The second took place in the context of my senior essay on the monumental horror-image, this time focusing on the countless appearances of such images in the film. You can access the whole senior essay by clicking here, but once again I'm reprinting the relevant part in an effort to offset all the waxing poetic I did up above with some hardcore textual analysis. Again, it's simply astounding how rational was the planning of this, a film about the complete failure of rationality. Enjoy.
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Analyses of The Shining often focus on its psychological horror, in particular the madness of Jack Torrance, its central character. This detracts from the painstaking manner in which Kubrick sets up monumental horror-images (particularly those of the first type) so as to overpower characters and audience alike with the horror of the "unreal." In a way, the confines of the Overlook Hotel come to define a new world, one where old conceptual frameworks of time, space, and human behavior are mercilessly hacked to pieces. Jack's insanity is simply his method of adapting to this systematic violation of his old world - a violation for which the indelible monumental horror-image stands.The first encounter we have with such an image is fleeting, yet unforgettable - an almost subliminal flash of the twins seen during Danny's vision/episode before he and his family move to the Overlook for the winter. They pop out at us unexpectedly in the midst of a slow-motion shot of a torrent (Torrance?) of blood gushing forth from the hotel's elevator doors, accompanied by ominously low, droning music, and mirrored by a subsequent flash cut to Danny screaming. However briefly they appear, the twins are presented as a concretization of the fluid, a personification of the forces of violence, fear, and death present in the rest of the vision. Further, since we have already heard the story of how the twins were slain by their father, one of the Overlook's winter caretakers, we know that seeing them at all is a violation of physical reality.
This "violation of reality" is reinforced when the twins next appear, in the rec room scene described at length above. Though there is nothing particularly special about the way the twins are presented or shot, they are clearly out of place in this quotidian setting. A careful look at the shot structure of the film reveals why they make us feel so uneasy: throughout the movie, the camera has been in constant motion. We begin with a breathtaking fly-over shot of Jack's car as it snakes through the mountains toward the Overlook; we are constantly following characters with Kubrick's trademark tracking shots, made even more fluid by the recent invention of the Steadicam; even simple close-ups are usually made mobile with slow, barely perceptible tracks or zooms into the characters' faces. But in monumental horror-images of the first type, such as that of the twins, the camera comes to a jarring halt. Kubrick has accustomed us to movement, subtly training us to be uneasy when this movement ceases. In the rec room scene, the jarring nature of this contrast is highlighted by an uncharacteristically rapid zoom-in on Danny just as he turns to see the twins in the doorway. Their presence, standing there like twin tombstones, is a violation not only of the physical laws of the film, but in this movie’s case, a violation of the physical laws of film.
Article comments
1 - emma
You might copy those images to another host. Only a small banner gif is shown when remotely linked it seems.
2 - Rodney Welch
I went to see The Shining at the theatre with the greatest hopes of being scared to death. I mean, it was Kubrick, right? A so-called master filmmaker who had certainly battered my senses with A Clockwork Orange. And Jack Kroll in Newsweek certainly thought it was scary. Can't fail, I thought. Unfortunately, I thought, the movie was all foreplay and no climax -- it promises, tempts, lures, and taunts you with the idea that there will be a big payoff. There isn't -- at least, not really. It's certainly not the kind of picture that makes you jump out of your seat.
And yet, over the years, I've come to appreciate it, although not the way most of it's fans do, because it didn't scare me. Instead, I appreciate it in a kind of distant, arm's-length, perhaps even academic way. I see it as a mood piece, a psychological study of a man who realizes he is nothing -- a man who wanted to succeed, as a father, a husband, and a writer, and finds he can't. Jack Torrance is a man who thinks he has writing talent and discovers that he has nothing to say, and his rage about having nothing to say, nothing to offer, nothing to give his family turns him into a violent beast; he sees them as the enemy. It's really, in its way, a study of alcoholism, told in somewhat horrific metaphoric terms; a man who can't escape his sense of failure, and who turns on the wife and child who make him feel that sense of failure just by their very existence. That, to me, is what the real story is; it's a story of a man's midlife crisis where the horror is all interior.
3 - Jim Carruthers
I re-watched "The Shining" a couple of weeks ago on the DVD re-issue (there's a really comprehensive "making-of" doc with extensive interviews with Kubrick, Nicholson and Duvall).
This was about the third or fourth time I'd seen the movie. The first was when it was first released, the second a couple of years ago at a rep theatre with a badly deteroriated and faded print.
The DVD really represented how the horror comes from beneath and within, plus how "The Shining" is one of the best adaptations of Stephen King's books. However, I should note, while I was a child, my parents spent a couple years employed as caretakers at a seasonal resort (though no where near as isolated as the Overlook).
One thing which provides an interesting contrast is the made for teevee adaptation of "The Shining" which was good, but not great.
And if you need a writer's block double feature, pair "The Shining" with the recently released DVD of "Barton Fink".
4 - Rodney Welch
Cool -- I have Barton Fink lined up to watch over the weekend. And you're right about the double DVD set; fascinating documentary of Kubrick and crew just being themselves.
5 - Eric Olsen
I find the subject of writer's block to be beyond my ken. My problem is that I alwyas have too much to say, never not enough. i am always disgorging large amounts of blather and then having to sort it out, rearrange it, eliminate a lot.
That's the main reason I have found blogging so rewarding: I can just blab on and on about whatever hops into my fevered brain all the livelong day and no one seems to mind much.
By the way, I found "Barton Fink" to be disturbing, claustrophobic and overwrought. I kept thinking, "just start writing down whatever pops into your head, one thing leads to another, it doesn't have to be perfect, that's what editing is for."
6 - Rodney Welch
I think I should have said above that Jack Torrance's interior horror becomes externalized. And I can grok the writer's block thing, because I really don't like writing badly, don't like writing sentences I know are horribly wrong -- which is not to say I don't, of course. I've always had this belief that writing is about knowing your thoughts, knowing what you want to say, having some basic grasp of your own point of view, and left to my own devices I'm not always real sure what that is; in fact, I usually don't know what I think until someone tells me what they think, and I rather immediately find myself agreeing or disagreeing strongly. I'm a shitty blogger, no question, but I'm a pretty steady responder.