Redrum

Posted on Apr 28, 2010

The Shining (1980)
Directed By: Stanley Kubrick

Review Written By: Josh Becker
Mondo Film & Video Guide Resident Contributor
IMDb.com Link

There are at least a dozen directors working today that could have made a great horror film out of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. That being the case, there is absolutely no question that Stanley Kubrick could have made an even greater horror film from the novel—but he is the best and that wouldn’t have been any challenge. A filmmaker of Kubrick’s caliber can not go into a project entirely assured of success, that would be pointless and ungratifying. So Kubrick has instead created a film to prove a point; while you are sitting in the theater watching his movie, Stanley Kubrick is God.

Kubrick is the most intense manipulator to ever work in films. For every other director it is almost asking too much to succeed on any single level: to make a comedy funny or a horror film scary is assuredly the most anyone else could ever hope for. Kubrick no longer needs to prove himself and simple objectives of this sort don’t seem to interest him in the least. It is not enough for him to just make us laugh, or just make us scared, or just make us anything. Kubrick now wants to put everyone through a metamorphosis.

Kubrick has begun his mass manipulation before we ever enter the theater. The Shining is based on the best novel by the largest selling horror writer in the world, Stephen King. Kubrick then spends three years shooting the film, just happens to release it in the midst of the biggest rush of horror films that has ever happened and advertises it as “A Masterpiece of Horror.” Combine this with Jack Nicholson starring in it and Kubrick has our expectations running in hyper-drive. The credits of the film begin and it is totally breath-taking aerial photography of a car driving through the Rocky Mountains. There isn’t a single person left who doesn’t believe that they are in for the most horrifying experience of their life. Very slowly, he obliterates these hopes with some insanely boring and redundant dialog scenes that are filmed just like a T.V. show, only the acting isn’t as good. Then there is more fantastically filmed footage and our hopes renew, but he follows that with more poorly delivered, boring dialog and plummets our hopes again. This keeps up for a solid hour, up and down and up and down and when the story finally begins to start moving he has successfully decimated our defenses—and then he really goes wild. He will begin building up a suspenseful scene and when it’s getting tremendously intense he will let it all drop and go to something else, like the most beautiful tracking shot you’ve ever seen in your life that means absolutely nothing to the story, and when that’s over he’ll kick in the suspense again.

This goes on for another hour. By this time Jack Nicholson is stark raving mad and chasing his wife and son around with an ax and Kubrick goes overboard. There is absolutely no question that now things must build to a walloping conclusion and once again they don’t. If you happened to have read the book then you know Kubrick is having extra fun. He will follow Stephen King’s story for a while, and just when you’re sure what’s going to happen next, he’ll have something entirely inexplicable happen. There are explanations for actions that make perfect sense in the book and Kubrick will use the actions, but fail to give the explanations.

Even if he’s changing and deleting things, he is still staying at least somewhat close to the same storyline for most of the film — until the end, that is, then Stephen King’s story is thrown away completely. Stanley Kubrick simply used the novel as a foundation for an experiment in manipulative filmmaking. The book The Shining is a great horror story, the film The Shining is the biggest ego-trip in film history. And yet, Stanley Kubrick is the best. Technically, The Shining is beyond compare. The photography and lighting are awe-inspiring, the performances are all terrific (once he lets them get going) and the sets are amazing. If he so desperately wants to show off his filmmaking prowess and play emotional spine-twister for two and a half hours, well hell, I’ll watch, but I certainly think his immense talents could be put to much more gratifying use.

Josh Becker is an author of three books, Rushes, Going Hollywood, and The Complete Low Budget Guide To Filmmaking. He’s a  filmmaker, having directing such films as Running Time, Lunatics: A Love Story, and Thou Shall Not Kill…Except.  A collection of his film reviews and essays, can be read on Becker’s official site www.beckerfilms.com