.gif)
The Shining (film)
Encyclopedia
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror
film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick
, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson
, and starring Jack Nicholson
, Shelley Duvall
, and Danny Lloyd
. The film is based on the novel of the same name
by Stephen King
. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an off-season caretaker at an isolated hotel. His young son possesses psychic abilities and is able to see things from the past and future, such as the ghosts who inhabit the hotel. Soon after settling in, the family is trapped in the hotel by a snowstorm, and Jack gradually becomes influenced by a supernatural presence; he descends into madness and attempts to murder his wife and son.
Unlike previous Kubrick films, which developed an audience gradually by building on word-of-mouth, The Shining was released as a mass-market film, opening at first in just two cities on Memorial Day, then nationwide a month later. Although initial response to the film was mixed, later critical assessment was more favorable and it is now viewed as a classic of the horror genre
. Film director Martin Scorsese
, writing in The Daily Beast, ranked it as one of the 11 scariest horror movies of all time. Film critics, film students, and Kubrick's producer, Jan Harlan
, have all remarked on the enormous influence the film has had on popular culture.
The initial European release of The Shining was 24 minutes shorter than the American version, and removed most scenes taking place in the world outside the hotel.
(Jack Nicholson
) arrives at the Overlook Hotel to interview for the position of winter caretaker, with the aim of using the hotel's solitude to work on his writing. The hotel itself is built on the site of an Indian
burial ground and becomes completely snowed in during the long winters. Manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson
) warns him that a previous caretaker got cabin fever
and killed his family and himself. Jack’s son, Danny (Danny Lloyd
), has ESP and has had a terrifying premonition about the hotel. Jack's wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall
), tells a visiting doctor that Danny has an imaginary friend called Tony and that Jack has given up drinking because he had hurt Danny's arm after a binge.
The family arrives at the hotel on closing day and is given a tour. The African-American chef Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers
) surprises Danny by telepathically
offering him ice cream. He explains to Danny that his grandmother and he shared this telepathic ability, which he calls "shining." Danny asks if there is anything to be afraid of in the hotel, particularly Room 237. Hallorann tells Danny that the hotel itself has a "shine" to it along with many memories, not all of which are good. He tells Danny to stay out of Room 237.
A month passes; while Jack's writing project goes nowhere, Danny and Wendy explore the hotel's hedge maze
. Wendy becomes concerned about the phone lines being out due to the heavy snowfall and Danny has more frightening visions. Jack becomes frustrated, starts acting strangely, and becomes prone to violent outbursts. Danny’s curiosity about Room 237 gets the better of him when he sees the room's door open. Later, Danny shows up injured and visibly traumatized, causing Wendy to accuse Jack of abusing Danny. Jack wanders into the hotel’s Gold Room where he meets a ghostly bartender
named Lloyd (Joe Turkel
) who serves him bourbon on the rocks. Jack complains to the bartender about his marriage to Wendy. Wendy later tells Jack that Danny told her a "crazy woman in one of the rooms" was responsible for his injuries. Jack investigates Room 237 where he encounters the ghost of a dead woman, but tells Wendy he saw nothing. Wendy and Jack argue about whether Danny should be removed from the hotel and Jack returns to the Gold Room, now filled with ghosts having a costume party. Here, he meets who he believes is the ghost of the previous caretaker, Grady (Philip Stone
), who tells Jack that he must "correct" his wife and child.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Hallorann has a premonition that something is wrong at the hotel and takes a flight back to Colorado to investigate. Danny starts calling out "redrum" frantically and goes into a trance, now referring to himself as "Tony." While searching for Jack, Wendy discovers his typewriter; he has been typing endless pages of manuscript repeating "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
" formatted in various styles. She is confronted by Jack, who threatens her before she knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat. She manages to drag him into the kitchen and lock him in the pantry, but this does not solve her larger problem; she and Danny are trapped at the hotel since Jack has sabotaged the hotel's two-way radio
and snowcat
. Later, Jack converses through the pantry door with Grady, who then unlocks the door, releasing him.
Danny writes "REDЯUM" in lipstick on the bathroom door. When Wendy sees this in the bedroom mirror, the letters spell out "MURDER". Jack begins to chop through the door leading to his family's living quarters with a fire axe. Wendy frantically sends Danny out through the bathroom window, but cannot get through it herself. Jack then starts chopping through the bathroom door as Wendy screams in horror; he leers through the hole he has made, shouting "Here's Johnny!", but backs off after Wendy slashes his hand with a butcher knife. Hearing the engine of the snowcat
Hallorann has borrowed to get up the mountain, Jack leaves the room. He kills Hallorann in the lobby and pursues Danny into the hedge maze. Wendy runs through the hotel looking for Danny, encountering several ghosts and a huge cascade of blood. Meanwhile, Danny walks backwards in his own tracks and leaps behind a corner, covering his tracks with snow to mislead Jack, who has been following his footprints. Wendy and Danny escape in Hallorann's snowcat, while Jack freezes to death in the hedge maze.
The final shot of the film shows a 1921 photograph of a smiling Jack Torrance in front of a crowd of revelers, as the song "Midnight, the Stars, and You" plays in the background.
The actresses who played the Grady daughters, Lisa and Louise Burns, are identical twins; however, the characters in the book and film script are merely sisters, not twins. In the film's dialogue, Mr. Ullmann identifies them as "about eight or ten". Nonetheless, they are frequently referred to in discussions about the film as "the Grady twins".
The resemblance in the staging of the Grady girls and the famous "Twins"
photograph by Diane Arbus has been noted both by Arbus' biographer, Patricia Bosworth, and by numerous Kubrick critics. Although Kubrick both met Arbus personally and studied photography under her during his youthful days as photographer for Look magazine, Kubrick's widow says he did not deliberately model the Grady girls on Arbus' famous photograph, in spite of widespread attention to the resemblance.
, a highly visual period film about an Irish man who attempts to make his way into the English aristocracy. Despite its technical achievement, the film was not a box office success in the United States and was derided by critics for being too long and too slow. Kubrick, disappointed with Barry Lyndons lack of success, realized he needed to make a film that would be commercially viable as well as artistically fulfilling.
The Shining was shot on soundstages at EMI Elstree Studios
in Borehamwood
, Hertfordshire
, Britain
. The set
for the Overlook Hotel was then the largest ever built, including a full re-creation of the exterior of the hotel. A few exterior shots by a second-unit crew were done at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood
in Oregon
. These shots are notable because of the absence of the hedge maze, a nonexistent feature at the actual hotel. Some of the interiors are based on those of the Ahwahnee Hotel
in Yosemite National Park
. The Timberline Lodge requested Kubrick change the number of the sinister Room 217 of King's novel to 237, so customers would not avoid the real Room 217.
This film was among the first half-dozen to use the then-revolutionary Steadicam
(after the 1976 films Bound for Glory, Marathon Man
and Rocky
), and was Kubrick's first use of it. This is a stabilizing mount for a movie camera
, which mechanically separates the operator's movement from the camera's, allowing smooth tracking shots while the operator is moving over an uneven surface. It essentially combines the stabilized steady footage of a regular mount with the fluidity and flexibility of a handheld camera. The inventor of the Steadicam, Garrett Brown
, was heavily involved with the production. Brown published an article in American Cinematographer about his experience, and contributed to the audio commentary on the 2007 DVD release of The Shining. Brown describes his excitement taking his first tour of the sets which offered "further possibilities for the Steadicam". This tour convinced Brown to become personally involved with the production. Kubrick was not "just talking of stunt shots and staircases". Rather he would use the Steadicam "as it was intended to be used – as a tool which can help get the lens where it's wanted in space and time without the classic limitations of the dolly and crane." Kubrick himself aided in modifying the Steadicam's video transmission technology. Brown states his own abilities to operate the Steadicam were refined by working on Kubrick's film. On this film, Brown developed a two-handed technique which enabled him to maintain the camera at one height while panning and tilting the camera. In addition to tracking shots from behind, the Steadicam enabled shooting in constricted rooms without flying out walls, or backing the camera into doors. Brown notes that This required the Steadicam to be on a special mount modeled on a wheelchair in which the operator sat while pulling a platform with the sound man. Brown also discusses how the scenes in the hedge maze were shot with a Steadicam.
The Shining had a prolonged and arduous production period, often with very long workdays. Principal photography took over a year to complete, due to Kubrick's highly methodical nature. Actress Shelley Duvall
did not get along well with Kubrick, frequently arguing with him on set about lines in the script, her acting techniques and numerous other things. Duvall eventually became so overwhelmed by the stress of her role that she became physically ill for months. At one point she was under so much stress that her hair began to fall out. The shooting script was being changed constantly, sometimes several times a day, adding more stress. Jack Nicholson eventually became so frustrated with the ever-changing script that he would throw away the copies that the production team would give to him to memorize, knowing that it was just going to change anyway. He learned most of his lines just minutes before filming them. Nicholson was living in London with his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston
and her younger sister, Allegra, who testified to his long shooting days.
Nicholson was Kubrick's first choice for the role of Jack Torrance; other actors considered were Robert De Niro
(who claims the film gave him nightmares for a month), Robin Williams
and Harrison Ford
, all of whom met with Stephen King
's disapproval.
The opening panorama shots (outtakes of which were used by Ridley Scott
for the closing moments of the original cut of the film Blade Runner
) and scenes of the Volkswagen Beetle
on the road to the hotel were filmed from a helicopter in Glacier National Park in Montana
on the Going-to-the-Sun Road
.
For international versions of the film, Kubrick shot different takes of Wendy reading the typewriter pages in different languages. For each language, a suitable idiom was used: German (Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen—"Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today"), Italian (Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca – "The morning has gold in its mouth"), French (Un «Tiens» vaut mieux que deux «Tu l'auras» – "One 'here you go' is worth more than two 'you'll have its'", the equivalent of "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"), Spanish (No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano – "No matter how early you get up, you can't make the sun rise any sooner"). These alternate shots were not included with the DVD release, where only the English phrase "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" was used.
The door that Jack chops through with the axe near the end of the film was a real door. Kubrick had originally shot the scene with a fake door, but Nicholson, who had worked as a volunteer fire marshal
, tore it down too quickly. Jack's line, "Heeeere's Johnny!", is taken from Ed McMahon
's famous introduction to The Tonight Show
, starring Johnny Carson
, and was improvised by Nicholson. Kubrick, who had lived in England for some time, was unaware of the significance of the line, and nearly used a different take. Carson later used the Nicholson clip to open his 1980 Anniversary Show on NBC.
score by Wendy Carlos
and Rachel Elkind, including one major theme in addition to a main title based on Hector Berlioz
' interpretation of the "Dies Irae
", used in his "Symphonie Fantastique
", as well as pieces of modernist music. The soundtrack
LP
was taken off the market due to licensing issues and has never appeared as a legitimate compact disc
release. For the film itself, pieces were overdubbed
on top of one another.
Carlos and Elkind had composed a great deal of music for the film, however, Kubrick decided to go with classical music from other sources, as he had done on previous occasions. Some of Carlos' unused music appears on her album Rediscovering Lost Scores, Vol. 2.
The stylistically modernist art-music chosen by Kubrick is similar to the repertoire he first explored in 2001: A Space Odyssey
. Although the repertoire was selected by Kubrick, the process of matching passages of music to motion picture was left almost entirely at the discretion of music editor Gordon Stainforth, whose work on this film is notable for the attention to fine details and remarkably precise synchronization without excessive splicing.
The non-original music on the soundtrack is as follows:
:
For its release in Europe, Kubrick cut 24 minutes from the film. The excised scenes made reference to the outside world, and to Danny's imaginary friend, Tony.
once and on Sky Movies numerous times in the mid-nineties. All other screenings, before and since these, have been on either ITV or ITV4 and have been the longer US edit. The German DVD shows the short version, as seen in german tv screenings.
