"The Shining" can be called the greatest horror film in movie history because of its shooting techniques and editing methods that opened a new era of horror movies. The more excellent horror films that can be remembered in recent years, such as "Sixth Sense", "Silent Hill", "Dead Silence", "Island Cry", etc., seem to be able to see "The Shining" in these films shadow.
Kubrick did not deliberately create that kind of shock, but constantly created a low-level depressive atmosphere in the film, which caused uncomfortable psychological pressure on the audience, coupled with the extremely frightening background in the film Music can easily make audiences with a particularly strong sense of substitution go to a crash.
There are many interpretations of "The Shining" on the Internet. Although everyone agrees, there are also many opinions on their own. I found that Kubrick's film metaphors are very general and deep, and they belong to the kind of film that audiences can interpret from all angles and form opinions.
I think this is also the reason why his films always praise and curse as much, because he only shoots the film according to his own will, and throws the problem to the audience. He is not like Kusturica. Whether it is satirizing war, satirizing society, or satirizing human nature, he expresses it face-to-face, so that the audience can understand the theme of his expression at a glance.
What kind of story does "The Shining" tell? What are the metaphors? These issues have expressed their opinions on the Internet, and there are many wonderful interpretations. Since there are so many excellent points of view, I will talk about something that few people mention in the movie, and that is Kubrick's favorite item-the mirror.
I quite agree with the statement that the father Jack and Danny in the film actually have double personality disorder : Jack imagined a role, Dabert Granty (note here, it really exists in history, the spirit of guarding the hotel in 1970 The name of the family who killed the whole family is Charles Granty, so it is a wrong view on the Internet to say that Jack has met a person from the past.); Danny’s dual role is Tony, and this Tony is actually in him. When he was a child, the psychological trauma caused by his father hurt him, which created an image in his heart. (In the film, Jack recalled three years ago when he faced the bartender. The exaggeration of words and expressions showed that the injury to Danny was very serious.)
Regarding the formation of multiple personality disorders, I just read a book "24 Personalities" a few months ago. The protagonist West suffered a personal assault by his grandmother, mother, and strange man when he was young. There are 24 personalities of different age groups. So the formation of Danny's character may have a lot to do with the incident three years ago.
Let us return to the topic of "mirrors".
In addition to the role of mirrors in creating a horror atmosphere in movie art, they also reflect the inner human heart (personality split). It can remind the audience that the people inside and outside the mirror need to be judged twice. Although the roles inside and outside are exactly the same, there is a contrast between true and false, and virtual and real between inside and outside. Many psychological-related movies will use it. The mirror serves as a hint for the mentally ill. For example, I watched Yang Dechang’s "Terrorist" some time ago. The mentally collapsed doctor Li Lizhong constantly appeared in front of the toilet mirror; for example, Li Yu’s "Double Exposure", she also used the mirror many times as a dual personality. hint.
How did Kubrick use the mirror in The Shining? I found nine mirrors and lenses, and analyzed how Kubrick used the mirror to slowly distort the spirit and psychology of the characters.
1. First is his son Danny. This one is not in the hotel, but the mirror in Danny's house. In the dialogue facing the mirror, Danny’s dual personality, Tony, was very afraid to go to the hotel, but he refused to tell Danny the reason. After Danny’s repeated pleading, Tony showed Danny a picture: the hotel corridor was spewing. With the blood flowing out, Danny showed a terrifying expression. (In fact, note that Danny and Tony should have the abilities of "The Shining" at the same time. Tony can predict the success of his father's interview, and Danny can also know about eating ice cream and room 237.)
This shot mainly guides the audience to intuitively understand Danny's dual personality, paving the way for the subsequent development of the film.
2. After arriving at the hotel, the character of the hero Jack has changed a lot. This is the first shot (the whole passage is shot in the mirror). In the first morning in the hotel, the female protagonist brings breakfast, and the male lead eats breakfast. During the period, Jack showed the image of a very gentle husband. At this time, Jack is normal on the surface, but Kubrick uses the mirror image to present the whole process, the purpose is to tell the audience that Jack’s appearance is actually inconsistent with the dark side of his heart. At this time, Jack is already writing The dissatisfaction of the career approached the inner distortion, but it did not show up. He said: There are many inspirations for writing, but none of them are good.
After the conversation, the camera cut to the screen of the typewriter, and there was the sound of Jack's tapping with a tennis ball to vent his mood, and a sense of horror began to appear.
