The Shining - Let's Discuss! *SPOILERS*

[turtlex]

The Shining essay update:

Not yet complete, but nearing the end of my first draft!

If I don't finish and post it tonight, I should definitely be able to do so by tomorrow!

Be warned, this is LONG (already almost 20 pages, and not done yet!), and it isn't a "proper essay" with notes and references and all--but I don't try to claim other people's statements as my own, and if it needs help, perhaps my readers will offer some advice?

At any rate, I'm VERY proud of it, and of the insights I've come to, even while writing it--these are conclusions that haven't even occurred to me before, and I can't wait to share them!

: tapping turtle foot : waiting patiently and looking forward to your work

[John_and_Yoko]

Here it is at last! My apologies for its length and crudeness, but I hope at least the insights are worth putting up here....



The Shining vs. The Shining

Mention The Shining and any number of images come to mind: Jack Nicholson looking through a broken door yelling “Here’s Johnny!”, chopping away with an ax, pages and pages of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” a black and white photograph from 1921 showing a young Jack Nicholson, etc. These images primarily come from the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film and are unique to this version of the story, although many people are aware that the film was based on a 1977 novel by the popular author of horror fiction, Stephen King. While the film has in the minds of the masses (meaning those not immediately familiar with either) largely eclipsed the novel, and much of this acclaim is well-deserved, much of what makes the story great can be found in the original book. I personally consider it a disservice that most reviews of The Shining either focus primarily on the film or, when they do give more or less equal time to the novel, don’t go as in-depth as I’d prefer. I will therefore attempt to remedy this with my own review of both, as I am a fan of both.

Most people have some idea of the basic storyline of The Shining, which is common to both novel and film. An aspiring writer, Jack Torrance (a man with a history of violence and alcoholism), takes a job as winter caretaker for the Overlook hotel (which also has a history of violence and murder), intending to work on his writing during the months spent alone in the hotel with his wife Wendy and son Danny, the latter of whom has the unique gift of extrasensory perception (the “shining” of the title). But then Jack (possibly influenced by the ghosts of the hotel) goes mad and attempts to murder his family. The boy uses his shining to summon the cook of the hotel, Dick Hallorann, to come and rescue himself and his mother, but ultimately it is Danny himself who saves the day, defeating Jack and allowing himself and Wendy to escape the hotel and its evils, while Jack is not so lucky, meeting a tragic end in the Overlook.

This summary, while clichéd and uninteresting by itself, is the best summary of the common story found in the novel and film. However, both Stephen King’s novel and Stanley Kubrick’s film are more than the sum of their respective parts, hence their staying power. And yet few reviews I have read acknowledge the similarities between the two that exist beyond the plot itself. Certainly no one who is familiar with both can be unaware of the many differences between the two, but most reviews I’ve read exaggerate these. Most notable to me upon re-reading the novel is a lack of a proper redemption for Jack Torrance at the end (something which was only present in the 1997 TV miniseries Stephen King's The Shining and yet is commonly attributed to the novel): while the human Jack who loves his son does temporarily return and warn Danny, having been redeemed by his child, he disappears forever soon after this (illustrated visually by hitting himself in the face until the bloody mess that remains is more a conglomerate of all the “false faces” of the hotel, and therefore more accurately the personification of the hotel itself). The Jack Torrance who dies in the explosion of the boiler at the end of the novel is as wicked as the Jack Torrance who freezes to death in the hedge maze at the end of the film. Beyond the obvious difference in the type of demise for the story’s protagonist, the only difference here (as will be discussed later) is that the latter Jack Torrance is not even temporarily redeemed (although he does elicit one’s sympathy, as will be revealed).

But there are more similarities between the two than this. The horror element shared by both is the ambiguity found throughout. Specifically, the fact that neither is a straight ghost story, which by itself would only haunt those who actually believe in ghosts and would be no more than campy good fun for those who do not. Instead, the supernatural elements of both the novel and film take a backseat to the far more realistic (and therefore far more horrifying) stories to be found within. While the exact human stories being told do not concern us at this point, the fact remains that the ghosts do not show up as legitimate threats until relatively late in the story, and for most of this period they can be thought of as metaphors—in particular, they are only seen by Danny (who has the shining and can therefore see things no one else can) or Jack (who is losing his mind and may simply be hallucinating). The certainty that would come with knowing there are real and dangerous ghosts would be less terrifying than the discomfort of not knowing at all—at any rate, added to this is the (very real) danger that Jack will indeed lose control and attempt to hurt his son and/or his wife, which is a horror regardless of any other factors.

Another similarity common to both incarnations of The Shining is the parallel between the histories of violence found within both the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel, and the danger inherent in the two coming together. In both novel and film, it proves a dangerous and ultimately horrifying thing for a man with a history of having injured his son (as well as been violent with others), and who would like to put this behind him (but cannot) to serve as caretaker of a hotel where guests have engaged in murder, suicide, illicit sex, and other such crimes—something which the owners of the hotel would prefer to keep under wraps. But of course this parallel continues as both secrets come out and prove impossible to ignore. What’s more, the ambiguity only adds to our tension and discomfort, as we don’t know if there is a malevolent force influencing Jack or if it is coming entirely from Jack himself.

This leads to another parallel—that between Danny Torrance and Dick Hallorann, the two “shining” personas in the tale. This superhuman ability is not the only similarity between the two—even more crucial is their places in, respectively, the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel. Since both shine, both are aware of the violence and evil inherent within their respective units—and yet both are in positions of little power to do anything about it. Danny, being a child, cannot save his father from his weaknesses by himself, and cannot simply tell Jack not to take the job at the Overlook Hotel, even though he knows better. Likewise, Dick Hallroann, the cook at the Overlook, depends on the place for his job despite knowing the evil entity within (to some degree), and despite the fact that this entity clearly hates him (as evidenced by the fact that Delbert Grady refers to him as a “nigger”). It is only by their connection, their bond, that either is able to have a greater influence over things.

While the similarities between the two versions of The Shining go beyond the linear plot, far more obvious are the vast differences between the two. If Stephen King’s novel can be compared to the legend of Faust, Stanley Kubrick’s film can be compared to Lord of the Flies. The difference is effectively one of “evil from without” vs. “evil from within.” In the novel, Jack Torrance starts out as a flawed, often weak-willed, but inherently good man. However, his weakness makes him a tragic hero—he is an addict, which makes him vulnerable to exploitation by the malevolent presence at the Overlook hotel, the “Mephistopheles” of the story. But Jack’s addiction goes beyond simple alcoholism and into other areas of his life, particularly because he has been off the bottle for months: he becomes obsessed with his writing (an obsession for literacy that he has instilled in his son Danny, who struggles to learn to read on his own), and (even more importantly) he becomes obsessed with the Overlook Hotel itself.