According to Kubrick's last will, DVD releases show the film in open matte
(i.e., with more picture content visible than in movie theaters). The scene when Wendy discovers her husband's work (consisting only of a simple proverb: "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" repeatedly typed on numerous pages) was shot with different proverbs in at least five languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian and German). Nevertheless, most DVD releases show the English version, disregarding the dub language.
DVDs in both regions contain a candid fly-on-the-wall 33-minute documentary made by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian (who was 17 when she filmed it) entitled Making The Shining, originally shown on British television in 1980. She also provided an audio commentary track about her documentary for its DVD release. It appears even on pre-2007 editions of The Shining on DVD, although most DVDs of Kubrick films before then were devoid of documentaries or audio commentaries. It has some candid interviews and very private moments caught on set, such as arguments with cast and director, moments of a no-nonsense Kubrick directing his actors, Scatman Crothers
being overwhelmed with emotion during his interview, Shelley Duvall
collapsing of exhaustion on the set and a very playful Jack Nicholson
enjoying playing up to the behind-the-scenes camera.
was critical, saying "With everything to work with, [...] Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller." It was the only one of Kubrick's last nine films to get no nominations at all from either the Oscars or Golden Globes, but was nominated for a pair of Razzie Awards, including Worst Director and Worst Actress (Duvall
), in the very first year that award was given. (At that time, the Raspberries were voted on by a tiny handful of friends of Raspberry founder John Wilson. This was long before the voting body expanded to a large international committee that included reputable film critics and industry professionals.)
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 88% "Certified Fresh".
Roger Ebert
's initial review of the film was unfavorable, but he later re-evaluated it and in 2006, The Shining made it into Ebert's series of "Great Movie" reviews, saying "Stanley Kubrick's cold and frightening The Shining challenges us to decide: Who is the reliable observer? Whose idea of events can we trust?" [...] "It is this elusive open-endedness that makes Kubrick's film so strangely disturbing."
could have turned around in a fortnight. But look beyond the simplicity and the Overlook reveals itself as a palace of paradox...." Romney says "The dominating presence of the Overlook Hotel – designed by Roy Walker as a composite of American hotels visited in the course of research – is an extraordinary vindication of the value of mise en scène
. It's a real, complex space that we don't just see but come to virtually inhabit. The confinement is palpable: horror cinema is an art of claustrophobia, making us loath to stay in the cinema but unable to leave. Yet it's combined with a sort of agoraphobia
– we are as frightened of the hotel's cavernous vastness as of its corridors' enclosure. [...] The film sets up a complex dynamic between simple domesticity and magnificent grandeur, between the supernatural and the mundane in which the viewer is disoriented by the combination of spaciousness and confinement, and an uncertainty as to just what is real or not."
has been quoted as saying that although Kubrick made a film with memorable imagery, it was not a good adaptation of his novel and is the only adaptation of his novels that he could "remember hating". Notably, before this King often said he did not care about the film adaptations of his novels.
King thought that his novel's important themes, such as the disintegration of the family and the dangers of alcoholism, were ignored. King has admitted he was suffering from alcoholism at the time he wrote the novel, and as such there was an element of autobiography in the story. King especially viewed the casting of Nicholson as a mistake and as being too early a tip-off to the audience that the character Jack would eventually go mad (due to Nicholson's identification with the character of McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
). King had suggested that a more “everyman”-like actor such as Jon Voight
or Michael Moriarty
play the role, so that Jack's subsequent descent into madness would be more unnerving.
At other times, King suggested that he disliked the downplaying of the supernatural element of the film, which he felt took the "bite" out of the story and made Jack a less sympathetic character. According to King, he viewed Jack as being victimized by the genuinely external supernatural forces haunting the hotel, whereas Kubrick's take viewed the haunting and its resulting malignancy as coming from within Jack himself.
King's oft-cited remark about Kubrick being a man who “thinks too much and feels too little” has frequently been quoted as disparaging Kubrick's overly clinical and detached approach to directing actors, but in context it is really a reference to Kubrick's ambivalent skepticism about the reality of the supernatural which emerged in pre-production conversations between King and Kubrick. The full context of King's well-known quote is
Mark Browning, a critic of King's work, observed that King's novels frequently contain a narrative closure that completes the story, which Kubrick's film lacks. Browning has in fact argued that King has exactly the opposite problem of which he accused Kubrick. King, he believes, "feels too much and thinks too little."
King was disappointed by Kubrick's decision to not film at The Stanley Hotel
in Estes Park, Colorado, which inspired the story (a decision Kubrick made because the hotel did not have sufficient snow or electric power). However, King's animosity toward Kubrick's adaptation has dulled over time. During an interview segment on the Bravo channel, King admitted that the first time he watched Kubrick's adaptation, he found it to be "dreadfully unsettling." King supervised a television adaptation of his original novel
in 1997, filmed at the actual Stanley Hotel in Colorado.
Indeed, The Shining has become widely regarded as one of the greatest films of the horror genre and a staple of pop culture. Like many Kubrick films, it has been described as "seminal". In 2001, the film was ranked 29th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
list and Jack Torrance was named the 25th greatest villain on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
list in 2003. In 2005, the quote "Here's Johnny!" was ranked 68 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
list. It was named the all-time scariest film by Channel 4
, Total Film
labeled it the 5th greatest horror film, and Bravo TV named one of the film's scenes 6th on their list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments
. In addition, film critics Kim Newman
and Jonathan Romney both placed it in their top ten lists for the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. Director Martin Scorsese
placed The Shining on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.
Even mathematicians at London's King's College used statistical modeling in a study commissioned by Sky Movies to conclude that The Shining was the "perfect scary movie" due to a proper balance of various ingredients including shock value, suspense, size of the cast
American Film Institute
Lists
Film critic Jonathan Romney writes that the film has been interpreted in many different ways; as being about the crisis in masculinity, sexism, corporate America, and racism: "It's tempting to read The Shining as an Oedipal struggle not just between generations but between Jack's culture of the written word and Danny's culture of images...." Romney writes, "Jack also uses the written word to more mundane purpose – to sign his 'contract' with the Overlook. 'I gave my word,' [..] which we take to mean 'gave his soul' in the [..] Faustian sense. But maybe he means it more literally – by the end [..] he has renounced language entirely, pursuing Danny through the maze with an inarticulate animal roar. What he has entered into is a conventional business deal that places commercial obligation [..] over the unspoken contract of compassion and empathy that he seems to have neglected to sign with his family."
in July 1987. He believes that indirect references to the American slaughter of Native Americans pervade the film as exemplified by the Indian logos on the baking powder in the kitchen and Indian artwork that appears throughout the hotel, though no Native Americans are ever seen. Stuart Ullman tells Wendy that when building the hotel a few Indian attacks had to be fended off since it was constructed on an Indian burial ground.
Blakemore's general argument is that the film as a whole is a metaphor for the genocide of Native Americans. He notes that when Jack kills Hallorann, the dead body is seen lying on a rug with an Indian motif. The blood in the elevator shafts is, for Blakemore, the blood of the Indians in the burial ground on which the hotel was built. As such, the fact that the date of the final photograph is July 4 is meant to be deeply ironic. Blakemore writes,
Blakemore also sees this film as similar to other Kubrick films where evil forces get weak men to do their bidding.
Film writer John Capo sees the film as an allegory of American imperialism. This is exemplified by many clues; the closing photo of Jack in the past at a 4th of July party, or Jack's earlier citation of the Rudyard Kipling
poem "The White Man's Burden
". The poem has been interpreted as rationalizing the European colonization of non-white people, while Jack's line has been interpreted as referring to alcoholism, from which he suffers.
's short story The Blue Hotel (which Kubrick admired) to the Swiss Berghof in Thomas Mann
's novel The Magic Mountain
, about a snowbound sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps in which the protagonist witnesses a series of events which are a microcosm of the decline of Western culture. In keeping with this tradition, Kubrick's film focuses on domesticity and the Torrances' attempt to use this imposing building as a home which Jack Torrance describes as "homey".
Cocks claims that Kubrick has elaborately coded many of his historical concerns into the film with manipulations of numbers and colors and his choice of musical numbers, many of which are post-war compositions influenced by the horrors of World War II. Of particular note is Kubrick's use of Penderecki's The Awakening of Jacob to accompany Jack Torrance's dream of killing his family and Danny's vision of past carnage in the hotel, a piece of music originally associated with the horrors of the Holocaust. As such, Kubrick's pessimistic ending in contrast to Stephen King's optimistic one is in keeping with the motifs that Kubrick wove into the story.
Cocks' work has been anthologized and discussed in other works on Stanley Kubrick films, but sometimes with skepticism. In particular, Julian Rice writing in the opening chapter of his book Kubrick's Hope believes Cocks' views are excessively speculative and contain too many strained "critical leaps" of faith. Rice holds that we cannot really replicate or corroborate what went on in Kubrick's mind beyond a broad vision of the nature of good and evil (which included concern about the Holocaust), but Kubrick's art is not governed by this one single obsession. Diane Johnson, co-screenwriter for The Shining, commented on Cocks' observations and holds that preoccupation with the Jewish Holocaust on Kubrick's part could very likely have motivated his decision to place the hotel on a Native American burial ground, although Kubrick never directly mentioned it to her.
and the story of the big bad wolf, with Jack Torrance identified as the wolf which Bruno Bettelheim
identifies as standing for "all the asocial unconscious devouring powers" that must be overcome by a child's ego.
Roger Ebert notes that the film does not really have a "reliable observer", with the possible exception of Dick Hallorann. Ebert believes various events call into question the reliability of Jack, Wendy, and Danny at various points. This leads Ebert to conclude that Ebert ultimately concludes that "The movie is not about ghosts but about madness and the energies". Likewise, film critic James Berardinelli (who is generally much less impressed with the film than Ebert), notes that "King would have us believe that the hotel is haunted. Kubrick is less definitive in the interpretations he offers." He dubs the film a failure as a ghost story, but brilliant as a study of "madness and the unreliable narrator."
Writing in Hollywood's Stephen King, Tony Magistrale writes
On the other hand, no mirrors appear in Danny's or Wendy's visions.
Ghosts are the implied explanation for Jack's escape from the locked storeroom. Kubrick scholar Michel Ciment has written
Gordon Dahlquist of The Kubrick FAQ argues that the name change "deliberately mirrors Jack Torrance being both the husband of Wendy/father of Danny and the mysterious man in the July Fourth photo. It is to say he is two people: the man with choice in a perilous situation and the man who has 'always' been at the Overlook. It's a mistake to see the final photo as evidence that the events of the film are predetermined: Jack has any number of moments where he can act other than the way he does, and that his (poor) choices are fueled by weakness and fear perhaps merely speaks all the more to the questions about the personal and the political that The Shining brings up. In the same way Charles had a chance – once more, perhaps – to not take on Delbert's legacy, so Jack may have had a chance to escape his role as 'caretaker' to the interests of the powerful. It's the tragic course of this story that he chooses not to." Dahlquist's argument is that Delbert Grady, the 1920s butler, and Charles Grady, the 1970s caretaker, rather than being either two different people or the same are two 'manifestations' of a similar entity; a part permanently at the hotel (Delbert) and the part which is given the choice of whether to join the legacy of the hotel's murderous past (Charles), just as the man in the photo is not exactly Jack Torrance, but nor is he someone entirely different. Jack in the photo has 'always' been at the Overlook, Jack the caretaker chooses to become part of the hotel. The film's assistant editor Gordon Stainforth has commented on this issue, attempting to steer a course between the continuity-error explanation on one side and the hidden-meaning explanation on the other; "I don't think we'll ever quite unravel this. Was his full name Charles Delbert Grady? Perhaps Charles was a sort of nickname? Perhaps Ullman got the name wrong? But I also think that Stanley did NOT want the whole story to fit together too neatly, so [it is] absolutely correct, I think, to say that 'the sum of what we learn refuses to add up neatly'"
At the end of the film, the camera zooms slowly towards a wall in the Overlook and a 1921 photograph, revealed to include Jack Torrance
seen at the middle of a 1921 party. In an interview with Michel Ciment, Kubrick overtly declared that Jack was a reincarnation
of an earlier official at the hotel. Still, this has not stopped interpreters from developing alternative readings, such as that Jack has been "absorbed" into the Overlook hotel. Film critic Jonathan Romney, while acknowledging the absorption theory, wrote "As the ghostly butler Grady (Philip Stone) tells him during their chilling confrontation in the men's toilet, 'You're the caretaker, sir. You've always been the caretaker.' Perhaps in some earlier incarnation Jack really was around in 1921, and it's his present-day self that is the shadow, the phantom photographic copy. But if his picture has been there all along, why has no one noticed it? After all, it's right at the center of the central picture on the wall, and the Torrances have had a painfully drawn-out winter of mind-numbing leisure in which to inspect every corner of the place. Is it just that, like Poe's purloined letter
, the thing in plain sight is the last thing you see? When you do see it, the effect is so unsettling because you realise the unthinkable was there under your nose – overlooked – the whole time."
out of casting Jack Nicholson
even before filming began, on the grounds that the whole theme of an everyman's slow descent into madness would be undercut by casting Nicholson, who had starred in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
a few years before. He suggested Jon Voight
among others for the role. Stephen King has openly stated on the DVD commentary of the 1997 mini-series of The Shining that the character of Jack Torrance was partially autobiographical, as he was struggling with both alcoholism and unprovoked rage toward his family at the time of writing.
