Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a film that lives in a world of its own. Quite simply, I think it may be the most interesting horror film ever made…This is it no scaryThe most interesting horror movie ever. He is Psycho is the scariest movie ever, because it’s the perfect movie to watch for yourself. Let’s be clear: I realize that The Shining is widely considered a scary movie. But I saw it the night it opened—May 23, 1980—and I’ve seen it dozens of times since, and while the mood and mysteries of the film have deepened for me to the point where I find it a uniquely alluring piece of cinema, I’ve always had the same problem with it, ever since that first viewing.
In The Shining , we see a massive metaphysical mystery from the dark side, a ghost story in which the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel rise to infiltrate and infiltrate the madness of Jack Torrance, an aspiring novelist played by Jack Nicholson. It’s solved through a combination of things that coalesce into a mystical psychological plot: his writer’s block; his anger; the alcohol that drives him; and the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel, particularly his caretaker. They try to influence Jack, and Jack essentially becomes him. That’s why Jack is ultimately depicted in that old 1920s photo. The movie is about immortality to kill, and it’s very scary and very elusive in a very powerful way.
But when Jack Torrance emerges from his cage, what we see is not far-fetched. It is the most explicit and brutal image of murderous violence that cinema has ever presented to us: Jack Nicholson, in a frenzied pose, swinging an axe like a madman as Jack tries to murder his wife and young son. When The Shining came out, we were already in the midst of the horror movie era. And while I am not a fan of the Halloween and Friday the 13th genre, I think a few of those movies are scarier than The Shining. Nicholson wielding an axe like a psychotic lumberjack? Sorry, but there is no mystery to it. The Shining is a film that is cleverly made around the edges but (in my opinion) with a good dose of evil vulgarity at its climax.
But that’s why “Shine On” is the kind of documentary I love. It’s only 25 minutes long, the rare archival film made in collaboration with Kubrick’s legacy. You can click it up on YouTube. And what you’re seeing isn’t a deep dive into the mysteries of the Shining universe, like Rodney Asher’s “Room 237.” Written and directed by Paul King and narrated with a touch of gentle awe by Michael Sheen, “Shine On” is a short film devoted to the physical production of “The Shining”—that is, to the sets, some of which still exist today as industrial rooms that were used as sets. “Shine On” is a film about the Shining universe. coincidence From the movie “The Shining”.
But it’s actually the cover that bothers me most about The Shining. I realized how deeply the film experience had affected my subconscious when the documentary mentioned that The Shining was filmed almost entirely at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England, and my reptilian reaction was: “What? It wasn't filmed at the Stanley Hotel in the Rockies?!” (This is the hotel that served as the model for the Overlook.) Sure, I knew that Kubrick hadn’t left England in decades; I knew that he was a master at creating elaborate sets that became worlds of their own (the spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey , the ruined city of Hoe in Full Metal Jacket , which Kubrick built from a demolished gas plant outside London). Yet my sensory memory told me that the Overlook—the labyrinthine psychedelic carpets, the cream walls and ceilings, the vast lobby with its chandeliers and staircases—was too solid and imposing to be merely decor. I had to look twice to realize, anew, that Kubrick had built all of this.
“The Shining” probably makes more dramatic use of ceilings than any film since “Citizen Kane.” (They’re the ultimate thing that can make home decor look like decor.) The sheer vastness of the Overlook is Kubrick’s masterwork. With only three characters living there at the heart of the film, the scale of the place always tells you: it’s going to be hard to imagine. crazy To build a group this This movie is big enough to contain these characters and this ghost story. Kubrick's obsession with hyperbole is just another link in the film's madness.
As Shine On makes clear, the sets took up the entirety of Elstree Studios—all the soundstages, or the space of half a dozen aircraft hangars. Given that Kubrick took less than a year to film The Shining, that meant a lot of space. But even then, there wasn’t enough space. Most of the original sets are gone, but there were plenty of places at Elstree where the shabby, pretentious back rooms were had become The sets for “Shine On”—especially the giant kitchen at “Overlook” and its pantry, a regular office that Kubrick filled with real kitchen equipment, real pots and pans, and real cans and boxes of food—are the heart of “Shine On,” with three Shining veterans—executive producer Jan Harlan, art director Leslie Tomkins, and Kubrick’s eldest daughter, Katharina Kubrick, whom he invited to work on the set when she was 25—walking around that former kitchen and matching parts of it to the movie, which has the eerie effect of making everything in “The Shining” look like a ghost.
There's a stunning sequence of footage that's been seen before, but it never fails to impress: Kubrick lying on his back against a warehouse door, holding a lens and framing Nicholson's face from the floor up, and he says, “Well, that's not bad,” and you realize that one of the most iconic movie images of the past half-century was composed by Kubrick on the spot, because he needed to do it. somethingWe also see Shelley Duvall collapsing in the kitchen during filming, a rare piece of footage, as it is the actual footage used in the film. In “Shine On,” there is evidence and testimony to support the claim that the basic atmosphere on the set of “The Shining” was friendly. But you can believe that and also believe that Duvall, at moments, was on the verge of believing she was having a nervous breakdown.
“Shine On,” though short, joins other Kubrickian documentaries—“Kubrick by Kubrick,” “Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes,” and the excellent and essential “Filmworker”—as a small piece of the puzzle of who Kubrick was and how he made his films. Perhaps more than any other major film artist, Kubrick was building These movies are like giant ships in a bottle. The Shining was the most complex film ever made. It’s a haunted house story, but the way Kubrick made it, the film itself is the haunted house. The sheer scale and realism of the set says: The mystery hidden here is as great as God. You can’t see it, but it’s everywhere. This is perhaps the most brilliant idea ever planted in a horror film. If it were as scary as it is brilliant, The Shining would be a true masterpiece rather than a high-end horror masterpiece.