3. This scene appeared on Monday. In the previous Saturday, the problem of Jack's mental collapse has appeared. He and his wife had a serious quarrel.
The mirror can not only reflect the multiple personalities of the character, but also achieve the effect of distorting the character. This shot is combined with music, which is very frightening. You can see Jack's distorted expression through the mirror, and then feel his distorted heart at this time. From this shot, Danny also found that his father Jack has psychological problems.
In this conversation, Danny asked a question that touched his father's bottom line: You will never hurt my mother and me, right?
4. This picture is from Room 237. Kubrick used two mirrors in the design of this lens. In addition to creating a horrible atmosphere, I wonder whether it is expressing three kinds of spaces: reality, spiritual world, and multiple personality? I always wonder if someone suddenly appears to scare the audience, but Kubrick didn't design it like this.
5. After his wife Wendy slandered that Jack hurt Danny, Jack had a hallucination in front of the bar in "the gold room", and the waiter Lloyd appeared.
This shot is the three mirrors in front of the bar. Danny in the mirror begins to turn from the front distortion into evil, and this evil begins to become aggressive and harmful. He said later: I can do everything for beer, and even sell my soul. Can imagine, for a glass of beer can sell the soul, then what can't be done? Jack has completely revealed his nature at this time.
6. This shot is the most creepy part of the film. The graceful woman turns into a rotten old woman in the mirror. It is also one of the few shots in the film that scares the audience.
Mirrors are super-time and super-space. We often see mirrors that have the function of capturing, such as the ancient magic mirror, so they can see things that are not visible in reality, or expose the dark side of reality.
Therefore, Kubrick also used the lens to quickly cut to the image in the mirror when dealing with this problem. There is a little trick. The editor uses panning instead of hard cutting. This method may not be possible. The abrupt hard cut brings a visual shock, but it makes the audience feel real horror.
7. This is the shot after Jack went to room 237 and returned from kissing the rotten old woman. Through the mirror, to show a person's psychology when speaking, the Jack in the mirror is hypocritical. He obviously met the old woman at 237, but Jack outside the mirror said nothing.
At this time, Jack was ashamed of his heart because he was sorry for his wife, and he showed a gentle side. But it didn't take long, because I heard his wife said that he was leaving the hotel, and became angry again.
8. This is the character Jack met at the ball in the hallucinations, Dabert Granty, and they had a very long conversation in the toilet.
At this time, there are more mirrors in the picture, which shows that Jack's heart has been distorted to the limit, multiple personalities have begun to appear, and thoughts of hurting his wife and children have arisen.
As I said earlier, there is a real existence in history. In 1970, the guardian hotel spirit collapsed and killed the whole family. The name was Charles Granty. At this time, the person Jack thought was Dabot Granty. In fact, this It is a multi-personality image created by Jack himself out of thin air. This character, like Danny's multi-personality Tony, is constantly guiding Jack to make extreme behaviors.
9. At the climax of the film, Tony appeared for a very long time, chanting "redrum" and wrote on the door. Through the mirror, wife Wendy saw "murder", murder. I am curious, why does Tony write about redrum instead of directly about murder? My relatively shallow feeling is that Tony keeps seeing "red rum" (red rum), so he wrote this, and reflecting on reality, he actually wanted to tell the audience that this was a murder.
This is the picture design of the mirror in the whole film of "The Shining". Kubrick used the inside and outside of the mirror to express the fiction and reality in the story, thereby continuously strengthening and deepening the psychological changes of Jack’s characters in the film. Movie viewers continue to have psychological fears.
In addition, I have to mention the design of the background music in "The Shining". If this movie does not have such a brilliant sound effect, it may lose its color a lot. He is different from the background music of horror movies that we see now. At present, the background music of most horror movies is generally sharp and gloomy melody. In the Shining, except for the whistling sound of blizzard as the ambient sound, other sounds It's like noise, sometimes crazy and sometimes gloomy, various inconsistent melodies create a terrifying atmosphere, high-frequency sounds make people feel uncomfortable, drums and other things give people a sense of tension, and make people curious about the film. Among the horror films I have watched so far, the sound effects produced by Wen Ziren are "Calling the Soul" and "Latent".
This horror movie can become one of the greatest horror movies in history because of its intrinsic value. Perhaps with the improvement of technology and skills, many horror movies are now better in terms of pictures and special effects, but they can really stimulate people’s psychological bottom line, allowing viewers to shift from the visual horror to the horror deep in their hearts. Only a master like Kubrick can do it.
View more about The Shining reviews
