



The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, UK and USA, 1980) was adapted from the homonymous novel (first published in 1977) by Stephen King, who is considered, among the coeval authors, one of the more ingenious and certainly the most prolific writer of horror novels. Although the director and the writer exchanged some telephone calls, they didn’t collaborate. Kubrick chose to work on the script with Diane Johnson, a writer and literature professor, expert in gothic novels, and refused to read King’s adaptation of his own best seller, which had already been prepared when Kubrick first decided to buy the book’s rights. The writer criticized the director’s conception of the genre and his reading of the novel: “Kubrick is pragmatic and rational and has great difficulty conceiving of a supernatural world, so he looked for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones” and, more briefly, “Kubrick set out to make a horror picture with no apparent understanding of the genre” (Norden 1983). This first critique concerning the genre was revised by King himself who, in an introduction dated 8th of February, 2001 to an edition of The Shining, wrote: “My single conversation with the late Stanley Kubrick, about six months before he commenced filming on his version of The Shining, suggested that it was this quality about the story that appealed to him: what exactly, is impelling Jack Torrance toward murder in the winter-isolated rooms and hallways of the Overlook Hotel? It is undead people, or undead memories? Mr. Kubrick and I come to different conclusions” (King 2001:xii). King later bought back the rights of his novel from Kubrick and produced and wrote the script of Stephen King The Shining (Mick Garris, USA, 1997), a TV series in three episodes in which the story and the plot strictly follow the ones of the novel. In this essay I would like to try to explain w hy King’s novel and Kubrick’s film are so different, even if the film was adapted from the novel and even if they are both considered successful horror stories. To analyse their differences I would like to try to answer to a basic question. What scares the readers of the novel and the spectators of the film? What are the techniques used by King and Kubrick? I will try to develop an answer through three sections. In the first one I will show that a lot of episodes and themes of the novel were cut and modified not only to fit the length and the rules of the cinematic medium, but also to let the spectators of the film hesitate for a longer time than the readers of the novel between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events. In the second section I will discuss that a lot of episodes and motifs of the film which don’t appear in the novel were added to increase the uncanny features of the film. In the third section I will relate the results obtained in the two previous sections to some considerations regarding the horror genre and I will discuss some characteristic techniques of the cinematic medium.

First Section: The Fantastic.

In this section I would like to discuss that a lot of episodes and motifs of the novel were cut and modified not only to fit the length and the rules of the cinematic medium, but also to let the spectators of the film hesitate for a longer time than the readers of the novel between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events. For this purpose I need to introduce some notions explained by Tzvetan Todorov. According to the Russian formalist, a text, to be defined fantastic, must fulfil the three following conditions:



First, the text must oblige the reader to consider the world of characters as a world of living persons and to hesitate between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character; thus the reader’s role is so to speak entrusted to a character, and at the same time the hesitation is represented, it becomes one of the themes of the work – in the case of naïve reading, the actual reader identifies himself with the character. Third, the reader must adopt a certain attitude with regard to the text: he will reject allegorical as well as ‘poetic’ interpretations. These three requirements do not have an equal value. The first and the third actually constitute the genre; the second may not be fulfilled. (Todorov 1975:33).

According to the first condition, a text can be defined fantastic as long as its readers can’t decide whether what happens to the characters is the product of their imagination, of an illusion of their senses, or is part of their reality. In the former case the laws of the world described don’t change and coincide with the physical laws of our own world. In the latter case the laws of the world described no longer coincide with our own laws and the imaginary world is moved and governed by laws unknown to us. In the former case the text is defined uncanny; in the latter marvelous. Todorov developed the following scheme in order to better visualize the differences among: the fantastic in its pure state; the fantastic-marvelous, in which, after an initial hesitation, the readers opt for a supernatural explanation of the events; the marvelous; the fantastic-uncanny, in which, after an initial hesitation, the readers opt for a natural explanation of the events; and the uncanny.



uncanny | fantastic-uncanny | fantastic-marvelous | marvelous

The fantastic in its pure state is symbolized by the line which divides the fantastic-uncanny from the fantastic-marvelous (Todorov 1975:44).

