Classics Corner: The Shining by Stephen King; Book Takes Us Inside Where The Movie Failed To Go
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: There are many who think that the film version of The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick is a classic horror film. They remember the dolly camera angles around the Overlook Hotel, the ghostly Grady Sisters taunting Danny with a “Come, play with us”, and Jack Nicholson smashing through the door with an ax crazily chanting, “Here's Johnny!” Yes, there are many who consider it a classic horror film, if not the ultimate horror film.
Nearly everyone that is except Stephen King, the book's author.
Well, Steve that makes two of us. I agree with his assessment of the movie for many of the same reasons that he cited. So technically this review is half why I like the book and half why I hate the movie to The Shining. So I guess you can call this a-book-and-movie-review.
Now the movie is visually impressive, I won't deny it. The way the Overlook appears is alternatively warm and inviting as a hotel should be and imposing and terrifying as a haunted house should be. Some of the horror sequences such as the woman in Room 237 (217 in the book) and the eerie Grady Sisters are excellent in their ability to produce chills. Stanley Kubrick did some impressive film work on the project. But that's all the movie is, visual with nothing that takes us inside, nothing to tell us about the Hotel, it's residents, or the Torrance Family.
It turns what is a tightly constrained book about a family haunted by their internal demons and the ones at the Hotel into a mish-mash of scenes that could be anything and mean nothing unless you read the book first. (No wonder why the movie produces some off the wall analysis by film historians and fans who ponder its meaning from the genocide of the Native Americans to Kubrick's reported admission or apology for his alleged staging of the Moon landing.)
The plot, for the five people who don't know is: Jack Torrance, a writer, husband, and father has been hired as a caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. He is suffering from writer’s block, is recovering from alcoholism, and feels guilty over breaking his son’s arm in a drunken binge and hitting a kid while sober costing him a teaching job. He takes his wife, Wendy and son, Danny to Colorado as they endure the wintry off-season.
While at the Hotel, each of the family deals with their own emotional crisis as well as the Overlook's guests, some of which, to paraphrase the Eagles, checked out any time they liked, but never left. Wendy has to deal with her conflicting feelings for Jack wanting to help him, but also fearing the alcoholic he once was. She also recalls the emotional abuse from her mother and is envious of the bond Jack and Danny share that seems to not include her.
Danny has a power that he barely understands in which he can read his parent's minds, especially in times of emotional stress, and talks to an invisible friend, Tony, that gives him creepy visions of blood and death. Danny is afraid of being “taken away” so he keeps the secret to himself except in front of Dick Halloran, the Hotel's chef who also has the ability which he calls The Shining.
Jack has to deal with his guilt about his past actions that combat his desire to protect his family and longing for a drink. As Jack tries to fight his inner demons, he becomes obsessed with the Overlook's history and encounters its late spirits particularly Lloyd, a bartender that satisfies Jack's thirst for alcohol and Grady, the former caretaker who murdered his own family, including his daughters, before committing suicide. Grady influences Jack's temper and urges him to “punish” his family and give them their “medicine.”
Among the many issues I have with the movie is casting Jack Nicholson in the lead role. Because of his performances in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Chinatown (the former which I also liked the book better than the movie but the latter I actually liked), already gave Nicholson the reputation of playing off-the-wall crazy potentially dangerous characters, a reputation that grew in films like Witches of Eastwick, Batman, and As Good As It Gets. The second he walks into his interview with the Hotel manager, Ullman, he is barely restraining rage. (While in the book, he doesn't like Ullman but keeps his thoughts to himself because hey he needs this job.) The conflict that Jack goes through is that he wants to be a good husband and father but can't resist his addictions and urges. Nicholson's performance seems to have no such conflict. He is bullying and domineering all the way through. They are barely in the Overlook before Nicholson's Jack is practically measuring his family for cemetery plots. With his hammy bombastic performance, a gripping book about a troubled family of three becomes the Jack Nicholson Show.
Make that the Stanley Kubrick/Jack Nicholson Show. Another issue in acting that I have is Shelley Duvall's portrayal of Wendy but less because of her but because of what Kubrick put her through to get that performance. The book version is strong in her own right and though she realizes that she is in an abusive marriage that she can't get out of, she is active and willing to challenge Jack both physically and verbally. Just as Jack is dangerous from the beginning in the movie, Wendy is passive and emotional as well. While Duvall depicts a woman in an abusive marriage, the book version reveals that it isn't the whole story that Jack recognizes the monster in himself and wants to repress it and Wendy alternates with loving and hating Jack for his actions. Plus much of Wendy's motives for staying in the marriage such as having to face her equally abusive mother are removed making Duvall's decision to remain with Jack almost a masochistic one.
Unfortunately, much of Duvall's fragility and emotional performance was not by choice but by the abuse given to her by Kubrick. According to many accounts, Kubrick put Duvall through untold physical and psychological stress that caused her hair to fall out and her body to become dehydrated from the tears she cried. He also re-shot the scene where she swings a baseball bat at Nicholson over 100 times with the intent of making her disoriented. Why is it that in most jobs if a boss acts like a total jackass to his employees, he is held accountable for it and would be rightly unemployed and charged for it? But when a director like Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock abuses his female actresses to get a “performance” out of them, he is hailed as a legend and is considered above criticism for his behavior? People like Shelley Duvall are actors, they act. That's what they do. A director doesn't have to resort to such theatrics. If they want a performance, the actor will give it. If not, they should get another one.
There are other issues with the book-to-movie transition. The movie version of Tony is a creepy character that moves inside Danny's finger and may be an evil conscience making him do bad things. The book version is more explainable and is connected to Danny's shining ability. It is a mental depiction of his older self (We later learn Danny's full name is Daniel Anthony Torrance) that is trying to protect Danny and see him through the troubles he is going through. Even the Overlook ghosts are given more depth. The woman in the bathtub? She was a woman who was in a relationship with the former manager and committed suicide. The tuxedoed man having sex with a man in a dog suit? They were the manager and a male lover in a dominant/submissive relationship. The hedge animals? They are manifestations of the Hotel's ghosts and Grady and Jack's anger. Without the book's context, the film just turns them into set pieces for Kubrick to show off his directing ability. (Though I do miss the Grady Sisters. They aren't in the book at all, though their father is.)
Also the movie destroys the ending where Jack's humanity remains long enough to get Wendy, Danny, and Halloran (who receives a telepathic .message from Danny to save him. In the book, he survives to become Danny's teacher but the movie makes his subplot pointless by killing him off.) to safety. Since we already know from the get-go Movie Jack has no redeemable qualities whatsoever he freezes to death outside the Overlook becoming one of its ghostly inhabitants. So what made him a subtle nuanced character slowly succumbing to madness, instead turns him into a loud obnoxious manic character who has no depth at all.
The Shining is among King’s best books. (My favorite is still Carrie), but the movie is a visually impressive film with little depth. It took what was good about the book and minimized it. The worst part is that it receives praise for doing so.
