographs for uninspired pieces of 1950′s and 60′s conservative Americana. But, looking at them harder and moving closer to the images we suddenly realize that the bizarre has slowly but surely infilitrated our everyday. Compare a frame of THE SHINING with Arbus’s most famous picture (IDENTICAL TWINS, ROSELLE N.J. 1967*) and the influence is assured. Kubrick was known to take good suggestions from anyone that had them, he was also deeply influenced and inspired by the books he read and photographers he admired. When Danny rounds the corner of the corridor on his tricycle and finds the very dead, but very alive, Grady twins standing before him the level of instability within the normalcy of the frame is shot to shit. That the girls presented against the everyday surroundings of the hotel are freaky and unsettling is Kubricks biggest ode to Arbus. The famed photographer has her hand in just about every major scene in the film. From the sterility of the bathroom that exposes the decaying woman of room 237 to the looming immensity of the maze that Wendy and Danny brave one day before the weather gets really bad. It’s this common place visual structure that is the center to the evil heart of THE SHINING. After all, would you have ever thought two planes, never mind one plane, could go slamming into the World Trade Center? Horror and true evil are not always products of the descriptive and gothic settings of camp-fire stories. The most effective horror comes out of a kids closet or in a diner. Kubrick, with his ever growing imagination and his eye for grand details and space lulls the viewer into a false sense of security and yanks the rug out from under them whenever he can. Arbus knew this when presenting the bizarre in normal places. Kubrick knows this too. THE SHINING is one of his most visually seductive and amazing films.
Most people think Kubrick was a cold director, they think emotion was not his strong point and that technology and the tricks he used in camera were his main interest. As a former world class photographer (he was the youngest staff photographer in the history of LOOK magazine-15 years old), I can understand why this theory by others is possible and prevailant. However, in my mind anyway, I thought Kubrick was a very emotional director. His way of getting to the center of human emotion might have taken a cold course to get to the core, but his journey to emotions were always dazzlingly well worth it. The emotions in THE SHINING aren’t warm, actually they’re white hot. This is a film about characters, people who feel resentment, who feel the pressures to make it in a world that they are so obviously failing in. I think that the real reason that the voices that will eventually move Jack to murder are pressing down on him are finding advantage in him due to his own inner personal reminders that he is no longer the man he wants to be. Jack is a man who once had high aspirations for himself and now faces the facts that his own laziness, alcoholism and once thought upon wonderful wife and kid are becoming heavily weighted anchors. Jack dreams of being a “writer”, but through mistakes of his own making (drinking too much, marrying a woman who is obviously not on his same “aspiring” wave-length) resents the ball he feels has been thrown to him and never faces the fact he probably threw it to himself. He is a greedy man who only sees his needs as important (“have you ever thought for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities?!”) and when his own wife chooses, rightfully, the well being of their son over the care of Jack, this is a slap in the face to the dwindling pride he has been watching slowly slip away…
If THE SHINING were stripped of all of it’s supernatural elements it would still work as a world class horror/thriller film. The ideas of lonliness and isolation, being left in a room with nothing but yourself and your memories is quite a frightening one. But, here, as with King’s novel, the main character is not always alone. Spirits invade Jack’s seemingly normal world and, as he falls harder on himself and his failures, it’s those spirits that come up with the suggestive solutions to his problems. I’ve often wondered if the ghosts in this film were really ever there. While we see them, only three people in the film ever do. Danny, Jacks son, is a clairvoyant, he can see and hear what others are thinking. Halloran (Scatman Crothers), the chef at the hotel, is clairvoyant as well, but he tends to only feel the things that Danny tells him he sees. It’s only in there communicative connection that the visions Danny has are brought to the chef. This idea, dreamt up by Kubrick, would make one think that the boy and the chef are merely receptors to the emotions and feelings of others. That the feelings and emotions they’re honing in on are really Jack’s begins the nightmare they both see like television programming. I have no doubt that the hotel houses bad memories, that spirits from the past are left here in limbo to call the hotel home. Kubrick and Johnson hint that the failed reside here, and that they welcome these souls into there brethren (the final shot of the black and white photograph on the wall in the lobby of the hotel-dated 1921-with Jack in the center of a crowd of the failed that once visited the hotel-proves Kubrick and Johnson’s theory) as long as thay can shed the world they came from to live in this new place they are accepted in….
