Shining, The [Special Edition]

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When critics appraise director Stanley Kubrick's extended output, they often count 1980's "The Shining" as the odd duck, the one that never made it, the one that didn't quite live up to the great man's reputation. In point of fact, "The Shining" has been something of an embarrassment for Kubrick aficionados. Even his final effort, "Eyes Wide Shut," got better notices than "The Shining," although that may have been a sympathy reaction because the director died just before its release. 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 intentionally 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. Well, admittedly, I'm pretty lowbrow, too.

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. Needless to say, it's good have it digitally remastered on HD DVD.

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 ghosts of past atrocities committed at the hotel still haunt the place, including that of a previous caretaker who took an ax to his entire family. And the young son happens to be psychic, which adds to the dilemma; he has what the film calls "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 whose father murdered them 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 spirits, 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 an 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. "The Shining" is one of the few horror films that can still give a person chills the fifth and sixth times around and make one's hair stand on end.

Over the years I've heard people fault "The Shining" on three major counts: It goes on too long, the director is too constrained, and Nicholson is out of control. Let's take these concerns one at a time. First, is the movie really too long? Well, there is hardly a scene the director could have deleted. Maybe he could have dropped the interview toward the beginning between the boy and the social-worker psychologist. Anything else? Nothing I can think of. Kubrick is a filmmaker who tells his stories largely through imagery, so naturally he's going to use a variety of prolonged 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. I'd say it is probably the best-looking horror movie ever made, and I love those long tracking shots through the hallways (which parallel so well the movie's glorious opening shots of the family car winding along a mountain road to the lodge). The director makes the hotel itself (shooting the exteriors at Oregon's Timberline Lodge) into 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 Edgar Allan 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; in fact, 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.

Third, is Nicholson truly unrestrained? Critics have commented on the apparent conflict between the ever-cool, ever-calculating director and the volatile actor, most of the criticism suggesting that Nicholson had more input than he should have had, and the director allowed him to go over the top. However, the HD DVD's accompanying documentary, which Kubrick's daughter made during the film's shooting, refutes the argument. One sequence shows Kubrick telling Nicholson they will have to reshoot a scene (Kubrick was notoriously exacting and would reshoot scenes more times than most directors would have the patience or budget for) because Nicholson wasn't acting "mean" enough! I believe the director wrote, suggested, or encouraged most of what Nicholson did in the film. 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 demonic performance that many people remember Nicholson best.

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