Project 2- Is it dark ?
Name of movie, year of release : Shining, 1980
Cast : Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Director : Stanley Kubrick
Studio : Peregrine Productions
Genre :Horror
Runing Time : 119 minutes
146 minutes (Original Version)
MPAA Rating : Restricted (Under 17 requieres accompanying parent or adult guardian)
Reviewer's rating : 8,5/10 Stars
A review of The Shining
Jack Torrance an ex teacher who would to be a writter, after having defeated his alcolism problems, arrives with his wife Wendy and his son Danny in Overlook Hotel as a guardian with the aim of using the solitude and the isolation to write his own book. Jack's son Danny who is a little bit special, he sees things that other people can't see or imagine,he didn't looks it as a good thing, as well he wants to make his parents happy but he knows that there's something mighty and Wickedin the hotel, everything didn't go like Jack thought ..
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From the beggining of the film, the director etablishes an anxious atmosphere with a panoramic sight on Glacier National Park in Montana, with Dies Irae from Mozart, that scene give us an overview of the movie and the director carries on this atmosphere from the beggining to the end. In the film, anxiety and madness keep rising crescendo. The hotel which become the main place, captivates the audience as if you was in, with some general view of the hotel which give to the "spectator the feeling that the hotel is alive, which keep the tension cause we see that there's nobody in the hotel. We have many panning plan, because of them we see details of the hotel, life if he was a person. More the film grew, more the madness of Jack became visible and felt and more the hotel became terrible. So I liked this film because it keep the same atmosphere, but he's not forseeable, if you have seen this film, you must have been surprised.
It's hard for me to find negative things about this film because it's one of my favourite film. However if I have to say something wrong with it it's the fact I've read the book wich is the origin of the film, and there's some details that the director disrespect, and the moral is the not the same in the book and in the film.
Jack Nicholson traduce very well the mad feeling, and the atmosphere, because the hotel which is the center of the film absorbs completly the charactors. Shelley Duvall in this film expresses too much theres sentiments, and it delete all the serious feelling of the film. Danny Lloyd, plays really seriously he's job, the character stay in the same guideline which is the role of a disturbed child, he's the key of the story and he carry really well his role.
Therefore, Shining, is a horror film who know how tokeep away from the horror film clichés, the director etablish a lot of scary scene without a lot of special effectt, he use different plan and music and madness demonstration to etablish this anxious atmosphere. If you want to know the art of subtl horror, and the art of horror film in general !