The thesis which I would like to prove in the following discussion is that both King’s novel and Kubrick’s film can be defined fantastic-marvelous tales because: both the readers of the novel and the spectators of the film hesitate, at least at the beginning, between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events described and shown, while towards the end, they have to dismiss the natural explanation and to follow the supernatural one. But this play of ‘to believe-not to believe’ is emphasized in the film because: it is more stressed, is carried on for a longer period of the narrative and remains always instilled in the spectators. If we compare the story and the plot of the novel and of the film and we consider those episodes of the novel which weren’t directly adapted in the film, we can claim that the majority of them instil in the readers the suspect that the Overlook Hotel is an haunted place which obeys rules unknown to our own world. Thus the readers of the book should be more inclined, and earlier, towards a supernatural explanation of the events. Following the order of the plot of the novel, the first main event which seems inexplicable through our physical laws and which wasn’t adapted in the film, is the one about the wasps nest. Jack finds a wasps nest on the roof and, after having killed all the wasps inside it with a bug bomb, gives it to Danny. During the night the wasps in the nest on the boy’s bedside table come out and sting him. The second main episode of the novel which wasn’t adapted and which instil in the readers the doubt that the Overlook Hotel is haunted, is the one about the extinguisher. Outside room 217 an extinguisher fells down after that Danny passes past it and seems to come alive threatening the boy. And this same extinguisher will seem to come alive in front of Jack. Following the order of the plot of the novel, the next main event which wasn’t adapted is the one about the hedge animals. While Jack is cutting the hedge animals in the park of the Overlook Hotel, they seem to come alive and Jack feels that they are playing “red light” with him. Later on in the story the hedge animals will come alive also in front of Danny, Hallorann, and, at the end, in front of Danny, Hallorann and Wendy. Two more episodes complete the list of those events of the novel which weren’t adapted in the film and which let the readers of the novel be more inclined than the spectators of the film towards a supernatural explanation. They are the episodes of the clock under glass which seems to come alive and of the man dressed as a dog who scares Danny and impedes him to cross the corridors of the Hotel. After the analysis of those episodes of the novel which weren’t directly adapted in the film, if we discuss those events which were adapted, but slightly changed, we can claim once more that the spectators of the film hesitate for a longer time than the readers of the novel between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the episodes. First of all I would like to examine Danny’s character, the young protagonist, and his capacity of shining which consists in: speaking with Tony, an ‘imaginary’ friend; foreseeing the future; reading the others’ thoughts; and communicating through the thought with those people, like Hallorann, the cook of the Overlook Hotel, who can shine. In both the novel and the film it seems to be Tony who tells Danny what will happen in the future through images and direct speech. In the novel Tony seems to be physically present when Danny has his visions and he speaks like all the other characters. The first time that he appears in the novel he calls Danny and he is described to be present, not far from Danny: “‘Danny… Dannee’ He looked up and there was Tony, far up the street, standing by a stop sign and waving” (King 2001:33). Then Danny seems to faint, his mind seems to leave his body and to follow Tony: “He slumped further down on the curb, his hands sliding laxly from his thighs and dangling below the fork of his crotch. His chin sank onto his chest. Then there was a dim, painless tug as part of him got up and ran after Tony into funnelling darkness” (King: 2001:34). Tony continues not only to call Danny and to show him visions, but also to communicate with him through direct speech: “‘Too deep,’ Tony said from the darkness, and there was a sadness in his voice that terrified Danny. ‘Too deep to get out.’” (King 2001:34). When Danny’s mind seems to be back in his body and he seems to wake up from his trance-like state, Tony is still physically present: “And now sunshine. Real things. Except for Tony, now six blocks up, only a speck, standing on the corner, his voice faint and high and sweet. ‘Be careful, doc…’” (King 2001:36). In the film Tony seems more an invention of Danny’s mind because when the boy speaks with him he moves his index finger to represent him and he speaks like a ventriloquist to report his words. Thus, in both the novel and the film, the readers and the spectators should wonder whether Tony is only the product of Danny’s imagination or a real presence who lives outside the boy’s fantasy and whose existence follows different rules from the ones which govern our own world. But the spectators of the film should be inclined more towards a natural explanation, while the readers of the novel towards a supernatural one. The same happens with Danny’s ‘visions’ which, when the narrative advances, reveal themselves to be flashforwards. In the novel they are more numerous, more varied and more detailed. Using the same example cited above, when Danny shines for the first time in the novel he sees some street signs, but he “understood none of them completely – he couldn’t read! – but got a sense of all” (King 2001:34). Thus it is unlikely that such street signs can derive from Danny’s fantasy only. While in the film the boy sees always the same simple images: blood coming out from elevators; two sisters, who are the two Grady girls, murdered by their father Grady, the former winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel; and the word “Redrum” written with a red lipstick on a door, which will be later written by Danny himself. The young protagonist of the novel reads the thoughts of different people: of his parents; of Mrs Brant, a guest of the Overlook Hotel; of Hallorann; of a boy in a store; and of Dr Edmonds, a doctor who visits Danny after he has fallen in a trance-like state. His supernatural ability is confirmed not only by the number of times during which he succeeds in reading the others’ thoughts, but also by the content of these thoughts. Indeed they are often complex and unpredictable, unlikely to have been guessed by his high sensibility only. For example, at the