The Shining

I read The Shining in the 4th grade. I clearly remember being in class, with that paperback in my desk with its reflective silver cover, not being able to wait until recess to get back to reading it.

I wasn't old enough to grasp all the intricacies at play in The Shining, both the movie and the book, but I knew I liked what I did understand. It was adult, mean, cynical, and damned scary. It dealt with subjects that I, as a 10-year-old, had no understanding of. It also followed Danny, a young boy, whom I could completely relate to. He was a little boy in a difficult home life, and I knew all about that.

I related to Danny and to Jack. Hell, I related to Wendy. I could feel Stephen King's attempt at compassion and empathy toward these characters, but there was always that undercurrent of anger, both in the book and the movie. It's a very angry story. It's all about disappointment and abuse and damaged self-image, and wounded masculinity. I related to that too. Even at 10 and especially now.

There's a lot of talk about whether The Shining is even a GOOD movie. Obviously, Steve has his opinions, but those are the opinions of someone who is intimately and immediately involved in creating this story. The movie is obviously a different interpretation of the material, so it stands to reason he'd have his issues. It approaches the story of a father terrorizing his family in a much more immediate way. Rather than being the supposedly slow descent into madness, the cheese is clearly off Jack's cracker well before this movie starts.

I would argue that, in the novel, Jack's pretty well broken before the story starts. He's just not portrayed by the craziest looking actor in 1970s Hollywood.

Now, for the sake of THIS story, the movie's story, it works. It works that Jack is a complete psycho from the beginning. There's a scene at the start of the movie where Wendy tells a doctor about how Jack came home from work drunk one night and dislocated Danny's shoulder in a fit of rage. I never really thought about that scene and the way the doctor she's telling this story to looks at her like "You realize this is bad, right?" and she's just oblivious.

That's something I noticed this time around. How clearly they're in a really bad situation from the very beginning. It's an abusive household, and Kubrick doesn't shy away from that fact. It's right out there from the start.

What was uncomfortable for me was just how long it took me to see that fact. Jack isn't a good guy fighting his demons. Jack's a fucking asshole and doesn't deserve the family he has. He's mean to them almost the whole way through the movie. There are very few scenes where he's not snapping or yelling at Wendy. It's just really uncomfortable to watch once I dialed into Wendy's character.

That's the thing that really stood out to me, this time around, just how incredible Shelley Duvall was. She was at an 11 for the whole movie. Jack was too, doing Jack stuff, waggling his eyebrows and looking menacing. Shelley, on the other hand, was screaming and crying and desperately trying to get a handle on what was happening around her and to her family. I felt for her. I felt for Danny. It was harrowing, this time around, for me. And knowing how awful the experience of filming this movie was for Duvall only deepened my compassion for her character.

Another thing that stood out to me, and presents one of the great mistakes this movie makes, was the handling of Scatman Crothers as Dick Halloran. He is FANTASTIC in that role, and I feel like one of the significant changes they made from the book was a bad one. I think I understand WHY they did it, but I disagree with it. Dick was an important character, and he should have been the hero. I understand leaving it to Wendy and Danny to get themselves out of the hotel, but they barely touched on that. The last half hour of the movie is mostly just Jack being a cartoon, swinging an axe around, and screaming.

Yes, Dick is a prime example of the "magical negro" trope. But if you're gonna do that trope, and try and do it respectfully, don't kill off your guy. Keep him as the hero who saves the family. That was nice in the book. I liked it. Took the sting off the ending a bit. Maybe that's not what Kubrick wanted. Obviously, it wasn't, because he went a different way. But I don't care for that choice.

There's a lot that's been said about what Kubrick was actually trying to say with this movie. What it's all about. I truthfully hadn't put much thought into that before watching it last night. I didn't watch the documentary about all the fan theories, because honestly, I like the story he told. I don't need underlying mysteries. That said, Jack's obviously meant to symbolize something, and I think it's something distinctly American. He's a bully and a narcissist. He controls his family with fear and pure force of personality. He's weak and ineffective, and he punishes his family for his own shortcomings. That feels very American to me.

Seeing people like the doctor and Halloran, who recognize that this family is doomed but can't do anything to stop it, is heartbreaking. The scene where Danny goes into the apartment where Jack is supposed to be sleeping, only to find him sitting up in bed, looking creepy, is terrifying. You have no idea just how far gone Jack is at this point, and the way he talks to Danny is really uncomfortable. Honestly, the ghosts are the least frightening part of this movie. It's the underlying family story that's really upsetting.

Watching this in the IMAX, with the enhanced image and the incredible sound, a few things stuck with me. First, the music in this movie is fantastic. Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind-Tourre put together a score that is both hypnotic and ominous. The synth bars of the Rocky Mountains suite start, and you know you're in for some scary shit. I don't know if they remixed the sound or remastered it or what, but it was big, mean, and scary.

Another thing: it looks fantastic. Seeing it on the IMAX screen, closer to the theatrical aspect ratio (1.90:1 in this case), which filled the entire screen (and buddy, I was in the front of the theater), was captivating. I was seeing all the various little details in the sets. The piles of books in the Torrence apartment. The cans and packages of food in the Overlook pantry. All of the tiny details that get lost on a TV screen were there. Hell, I could see drops of water reflecting in the pubic hair of the woman in 237. I know that's probably too specific, but damn if I didn't notice it.

The Shining is one of those all-time great movies. Yes, it's a showcase for Nicholson's nuttiness. Yes, some parts are uncomfortable to watch, but damn, it's a wild ride.

I've been thinking about The Shining a lot lately, because I wrote a short story to submit to this anthology of short stories about The Overlook Hotel. It's another anthology of Stephen King adjacent stories, called Views From the Overlook.

https://horrortree.com/taking-submissions-views-from-the-overlook/

My story is finished, but I'll probably revise it a few times before the March due date. So I've been thinking a lot about The Shining and what it's all about. This IMAX screening came at exactly the right time. I really, really love this movie. It's not my favorite King adaptation, nor my favorite Kubrick movie, but it's a fantastic example of how an artist can reinterpret a work of art to fit their own narrative.

That's what I'm doing with my story, and that's what Stanley Kubrick did with his version of The Shining, and we're better off for it.