Something I noticed about "The Shining"

[cemaphonic]

Whenever comparisons are made between the novel and the movie of "The Shining," a pretty common sentiment is that while the movie is great on its own merits, it isn't particularly faithful to the book. In particular, the characterization of Jack is often presented where:

1. Novel-Jack is a basically decent guy with a crippling flaw who is possessed and turned bad by the hotel. King himself seems to endorse this view of the character.

2. Movie-Jack is menacing, unsympathetic and half-crazy from the outset (being Jack Nicholson and all).


Here's the thing though. I just reread the book for the first time since I was about 12 or so, and Jack is really not all that nice. Right from the outset, he is seething with barely controlled resentment towards a guy that is proposing to give him a job. Over the course of the novel, this resentment extends to his best friend, (for being rich and having it easy - he spends a fair amount of time in the book attempting to sabotage this friendship), his family (for trapping him into responsibility and domesticity), various teachers, students and administrators at his old school district, etc. Basically, he's one of those angry "victim" types that is convinced that everyone is holding him down.

Also, his alcoholism is a lot more out of control in the book. Movie-Jack goes on the wagon after breaking Danny's arm, but book-Jack takes an additional (probable) hit-and-run to straighten up, and even then, is carrying around so much bottled anger that he nearly beats a kid to death.

To be fair, he is presented pretty sympathetically in the book. King is good at these sorts of damaged characters, and since we are privy to his inner life, we see his good qualities, such as his strong love for his family. He is also pretty self-aware of his problems, and has the desire to make a change for the better, and his tragic failure to do so is the heart of the book. But I think that if you took the character that King wrote, and tried to imagine how he would come across to someone who didn't know him or what he was thinking, Nicholson's portrayal really isn't as far off the mark as is usually assumed.

[Patiod]

1. I love that book

the scene in the topiary maze is one of the scariest things I've ever read (second only to the people trying to escape from Manhatten during a plague, in "The Stand").

King can do some amazing things.

[Aristus]

2. The maze was in the movie, not the book. In the book, it was topiary animals that were

the menace.

[Patiod]

3. I've only seen parts of the movie

The topiary animals that only moved when he turned his back is what I remember.

I need to re-read it.

[Aristus]

5. Those were some scary pages. The fear of imagining those hedge animals moving

only when your back was turned was much scarier than the movie could ever be, and the movie is pretty scary... :scared:

[cemaphonic]

12. There's a really scary bit in "House of Leaves" about something menacing just out of sight

made even worse by the author(s?) playing around with the fourth wall at the time.

[Goblinmonger]

19. Dude. House of Leaves. Awesome.

There is SO much that is right about that book.

[cemaphonic]

20. Yeah, House of Leaves was great.

When it first caught my attention in the bookstore, I thought it looked interesting, but excessively gimmicky. Someone eventually talked me into reading it, and it was totally worthwhile. And the gimmicks (mostly) worked. I love unreliable narrators, and HOL has at least 4 of them.

Hard to believe a book that is largely in the style of an academic film treatise could be so scary or moving.

[ChickMagic]

17. Those topiary animals scared the life out ot me

I've always been a little spooked by topiary gardens,
and when I read that scene it was really windy outside.
When the animals started moving, the front door blew
open and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

[Sugarcoated]

26. Wow, you just named my two favorite scenes from those books

I recently re-read The Stand just to experience the tunnel scene again. One of my biggest disappointments with the movie adaptation of The Shining was that they didn't recreate the topiary animals moving.

[Zomby Woof]

4. I liked the film better than the book

Which violates the sacred cow cliche that "the book is better than the movie". Not this time.

3 simple reasons:

1. Jack Nicholson
2. Stanley Kubrick
3. King is a decent conceptualist (I get why people like his stories), but a boring hack of a writer.

I saw lots of contemporary horror movies as a kid back in the 70's/80's, and none of them, save "The Shining", put any kind of fear into me at all (I was 13 when I saw it upon release). In fact, most were laughable, including the much-vaunted "Halloween" and its slasher offspring - including the slag put out by Wes Craven (oops! another sacred cow!). Kubrick knew how to extract TENSION and the SUGGESTION of terror, with very little in the way of actual gore or bloodshed - the most graphic scene being when Dick Hallorann got the ax, so to speak. No one since Hitchcock could milk such tension by mere psychological suggestion. Jack Torrance walked the same uneasy fine line as Norman Bates - until one thing pushed them over the edge. Must be something about an isolated hotel/motel that brings out the best in a crumbling psychotic.

These twins still give me the creeps:

[Dr Fate]

9. I posted b/f I read your post. My exact sentiments. n/t

n/t

[cemaphonic]

11. Kubrick had a knack for "better than the book"

"The Shining" "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon" all improve on the source IMO. (2001 is better than the book too, but it's not an adaptation, strictly speaking.)

"Lolita" doesn't succeed, but it's one of the best novels of the 20th century, so I'll cut him some slack on that one. And they did have the sense to recognize that both the subject matter, and the unreliable narrator approach of the novel wouldn't work in film, so they did something different with it.

[Taverner]

22. I disagree with King being "...a boring hack of a writer."

He's a great writer - his skill for fleshing out characters that you can feel and touch is his greatest strength IMO

Someone pointed out that he doesn't know how to end a book - and there I think there is a point

Although when writing as Richard Bachman, he COULD deliver a great ending. Think "Thinner"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Wendy was much more independent in the book.