Tony Magistrale
wrote about Kubrick's version of Jack Torrance in Hollywood's Stephen King:
Jack's twin demons in the novel are alcoholism and authority issues, but his demons in the film seem to be alcohol and severe writer's block, though some authority issues on his part are implied indirectly. In both versions, Jack hears the voices of previous tenants of the hotel, but only in the novel does Jack also hear the heavy-handed voice of his father. Similarly, though the film downplays the novel's theme of Jack's authority issues, it illustrates Jack's struggle with writer's block (something not depicted in the novel). In both the novel and film, Jack's encounter with the ghostly bartender is pivotal to Jack's deterioration. However, in early parts of the story, references to Jack's drinking stay understated in the film while forcefully asserted in the novel.
Kubrick's co-screenwriter Diane Johnson believes that in King's novel, Jack's discovery of the scrapbook of clippings in the boiler room of the hotel which gives him new ideas for a novel catalyzes his possession by the ghosts of the hotel. Jack is no longer a blocked writer, but now filled with energy. In her contribution to the screenplay, she wrote an adaptation of this scene, which to her regret Kubrick later excised, as she felt this left the father's change less motivated.
Wendy's concern about Danny triggers Jack's authority issues in the novel, while in the film he mainly finds her concern irritating and hysterical. Wendy Torrance in the film is relatively meek, submissive, passive and mousy. This is shown by the way she defends Jack even in his absence to the doctor examining Danny. In the novel, she is a more self-reliant and independent personality who is tied to Jack in part by her poor relationship with her parents. In the novel she never displays hysteria or collapses the way she does in the film. Writing in Hollywood's Stephen King, author Tony Magistrale writes about the mini-series remake:
Co-screenwriter Diane Johnson stated that in her contributions to the script, Wendy had more dialogue, and that Kubrick cut many of her lines, possibly due to his dissatisfaction with actress Shelley Duvall's delivery. Johnson believes the earlier draft of the script portrayed Wendy as a more-rounded character.
In the film, Danny has a stronger emotional bond with Wendy than with Jack, which fuels Jack's rather paranoid notion that the two are conspiring against him.
animals of the novel were omitted and a hedge maze was added, acting as a final trap for Jack Torrance as well as a refuge for Danny.
As noted earlier, Jack kills Hallorann in the film but not the novel. In the novel Jack recovers his sanity and goodwill through the intervention of Danny (this does not occur in the film). In the novel, the Overlook Hotel is completely destroyed by a fire caused by an exploding boiler, while the film ends with the hotel still standing. More broadly, the defective boiler is a major element of the novel's subplot, entirely missing from the film version. In the novel, Jack's final act is to enable Wendy and Danny to escape the hotel before it explodes, killing him.
In the film, the hotel possibly derives its malevolent energy from being built on an Indian burial ground, while in the novel, the reason for the hotel's manifestation of evil is possibly explained by a theme present in King's previous novel Salem's Lot as well as Shirley Jackson
's The Haunting of Hill House
: a physical place may absorb the evils that transpire there and manifest them as a vaguely sentient malevolence. In the novel, Jack does a great deal of investigation of the hotel's past through a scrapbook, a subplot almost omitted from the film aside from two touches: a brief appearance of the scrapbook beside the typewriter, and Jack's statement to the ghost of Grady that he knows his face from an old newspaper article describing the latter's horrific acts.
More trivial differences include Jack's choice of weapon (a roque
mallet in the novel, an axe in the film), the number of the advisably avoided Room (217 in the novel and 237 in the film), and the nature of Danny's injury before the action of the story (a broken arm in the novel and a dislocated shoulder in the film).
Some of the film's most famous iconic scenes, such as the ghost girls in the hallway and the torrent of blood from the elevators, are unique to the film. The most notable of these would be the typewritten pages Wendy discovers on Jack's desk. Similarly, many of the most memorable lines of dialogue ("Words of wisdom" and "Here's Johnny!") are heard in the film only.
The Simpsons
episode "Treehouse of Horror V
" contains the story "The Shinning", a parody of The Shining. In addition, Sherri and Terri, the twins in Bart's 4th grade class, are visually similar to the Grady girls. Family Guy
parodies The Shining in the episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater" in which Stewie walks down a hallway and sees the two girls beckoning him to play, to whom he sarcastically responds, "All work and no play make Stewie a dull boy" just before blowing them away with a bazooka
. The girls make their second Family Guy appearance in the opening sequence for the episode "PTV
", where Stewie runs them over with his tricycle
in an homage to The Naked Gun
. In the Ed, Edd n Eddy
episode "Stop, Look and Ed", Eddy tells Rolf "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!". Rolf responds with "Who is this Jack? I know no Jack". "Here's Johnny!" was parodied by British comedian Lenny Henry
in a controversial advertisement for Premier Inn. Both the tricycle scene where Danny Torrance sees the two Grady girls at the end of the hallway and the "Here's Johnny" scene are seen playing on the drive-in theatre screen of a small town in the movie Twister just before a major tornado rips through the town. In an episode of the Australian sketch comedy
show Double Take
the "Here's Johnny!" scene was parodied with former Prime Minister
John Howard
chopping into the bathroom of Kirribili Lodge where then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
tells him that he "doesn't" live there anymore and demands his keys. "Here's Johnny" was also parodied in the X-Men animated series in the episode "The Juggernaut Returns." As the Juggernaut smashes through the front doors of Xavier's school, he shouts "Here's Juggy!"
The plot of The Shining is referenced in the short music video of "The Kill
" by 30 Seconds to Mars
. Scenes parodying much of the film also appear in the Slipknot
music video "Spit It Out". Alice in Chains
' video for "Your Decision
" has a few momentary allusions to the film, as well as to Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut
. The Dead Celebrity Status
video for "We Fall, We Fall" contains elements of the film. Kate Bush
's well-known 1982 album The Dreaming
contains the song "Get Out of My House," inspired primarily by the novel. as was Black Sabbath's song "The Shining". The song "Last Time Forever" by Squeeze contains sound clips of Jack saying "the momentary loss of muscular coordination" and of Wendy screaming as Jack hacks through the bathroom door. Sound clips of Ullmann warning Jack about cabin fever with Jack's reassurances appear in Swedish goth band Katatonia's song "Endtime" on the album Brave Murder Day
.
The lead characters in the mother-daughter drama Gilmore Girls
(2000–2007) are enormous movie buffs; five episodes reference The Shining. The most well-known of these contains Lorelai's line "Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there's no dancing, no walking, and we'd starve. It'd be all work and no play. Have you not seen The Shining, Mom?"
Three episodes of Rei Hiroe's 2006 "Black Lagoon
" (both the anime and the manga from which it is adapted) have two young twins named Hansel and Gretel who are child serial-killers-for-hire. Several other characters compare them to the Grady girls in The Shining. In one chapter of the manga (though not the anime) Gretel sings "Midnight, the Stars and You", the song in the closing credits of The Shining.
The axe used in the film is now at Planet Hollywood
in Beverly Hills, CA.
Gothic director Tim Burton
(who credits Kubrick as an influence) modeled the characters of Tweedledee and Tweedledum on the Grady girls in his version of Alice in Wonderland
(like so many viewers of the film, Burton identifies the girls as twins in spite of Ullmann's dialogue to the contrary).
Psychological horror
Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot...
film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson
Diane Johnson
Diane Johnson is an American-born novelist and essayist whose satirical novels often feature American heroines living abroad in contemporary France....
, and starring Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
, Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
, and Danny Lloyd
Danny Lloyd
Danny Lloyd is an American former child actor.Lloyd's first and best-known role is that of Danny Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall....
. The film is based on the novel of the same name
The Shining (novel)
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King...
by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an off-season caretaker at an isolated hotel. His young son possesses psychic abilities and is able to see things from the past and future, such as the ghosts who inhabit the hotel. Soon after settling in, the family is trapped in the hotel by a snowstorm, and Jack gradually becomes influenced by a supernatural presence; he descends into madness and attempts to murder his wife and son.
Unlike previous Kubrick films, which developed an audience gradually by building on word-of-mouth, The Shining was released as a mass-market film, opening at first in just two cities on Memorial Day, then nationwide a month later. Although initial response to the film was mixed, later critical assessment was more favorable and it is now viewed as a classic of the horror genre
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
. Film director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, writing in The Daily Beast, ranked it as one of the 11 scariest horror movies of all time. Film critics, film students, and Kubrick's producer, Jan Harlan
Jan Harlan
Jan Harlan is a film producer and the brother of Christiane Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick's widow. He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany on May 5, 1937....
, have all remarked on the enormous influence the film has had on popular culture.
The initial European release of The Shining was 24 minutes shorter than the American version, and removed most scenes taking place in the world outside the hotel.
Plot
Jack TorranceJack Torrance
Jack Torrance is a fictional character, the antagonist in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1980 movie adaptation of the novel, and by Steven Weber in the 1997 miniseries. The American Film Institute rated the character the 25th greatest film...
(Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
) arrives at the Overlook Hotel to interview for the position of winter caretaker, with the aim of using the hotel's solitude to work on his writing. The hotel itself is built on the site of an Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
burial ground and becomes completely snowed in during the long winters. Manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson
Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...
) warns him that a previous caretaker got cabin fever
Cabin fever
Cabin fever is an idiomatic term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period...
and killed his family and himself. Jack’s son, Danny (Danny Lloyd
Danny Lloyd
Danny Lloyd is an American former child actor.Lloyd's first and best-known role is that of Danny Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall....
), has ESP and has had a terrifying premonition about the hotel. Jack's wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
), tells a visiting doctor that Danny has an imaginary friend called Tony and that Jack has given up drinking because he had hurt Danny's arm after a binge.
The family arrives at the hotel on closing day and is given a tour. The African-American chef Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers
Scatman Crothers
Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980...
) surprises Danny by telepathically
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
offering him ice cream. He explains to Danny that his grandmother and he shared this telepathic ability, which he calls "shining." Danny asks if there is anything to be afraid of in the hotel, particularly Room 237. Hallorann tells Danny that the hotel itself has a "shine" to it along with many memories, not all of which are good. He tells Danny to stay out of Room 237.
A month passes; while Jack's writing project goes nowhere, Danny and Wendy explore the hotel's hedge maze
Hedge Maze
A hedge maze is an outdoor garden maze or labyrinth in which the "walls" or dividers between passages are made of vertical hedges.-History:...