As previously mentioned, the novel is effectively telling two stories—one supernatural, the other realistic, and the two mirror each other. What makes the supernatural elements so disturbing is the fact that they mirror a very realistic (and frightening) story that we see in the novel before the supernatural elements gain a foothold. Having no alcohol to drink, and frustrated in his writing (and more to the point, having lost his prep school teaching job and desperately needing income), Jack places all his eggs into a single basket—the Overlook Hotel and his caretaking job therein. If this fails, Jack the writer is doomed to become Jack the menial worker, which he considers beneath him. The hotel becomes his new addiction (especially after he discovers the scrapbook and the hotel’s dark secrets within)—and addiction it is indeed, as Jack grasps at increasingly pathetic straws in his attempt to justify staying, long after the hotel has clearly proven itself dangerous for the entire Torrance family. This leads to tension within the family, as Jack takes attacks on the hotel as attacks on himself (not to mention his resentment at having to support a family in the first place) and therefore outright violence breaks in the end. Such an outcome is far more frightening than a ghostly presence taking possession of an otherwise good man. But while this alone would make the book a thriller capable of reaching its readers’ primal fears, the fact that the ghosts effectively become a metaphor for this—and therefore make the disturbing atmosphere ambiguous—is the most frightening thing of all, and it is this element of the novel that makes The Shining work.

Stanley Kubrick’s film version of The Shining has ambiguity as well, but here it is used to a different end. In the film the evil comes not from the hotel or any other supernatural explanation, but from Jack Torrance himself. The primary significance of the Overlook Hotel in the film is that it is isolated from the civilized world—and therefore akin to the island in Lord of the Flies. In this sense, then, the “ghosts” become the “Beast” that turns out to be only human, and therefore the most frightening “beast” of all. The mirrors that recur throughout the film are a testament to the fact that the ghosts are but reflections of the real danger of the hotel—Jack—as well as reminders that he is himself but a reflection of past evildoers who have stayed at the hotel where they have committed their atrocities. Thus it is difficult to tell if Jack is being influenced by the ghosts of the past, or if these ghosts simply serve him as outside entities that allow him to deal with his own negative feelings towards his family.

In the film, Jack Torrance (as portrayed by Jack Nicholson) already shows clear signs of being resentful, even contemptuous, towards Wendy and Danny, but it is only after spending over a month in the hotel that he deliberately attacks them. In Kubrick’s world, civilization is itself only a mask (and not a very good one) for the “ignoble savage” (his words) that is man. While Jack shows clear discomfort being in close quarters with Wendy and Danny (seen as early as in the Volkswagen Beetle drive to the hotel), the civilization in which he grew up frowns upon violence and murder, so Jack is unable to act upon his impulses, instead suppressing them. Kubrick’s Jack tries to fight the growing madness just as much as King’s Jack does, but in this case it seems to stem not so much from guilt as a desire to protect his image—hence his attempts to block out his reflection as he heads to the Gold Ballroom where he first meets Lloyd. And just as Grady later refuses to acknowledge the murder of his wife and daughters, preferring to say that he “corrected” them, so too does Jack intend to preserve his image as caretaker of the Overlook hotel—in spite of the fact that in the film, he does nothing in the way of actual caretaking and instead only engages in destruction of the hotel. A thin mask he wears, indeed.

In fact, the ghosts appear to be (in the film) a way for Jack to cope with the conflict, as they represent his baser nature with which he initially tries to avoid identifying (witness his horrified expression when the seductive woman in Room 237 becomes a hideous walking corpse). This is why Jack only sees the ghosts when he is looking in the mirror--it is significant that, once he has made the decision to "correct" Wendy and Danny, Jack no longer sees any ghosts. The only other encounter he has is in the storage room, and there he only hears Grady's voice (which might well be in his own head). After this the ghosts are only seen by Wendy, which (as will be discussed later) indicates that she is seeing Jack's true nature, which horrifies her.

More to the point, however, is the fact that Jack’s inhibitions are lowered because he has no outlet for them. As large as the Overlook hotel is, being cut off from the world it effectively imprisons him both in body and in mind, only providing the illusion of freedom of movement (which basically means free will), and he cannot even come up with any good ideas for his writing project which would allow him to vent his frustrations legitimately. This being the case, he takes it out on the only two persons available to take the blame—his wife and son. Little by little his inhibitions are lowered until, like Jack Merridew and his hunters, he attempts to murder Wendy and Danny. And unlike in Stephen King’s novel, this beast’s face remains human—that of Jack Torrance.

But the most obvious difference of all lies with the endings of the two versions of the story, and both can be understood metaphorically. In the Stephen King novel, Jack Torrance is destroyed when he smashes his face with his roque mallet, thereby revealing a face that is a mesh of all the malevolent specters of the Overlook Hotel—these are then all destroyed when the boiler explodes, leading to a death by the flame. Like Faust, Jack Torrance’s soul is claimed by the devil and burns in hell (although the “devil” plaguing the hotel also appears to be destroyed). In the Stanley Kubrick film, however, after killing Dick Hallorann (which represents the id killing off the superego), Jack wanders into the hedge maze and is unable to find his way out—he freezes to death there, as lifeless as a statue. However, the film doesn’t end there—the photograph of Jack from 1921 indicates that the real beast (the human race in general) is eternal, and therefore cannot truly be killed, any more than can the Lord of the Flies himself. Rather than having ended, the film simply stops—it comes full circle and waits for the cycle to start again.

And yet there is even a more fundamental difference to be found—as stated earlier, Jack Torrance is as wicked at his death in the novel as in the film, and yet we feel sympathy for both Jack Torrances as they die. While this, as explained earlier, is a similarity, the reasons for our sympathy are inherently different, and therein lies the most crucial distinction between novel and film. In the novel we feel sympathy for the man that the “beast” once was, the loving family man that has degenerated into this horrible monster, and could not overcome that monster except temporarily, having sold away his soul. In the film there is none of this, as there is no “man the beast once was,” only a beast that looked like a man—that, indeed, was a man. There is also no redemption for the film’s Jack, not even a temporary one. There is no reason why audiences should feel sympathy toward Jack at the end of the film, not after what he tried to do to his son, yet we do. We feel that Wendy and Danny are not so much escaping as abandoning Jack to his fate. Kubrick has tricked his audience by making them identify with the monster, and there is the most horrifying mirror of all—the film is about us. We are the beast, and from such a threat there is literally no escape.

In his introduction to the 2001 edition of the novel, author Stephen King states that The Shining was his “crossroads novel,” by which he meant that he had the opportunity to set the bar higher than what he’d done with his first two novels, Carrie and ’Salem’s Lot. He chose to do just that, and the end result of his choice was that Jack’s father Mark Torrance, who was an abusive husband and father himself, was nevertheless a well-rounded individual, a human being (if a terribly flawed one), someone who loved his son and considered the young Jack his favorite. This therefore changes Jack’s past relationship with his father, as he both loved and hated the man, and in turn reflects on his current relationship with his own son, Danny.

Jack both wants and doesn’t want to be like his father, to be the sort of father that Mark would have been proud of (and that Mark was). And indeed, Jack both is and is not his father—being Mark’s son he has the same genes, and is subject to the same weaknesses, but at the same time he is a separate individual, and has the ability to choose to be different. But this is indeed difficult, as Danny is the same way—loving his father in spite of that father’s having harmed him in the past. In fact, Wendy (having had a poor sort of relationship with her mother, making her therefore a clingy sort) is jealous of this relationship, which she doesn’t quite share with Danny to the same degree, despite having never harmed Danny before. Perhaps the loving part of the relationship between fathers and sons is not so much in spite of the violence, but at least in some way because of it. In their own warped ways, the sons see their fathers’ brutality against them as caring, as “taking their medicine,” and that they should “take it like a man.” Indeed, Danny clearly does not appreciate Wendy’s help when he is trying to read his books, wanting to do it on his own. This idea, that violence is not always perceived as an evil, is truly chilling indeed, and goes a long way toward explaining why Jack is tempted to harm his own family in the novel.

