The Shining celebrates its 35th anniversary, and the film has long since become recognized as one of the greatest horror films
<b>When</b> it comes to classic horror films, I'm afraid no one can bypass Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It has been 35 years since the film came out on May 23, 1980, but it is still an insurmountable classic in the history of horror films in the world.
Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duval, Danny Lloyd and others, The Shining tells the story of Nicholson's writer Jack Torrance, who decides to take over a luxurious mountain hotel, overlook, in order to get rid of his frustration at work. It was a large, secluded, eerie house, and its previous manager was said to have inexplicably lost his mind and killed his entire family. Jack didn't take it seriously, he just wanted to find a quiet place to concentrate on writing. So, despite his friends' advice, he moved the hotel with his wife Wendy and son Danny. They set up new rules, and Jack set up a lounge for his own creations. However, eerie gradually emerged from the calm surface. Jack begins to go to the bar of the hotel frequently, looking for information about his past, recalling the bloody images in his mind; something abnormal finally inevitably happens...
On the occasion of the film's 35th anniversary, Time.com will take you back in revisiting this recognized horror masterpiece, tracing the behind-the-scenes stories of those years and its enduring secrets.
<b>How was The Shining born? </b>
<b>Selected materials in hundreds of novels Single shot 148 times</b>
The Shining set, Kubrick and Jack Nicholson
After director Stanley Kubrick's period film Barry Lyndon was a huge success in 1975, he realized that he should make a film with potential commercial value next. To this end, he frantically flipped through hundreds of books, and finally chose to remake Stephen King's "The Shining" and began to work on the scene construction at the Elstrey Studios in England. Kubrick wanted to shoot the film chronologically, so to speed up the pre-work process, he hired Diane Johnson to help him write the screenplay. Stephen King's traditional ghost story was transformed by the two screenwriters into a more stylistic and terrifying film.
Kubrick chose his old friend Jack Nicholson to play the male protagonist Jack Torrance. Although Kubrick had long planned to work with Nicholson, the latter was not able to finally play the male lead of the film because of their years of friendship. According to Kubrick's explanation, Nicholson was able to play because the role was very similar to his life. "He's a flawed guy, and the film can take advantage of that." Kubrick's biographer John Baxter explains that Nicholson's own problems can be cleverly integrated with film, and that the real side of his life can be revealed to the audience through performance.
Kubrick is extremely strict with details, and Skatt Crosos, Danny Lloyd, who was still a child, and the heroine Shelly Duval all suffered a lot during the filming process.
Years of friendship allowed Jack Nicholson to get along well with Kubrick during filming, but actress Shelly Duval wasn't so lucky. Kubrick, who has always had an eccentric temper, always adhered to the principle of "perfectionism" for his work, and he often embarrassed the actress with such a harsh work attitude during filming. However, it was later assumed that Kubrick did it on purpose, and he used it to enhance the uneasiness and discomfort presented by Shelly Duval in the film.
The shining's main set took nearly a year to shoot, which was a stressful experience for both Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duval, not to mention Elstrey Studios. The latter has already signed an agreement with Warren Beatty and Steven Spielberg to provide a shooting location for the two films", "Beacon of Fire" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark". The long-term shooting of "The Shining" also made it impossible for the two contracts to be implemented.
The length of the shoot was largely because Kubrick always liked to shoot a scene dozens and hundreds of times, and the photographer of the film wrote in a 1980 issue of American Photographer magazine: "In the first few attempts, you can choose one to use, but he (Kubrick) always responds very little, and only decides which one to use after 14 shots." Usually it wasn't until we had photographed it more than twenty times that he was at ease. One of the most widely known extremes is a scene in the film in which Sgat Krussos and Danny Lloyd are pitted, and Kubrick shot it 148 times before finally passing.
<b>Why has The Shining endured? </b>
<b>Innovative technology creates a classic realistic style to create psychological fear</b>
As a photographic tool, Steadicam gets rid of the limitations of getting rid of the original mobile camera trucks and cranes, thus achieving lens expansion in space and time. Steadicam made "The Shining", such as the picture of a little boy riding a toy "tricycle" through the corridors, which is about Steadicam being filmed in a wheelchair
Kubrick's exquisite attention to detail has resulted in the most stylish horror film in film history. During the film' shooting, he hired Garrett Brown, the inventor of the Steadicam stabilizer (a lightweight cinema camera holder that helps photographers move the camera freely without relying on a moving camera cart, to keep the camera stable and reduce the vibration of the picture). The camera moves back and forth in the corridors and ballrooms of the Outlook Hotel, using a wide-angle lens to make the entire scene appear wider, creating a terrifying and claustrophobic effect for the audience. From the beginning of the film, jack Torrance's family enters the outlook hotel, to the chase scene staged in the corridor of the hotel behind, the flowing camera creates a completely penetrating visual space, and the camera seems to invisibly represent the subjective perspective of the hotel, coldly watching every scene in the story.
The most impressive part of the film is that Kubrick does not blindly emphasize visual horror and horror, but uses shooting techniques and artistic techniques to maximize the film's inherent impact and thematic ideas. In the film, Jack chases his son Danny into the obstacle-filled labyrinth after going crazy, symbolizing his current crazy consciousness, and then the film narrative becomes more and more internalized.
Nicole Kidman once analyzed the composition of the film's scene: even the simple dialogue between the two of them hides a killing machine, and the knife hanging above the little boy's head heralds danger, and then his mother will point one of the knives at his mad father.
Kubrick once explained the film to the famous French film critic Michel Simon: "The Shining strikes an extraordinary balance between psychology and the supernatural, and in this way, the film leads the audience to think that the supernatural can eventually be explained by psychology. So, rather than show horror, Kubrick prefers to create an eerie psychological atmosphere. He doesn't set up dark, quirky corners in a room full of lights, nor does he use suddenly editing horror images to achieve a terrifying effect. Instead, he uses realistic methods — realistic lighting and detail, clever but not over-exaggerated photography, editing, etc. — to make the world of the male protagonist Jack Torrance seem more real and believable. He uses the juxtaposition of different film elements, frequently using long-range shots, so that the atmosphere of mystery and uneasiness pervades every part of the film, and even the most innocuous dialogue and the brightest scenes feel full of evil.
For most horror film directors, they are good at using the variety of lighting effects and the ever-accelerating rapid editing to create a sense of horror in their films. The Shining is different in that it's plastered with Kubrick's personal label — its style is so unique that few people can emulate its shooting techniques, and even imitations rarely succeed. The existence of "The Shining" is not just a horror movie, and perhaps the biggest inspiration it gives filmmakers at the moment is that <b>film directors should realize their own unique style and create truly special and innovative works in the established genre film framework. </b>