. Wendy becomes concerned about the phone lines being out due to the heavy snowfall and Danny has more frightening visions. Jack becomes frustrated, starts acting strangely, and becomes prone to violent outbursts. Danny’s curiosity about Room 237 gets the better of him when he sees the room's door open. Later, Danny shows up injured and visibly traumatized, causing Wendy to accuse Jack of abusing Danny. Jack wanders into the hotel’s Gold Room where he meets a ghostly bartender
Bartender
A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...
named Lloyd (Joe Turkel
Joe Turkel
Joe Turkel is an American character actor. He is credited in several films as Joseph Turkel.-Background:Turkel was born in Brooklyn, New York, and served in the U.S. Military during World War II. He currently lives in southern California, and has been involved in writing screenplays.-Career:His...
) who serves him bourbon on the rocks. Jack complains to the bartender about his marriage to Wendy. Wendy later tells Jack that Danny told her a "crazy woman in one of the rooms" was responsible for his injuries. Jack investigates Room 237 where he encounters the ghost of a dead woman, but tells Wendy he saw nothing. Wendy and Jack argue about whether Danny should be removed from the hotel and Jack returns to the Gold Room, now filled with ghosts having a costume party. Here, he meets who he believes is the ghost of the previous caretaker, Grady (Philip Stone
Philip Stone
Philip Stone was an English actor.He was born Philip Stones in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Stone appeared in three successive Stanley Kubrick films: playing the central character's "Dad" in A Clockwork Orange , "Graham" in Barry Lyndon and as "Delbert Grady," the original caretaker in The Shining...
), who tells Jack that he must "correct" his wife and child.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Hallorann has a premonition that something is wrong at the hotel and takes a flight back to Colorado to investigate. Danny starts calling out "redrum" frantically and goes into a trance, now referring to himself as "Tony." While searching for Jack, Wendy discovers his typewriter; he has been typing endless pages of manuscript repeating "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy is a proverb. It means that without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring.-History:...
" formatted in various styles. She is confronted by Jack, who threatens her before she knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat. She manages to drag him into the kitchen and lock him in the pantry, but this does not solve her larger problem; she and Danny are trapped at the hotel since Jack has sabotaged the hotel's two-way radio
Two-way radio
A two-way radio is a radio that can both transmit and receive , unlike a broadcast receiver which only receives content. The term refers to a personal radio transceiver that allows the operator to have a two-way conversation with other similar radios operating on the same radio frequency...
and snowcat
Snowcat
A snowcat is an enclosed-cab, truck sized, fully tracked vehicle designed to move on snow. Snowcats are often referred to as 'trail groomers' because of their use for grooming ski trails or snowmobile trails...
. Later, Jack converses through the pantry door with Grady, who then unlocks the door, releasing him.
Danny writes "REDЯUM" in lipstick on the bathroom door. When Wendy sees this in the bedroom mirror, the letters spell out "MURDER". Jack begins to chop through the door leading to his family's living quarters with a fire axe. Wendy frantically sends Danny out through the bathroom window, but cannot get through it herself. Jack then starts chopping through the bathroom door as Wendy screams in horror; he leers through the hole he has made, shouting "Here's Johnny!", but backs off after Wendy slashes his hand with a butcher knife. Hearing the engine of the snowcat
Snowcat
A snowcat is an enclosed-cab, truck sized, fully tracked vehicle designed to move on snow. Snowcats are often referred to as 'trail groomers' because of their use for grooming ski trails or snowmobile trails...
Hallorann has borrowed to get up the mountain, Jack leaves the room. He kills Hallorann in the lobby and pursues Danny into the hedge maze. Wendy runs through the hotel looking for Danny, encountering several ghosts and a huge cascade of blood. Meanwhile, Danny walks backwards in his own tracks and leaps behind a corner, covering his tracks with snow to mislead Jack, who has been following his footprints. Wendy and Danny escape in Hallorann's snowcat, while Jack freezes to death in the hedge maze.
The final shot of the film shows a 1921 photograph of a smiling Jack Torrance in front of a crowd of revelers, as the song "Midnight, the Stars, and You" plays in the background.
Cast
- Jack NicholsonJack NicholsonJohn Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
as Jack TorranceJack TorranceJack Torrance is a fictional character, the antagonist in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1980 movie adaptation of the novel, and by Steven Weber in the 1997 miniseries. The American Film Institute rated the character the 25th greatest film... - Shelley DuvallShelley DuvallShelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
as Wendy Torrance - Danny LloydDanny LloydDanny Lloyd is an American former child actor.Lloyd's first and best-known role is that of Danny Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall....
as Danny Torrance - Scatman CrothersScatman CrothersBenjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980...
as Dick Hallorann - Barry NelsonBarry NelsonBarry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...
as Stuart Ullman - Philip StonePhilip StonePhilip Stone was an English actor.He was born Philip Stones in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Stone appeared in three successive Stanley Kubrick films: playing the central character's "Dad" in A Clockwork Orange , "Graham" in Barry Lyndon and as "Delbert Grady," the original caretaker in The Shining...
as Delbert Grady - Joe TurkelJoe TurkelJoe Turkel is an American character actor. He is credited in several films as Joseph Turkel.-Background:Turkel was born in Brooklyn, New York, and served in the U.S. Military during World War II. He currently lives in southern California, and has been involved in writing screenplays.-Career:His...
as Lloyd the bartender - Anne JacksonAnne JacksonAnne Jackson is an American actress of television, stage, and screen.-Life and career:Jackson, the youngest of three sisters, was born in Millvale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Stella Germaine and John Ivan Jackson, a barber who ran a beauty parlor...
as Doctor - Tony BurtonTony BurtonAnthony "Tony" Burton is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Tony "Duke" Evers in the Rocky series, and is one of three actors who have appeared in all six Rocky films....
as Larry Durkin - Barry DennenBarry DennenBarry Dennen is an American actor, singer, and writer.Dennen was born in Chicago, Illinois. In New York City from 1960 to 1963, he had a relationship with Barbra Streisand, including living together for a year, during which time he helped her develop the nightclub act that began her successful...
as Bill Watson - Lisa and Louise Burns as the Grady girls
Cast notes
In the shorter European cut of the film, all of the scenes involving Anne Jackson and Tony Burton are cut (although their names still appear in the credits). Barry Dennen is onscreen in both versions of the film, albeit to a limited degree (and with no dialogue) in the shorter cut.The actresses who played the Grady daughters, Lisa and Louise Burns, are identical twins; however, the characters in the book and film script are merely sisters, not twins. In the film's dialogue, Mr. Ullmann identifies them as "about eight or ten". Nonetheless, they are frequently referred to in discussions about the film as "the Grady twins".
The resemblance in the staging of the Grady girls and the famous "Twins"
Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967
Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967 is a noted photograph by photographer Diane Arbus from the United States.Diane Arbus was known for her photographs of outsiders and people on the fringes of society. She often shot with a Rolleiflex medium format twin-lens reflex that provided a square...
photograph by Diane Arbus has been noted both by Arbus' biographer, Patricia Bosworth, and by numerous Kubrick critics. Although Kubrick both met Arbus personally and studied photography under her during his youthful days as photographer for Look magazine, Kubrick's widow says he did not deliberately model the Grady girls on Arbus' famous photograph, in spite of widespread attention to the resemblance.
Production
In 1975, Kubrick directed Barry LyndonBarry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period romantic war film produced, written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...
, a highly visual period film about an Irish man who attempts to make his way into the English aristocracy. Despite its technical achievement, the film was not a box office success in the United States and was derided by critics for being too long and too slow. Kubrick, disappointed with Barry Lyndons lack of success, realized he needed to make a film that would be commercially viable as well as artistically fulfilling.
Elstree Studios
"Elstree Studios" refers to any of several film studios that were based in the towns of Borehamwood and Elstree in Hertfordshire, England, since film production begun in 1927.-Name:...
in Borehamwood
Borehamwood
-Film industry:Since the 1920s, the town has been home to several film studios and many shots of its streets are included in final cuts of 20th century British films. This earned it the nickname of the "British Hollywood"...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. The set
Set construction
Set construction is the process by which a set designer works in collaboration with the director of a production to create the set for a theatrical, film or television production...
for the Overlook Hotel was then the largest ever built, including a full re-creation of the exterior of the hotel. A few exterior shots by a second-unit crew were done at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood
Mount Hood
Mount Hood, called Wy'east by the Multnomah tribe, is a stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc of northern Oregon. It was formed by a subduction zone and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States...
in Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. These shots are notable because of the absence of the hedge maze, a nonexistent feature at the actual hotel. Some of the interiors are based on those of the Ahwahnee Hotel
Ahwahnee Hotel
The Ahwahnee Hotel is a destination hotel in Yosemite National Park, California, on the floor of Yosemite Valley, constructed from stone, concrete, wood and glass, which opened in 1927...
in Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...
. The Timberline Lodge requested Kubrick change the number of the sinister Room 217 of King's novel to 237, so customers would not avoid the real Room 217.
This film was among the first half-dozen to use the then-revolutionary Steadicam
Steadicam
A Steadicam is a stabilizing mount for a motion picture camera that mechanically isolates it from the operator's movement, allowing a smooth shot even when moving quickly over an uneven surface...
(after the 1976 films Bound for Glory, Marathon Man
Marathon Man (film)
Marathon Man is a 1976 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. The film was directed by John Schlesinger, and stars Dustin Hoffman, Roy Scheider, and Laurence Olivier. The original music score was composed by Michael Small....
and Rocky
Rocky
Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
), and was Kubrick's first use of it. This is a stabilizing mount for a movie camera
Movie camera
The movie camera is a type of photographic camera which takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film which was very popular for private use in the last century until its successor, the video camera, replaced it...
, which mechanically separates the operator's movement from the camera's, allowing smooth tracking shots while the operator is moving over an uneven surface. It essentially combines the stabilized steady footage of a regular mount with the fluidity and flexibility of a handheld camera. The inventor of the Steadicam, Garrett Brown
Garrett Brown
Garrett Brown is an American cinematographer, best known as the inventor of the Steadicam. Brown's invention allows cameramen to film while walking without the normal shaking and jostles of a handheld camera...
, was heavily involved with the production. Brown published an article in American Cinematographer about his experience, and contributed to the audio commentary on the 2007 DVD release of The Shining. Brown describes his excitement taking his first tour of the sets which offered "further possibilities for the Steadicam". This tour convinced Brown to become personally involved with the production. Kubrick was not "just talking of stunt shots and staircases". Rather he would use the Steadicam "as it was intended to be used – as a tool which can help get the lens where it's wanted in space and time without the classic limitations of the dolly and crane." Kubrick himself aided in modifying the Steadicam's video transmission technology. Brown states his own abilities to operate the Steadicam were refined by working on Kubrick's film. On this film, Brown developed a two-handed technique which enabled him to maintain the camera at one height while panning and tilting the camera. In addition to tracking shots from behind, the Steadicam enabled shooting in constricted rooms without flying out walls, or backing the camera into doors. Brown notes that This required the Steadicam to be on a special mount modeled on a wheelchair in which the operator sat while pulling a platform with the sound man. Brown also discusses how the scenes in the hedge maze were shot with a Steadicam.
The Shining had a prolonged and arduous production period, often with very long workdays. Principal photography took over a year to complete, due to Kubrick's highly methodical nature. Actress Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
did not get along well with Kubrick, frequently arguing with him on set about lines in the script, her acting techniques and numerous other things. Duvall eventually became so overwhelmed by the stress of her role that she became physically ill for months. At one point she was under so much stress that her hair began to fall out. The shooting script was being changed constantly, sometimes several times a day, adding more stress. Jack Nicholson eventually became so frustrated with the ever-changing script that he would throw away the copies that the production team would give to him to memorize, knowing that it was just going to change anyway. He learned most of his lines just minutes before filming them. Nicholson was living in London with his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
and her younger sister, Allegra, who testified to his long shooting days.
Nicholson was Kubrick's first choice for the role of Jack Torrance; other actors considered were Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
(who claims the film gave him nightmares for a month), Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
and Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
, all of whom met with Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
's disapproval.