Kubrick is said to have not been fond of big time actors, that he often cherished performers with little experience because he could mold a performance from them that was more to his vision. In the case of Shelly Duvall, who plays Jack’s wife Wendy, he found just such an actor. What is striking about her both in performance and appearance is that she is representative of a person who is clearly more in love with her spouse than he is with her. I think Duvall was a perfect choice to play the character as she deftly pontificates a questioning attitude about everything, most notably herself. Duvall’s looks are not model material (actually, she’s ugly), but she makes up for her appearance by being open minded to her role as house keeper and mother to Jack and their son. Her place is with her man, and she will never go against him (not at first anyway). Wendy is a lost soul. Obviously aware of her limitiations, and probably as lazy as Jack (notice the messy apartment and the books piled on every table and counter at the start of the film-she’s probably a former pack-rat, a collector, and spent most of her “pre-married” days with her nose stuck in a good book or magazine), I always saw her as someone who was waiting for a knight in shining armor to whisk her away and give her the life she felt she deserved; home, a child, and a way out of the lonliness is what Jack and Danny represent, as mundane as it may seem to us and others in the audience. Duvall is brilliant in her scenes opposite Jack Nicholson. She is steadfast and true in maintaining her belief that she is right. Backed into a corner we can see the despration in her eyes and it’s the love she has for her son. As Nicholson’s character backs her up the stairs in a tirade of all of her faults he, just for the moment, breaks down her reserve, causing the actress to play the character as a woman falling for mirrored truth of her own existense. This is one of the most intense scenes in the film, the insanity building immensly in his portrayal and her beginning to comprehend it all. It’s only when he lunges for her that she snaps back to the reality of the situation and fires back in the only way she can-with a violent rap of a baseball bat. There’s almost a triumph to the moment that any other actress would have probably made more operatic. Playing hysterical is no easy feet. Considering Duvall is in an almost constant state of hysteria and that it’s a terrifically physical role (running, climbing stairs, dragging limp bodies, carrying a small child), Miss Duvall never misses a beat. However, the stories of Kubrick’s torture of the actress is legendary. Nicholson has said in interviews that the director was a different person when handling Duvall, that he was mean and disparaging. But considering the outcome, one has a tendency to think that this wasn’t personal hatred for the actress, but a way of maintaining the level of intensity of the performance. “REALITY IS GREAT, INTERESTING IS BETTER” These were words often heard on the set of a Kubrick film when the direcor was dealing with an actor. To draw a viewer into a scene that itself, by it’s visual beauty alone, could only hold a persons interest for a few seconds, Kubrick sometimes felt the actor would have to exaggerate a character trait or physical movement, emphasize a sentence in the script than play it more matter of factly.
Is it only a coincidence that I saw The Shining again just yesterday–during a midnight showing at the Tivoli theater in St. Louis? It can’t be!
Anyway, I’ve seen the movie a handful of times, but seeing it again this time I noticed two Kubrickian techniques in the film I hadn’t noticed before, ever.
First: cataloging. Kubrick, like Walt Whitman, is fond of writing “lists” in his prose. In Dr. Strangelove, for example, Slim Pickens names off all the items his fellow pilots will find in the cockpit. In The Shining, Scatman Crothers’ Hollaran character names off all the meat that can be found in the Overlook’s freezer.
Second: the moon landing. You guys know about that whole hoax over whether Kubrick helped fake the moon landing or not? After 2001, he referred to this in some of his later films. In Clockwork Orange, the stricken bum in the tunnel complains about men on the moon. In The Shining, Danny is wearing an Apollo 11 sweater just before walking into Room 237.