Stephen King goes on in his introduction to say that his decision “took me a long way down the road to my current beliefs concerning…‘the horror novel.’” Clearly, then, The Shining is the novel wherein King truly began to find his way as an author of the horror genre, whereby he would go on to make his supernatural monsters stand in for actual human fears, thereby allowing them to be meaningful rather than mere campfire tales told for fun. The supernatural elements not only make the tales ambiguous (and therefore more frightening), but also serve to make the tales more palatable, since few people today believe in ghosts, vampires, etc. anymore. And King clearly believes that to ignore this fact of life is to do a great disservice, which is why he is so prolific in the horror genre.

Indeed, with The Shining, Stephen King was exercising catharsis, making Jack Torrance stand in for himself, and allowing himself to be rid of his frustrations and negative feelings toward his own wife and children in a way that would not harm them, or himself. Like Jack, the young Stephen King was an alcoholic, a smoker, and a dabbler in many other kinds of drugs (and would remain so for another decade), and he admitted to having “occasional feelings of real antagonism toward my children.” Jack Torrance, for Stephen King, appears to have been an example of “there but for the grace of God go I,” as Jack, unlike King, was unable to vent his frustrations in his writing, and was therefore left with no outlet for his frustrations other than to lash out at his family, something the ghosts of the hotel only encouraged.

This writer’s block and the frustrations that come with it appear to be the primary theme of the novel that appealed to Stanley Kubrick, when he had to decide on his next film. Up until that point in time, the five years between The Shining and his previous film, Barry Lyndon, was the longest the director had gone without making a film. Indeed, the novel was still in the early stages of being written when Barry Lyndon was released in theaters in 1975, and would not be published for a further two years.

Although Barry Lyndon found an audience in Europe, it failed at the box office in the United States. Being set in 18th-century Europe, it was likely difficult to find an audience for it in 1970’s America. This was particularly hard on Kubrick, as his reason for making the period piece was to make use of the exhaustive research he had done on the time period, originally meant to serve a biopic of Napoleon he intended to film, but was forced to abort.
After the successes of Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick intended to set his sights even higher with his Napoleon epic, going so far as to make and keep a card catalog that would allow him to know exactly where Napoleon was, what he was doing, and who was with him, at any point during his life. The original screenplay he wrote for this biopic (his first since Killer’s Kiss in 1955) is now available online, but was never filmed. Due to the box office failure of the similarly-themed Waterloo (directed by Sergei Bondarchuk and produced by Dino De Laurentiis) in 1970, among other factors, funding for Kubrick’s film was pulled, and the director was forced to give up his dream in the face of reality.

While this was frustrating enough, insult was added to injury when Kubrick’s own film Barry Lyndon, the closest thing to the Napoleon project he ever successfully filmed, also failed at the box office. Despite his earlier successes with Strangelove, 2001, and even A Clockwork Orange (controversial and low-budget though the latter proved to be), Kubrick the maverick director was forced to realize, more than ever, that he needed to learn to compromise. Though he refused to give up the intellectual, artsy brand of filmmaking which had come to characterize his career, he now knew that he needed a guaranteed moneymaker for his next project, meaning that he would have to go with something that was already popular, that already had an audience. This in and of itself was difficult for Kubrick, as it would mean controversy with the author and his fanbase if his film didn’t prove faithful to its source material.

This element of writer’s block and frustration became the cornerstone of the film adaptation of The Shining, in which Jack Torrance, the aspiring writer, intending to work on a great writing project, has “lots of ideas—no good ones.” Indeed, much of the film shows Jack not writing, and when he is he is clearly not enjoying it—refusing not only to let Wendy read what he’s written (and who can blame him when we realize why?), but to even let her in the Colorado Lounge when he’s working in there at all.

But the important part of this theme lies with the revelation of what Jack has been writing all this time—pages and pages of the same sentence, written over and over: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” However, the crucial element here, to me, is not that the same sentence is written over and over, but that it isn’t: if you look closely, the sentence changes subtly with each go, sometimes having improperly used spaces or punctuation, or misspelling words (such as “bot” for “boy”). To me, this is Kubrick looking down his nose upon hack writers (and other artists), saying “This is what they do—they create the same thing over and over again, only changing it slightly so that it looks different. They do it because it’s profitable and because they have no imagination. I don’t want to be that.” And indeed he was not that, as the film, while not ordinarily considered one of his best works, is ranked along with Psycho and The Exorcist among horror films and appears to have largely overshadowed even the novel that inspired it.

In a 1989 interview about his saga The Dark Tower, Stephen King said “Above all else, I'm interested in good and evil, whether or not there are powers of good and powers of evil that exist outside ourselves.” He went on to say that “it's easier for all of us to grasp evil, because it's a simpler concept, and good is layered and many-faceted. I've always tried to contrast that bright, white light of real goodness or Godliness against evil.” The implications of this are that, in King’s view of the world, people have inherent goodness, which is why we tend to notice the bad aspects of life and of human nature more often: we tend to take the good parts for granted because they’re more commonplace.

This worldview is fairly evident in most of Stephen King’s works, in which very often characters must face up to very dangerous enemies, both real and supernatural—and these aren’t always sentient (witness the superflu plague which decimates America in The Stand). A common thread throughout Stephen King’s works, regardless of genre, is that his characters are realistic, well-rounded, flawed individuals, not archetypal paragons of virtue—indeed, often in his works the main characters are children, the powerless—and therefore they are always unlikely heroes (and in many cases, as with The Shining, potential villains). This is King’s way of telling his readers “this could happen to you.” Ordinary people are put into extraordinary situations, and must make do with what they have in order to survive. But also running throughout his works is the existence of supernatural forces for good (as witness Tony in The Shining), and the fact that good characters are able to find each other and unite against evil (as with Danny and Dick Hallorann, as well as in the epic novels The Stand and It).

King writes about the horrific not only in the world beyond this one, but in this very world we inhabit, not merely to remind us that such horrors exist (which we know), but rather to remind us that such horrors can be defeated (which we don’t always know), and thereby showcase the goodness that humanity has to offer, the goodness that prevented the human race from, as he put it, blowing ourselves “to hell ten years after World War II was over.” It is for the same reason that fairy tales (such as his favorite, “Hansel and Gretel”) have stayed with us that Stephen King’s writing stays with us—they show human strength in the face of adversity. And he reminds us that we are not alone in our struggle—like Moses when he returned to Egypt to demand that Pharaoh let his people go, so too do Stephen King’s characters have the backings of higher powers, whether God or something else.