Overlook Hotel, while a bellboy is helping Mrs Brant, Danny reads the following madam’s thought: “i’d like to get into his pants” (King 2001:75). What’s more in the novel Danny and Hallorann hold a conversation without uttering a word. In the film the only sentence which Hallorann communicates by thought to Danny and which the spectators, but not the characters, can hear, because it is recited while Hallorann is speaking about something else and by Hallorann’s voice, is the following: “How’d you like some ice-cream, Doc?” And this same sentence will be repeated later aloud and only at that point Danny will answer. In the film the boy only once reads his father’s thoughts foreseeing that he has obtained the job as winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel and that he is going to call home to announce the news. Therefore in the case of Danny’s capacity of reading the others’ thoughts and of communicating by thought with Hallorann, while the readers of the novel should be inclined towards a supernatural explanation of the young protagonist’s abilities, the spectators of the film should, at least at the beginning, before Danny begins to call Hallorann in Miami to help him, be inclined towards a natural explanation of his powers. If we continue the discussion of those events of the novel which were adapted, but slightly changed, and we follow the order of the plot of the novel, first the son, and after the father, enter into room 217, the room about which Danny had had lots of horrible premonitions and about which Hallorann had already alerted him. Danny finds a dead woman in the bath tub who stands up and tries to strangle him. Jack doesn’t see a dead woman, but: he feels a hand touching his back in the bathroom; then he smells scent of soap; and finally he feels a presence in the bath tub who is trying to reach him and who is trying to open the door of room 217 while he is already in the corridor. This episode was adapted by Kubrick, but in the film the spectators see the son entering into room 237 and then the effect of his transgression, that is the boy with bruises on his neck and scared, but they never see him together with a dead woman. The spectators see only the father with a woman. Thus, once more, the spectators of the film should hesitate between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the event because the encounter between Jack and the woman isn’t corroborated by an encounter between Danny and the woman which the spectators could see. On the other hand, the readers of the novel should be more inclined towards a supernatural explanation of the episode because, as in the case of the extinguisher and of the hedge animals, both father and son see and/or feel the same presence. Both in the novel and in the film, the only character on which the readers and the spectators can rely is Wendy. Indeed, even if the readers and the spectators accept the idea that Danny has special powers and often sees things which happened in the past or will happen in the future, the episodes which involve him could only be visions, invisible for the characters who can’t shine. If, on the other hand, they believe that the boy’s imagination is too fervid, Danny is, even more, an unreliable character. Jack is as untrustworthy as his son. Indeed the readers and the spectators don’t know whether what he sees is due to the fact that he is schizophrenic or to the fact that he is possessed and moved by the Overlook Hotel. Thus, when Wendy begins to see and hear strange things, when she begins to believe, the readers and the spectators begin to believe in a supernatural explanation of the events. In King’s novel Wendy begins to believe that something strange, which isn’t due to her husband’s behaviour, is happening, when she, together with Jack and Danny, listen to noises coming from the elevator which seems to go up and down. When they go to check, they find on the floor colourful confetti and a mask. Later on in the story, Wendy and Danny listen again to noises coming from the elevator. Towards the end of the plot Wendy sees: first the elevator full of colourful confetti and a bottle of champagne; and then she sees lights and listens to noises coming from the Colorado Lounge. And, later on, she sees a man masked. In the film, towards the end, Wendy sees two masks and, later, she sees Grady with a wound in his head, speaking to her and drinking, and then blood coming out from the elevators. Thus in the film the confirmation of a supernatural explanation of the events, the confirmation of what father and son had experienced early on in the film, arrives later on in the development of the story. Finally the ending of the novel and of the film are completely different: while in King’s novel the supernatural dominates the end, in Kubrick’s film the supernatural constitutes only an epilogue. Indeed in the former case the fact that Jack is possessed by the Overlook Hotel, which is alive with all its ghosts, becomes manifest. Danny manages to speak with Jack inside the monster and Jack begins to hit himself. Then the Hotel tries to possess Hallorann and to convince him to kill Wendy and Danny, but he resists its power. Finally the Overlook Hotel explodes with Jack inside it and, to underline the fact that the Hotel was haunted, Hallorann shines about a strange creature which represents the Overlook Hotel and which comes out from the Presidential Suite. In the case of the film Jack, after having killed Hallorann with an axe, dies frozen in the maze while attempting to kill Danny. In the very last sequence, in frame there is a photograph pinned on the wall of the Gold Room in which Jack is together with the other participants at a ball of 1921. The image of Jack frozen in the maze, which closes the last but one sequence, together with this photograph, which closes the film, more than stating a supernatural explanation of the events over a natural one, as in the case of the novel, raises new questions such as: is Jack dead or is he still alive? because if in a picture of 1921 he looks like now, how could he die now? is his death a punishment of the Hotel because he wasn’t able to educate his family? etc. Thus in Kubrick’s film the play of to ‘believe-not to believe’ continues till the very end because when the supernatural seems to have been claimed, when Wendy and the spectators begin to believe that the laws of the Overlook Hotel aren’t the laws of our own world, Jack dies in a natural, simple way and the haunted Hotel and its ghosts don’t help him. And yet the supernatural is suggested by the photograph. While in the novel the play between ‘to believe-not to believe’, the play typical of the fantastic-marvelous ceases, in the film continues till the very end.

