October 14th-16th, 2017- Stephen King’s The Shining (1997), Mick Garris
Stephen King’s general thoughts about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980):
“The book is hot, and the movie is cold; the book ends in fire, and the movie in ice. In the book, there's an actual arc where you see this guy, Jack Torrance, trying to be good, and little by little he moves over to this place where he's crazy. And as far as I was concerned, when I saw the movie, Jack was crazy from the first scene. I had to keep my mouth shut at the time. It was a screening, and Nicholson was there. But I'm thinking to myself the minute he's on the screen, 'Oh, I know this guy. I've seen him in five motorcycle movies, where Jack Nicholson played the same part.' And it's so misogynistic. I mean, Wendy Torrance is just presented as this sort of screaming dishrag. But that's just me, that's the way I am.“
So I haven’t seen Kubrick’s Shining since I was around 11. It bored me to death at the time and I fell asleep halfway in. Since then I have watched and seriously respected other Kubrick films and I understand how he prioritizes depth of details, symbolism, and visual tone over character development and other more standard storytelling elements. So I get why the Shining (1980) is a good movie and that’s why I am going to watch it and review it later this month.
BUT before I do that I wanted to research how Stephen King felt about it and as you can see from the above quote he is not fond of it. At all. And I can see why he would be pissed about the dilution of his characters in favor of aesthetic. He does make a conscious effort to write strong, determined women and the “screaming dishrag” comparison is not wrong. I can see both sides of this fundamental Shining disagreement.
So the next step is to watch King’s answer to Kubrick’s film, his own version of the Shining: a 3 part, 4 1/2 hours-total-running-time, Steven Weber led, 90′s TV miniseries. It is probably obvious by the running time, but the 1997 The Shining is a very accurate, (seemingly) un-abridged account of the events of the book. It is a gradual descent into madness. Weber has his moments of bizarre manic energy that come off as genuine. His Mr. Hyde pays off, but his Dr. Jekyll is lacking. He was never that likable when he is presented as, or is pretending to be, a good guy.
The supporting characters are the strength of this movie. Rebecca DeMornay is very convincing as the protective mother in the midst of an abusive relationship that is rapidly escalating. It was interesting to watch the self-awareness in her character grow as she begins to realize that she is being gaslighted and her husband is insane. The kid who plays Danny, Courtland Mead, is a but of a mouthbreather, but does a good job coming across as a kid who is innocent and terrified while also being mature enough to lie to his parents about his visions to protect them.
The visuals were pretty creepy but not pit-of-your-stomach unsettling like some of the scenes from the Kubrick Shining. I thought this 1997 version did a good job with the woman in the bathtub, not bad SFX for ‘97. And the party scene where King conducts the GC (Gage Creed, a Pet Sematary reference) orchestra until his face melts off is pretty cool.
What I liked about both films and the book is the nature of this haunting. The Overlook is one of those buildings plagued not by a specific person’s ghost, but by traumatic events that occured there that kind of get stuck in time and play on a loop or just have a general affect on everyone who comes in contact with that space. I think that kind of disturbance is a little more compelling than your average ghost story. Also, creates another link to Pet Sematary: The land is sour.
I can see why King wanted to expand on a movie that he felt didn’t do his work justice, and I can also see why a 4 1/2 hour expansion of an intense emotional build up might have come off a little stale at times.
The Shining (1997) gets a 7 out of 10 from me.
