When I finished writing my NET on the hot evening of 28 June, 2015, I was physically and mentally exhausted. I wanted to go home, flop on my bed and sleep for 48 hours straight. I was also relaxed and excited for a gigantic load was off my chest. The exam I had prepared strenuously for, for the last 365 days was finally over. I felt like a man let loose after having spent many years in prison. An Egyptian mummy brought back from the dead.
I wanted to shout out, sing as they do in Bollywood movies, but didn’t as I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. So, I went home, had a warm meal, settled in my dark bedroom, and started a Hollywood movie marathon — my idea of heaven. So excited was I that I could have cried with joy.
One of the movies I watched that night had a desolate hotel in the middle of nowhere with no people to keep you company. It also had a sinister writer addicted to alcohol, a child with psychic abilities, and a vulnerable mother — a perfect setting for horror. The movie I watched that night was 'The Shining'.
Imagine a situation where your lovely husband is offered a winter caretaker position at a remote hotel. You have made plans, and are looking forward to the days of luxury and peace, but when you reach there, it snows for days and you are stuck in the haunted hotel, sprawled over an expanse of several football fields, and there’s nobody around for miles. Have I already said that? Okay! I want to emphasize how lonely and hopeless it gets there. To add to the misery your husband takes to drinking and the evil hotel starts possessing him. Deranged and hallucinating, he starts talking to himself in a disturbing manner, sees ghosts, and becomes murderous.
That is the plot of the movie 'The Shining'.
Based on a Stephen King novel (1977) with the same name, the movie released in 1980. This horror flick was produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Jack Torrance, the writer played by Jack Nicholson is threatening from the start as against the novel where he is easy and affectionate and slowly descends into madness. He cuts his wife, bashes her head in, gouges her eyes out, separates her head from her body, and chops her to pieces. He speaks in soft menacing whispers, rolls his eyes, and gives deranged smiles. The terror is visceral here. It's as real as it can get.
Wendy Torrance, the wife played by Shelley Duvall, is a woman you see every day. She's tall and thin with shoulder-length hair and teeth slightly protruding from her mouth. She could be your friend, sister, aunt or niece and if you got out of your house to go to the supermarket, you'd definitely run into her. Physically weaker than her husband, easily tired and frightened, she must find a quick escape or be slaughtered like a goat for a feast.
The cinematographer John Alcott does a spectacular job at capturing the beauty of the snow-capped mountains, the lovely, winding road through the hills, and the dread of the Hotel Overlook. Also watch out for the blood-spilling elevators, the spooky twins calling out to Danny to ‘play with them forever and ever’, and the ‘bar scene’ that was practiced for six weeks.
Background score can make or break a horror movie. It is one of the top three things essential to create the atmosphere. The modernist music for the film was a collection selected by Kubrick from as many as five composers. The pieces of the music were not used in the original form. They were matched to the motion pictures in bits and pieces thus giving the spectators a distorted feel. The result is a remarkable emotional impact on the audience.
What makes ‘The Shining’ the greatest horror film of all time is its ambiguous ending, its openness to interpretations, incredible performances, its influence on today’s movies, attention to details such as the set design, the costumes, the actors’ facial expressions, and the camera movements. The movie is as much suspense and thriller as it is a horror. It has a running time of around two and a half hours, but there isn’t a scene there that doesn’t belong. The pace of the movie is spot on and the images, that are now considered iconographic, will live with you long after you have watched the movie.
A story is told about the genesis of the movie. Kubrick, who had earlier directed Barry Lyndon (1975), a period drama, was disappointed when the movie failed at the box office. He then decided to direct a film that would attract an audience and also satisfy his artistic instincts. He sat in his office and asked his staff to bring horror novels to him. His secretary would hear the novels being hurled at the walls day after day after he’d read only a few pages. But one day she did not hear any sound and walked into his office to find him absorbed in ‘The Shining’.
The adjectives 'blown away', 'awesome', 'mind-blowing' are used so carelessly by people these days that they use it for anything and everything thus making them commonplace. They should be reserved for such rare pieces as 'The Shining'.
A great movie is like a cherished memory. It makes a place in your heart, stimulates your mind, and subsumes into your existence. You are talking to your friend and it appears unannounced in your conversation. It’s much like loving a person. You might have met them many times, talked to them, but you still want to see them one more time. ‘The Shining’ is one such movie.
If you haven't already watched it, stop reading right here and run to your nearest DVD store. Then watch it one time and one more, for a thing of beauty (or horror?) is a joy for ever.
- Vinod Jangle
Full-time Faculty, ELTIS