The Shining (1980) directed by none other than Stanley Kubrick is potentially the most awesomely weird movie I've ever seen. More reminiscent of his 2001: A Space Odyssey or A Clockwork Orange. The Shining is a monumental sci-fi/horror film which takes place almost exclusively in the very empty and very "haunted" Overlook Hotel. Jack Torrance and his family, wife Wendy and son Danny, move into the resort after getting a job as the off-season caretaker.During the movie everyone noticed how many tracking shots are used. Practically 80% of the film is composed of tracking shots. Kubrick was actually one of the first directors to use a steadicam as it was invented just 4 years before the making of this movie. This movie has had such an impact on the rest of the history of movies, as apparently Spielberg and Scorsese both were hugely influenced by the frequent low tracking shot seen in the flick.
While watching The Shining I kept thinking to myself what the hell, this is so weird. The first hour of the movie we are introduced to psychics and a strangely possessed child, and then it get progressively more out there as time goes on. Spoiler Warning! At the end of the movie Jack goes insane and tries to kill his family, just as the previous care taker Charles Grady. I've been thinking about this for the last like two hours, and I feel there is no logical explanation for what I've just seen. I've come to the conclusion that the hotel is a connection to the past, which people who are untrained with their gift of the shining are able to open up this connection and fuse both the present and past. With Danny there, the past is able to open into the future, and the ghosts of those killed are thus reincarnated into real people. I feel there are too many "loopholes" for anyone explanation to work, which is what intrigues me about this movie.
2 comments:
Elliot, as we watched this movie together and talked a little bit about it you know that I agree with what you said. I would say that over 80% of that movie was tracking shots, but who really cares. I also cannot really figure out most of that movie, especially the end because it was so damn confusing. I think that the past just became the future not that the people were reincarnated, just that they were just the same and the events followed suit
Elliot, I also feel that there was no real reason for what happened and also struggle to find connection between the picture at the end that Jack was in. I also agree that he used several tracking shots and they added to the weirdness of the movie.
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