00:00Jack Torrance is a failed writer who must apply as a caretaker at a remote mountain hotel, the Overlook, in order to support his family.
00:08The job involves maintaining the premises during the winter when there are no customers, but the manager warns him.
00:14He will be cut off from the world for the entire winter and the solitude that reigns in these places has already caused a tragedy.
00:20But for Jack, it doesn't matter. He even sees it as a kind of stimulation and intends to use this atmosphere to write his book.
00:26However, the hotel will indeed get the better of this family.
00:30Danny, who has a unique gift called the Shining, will see his extrasensory abilities increased tenfold in this cursed place.
00:36and will experience the supernatural by coming face to face with ghostly beings more than once.
00:42Wendy, for her part, will simply witness and suffer the mental decline of her husband, an ex-alcoholic, frustrated by his personal and professional life,
00:49who will be completely absorbed by the place and will end up trying to murder his wife and son,
00:54who will do everything to escape this nightmare.
00:58In terms of form, The Shining is constructed like a classic horror film,
01:01with recurring elements such as the haunted place cut off from the world,
01:05paranormal events that will take place in this same place and a mad killer who will strike there.
01:09But in essence, the film turns out to be something else entirely and manages to take the genre beyond the usual clichés,
01:15thanks in particular to a unique and ultra-distressing atmosphere which owes a lot to the artistic direction of the film and the different sets.
01:21Kubrick sublimates his environment with an ultra-dynamic production that offers us unforgettable shots.
01:27The introduction already, accompanied by the music of Wendy Carlos which sets the tone,
01:31the aerial plan of the labyrinth, and we will come back to it,
01:34the low angle shot of an inhabited Jack, a shot completely improvised by Kubrick,
01:38the camera following the rage in the movement of Jack's axe as it smashes through the door before he cries out
01:56The liters of blood coming out of the elevator,
02:01Danny wandering around the hotel on his tricycle,
02:03which makes that horrible noise of wheels moving from the parquet to the carpet.
02:07Incidentally, for the record, it was Werner Herzog, who was on set that day,
02:11who advised Stanley Kubrick to keep this sound intact, finding it truly astonishing.
02:15A shot possible thanks to Garrett Brown's steadycam,
02:18which will precisely offer the film this smooth and cold beauty in the movement,
02:21which further accentuates the supernatural and timeless side of the film.
02:25All these plans are engraved in our heads and cannot come out,
02:29because Kubrick designed them so that they would permeate the retina.
02:32He opts for wider shots, allowing glimpses of the sets
02:35and thus moves away from the constraints of the genre.
02:37He uses certain specific elements to develop his story,
02:41the mirror in particular, which represents a sort of passage to the beyond
02:44where there exists what should not exist.
02:47Tony, Danny's imaginary friend, exists through this mirror,
02:50going so far as to warn of danger with a word that only binds through a mirror.
02:55With his staging, Kubrick will make us understand
02:57that Jack is also accompanied by an alter ego who lives through his reflection.
03:01He speaks to him in particular through the characters of Lloyd and Elbert,
03:04that he thinks he has in front of him,
03:06but which positions itself each time between Jack and a mirror.
03:11Who knows, maybe this evil alter ego is none other than himself in 1921,
03:15who continues to plague the hotel, even after his own death.
03:18It is through his reflection that Jack lets his madness speak,
03:21this father in his own mind as in this altar,
03:24real labyrinth and another symbol of the film,
03:27which grows as the story progresses,
03:29as if to emphasize that this tortuous path will inevitably end up imprisoning this man's soul,
03:34who will indeed lose everything,
03:36his bearings, his family and his own life.
03:39With The Shining, Kubrick depicts the madness and alienation of the human spirit,
03:43who, consumed by loneliness and frustration, is capable of anything.
03:46For the director, every human being is capable of the worst.
03:49This is why in the end, Danny and Wendy are just a pretext for Jack,
03:53a presence that will allow him to show himself in broad daylight.
03:56He contains this rage outside the hotel,
03:58but when the notion of time disappears and the hotel becomes his daily life,
04:02he explodes and exposes all his vices and unspeakable impulses.
04:05Eternally frustrated who gradually loses interest in the eyes of his wife and son.
04:09He is literally castrated by his own child,
04:12who monopolizes all the attention and love of his wife
04:14and that he will see as a threat,
04:16without realizing that the son must also kill the father in order to evolve.
04:19And he will do it,
04:20leaving Jack to join the ghosts of the Overlook forever.
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