The Shining - What If Ghosts Are Real?
Thoughts On: The Shining (1980)
A failing writer is possessed by an evil spirit in a haunted hotel.
I've felt The Shining to be incredibly powerful and articulate on previous watches; I would say that it is one of my favourite films, and have called it a masterpiece before. I won't bother with consideration there today as I have lost touch heavily with movies. But, it was strange today to watch The Shining over.
As much as I felt this to be a metaphorical and symbolic film in the first act, but the time this passed the midway point, I began to feel that it is maybe far more straight forward than anything. In those terms, The Shining simply sees a disaffected father get a new job to take care of his family; his dreams of being a writer are lost on him and slipping further from his fingers. He turns to the hotel and his new job for help. Him, his wife and child play their roles without much falter. Jack then makes the money he must, smiles and says polite things as a husband and father should. Wendy is forever kind and forgiving, never once really making a mistake in the movie; she is actually incredibly smart and pristine throughout. Though she cries and wails, she doesn't fall into any stupid movie tropes. She doesn't aggravate her husband intentionally, she listens to her son when he tells her something is wrong for the first time without real question; she knocks out and locks her mad husband up when she has to; she saves her son and has him go hide - she taught him how to go through the maze, which saves his life; she squares up to her murderous husband, and despite fear, slices up his hand and defends herself before running out of the hotel of evil spirits, getting her son in the car immediately and getting out of there without a question. Wendy is a boss, and she remains true to her emotions whilst acting rationally throughout the film: she is quiet and meek, but she is also silently struggling to keep a shitty family together throughout the film, yet always makes the moves she has to. Danny also plays the role of son rather well, is smart in the movie and manages his clairvoyance with unexpected maturity.
Seeing this, I began to ask myself: how much is actually going on below the surface of this film symbolically and metaphorically. Could it just be that this fractured family enter a haunted mansion? Is it just that Jack becomes possessed by the evil spirit of the hotel caretaker and is confused by the hotel and trapped inside the picture of the ball of 1921 in the end? If the film is so direct and the ghosts and evil spirits simply real, there is perhaps not too much to be said about The Shining. Kubrick coldly and precisely directs the shit out of a straight forward story without adding much flair to the narrative, focusing instead on very subtle themes of isolation, repetition and silence.
I have analysed The Shining extensively before, and I perhaps may have overanalysed it. The themes of sexual frustration, isolation and more are there. But, this could more simply be about a family earnestly struggling in silence and them being overwhelmed by evil entities. In such, the themes of silence and repetition become more pronounced and nuanced.
The Shining is renowned for how hard Kubrick pushed in his direction. He made the actors repeat scenes dozens and dozens of times, more than a hundred in certain instances, was incredibly mean to Shelly Duvall to the point her hair was falling out and savagely remorseless for the fact, and made his secretary meaninglessly type out pages and pages for the iconic scene that reveals 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'. Kubrick has been known to say that he was just making a ghost film, that he didn't understand the narrative, in making this film. I can really see that here. The substance of the film is perhaps in its realisation and the act of making it. The Shining, after all, is about monotony and silent failure; he made many people in the production of the film experience just that. And he let the film just be a ghost story; in such he allowed the ghosts to be real and take possession of his script. So you feel in the subtext exactly what you do in the plot of the film. It is trying, in the first half, to begin to explore certain themes and produce meaning - just like Jack and his family are - but ends up submitting to the reality of a ghost story.
Kubrick actually does a similar thing with Full Metal Jacket. It, like The Shining, is a film of two halves - just more overtly so than his 1980 film. Full Metal Jacket starts as a psychological exploration of dark characters and difficult situations, but then becomes a pretty straight-up war movie after this. It retains its themes and some direction, but the first half is more of a contrast to the second than a lead-up.
The results of both films speak for themselves ultimately. Kubrick breaks his films into two disparate parts to allow their collision to produce its own meaning. In my extensive exploration and analysis of the film, I make pretty clear just how many ways you could watch the film and analyse it. But, perhaps there isn't a clear and easy way that can make much sense.
The Shining is a sensation, less a statement. It is endlessly fascinating in this regard and maybe even better than I ever thought for this. Simultaneously, it may just be that much more simpler than we could ever imagine or let ourselves believe: a practical exercise of basic themes - isolation and silence in a repetitious nightmare - behind the camera and in front of it.