This clearly colors King’s approach to The Shining, as it is a tale of “evil from without.” For all Jack Torrance’s flaws—his perhaps misguided love for his abusive father, his own violent tendencies, his alcoholism and other addictions, his negative feelings toward others—he is at heart a good, sympathetic protagonist, one we can identify with, and if we come down on him for succumbing to the forces of evil at work in the Overlook, perhaps it is because we fear the same might happen to us if we were in his situation. Although Jack isn’t able to overcome the evil forces that have taken his soul entirely, he is able (however briefly), to say a heartfelt goodbye to his son before going off to die: “‘Doc,’ Jack Torrance said. ‘Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you.’” Thus is Jack Torrance a modern tragic hero in every sense of the word—he is the character we most identify with, but his flaw (his addictive nature) proves his undoing, and there but for the grace of God go we.

And yet this is not an unhappy ending—aside from the fact that Jack is able to take control again, however briefly, the demonic entity that has taken him is ultimately defeated, and defeated by none other than Jack’s five-year-old son Danny. This to me is the heart and soul of the novel—Danny, a little boy just learning how to read, becomes the redeemer, the true heroic figure of the piece. Even Dick Hallorann is laid low by Jack’s roque mallet (along with Danny’s mother Wendy), leaving Danny alone to face his possessed father. For it is Danny and his abilities the Overlook wants—child or no, he is the one with the power, only needing the knowledge and opportunity to use it. And in so doing he redeems his father, even if only for a little while. I think this is why Tony, Danny’s invisible friend, is effectively Danny himself ten years or so in the future—he is Danny, but he is a Danny who is not a powerless child. He is a supernatural force for good to combat the force of evil in the Overlook, and that force for good comes from Danny. The fact that Wendy and Jack are unable to see Tony suggests nothing more or less than that they cannot see Danny’s inner strength, his humanity, because he is so young and apparently helpless.

And that seems to me to be the fundamental truth that Stephen King is giving his readers: that even children are human, with power and influence, and that they can (read “should”) redeem their parents—becoming a parent should bring out the best in a person, for that child’s benefit, and for one’s own benefit. Indeed, Jack’s animosity toward Danny in the novel stems from this very responsibility, and the resentment resulting from it—it is because he is married with a young child that Jack needs this last opportunity to prove himself, to be the best kind of father he can be, and he doubts himself. Which makes it tug at the heartstrings all the more when he says his goodbye to Danny—not just because he is being consumed by a demonic entity that threatens his son, but because he is sorry for his resentment of his little boy who he loves and doesn’t want to hurt.

The Shining is a microcosmic tale with few characters, which means that the author has time to flesh out the characters so that we can understand their motivations and predict what they might do or say in a given situation—we feel like we know them, and we can relate to them, therefore we care what happens to them and want them to be all right, fictional though we know they are. In this way Stephen King proves himself a master at suspension of disbelief, which is crucial to appreciating a supernatural tale, especially one geared at adults who have a difficult time accepting the fantastic elements. Hence King reaches the “child within,” awakening our sense of wonder and making us appreciate his work on a deeper level.

In later years King would go on to write other tales in which he would cover the same kinds of themes, only looking at them from different perspectives or fleshing them out in greater detail. The Talisman, which he co-authored with Peter Straub, features a child hero named Jack Sawyer (underestimated and abused by the adults around him) who enters a world of the fantastic in which he makes friends with an older creature not found in our world, and in which he must do battle with an enemy that transcends the two worlds, one who hits close to home because he is the father of Jack’s best friend. The epic novel It has as its heroes seven children who met by fate to defeat a demonic terror, and who grow up and must get back in touch with their inner child in order to once again face and defeat It once and for all, and the main character Bill Denbrough must ultimately become reconciled with his family—in this case his wife Audra. And From a Buick 8 reminds its audience that not everything can be known, something which tends to frighten us but which is nevertheless a fact of life, one we would do better to come to terms with—although The Shining ultimately loses its ambiguity and has a clear-cut ending, while it exists the ambiguity is what frightens us as readers more than anything else, and yet it is simply telling us a fundamental truth about life: we do not, and cannot, know everything.

Stanley Kubrick has been quoted less often about his worldviews than has Stephen King, having kept to himself more (and having died in 1999), but from what we know about him, Kubrick and his views of the world were very different from those of Stephen King. And yet, as with King, Kubrick’s views show in his version of The Shining and in his other works.

In an interview with the New York Times about his 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick said that “Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved—that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure.” Kubrick demonstrates the darker, more evil side of the human race, as Stephen King does, but for a profoundly different reason—not as a means to an end, but as an end in and of itself. For Kubrick, the darker side of humanity is something we wish to sweep under the rug because we’re too afraid to acknowledge it, honest though it is, and with his films he meant to expose man for the “ignoble savage” that he truly is, lest we forget this fact and in so doing, commit more of our atrocities in future.

Consequently, Kubrick’s characters tend to be patently unsympathetic—often flat, cardboard cutouts with no emotional anchor for us (David Bowman and Frank Poole in 2001 come to mind, almost robotic in their actions and expressions). And on the rare occasions when a character in a Kubrick film is sympathetic, said character is usually of the most deplorable character imaginable (witness Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange). For Kubrick and his cinematic medium, character is not really important—indeed, many of his characters are arguably interchangeable—and neither is plot so much. What is important for Kubrick is themes, namely the theme of man’s inhumanity to man.

And yet, if there is morality to be found in Kubrick’s dystopian universe, it is found in freedom of expression (clearly something Kubrick felt strongly about, as he demanded creative freedom on all his films and felt stifled and angry when he could not have it, as when Kirk Douglas hired him to direct Spartacus). In an interview with Gene Siskel, Kubrick said that however undesirable individual evil is, it is still better than collective evil, as of a repressive government, religion, or other society (hence the sympathetic treatment of the heartless Alex DeLarge when his government brainwashes him into the “clockwork orange” of the title, a man incapable of choosing between good and evil at all).

Here again we see such themes enter into Kubrick’s film version of The Shining—however, in Kubrick’s case these themes were well-developed already, as the film came near the end of his career (he would only go on to make two more films after it, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut), while Stephen King’s novel came toward the beginning of his (being only his third published novel).

Unlike the Torrance family of the novel, Kubrick’s Torrance family is not, as might be expected when we first meet them, your friendly all-American neighbors. Although Wendy and later Jack do mention the fact that Jack once hurt Danny (dislocating his shoulder in this case, a better metaphor for the disorientation of the film than the broken arm of the novel), it is very difficult to imagine the characters and the hotel as having a past before the film that shaped the way they are now. Likewise it is difficult to imagine a future for them after the cameras cease to roll that will be shaped by the events of the film.

Danny (the one with the titular “shining”) is the character that touches us the least, as dull and uninteresting as Bowman and Poole are in 2001. Wendy is not dull, but she is a far cry from Stephen King’s Wendy—in the novel, Wendy was a stronger personality, and the main reason why she didn’t divorce Jack after he injured their son (she considered it but never acted upon it) is because of her messed-up relationship with her own mother. She doesn’t want to turn into her mother, driving her husband away as her mother did with her father, and she doesn’t want to admit weakness by crawling back to her mother (who has no faith in her daughter’s ability to do anything right), and so she sticks it out, trying to make it work. In the film, however, we get the sense that the reason Wendy doesn’t leave Jack is simply because she is a weak-willed person, afraid of being independent, of being a strong woman who doesn’t need a man. Indeed, she breaks down and sobs at the thought that Jack might not come with her and Danny when they leave the hotel. Even her relationship with Danny indicates this, as she is unable to get her son to obey her (as evidenced by her failed attempt to discourage him from going to the apartment to get his fire engine while Jack is supposedly sleeping)—Danny knows this and therefore sees no reason to listen to her. Perhaps he is picking up on his father’s disrespect for her?