There was the constant threat to Jack that Wendy would walk out and leave him at any point.

Whereas Wendy was ridiculously meek in the movie. Yet it ended up really working in the film. Shelley Duvall was brilliant. Very good plan on Kubrick's part to go that route.

Also Hallorann's a hero in the book. Kubrick really pulled the rug out from under the audience when he killed his so fast. I wonder if he was going for a parody of the Hollywood cliche where the sole black guy gets killed early in the movie.

[cemaphonic]

10. yeah, Wendy's characterization is totally different.

and while she isn't quite as interesting or fleshed out in the movie, Duvall really did a great job delivering the visceral sense of terror. The big reveal of Jack's manuscript wouldn't have worked nearly as well with a different approach.

I think Hallorann is another case where the difference in versions is a bit overstated. In the book, he actually doesn't accomplish much more in the climax than he does in the movie - he gets knocked out pretty soon after arriving. He does help them back to civilization at the end, but Kubrick didn't bother with an epilogue, and they presumably escaped via the snowmobile that he delivered anyway.

The main thing I think Kubrick was doing with that unexpected kill was to play with the "Send in the cavalry" convention. He spends a lot of time detailing Hallorann's journey, so the expectation is that he will help them in the climax. Killing him off right away without even doing much really gives a "now they're screwed" message. Plus, there is a whole subtext throughout the movie about Manifest Destiny, so killing off the one black guy probably plays into that a bit. Also, it's a horror movie - somebody had to die.

[conscious evolution]

7. Great book

I read it in one night while tripping on acid.Freaked me right the fuck out.

Personnally,I thought Kubrick did a pretty good job of adapting it to the big screen.The way he used Jacks novel to show his decent into total madness was brilliant.I still get a cold shiver down my spine when someone says "All work and no play...."

Did you ever see the mini series remake of the book?It followed the book much more closely.

[Dr Fate]

8. I'm GLAD Kubrick altered King's book. He did King a favor.

King is GREAT at comming up with scary plots, but his endings always peter out.

I prefer the movie to the book in this instance...

[Patiod]

15. With the exception of 'The Dead Zone", his endings suck

how many books end with him simply blowing up the whole town?

[cemaphonic]

13. Oh, and while we're on the topic of The Shining...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfout_rgPSA

[BarenakedLady]

14. The TV version with the "Wings" dude was good too.

It lent itself more to the book. I really enjoyed all versions myself.

[proteus_lives]

16. The movie is awesome but the book is better.

I never thought of Jack as a nice person. He was a weak person and that's why the hotel was able to sink it's claws into him so deeply. Wendy in the book was the strong one.

King is great with damaged characters and we see both sides of damaged Jack. The best antagonists are nearly always a little sympathetic.

I liked the book better because it delved more deeply into the evil of the Overlook. It more a character in the book.

[Swede]

18. The Shinning vs The Shining

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGMoBo9f40I

[graywarrior]

21. His description of an alcoholic is spot on. He should know.

[RiffRandell]

23. Good call.

The movie scared the fuck out of me, and when the hero shows and gets axed, I was freaked. The one thing/person that would save him died.

[Duer 157099]

24. The Kubrick version was so different from the book

that it's barely worth even comparing.

King felt that so strongly that he himself had to remake it as the miniseries, which was faithful to the book.

What Kubrick did was take King's book and then just flip it over and cast it to the side of the road.

Like the VW.

[Orrex]

25. Yeah. Well.

In 25 years no one is going to remember the miniseries, much less recognize it as one of the finest horror movies ever filmed.

Text-fidelity is nice when it works, but it shouldn't ever be a goal at the expense of the overall quality.

[Duer 157099]

27. Absolutely. The film is pure Kubrick and is brilliant

The book is OK, but nothing like the film.

[Orrex]

29. Whoops!

Looks like I totally misread your earlier post as anti-Kubrick. My mistake!

:hi:

[EvilAL]

28. I like both but

I saw the movie quite a few times before I read the book. After reading the book, the only thing about the movie I liked better was the maze chase at the end. The book gets way more into it with Jack's obsession with the hotel as he succumbs to it. The hotel wants Danny more than Jack in the book because of his psychic type ability. Hallorann has it too, but not nearly as strong as Danny. Wendy isn't such a wuss in the book either. She does get a croquet mallet to the head and body a few times as well.
The movie makes it seem like Jack was always there, as if, drawn to it in order to do the bidding.. Then ya got the picture at the end with Jack on New Year's eve that makes no fucking sense. I think the only thing Kubrick said about it was that it "assumes Jack was reincarnated".
I also thought that if Jack had to always "check the press" on the boiler that the hotel would have made him do it in order to preserve itself. The book has way more hotel histroy in it and a lot of bad shit happened there that manifests itself. I'm drunk anyway, so that probably didn't make much sense.. I think I'll go put the movie on now... heheh

[LBJDemocrat]

30. The book was idiotic when compared to the film

The problem is that in the book, the hotel is evil and can actually physically affect things. The movie is more a story of isolation. There's actually something to think about with the movie, while the book is simply an entertainment. Also, the book's ending is overblown as hell, like a bad Hollywood action movie.

[cemaphonic]

31. Yeah, I had forgotten about the ending when I reread it.

Deathbed redemption and big explosion. Like Return of the Jedi, but at least there weren't any Ewoks.

There is at least (and quite likely at most) one unambiguous example of the hotel being able to affect physical reality in the movie.