Kubrick's Kafkaesque style of writing makes "The Shining" a perfect horror film.

Rating: 9/10 (25 May 2000)

In an interview with Michel Ciment, Kubrick discussed Kafka's writing style--to him, Kafka's stories are "fantastic and allegorical, but his writing is simple and straightforward, almost journalistic." Kubrick didn't hesitate to point out that all the films that have been made of Kafka's work "seem to have ignored this completely, making everything look as weird and dreamlike as possible." Kubrick made a note of this in his film "The Shining."
"The Shining" seems to be the simple story of a family of three watching over a large mountain resort hotel over the winter. However, it's more than that--it's a horror story dealing with the supernatural and the fantastic, elements Kubrick felt make up the "golden age of the 20th century." The film depicts life in the Torrance household as quiet and ordinary, with Jack as the aggressor in any arguments that may occur. Kubrick's adaptation of the novel by Stephen King (a clever but unserious work) is both satiric and serious, bringing about elements of the unconscious in scenes where Jack, Danny, and Halloran all have "shinings," or visions. Kubrick brings his blend of surrealism to the screen when he makes the world of the unconscious real, making schizophrenia in Jack's mind the focus of the film. The film itself starts out as a sort of brochure for the Overlook Hotel, told simply, yet with underlying tones of madness especially in the voices of Jack and Danny. And in this story, Jack's madness erupts without a glimmer of special effects or makeup, simply through Jack Nicholson's excellent performance.
Surreal visions occur early in the film; we see Danny's shining of the elevator gushing out blood, an artery bursting in the Hotel body. Jack's mind is at first normal, real, during the interview with Ullman and during Closing Day. We watch him as he suffers writing block--sleeping in, messing around with his typewriter (or not), bashing the tennis ball against the wall, etc. This is all told very simply but with a tone of surrealism, as the hotel slowly takes over Jack's mind. His talk with Lloyd seems real, just two guys having a conversation, only the character of Lloyd is not real, but a figment of Jack's imagination. We the audience then feel that everything we see is all in Jack's mind, that what we're watching onscreen is the mental breakdown of a failed and embittered writer. Only when Delbert Grady frees Jack from the freezer, and apparitions appear in full form to the rest of the Torrance family, do we realize that the film has been a horror story after all, completely with ghosts and blood and suspense. This is Kubrick's style, in the spirit of Kafka--writing simple and straightforward yet with something deeper we may not initially see.