I don’t consider it one of Kubrick’s more perfect films, a la 2001 or Barry Lyndon. I think some of the sequences, notably the Gold Room sequence, are agonizingly labored, detracting from the film’s horror–and that the long corridors of the Overlook are far scarier than the Overlook ghosts themselves. Still, an amazing horror epic if there ever was one.
this guy lets the Kubrick Apollo theory run crazy:
http://www.jayweidner.com/ShiningSecrets.html
“As Danny stands up, the answer is revealed in an instant. Danny is wearing a sweater with a crudely sewn rocket pictured on the front. On the rocket clearly seen on Danny’s sweater are the words: APOLLO 11. The audience watching the film literally sees the launch of Apollo 11, right before their eyes, as Danny rises from the floor. It isn’t the real launch of Apollo 11, it is, of course, the symbolic launching of Apollo 11. In other words – it isn’t real.”
and
“It is important to note that the room in question was numbered 217 in the Stephen King version of The Shining. For unknown reason’s Kubrick changed it to 237.
Those unknown reasons are about to be come known.
Danny is literally carrying a symbolic Apollo 11, on his body, via the sweater, to the Moon as he walks over to room 237. Why do I think this?
Because the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 237,000 miles.”
Sounds reasonable to me…I’m going to sign up for his newsletter.
Is it just me, or has this film’s reputation undergone a rehabilitation over the past decade or so? I remember when I was a kid hearing about it and getting the impression it was one of Kubrick’s “lesser” movies – the first time I remember it getting huge praise as art (outside from being a horror rental or late-night favorite) is when Kubrick died, and Entertainment Weekly listed it as the critic’s surprise #1 for the director. Since then, I’ve seen it pop up more and more frequently on greatest-films lists (though didn’t Thomson list it as his favorite Kubrick while the auteur was still alive?). Anyway, Kubrick’s films always seem to have undergone critical disappointment and then a slowly building reassessment over time.
This is probably my favorite horror film (though I’m hardly a connoiseur of the genre, maybe this is a “horror film for people who don’t like horror films”?) thought it’s probably only my third or fourth favorite Kubrick at best, which says more about him than the film. I find it’s one of those movies you can just get lost in, and it’s one of the best “place as character” movies out there.
“I don’t know what it is about a Kubrick film…… But, Stanley’s movies have this sort of fail-safe button on them that makes you look at them again and again.. It’s impossible to see one of his films once.. I don’t know of any film-maker that has that sewn into his work..” Steven Spielberg, Director (Schindlers List)
“Just about every Kubrick film was killed by critics upon their initial release. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of one that wasn’t… I remember Pauline Kael’s scathing review, and that was for 2001. Funny thing is, for all of the bad press and terrible reviews his films received, add twenty years to them and those same people who destroyed them are all now calling them masterpieces and classics…” Sydney Pollack, Director (Out Of Africa)
About four or five years ago I remember listening to a Simpsons DVD commentary where exec producer and showrunner extraordinaire David Mirkin talked about how he loved THE SHINING as a comedy. I found this comment curious. I always thought the film had humorous moments, specifically in the case of Nicholson’s performance, but it made me want to revisit it with his comment in mind.
So I rewatched it and I was amazed at how much I laughed during the movie. And I mean that as a compliment to the actors and the director. Yes, there are some incredibly tense moments, but I think that Kubrick’s wry humor is lurking in every frame…again, specifically thinking of Nicholson’s performance. It’s just so hilariously over the top and manic that I can’t help but think that part of it was done for comedy…dark comedy, but comedy no less.
I agree with everything everyone has said here, but I also think that one element that makes the film so timeless is the comedy factor. It’s the only thing that keeps the film from being an unbearably terrifying two-and-half hour experience.
Just curious what others think about THE SHINING as a comedy.
Great essay, Robert!
Kevin – Nicholson’s performance borderlines comedy…I think he may have had the idea in his head that he would play the role over-the-top as if in a comedy.
I don’t think Kubrick had that intention at all, though. Though there were some dryly humorus moments with Scatman Crothers, come to think of it. A little dose here and there was probably intented to break the tension.
But I could see how in a certain mood, on the fifty-second view, one could enjoy the film as a comedy.
Typo alert – It’s the Overlook Hotel…not Outlook Hotel.
Not much to add to the coversation here, only that this would be my Number One.
