Analysis of Stanley Kubricks 1980 Film: The Shining - Coursework Example

Analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 Film: The Shining Proposal for the paper In this research paper, the 1980 British-American psychological horror film will be analysed. The analysis will consider the principles of film form, the type of the film, elements of narrative, mise-en-scene, cinematography and acting analysis. The objectives will be i. To view the film ii. To summarize the plot of the film iii. To identify the themes of the film iv. To analyse the way the film composition through photography was achieved v. To identify the way light was used to emphasize the identified themes vi. To identify the visual effects used at different levels of the film vii. To establish the overall effect achieved through different film elements Research plan with sources The research analysis will constitute viewing the film and identifying the elements of interests at different scenes, reading existing literature on the film and supporting the arguments made with secondary sources related to film analysis in general. The following sources will be relied on in the analysis of the film: Barsam, Richard and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film, 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print. Bordwell, David & Thompson Kristin. Film Art: An Introduction, 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print. DiMare, Philip. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. New York: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print. Garret, Brown. “The Steadicam and The Shining.” American Cinematographer 61.8(1980): 786–789. Rice, Julian. Kubricks Hope: Discovering Optimism from 2001 to Eyes Wide Shut. New York: Scarecrow Press, 2008. Webster, Patrick. Love and Death in Kubrick: A Critical Study of the Films from Lolita Through Eyes Wide Shut. New York: McFarland, 2010. Print. Outline I. Introduction II. The Plot of The Shinning III. Themes of the film IV. The composition of the film V. The mise-en-scene in the film VI. The use of Visual effects VII. Conclusion Analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 Film: The Shining Film analysis is as complex as any other analysis in social facts that are depicted through the art of creation. In film making, most of the story telling is done through the camera shots, lighting and general mise-en-scene (Barsam and Monahan 212). However, there are other elements such as narrative and cinematography that cannot be separated from the principles of film form, and type of the movie among others. In this essay, the 1980 British-American psychological horror film, The Shining will be analysed. The Shining is directed by Stanley Kubrick and is co-written with Diane Johnson. Although the film has significant editing and change of themes, it is based on Stephen King’s novel entitled “The Shining”. Plot is among the elements of narrative in film and constitutes the sequence of events as they take place to construct a story line. In The Shinning, the plot is linear from the start to the end (Bordwell & Kristin 26). As the movie begins, Jack Torrance is seen arriving at the overlook hotel in which he is interviewed for the position of winter caretaker. His main drive is being a lone and affording time to complete his writing projects. During winter, the location of the hotel is encased in snow. This makes the hotel to operate for only five months in a year and for the rest seven months it is closed. The manager of the hotel, named Ullman Stuart, tells Jack that the person who held the position of caretaker committed suicide after killing his entire family. This functions as the first allusion to the events that unfold later in the film. Danny, the son to Jack experienced a terrible dream foreshadowing an imminent danger in the hotel. His mother has already noted and reported to the doctor that Danny has an imaginary friend called Tony. She also reports that Jack has sworn not to drink following a binge in which he hurt Danny in the arm. When the family arrives at the hotel, it is oriented and it is during the orientation tour when a black American chef, Dick Hallorann, offers Danny an ice cream telepathically. He explains to Danny that he and his grandmother used this way of communication, which he referred to as “shining”. Danny enquires of room 237 and Hallorann warns Danny against room 237. A month later, Jack has not started writing his project and Danny and his mother Wendy explore the hedge maze. The snowfall is rampant and had paralyzed phone lines and she was concerned about Danny’s strange visions and dreams. Jack starts developing violent outbursts and acting strangely. One day, Danny noticed that room 237’s door was open and out of curiosity he goes inside. Wendy finds Jack asleep at his typewriter amidst a terrifying nightmare. When she wakes him up, he confesses that his dream was about