Fok

I'd say read the book, its way better than the movie (which does not do it justice).

Michael Corvin

Exactly. While it may be a good film, the only things that remained from the book are the title, the Overlook, and character names. Why bother at that point? Just make an original movie.

There is a huge difference in Jack from the movie and Jack from the book. Totally different characters. In the book he is a victim of isolation and circumstance driving him slowly insane.

That is the main problem I have. The book has well thought out characters. The movie has charictures and cliches. The movie is nothing more than a run of the mill horror film. The hotel is haunted and it makes him insane overnight. Give him an axe and let him loose on his family. Mix in some shots of ghosts. zzzzzz.... Nothing more than the horror films of today, except that it was made by a famous director. If it didn't have Kubrik's name on the film, I doubt we would be discussing it today.

As for the Dark Tower, all of his books intertwine or are related in some fashion. There were many other children with paranormal abilities in his works(Carrie, Danny, Charlie from Firestarter, etc.), it was a running theme, all linked together in the DT series.

wendersfan

It really depends on whether you're more of a Kubrick fan, or a King fan. I think King is a man who has a talent for stringing words together in an entertaining way, but is otherwise an unremarkable writer. I think Kubrick is one of the greatest directors who ever lived. Which is my longwinded way of saying

Baron Of Hell

You see the hotel is The Crimson King's recruiter. It seeks out special people like Danny to fuel breakers. The breakers are special people use their minds to break the beams holding up the dark tower. The hotel is working for the king but it is still allowed to kill any about that isn't special or not special enough. You see it all makes perfect sense now.

rennervision

Opinions like this crack me up. I'm sure this guy has divine insight into why the great Stanley Kubrick chose the soundtrack that played during the end credits:

"And in a final stroke of brilliance, Kubrick physically melds the movie audience leaving his film with the ghostly revelers in the photograph. As the credits roll, the soundtrack ends, and we hear the 1920s audience applaud, and then the gabble of that audience talking among themselves - the same sound the crowd of moviegoers itself is probably making as it leaves the theater. It is the sound of people moving out of one stage of consciousness into another. The moviegoers are largely unaware of this soundtrack, and this reflects their unawareness that they've just seen a movie about themselves, about what people like them have done to the American Indian and to others."

And all these years I thought Kubrick chose the closing soundtrack because it sounded neat.

sundog

Mr. Corvin, I've reordered some of your points I'd like to address. I'm not going into "which is better, book or movie?" but rather discussing your criticism of the film.

The movie has horror film archetypes: the beast (Jack) and the child in peril (Danny).

First, jokingly, what is the average turnaround on haunted houses driving their occupants mad? Second, Kubrick plays up all of the typical horror film devices early in the picture, almost getting them out of the way. And Jack is shown early to be not quite in the fittest of mental health.

Jack's own lethargy and self pitying hinder his progress to "correct" his wife and son, he's not let loose, he's prodded, on different occasions. And he doesn't get the axe until the end (an axe, another horror film device). The ghosts are hardly thrown in. Until Wendy's freak out at the end (which consists of horror cliches like blood and skeletons and furries . . .) , all of the main ghosts interact with the Torrances (the girls, Lloyd, Grady, the young/old woman).

How many horror films take place in glaring daylight? Display the "killer" to the audience in the first reel? Make the racing-against-time savior (O'Hallorann) so disturbingly ineffectual? Use the female lead in a definite non-sexual role? etc. There's a lot going on with cliches, archetypes and such and how Kubrick makes use of them.

Without Kubrick's name, we would lump the film adaptation of The Shining in with other dull King adaptations. Because it would be like the book, and King's books do not turn out well when the source is translated so strigently. It could make for a film good enough to satisfy the book's fans, but it would not be a good film.

And while Kubrick's film doesn't stand very tall in the pantheon of his earlier features, the movie has a lot going on in addition to the script that make it still so fascinating.

If the film's adherence to the source dictates your enjoyment of it, I can't argue with that, as it is very much personal preference.

sundog

Baron, I have no idea if you're serious and if the above came out of one of King's books (I don't recall Danny mentioned in any of the Dark Tower books), but it's damn funny.

And I first found this whole connected universe device interesting, but in the wake of its use in Dark Tower VII, it is getting old, quick.

Michael Corvin

He isn't mentioned per se, but we can infer that he, like so many other of King's children do just that. Interesting theory on the Overlook though.

As far as it getting old, 7 is the final book so you need not fret.

As for Kubrick's film, like I said, it may be a great film, BUT not when compared to the source material. He should have shuffled some things around and changed some names because it really has no connection other than the names and places.

sundog

Well, it was a popular book, giving Warner Brothers a lot of marketing options regarding Kubrick and King, etc. But Kubrick, who adapted all but 2 of his features, treated those source books as outlines rather than scripts and he usually changed his scripts mid-production anyway. It took to his last film to use a reasonably faithful adaptation.

And I was quite happy to finish Dark Tower 7 and know I was done with the series, as it will probably be the last thing I read of Stephen King's. I liked the book immensely but if I wasn't so invested in the series, my opinion may have turned out differently.

neatMCsammer

Man, I definitely want to read that thread. Does anyone have a link to it?

sundog

Heh. I meant a thread drawn through the entirety of Kubrick's The Shining. Not a posted thread here on DVDTalk.

I gotta work on my communi-ca-mation skills . . .

neatMCsammer

Yeah, what the hell's a thread ? I only know of threads .

Josh-da-man

I don't think "The Shining" is ever explicitly referenced in the DT saga, but I'm pretty sure that people who "shine" are tied in with that particular continuity. (Didn't Mother Abigail from "The Stand" shine?)

