The Shining (1980)
Among the best horror films in film history, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining definitely has a place.
Many people say that what makes The Shining special is that it not only has scary clips like other movies, but also makes the audience reach a state of mental trance, and you may even suddenly feel that someone or something is in your room.
A family in The Shining
Why is The Shining so scary? The most intuitive point is the appearance of the male and female protagonists, which makes the audience shudder when they see them, but in addition to many superficial elements, the film has done a lot of processing in order to create horror in terms of content.
This article will let's explore how The Shining is different from traditional horror movies, and what methods it uses to make people feel creepy.
Jack, the male protagonist in The Shining
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > unusual screenwriting</h1>
In order to answer the above questions, we need to start with the initial creative stage of The Shining.
Interestingly, when Kubrick intended to turn The Shining from Stephen King's novel into a movie, he did not prepare a complete script for filming, but kept rewriting the original draft during filming.
Set photo of The Shining
Diane Johnson, another screenwriter of The Shining, mentioned in the later documentary "Forgotten Landscapes: The Sculpture "The Shining"" that when she was writing the script, the film had already begun to prepare for the film, and she even went to the set to see the set in order to figure out the scenes described in Kubrick's script.
As a result, the script lines and film ideas of "The Shining" were created at the same time.
Kubrick was on the set of The Shining, and he was working against the draft script to prepare the typewriter for filming
However, through the short documentary film "Making the Shining", we can learn that the writing method of the two screenwriters is to understand the film according to the time frame of the entire film, through the relationship between various time points.
For example, Kubrick divided the entire Film into 10 sections, each marked by a title, and the title at the beginning of each section reflects the theme of the segment.
Kubrick on the set of The Shining (Image taken from Making the Shining)
But as the film progressed, the intervals gradually increased, from a month later, to each day of the week, to a definite time on the last day at the Summit Hotel.
The ever-increasing passage of time helps to create the audience's uneasiness and anxiety, and we can realize that the inevitable dangers are getting closer and closer, but we are helpless.
The Shining
In addition, we can also observe the difference between The Shining and other horror movies, the most prominent point is its setting.
The film begins with a hint of danger, such as terrifying music and long empty shots. But aside from the hints, the audience is told directly that the male protagonist Jack may hurt his family, and we know that he is an alcoholic and has hurt Danny, all of which are conveyed through his wife's lines.
The information that the former hotel caretaker suddenly went crazy and killed his entire family with an axe also directly told the audience, which is exactly what the male protagonist Jack will do.
Wendy, the wife of The Shining
Through the dialogue at the beginning of the film, we learn what happened to the hotel and what Jack did.
Not only that, but the film's supernatural elements were revealed and revealed early, such as the dialogue between the chef and Danny, which removed most of the potential mystery from the story.
That is to say, Kubrick seems to tell us the final direction of the story at the beginning of the film, and it gives us all the reasons to doubt and hate Jack.
The supernatural elements of "The Shining" are also told to the audience through Danny's connection and dialogue with the black chef
But the key thing is that the horror part of the story is not whether it happens, but how it happens.
Obviously, from the very beginning Kubrick didn't want to make a traditional horror movie, he took the goal to a higher level, the film must be reasonable, can not have loopholes, can not lack motivation, and must be very scary.
This also brings us to one of the reasons why "The Shining" makes the audience fear - weirdness
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > weirdly create fear</h1>
Before we do, we need to understand how weirdness differs from other kinds of fears.
In his essay "The Creepy Nature" (Beauty), it is explained: "The sense of weirdness comes from the anxiety of not being sure if there is something that will bring you fear, or from being unsure of the nature of the danger you are facing." ”
A very vivid example in "The Shining" is when the heroine goes upstairs with a knife, she sees two men, one of whom is also wearing a bear uniform and a mask, and we can't be sure if they are a threat to people, and their intentions are vague and cannot be confirmed.
The "bears" and men in The Shining also hint at the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union
Similarly, Danny rode a child tricycle around the hotel corridor and suddenly encountered a pair of twin girls.
When they first appear, they are at a distance where it is difficult to see the faces, and as the camera draws closer, the audience will find that they are expressionless, as if to mean that they want to get something from the characters. This unusually calm state, as well as the expression on the face that does not show any information, implies the uncertainty of the threat, which directly triggers the deep fear and uneasiness of the audience.
In The Shining, Danny meets twin girls
As the camera zooms in, we can see the detailed faces of the twin girls
The interpretation of the previous sense of weirdness can also be explained by a real-world example.
If you're walking down the streets of the city at night and suddenly hear something moving in the alley next to you, the first reaction in your mind is definitely whether someone or something will want to hurt you.
Therefore, from the perspective of evolution, when humans are in an uncertain environment, they will spontaneously assume that they are in danger, which is also the stress instinct of human beings.
Alleys in the dark
The Shining uses several methods to trigger this primitive instinct.
First, the soundtrack of the film is a disturbing, unpredictable style, with sometimes concerts popping up when nothing happens, and sometimes not responding when something happens.
For example, when Danny is playing darts, he suddenly sees twin girls behind his back, but does not have the atmosphere-setting soundtrack like other horror movies.
There is only one low-decibel sound effect in this segment and no soundtrack, which is difficult to hear if you are watching The Shining on a computer and have not turned up the volume.
The uncertainty of the soundtrack logic signals to the audience to remain vigilant at all times, just as we mentioned above that you feel that danger may exist when you hear movement in the alley.
But The Shining looks safe visually, and the hotel is brightly lit and bright, not at all the clichéd horror movie environment. This invisibly adds more sense of apprehension, and the hotel hides the horror beneath the exterior, as if wearing a mask.
The space of The Shining is bright overall
This eerie scene pervades the entire film, and one of the most intense scenes is when a ball suddenly rolls toward Danny while he is toying, and when Danny looks up, we see only an empty corridor in the next shot.
It is not scary for a ball to roll over, but by this technique increases the uneasiness and discomfort of the audience, we may wonder: Who threw the ball? What does he want to do?
Later, as Danny walked down the hallway, he found room 237 open, and although he had been warned not to go near it, it was neither dark nor ominous, but rather bright and warm.
The conflict between the two portends potential dangers, but it has yet to reveal a clear threat that can be overwhelming.
Room 237 as Danny sees in The Shining
But the disadvantage of this style is that "The Shining" is actually less terrible near the end, or it becomes another kind of horror.
As the film shows more and more hotels and the hearts and intentions of the occupants in them, the nature of danger slowly surfaces. When Jack made up his mind to kill his family, the situation was already very obvious.
So at the end of the film, the story can be simply summarized as a crazy man who wants to hunt down his whole family with an axe. In this way, the weirdness is replaced by tension, and the plot brought by the conflict makes "The Shining" go beyond ordinary horror movies, and ultimately create those classic plots that have been circulated in film history.
The Shining is a great example of how a movie can get into and manipulate the audience's psyche, and director Kubrick and screenwriter Diane Johnson show us that the most effective fear comes not from ghosts on the screen, but from the audience's own imagination.
Kubrick shows us how a masterpiece can trigger the most primal sense of human fear by telling a seemingly simple story, as he himself put it in an interview: "It's just a story of a man and his family, quietly going crazy together." ”