Dude.
Come on.
It’s Jack.
With his mile high arched eyebrows, shit-eating grin and that mad twinkle in his eyes, we know from the first frame of Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING, that Jack Nicholson is already slightly mad. He has nowhere to go but up.
And up he goes. Nicholson delivers a tour de force performance as Jack Torrance, a writer and family man who takes a job as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel during the winter months in the Colorado Rockies. Jack is joined by his wife, Wendy (Shelly Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd). Danny has the “shine”, a psychic extra sense that allows the malevolent spirits that haunt the hotel to prey upon the boy and his father.
Turns out his father is easier to get and is the one the hotel has wanted all along.
That’s the story of THE SHINING in a nutshell. The book by Stephen King was a mega bestseller and when the news was announced that none other than Stanley Kubrick was going to make a film based on the book, fans went wild. What a pedigree. Stephen King? Check. Stanley Kubrick? Check. THE SHINING? Check. Many fans expected this project to be the CITIZEN KANE of horror films.
It wasn’t. Many changes were made between page and screen, most of which author King hated. As did die-hard fans. People who had read the book were massively disappointed in the film. I know. I was one of them.
But over the years I’ve come to regard Kubrick’s film as a truly great film, one of the greatest horror movies ever made. Okay, so it’s not the book. The book is still there and it still packs a punch. I know, I just finished a re-read the other evening.
Yes, there are changes, especially in the third act but that’s okay. If you’ve read the book and then watch the film, try your best to separate the two and take them as two tellings of the same material.
Or, to use a comic book metaphor, think of the book as THE SHINING Earth-1 and the film as THE SHINING Earth-2. Sit back and relax and let the master cast his spell.
Because this is most certainly a Stanley Kubrick film. Everything about the film bears his vision. The camera work (some magnificent early steady-cam footage), the editing, the compositions, the art direction, the lighting, the music (some of which is reminiscent of that heard in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), just the overall look and feel of the movie instantly identifies it as a Kubrick film.
I re-watched THE SHINIG yesterday for the first time in years. It stands up very well and doesn’t seem too dated. I like everything about the film and it delivers some genuinely creepy scenes.
But ultimately, it’s Jack. Crazy Jack. It’s a performance and characterization that has become an indelible part of popular culture history. Even if you’ve never seen the film, you know the single most memorable moment of them all.
“Here’s Johnny!”
Highest recommendation.
Leave a comment