A very, very long analyse of the film, from a person whose still learning English.

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2002)

Many people don't seem to understand that its impossible to compare King's novel with Stanley Kubrick's movie. In their own way, they are both psychological masterpieces. The problem is that they are so different one another that you can't say which is better. But there's something I have to say, and it is that they both scare the hell out.
A lot of people may think that Shelly Duvall's performance was clumsy, and they do, even Shining fans, but actually she deserved an Oscar for her acting and I'll tell you why. I liked this movie so much that I made a little research and I found out a logical explanation to everything that happens in this film. Wendy is hysterical, and I mean in the literal way. The Shining has something horrible that is that there is nowhere to hide. If your husband is trying to kill you, your son is epileptic and I'll tell you later why-, your salvation is a Negro who is dead, and your trapped miles away from civilization you would look like her to. And now she is a woman.
Wendy has lost the only person she could ever trust when Jack went crazy. His psychopathic from the moment his borne, but is only now that he really thinks that he is drunk, and that there people in the hotel. He hasn't drink any alcohol buy that sickness makes him think he has and know he is up to hurt his family.
After the bathroom scene, Wendy has suffer so much that she hysterical. She can't move, because she is so scared, but also she has to look for Danny, which is in danger. Compare Shelly performance with a normal hysterical person and you'll find no difference. She start to see things because of the trauma, she moves so weird because her sick body is paralysing her, but she also has to move. She is not a psychopath, but a neuropath. The bloods from the elevator, the skeletons, even Grady are obvious creations of her hurt mind, and she knows it, that's why she can continue her search for Danny.

The reason she sees something, is only because she is hysterical, and a hysteric woman exaggerate things, feels things, moves strange, and has a clumsy face. It's natural under the circumstances. You watch at Duvall, knowing what Kubrick wants out of her, and you scare the hell of because her expression of terror is so real not to say that she is ugly, and that helps, believe it or not- that you became and hysteric too, been scare of blood coming out of the elevator, when that is something funny under normal circumstances.
Danny. Danny is an epileptic, and the reason of the entire disaster at the Overlook Hotel, both the movie and the book, but in Kubrick point of view, everything you see is dicing to make you ask yourself `The ghosts are real, or are they all in their heads.' They can be in their heads. The phenomenon of Collective Hysteria is common, and examples of it are human waves. Someone starts it and the mind invents the rest.
The moment Tony which is a symbol of Danny's psychosis-, shows him a little example of what may happen if he goes to the hotel, a disaster starts and no one notice. Danny exaggerates thing, and goes to the hotel thinking he is going to find terror in there. He tells that to his mother, and she assimilates it deep in her mind. When he starts to see thing, his terror grows, so as his illusions. The Collective Hysteria presents because they are only three and their stuck alone for too much time.
By their own reasons, every one of them starts to think, even as a game, that there is people are ghosts with them that wish to hurt them. For Danny it starts when Tony talks to him at the bathroom, for Jack, when he imagines that his talking to Lloyd and drinking at the bar. This gets worse every time (the way Kubrick scares you) and then he believes he is actually drunken and wants to kill his family because they want to destroy him.
Until now, Danny divides his personality and his now Tony entirely. Wendy is obviously frighten because of that, and realizes that she is the last conscious person in the place. That is too much heavy for her, and that's where her problem begins.
After Here's Johnny, she is hysterical and then begins to watch things.
You see, The Shining has an explication in real life. But if you want to talk about the atmosphere, Kubrick is also the master behind this. The Overlook is too beautiful to be true, its decoration is perfect, and the white painting in every wall makes you thing that is extremely clean. But anyway, you'd rather been burn in oil before walking around all alone in those places, whether they are the rooms, the halls or the kitchen.
The contrast between white and the zigzag carpet makes an atmosphere that in no comfortable for the view already. Then, the sick full music starts to make you wonder what's going to happen. The contrast between beautiful scene, and terrible music is fantastic, and then, the actual terror.
It is not like in normal pictures, when you scare in one exact boo moment. Kubrick, for example, shows that killer and victim know exactly where they are each other and they even talk during a long time. When Wendy reads Jacks novel, her expression disturbs you, the music, the way she continues to look at the pages even thought she already knows they all say the same thing, and watching Jack from the behind, who is not dissimulating his presence; all that disturbs you, but when you mix them all, the terror goes beyond boo classical scenes.
In that particular scene, Kubrick could have simply make Jack appear from nowhere and start attacking Wendy, and that would have make people scream at the time. But no, the terror Kubrick used was psychological, and he shows Jack coming in a normal way, and announcing his presence before he even starts to play with Wendy.
The terror grows, and I remember I couldn't sleep for weeks because of the bathroom scene, and it still scares me because of Shelly's expression. This scene took the 127 shots before Stanley Kubrick considered it perfect. I'm sure Duvall hated him for a while, but in a time so did Malcolm McDowell. The death of Halloran represents not only the racism in America, but the idea that there's no place to hide at the Overlook Hotel, and if you thought that he was going to safe the day then you are mistaken. But the most terrifying scenes of the whole movie, believe or not, are the times when they tell you the day and situation. This is because it's a boo moment that means nothing, and makes you wonder in panic, but nothing really happens.
Slow motions makes things beautifully horrible, and the ending is satisfactory after the log waiting when you start to know that this characters love each other, but there's allways something to interfere with that like the wish to kill them all-.
The twins are just the scariest thing ever imagined, and that was another of Kubricks original ideas for the scrips. As I told you, the terror grows, and you see the twins for one second for the first time, for a minute the next, with horrible music later, and finally the both present themselves to Danny as the evil thing they are, and even better because after so much time behind Riding Danny the last thing you were expecting to find was two murdered sisters.
The reason this movie is so great, is still a complete mystery. But I think it is not one thin, but the mixture of thing, of giving the audience what they're expecting or not to, the music, the set, the slow motion, the one-second-long shots, the never-ending suspense or the masterful performances of Jack Nickolson, Shelly Duvall (God, I love her, even thought shes so ugly on that film) and, why the heck not?, Daniel Lloyd. He is the only really scary sick child, not like the Poltergeist's or even Haley Joel Osmend. They are good, buy Lloyd was the first scary child.
Stephen King hates this film, because it is not practically his book. It is weird that the movie is so different than the book, considering that A Clockwork Orange has a storyline practically exact to Anthony Burguess' novel. But you have to understand, and me being a Stephen King Fan, than a movie can't be exactly like the book, because that wouldn't be original, artistic, and several thing wouldn't have the visual impact a movie needs. The problem with the Shining, is that is too different. Carrie was half different, and it was perfect as a film, and still is a King film.

The Shining only takes some parts from the book, and the rest is the artistic vision of Kubrick. That isn't bad. In fact, that is very good, because it tells you that the writer of the script has an imagination of his own and for owing the right, he can even make fun of the original novel. If you don't understand this, then I'll put an example:
Chocolat is a fantastic film, and it is extremely different from the book. Five Oscar nominations, well deserved. Harry Potter, a copy from the book, a pathetic movie that has nothing artistic to offer, but the fantastic voyage of magic.
The Shining is a masterpiece in every way, and with The Others, the only movie that didn't let me sleep the night I watch it. I recommend it very much, but I can guarantee that you'll like it. It can get boring if you are not like me I like Barry Lyndon, may God help me- or like most of Kubrick's fans. But make your own opinion. I have mine.