a review of the Shining

Laborious Horror

The one element of The Shining that strikes this particular viewer the most is the slow movement of the film. Typically with Horror films, the way the characters move and the editing is usually very rhythmically rapid; especially when the monster appears. An audience member experiences a sense of terror towards the end of a Horror film because their rhythm has been temporarily altered in a strange and uncomfortable way. This is part of the fun of the genre. The movement of this kind of Horror film is different, and this may have to due with the fact that this particular movie deals with a human monster, and that the story of The Shining is primarily psychological opposed to paranormal. Even once Jack Nicholson’s character (Jack) chases after his family, one feels like everything is in a strange slow rhythm, almost like in a trance. This particular style seems to correlate with the reason for why there are extreme instances of key lighting, and also for why there are rhythmically smooth stedicam shots employed throughout the film. This style all gives a sense of coolness and calmness. It makes sense that this particular way of filming a horror movie is in the earlier moments of the film, because the audience knows that they are going to eventually be taken advantage of later when the actual horror appears and when everything will become more frenzied. Yet the director Stanley Kubrick never really alternates the style of this film. This may have to do with the fact that the audience in a sense knows what’s going to happen before the action transpires; in other words, the sense of horror has already been felt earlier in the movie, so it doesn’t really need to be shown later on. The style in this film is completely against the grain of the style in previous horror movies. There are several reasons for this particular decision on the director’s part, and they all pertain to the content of the film.

In The Shining, a writer by the name of Jack Torrance is asked by hotel managers if he could be the winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. Even though he is warned by the hotel manager that a previous caretaker went mad and killed both his wife and daughters and himself, Jack still wants to look after the place; he feels that he can get some writing done more easily because there are less distractions in a desolate location. This story strikes a viewer as being very eerie, because we as an audience have learned that Jack has on a previous occasion hurt his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) by pulling his arm when he was intoxicated. Ever since that moment, Danny has been able to see the future in very quick instances. Not only is the story of the previous caretaker a form of foreshadowing; there are also visual variants of the same idea which are far more shocking. These visual images are not subliminal, but rather have a direct connection to the story. There’s the first moment of Danny’s prognostication when he is in his family’s apartment and is talking to his imaginary friend Tony, while looking in a mirror. He suddenly sees flashes of blood coming out of an elevator and two identical twins. There’s another moment early in the film, while the tour is going on for the Torrance’s of the hotel, when Danny has a very similar psychic instance where he actually sees the two sisters starring at him. Both scenes start with neutral focalization shots that turn into slow tracking shots directed towards Danny, which gives the viewer an uncomfortable feeling of moving towards a character for a particularly obscure reason. In most Horror movies, the camera doesn’t move arbitrarily like it does here. After that second instance, Danny is introduced to the cook in the hotel, named Mr. Holloram (Scatman Crowthers). Before Danny really notices and studies Holloram, there is another slow tracking shot towards the hotel guides and the Torrance’s in the meat cellar. The audience gets that same uncomfortable feeling, only this time they are aware that there is a reason for this particular movement in the shot. Through a psychic process, Danny realizes that Mr. Holloram has the same powers that Danny has; Halloran calls this the Shining. It seems that the reason for dramatic foreshadowing in this film, through the process of a slow tracking forward movement, is done to signal to the audience that the character is about to experience the Shining. (This happens in later stages of the film when Holloram receives the Shining and when Jack does as well.) The Shining power itself is a form of warning the person that has it that something extreme will happen later in their life. At this stage in the movie, both plot elements and aesthetic elements commingle to warn the audience, to almost signal them, that something imminently dangerous will happen. This particular style really doesn’t alternate throughout the film, even up until the end of the movie.

The tour of the Overlook is a great example of how the smooth tracking movement that Kubrick achieves throughout this movie, by using a stedicam, can add to the dramatic content of the film. These are shots typically not seen in Horror movies, but they do appear in The Shining. A perfect example is the tour of the hotel. The way the camera subjectively moves around the space, and winds up arriving just in time to meet the characters (an example being when the family is getting a tour through the main room of the house, while the camera tracks from the side of the room in a long shot.) gives the film a strange feeling of smooth lack of control; of almost there being a floating type of perspective in the room. Could it be a ghost? This is not just merely a surveying of information type of shot (like it would be in say a “normal” horror movie) that will prove beneficial for the viewer later, so that they know that that particular space will be where the monster appears. Rather, it’s a shot that gives the film a certain tone, and that is one of timelessness; basically, it’s a déjà vu type of shot. The audience more than the characters fells that particular sensation of déjà vu, because that type of shot was so similar to the one we as an audience saw in an earlier scene in the same setting. It’s that particular déjà vu which attracts Jack to the Overlook in the first place. Examples of this are when Wendy discovers Jack’s “writing”, when Jack is throwing the tennis ball and the two instances of the Torrance’s entering the Gold Room. The first time we see them enter the Gold room, the shot is a straight on long shot that is also a tracking shot from the side of the room. Later in the film, Jack goes through that same room in exactly the same kind of shot, only this time ghosts from the 20’s inhabit the room. It’s the same shot and the same room, but with a difference, and that’s what gives the film its odd feeling of withdrawnness. The characters don’t really notice what strange space they have entered, but we as an audience do. This withdrawn feeling that the characters have really hasn’t been felt in a Horror film before. What creates the sense of timelessness in the film and what also sets the tone and even the content is the slow tracking camera movement. In the beginning of the movie, Jack is driving to the Overlook, and the camera (which is shot from a helicopter) moves in a gliding way, which makes the scene disassociated and eerie. It gives the sense that fate is controlling Jack, and that there is nothing he can do to get away from it; this is the main theme of the film.