Numanoid

Even worse than the book. Viewing that godawful mess was complete drudgery.

dhmac

I'm the rare one who likes both the Kubrick and the King (TV miniseries) versions of The Shining (but I do much prefer the Kubrick version of the two).

The TV miniseries is a bit bloated in the 1st 1/3, but gets better for the rest of the run, except for a sappy (and unnecessary) coda. And the miniseries is very faithful overall to King's novel, which is good for comparing and contrasting to Kubrick's version of the story.

Crocker Jarmen

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned alcoholism yet. Jack's problem is the reason for all of the woes of the family, and it's destruction in the film.

According to Wendy, Danny first began talking to Tony after his arm was broken, by Jack when he was drunk.

I think that Jack being a alcoholic was the reason he wound up having to take the caretaker job. We're never really given too much background information about the Torrence family, but I don't think it is a stretch to inferr that Jack has perhaps been put out of work due to his drinking. Wendy dosen't appear to have a job, probabley because she has not needed to, as Jack was supporting the family. Caretaking of the Overlook seems like a peculiar, temporary job. Especially for such a young family. I think it was a job Jack was desperate for.

I find it interesting that Jack's big freakouts are usually preceded by him having some 'drinks' in the ghost bar. Is this fantasy sort of like a placebo, convincing his mind that he really has become intoxicated. By the time he is breaking down the door with the ax, he seems like a frightening characture of the angry alchoholic. Stumbeling around, unshaven and drooling.

Up until the moment the Ghosts let him out of the freezer, it is perfectly plausible to assume that all of the weird stuff is just going on in Jack's mind. Dosen't Wendy say in the beginning that it's only been less than a year since he stopped drinking? I think that Jack is prepaired for a relapse, and it is through the need for alcohol that the hotel is able to take advantage of to destroy his family. Just as Jack would have done all on his own, had he been back home, with acess to the liqour store. I think Jack was going to destroy his family one way or another.

DigIt

This is the difference between assuming a movie is a commercial endeavor or whether film is art. If anyone in cinema has the right to elicit critical essays, Kubrick does.

rennervision

Actually, if you notice in that scene, all we ever see is Jack in the freezer. You never see any ghosts, nor do you see one actually opening the freezer door. I don't quite know how to interpret that, but I'm pretty sure the scene is deliberately shot this way to infer Jack could be locked in the freezer and having delusions.

I've mentioned this in another thread before. I really believe Jack had "the shining" as well as Danny. Mr. Hallorann talked about how he had telepathic conversations with his grandmother, so it seems this is something that can be passed on to the next generation. Other clues seem to suggest this as well. Only Jack and Danny can see the ghosts - if there are such a thing. It could just be premonitions of past events. (As Tony explained to Danny, "It's like looking at pictures in a book. It isn't real.") For me, the biggest indicator Jack has some sort of special powers is when he is wandering around the hotel and is actually able to perceive that his family is outside in the hedge maze.

So, although it's just a theory, I sometimes wonder if Jack opened that freezer door himself - by using his mind.

Michael Corvin

This has been a pretty good thread.

renner, I like that idea. You can expand on that by saying Jack had the "shine" when he was a kid, but disappeared in adulthood. The Overlook just knew how to bring it out again. Very interesting.

Numanoid

You're forgetting when Mrs. Torrence sees the Furry giving a BJ.

rennervision

Not at all. Perhaps Wendy's guilt of subjugating the Native American was finally manifesting itself into a surreal metaphor of a teddy bear made of discarded buffalo skins forced into performing fellatio on the white man.

Yeah, that scene was just so screwed up, I never will understand it. There is, of course, still plenty of evidence to suggest the ghosts were very much real. But since this is a Kubrick film, I would like to think there is more to it than just a straight haunted house story. She could've been completely scared out of her mind and had gone totally mad at that point. (Although I admit that makes less sense than believing the ghosts had been real all along.)

One of the great things about Kubrick films is how they are open to so many different interpretations. I liked Groucho's suggestion that the hotel collects souls - which would somewhat explain the meaning behind the photograph at the end. But I always felt the shot of the photo was meant to confirm why Jack had the feeling he had been to the Overlook before.

Cameron

The two girls were played by twins, Lisa and Louise Burns. It was always my thought that Kurbrick took this and ran with it...it just looks eerie. In the book the girls are not twins, though they are dressed similar and have the same hair...this is common with parents dressing their young children the same. They are the girls mentioned as six and eight...however, the line was never changed.

disagree...I think Kubrick saved this story from being droll. The book isn't Horrid but the movie is a horror masterpiece. This is one of the few times, I have thought the movie has outdone the original book in storytelling. Kubrick gave it wings, and Jack makes it real. Crazier than jack in the book...

No one has mentioned the bear costume?

FinkPish

Look directly above your post.

JCFantasy23

I read somewhere that when Danny came to the hotel, his shining ability sort of wakened the hotel somehow. The cook did sense things about the hotel, but nothing too obvious, as if it was resting. Not sure if this theory holds water or not, but I always found it interesting.

I don't think Jack was just crazy the entire time, I believe there were forces involved. It's hard to know for sure whether it's Jack the hotel really wanted, or Danny. There's fingers pointing to them both. I'm not confused about the film, except still never grasped anything plausible enough about Jack and the Overlook caretaker position. Was he always there in some way, as the picture shows? So many layers to this film.

PacMan2006

I just watched this film for the first time...

Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but doesn't Jack say somewhere at the start that he feels he's been at that Hotel before...?

Is it possible he was there in another life? I dunno...I read that somewhere else on the 'Net, and then I remembered that line of dialogue and put two and two together.

If so...I don't know why the photo would say 1921, though.