The Shining (1980)

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

Director:

Stanley Kubrick

Writers:

Stephen King (novel), Stanley Kubrick (screenplay),

Stars:

Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd

Top 250 #46 | 2 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jack Nicholson	...	Jack Torrance
Shelley Duvall	...	Wendy Torrance
Danny Lloyd	...	Danny Torrance
Scatman Crothers	...	Dick Hallorann
Barry Nelson	...	Stuart Ullman
Philip Stone	...	Delbert Grady
Joe Turkel	...	Lloyd the Bartender
Anne Jackson	...	Doctor
Tony Burton	...	Larry Durkin
Lia Beldam	...	Young Woman in Bath
Billie Gibson	...	Old Woman in Bath
Barry Dennen	...	Bill Watson
David Baxt	...	Forest Ranger #1
Manning Redwood	...	Forest Ranger #2
Lisa Burns	...	Grady Daughter

Storyline

A man, his son and wife become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where Danny, the son, sees disturbing visions of the hotel's past using a telepathic gift known as "The Shining". The father, Jack Torrance, is underway in a writing project when he slowly slips into insanity as a result of cabin fever and former guests of the hotel's ghosts. After being convinced by a waiter's ghost to "correct" the family, Jack goes completely insane. The only thing that can save Danny and his mother is "The Shining".

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Plot Keywords:

hotel | caretaker | winter | ghost | insanity | 

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Taglines:

The tide of terror that swept America IS HERE[UK Poster]

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 May 1980 (USA)

Also Known As:

Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'

Filming Locations:

Colorado, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$19,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

SEK 6,140,088 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros, Hawk Films, Peregrine

Technical Specs

Runtime:

146 min 142 min (cut) 119 min (cut) (European) 146 min (original)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the shots in the part where Jack is bouncing a ball against a wall took several days to film. This was because the shot entailed the ball bouncing from the wall onto the camera lens as it filmed. As Stanley Kubrick was so determined to get this precise shot, the camera kept rolling while the ball was continually hit against the wall in the hope of it bouncing back and hitting the lens. It took everyone on the entire unit having a go at it in between other shots before the shot was finally achieved after several days.

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Goofs

The position of the knife when Wendy locks herself in the bathroom.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Jack Torrance: Hi, I've got an appointment with Mr. Ullman. My name is Jack Torrance.

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Crazy Credits

The party music plays over the closing credits. After it ends, we hear the Overlook ghosts applaud. They then talk amongst themselves until their voices fade away.

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Connections

References Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

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Soundtracks

"Utrenja - Ewangelia"
(uncredited)
Music by Krzysztof Penderecki
Performed by Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia w Katowicach
Conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki

User Reviews

Eeriness surpassed by class

Sometimes all good horror needs is a good idea. But sometimes, rarely indeed, a horror masterpiece will reach us by the hand of a Kubrick, with the adept, elusive touch of a great artist to guide the vision, and we know what separates it from all else.

Okay, the story has enough promise that even a hired gun would have to try to fail. Heck, even Stephen King himself didn't fare so bad. It's how Kubrick perceives King's universe however, how he fills the frame with it, that renders THE SHINING a feast for the senses.

Horror that will reach us through the mind and body alike, an assault as it were, tending eventually its pitch to a crescendo, yet curiously not without a delicate lull.

Kubrick's cinema is, as usually, a sight to behold. We get the adventurous camera that prowls through the lavish corridors of the Overlook Hotel like it is some kind of mystic labyrinth rife for exploration, linear tracking shots exposing impeccably decorated interiors in symmetric grandeur. The geometrical approach in how Kubrick perceives space reminds me very much of Japanese directors of some 10 years before. In that what is depicted in the frame, the elements of narrative, is borderline inconsequential to how they all balance and harmonize together.

Certain images stand out in this. The first shot of Jack's typewriter, ominously accompanied by the off-screen thumps of a ball, drums of doom that seem to emanate from the very walls or the typewriter itself, an instrument of doom in itself as is later shown. A red river flowing through the hotel's elevators in a poetry of slow motions. Jack hitting the door with the axe, the camera moving along with him, tracking the action as it happens, as though it's the camera piercing through the door and not the axe. The ultra fast zoom in the kid's face violently thrusting us inside his head before we see the two dead girls from his POV. And of course, the epochal bathroom scene.

Much has been said of Jack Nicholson's obtrusive overacting. His mad is not entirely successful, because, well, he's Jack Nicholson. The guy looks half-mad anyway. Playing mad turns him into an exaggerated caricature of himself. Shelley Duvall on the other hand is one of the most inspired casting choices Kubrick ever made. Coming from a streak of fantastic performances for Robert Altman in the seventies (3 WOMEN, THIEVES LIKE US, NASHVILLE), she brings to her character the right amounts of swanlike fragility and emotional distress. A delicate, detached thing thrown in with the mad.