Shining, The (DVD)

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When critics appraise director Stanley Kubrick´s extended output, they most often count "The Shining" as the odd duck, the one that never made it, the one that didn´t live up to the great man´s reputation. In fact, the film has been something of an embarrassment for Kubrick aficionados. Even his final effort, "Eyes Wide Shut," got better notices than "The Shining."

Yet "The Shining" remains one of Kubrick´s most popular pictures, the movie most non-Kubrick fans enjoy the most. Is this to suggest the director was purposely aiming his film at a lowbrow audience? I hope not. I´m a Kubrick fan, I appreciate his other work, and I love this film, too. Well, admittedly, I´m pretty lowbrow. Taken for what it is, an extremely well-made horror flick with a typically ambiguous Kubrick theme about the lingering effects of evil, "The Shining" stands head and shoulders over most of its competition. Now digitally restored and all the better to appreciate, this new version of the 1980 film makes its second DVD appearance within a year. It is part of a remastered series from Warner Bros. that includes "Lolita," "2001," "A Clockwork Orange," "Barry Lyndon," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Eyes Wide Shut," all offered individually or as part of a boxed set of nine discs that also contains Columbia TriStar´s "Dr. Strangelove" and an excellent documentary on Kubrick, "A Life in Pictures."

Based on the novel by Stephen King, "The Shining" tells the story of a former alcoholic (Jack Nicholson) who takes his wife (Shelley Duvall) and five-year-old son (Danny Lloyd) to spend a winter as caretakers of an old, rambling, isolated hotel in the mountains. The conflict? The hotel is haunted by the ghosts of past atrocities, including the ax murder by a previous caretaker of his entire family. And the young son happens to be psychic, which adds to the dilemma; he is said to have "the shining," the ability to read the future and talk to spirits. Before you can say "Boo," the child is seeing all kinds of weird stuff, like the bloodied corpses of twin girls who were murdered at the hotel. Combine these spooky goings-on with the boy´s well-founded fear of his father, who hurt him earlier in an alcoholic rage, and we know the poor kid is not exactly in for a pleasant winter vacation. As we suspect, it doesn´t take long before old Jack starts to crack under the strain of solitude, "cabin fever" it´s sometimes called, seeing ghosts, turning into an ax-wielding monster, and tearing after his wife and son.

Whatever its critics have said, I believe the film succeeds on almost every level. The first hour is appropriate introduction and exposition. It builds a mood of quiet tension. We can readily see there is something just a little wrong with the father, but we can´t yet pin it down. By the second hour, all hell breaks loose, and in the last few minutes it´s sheer terror. It´s one of the few horror films that can still give me chills the fifth and sixth times around and make my hair stand on end.

Over the years I´ve heard "The Shining" faulted on three major counts: It goes on too long, the director is too constrained, and Nicholson is out of control. Let´s take these items one at a time. First, is it really too long? Well, there is hardly a scene that could be deleted. Maybe the interview toward the beginning between the boy and the social-worker psychologist could have been dropped or shortened. Anything else? Nothing I can think of. Kubrick is a filmmaker who tells his stories largely through imagery, so naturally there are going to be long, lingering mood shots. It´s a beautiful motion picture to look at, whether it´s for the glorious outdoor scenery or the equally impressive indoors of the grand hotel. It may be the most good-looking horror movie ever made, and I love those long tracking shots through the hallways. The hotel itself is made to become a dynamic persona in the drama. Besides, Kubrick did later cut the film for television, and it only made it worse.

Second, is the director really too distant, too aloof from his characters? Again, I think not. Like E.A. Poe, Kubrick uses his characters to carry out his story line; they exist as vehicles to create an effect rather than as three-dimensional human beings in and of themselves. Not that we don´t feel for the wife and child and their predicament; indeed, we come to care about them very much by the end of the film. It´s just that their personalities are not as important as what they´re experiencing.

Finally, is Nicholson truly unrestrained? Much has been said of the apparent conflict between the ever-cool, ever-calculating director and the volatile actor, most criticism suggesting that Nicholson had more input than he should have had and was allowed to go over the top. The DVD´s accompanying documentary, however, made during the film´s shooting, refutes the argument. One sequence shows Kubrick telling Nicholson they will have to re-shoot a scene (Kubrick was notoriously exacting and would re-shoot scenes more times than most directors would have the patience or budget for) because Nicholson isn´t acting "mean" enough! I´m convinced that most of what Nicholson did in the film was written, suggested, or encouraged by the director. The upshot, in any case, is a tour-de-force acting job. "Heeere´s Johnny!" As much as for any of his many fine film roles, it may be for this performance that Nicholson is best remembered.