The opening panorama shots (outtakes of which were used by Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
for the closing moments of the original cut of the film Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
) and scenes of the Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
on the road to the hotel were filmed from a helicopter in Glacier National Park in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
on the Going-to-the-Sun Road
Going-to-the-Sun Road
Going-to-the-Sun Road is the only road through the heart of Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. It was completed in 1932, and it is the only road that crosses the park, going over the Continental Divide at Logan Pass. A fleet of 1930s red tour buses "jammers", rebuilt in 2001 to run on propane...
.
For international versions of the film, Kubrick shot different takes of Wendy reading the typewriter pages in different languages. For each language, a suitable idiom was used: German (Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen—"Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today"), Italian (Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca – "The morning has gold in its mouth"), French (Un «Tiens» vaut mieux que deux «Tu l'auras» – "One 'here you go' is worth more than two 'you'll have its'", the equivalent of "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"), Spanish (No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano – "No matter how early you get up, you can't make the sun rise any sooner"). These alternate shots were not included with the DVD release, where only the English phrase "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" was used.
The door that Jack chops through with the axe near the end of the film was a real door. Kubrick had originally shot the scene with a fake door, but Nicholson, who had worked as a volunteer fire marshal
Fire Marshal
A fire marshal, in the United States and Canada, is often a member of a fire department but may be part of a building department or a separate department altogether. Fire marshals' duties vary but usually include fire code enforcement and/or investigating fires for origin and cause...
, tore it down too quickly. Jack's line, "Heeeere's Johnny!", is taken from Ed McMahon
Ed McMahon
Edward Peter "Ed" McMahon, Jr. was an American comedian, game show host and announcer. He is most famous for his work on television as Johnny Carson's sidekick and announcer on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1992. He also hosted the original version of the talent show Star Search from 1983 to 1995...
's famous introduction to The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
, starring Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
, and was improvised by Nicholson. Kubrick, who had lived in England for some time, was unaware of the significance of the line, and nearly used a different take. Carson later used the Nicholson clip to open his 1980 Anniversary Show on NBC.
Music and soundtrack
The film features a brief electronicElectronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
score by Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...
and Rachel Elkind, including one major theme in addition to a main title based on Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
' interpretation of the "Dies Irae
Dies Irae
Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
", used in his "Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...
", as well as pieces of modernist music. The soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
was taken off the market due to licensing issues and has never appeared as a legitimate compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
release. For the film itself, pieces were overdubbed
Overdubbing
Overdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....
on top of one another.
Carlos and Elkind had composed a great deal of music for the film, however, Kubrick decided to go with classical music from other sources, as he had done on previous occasions. Some of Carlos' unused music appears on her album Rediscovering Lost Scores, Vol. 2.
The stylistically modernist art-music chosen by Kubrick is similar to the repertoire he first explored in 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
. Although the repertoire was selected by Kubrick, the process of matching passages of music to motion picture was left almost entirely at the discretion of music editor Gordon Stainforth, whose work on this film is notable for the attention to fine details and remarkably precise synchronization without excessive splicing.
The non-original music on the soundtrack is as follows:
- Lontano by György LigetiGyörgy LigetiGyörgy Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, Ernest BourErnest BourErnest Bour was a French conductor. Born in Thionville, Moselle, Bour studied at both the University and the Conservatoire of Strasbourg...
conductingConductingConducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
Sinfonie Orchester des SüdwestfunksSouthwest German Radio Symphony OrchestraThe Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra is a radio orchestra located in the German cities of Baden-Baden and Freiburg...
(Wergo Records) - Music for Strings, Percussion and CelestaMusic for Strings, Percussion and CelestaMusic for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114 is one of the best-known compositions by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. Commissioned by Paul Sacher to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the score is dated September 7, 1936...
by Béla BartókBéla BartókBéla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Herbert von KarajanHerbert von KarajanHerbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
conducting the Berlin Philharmonic OrchestraBerlin Philharmonic OrchestraThe Berlin Philharmonic, German: , formerly Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester , is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. In 2006, a group of ten European media outlets voted the Berlin Philharmonic number three on a list of "top ten European Orchestras", after the Vienna Philharmonic and the...
(Deutsche GrammophonDeutsche GrammophonDeutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
) - Utrenja — excerpts from the Ewangelia and Kanon Paschy movements by Krzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
Andrzej Markowski conducting Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic, WarsawWarsawWarsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
(Polskie Nagrania Records) - The Awakening of Jacob (Als Jakob erwachte...), De Natura Sonoris No. 1 (the latter not on the soundtrack album, Cracow Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Henryk Czyż) and De Natura Sonoris 2, by Krzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
(National Philharmonic, Warsaw, conducted by Andrzej Markowski, Polskie Nagrania Records) - Home by Henry HallHenry Hall (bandleader)Henry Hall was a British bandleader. He played from the 1920s to the 1950s.-Biography:Henry Hall was born in Peckham, South London and served in both the Salvation Army and the British Army...
and the Gleneagles HotelGleneagles HotelThe Gleneagles Hotel is a luxury hotel near Auchterarder, Perth and Kinross, Scotland.- History :The hotel was built by the former Caledonian Railway Company and opened in 1924, originally with its own railway station...
Band (Columbia RecordsColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
) - It's All Forgotten Now performed by Ray NobleRay Noble (musician)Ray Noble was an English bandleader, composer, arranger and actor. Noble studied music at the Royal Academy of Music and became leader of the HMV Records studio band in 1929. The band, known as the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, featured members of many of the top hotel orchestras of the day...
and His Orchestra, with Al BowllyAl BowllyAlbert Allick Bowlly was a Southern-African singer, songwriter, composer and band leader, who became a popular Jazz crooner during the 1930s in the United Kingdom and later, in the United States of America. He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941...
(not on the soundtrack album) - Masquerade by Jack HyltonJack HyltonJack Hylton was a British band leader and impresario.He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in the Great Lever area of Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Jack learned piano to accompany him on the stage...
and His Orchestra (not on the soundtrack album) - KanonKanonis a Japanese visual novel developed by Key and originally released as an adult game on June 4, 1999, playable on a Microsoft Windows PC. An all ages version for the PC was released in January 2000, and was later ported to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable...
(for string orchestra) by Krzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
(not on the soundtrack album) - PolymorphiaPolymorphiaPolymorphia is a musical composition for 48 string instruments composed by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki in 1961. The piece was commissioned by the North German Radio Hamburg. It premiered on April 16, 1962 by the radio orchestra and was conducted by Andrzej Markowski...
(for string orchestra) by Krzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof PendereckiKrzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
, performed by Cracow Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Henryk Czyż (not on the soundtrack album) - Midnight, the Stars and You by Jimmy Campbell, Reginald Connelly and Harry WoodsHarry M. WoodsHenry MacGregor Woods was a Tin Pan Alley songwriter and pianist. Woods is sometimes credited as Harry Woods.-Early life:...
, performed by Ray NobleRay Noble (musician)Ray Noble was an English bandleader, composer, arranger and actor. Noble studied music at the Royal Academy of Music and became leader of the HMV Records studio band in 1929. The band, known as the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, featured members of many of the top hotel orchestras of the day...
and His Orchestra, with Al BowllyAl BowllyAlbert Allick Bowlly was a Southern-African singer, songwriter, composer and band leader, who became a popular Jazz crooner during the 1930s in the United Kingdom and later, in the United States of America. He recorded more than 1,000 records between 1927 and 1941...
(not on the soundtrack album)
Post-release edit and European version
After its premiere and a week into the general run (with a running time of 146 minutes), Kubrick cut a scene at the end that took place in a hospital. The scene shows Wendy in a bed talking with Mr. Ullman who explains that Jack's body could not be found; he then gives Danny a yellow tennis ball, presumably the same one that lured Danny into Room 237. This scene was subsequently physically cut out of prints by projectionists and sent back to the studio by order of Warner Bros., the film's distributor. This cut the film's running time to 142 minutes. As noted by Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
:
For its release in Europe, Kubrick cut 24 minutes from the film. The excised scenes made reference to the outside world, and to Danny's imaginary friend, Tony.
DVD versions and Vivian Kubrick's Making The Shining documentary
The US region 1 DVD of the film is the longer (144 minute) edit of the film. The European (including UK) region 2 DVD is the shorter (119 minute) version. On British television, the short version played on Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
once and on Sky Movies numerous times in the mid-nineties. All other screenings, before and since these, have been on either ITV or ITV4 and have been the longer US edit. The German DVD shows the short version, as seen in german tv screenings.
According to Kubrick's last will, DVD releases show the film in open matte
Open matte
Open matte is a filming technique that involves matting out the top and bottom of the film frame in the movie projector for the widescreen theatrical release and then scanning the film without a matte for a full screen home video release.Usually, non-anamorphic 4-perf films are filmed directly on...
(i.e., with more picture content visible than in movie theaters). The scene when Wendy discovers her husband's work (consisting only of a simple proverb: "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" repeatedly typed on numerous pages) was shot with different proverbs in at least five languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian and German). Nevertheless, most DVD releases show the English version, disregarding the dub language.
DVDs in both regions contain a candid fly-on-the-wall 33-minute documentary made by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian (who was 17 when she filmed it) entitled Making The Shining, originally shown on British television in 1980. She also provided an audio commentary track about her documentary for its DVD release. It appears even on pre-2007 editions of The Shining on DVD, although most DVDs of Kubrick films before then were devoid of documentaries or audio commentaries. It has some candid interviews and very private moments caught on set, such as arguments with cast and director, moments of a no-nonsense Kubrick directing his actors, Scatman Crothers
Scatman Crothers
Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980...
being overwhelmed with emotion during his interview, Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
collapsing of exhaustion on the set and a very playful Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
enjoying playing up to the behind-the-scenes camera.
Initial reception
The film had a slow start at the box office, but gained momentum, eventually doing well commercially and making Warner Bros. a profit. It opened at first to mixed reviews. For example, VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
was critical, saying "With everything to work with, [...] Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller." It was the only one of Kubrick's last nine films to get no nominations at all from either the Oscars or Golden Globes, but was nominated for a pair of Razzie Awards, including Worst Director and Worst Actress (Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
), in the very first year that award was given. (At that time, the Raspberries were voted on by a tiny handful of friends of Raspberry founder John Wilson. This was long before the voting body expanded to a large international committee that included reputable film critics and industry professionals.)
Later reception
As with most Kubrick films, more recent analyses have treated the film more favorably. A common initial criticism was the slow pacing which was highly atypical of horror films of the time; viewers subsequently decided this actually contributes to the film's hypnotic quality. Film website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 88% "Certified Fresh".
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
's initial review of the film was unfavorable, but he later re-evaluated it and in 2006, The Shining made it into Ebert's series of "Great Movie" reviews, saying "Stanley Kubrick's cold and frightening The Shining challenges us to decide: Who is the reliable observer? Whose idea of events can we trust?" [...] "It is this elusive open-endedness that makes Kubrick's film so strangely disturbing."
Analysis of change in perception
Jonathan Romney, writing about the film in 1999, discussed the originally lukewarm perception of the film and its gradual acceptance as a masterpiece: "The final scene alone demonstrates what a rich source of perplexity The Shining offers. At first sight this is an extremely simple, even static film. [..] Kubrick had put so much effort into his film, building vast sets at Elstree, making a 17-week shoot stretch to 46, and what was the result? A silly scare story – something that, it was remarked at the time, Roger CormanRoger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
could have turned around in a fortnight. But look beyond the simplicity and the Overlook reveals itself as a palace of paradox...." Romney says "The dominating presence of the Overlook Hotel – designed by Roy Walker as a composite of American hotels visited in the course of research – is an extraordinary vindication of the value of mise en scène
Mise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
. It's a real, complex space that we don't just see but come to virtually inhabit. The confinement is palpable: horror cinema is an art of claustrophobia, making us loath to stay in the cinema but unable to leave. Yet it's combined with a sort of agoraphobia
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder defined as a morbid fear of having a panic attack or panic-like symptoms in a situation from which it is perceived to be difficult to escape. These situations can include, but are not limited to, wide-open spaces, crowds, or uncontrolled social conditions...