As did Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick makes use of the “this is about you” idea that makes The Shining a truly horrifying tale, but he does so in a different, more subtle (and yet more profound) way. As mentioned earlier, mirrors are a common theme throughout the film—Jack only sees the ghosts when he is looking into a mirror, and even the first shot of the film is a mirror of sorts (a lake, perfectly reflecting the landscape above it). Kubrick is holding up a mirror to his audience, telling them that this story is about them—we are Jack Torrance, and so cannot take refuge in the fact that the movie screen separates us from him. Jack’s chopping away with an ax is a testament to this—there is no barrier, and we will never be safe.

Of all the Kubrick films preceding it, the one I can best think of to compare (or rather, contrast) with The Shining is A Clockwork Orange. In the previous film, Alex starts out free to commit the unspeakable acts of ultraviolence and rape that he loves so much, but is then captured by the government that commits the same acts of violence and sex that they see as delinquency in the teenaged hoodlum, and which they try to purge from him. They therefore render him incapable of being evil, but also incapable of moral choice and even of self-defense—in other words, he ceases to be human, instead becoming “a clockwork orange.” Therefore his declaration at the end, “I was cured all right,” is the closest thing to a happy ending Kubrick can give.

With Jack Torrance in The Shining you have just the opposite, basically: Jack starts out as “a clockwork orange,” unable to act upon his resentment and contempt of his family because society has brainwashed him into considering such feelings to be evil (as witness his past injury of Danny, which Jack would rather forget). But after being cut off from civilization for months in the hotel, this brainwashing subsides, until ultimately Jack is himself “cured” like Alex, although he is prevented from acting upon it (with the single exception of murdering Dick Hallorann). Thus being unable to further satisfy his cravings, Jack becomes little more than a beast with a weapon (like the apes with bone clubs in 2001), wandering aimlessly until he dies, and we are sorry for him. Thus The Shining is sort of a sequel to A Clockwork Orange, but with a tragic ending (unless we remember the photograph from 1921, which reminds us that evil exists as long as humanity exists, which may not be such a happy ending after all).

Both versions of The Shining are truly horrifying, and both are forever ingrained in the minds of those who experience them. But which is more effective, if either? We have already looked at the differences between the respective stories and their creators, now let us look at the differences in media and their relative merits and flaws.

The novel and film alike share a common theme of ambiguity, whereby we don’t see much in the way of the ghosts being a legitimate threat until far into both versions of the story, and when we do see them they can theoretically be understood as metaphors for Jack going insane, although we don’t know for certain. Indeed, this element of the novel appealed to Kubrick in terms of its horrifying nature. However, this ambiguity leads to different effects in novel and film.

In the novel, such inanimate objects as the fire hose and the topiary animals appear to come to life, but only move when one is not looking, making for more unsettling foes. This is more effective for the hose, as we never actually see it move out of the position it was in when it fell off its place on the wall, whereas the hedge animals have clearly moved when Jack (and later Danny) look again, they simply don’t move when they are being watched. Later in the novel, the living hedge animals largely lose their effect entirely, becoming almost a burlesque of the idea. This flaw, in my estimation, is due to the fact that the ambiguity is lost so early on in the novel—as early as when Danny has entered Room 217 and comes out of it with bruises on his neck, we know (if we didn’t suspect already) that the ghosts are able to harm Danny and his family, despite the persistent belief that they can only act through Jack. Rather than keep up the unsettling ambiguity, however, this only makes them look foolish and desperate in the face of danger.

In the film, however, the ambiguity goes on for far longer. Readers of the novel will assume that, as in King, the woman in Room 237 is responsible for Danny’s bruises. Indeed, Jack (the only real entity who could have done it, and the one Wendy blames) is in the Colorado Lounge having a nightmare, and is therefore nowhere near Room 237 where Danny was—or is he? The truly unsettling thing about Kubrick’s film is that things do not remain static and predictable, as they do in the novel, or in real life. If you’re paying attention, they actually change (perhaps most obviously in Grady’s change of name, from “Charles” in the interview to “Delbert” when Jack finally meets his ghost). And let’s not forget about the ghosts being mirror reflections of Jack’s beastly soul. Not having seen what actually happened to Danny, and forgetting the novel and its biases, there does appear to be evidence that it was Jack who inflicted the injuries upon his son—the tennis ball Jack threw against the walls earlier in the film rolls toward Danny, presumably from the room, whose door is open and has a key in its lock. In the novel, Danny was induced to take the key and go into the room, but not here. Who else has access to the keys? Even the fact that Jack is in a different place doesn’t make it clear-cut, as he is having a nightmare in which he is inflicting violence upon Danny (and Wendy). We cannot be sure….

If there is an end to the ambiguity in the film (doubtful in my mind), it is much later, with the sound of the storage room opening to let Jack out—but even this is ambiguous, as we don’t actually see anyone opening it, or how Jack gets out. And even the appearance of the ghosts to Wendy as she tries to escape the hotel can more be understood as a parallel with Danny trying to escape Jack in the maze—in other words, Wendy (who is never harmed but only frightened by the ghosts) is simply seeing Jack’s true bestial nature, and being horrified by it.

Even the ending is ambiguous, raising more questions than it answers—is Jack a reincarnation of a previous caretaker, explaining his déjà vu about the hotel? Does the hotel “absorb” him into the past? Is it meant to be understood only metaphorically?—and can only be compared, in my mind, to the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is more poetic and surreal than realistic, and yet this is more effective than straight realism, especially in the hands of a master.

However, while in the earlier film the ambiguity is simply meant to drive home the point that we can’t understand what is beyond us, in The Shining it emphasizes the unsettling nature of the entire film. We are given no breath of fresh air, no time to relax and tell ourselves, “it was just a movie—it wasn’t real.” Thus I think Kubrick does a better job with this element of the horror tale than does King—although to be fair, seeing the ghosts personally in a visual medium like a film makes it harder to think of them as false (thereby requiring Kubrick to show as little of them as possible for as long as possible in order to create a disturbing atmosphere). This is more easily accomplished in a novel which requires readers to use their imaginations, and is the one case where King has Kubrick beat in this regard.

Having discussed the horror element both tales share in common, let us now look at the respective artists’ differing approaches to horrifying us. In the novel, Stephen King’s approach is to make his characters as realistic as possible, so that we can see ourselves (or people we know) in the characters. He is able to do this because there are relatively few primary characters (unlike in, say, his next novel, the epic-length The Stand). This being the case, it is easier for us to imagine what we might do in such a situation (meaning what we would actually do, rather than what we might think we would). Jack, Wendy, and Danny all have histories that define who they are, and therefore determine how they react differently in a given situation. When added to real-world horrors like alcoholism, murder, suicide, etc., readers become very concerned for the characters (especially as we come to guess the likely outcome), and we want them to pull through this all right—we want them to live, we want them to prosper, and we want them to continue to love each other. The horrifying element is the idea that this will not happen—that their future will go down the drain, that the family bond will be broken, and (of course) that ultimately Jack will lose his sanity entirely and kill his family (and likely himself, as did Delbert Grady before him). This horrifies us because it happens all the time in the real world, and could theoretically happen to us.