him having killed her and Danny his son. Immediately, Danny appears with a bruise on his neck. He was visibly terrifies. Wendy accuses Jack of torturing Danny and immediately Jack leaves into the hotel’s gold room where he encounters a ghost of Lloyd, the former bartender. Jack complains to the ghost about his wife. Wendy reports to Jack that a crazy woman in one of the hotel rooms strangled Danny. Jack inspects room 237 and encounters the ghost of a dead woman. He tells Wendy that he did not see anything in the room. Jack and his wife disagree as to whether they should let Danny remain in the hotel. After the altercation, a furious Jack goes back to the gold room where he meets many ghosts in a costume party. In the ghost party, Jack met the previous caretaker’s ghost who tells him that he should consider correcting his wife and son. Hallorann, while in Florida has a premonition of a bad thing happening at the hotel. He takes a quick flight to Colorado for investigation. All of a sudden, Danny begins to shout “REDRUM” and goes into another world in which he start referring himself as Tony. Wendy find Jack’s typewriter in which he has been typing endless manuscript with the phrase “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” in different layouts. When Jack finds her, she hits him unconscious with a baseball bat. She drags him to the kitchen and locks him up, and later discovers that she and Danny are locked up in the hotel. Jack is later released from the kitchen by Grady. Danny writes “REDЯUM” on the bathroom door using a lipstick. Wendy read the word as “MURDƎЯ” from the bedroom mirror. Jack then goes towards his family’s living room with a fire axe and on seeing this, Wendy escapes Danny through bathroom window, but she is left in the room unable to go through the same window. As Jack chops through the bathroom door, Wendy screams, and she gets hold of a butcher’s knife and slashed his hand. Jack leaves the room and kills Hallorann who has borrowed a snowcat to get up the mountain. He then pursues Danny into the hedge maze. When Wendy gets out of the hotel at last, she encounters many ghosts and a huge cascade of blood coming from an elevator door. As the movie ends, Danny covers his clothes in the snow to mislead Jack and later meets his mother Wendy with whom they escape using Hallorann’s snowcat. Jack is left to freeze to death in the hedge maze. This plots presents a structure in which the film starts, there is foreshadowing of bad events in Danny’s dream and the enigma of room 237, the revealing of ghosts in the room and last the blood that cascades from the door of an elevator. These events unfold and create a tension that helps to move the story from exposition, complication and rising action where Jack completely turns against his own family as earlier predicted in his own dream. The plot of the film is linear and achieves its end though in a psychologically horrifying way. At the end of the movie, the viewer is left wondering on the reality of what is presented in the film. It is through the plot that The Shining presents a number of explicit and implicit themes depending on the perspective one uses to interpret the events. The film can be interpreted as presenting the crisis in masculinity, sexism, racism and the life of a corporate America (DiMare 440). The struggle between Jack’s written word and Danny’s culture of images are presented in a kind of Oedipal complexity. The shot of the Indian baking powder artwork that appears throughout the film is seen as an indirect reference to American killings of Native Americans (DiMare 445). Since the hotel was built on an Indian burial ground, at one time Stuart Ullman reports to Wendy that they had to deal with a few Indian attacks. Therefore, the film is seen as a metaphor for the mass killing of Native Americans as symbolically alluded to by the blood cascading through the elevator. The film end with a puzzle in which an extreme long camera shot moves down the hallway reaching to one of the photos on the wall. The caption on the photo reads “Overlook Hotel-July 4th Ball-1921” (Rice 12). This is interpreted as meaning that Americans should ignore the July fourth independence day because Native Americans, as demonstrated in the film, are the ones who massacred Indians in the earlier years (DiMare 442). The film is also voted as utilizing various fairy tales that were used to teach children moral lessons in different societies. The ghosts presented in the film are not supposedly real given that they are a reflection on the mirror. Jack never saw any ghost directly. Kubrick relied on mirrors as visual aids in order to underscore the theme of internal transformation and oppositions that occur within Jack Torrance. Most notable of this film is the setting; a fictional hotel which operates only in winter from which Jack Torrance seeks employment accompanied by his family. The snowy covering of the setting brings