The Shining -King v. Kubrick

Cinema

RED RUM ~Danny

I have recently read King’s book and seen the adaptation. The film is a strong adaptation of the book and I believe gets the gist of the horror novel down, but I am thinking about the differences and why they may have occurred.

The first difference that strikes me as the most intresting is Kubrick's simplification of Wendy and Jack. Jack Torrance struggles with his addiction and truly loves his family for most of the novel, and becomes possessed by dark forces at the over look hotel. He has a romantic and sexual tie to his wife, making several innuendos and double entrandre over his kids head, he also beds Wendy several times in the book (and vice versa). Jack dark alcoholism and dry drunk nature also appears in the novel in near constant detail. Jack is excited to spend time with his family and wants them with him.

Yet in Kubrick’s film Jack is played snide dark and sarcastically witty. He looking at his lessers as he sees his family he is smug and superior (In the novel he is often at a low point feeling smart but inadequate). Jack always is a bit back biting and aggressive while hiding behind intellect.

Wendy is depicted as frumpy, unattractive and always we see Jack sleeping alone instead of with Wendy in the Kubrick film, she is doing domestic things or handy things or maternal things, never really sexual outside the maternal in the film . Wendy in the novel is diplomatically trying drive the events in the book, in the film her ideas are interrogated out of her to be rejected.

Kubrick made these choices since I think it would make the film much more long winded and blotted without much gain, he see this as a film of tension and suspense, King has more room in a novel to humanize both characters. Kubrick wants them both more dehumanized.

The most dehumanizing thing in the film is the treatment of Dick Hallorann, he goes from a rescuer in the book to a man quickly disposed of by Jack. This happens for two reasons I think. First is that Kubrick ending of a frozen Jack and then his picture showing there was a form of Jack always at the hotel was the ending Kubrik wanted as well as the final scene in the maze. So if Dick saves Wendy and Danny then he has to give up that ending and tack on a happy ending epilogue. Also Kubrik has stranded Wendy and Danny and we need the snow cat deus in machina ending. Kubrick shows mother and son get in the snow cat and then it is all Jack in the ending. Wendy and Danny drive off into the snow storm, the snow cat is not King’s snow mobile, it is a sure and steady machine that will get them to side winder. Wendy is in much better shape in the film and this allows her to drive. As soon as the motor starts they are safe and we can have the Jack Torrance ending Kubrick wants. Wendy, Dick and Danny are minimalized and a bit decolored by their exits from the stage.

Jack’s death is drastically different. The whole discussion of the boiler and its constant required maintenance is dropped almost completely. Wendy is the only one who ever attends it (once) and she walks over to a very modern and reliable boiler system. Jack has no interaction at all with the boiler and it is not a point of tension. I think this is sort of a middle finger to King as Kubrick could have completely cut out the boiler and all the cost of showing it in the film. Wendy can handle the boiler and it is so unimportant Jack isn’t troubled with it. It is also shows Wendy as more confident and functional than any time in the film. Kubrick coverts the hedge animals into a maze. For the time it is a great move with out CGI I think we would have had very weird practical effects with the weird hedge animal attaches. It also allows Danny a win over Jack, making him the one who outsmarts and traps Jack. Jack again the attender of the hedge animals in the novel does not enter the maze so later when he does for the first time he is lost in it.

Kubrick focused mostly on the interior of the Overlook which is easier as these were all sound stages, he doesn’t film the play ground, or the animal hedges, or the creepy playground. I think he wants us inside the scary hotel a much as possible. He also wants us to know the hotel is supernatural and has forces of malenvolance inside it, the novel is half outside and often cheerily outside as well as horrific. I think the outside scenes would have added a lot to the run time, watered down a film and the wasps and the roof scenes would have been complicated to shoot. I think Kubrick was focused on his cast and his great shots with newly developed steady cam footage inside the hotel. Some of the best steady cam work ever that holds up to this day. Also I think the outdoor scenes show Jack as a father more than Kubrick wanted. He was playing up a bit of the Oedipal story with the Torrance’s and Jack being protective of his son and being more playful with him and loving him was not what he was going for.

I do see that Kubrick also economizes a lot in props. By removing the Roque mallet as Jack’s weapon he eliminates the whole need for a court, mallets, descriptions and we all understand the ax, we don’t need to see where Jack found it. The reliable snow cat replaces the unreliable snowmobile and makes the storm which is less impressive in actual staging seem more ominous for requiring a snow cat. Kubrick’s total change of Jack’s play and Novel on the over look are replaced by the All work and no play make Jack a dull boy book which converts a struggling man with one that is truly insane, he is also uncaring and insanely bored , instead of an alcoholic that the hotel wears down over time.

Nicholson was the perfect person to show as resentful snide and unloving (he was coming off a divorce ) and we totally believe his snap and insanity, his simplification in the movie plays to his strengths. King has a more robust character in the book but Kubrick abandons our sympathy because it is better to play Nicholson as unsympathetic. My favorite Shelly Devall scenes are in Anne Hall where she is sexy, alluring and comical. These two movies were 3 years apart so Devall could have play a less Oedipal and frumpy mom, as well her role in Anne Hall had several innuendos and jokes about sex. Kubrick intentionally removed this from her character. On second watching of the movie, when they are traveling Wendy is quite attractive when they arrive at the hotel. She arrives in nice travel cloths and looks more of a wife than a mother. She often leaves Danny alone and even allows him to be with Dick Halleronn on his own for a time, this scene over ice cream in the hotel is much better than the car scene in the novel which didn’t seem realistic, also Kubrick would have had to shoot dialog in a car when he could simply do it over a table. She also looks in charge and functional in her overalls, like she is capable and functional. I think Kubrick adds this for contrast in Wendy and in a way treats Wendy more humanely than he does Jack.

King functions well as a novelist and Kubrick as a film maker. Kubrick economizes to maintain tension and to eliminate aspects that did not easily transfer to film in 1980. King had more love for his characters while Kubrick as much more mercenary in his use of his actors. I believe Kubrick’s maze was greater than King’s hedges, and that King’s Jack and Wendy were more developed and human.