Kubrick meets the same end by taking the opposite approach. As with his other films, Kubrick’s characters are archetypes, almost stereotypes, and unsympathetic (unless they are the perpetrators of evil). The film’s approach to horrifying us has to do with the reason for the mirrors and doubling prevalent throughout. Kubrick focuses on the horrifying event itself—a man trying to kill his wife and son—and tricks us into identifying with, and feeling sympathy for, the killer. We see his point of view a lot more often in the later parts of the film than would be expected in a traditional slasher film—for example, when he is chopping away at the doors with his ax, the camera doesn’t focus solely on his intended victims, but rather goes back and forth with Jack and his chopping. The camera even mimics the violence of each chop as Jack goes. Not to mention the fact that the film focuses on Jack until the end, even after Wendy and Danny have fled, and our sympathy lies with him and not them (similar to how our sympathy lies with HAL 9000 as Dave is disconnecting him in 2001, despite the fact that the computer has killed the other astronauts and tried to kill Dave). And the ending only serves to remind us that evil is born anew with each birth, so that it can never truly die at all.

In particular, I see the triad of male characters (Jack, Danny, and Dick Hallorann) as representing, respectively, the id, ego, and superego that fight for control of the human psyche. Jack, the ax-wielding killer, is clearly the id, while Dick Hallorann (who warns Danny to stay out of Room 237 and is ultimately killed by Jack) is the superego. Danny, the boy caught in the tug of war between his two father figures, represents the ego, the one who is aware of the situation (hence the shining) and able to determine what course of action is most practical. Thus it is fitting that, after Dick is killed, Jack then goes after Danny--with the superego gone, all that is left to keep the id in check is the ego, which Danny does as he abandons Jack in the maze. But Jack's death and our concurrent sympathy for him suggests that to cage the id is cruel and untrue to the human self.

In this case again, I think Kubrick did a better job. While Kubrick could be said to “trick” audiences into identifying with the amoral killer, so too could Stephen King (and most artists, for that matter) be said to “trick” us into sympathizing with characters by making them realistic and sympathetic. In other words, we are told who to sympathize with and who not to. Although Kubrick arguably does the same thing, he takes a different approach, making it more subtle, and the end result is that it is indeed a trick we notice. Possibly uninterested in the clichéd idea inherent in the novel, Kubrick makes no secret about what’s to happen in the film—during the interview at the beginning, he even sets it up to look almost like a satire of the horror film genre (similar to how Dr. Strangelove was a satire of Cold War thrillers), as Jack says of Wendy that she is “a confirmed ghost story and horror film addict.” Here, I think, Wendy serves as a stand-in for the audience, as she is initially excited at the prospect of staying at the Overlook, despite knowing of past horrors that went on there, but then comes to realize she is in a horror story and that the veil between past and present horrors is as false as the movie screen we think protects us. Kubrick has tricked us by giving us an element lacking in most of the horror genre, especially horror films: actual horror. He leads us into a maze of a film, as Danny leads Jack into the hedge maze, but he never lets us out.

In addition, since both versions of The Shining appear to make no secret of what's to happen, I feel that Kubrick's approach was better. Not only was it more subtle (no actual references to Jack chasing after Danny with intent to kill him, as there are in the novel), but Kubrick's choice to have the characters be archetypes makes such an option make more sense in that context. In the King novel it feels too much like a young author trying to dictate what's going to happen, and there are few real surprises, therefore the horrifying element is somewhat muted. My guess is that it's things like this that embarrassed King about The Shining in later years--it doesn't negate the horror element entirely, and thank goodness, but it could have been done better.

Let us turn now to the respective media used by the two artists. The literary medium and the cinematic medium are both very different, and what works for the one does not always work for the other. In particular, a novel requires multiple sittings in order to read in its entirety, due to its length. During this time, readers usually must take breaks and come back to it later. Thus it is crucial for its effect (especially if the effect is shock or disturbance, as in a horror novel), that a written work be memorable and interesting, so that readers will be able to get back into the flow of the story easily and, more importantly, will want to continue reading, to see how it plays out. Nevertheless, it must also have pauses, breathers, so that readers can feel free to take breaks when they need them. On the other hand, a film is meant to be watched all in one go, without breaks (this was even more the case when the film was in theaters in 1980, as nowadays one can pause it or—if watching it on television—wait for a commercial). Thus there can be no breathers at all, and the suspense must be accumulated over the course of a horror film right from the start. There is less free will with a film, therefore it is more gripping and, in the case of the horror genre, more potent if handled correctly.

On the other hand, movies freeze events in our minds, making us think of actors, sets, and camera angles when we reflect on it, rather than allowing us to use our imaginations as in a book. The closest way a film can substitute this is by not showing the horror (when possible) and letting viewers imagine it. The human imagination is always more powerful than anything viewable on screen anyway, and in the hands of a lesser filmmaker The Shining would not have this impact—indeed, the existence of the TV miniseries Stephen King’s The Shining proves this. Under Mick Garris’s direction and with the inferior special effects available to television, all the horrors of the novel become slapstick and silly, eliciting groans from audiences rather than chills—indeed, we would be laughing if we weren’t expecting to be scared. In this sense, then, Kubrick was a prime choice of director for adapting the novel to the screen. Both media have their merits and flaws, and both must be taken into account when discussing the merits and flaws of both works.

Also important to note is the fact that The Shining came near the beginning of Stephen King’s career, but near the end of Stanley Kubrick’s. Thus it is to be expected that King was not quite as seasoned an artist when he wrote the novel as Kubrick was when he directed the film, and that their respective versions would show evidence of this. Indeed, in the introduction to the 2001 edition of the novel, King would admit that “there is a cocky quality to some of The Shining’s prose that has come to grate on me in later years….” This can in fact be seen throughout the novel, as in Chapter 37 where the narration compares the windup key that activates the clock to Danny “activating” the ghosts and the eternal masque going on in the hotel. A more seasoned author might leave it to the readers to make such a connection ourselves. And this is not the only time King does this in his prose, nor even the first time. Having grown up on horror films (which Kubrick disdains), and it being early in his career (only his third novel), such mistakes are often to be expected and can perhaps be forgiven King—young writers are often mistaken in what they think of as good writing.

On the other hand, Kubrick’s film has a much more professional quality, coming as it did on the heels of Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lyndon, and being directed by a much older and more confident man. Indeed, he was confident enough not to feel restricted by the specific story that Stephen King told, but rather allowed himself to give his own take on the story, largely dispensing with everything that wasn’t backbone plot and remaking it in his own image. The Shining is the film adaptation of a novel that is least like the original novel (while still being comparable in greatness) of any I’ve seen. It is because of Stanley Kubrick’s immense talent and focus in his chosen medium (as well as the fact that people today tend to have more patience for his medium than King’s) that most people think of the film when they think of The Shining at all. As a case in point, an episode of “Friends” has Joey giving Rachel the book to read, but many of his “spoilers” came not from the book at all, but from the movie (such as the Grady girls and “All work and no play….”). To the credit of the writers of the series, some of the spoilers did indeed come from the novel (such as the boiler exploding at the end), but it seems that in this day and age, the movie (especially when directed by Stanley Kubrick) is able to make a greater impact, and this is not undeserved.

