The Shining: Special Edition (HD DVD)

[Jim_Thomas]

David--

We have very similar views on this movie. It has a lot of wonderful moments, but they never really coalesce into a coherent whole.

I've always had a problem with the casting of Nicholson. For one thing, it's too easy. A great part of the tragedy of the book is how the Overlook takes a basically decent man and uses his inner demons to drive him over the edge. Nicholson looks borderline psychotic on his best day, and he's in full twitch mode at the beginning of the film. At the time, I thought Nick Nolte would have been a good choice.

[Dave Johnson]

Thanks Jim. Totally agree with you on the Jack stuff. The Overlook didn't have much more yardage to earns with him in the film.

Nick Nolte, huh? Interesting. By the time the movie's over, he's running around, looking like that mugshot? Yeah, I can dig it.

[Dan Mancini]

The thing is, though, Nicholson's over-the-top performance is likely more Kubrick's fault than Nicholson's. I mean, considering that Kubrick demanded 30+ takes of basically every single scene, Nicholson must have given him lower key, more subtle riffs. Kubrick (purposely) crafted Nicholson's performance that way in the editing room (which is, honestly, sort of baffling to me).

Nicholson probably wasn't being at all self-indulgent, but you have to wonder if the elevation of "Here's Johnny!" and other parts of his performance to pop culture iconography didn't spur his slide into self-indulgent, caricature-esque performances throughout the rest of the '80s. I love The Shining (it's just creepy and beautifully shot and weirdly fun -- though, like you say, Dave, not a masterpiece), but Jack Torrance may have been the template for the string of hyper-masculine, yelling, gesticulating boobs Nicholson has played over and over again since.

[Bug]

I think that the conception of Nicholson's performance is perfect for the film. I mean, it's clear to me that Kubrick intended the film as a ironic (and sarcastic) "deconstruction" of the horror film, and (perhaps?) more specifically the slasher film.

As such Kubrick sidesteps is an obvious "psychological" progression of Nicholson's character's degeneration into madness in favour of uncompromising cynicism regarding the character. He is mad from the start. This works well in the context of the film's (uneasy) deployment of humour, which is directed mainly at the Shelley Duvall character. Listen to the dialogue: if much of it it were to have been delivered in a subtler, more nuanced way (by both Nicholson and Duvall), it would have worked as a quite sombre drama. I suggest that the film works as a (cynical, black-hearted) comedy. This is the film in Kubrick's oeuvre in which his misogyny is most blatantly in evidence. Kubrick imagines Wendy as a whining, pathetic hag of a wife. The on-set tales of Kubrick's treatment of Duvall, and her recalcitrance regarding her ideas about the character, are well-known. This is how the film works (for good or ill): Kubrick torments Duvall (which is called "moulding her performance") until she is hysterical, forcing her to deliver an equally hysterical performance, which is then matched by Nicholson's hysterically cynical characterision. This renders much of their dialogue ridiculous. This then renders as comedy both his and (by extention) Duvall's performances. Which makes the film an even more unnerving experience (considering its themes).

I think that the excessiveness of Nicholson's performance is entirely intended (and that "The Shining" is, to a large extent) a comedy-horror film).

[Belmondo]

Good analysis, Bug, keep it coming. I particularly appreciate your comments about Kubrick's feeling towards his women characters and women in general. Are they pathetic (here) sex bombs (Lolita) or screwed up, ultimately unknowable, emotionally unfathomable, objects designed for the sole purpose of leering through his adoring camera (Eyes Wide Shut).

[Dan Mancini]

Well, I think the claim that The Shining is a black comedy is a stretch, but it certainly offers food for thought. Without a doubt, Kubrick intended Nicholson's performance to be what it is. I guess I'd tie the shape of the performance to the movie's final revelation -- if Jack has, in some weird way, always been a part of the Overlook then a traditional, linear decent into madness isn't necessary or appropriate to the story. None of that rules out the film being a comedy, I guess, but on the balance I'd say it's a horror film with some comedic elements, not a horror-comedy. I also tend to see it as more of an earnest horror film than an ironic deconstruction of the genre if only because the horror elements a) stray far from cliched horror conventions (e.g. the scariest shots in the flick are slow, static, and technically rigid instead of the quick, startling, and raw sequences in most horror), and b) are genuinely terrifying in an "Oh crap I'm going to have nightmares about this" sort of way.

Anyway, like I said before, I love the movie.

[DrMikeP]

I've been arguing for years that it is a black comedy, every time I teach that film. Nearly all of Kubrick's films are satires. And for all his feelings you note about women, he actually mocks men far more. You'll hear more when I actually finish my damn review of the standard edition.

Mike

[Bug]

I also tend to see it as more of an earnest horror film than an ironic deconstruction of the genre if only because the horror elements a) stray far from cliched horror conventions (e.g. the scariest shots in the flick are slow, static, and technically rigid instead of the quick, startling, and raw sequences in most horror), and b) are genuinely terrifying in an "Oh crap I'm going to have nightmares about this" sort of way.

I think that the film's most explicit horror elements (the blood gushing out of the elevator in slow motion, the successively looming shoots of the little girls intercut with the aftermath of the "slasheresque" violence done to them, REDRUM/MURDER, etc.) exaggerate, and therefore render ironic, those aspects that might be found in a more conventional horror film. The genius of Kubrick is that he allows these elements not only to refer to the horror genre that he is, in a way, parodying, but also to become signifiers the sublime in human consciousness (otherwise this film would merely be a witty, meaningless little popcorn film like "Scream"). In other words, I think that he exaggerates certain conventional aspects of the horror genre to such an extent that its essence presents itself. There must be a reason why humans are drawn to the brutal and stylised violence of the slasher film, and cinematic violence in general. Kubrick exposes this by parodying it. The imagery is simultaneously culture bound (in that it refers to the horror film) while also attempting to present something mythic or even transcendent, something implicit, about the sublimity of violence in human consciousness. This is why, I think, the images are so effective (and affective): they are designed to touch on something intrinsic about our violent natures.