Second Section: The Uncanny.



In this section I will try to show that a lot of episodes and motifs of the film which don’t appear in the novel were added to increase the uncanny features of the film. It was Kubrick himself and his co-screenwriter who, in some interviews, cited Freud and especially his concept of the uncanny as the main source of inspiration for The Shining. Kubrick claimed: “About the only law that I think relates to the genre is that you should not try to explain, to find neat explanations for what happens, and that the object of the thing is to produce a sense of the uncanny. Freud on his essay on the uncanny wrote that the sense of the uncanny is the only emotion which is more powerfully expressed in art than in life, which I found very illuminating” (Castle 2005:462). To better understand how the concept of the uncanny studied by Freud influenced Kubrick’s film, I would like first to explain what Freud meant with the notion of the uncanny (Freud 1953). In 1919, in his essay about this subject, Freud began his discussion from the definitions reported in some dictionaries and found that in some cases the German words heimlich, which means homely, and heimisch, which means native, coincide with their opposite, with unheimlich, which means something not known and familiar. Analysing Hoffman’s The Sand-Man, Freud listed some of the situations during which the feeling of the uncanny is evoked. For example, a Freud’s alumnus, Otto Rank, in 1914, in his essay on the double, claimed that the double, which derives from the primary narcissism which dominates children and primitive men, has a positive meaning because it is identified with something, like the soul, which saves the body from death. Freud claimed that when the primary narcissism is surmounted the double has no longer a positive meaning, but becomes an uncanny signal of death. Indeed it no longer represents the soul, but the double of the ego, the conscience, which observes and judges the ego. What’s more, always in the later stages of the ego’s development, under the concept of the double are grouped all the possible but unfulfilled futures to which men are still attached. As in the case of the double, the other situations which evoke uncanny feelings in Hoffmann’s tale refer to phases which pertain to former stages of the ego’s development, to phases which were surmounted, but which are evoked by the tale. These episodes are for example: the repetition of the same things, when this repetition introduces the idea of fatality and not of chance, that is the idea that mysterious, occult powers could govern life; the “compulsion to repeat”, deriving from the unconscious, from the instinctual impulses; and the dread of the evil eye, the fear of the others’ jealousy and hate because we feel lucky and we would be envious if we were among the other, more unlucky people. All these examples pertain to the principle of the “omnipotence of thought” which coincides with the primitive, animistic conception of the universe, which is still shared by children and which, in the later stages of the ego’s development, is surmounted, but could come back producing uncanny feelings if it is stimulated by situations like the ones cited above. Therefore the uncanny is something repressed which recurs, something familiar which had become unfamiliar through repression, but which comes back. Freud closed his essay distinguishing between: the uncanny which derives from those beliefs, shared by primitive men and children, which were surmounted; and the uncanny which derives from infantile complexes, such as the castration complex and womb-phantasies. He also distinguished between reality and fiction. Indeed Freud claimed that the uncanny deriving from beliefs surmounted works in real life and in fiction if the setting is material reality, but it doesn’t work in fiction if the setting is arbitrary and artificial. While the uncanny deriving from infantile complexes works both in real life and in fiction, but it is not as frequent in real life as the other type of uncanny. Thus, using Todorov’s terminology, (but putting it in inverted commas not to confuse what the Russian formalist meant with the genre ‘uncanny’ with what Freud defined as uncanny): if a tale pertains to the ‘uncanny’ genre, the uncanny can derive both from beliefs surmounted and from repressed infantile complexes; if a tale pertains to the ‘marvelous’ genre, the uncanny can derive only from repressed infantile complexes. Regarding the ‘supernatural’, Freud underlined that in these type of tale the uncanny can derive both from beliefs surmounted and repressed infantile complexes as long as the author doesn’t manifest that his tale is ‘marvelous’. Thus in Kubrick’s The Shining which, till almost the very end, pertains to the ‘fantastic’ genre, the uncanny can derive both from beliefs surmounted and from repressed infantile complexes. To analyse how Freud’s essay about the uncanny affected Kubrick’s film, I would like to show how those uncanny features found by Freud appear in those episodes and themes of the film which weren’t adapted from the novel. I will not discuss those uncanny events and motifs which are present in both the novel and the film. Among the beliefs surmounted Freud cited the