However, this is not to discredit the original source material—as stated before, I consider the novel itself to have greatness, and it likely wouldn’t have impressed Kubrick in the first place (not enough to make a film of it) if it were some sort of “hack job.” Indeed, in the introduction to the 2001 edition of Pet Sematary (the novel of his that frightened him the most), Stephen King said that “based on the mail…the one that does that [scares readers the most] is probably The Shining….” Coming a generation after the novel was originally published, this statement holds a lot of weight, and is a testament to the novel’s greatness. And in fact, I myself considered it the most frightening of his works that I read even after reading several others--the aforementioned hose and hedge animal scenes in particular impressed me, and upon re-reading I was even more frightened by the fact that I identified with Jack in terms of my relationship with my own family.

Indeed, as early as 1984, at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, he said that The Shining was the novel of his that was most likely to be taught in literature courses at the university level. And for my part, while I don’t deny the existence of evil in the world (including evil within), nor do I deny that Kubrick’s stated beliefs have truth to them, my own views about the world are closer to those of Stephen King—I don’t believe in the power of goodness over evil because I’m clinging to a fairy tale that lets me ignore the horrible truth, but rather because I see evidence of it myself (even when it is easy to take it for granted). I also prefer King's fleshed-out characters to Kubrick's archetypes, especially in the novel form--Kubrick was talented enough to get away with non-characters, but this is usually a no-no, and rightly so.

To sum up, both Stephen King’s novel and Stanley Kubrick’s film are great works of the horror genre, and just in general as works of art. They both take different routes in horrifying us, and they come to different conclusions about the human species (not to mention making use of different media to do so), and each has its merits and flaws, but each has its own particular greatness and I consider myself privileged to have experienced both. Both are cathartic exercises for their respective artists, showcasing their frustrations (which are common in the human experience and resonate with us all), and both reflect their creators’ respective worldviews, which is precisely what great art should be. And while neither is its creator’s best work, necessarily, both have staying power with those who experience them. They tell us truths that we can relate to, they tell us about ourselves, and that only enhances their greatness, as it ensures that the stories will stay with us forever.

[Heather19]

Thanks for posting. I'll read thru it later when I get a chance.

[Darkthoughts]

Blimey!!

Whenever I try to post anything that long, I hit reply by which time I've been logged out and my post is lost in the voids of cyber space

[John_and_Yoko]

Heh....

Does anyone have anything constructive to say about my essay? I'm really curious to know what everyone thinks....

[Mordred Deschain]

Love the shinning

[ladysai]

Heh....

Does anyone have anything constructive to say about my essay? I'm really curious to know what everyone thinks....

I think it was well written and thoroughly thought out.
I enjoyed it.
But, I disagree about the main difference between the film and the book.
To me, the book was focused on Danny, and his trials and tribulations more than on those of his father. (of course, all the trials of Jack bore significantly on Danny's life)
The focus on Jack in the film lost so much of Danny and his perspective, and (more importantly, in my mind) on his gift of 'the shine'.
My two cents only...taking nothing away from your fine essay.

[John_and_Yoko]

I think it was well written and thoroughly thought out.
I enjoyed it.
But, I disagree about the main difference between the film and the book.
To me, the book was focused on Danny, and his trials and tribulations more than on those of his father. (of course, all the trials of Jack bore significantly on Danny's life)
The focus on Jack in the film lost so much of Danny and his perspective, and (more importantly, in my mind) on his gift of 'the shine'.
My two cents only...taking nothing away from your fine essay.

Thank you for your comments!

And no, it doesn't take anything away--the book definitely gets into Danny and his gifts a LOT more than the film does--but I still disagree that the novel was entirely focused on Danny, or more so than Jack. Having re-read the novel before writing the essay, the primary focus appears to be on Jack, and he and Danny sort of "mirror" each other (as with their obsession with the written word--Jack with his writing, Danny with his reading, as I mentioned in the essay).

But hey, the point of discussion is to look at different points of view, right?

[ladysai]

But hey, the point of discussion is to look at different points of view, right?

Exactly right.

[John_and_Yoko]

So, any other comments to make, by you or anyone else...?

[ksmithcats]

The Shining was the first King book I ever read and is still my favorite. I've read it so many times I almost know it by heart yet each time I re-read it, it speaks to me in a different way.

One thing that I don't think anyone has touched on yet is Jack's alcoholism. King's writing in regard to the effects of alcoholism on Jack's inner struggle and overt action is just so true to life. As is the wife and child's life...having to deal with the alcoholic, fearing a relapse, trying to trust. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this having lived with a really emotionally abusive/manipulative alcoholic who has been sober for 2 years. Anyway....I ramble....

I enjoyed both the movie and miniseries and don't think either can hold a teeny candle to the book. There's just so much going on that can't be "shown" to an audience via film.

The most exquisitely terrifying moment to me was when Danny was playing in the tunnel and became temporarily trapped with God knows what. I'm just claustrophobic enough for that to make me nuts.

Guess which room Mike and I stayed in at Washington DC's Hilton Garden Inn.....

I was so excited.

[John_and_Yoko]

One thing that I don't think anyone has touched on yet is Jack's alcoholism. King's writing in regard to the effects of alcoholism on Jack's inner struggle and overt action is just so true to life. As is the wife and child's life...having to deal with the alcoholic, fearing a relapse, trying to trust. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this having lived with a really emotionally abusive/manipulative alcoholic who has been sober for 2 years. Anyway....I ramble....

Did you read my above essay?

I touched upon his addiction and how it colors his behavior in the book. Granted, I neither am nor have been an alcoholic (nor have had one in the family) but I could see that when I re-read it recently. (And I am prone to addictions, which is why I've never done drugs of any kind....)

[ksmithcats]

*blushes*....no, I didn't read the whole thing. I'll go back and give it my proper attention.

[John_and_Yoko]

*blushes*....no, I didn't read the whole thing. I'll go back and give it my proper attention.

It's all right--I know it can be intimidating, being that long....

But yeah, I did see evidence of that, and consider it important to the particular story that Stephen King was trying to tell (won't go into further detail since it's already in the essay).

But please let me know what you think when you do read it.

[Mordred Deschain]

I love this book

[John_and_Yoko]

I love this book

Um.... Spam much?

[Darkthoughts]

And you're accusing Mord of spam?

[Mordred Deschain]

are you accusing me of spamming or eatin spam?!? I consider both a supreme insult!! Well, not so much eating spam, er...but you know what I mean

I LOVE THIS BOOK!! heheheheh...

[turtlex]

JandY ( cripes, I almost started that JandL again! ) -

First off, wow. That's quite a document. You make some outstanding points and bring up things I'd not considered.

I will say that I am more familiar with the film than I am the novel, so I do come at this essay with that mindset.