Wow…not getting into the conversation…this was a huge misnomer. My apologies!
KEVIN-Sorry to rain on DAVID SCHLICHER’S parade, but the comedy element was written into the film and, particularly, Jack’s character, by Diane Johnson. Johnson has stated in several interviews that the comedy was written in as a way of creating a more “antic” Jack, a human, so the tragedy at the finale takes on a bigger personal stance. Very few actors working for Kubrick were ever allowed to improvise, the rare occasion being Malcolm McDowell’s “Singing in the Rain” dance in CLOCKWORK. Nicholson ONLY improvised in THE SHINING when asked to by Johnson and Kubrick. Jack can be seen improvising, really only, in the door chopping sequence with the famous “Heere’s Johnnnie!!!” reveal. The comedy WAS scripted…
Thanks for letting me know, Dennis. I don’t think enough people give credit (and I’m not accusing David of this) to Kubrick for having a sense of humor. I love the anecdote about the making of DR. STRANGELOVE where he couldn’t convince Scott that the film was a comedy, so he would have him do one comic take “just for fun”, and then ended up using all of those final, comedic takes in the movie. It pissed Scott off something fierce.
Kubrick told Jack Nicholson that he thought it was an “optimistic” story. When Nicholson asked why, Kubrick pointed out that the story ought to be optimistic since it does pose the theory that there’s life after death!
Adam I remember reading that in one of my books on Kubrick. That line made me laugh in all it’s delicious black cynicism. Almost as great as Bunuel’s “Thank God I’m an Athiest” quote……..
Adam – great anecdote! Sounds like Kubrick!
This is almost like a which came first…the chicken or the egg…was Nicholson already planning to play the part manic, or was it Kubrick’s direction that made it manic…and had it not been Nicholson in the role, would Kubrick have directed another actor differently?
At any rate…together they created a classic film and an iconic role that are naturally rife for comedic parody.
Jack “over-the-top”? Personally, I never saw that as the case in his performance and I really don’t think that Stanley did either. Jack has a natural manical side that I feel is present down in the bowels of all his performances and really only intensifies when the character played calls for it (hence, his Joker in BATMAN). Kubrick, staying true to the “unleashed” insanity of the piece, felt that Nicholson’s turn is a classic example of slow mental deterioration. I find this true as well as you can, literally, see Jack come slowly unhinged. This is the nature of the beast in a story of forced isolation and pressing intimidation. Kubrick thought Jack’s performance was one of the great turns into madness, like a caterpillar morphing over time into a butterfly. I, for one, agree with the genius director. Nicholson’s performance is one for the time capsule, as intricate as anything he has done before or since and a perfect companion for his other signature roles in CHINATOWN and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST.
Dennis – I would have to disagree…and I think this is where most of the criticism in the film still lies (and I don’t see it as a problem nor would I criticize it myself…but some do) — it is clear from that first scene where Jack is interviewing for the job that he is already (granted, perhaps on slightly) unhinged. I saw no slow disintegration into madness on his part. The character was already careening off the chains and just looking for the perfect setting/excuse to act on his impulses.
Just watch the scene and see how he answers the interview questions, his strange smile, how he walks around the hotel taking it all in…tell me that’s not a man already mad.
That being said, I think we both agree it’s a brilliant performance…and it’s clear we both are madly in love with the film.
David/Dennis — you bring up an interesting point. When watching this film now I think you bring in a different expectation to Jack’s role seeing as how it’s been parodied and Jack himself has become a bit of a parody of himself over the last 20 years. So reading immediately that this is “crazy Jack” might be the standard way of approaching the film, rather than seeing any kind of slow progression.
I have a similar issue when watching Pacino and DeNiro in some of their older movies.
TROY-You are certainly on a roll this week!!!!! Three great essays and now this interesting commentary on one of the greatest horror films the medium has ever seen. Your voracity is amazing. Have you been chugging RED BULL’s lately????