double and in Kubrick’s film this motif is evoked by: Danny’s ‘imaginary’ friend Tony; by mirrors; and by the photograph which shows Jack in 1921. When Danny speaks with Tony moves his index finger and speaks with a strange, modified voice as a ventriloquist, thus it seems that Tony lives inside Danny. Indeed, if the spectators believe that Tony isn’t a creation of the boy’s fantasy, he is, anyway, a being who needs Danny’s body to speak and thus is Danny’s double. If the spectators believe that Tony is a creation of the boy’s fantasy, Danny has a double personality, he is again, but in another sense, double. Mirrors and images reflected are numerous. For example, following the order of the plot of the film, when Danny speaks with Tony for the first time he looks at himself into the mirror of his bathroom. From a medium shot of Danny the camera tracks in on his reflection in the mirror till a close up of him. When Wendy, at the Overlook Hotel, brings Jack his breakfast, he looks at himself into the mirror. From a medium shot of Jack the camera tracks backwards and the spectators realize that the shot was Jack’s image reflected into the mirror, then again the camera tracks in on Jack’s image. The first signs of Jack’s madness begin to appear because he seems to have already lost the notion of time. Indeed Jack is awaken at half past eleven by Wendy and asks her what time is it. When father and son speak about the Overlook Hotel, on frame there are a plain américain of Jack and his image reflected in the mirror. As in the previous example Jack seems already sick because he looks absent minded and when he asks Danny whether he likes the Overlook Hotel, Jack says: “I wish we could stay here for ever, and ever… ever”, repeating the phrase that the two Grady girls obsessively repeat to Danny. When Jack enters into room 237, there is a close up of him embracing and kissing a naked, young, beautiful woman, then the camera pans from left to right on the reflected images of them in a mirror and the girl has become old and decayed. In this sequence the mirror seems to have the magical power of reflecting the reality and its dangers. When Danny repeats “Redrum” and writes it on the door with a red lipstick, through Wendy’s point of view there is a long shot of the door with the word “Murder” reflected in the mirror. Thus the true signify of the word “Redrum” is revealed through a mirror. What’s more mirrors are present in the shots filmed at the bar of the Gold Room when Jack drinks and speaks with Lloyd and in those shot in the bathroom of the Gold Room when Jack speaks with Grady. In this case the presence of mirrors seems to highlight the double life of the Overlook Hotel. As already mentioned, the last shot of the film is a medium close-up of Jack in a photograph pinned on a wall of the Colorado Lounge, then the camera tilts down till on frame appears the sign “July 4th Ball 1921”. Therefore Jack has always been at the service of the Hotel and has always been identical to himself, but he was also a father, a husband, a teacher and a man who hoped to become a writer. Jack was double, had a double life. Among the beliefs surmounted Freud cited also the repetition of the same things, when this repetition introduces the idea of fatality, the idea that mysterious, occult powers could govern life. This motif is evoked, for example, by the repetition of Danny’s visions. Indeed the boy sees only: blood coming out from the elevators of the Overlook Hotel, the two Grady girls and the word “Redrum”; but he continuously sees these images. What’s more when Wendy looks at Jack’s paper, which should contain a play which he is writing, finds out that hundreds of sheets are full of the same phrase: “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy”. The maze and the corridors of the Overlook Hotel introduce the idea of repetition because the paths of the maze and the corridors of the Hotel are all the same. Freud, in his essay on the uncanny, wrote about one of his uncanny experiences which evokes the theme of the labyrinth. He was walking in a deserted, provincial town in Italy, when he found himself in a narrow street. He hastened to leave it, but he found himself back in it two other times. The Overlook maze was entirely built at Elstree Studios in London, but during the film the spectators aren’t shown only this maze, but also other two reproductions of it: the map, on frame before that Wendy and Danny run inside the real maze for the first time; and the model, on frame when Jack, after having thrown a ball against the wall, goes to look down at the model. It is as if the director would like to suggest to the audience the secret of the maze, the power of crossing it without getting lost, but, at the same time, the perfect geometry and symmetry of its paths is endlessly complicated by the use of the Steadicam and by Jack’s false point of view shot which closes the last sequence mentioned above. What’s more the confusion is multiplied by the fact that the map is different from the model and in no other sequence the spectators are allowed to understand what is the real design of the maze. And the real labyrinth, built and constructed for the shooting, is different both from the map and from the model (Cherchi Usai 1981).





