From novels to movies

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2020)

It is hard to see anyone dissecting the film further. The reason may be that people who like video may not have read steffenkin's original novel. After watching the 1990s TV version, I basically saw the shining on three different media. Combined with my reading of other Stephen king novels. I want to join you as we enter the world of the shining and unravel its mysteries.
"The shining," like Stephen king's other horror novels, is rooted in everyday life. From the extreme experience of a person on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Jack, as an amateur author, is similar in age and condition to the unknown Stephen king. The same poor, with a family and a family, by part-time work to make ends meet. You can imagine the crossroads of life, what kind of low point they are in, suffering from anxiety and despair. The writer himself is often separated from the flesh, by the cruel external life of the pressure of erosion, unable to calm, in the division. On the one hand, I was responsible for my wife and children; on the other hand, I had to sacrifice my family to complete my writing career. This sense of ambivalence and despair is skillfully translated by Stephen king into the inner tension of the whole horror story.
The nature of the writer is similar to that of the dictator, who is also in extreme loneliness. To choose a snowy hotel is to enter a self-enclosed inner world. At this point, jack is cut off from the rest of the world, waiting for inspiration. You can think of the ghosts as the creation of jack, as the creation of a writer. They called him to cheer him up. Binary opposition, Wendy represents the outside world, she and the children are the only voice from the real world to jack's ears. I think the child's irrational behavior must have greatly interfered with and tortured Stephen king's writing. So it became the first target of jack's subconscious mind.
The original novel has a great outlet for kuyt's film, which I suspect is why the writer has always resisted the film. The protagonist of the novel from the triumph of the self and the death of the ghost of the hero into a bloody crazy murderer, is a bit of a polar opposite. What's more, the protagonist jack himself is the portrayal of the writer's mental journey, how can he accept such a tragic end? We can see the director's intention by comparing the difference between the two. The murder weapon in the novel has changed from a baseball bat that is common in everyday American life to an axe used in horror movies. Jack is the real hero in the novel, not killing anyone, and the black chef finally helps Wendy and Danny escape from the hotel. In the film, however, the black man is simply hacked to death with a single knife, breaking jack's zero record for murder. It is clear that the director had to sacrifice this minor character in order to enhance the violent effect and enhance the visual conflict with the audience. This has nothing to do with racial persecution. In the novel, jack appears years later at Danny's graduation ceremony, silently blessing his son's growth. The scene is warm and moving, a pair of affection forever appearance. The film escalates jack's madness until it collapses and he freezes to death in the maze.
Stephen king, after all, wanted to be a bestselling novelist, not to take his subject to the next level, and as a successful man, he could laugh at the past, restore the image of a loving father, and preserve the integrity of middle-class values. Kubrick is clearly trying to make a moral out of it, a portrayal of modern man's inability to communicate, his self-destruction, and his habitual anxiety about modern civilization.
The film itself is controversial, with different opinions. I think it won mainly because of the atmosphere and Nicholson's performance, and more as a classic genre film.