The Shining

Batutta

Batutta

Major Contributor
Watched the HD DVD of The Shining, which looks and sounds fantastic. I was really able to appreciate the sound design much more this time, hearing it in 5.1 is a revelation. The three documentaries on it are awesome. Anyway, the point of the post was that I was watching the original doc Vivian Kubrick did for the film, and they show the moment Kubrick decided how to shoot one of my favorite shots, a low angle looking up at Jack as he's locked in the storage room. They then show the actual scene being filmed, and THIS IS WHAT CRACKED ME UP. The cameraman was on the floor shooting handheld, and for fill they used a regular porcelain light socket and bulb taped to his chest, and Kubrick himself is holding a piece of diffusion over the bulb as the camera rolls. Here was a man who could command an army to shoot for him if he wanted, and it's just him and the cameraman on the floor with a household lightbulb. Amazing.
 
Batutta said:
The cameraman was on the floor shooting handheld, and for fill they used a regular porcelain light socket and bulb taped to his chest, and Kubrick himself is holding a piece of diffusion over the bulb as the camera rolls. Here was a man who could command an army to shoot for him if he wanted, and it's just him and the cameraman on the floor with a household lightbulb. Amazing.
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That's always been my favorite part of that doc. In the Life in Pictures doc, someone, maybe the cinematographer for The Shining (who also worked on Clockwork and Lyndon) said something along the lines of "He liked to light by just flipping on a switch in a room". I'm paraphrasing, of course.
 
I just don't understand why Stephen King dislikes this film so much...I think he doesn't realize that movies and books are two different art forms that have different priorities. I think Kubrick brilliantly took the ideas and themes in his novel and transposed them into cinematic language, rather than just doing a literal adaptation. Filmmaking has certain strengths over novels and Kubrick played to those. The theme of alcoholism is more prominent in the book and I think King's primary motivation for writing it, but that's mostly an interior problem Jack struggles with and to overly dramatize it would have been dull.
 
Batutta said:
I just don't understand why Stephen King dislikes this film so much...I think he doesn't realize that movies and books are two different art forms that have different priorities. I think Kubrick brilliantly took the ideas and themes in his novel and transposed them into cinematic language, rather than just doing a literal adaptation. Filmmaking has certain strengths over novels and Kubrick played to those. The theme of alcoholism is more prominent in the book and I think King's primary motivation for writing it, but that's mostly an interior problem Jack struggles with and to overly dramatize it would have been dull.
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I hate when people say "the book is always better." Of course, I always ask them back "If the book never existed, would you look at the film the same way?"
 
My brother in law had the chance to meet and talk to Stephen King and the original STANLEY Hotel in Colorado. I think the one in the movie was shot in Victoria, CA (or Vitoria).

Stephen had said that he really wanted to shoot it at the original hotel rather than the one in CA. But at the time, it was not an option. He also did not like how the film was shot and wanted more stuff from the book to come out. So he decided to remake the movie with Vince Vaughn I believe. I did not like the 2nd version as much. I thought the first version was much better.

Sidenote..That Hotel is a very strange place. I do not like the feel of it, if you know what I mean. There are many strange occurrences that seem to happen in that hotel.......BOO!!!
 
In 1997 Stephen King wrote and executive produced a new version of "The Shining" that starred Steven Weber and ran as a mini series.

I bought it out of curiosity and consider it a cure for insomnia.
 
Much has been said as well about Jack Nicholson's performance being over the top. They actually talk about it in the doc's, with Spielberg saying he didn't like the movie at first for that very reason. But if you watch the film carefully you'll see most of the over the top moments are when he's talking to "the ghosts", and a case can be made that he's actually talking to himself. When you talk to your self when no one is looking (I admit I do sometimes) you say weird stuff and make weird faces you never would in public. You don't have sedate conversations with yourself, and the fact that Jack is losing his mind as well I think justifies the choice. The scenes he has with other actors are played more realistically.
 
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.... "

I love the Shining.

The Vivian Kubrick doc is very cool. It really hammered home the fact, to me, that the key to filmmaking is the mastery of the craft. As noted, Kubrick could, and did at times, command armies of people to make his movies, (check out Paths of Glory and Spartacus), but he knew when he did not have to. I believe it was in Life in Pictures, where the studio exec talks about going onto a Kubrick set and not finding an horde of people standing around eating doughnuts. The guy really knew how to make movies.
 
David G. Smith said:
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.... "

I love the Shining.

The Vivian Kubrick doc is very cool. It really hammered home the fact, to me, that the key to filmmaking is the mastery of the craft. As noted, Kubrick could, and did at times, command armies of people to make his movies, (check out Paths of Glory and Spartacus), but he knew when he did not have to. I believe it was in Life in Pictures, where the studio exec talks about going onto a Kubrick set and not finding an horde of people standing around eating doughnuts. The guy really knew how to make movies.
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Definitely. Kubrick new how to make movies but Eyes Wide Shut was horrible. I think he realized it was crap and the realization killed him.
 
Batutta said:
The cameraman was on the floor shooting handheld, and for fill they used a regular porcelain light socket and bulb taped to his chest, and Kubrick himself is holding a piece of diffusion over the bulb as the camera rolls. Here was a man who could command an army to shoot for him if he wanted, and it's just him and the cameraman on the floor with a household lightbulb. Amazing.
Click to expand...

What I really like about this is the simple lesson that I HEAR all the time, but I don't see often. Everyone should be in it to make the best movie possible. We are here for the movie, and nothing else.

It must have been cool to be a part of something that big, shot with that mentality.
 
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