Figure 1: picture of the map of the Overlook maze.



Figure 2: picture of the model of the Overlook maze.



Figure 3: Jack’s P.O.V. shot or false P.O.V. shot of the Overlook maze.



Figure 4: map of the maze used during the shooting and shown in Making The Shining.



In the film the maze appears in four sequences: when Wendy and Danny run inside it to play; when Jack looks at the model of the maze in the Colorado Lounge; when again mother and child are shown walking among its paths; and when Mr Torrance follows his son with an axe to kill him. During the first, the third and the fourth sequence mentioned above, guessing where the protagonists are inside the labyrinth and following their movements become impossible for the montage, the characters’ movements and the use of the Steadicam. Indeed often between the shots there seems to be no continuity. The characters move quickly and quickly change direction. The use of the Steadicam allows the spectators to follow and repeat all the characters’ movements at their height thus forbidding a wider view of the maze and of the characters’ position inside it, and, what’s more, when the characters enter in another path, the Steadicam follows their circular movement to reach the new path without any cut. Therefore the strict geometry of the maze becomes confused and incomprehensible. In the second sequence mentioned above, when Jack looks at the model of the Maze, the last two shots are: a plain américain of Jack who looks down at the model of the maze; and a medium shot of Jack whose gaze hasn’t changed direction and therefore should be staring again at the model. The first shot of the next sequence is an extreme long shot of the maze and the camera tilts down on Wendy and Danny who have reached the middle of the maze. Uncertain is the relationship between the last shot of the former sequence, in which Jack stares at the model of the maze, and the first shot of the latter one, in which Wendy and Danny walk in the maze. If the spectators believe in the supernatural powers of Mr Torrance they could interpret the latter shot as a point of view shot, otherwise they could read it as a false point of view shot. In any case this choice left to the audience increases, once more, in the order of the montage, of the construction of the plot, the disorder of two different choices and renders the known, familiar laws of the montage, unfamiliar and thus uncanny. The disorientation provoked by the geometry, the order of the labyrinth and the way of filming them is the same that results from the scenes in which the Steadicam follows Danny who rides on his tricycle along the labyrinthine corridors of the Overlook Hotel. Indeed the Hotel, constituted by huge, luminous rooms and numerous corridors becomes a maze when the Steadicam follows Danny at his height along a corridor and seems to loose him when he turns right or left into another corridor before reaching him again when the camera turns in his same direction. Thus a lot of episodes and motifs of the film which don’t appear in the novel introduce uncanny features such as the double and the repletion of the same things, when this repetition introduces the idea of fatality.

Third Section: Horror.