– we are as frightened of the hotel's cavernous vastness as of its corridors' enclosure. [...] The film sets up a complex dynamic between simple domesticity and magnificent grandeur, between the supernatural and the mundane in which the viewer is disoriented by the combination of spaciousness and confinement, and an uncertainty as to just what is real or not."
Response by Stephen King
Stephen KingStephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
has been quoted as saying that although Kubrick made a film with memorable imagery, it was not a good adaptation of his novel and is the only adaptation of his novels that he could "remember hating". Notably, before this King often said he did not care about the film adaptations of his novels.
King thought that his novel's important themes, such as the disintegration of the family and the dangers of alcoholism, were ignored. King has admitted he was suffering from alcoholism at the time he wrote the novel, and as such there was an element of autobiography in the story. King especially viewed the casting of Nicholson as a mistake and as being too early a tip-off to the audience that the character Jack would eventually go mad (due to Nicholson's identification with the character of McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American drama film directed by Miloš Forman and based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey....
). King had suggested that a more “everyman”-like actor such as Jon Voight
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
or Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty is an American-Canadian actor of stage and screen, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons on the TV series Law & Order.-Early life:...
play the role, so that Jack's subsequent descent into madness would be more unnerving.
At other times, King suggested that he disliked the downplaying of the supernatural element of the film, which he felt took the "bite" out of the story and made Jack a less sympathetic character. According to King, he viewed Jack as being victimized by the genuinely external supernatural forces haunting the hotel, whereas Kubrick's take viewed the haunting and its resulting malignancy as coming from within Jack himself.
King's oft-cited remark about Kubrick being a man who “thinks too much and feels too little” has frequently been quoted as disparaging Kubrick's overly clinical and detached approach to directing actors, but in context it is really a reference to Kubrick's ambivalent skepticism about the reality of the supernatural which emerged in pre-production conversations between King and Kubrick. The full context of King's well-known quote is
Parts of the film are chilling, charged with a relentlessly claustrophobic terror, but others fall flat. Not that religion has to be involved in horror, but a visceral skeptic such as Kubrick just couldn't grasp the sheer inhuman evil of The Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn't believe, he couldn't make the film believable to others. What's basically wrong with Kubrick's version of The Shining is that it's a film by a man who thinks too much and feels too little; and that's why, for all its virtuoso effects, it never gets you by the throat and hangs on the way real horror should.
Mark Browning, a critic of King's work, observed that King's novels frequently contain a narrative closure that completes the story, which Kubrick's film lacks. Browning has in fact argued that King has exactly the opposite problem of which he accused Kubrick. King, he believes, "feels too much and thinks too little."
King was disappointed by Kubrick's decision to not film at The Stanley Hotel
The Stanley Hotel
The Stanley Hotel is a 138-room neo-Georgian hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Located within sight of the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Stanley offers panoramic views of the Rockies. It was built by Freelan O...
in Estes Park, Colorado, which inspired the story (a decision Kubrick made because the hotel did not have sufficient snow or electric power). However, King's animosity toward Kubrick's adaptation has dulled over time. During an interview segment on the Bravo channel, King admitted that the first time he watched Kubrick's adaptation, he found it to be "dreadfully unsettling." King supervised a television adaptation of his original novel
The Shining (TV miniseries)
The Shining is a three-part television miniseries based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. Directed by Mick Garris from King's teleplay, the series was first aired in 1997.-Plot:...
in 1997, filmed at the actual Stanley Hotel in Colorado.
Establishment as classic
Horror film critic Peter Bracke reviewing the Blu-ray release in Hi-Def Digest writes
..just as the ghostly apparitions of the film's fictional Overlook Hotel would play tricks on the mind of poor Jack Torrance, so too has the passage of time changed the perception of The Shining itself. Many of the same reviewers who lambasted the film for "not being scary" enough back in 1980 now rank it among the most effective horror films ever made, while audiences who hated the film back then now vividly recall being "terrified" by the experience. The Shining has somehow risen from the ashes of its own bad press to redefine itself not only as a seminal work of the genre, but perhaps the most stately, artful horror ever made.
Indeed, The Shining has become widely regarded as one of the greatest films of the horror genre and a staple of pop culture. Like many Kubrick films, it has been described as "seminal". In 2001, the film was ranked 29th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills is a list of the top 100 heart-pounding movies in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 12, 2001, during a CBS special hosted by Harrison Ford....
list and Jack Torrance was named the 25th greatest villain on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains is a list of the 100 greatest screen characters chosen by American Film Institute in June 2003. It is part of the AFI 100 Years… series. The series was first presented in a CBS special hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger...
list in 2003. In 2005, the quote "Here's Johnny!" was ranked 68 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes is a list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema. The American Film Institute revealed the list on June 21, 2005, in a three-hour television program on CBS...
list. It was named the all-time scariest film by Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
labeled it the 5th greatest horror film, and Bravo TV named one of the film's scenes 6th on their list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments
100 Scariest Movie Moments
The 100 Scariest Movie Moments is a television documentary miniseries that first aired in late October 2004 on Bravo. Aired in five 60-minute segments, the miniseries counts down what producer Anthony Timpone, writer Patrick Moses, and director Kevin Kaufman have determined as the 100 most...
. In addition, film critics Kim Newman
Kim Newman
Kim Newman is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history...
and Jonathan Romney both placed it in their top ten lists for the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. Director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
placed The Shining on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.
Even mathematicians at London's King's College used statistical modeling in a study commissioned by Sky Movies to conclude that The Shining was the "perfect scary movie" due to a proper balance of various ingredients including shock value, suspense, size of the cast
Awards and nominations
| Award | Subject | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Razzie Award | Worst Actress | Shelley Duvall Shelley Duvall Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women.... |
Nominated |
| Worst Director | Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career... |
||
| Saturn Award | Best Director Saturn Award for Best Direction The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Direction:-Multiple Winners:*James Cameron - 5 awards*Steven Spielberg - 4 awards*Peter Jackson - 3 awards*Bryan Singer - 2 awards... |
||
| Best Supporting Actor | Scatman Crothers Scatman Crothers Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980... |
Won | |
| Best Horror Film Saturn Award for Best Horror Film The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Horror Film:-References:... |
The Shining | Nominated | |
| Best Music Saturn Award for Best Music The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Music.-Multiple Winners:*John Williams - 7 awards*Danny Elfman - 5 awards*James Horner - 3 awards*Alan Silvestri - 3 awards*Alan Menken - 2 awards*John Ottman - 2 awards*Miklós Rózsa - 2 awards... |
Wendy Carlos Wendy Carlos Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A... |
||
| Rachel Elkind |
American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #29
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains:
- Jack Torrance – #25 Villain
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
- "Here's Johnny!" – #68
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
Social interpretations of the film
Native Americans
Among interpreters who see the film reflecting more subtly the social concerns that animate other Kubrick films, one of the earliest and most well-known viewpoints was discussed in an essay by ABC reporter Bill Blakemore entitled "The Family of Man" first published in the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
in July 1987. He believes that indirect references to the American slaughter of Native Americans pervade the film as exemplified by the Indian logos on the baking powder in the kitchen and Indian artwork that appears throughout the hotel, though no Native Americans are ever seen. Stuart Ullman tells Wendy that when building the hotel a few Indian attacks had to be fended off since it was constructed on an Indian burial ground.
Blakemore's general argument is that the film as a whole is a metaphor for the genocide of Native Americans. He notes that when Jack kills Hallorann, the dead body is seen lying on a rug with an Indian motif. The blood in the elevator shafts is, for Blakemore, the blood of the Indians in the burial ground on which the hotel was built. As such, the fact that the date of the final photograph is July 4 is meant to be deeply ironic. Blakemore writes,
As with some of his other movies, Kubrick ends The Shining with a powerful visual puzzle that forces the audience to leave the theater asking, "What was that all about?" The Shining ends with an extremely long camera shot moving down a hallway in the Overlook, reaching eventually the central photo among 21 photos on the wall. The caption reads: "Overlook Hotel-July 4th Ball-1921." The answer to this puzzle, is that most Americans overlook the fact that July Fourth was no ball, nor any kind of Independence day, for native Americans; that the weak American villain of the film is the re-embodiment of the American men who massacred the Indians in earlier years; that Kubrick is examining and reflecting on a problem that cuts through the decades and centuries.
Blakemore also sees this film as similar to other Kubrick films where evil forces get weak men to do their bidding.
Film writer John Capo sees the film as an allegory of American imperialism. This is exemplified by many clues; the closing photo of Jack in the past at a 4th of July party, or Jack's earlier citation of the Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
poem "The White Man's Burden
The White Man's Burden
"The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands...
". The poem has been interpreted as rationalizing the European colonization of non-white people, while Jack's line has been interpreted as referring to alcoholism, from which he suffers.
Geoffrey Cocks and Kubrick's concern with the Holocaust
Film historian Geoffrey Cocks has extended Blakemore's idea that the film has a subtext about Native Americans to arguing that the film indirectly reflects Stanley Kubrick's concerns about the Holocaust. (Both Cock's book and Michael Herr's memoir of Kubrick discuss how he wanted his entire life to make a film dealing directly with the Holocaust, but could never quite get the handle on it that satisfied him.) Cocks is a cultural historian best known for describing the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent Western culture. Cocks, writing in his book The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust, proposed a controversial theory that all of Kubrick's work is informed by the Holocaust; there is, he says, a strong (though hidden) holocaust subtext in The Shining. This, Cocks believes, is why Kubrick's screenplay goes to emotional extremes, omitting much of the novel's supernaturalism and making the character of Wendy much more hysteria-prone. Cocks places Kubrick's vision of a haunted hotel in line with a long literary tradition of hotels in which sinister events occur, from Stephen CraneStephen Crane
Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...
's short story The Blue Hotel (which Kubrick admired) to the Swiss Berghof in Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
's novel The Magic Mountain
The Magic Mountain
The Magic Mountain is a novel by Thomas Mann, first published in November 1924. It is widely considered to be one of the most influential works of 20th century German literature....
, about a snowbound sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps in which the protagonist witnesses a series of events which are a microcosm of the decline of Western culture. In keeping with this tradition, Kubrick's film focuses on domesticity and the Torrances' attempt to use this imposing building as a home which Jack Torrance describes as "homey".
Cocks claims that Kubrick has elaborately coded many of his historical concerns into the film with manipulations of numbers and colors and his choice of musical numbers, many of which are post-war compositions influenced by the horrors of World War II. Of particular note is Kubrick's use of Penderecki's The Awakening of Jacob to accompany Jack Torrance's dream of killing his family and Danny's vision of past carnage in the hotel, a piece of music originally associated with the horrors of the Holocaust. As such, Kubrick's pessimistic ending in contrast to Stephen King's optimistic one is in keeping with the motifs that Kubrick wove into the story.
Cocks' work has been anthologized and discussed in other works on Stanley Kubrick films, but sometimes with skepticism. In particular, Julian Rice writing in the opening chapter of his book Kubrick's Hope believes Cocks' views are excessively speculative and contain too many strained "critical leaps" of faith. Rice holds that we cannot really replicate or corroborate what went on in Kubrick's mind beyond a broad vision of the nature of good and evil (which included concern about the Holocaust), but Kubrick's art is not governed by this one single obsession. Diane Johnson, co-screenwriter for The Shining, commented on Cocks' observations and holds that preoccupation with the Jewish Holocaust on Kubrick's part could very likely have motivated his decision to place the hotel on a Native American burial ground, although Kubrick never directly mentioned it to her.
Fairy tales
Geoffrey Cocks notes that the film contains many allusions to fairy tales, both Hansel and GretelHansel and Gretel
"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...
and the story of the big bad wolf, with Jack Torrance identified as the wolf which Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim was an Austrian-born American child psychologist and writer. He gained an international reputation for his work on Freud, psychoanalysis, and emotionally disturbed children.-Background:...
identifies as standing for "all the asocial unconscious devouring powers" that must be overcome by a child's ego.