Comparing the Kubrick film to the Lord of the Flies - I assume you're comparing the film to the book ( LoTF ) here. That's an interesting angle regarding the "evil from within" and the "evil from without" themes. I'd not made any connection between them. Though I am not a big fan of the Lord of the Flies book ( to me, it is far too obvious and rather hits you over the head with it's themes ), I didn't find that to be the case with the movie.

I do disagree largely on one point, and it could be that I am not reading your thought correctly - but comparing Kubrick's Shining and saying that he made only two more movies is rather misleading. He passed away pre-maturely. It was by no means a reflection on his abilities or opportunities, etc. It's not as if he had a lifetime in front of him, and only managed two more films. He was taken from us early, where-as Sai King was relatively young. I'm not sure I'm clear on my point here, and I'll edit it if I can word it better.

You call Jack Torrance, amongst other things, "flawed" but "inherenetly a good man". I'm not sure I agree with this either. I do not see him as heroic at all. I do not feel sympathy for him. I can understand he is going mad, but his behavior ( past and present ) mean that from where I am coming from, he's a threat to his family and always has been. I'm not sympathetic to that. Basically, it is that "you know he's going to crack" essence that brings on and builds the suspense.

These are some amazing conclusion and really inspire me to go and watch the film again and give the book another read. I've not spent much time with either in many, many years.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights. This is impressive.

[John_and_Yoko]

Thank you very much for your reply!

Yeah, I know it's long, which is a deterrent, but I can't help it--that's how I do things. Would you believe I actually left out a LOT with that essay? But yeah, a lot of those conclusions were insights that didn't even occur to ME until I actually wrote it (meaning I thought of some before the fact, but not all of them).

Yeah, Lord of the Flies as such is a little obvious with its themes (kind of Orwellian, even though Orwell didn't write it). But even in terms of its lack of characterization, I think the film of The Shining can be compared to it. Actually I never finished the book, only watched the film (and I'm actually glad they didn't make the Lord of the Flies talk in that).

I don't know exactly what you think I was saying when I mentioned that Kubrick only made two more films, but that alone indicates misinterpretation. My point was that he was much further along in his career when he made his version of The Shining than Stephen King was when he wrote the book, and that therefore Kubrick had had a lot more time to develop his own artistic voice and themes than King had, and that part of the reason for a greater level of professionalism in the film than the novel is due to that.

Certainly I never meant to suggest that Kubrick was getting old and feeble, having "jumped the shark" as far as his career was concerned, or anything like that. All I really meant to say in that arena is that it was in the period of his career BEFORE The Shining that he had his biggest successes and was able to make the kinds of films he wanted to make, without interference. But starting with The Shining, he was learning he needed to be aware of what other films were being made and what was popular, in order to determine what kinds of films he could make, which he couldn't have enjoyed.

And I know he died early (only four days after turning in Eyes Wide Shut), but it's also true that he had two "failed attempts" at making a film after Full Metal Jacket, before he found his keeper in Eyes Wide Shut. First he was going to make a Holocaust film in the early 1990's called Aryan Papers, which he scrapped after Schindler's List came out, and then he was going to do A. I.: Artificial Intelligence, but then turned that over to Steven Spielberg to direct, and the project was stalled. That's why there were twelve years between his last two films.

I don't know about "heroic" (I mostly meant "hero" in the conventional sense of a protagonist), but he does seem to genuinely love Danny, and in some cases he even seems to love Wendy as well, though there's more negativity there, I think. The problem is that love is tainted by resentment and frustration. My point is that all those elements, the good and the bad alike, go into Jack Torrance, and he can't really be separated from any of them (just like in real life).

Also, in this case at least, you said you were more familiar with the film, and while what you say is the case in the film, it seems less so in the novel. I don't know if you were thinking of the novel there or not, but I call it as I see it.

Anyway, hope I've clarified my points, and thank you very much again for reading and replying! I'm glad if I inspired someone to read the novel and/or see the film again! And now you've really made my day!

(And I think I've just proven anew my tendency to ramble, with this very post....)

[turtlex]

JandY - Thank you for the essay. It is an impressive document. For sure. I meant no disrespect regarding it's length, just that it was hefty in proposed themes, etc. An impressive report.

Thanks for the clarification regarding Kubrick and his career and early death. We are going to have to agree to disagree about Eyes Wide Shut though, and it being his "keeper". Barry Lyndon - I did not like. It was bloated and over done, I'm not surprised that it didn't catch on, as it were. I did enjoy Full Metal Jacket and found it engaging and entirely watchable, even though the topic isn't a comfortable one. Kubrick had so much more to offer, he is missed for sure. I, for one, am saddended that EWS is his swan-song.

My thoughts regarding Jack genuinely loving Danny... he terrorizes the kid, intentional or not. He physically harms him. I just can't work up sympathy for a guy that abuses his family, due to alcohol or madness. His acts speak louder, I feel to the reader and the viewer. Wanting to be a good father and husband, and then abusing your family ... that sort of negates the "wanting to be" part for me.

For sure I will take another look at both the film and the novel, and come at both with fresh eyes.

Thanks for posting, and no, you're not rambling, you're sharing your insights.

[theBeamisHome]

JandY.... i only read the first half of the essay regarding the comparison of the novel to the Kubrick film. i just watched the film this week and i was trying to get the similarities and differences between the two together in my mind.. your essay helped a lot with that. and i must say one thing i completely agree with is the sympathy that we feel for Jack in the film... even though he was completely monstrous. i noticed as i was watching the film how uncomfortable he was around his family... what i found interesting was how he tried to justify himself to the ghosts when Wendy believed he had choked Danny, saying that he loved "the little motherfucker" and "would do anything for him"... that sort of made me go... hmmm... so does he mean that? or is he saying that because, as you said, he blames his family for his predicament? i personally believe it's the latter.

i haven't reread the novel in a while... i don't have it with me.. it's with my little library in NJ .. but i thought that the hotel wanted Danny and was using Jack.. or is that from the miniseries?? soo confused, but since you just read it i'm sure you can help.

[John_and_Yoko]

I'm glad to hear my essay helped you in your assessment!

And yeah--even in the car drive to the hotel, he shows that. His reaction to Danny saying he's hungry is patently unsympathetic: "Well, you should've eaten your breakfast."

Actually he said "I love the little son of a bitch," but yeah--the fact that he felt a need to CALL Danny that suggests that he doesn't (not to mention the weird way he was acting when he and Danny were on the bed together).

And yeah, it was in the novel that the hotel was using Jack to get at Danny and his power, because Danny "shone" more than anyone Dick Hallorann had ever met. And it lied to Jack, claiming HE, the caretaker, was the one the hotel wanted.

Anyway, hope that helps!

[theBeamisHome]

yes it does. that is exactly what i thought. very good essay!

[John_and_Yoko]

I'm glad. And you're welcome!

My thoughts regarding Jack genuinely loving Danny... he terrorizes the kid, intentional or not. He physically harms him. I just can't work up sympathy for a guy that abuses his family, due to alcohol or madness. His acts speak louder, I feel to the reader and the viewer. Wanting to be a good father and husband, and then abusing your family ... that sort of negates the "wanting to be" part for me.

I've actually now added a paragraph addressing that. Basically it says that the inevitability of what happens (in both versions) works better in the film since the characters are archetypes, whereas in the novel they just seem trapped by fate and unable to do anything about it.