about a cold mood that parallels the events that unfold as the film moves towards the end. The cold atmosphere mirrors the cold relationship that exists between the characters and their mental status. For example, the ghosts that Jack sees and that probably are incarnated in him are opposites of Danny and Wendy who find themselves in unusual situation and whom the viewer identify with and hope that they come out safely as they lose trust with Jack; wondering whether he is really a human being from the beginning. The Shinning presents difference and variation as a principle of form. In it, Jack and Wendy start very well as lovers. As the film plot continues, the characters are unaware that there will be a difference that will set them apart. The extent of their difference is when Wendy cuts Jack’s hand and when he is also trying to kill her in their hotel living room. The principle of difference in character and variation along the story line maintain the interest of viewers in The Shinning (Garret 787). The film is also convoluted in its story line. At the end of The Shinning the viewer is left to wonder whether the ghosts are real in the film or are just an imagination of Jack. This is true given the fact that Jack never saw a ghost directly; they were always reflected on a mirror. The Shining is voted as having had a prolonged period during its production because the principle photography took more than twelve months of Kubrick’s perfectionist work (Rice 13). Every shot in the film narrates a story further or alludes to an event. The shots are carefully done and every meaning in the film is hidden. At the opening of the film, the viewers are treated to panoramic shots in which a Volkswagen beetle is shot on the road going towards the setting of the film. The shots are most likely taken from a helicopter. Another popular shot in the film is at the end of the film in which the camera moves towards a wall bringing forth Jack Torrance in 1921 party. The critics interpret the shot as meaning that Jack was reincarnated in an earlier official of the hotel (Webster 33). This means that if Jack was around in 1921, then his present day is a phantom; a shadow which is presented as a photographic copy. The shot makes the viewer also to wonder how it is that the Torrents have never seen the picture, while they had all freedom to inspect every corner of the hotel; not mentioning the central place where the picture was. This is a creation of the feeling that it was out of ignorance that the Torrents had to go through the agony they underwent. They ought to have discovered it and therefore, they have no one to blame. The shinning uses a complex mise-en-scene, which when applied to film it is everything that passes through the camera such as sets, props, actors, costumes and lighting (Bordwell 22). The visuals used in the film are part of horrific experiences that the viewer shares with the characters. The most visible visuals and images in the film are for example, the word “REDЯUM”, the Grady girls and the blood spilling from the elevator doors (Webster 34). These elements of mise-en-scene, which are enhanced with different lighting techniques drives the plot of the film and keeps the viewer watching and wanting more and more of the mind horrifying scenes (Garret 788). The shinning contains a brief electronic tone by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind and other theme aligned pieces of modernist music (Rice 14). There are many parts of the soundtrack overdubbed one atop another. In conclusion, The Shinning is a psychological horror set in a cold hotel atmosphere. It symbolizes a cold relationship with self and others in the society. The characters, the props, the scene, lighting and the other elements of narration, mise-en-scene and cinematography are wound in a way that drives the overall concatenated themes of the film. Kubrick utilizes the principles of film form such as similarity and repetition, unity and disunity, and difference and variation as binary tools. This artistic combination is the one that Kubrick uses to explore the themes and storyline of The Shining and he achieves his objective. Works Cited Barsam, Richard and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film, 4th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print. Bordwell, David & Thompson Kristin. Film Art: An Introduction, 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print. DiMare, Philip. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. New York: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Print. Garret, Brown. “The Steadicam and The Shining.” American Cinematographer 61.8(1980): 786–789. Rice, Julian. Kubricks Hope: Discovering Optimism from 2001 to Eyes Wide Shut. New York: Scarecrow Press, 2008. Webster, Patrick. Love and Death in Kubrick: A Critical Study of the Films from Lolita Through Eyes Wide Shut. New York: McFarland, 2010. Print. Read More