In any case, I agree with you wholeheartedly. The persona we take of Jack Nicholson as we know him from his interviews, appearances at the Laker’s games, awards ceremonies and honorary dinners is one of a man who has no worries, plays well with others, has a sinister streak, and loves to get drunk and stoned for all occasions. His smile is tantamount to a killer getting away with murder and his eye-brows are always high in the air in gleeful carefree wonder of “how did I get so lucky?” jubilation.
Seeing him this way, we have tendency to apply that knowledge, unrightfully to his past performances and, particularly the ones that made his bones. His turn in THE SHINING is nothing less than a signature turn for him, defining the kind of intense killer that would be copied by dozens of other actors from that film forward (I am immediately thinking of Christian Slater’s turn in HEATHERS as one of the most obvious), and his casting in the lead role is a masterstroke by Kubrick. Actually, Kubrick had consulted with Stephen King on who should take the role and Stanley had to deflect every suggestion of Michael Moriarty and Bruce Dern agaiin and again.
It’s unfair to say that Jack is obviously nutso in the beginning of the film as we have assumed upon our knowledge of this mans public identity that he really is a little whacko. In actuality, Nicholson was playing the part as scripted by Kubrick and Diane Johnson (who was always on the set) and fielding ideas about how he should act from both of them.
Jack Torrance is a man who is slowly realizing that he has failed in life. His wife and kid are a constant reminder of said failure and the anchor that keeps him from breaking free and starting anew. I think that the reactions that Torrance has in the office interview with the hotel manager is that of a guy trying desperately to not look so desperate. he knows, clearly that this job is his last real shot at making some major/quick money that will see him dig his ass out of the hole and present him as a savior to Danny and Wendy.
Now, I’m not saying that Jack Torrance isn’t a little whacked in the beginning. No, i would never go that route. However, what I am saying is that I never viewed him as a type that was ready to murder everyone in the house.
I defend Nicholson’s performance with every fiber of my being as a gradual descent into insanity. It’s also one of the top 5 turns in American horror films.
As for the GEORGE C SCOTT anecdote on STRANGELOVE. Fuck him if he got pissed. Your talking about a fine actor getting ready to jump in the sandbox with one of the single greatest film-makers the medium has ever seen. I’ll take Kubrick’s know-how as law any day over the hissy fits of a mere “player” that could have been replaced by any one of a thousand actors to play the part. Had Stanley had his way, the role of Buck Turgeodson, as well as that of Majaor Kong (Slim Pickens), would have been played by Peter Sellers. Originally, STRANGELOVE was devised as a piece for one actor in all the major roles and a showpiece for his dear friend Sellers. I love STRAGELOVE as is. However I can’t help but be curious on how Stan’s original vision would have been. Probably better, me thinks….
DAVID SCHLEICHER-I would never say that Jack was all there in the interview, far from it. However, the anger of his past regrets and failures would hardly be ther stuff to send a man to murder. Granted, Jack might be capable of harm on a small scale, as related by Wendy in the story of Danny’s arm, but to hunt down and kill a child? No. I think the slip into insanity is egged on by the desire to be loved and the steadfast need to prove himself worthy of love by those that see potential in him (I.e. the ghosts of Overlook’s past). The absence of alcohol would, as its drained from him, feed into the building violence and insanity as illustrated in so many kicking the addiction in rehab. Yes, Jack is not ALL there in the beginning, but I hardly find him ready to weave baskets or paint lawn furniture either.
“Perhaps the most common reaction is to first walk away feeling very unclear. Watch it again and you are impressed but still scratching your head. The next viewing is even more intriguing but the ambivalence lingers.”
That about sums up my first two viewings of the film. It wasn’t until my third shot at it that it all began working for me and my most recent viewing shot it up even higher.
I love Robert’s discussion of Kubrick’s use of immensity throughout the film. It’s bombastic and over-the-top in so many ways and I think the overwhelming nature of that excessiveness is what eventually becomes so terrifying.
Perhaps the most formally beautiful horror film I’ve ever seen — Kubrick’s mastery of the Steadicam still doesn’t fail to impress.
Yes, yes, the sense of immensity is vital to the idea of the OVERLOOK dwarfing its victims. It’s comparatable to those nature shows where the three ton Great White Shark swims down a helpless Seal…