An interesting comparision to the book

Rating: Null/10 (21 July 1999)

Stanley Kubrick's film version of THE SHINING becomes much clearer and more interesting after you've read King's novel. Many people tend to disparage either one in favor of the other, but both novel and movie have individual merits and are ultimately about entirely different themes.

In the novel, King examines a flawed but decent man (Jack Torrance) who becomes the victim of a rapacious hotel with a mind of its own that wants to devour him and his family. Jack fights long and hard against the power of the Overlook Hotel, but the hotel overpowers him and eventually fully possesses him. King shows basic optimism in humanity when he lets Jack's remaining human personality poke through during his furious final rampage and allow his son Danny to escape. The Hotel dies an incerinating death as Danny, his mother, and the helpful Hallorann escape to a new life.
No such optimism for Stanley Kubrick. Jack Torrance begins as a violent, slightly insane man who has managed to wear a mask of decency for a few years. The Hotel tempts Jack to remove that mask with its endless luxurious space, opulance, and promise of the immortality that has always alluded him in his writing. When Jack goes berszerk at the end, it really IS Jack in control, not the spirit of the Overlook wearing his shape. There is no humanity to appeal to in Jack (indeed, there never was to begin with), and Danny and his mother can only hope to escape him through their own wits.
As a film, THE SHINING is a frightfully cold tale of humanity stripped bare, and Kubrick purposely distances the story from the emotional background of King's novel, which is a tale of temptation of the human spirit and its purgation. King's novel is freeing, symbolized in the exploding Overlook Hotel, while Kubrick's film is a prison, symbolized by the hedge maze that becomes Jack's demise. It's no wonder that King dislike the movie version so strongly, but both renditions are worthy of praise, and the comparison between them further emphasizes their individual strengths.