Origin of proverb
The saying "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" appeared first in James Howell's Proverbs in English, Italian, French and Spanish (1659).Ambiguities in the film
Screenwriter Todd Alcott has notedRoger Ebert notes that the film does not really have a "reliable observer", with the possible exception of Dick Hallorann. Ebert believes various events call into question the reliability of Jack, Wendy, and Danny at various points. This leads Ebert to conclude that Ebert ultimately concludes that "The movie is not about ghosts but about madness and the energies". Likewise, film critic James Berardinelli (who is generally much less impressed with the film than Ebert), notes that "King would have us believe that the hotel is haunted. Kubrick is less definitive in the interpretations he offers." He dubs the film a failure as a ghost story, but brilliant as a study of "madness and the unreliable narrator."
Ghosts or cabin fever?
In some sequences, there is a question of whether or not there are ghosts present. In the scenes where Jack sees ghosts he is always facing a mirror, or in the case of his storeroom conversation with Grady, a reflective, highly polished door. Film reviewer James Berardinelli notes "It has been pointed out that there's a mirror in every scene in which Jack sees a ghost, causing us to wonder whether the spirits are reflections of a tortured psyche."Writing in Hollywood's Stephen King, Tony Magistrale writes
Kubrick's reliance on mirrors as visual aids for underscoring the thematic meaning of this film portrays visually the internal transformations and oppositions that are occurring to Jack Torrance psychologically. Through...these devices, Kubrick dramatizes the hotel's methodical assault on Torrance's identity, its ability to stimulate the myriad of self-doubts and anxieties by creating opportunities to warp Torrance's perspective on himself and [his family]. Furthermore the fact that Jack looks into a mirror whenever he "speaks" to the hotel means, to some extent, that Kubrick implicates him directly into the hotel's "consciousness," because Jack is, in effect, talking to himself.
On the other hand, no mirrors appear in Danny's or Wendy's visions.
Ghosts are the implied explanation for Jack's escape from the locked storeroom. Kubrick scholar Michel Ciment has written
It seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural in such a way as to lead you to think that the supernatural would eventually be explained by the psychological: 'Jack must be imagining these things because he's crazy.' This allowed you to suspend your doubt of the supernatural until you were so thoroughly into the story that you could accept it almost without noticing...It's not until Grady, the ghost of the former caretaker who axed to death his family, slides open the bolt of the larder door, allowing Jack to escape, that you are left with no other explanation but the supernatural.
The two Gradys
Early in the film, Stuart Ullman tells Jack of a previous caretaker, Charles Grady, who, in 1970, succumbed to cabin fever, murdered his family and then killed himself. Later, Jack meets a ghostly butler named Grady. Jack says he knows about the murders, claiming to recognize Grady from pictures; however, the butler introduces himself as Delbert Grady.Gordon Dahlquist of The Kubrick FAQ argues that the name change "deliberately mirrors Jack Torrance being both the husband of Wendy/father of Danny and the mysterious man in the July Fourth photo. It is to say he is two people: the man with choice in a perilous situation and the man who has 'always' been at the Overlook. It's a mistake to see the final photo as evidence that the events of the film are predetermined: Jack has any number of moments where he can act other than the way he does, and that his (poor) choices are fueled by weakness and fear perhaps merely speaks all the more to the questions about the personal and the political that The Shining brings up. In the same way Charles had a chance – once more, perhaps – to not take on Delbert's legacy, so Jack may have had a chance to escape his role as 'caretaker' to the interests of the powerful. It's the tragic course of this story that he chooses not to." Dahlquist's argument is that Delbert Grady, the 1920s butler, and Charles Grady, the 1970s caretaker, rather than being either two different people or the same are two 'manifestations' of a similar entity; a part permanently at the hotel (Delbert) and the part which is given the choice of whether to join the legacy of the hotel's murderous past (Charles), just as the man in the photo is not exactly Jack Torrance, but nor is he someone entirely different. Jack in the photo has 'always' been at the Overlook, Jack the caretaker chooses to become part of the hotel. The film's assistant editor Gordon Stainforth has commented on this issue, attempting to steer a course between the continuity-error explanation on one side and the hidden-meaning explanation on the other; "I don't think we'll ever quite unravel this. Was his full name Charles Delbert Grady? Perhaps Charles was a sort of nickname? Perhaps Ullman got the name wrong? But I also think that Stanley did NOT want the whole story to fit together too neatly, so [it is] absolutely correct, I think, to say that 'the sum of what we learn refuses to add up neatly'"
The photograph
Jack Torrance
Jack Torrance is a fictional character, the antagonist in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1980 movie adaptation of the novel, and by Steven Weber in the 1997 miniseries. The American Film Institute rated the character the 25th greatest film...
seen at the middle of a 1921 party. In an interview with Michel Ciment, Kubrick overtly declared that Jack was a reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
of an earlier official at the hotel. Still, this has not stopped interpreters from developing alternative readings, such as that Jack has been "absorbed" into the Overlook hotel. Film critic Jonathan Romney, while acknowledging the absorption theory, wrote "As the ghostly butler Grady (Philip Stone) tells him during their chilling confrontation in the men's toilet, 'You're the caretaker, sir. You've always been the caretaker.' Perhaps in some earlier incarnation Jack really was around in 1921, and it's his present-day self that is the shadow, the phantom photographic copy. But if his picture has been there all along, why has no one noticed it? After all, it's right at the center of the central picture on the wall, and the Torrances have had a painfully drawn-out winter of mind-numbing leisure in which to inspect every corner of the place. Is it just that, like Poe's purloined letter
The Purloined Letter
"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt". These stories are considered to be important...
, the thing in plain sight is the last thing you see? When you do see it, the effect is so unsettling because you realise the unthinkable was there under your nose – overlooked – the whole time."
Comparison with the novel
The film differs from the novel significantly with regard to characterization and motivation of action. The most obvious differences are those regarding the personality of Jack Torrance (the source of much of author Stephen King’s dissatisfaction with the film).Jack Torrance
The novel presents Jack as a character who resents authority, and is initially well-intentioned but struggling with his use of alcohol. In spite of his good intentions, he becomes gradually overwhelmed by the evil forces in the hotel, though near the end of the novel helps Wendy and Danny escape during a moment of recovered sanity. The film's Jack is established as somewhat sinister (and irritated with his family) much earlier in the story and his final redemption never occurs. Furthermore, Jack actually kills Dick Hallorann in the film, but kills no one in the novel. King attempted to talk Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
out of casting Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
even before filming began, on the grounds that the whole theme of an everyman's slow descent into madness would be undercut by casting Nicholson, who had starred in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (film)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American drama film directed by Miloš Forman and based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey....
a few years before. He suggested Jon Voight
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
among others for the role. Stephen King has openly stated on the DVD commentary of the 1997 mini-series of The Shining that the character of Jack Torrance was partially autobiographical, as he was struggling with both alcoholism and unprovoked rage toward his family at the time of writing.
Tony Magistrale
Tony Magistrale
Anthony Samuel Magistrale is a Professor in English at the University of Vermont since 1983. He received a B.A. in 1974 from Allegheny College, and from the University of Pittsburgh an M.A. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1981. He has written several books about Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe.-References:...
wrote about Kubrick's version of Jack Torrance in Hollywood's Stephen King:
Kubrick'sStanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
version of Torrance is much closer to the tyrannical Hal (from Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey (film)2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
) and Alex (from Kubrick's A Clockwork OrangeA Clockwork Orange (film)A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...
) than he is to King's more conflicted, more sympathetically human characterization.
Jack's twin demons in the novel are alcoholism and authority issues, but his demons in the film seem to be alcohol and severe writer's block, though some authority issues on his part are implied indirectly. In both versions, Jack hears the voices of previous tenants of the hotel, but only in the novel does Jack also hear the heavy-handed voice of his father. Similarly, though the film downplays the novel's theme of Jack's authority issues, it illustrates Jack's struggle with writer's block (something not depicted in the novel). In both the novel and film, Jack's encounter with the ghostly bartender is pivotal to Jack's deterioration. However, in early parts of the story, references to Jack's drinking stay understated in the film while forcefully asserted in the novel.
Kubrick's co-screenwriter Diane Johnson believes that in King's novel, Jack's discovery of the scrapbook of clippings in the boiler room of the hotel which gives him new ideas for a novel catalyzes his possession by the ghosts of the hotel. Jack is no longer a blocked writer, but now filled with energy. In her contribution to the screenplay, she wrote an adaptation of this scene, which to her regret Kubrick later excised, as she felt this left the father's change less motivated.
Wendy Torrance and Stuart Ullmann
The downplaying of the theme of Jack's issues with authority allows the film to alter the characters of Ullmann and Wendy. In the novel, Jack's authority issues are triggered by the fact that his interviewer, Ullmann, is highly authoritarian, a kind of snobbish martinet. The film's Ullmann is far more humane and concerned about Jack's well-being, as well as smooth and self-assured. In Stanley Kubrick and the Art of Adaptation, author Greg Jenkins writes "A toadish figure in the book, Ullman has been utterly reinvented for the film; he now radiates charm, grace and gentility." Only in the novel does Ullmann state that he disapproves of hiring Jack but higher authorities have asked that Jack be hired. Especially notable is the film's omission of Ullmann mentioning that both the previous caretaker, Grady (who killed his family), and Jack are alcoholics. In the novel, Ullmann discusses Grady's history in an almost threatening way, whereas his description is filled with more concern in the film. In particular, the film includes no sign at all that Ullmann even knows about Jack's drinking problem. Ullmann's despotic nature in the novel is one of the first steps in Jack's deterioration, whereas in the film, Ullmann serves largely in the role of expositor.Wendy's concern about Danny triggers Jack's authority issues in the novel, while in the film he mainly finds her concern irritating and hysterical. Wendy Torrance in the film is relatively meek, submissive, passive and mousy. This is shown by the way she defends Jack even in his absence to the doctor examining Danny. In the novel, she is a more self-reliant and independent personality who is tied to Jack in part by her poor relationship with her parents. In the novel she never displays hysteria or collapses the way she does in the film. Writing in Hollywood's Stephen King, author Tony Magistrale writes about the mini-series remake:
De Mornay restores much of the steely resilience found in the protagonist of King's novel and this is particularly noteworthy when compared to Shelley Duvall's exaggerated portrayal of Wendy as Olive Oyl revisited: A simpering fatality of forces beyond her capacity to understand, much less surmount.
Co-screenwriter Diane Johnson stated that in her contributions to the script, Wendy had more dialogue, and that Kubrick cut many of her lines, possibly due to his dissatisfaction with actress Shelley Duvall's delivery. Johnson believes the earlier draft of the script portrayed Wendy as a more-rounded character.
Danny Torrance
Danny Torrance is considerably more open about his supernatural abilities in the novel, discussing them with strangers such as his doctor. In the film, he is quite secretive about them even with Dick Halloran who shares these abilities. (The same is true of Dick Halloran who in his (book) journey back to the Overlook talks with others with the "shining" ability while in the film he lies about his reason for returning to the Overlook.) Danny in the novel is generally portrayed as unusually intelligent across the board. In the film, he is more ordinary, though with a preternatural gift. In the novel, Danny is much more bonded to his father than in the film; the film's conclusion is, however, in keeping with the novel's conclusion where Danny virtually saves the soul of his father. Although Danny has supernatural powers in both versions, the novel makes it clear that his apparent imaginary friend "Tony" really is a projection of hidden parts of his own psyche, though heavily amplified by Danny's psychic "shining" abilities. At the end it is revealed that Danny Torrance's middle name is "Anthony". In the film, the status of Tony (real or imaginary) is not clarified. Only in the film does Danny describe Tony as "the little boy who lives in my mouth."Family dynamics
Stephen King provides the reader with a great deal of information about the stress in the Torrance family early in the story, including revelations of Jack's physical abuse of Danny and Wendy's fear of Danny's mysterious spells. Kubrick tones down the early family tension and reveals family disharmony much more gradually than does King.In the film, Danny has a stronger emotional bond with Wendy than with Jack, which fuels Jack's rather paranoid notion that the two are conspiring against him.
