Film
The Power of Illusion Isolation has a very powerful effect on some people, and an extreme case of this is shown in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining. The name alone tends to scare me as scenes of Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) flash through my head. When the story of a prior family that served as winter overseers for the Overlook Hotel, during which time the husband became insane, is told we hear Jack reply, "You can rest assured Mr. Ulman, that's not going to happen to me." Kubrick uses many effective techniques to create this movie from Stephen King's novel, and at the same time intensify it on the screen. The only two characters that really understand the powers that the hotel hold are Jack's son Danny and Dick Hallorann, the cook. Flashback type images are used throughout when Danny has a shining experience. With so much beauty and peacefulness surrounding the hotel it is hard to imagine that seclusion could destroy your mind state. Enough time to think was not actually what Jack needed at the hotel since he happened to have too much time. The main issue this movie continuously throws in the audience's face is the question of truth and illusion, and trying to figure out exactly why things are happening. Right from the beginni
In watching Danny ride his Big Wheel around, and observing Danny and his mother (Shelly DuVaul) walking in the shrubbery labyrinth we see excellent objective camera usage. In the maze the camera becomes human-like as it tends to wobble as though it were another person. We are given a look at a picture of the 1921 Fourth of July ball, where Jack is the life of the party. From that point on there is no looking back for Jack Torrence. Jack had been cooped up inside all this time, and Danny had a bit of an edge because he had been in this maze before. The two seem to have different perceptions of Jack's family, but Jack lets this man, who we believe is dead, talk him into killing Wendy and Danny. As Jack and Wendy argue there is this shifting of the camera to the narrating object back and forth. The music along with the beautiful nature shots seemed to give me a lighter case of anxiety then that which was felt during Regio's Koyaanisqatsi. Just before Jack walks in on Wendy reading his material Kubrick uses subjective camera, showing the wall in front of Jack and slowly pans left until we see his view of Wendy. Just a bit after that we see a close-up of Jack encompassing the entire frame looking more crazy then ever. The cycle of this evil hotel and its former overseer had been broken, but would other families crack under the same circumstances? The final image of truth and illusion is done beautifully and leaves the audience thinking again. ng, the eerieness of this movie hits the audience with full force, as Kubrick uses the soundtrack to do an amazing job. As Kubrick lets the audience see what Jack has been writing for all this time a blow is also given to Wendy, because there is no actual novel, just one famous sentence "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Once Wendy has knocked Jack out and taken him to the pantry, an interesting camera angle is used where we see Jack as if the audience was looking downward above him giving another feeling of control loss. Kubrick capitalized wonderfully on using deep-focus photography to accentuate the vastness of the hallways throughout the hotel.
Common topics in this essay:
Alice Wonderland,
Danny Wendy,
Dick Hallorann,
Jack Wendy,
Koyaanisqatsi Towards,
Shelly DuVaul,
Torrence Kubrick,
Overlook Hotel,
Kubrick Jack,
Delbert Grady,
truth illusion,
jack torrence,
shining house,
former overseer,
final scene,
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Acceptance Essays