The editing in The Shining is key to the film because this technique, like the tracking shots, adds to the dramatic content of the movie and helps give the film that trance like feeling that it has. It’s ironic that content and movement are basically the same notion on the director’s part. He obscures every other element in the film, and purely relies on this technique, probably because it makes the movie more mysterious. (This is a generalization, but I’m not really going that far in what I’ am saying.) No matter how ingenious this technique is, the flaws appear in the editing of the film. A perfect example is the scene in the bathroom with the previous caretaker Delbert Grady and Jack. Shots linger for what feels like a minute, when what we are simply watching is Nicholson listening in an odd fashion to Grady. These shots do not convey anything new to the viewer (the audience already knows that Nicholson’s character is disintegrating before the scene transpires) but rather add to the tone of the film, in my opinion unto extremity. The editing is another signal to the audience. The length of the shot conveys the sense that this character is experiencing isolation, or cabin fever. I feel that what Kubrick didn’t realize as a director was that the movie already moved in a strange slow fashion due to the beautiful tracking shots; they even made statements that added to the film. Consequently, an audience member doesn’t need slow editing or else they will become impatient. The problem with this technique is that the film becomes less horrifying, and instead becomes almost too laboriously clinical. Flashes of horror, like Danny’s moments of looking into the future, and even the titles stating what day it is or what time it is, are such a disruption in terms of the pace of the film, that they are actually the scariest moments in the movie. I hate to say it, but they are the only jolts that the audience receives, and Kubrick does this precisely because he wants to go against the grain of the typical Horror style.

The scene that should be the most horrific in the film, but isn’t due to the editing rhythms and length of shots, is the scene in room 237. There are a plethora of film techniques used. There’s parallel editing between Danny and his father that suggests that Danny has the power to watch his father’s actions. There’s the pov of Jack, both when he is scanning the room in a way that’s reminiscent of the scanning camera movement previously utilized in the film. This suggests that Jack is starting to become one with the evil spirit in the house. Once Jack enters the room, the camera first shows his pov in a long shot of the bathroom. A young naked woman is in the bathtub. There is then a direct cut to Nicholson showing a grin on his face. This element of movement and cutting conveys the sense that Jack is incapable of fighting the evil spirit that is tempting him to give in to their needs i.e. convincing Jack to kill his family. Jack then comes over to the young girl, in a slow trancelike fashion that resembles the tone of the film; that of the otherworldly. It’s not that the aesthetics do not illuminate meaning, it’s just that the scene doesn’t work because the construction of it is too meticulous; the attention to detail is too precise. There should be more conveyed in terms of the emotion of the character, particularly because this is the key scene where Jack will forever be changed after his encounter with the old lady, and where he will decide that he has to kill his family. We as an audience have to feel what the character is feeling, besides the basic emotion of revulsion. Otherwise, an audience doesn’t know the importance of the scene. The other problem with the moment is that the horrific elements that are supposed to be conveyed dissipate because of the way the scene is executed. This is also the problem with the movie.

In terms of Bordwell’s book entitled Film Art: An Introduction, Kubrick’s film fails as a Horror movie because it is not so much expressionistic (a reliance on images), but rather relies heavily on cinematography and editing. Kubrick’s attention to the way the film is lit, and the way the camera is moved and the precise editing (like in the Grady scene and the room 237 scene) is unfortunately more important than the actual figure in the frame, like the old lady in the bathroom. She should be more darkly lit, so that the audience can’t see every aspect of her. Instead, the way she is shot, which is a form of key lighting, simply makes her look like a dowdy decrepit old lady. In this sense, Kubrick’s film is more of a modernist film rather than a Horror film that is inspired by German Expressionism. This unique style of leaving out dramatic content and purely having the technique of the film alert the audience of what is going on is fine. In some ways it’s even a strange sort of triumph, because we as an audience do understand the psychological feelings of the characters during certain moments. (When Jack’s experiencing the Shining and staring at the model maze.) We as an audience do understand that this is a psychological Horror film, rather than a paranormal one. However, this method also backfires. We as an audience don’t understand what Nicholson is feeling in the moment in the meat celler or in the scenes when he talks to Lloyd or Delbert Grady. The scenes become too unemotional at this point in the film; everything is conveyed in patterns and editing movement. We as an audience are simply repulsed by Jack, almost as if he were a monster. If he is one, why then is he shot in extreme long shots during the chase through the maze? If Jack’s a monster, then he’s a pretty insignificant and non-terrifying one. This original method of Kubrick’s ultimately is a betrayal on the whole concept of the Horror genre.