Here comes "Stanley Kubrick's epic nightmare of horror." The Shining. This 1980 psychological horror drama film produced and directed by Kubrick, adapted by Kubrick and Diane Johnson, and based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name. Jack Torrance becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy, and his son, Danny, who is plagued by psychic premonitions. As Jack's writing goes nowhere and Danny's visions become more disturbing, Jack discovers the hotel's dark secrets and begins to unravel into a homicidal maniac hell-bent on terrorizing his family.
After the divided critical reception and commercial failure of Barry Lyndon (1975), Kubrick sought to find his next project that would be commercially viable as well as artistically fulfilling. Kubrick's staff brought him stacks of books in his search for his next film. His secretary could hear him throwing rejected books at the wall in his office. One day, he started reading King's novel and, after a few hours, when his secretary hadn't heard the familiar sound of a book hitting the wall, she knew he had found his next project. Kubrick then began adapting King's novel. Kubrick rejected a screenplay written by King. King's script was a much more literal adaptation of the novel, than the film Kubrick would ultimately make. He then hired Diane Johnson because he admired her novel The Shadow Knows. A lengthy pre-production phase began, Kubrick had sets constructed on soundstages at EMI Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, Britain. Some of the interior designs of the Overlook Hotel set were based on those of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park. To enable him to shoot in chronological order, he used several stages at EMI Elstree Studios in order to make all sets available during the complete duration of production. The set for the Overlook Hotel was at the time the largest ever built at Elstree. While most of the interior shots, and even some of the exterior shots, were shot on studio sets, a few exterior shots were shot on location by a second-unit crew. For the role of Jack Torrance, Jack Nicholson was Kubrick's first choice. King tried to talk Kubrick out of casting Nicholson, suggesting, instead, either Michael Moriarty or Jon Voight. King had felt that watching either of these normal-looking men gradually descend into madness would have immensely improved the dramatic thrust of the storyline. Kubrick disagreed. For Wendy, Shelley Duvall was first and only choice. Like Nicholson, King also disliked the casting of Duvall as Wendy. King said that he envisioned Wendy as being a blond former cheerleader type who never had to deal with any true problems in her life, making her experience in the Overlook all the more terrifying. He felt that Duvall was too timid and dependent, basically the exact opposite of how he pictured the character. For Danny, Cary Guffey, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) was Kubrick's first choice. Guffey's parents apparently turned down the offer, due to the film's subject matter. Ultimately, after an extensive search in the United States for the right boy, Danny Lloyd was cast. Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, and Joe Turkel rounded out the cast.
In early May 1978, principal photography commenced, and took nearly a year, due to Kubrick's perfectionism. Kubrick often worked with a small crew which allowed him to do many takes, sometimes to the exhaustion of the actors and staff. The film was originally supposed to take seventeen weeks, but it ultimately took fifty-one. The film saw a prolonged and arduous production period, often with very long workdays. Anjelica Huston, who lived with Nicholson during the time of the shooting, recalled that Nicholson would often return from a day's shooting, walk straight to the bed, collapse onto it, and would immediately fall asleep. Where as Duvall did not get along with Kubrick, he allegedly picked on her more than anyone else. This was apparently Kubrick's tactic in making her feel utterly hopeless. Duvall eventually became so overwhelmed by the stress of her role that she became physically ill for months. At one point, she was under so much stress that her hair began to fall out. The shooting script was being changed constantly, sometimes several times a day, adding more stress. Nicholson eventually became so frustrated with the ever-changing script that he would throw away the copies that the production team would give to him to memorise, knowing that it was just going to change anyway. He learned most of his lines just minutes before filming them. Despite Kubrick's fierce demands on everyone, Nicholson admitted to having a good working relationship with him. Duvall, however, later reflected that he was probably pushing her to her limits to get the best out of her, and that she wouldn't trade the experience for anything, but it was not something she ever wished to repeat. Despite this, Kubrick spoke very highly of her ability in interviews, and found himself quite impressed by her performance in the finished film. Kubrick also had a good relationship with Lloyd. In later interviews as an adult Lloyd mentioned that Kubrick even used to play ball with him; for years after the movie Kubrick sent Christmas cards to the Lloyd family and even phoned Danny to congratulate him for his high school graduation. The newly invented Steadicam mount was used to shoot several scenes, giving the film an innovative and immersive look and feel. The Steadicam inventor and operator, Garrett Brown, was heavily involved with the production. Kubrick personally aided in modifying the Steadicam's video transmission technology. Brown states his own abilities to operate the Steadicam were refined by working on the film.
Carlos and Elkind were hired to write and perform a full electronic score for the film. But, like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Kubrick discarded most of it and used a soundtrack of mostly classical music. Only the adaptation of Hector Berlioz's Dream of a Witches' Sabbath, from Symphonie fantastique, survive in the final version. Carlos has said that she was so disillusioned by Kubrick's actions that she vowed never to work with him again. Saul Bass reportedly produced around three hundred versions of the film's poster before Kubrick was satisfied. On May 23, 1980, the film was released. The film had a slow start at the box office, but gained momentum, eventually doing well commercially during the summer of 1980 and making Warner Bros. a profit. King was quite disappointed with the final film. While admitting that Kubrick's visuals were stunning, he said that was surface and not substance. He has expressed disappointment that his novel's important themes, such as the disintegration of family and the dangers of alcoholism, were absent in the film. King eventually re-adapted it as a 1997 miniseries that followed his book more closely. It opened at first to mixed reviews, but, as with most Kubrick films, the assessment became more favourable in following decades, and it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential of all horror films. In 2001, it was ranked twenty-ninth on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills list. Film critics Kim Newman and Jonathan Romney placed it in their all-time top ten lists for the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. In 2004, Total Film ranked it as the fifth greatest horror film. In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Critics like Jonathan Romney and Roger Ebert wrote that the film has been interpreted in many different ways. Ebert ultimately concludes that "The movie is not about ghosts but about madness and the energies." These varied interpretations spawned the 2012 documentary Room 237, directed by Rodney Ascher, which provides an in-depth exploration of various interpretations of, and myths surrounding, the film. In April 2019, a 4K resolution remastered extended version from a new scan of the original 35mm camera negative of the film was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The length is listed as 143 minutes.
Despite only minor additions, unsettling performances were still given by the cast with the same old harrowing horror. Nicholson gave, probably, the most definitive performance of mental instability that lurks within anybody with even one percent chance of going insane. Duvall's performance wasn't much of an improvement as I would have liked, but nonetheless still effective as the timid, dependent and constantly hyperventilating wife. Finally, Lloyd's star turn performance is as phenomenally unsettling as he is amazingly adorable.
The Shining finds its triumph in restating that not only horror comes from the darkness but also within the damaged psyche. A must-see theatrical experience, but the first cut remains the one worth preserving. It made a lasting impression on this cinephile, seeing it first as a young teenager and then hundred times more since. This new cut of the beloved classic absolutely deserves to be seen in theatres.
Simon says The Shining: Extended Cut receives:
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