Motivation of ghosts
In the novel, the ghosts seek to possess Jack Torrance to get him to kill Danny; if Danny dies in the Overlook, his "shining" ability will be absorbed along with all the other awful energies that are manifest there; the hotel itself is a sentient entity and so would become far more powerful and able to extend its powers beyond the confines of its grounds. In the film, the motive of the ghosts is more ambiguous but seems to be to "reclaim" Jack (even though Grady expresses an interest in Danny's "shining" ability), who is apparently a reincarnation of a previous caretaker of the hotel, as suggested by the 1920s photograph of Jack at the end of the film and Jack's repeated claims to have "not just a deja vu". Thus, in the film, Jack has been the focus of the ghosts' attention all along rather than Danny. This plot difference re-contextualizes the line "You've always been the caretaker," which in the novel is a lie told by the ghosts of the hotel to bolster Jack's ego, but may in some sense be literally true in the film.Plot differences
Because of the limitations of special effects at the time, the living topiaryTopiary
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training live perennial plants, by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, perhaps geometric or fanciful; and the term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. It can be...
animals of the novel were omitted and a hedge maze was added, acting as a final trap for Jack Torrance as well as a refuge for Danny.
As noted earlier, Jack kills Hallorann in the film but not the novel. In the novel Jack recovers his sanity and goodwill through the intervention of Danny (this does not occur in the film). In the novel, the Overlook Hotel is completely destroyed by a fire caused by an exploding boiler, while the film ends with the hotel still standing. More broadly, the defective boiler is a major element of the novel's subplot, entirely missing from the film version. In the novel, Jack's final act is to enable Wendy and Danny to escape the hotel before it explodes, killing him.
In the film, the hotel possibly derives its malevolent energy from being built on an Indian burial ground, while in the novel, the reason for the hotel's manifestation of evil is possibly explained by a theme present in King's previous novel Salem's Lot as well as Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...
's The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
For the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...
: a physical place may absorb the evils that transpire there and manifest them as a vaguely sentient malevolence. In the novel, Jack does a great deal of investigation of the hotel's past through a scrapbook, a subplot almost omitted from the film aside from two touches: a brief appearance of the scrapbook beside the typewriter, and Jack's statement to the ghost of Grady that he knows his face from an old newspaper article describing the latter's horrific acts.
More trivial differences include Jack's choice of weapon (a roque
Roque
Roque is an American variant of croquet played on a hard, smooth surface. Popular in the first quarter of the 20th century and billed "the Game of the Century" by its enthusiasts, it was an Olympic sport in the 1904 Summer Games, replacing croquet from the previous games.-Roque court and...
mallet in the novel, an axe in the film), the number of the advisably avoided Room (217 in the novel and 237 in the film), and the nature of Danny's injury before the action of the story (a broken arm in the novel and a dislocated shoulder in the film).
Some of the film's most famous iconic scenes, such as the ghost girls in the hallway and the torrent of blood from the elevators, are unique to the film. The most notable of these would be the typewritten pages Wendy discovers on Jack's desk. Similarly, many of the most memorable lines of dialogue ("Words of wisdom" and "Here's Johnny!") are heard in the film only.
Film adaptation commentary
Although Stephen King fans were critical of the novel's adaptation on the grounds that Kubrick altered and reduced the novel's themes, a defense of Kubrick's approach was published by Steve Biodrowski, a former editor of the print magazine Cinefantastique. His review of the film is one of the few to go into detailed comparison with the novel. Biodrowski states,
Widely reviled by Stephen King fans for abandoning much of the book (King himself said his feelings balanced out to zero), Stanley Kubrick’s film version, upon re-examination, reveals that he took the same course he had often used in the past when adapting novels to the screen (such as Vladimir Nabokov's LolitaLolitaLolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
): he stripped away the back story and exposition, distilling the results down to the basic narrative line, with the characters thus rendered in a more archetypal form. The result ...[is] a brilliant, ambitious attempt to shoot a horror film without the Gothic trappings of shadows and cobwebs so often associated with the genre.
In popular culture
References in the form of both parodies and homages to The Shining are prominent in U.S. popular culture, particularly in films, TV shows and music. Images and scenes frequently referenced are: the two girls in the hallway, the use of the word "Redrum", the blood spilling out of the opening elevator doors and Jack Torrance's sticking his head through the axe-hewn hole in the bathroom door, leeringly saying, "Here's Johnny."The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode "Treehouse of Horror V
Treehouse of Horror V
"Treehouse of Horror V" is the sixth episode of The Simpsons sixth season and the fifth episode in the Treehouse of Horror series. It premiered on October 30, 1994, and features three short stories called The Shinning, Time and Punishment, and Nightmare Cafeteria...
" contains the story "The Shinning", a parody of The Shining. In addition, Sherri and Terri, the twins in Bart's 4th grade class, are visually similar to the Grady girls. Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
parodies The Shining in the episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater" in which Stewie walks down a hallway and sees the two girls beckoning him to play, to whom he sarcastically responds, "All work and no play make Stewie a dull boy" just before blowing them away with a bazooka
Bazooka
Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon, widely fielded by the U.S. Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was amongst the first-generation of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat...
. The girls make their second Family Guy appearance in the opening sequence for the episode "PTV
PTV (Family Guy)
"PTV" is the fourteenth episode of season four of the FOX animated series Family Guy. The episode sees the FCC censor the shows on television after a controversial wardrobe malfunction at the Emmy Awards. Peter starts to create his own TV network which he calls PTV, broadcasting classic shows...
", where Stewie runs them over with his tricycle
Tricycle
A tricycle is a three-wheeled vehicle. While tricycles are often associated with the small three-wheeled vehicles used by pre-school-age children, they are also used by adults for a variety of purposes. In the United States and Canada, adult-sized tricycles are used primarily by older persons for...
in an homage to The Naked Gun
The Naked Gun
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is a 1988 American comedy film that is the first in a The Naked Gun series of films starring Leslie Nielsen, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy, and O. J. Simpson...
. In the Ed, Edd n Eddy
Ed, Edd n Eddy
Ed, Edd n Eddy is an original animated television series created by Danny Antonucci and produced by Canadian-based a.k.a. Cartoon. It premiered on Cartoon Network on January 4, 1999. Ed, Edd n Eddy was one of Cartoon Network's longest running and most successful franchises and the longest-running...
episode "Stop, Look and Ed", Eddy tells Rolf "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!". Rolf responds with "Who is this Jack? I know no Jack". "Here's Johnny!" was parodied by British comedian Lenny Henry
Lenny Henry
Lenworth George "Lenny" Henry, is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.- Early life :...
in a controversial advertisement for Premier Inn. Both the tricycle scene where Danny Torrance sees the two Grady girls at the end of the hallway and the "Here's Johnny" scene are seen playing on the drive-in theatre screen of a small town in the movie Twister just before a major tornado rips through the town. In an episode of the Australian sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
show Double Take
Double Take (TV series)
Double Take is an Australian sketch comedy series which premiered on the Seven Network on 23 July 2009. The first series of the show ended in 24 September 2009.-Cast:* Paul McCarthy* Helen Dallimore* Amanda Bishop* Darren Weller* Robin Goldsworthy...
the "Here's Johnny!" scene was parodied with former Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
chopping into the bathroom of Kirribili Lodge where then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
tells him that he "doesn't" live there anymore and demands his keys. "Here's Johnny" was also parodied in the X-Men animated series in the episode "The Juggernaut Returns." As the Juggernaut smashes through the front doors of Xavier's school, he shouts "Here's Juggy!"
The plot of The Shining is referenced in the short music video of "The Kill
The Kill
"The Kill" is a song by 30 Seconds to Mars, the song was released as the second single from their second album, A Beautiful Lie...
" by 30 Seconds to Mars
30 Seconds to Mars
30 Seconds to Mars is an American rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 1998. Since 2007, the band has consisted of actor Jared Leto , Shannon Leto and Tomo Miličević...
. Scenes parodying much of the film also appear in the Slipknot
Slipknot (band)
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa. Formed in 1995, the group was founded by percussionist Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray...
music video "Spit It Out". Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and original lead vocalist Layne Staley. The initial lineup was rounded out by drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Starr...
' video for "Your Decision
Your Decision
"Your Decision" is a song by Alice in Chains, featured on their fourth studio album Black Gives Way to Blue . It was released as the third single from the album on November 16, 2009 in the UK, and was released in the US on December 1, 2009...
" has a few momentary allusions to the film, as well as to Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut
Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella Traumnovelle . The film was directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, and was his last film. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually-charged adventures of Dr...
. The Dead Celebrity Status
Dead Celebrity Status
Dead Celebrity Status is a Canadian hip-hop group originating in Sudbury, Ontario. Rappers Yas Taalat and Bobby McIntosh, both former members of the rock/rap band Project Wyze, teamed up with onetime DMC World Champion DJ Dopey to form Dead Celebrity Status in 2003.-History:Following the breakup of...
video for "We Fall, We Fall" contains elements of the film. Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
's well-known 1982 album The Dreaming
The Dreaming (album)
-Personnel:*Stewart Arnold: vocals, background vocals*Jimmy Bain: bass*Ian Bairnson: acoustic guitar, vocals, background vocals*John Barrett: assistant engineer*Brian Bath: electric guitar*Haydn Bendall: engineer...
contains the song "Get Out of My House," inspired primarily by the novel. as was Black Sabbath's song "The Shining". The song "Last Time Forever" by Squeeze contains sound clips of Jack saying "the momentary loss of muscular coordination" and of Wendy screaming as Jack hacks through the bathroom door. Sound clips of Ullmann warning Jack about cabin fever with Jack's reassurances appear in Swedish goth band Katatonia's song "Endtime" on the album Brave Murder Day
Brave Murder Day
- Notes :# "Murder" & "Rainroom" is featured on Brave Yester Days.# "12" is a re-recorded version of the song Black Erotica from the W.A.R. Compilation Volume 1...
.
The lead characters in the mother-daughter drama Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls is an American family comedy-drama series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. On October 5, 2000, the series debuted on The WB and was cancelled in its seventh season, ending on May 15, 2007 on The CW...
(2000–2007) are enormous movie buffs; five episodes reference The Shining. The most well-known of these contains Lorelai's line "Well, we like our Internet slow, okay? We can turn it on, walk around, dance, make a sandwich. With DSL, there's no dancing, no walking, and we'd starve. It'd be all work and no play. Have you not seen The Shining, Mom?"
Three episodes of Rei Hiroe's 2006 "Black Lagoon
Black Lagoon
is a manga series written and illustrated by Rei Hiroe, and published in Shogakukan's Sunday GX since 2002. An animated television series based on the manga aired in Japan from April 8, 2006, to June 24, 2006, totaling twelve episodes. A second season, subtitled "The Second Barrage", ran for twelve...
" (both the anime and the manga from which it is adapted) have two young twins named Hansel and Gretel who are child serial-killers-for-hire. Several other characters compare them to the Grady girls in The Shining. In one chapter of the manga (though not the anime) Gretel sings "Midnight, the Stars and You", the song in the closing credits of The Shining.
The axe used in the film is now at Planet Hollywood
Planet Hollywood
Planet Hollywood, a restaurant inspired by the popular portrayal of Hollywood, was launched in New York on October 22, 1991, with the backing of Hollywood stars Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.-History:...
in Beverly Hills, CA.
Gothic director Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
(who credits Kubrick as an influence) modeled the characters of Tweedledee and Tweedledum on the Grady girls in his version of Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland (2010 film)
Alice in Wonderland is a 2010 American computer-animated/live action fantasy adventure film directed by Tim Burton, written by Linda Woolverton, and released by Walt Disney Pictures...
(like so many viewers of the film, Burton identifies the girls as twins in spite of Ullmann's dialogue to the contrary).