The Shining (1980) by Stanley Kubrick
The “Shining” (1980) by Stanley Kubrick was produced with the sole intention of leaving viewers looking for answers to a mystery that has no resolution. Once audiences watch it, they end-up scratching their heads over the unrequited queries and numerous memorable mysterious images. However, what is hidden in this film is truly enthralling. The most incredible attribute of the film is what the viewer did not identify, right there on the screen. What is significant is what the viewer did not notice. Everybody expects outlandish things to take place in a horror movie. Kubrick brings hidden issues in clear perspective; he controls what the viewers are looking at and controls the exact spot where their eyes are focusing on the screen.
The “Shining” maneuvers on more than one aspect as the director holds patently clear tidbits to fulfill the audience’s curiosity then lets another concealed picture, one that may not have been noticed, containing the actual meaning. He tries to bring his audience in a special room, a place that holds their deepest and cordial fears. This place scares the audience to the core. He puts the door key for the audience and turns it; all the audiences need to do is get in. The film develops into a cinematic labyrinth of secreted hints and resolute visual incongruities just begging to be revealed by audiences.
Kubrick uses different scenes and different styles to show different aspects of the film. For example, during a scene when Danny visualizes the girls in the Overlook Hotel’s entrance hall, the suspense is intensified by the editing done in both the montage and conventional style thus creating theatrical anxiety, and portrays the mental state of Danny. This scene begins with an extreme lengthy shot following Danny riding his tricycle past the camera, along the Overlook’s hallway. He goes through an entrance in the distance and goes round, riding surreptitiously. The editor holds this shot for longer time, signifying that Danny has just gone into an unsafe place where the camera is frightened to trail. The editor uses continuity style where this expertly prefigures looming danger, so that when he at last cuts to a close following shot of Danny from the back as he moves toward a turn in the hall, the audience, in consternation, foresees something around the corner.
The editing in this case is tricky and self-conscious thus calling attention to itself. This is shown when Danny goes round the corner and comes to an unexpected stop when he notices the two girls from his previous visualization standing at the end of the hall. This enables the watcher to take-in the shock; the editor maintains the shot vaguely past the climax of the content curve. This is an instant in a shot where the viewer has been able to put together most of its information. This builds a sense of time being extensive, reminiscent-of a reverie, like with Danny’s vision. The editing is not intentionally disorienting or confusing; it’s a coherent classical editing. This is shown when the editor takes Danny’s reverse viewpoint reaction shot that focuses the audience’s attention on the subtleness of his deportment—wide-open eyes, Danny’s trait of “shining” experiences, and his chest’s hasty rise and fall. Obviously, when Danny sees the two girls and he becomes very frightened. The editor rewinds back to the overturn viewpoint of the girls, enabling the audience to vie with Danny as they talk, “Hi, Danny.”
Again, this shot is prolonged before cutting to a different close-up of Danny. Capturing the face of Danny while the girls utter the next statement asking Danny to go and play with them. The editor shows Danny’s terrified state where he is too startled to move. The shot is taken back to the girls and it’s sustained with which, by-now, the audience is relatively familiar with the concept. The effect of this editorial cutting is incredible; the transitional slow pace of Kubrick’s editing positions the watcher up to be shocked when, next, at exactly the point they grow familiar to the pacing, he then breaks the pace by jump cutting to a nearer shot down the same hall, where the viewers see an upsetting picture of the girls murdered on the floor, with their blood splashed across the walls and a machete on the floor.
This shot is cut very short, prior to the climax of the content curve, as a result not allowing the audience to entirely absorb the frightening view. This subjectively points out the manner in which the horrifying images are alternating through the mind of Danny. At this instant in the scene, the pace of the editing picks-up speed. The editor swiftly cuts reverse to the two girls standing at the end of the hall; nonetheless, in this cutting, the camera goes nearer to them. While they conclude their next line, the editor calculatingly reiterates the shot of the massacre, yet again capturing it for only a concise moment before swiftly cutting to capture a shot of Danny’s horrified face. Staying even with the fast-paced cutting, the editor almost instantly cuts to an even nearer shot of the girls as they converse, “And ever.” In exact montage and continual style, these consecutively taut girls’ shots suggest Danny’s increasingly frightened mental state.
A different jump cut to the massacre scene is immediately followed by an intermediate shot of the girls that, closer to the watcher than ever, provokes deep emotions of terror and a feeling of imminent fate. The speedy edits builds a sense of speed, conceivably reflecting Danny’s hastening heart rate as he becomes more and more troubled. After the girls uttered their last line, the editor cuts one final time to the gory shot of the girls on the floorboards prior to rapidly going back to Danny’s overturn angle close-up, who, with his mouth open, tosses his arms over his eyes. The shot remains with Danny as he vigilantly moves one of his hands to see if the two girls are still standing there, stirring up an agonizing feeling of anticipation because the watcher, like Danny, is unsure if the fear-provoking incident is over.
A reverse angle answers viewers query with a long shot of the vacant hallway. By retracting the camera and going back to a slower editing speed, Kubrick tells the viewers that the vision is without a doubt over and all is back to normal. The editing carried out in this scene is important because, all through the film, it is attributing Danny’s paranormal visions. Therefore, whether deliberately or not, the audience has a good judgment of when another frightening vision is approaching, this builds anticipation that helps in maintaining the suspense in the film.