In the first section I have examined how the novel and the film pertain to the fantastic-marvelous genre and how the spectators of the film hesitate for a longer time than the readers of the novel between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events. In the second section I have discussed the uncanny features of the film. But I still haven’t clarified how the fantastic-marvelous genre and the uncanny elements relate to the horror genre. In this section I will analyse Noël Carroll’s definition of the horror genre and I will try to link it to Todorov’s study of the fantastic (Todorov 1975) . Carroll gave the following definition of the horror genre:

Assuming that ‘I-as-an-audience-member’ am in an analogous emotional state to that which fictional characters beset by monsters are described to be in, then: I am currently art-horrified by some monster X, say Dracula, if and only if 1) I am in some state of abnormal, physically felt agitation (shuddering, tingling, screaming, etc.) which 2) has been caused by a) the thought: that Dracula is a possible being; and by the evaluative thoughts: that b) said Dracula has the property of being physically (and perhaps morally and socially) threatening in the ways portrayed in the fiction and that c)said Dracula has the property of being impure, where 3) such thoughts are usually accompanied by the desire to avoid the touch of things like Dracula” (Carroll 1990:27).

Therefore, according to Carroll, a being, to be defined horrific, must be physically threatening and impure. And a monster “is impure if it is categorically interstitial, categorically contradictory, incomplete, or formless” (Carroll 1990:32). According to Carroll if the monster isn’t impure, but only physically threatening, the tale can’t be defined horror, but a tale of dread. Carroll, to distinguish tales of dread from horror stories, specified:

these events are construed to move the audience rhetorically to the point that one entertains the idea that unavowed, unknown, and perhaps concealed and inexplicable forces rule the universe. Where art-horror involves disgust as a central feature, what might be called art-dre ad does not. (Carroll 1990:42).

Consequently, I can add, horror stories are a sub-genre of tales of dread because, if, from the first Carroll’s definition of horror stories reported above, we delete the condition 2)a), which states that the monster must be impure, we obtain the definition of tales of dread. If we compare Carroll’s study of horrific beings to Kubrick’s The Shining, we can claim that only the two Grady girls and the woman in the bathroom of room 237 are horrific beings. Indeed they are: physically threatening, because the two Grady girls seem to menace Danny asking him to play with them for ever, while the woman tries to strangle Danny and to hold Jack; and they are impure because they transgress the categorical distinction between living/dead. Lloyd, Grady, the other guests at the masked ball and the two masks seen by Wendy aren’t horrific beings because, although they transgress the categorical distinction between living/dead, they don’t seem to be physically threatening. More numerous are the horrific beings described in King’s The Shining because, to the ones shown in the film, must be added all those beings which are both physically threatening and impure: the wasps; the extinguisher; the hedge animals; the man dressed as a dog, who tries to prevent Danny from reaching Jack in the basement; and the Overlook Hotel because, when it explodes, Hallorann sees a strange creature which represents the Overlook Hotel and which comes out from the Presidential Suite. Jack’s character needs to be discussed alone. Indeed both in the film and in the novel he is physically threatening, but while in the film he isn’t impure and consequently he can’t be considered a horrific being, in the novel, at least at the end, he can be considered impure and an horrific being. When, in King’s novel, Danny understands that Jack is possessed by the Overlook Hotel, he manages to speak with his father inside the monster and Jack begins to hit himself. Thus in the novel Jack is like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide, he becomes an horrific being. After these considerations, we can claim that while King’s novel can certainly be defined a classic horror tale, Kubrick’s film, although can be defined horror, isn’t a typical example of the genre. To relate his study to Todorov’s analysis about the fantastic, Carroll claimed that not all the fantastic-marvelous tales are horror. But, with a few observations, the two studies can be related more strictly. Indeed Todorov wrote that a tale can be defined fantastic-marvelous when, after an hesitation between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events, the characters and the readers must accept a supernatural explanation and must believe that the physical laws of the world described aren’t those which govern our own world. A tale can be defined marvelous if, from the beginning, the physical laws of the world described are different from the ones which govern our own world and are accepted from the characters and from the readers. According to Carroll, the world described in a tale of dread is characterized by unknown, unavowed laws. And I have shown how horror stories can be considered a sub-genre of tales of dread. Therefore tales of dread, and consequently horror stories, can be considered a sub-genre of the fantastic-marvelous and of the marvelous genre. Thus, linking Todorov and Carroll’s analysis, I would like to propose the following scheme:



