A sense of failure

Rating: 8/10 (11 February 2008)

Stanley Kubrick made one of his most commercial films based on this Stephen King story, and while it's not one of my favorite Kubrick films nor one of my favorite horror films I do think it's a very effective bit of cinema, and one that really used to chill me when I saw it as a kid. Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall are both great in my opinion, though Nicholson sometimes is a bit too over the top. I even noticed in one scene where he seemed to be channeling Bruce Dern because his psycho act looked basically the same as Dern's in various biker movies they made together. Duvall's taken a lot of heat for the movie, but frankly people should take note of the fact that Kubrick never got a great performance from any actress in any of his movies. Maybe a lot of the problem is with Kubrick is what I'm saying and not with Duvall. Her work in the film seems perfect to me -- in the beginning she's the very image of a co-dependent, making expert excuses for her husband's abuse of their son, and when Jack has his melt-down she goes into a very convincing "mama bear" mode protecting her son above herself.
I'd like to talk about some of the themes in the book that draw from both King's work and Kubrick's work in general. First of all there's this prevalent image of the corridor, both in the hallways of the Overlook Hotel and also in the hedge labyrinth (and references back to corridor shots in "2001" and even as far back as "The Killer's Kiss"). I think the sense of this image is that freedom of movement and freedom of thought are to a certain extent an illusion. When you're moving down a corridor you're under your own volition, but there's only one direction you can actually move in without turning back. And don't turn to the side, don't think you can go into room 237 to find some kind of escape or release. It's important that the image is of Danny on a "big wheel" tricycle; those were very popular at the time and I'm about the same age that Danny was supposed to be and for us kids in the late 70s those big wheels were like the equivalent to how kids from the 50s talk about cars when they were grown ups. Heck I can still remember this feeling of freedom when I would ride my big wheel around the cul-de-sac, and I remember one time when I was very small crying because someone had parked their car out so far in the drive-way that I couldn't get around them without going into the street. So there's this feeling of freedom associated with the big-wheel, and yet it's a kind of illusory freedom, just like the corridor itself.
It all ties into the sense of personal failure that seeps through the cracks of the Torrance family. And Jack is a man who feels very much trapped in his family, that his needs as an individual have been sacrificed for its sake. He finds something he loves even more in the Overlook, and thinks that he has chosen this path even though it must have been chosen for him; of the two men in the family who have "the Shining", he's clearly the less talented and the one that the Hotel could manipulate more easily. The mania takes the form of an obsession with the fact that he has "signed a contract" to take care of the Overlook and that he sees the rest of the family as an obstacle to that "sacred trust" -- yet he doesn't even take the time to keep the generators running, he lets his wife do all that actual work. So he's not truly concerned about the "trust" but moreso the fact that it allows him to believe that he has chosen his path instead of having it chosen for him. His aspirations as a writer, his failed attempt at a teaching career, and finally as a father he has ended up a failure. Danny's mental problem and his fainting spells become a symbol of personal failure -- there's a feeling when Wendy is talking to the social worker for example that Danny's problems are the result of parental abuse or neglect. Gradually Danny himself becomes for Jack a visible reminder of his personal failure, and the "contract" with the Overlook becomes a kind of salve or a way of "correcting" the failure.
Scatman Crothers' character is also very interesting. It's similar to in "Misery" (spoilers) how King has the character played by Richard Farnsworth solving this mystery all through the story only to get waxed by Kathy Bates as soon as he solves it. So it's a King trademark, but Kubrick certainly could have chosen to ignore the character so it's interesting that it's so prominent. One thing is that I think it allows again for an illusory feeling of freedom; we're snow-bound and cooped up with the Torrances for so much of the film that every time we see Crothers (lounging in his decadent condo in Miami, flying on a jet liner) it's a breath of fresh air and freedom, of the outside world. But it proves to be an illusion because he can't save Danny and Wendy, no "outside influence" is going to decide the fate of these characters.
When I've seen the movie on the big screen, it still has the power to shock and scare an audience. I remember seeing it in Sacramento in the middle of the afternoon and the audience came out of the theater looking shell-shocked. On video it feels more intimate and I tend to see it that way less as a good horror film than as a good character study. Either way it's a very interesting movie even if it never achieves quite the heights that Kubrick is capable of.