In the intersection between the uncanny and the fantastic genre there is the fantastic-uncanny genre. In the intersection between the fantastic and the marvelous genre there is the fantastic-marvelous genre. The set of horror stories is inside the set of tales of dread because the former are a sub-set of the latter. Both the set of horror stories and the one of tales of dread are inside the set of the marvelous genre, but, given the fact that they can be marvelous or fantastic-marvelous, they are in the marvelous set and in the intersection between the marvelous and the fantastic genre. According to my previous analysis both King’s novel and Kubrick’s film should be among the fantastic-marvelous, horror stories. But, as underlined above, in King’s novel the readers hesitate for a briefer time between a supernatural and a natural explanation of the events than the spectators of Kubrick’s film. And the novel can be considered a more typical, classic example of the horror genre than the film. Thus I would like to propose the following scheme, based upon gaps, to differentiate the novel from the film:





Fourth Chapter: The Shining The analysis of the uncanny features of the film and of the horrific beings of the novel and of the film, isn’t sufficient to fully answer to the question proposed at the beginning of this essay. What scares the readers and the spectators? King drew a distinction between what, in the horror genre, is only horrific and revolting and what is instead terrific.

On top is the ‘gross-out’ level – when Regan vomits in the priest’s face or masturbates with a crucifix in The Exorcist … But on another, more potent level, the work of horror really is a dance – a moving, rhythmic search. And what it’s looking for is the place where you, the viewer or the reader, live at your primitive level…. Is horror art? On this second level the work of horror can be nothing else; it achieves the level of art simply because it is looking for something beyond art, something that predates art: it is looking for what I would call phobic pressure points. (King 1991:17-18).

King specified that the horror genre is based upon three levels and emotions: the one of terror, during which it is the mind which speculates and sees; the one of horror, during which it isn’t only the mind which reacts, but also the body which responds to something physically wrong; and the one of revulsion, during which the body reacts to something disgusting. “So: terror on top, horror below it, and lowest of all, the gag reflex of revulsion.” (King 1991:39). In Kubrick’s film the terror deriving from the play of to believe-not to believe and from the uncanny elements is more developed than in King’s novel, as underlined in the first and in the second section above. While in the novel the horror and revulsion deriving from the horrific beings is more developed than in the film, as underlined in this section. But, regarding the horror of the film, I have to add something which is peculiar to the cinematic medium. What immediately startles us while we are watching the film aren’t only the horrific beings, but also all the dreadful images which are shown abruptly or which we expect, but without knowing exactly when. For example we are startled when Danny’s visions are shown because they appear abruptly. Or when Wendy sees the two masks, Grady and blood coming out from the elevators because we don’t expect to see these images. Or when Jack kills Hallorann with an axe because he appears unexpectedly. And we are scared by Jack when he tries to reach Danny and Wendy in the bathroom and when he follows Danny inside the maze because we fear the worst and we don’t know when it will happen. The unexpected images and horrific beings startle us in the novel too, but, I dare say, due to the difference between the two media, they are less startling in the written medium than in the cinematographic one. For example we are frightened by Jack Nicholson’s acting, by his mad glance and by his quick and almost uncontrolled movements. What’s more in the film we are often startle by music and noises and by their use. To give some brief examples, during the title sequence, Jack’s journey to the Overlook Hotel is accompanied by the disquieting rearrangement of a piece from the Fantastic Symphony by Berlioz. The scene during which Jack speaks to Danny in his bedroom is accompanied by a piece from Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by Bartok. The dialogue between the two characters strictly follow the rhythm of the music. Indeed it was Gordon Stainforth who assembled this scene and who had to cut the piece to fit it perfectly with the dialogue. Finally the noise of the wheels of Danny’s tricycle must be mentioned. Indeed we listen to the wheels noise when the boy rides on the floor and we don’t listen to any noises when he rides on carpets. This alternation between noise-silence increases suspense and terror because when, after the silence, the noise begins, we are startled by it and, during the silence, we expect to listen to the noise again and we remain in suspense.



Bibliography

Castle, A. (2005) The Stanley Kubrick Archives, Italy: Taschen. Carroll, N. (1990) The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart, London: Routledge. Cherchi Usai, P. (1981) in SegnoCinema , n. 1, Autumn 1981. Freud, S. (1953) The Standard edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XVII, pp. 219-252, London: Hogarth (first published 1919). King, S. (1991) Danse Macabre, London: Hodder and Stoughton. King, S. (2001) The Shining, London: New English Library (first published 1977). Norden, E. (1983) in Playboy , June 1983. Saada, N. (1999) in Cahiers du Cinema , n. 534, April 1999. Todorov, T. (1975) The Fantastic. A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, New York: Cornell University Press (first published 1970).

