There are so many good reasons to write about The Shining right now. Stephen King’s birthday was September 21– born in 1947, he now officially qualifies for Social Security benefits. We can only hope he doesn’t retire!
As almost a birthday gift from him to his readers, his newest release, Doctor Sleep, was released last week, and since then, it has hit the bestseller lists with a bang, taking the #1 slot last week. How does this relate to The Shining?
The Shining was made into a very effective movie by Stanley Kubrick, and there’s been debate in the past over the translation from book to film.
In the spirit of, well, getting “into the spirit”for King’s newest book, out just in time for our haunted holiday, writer Elizabeth Eckhart has written a little about the movie and the book, and why they’re controversial among fans.
Enjoy! And if you’re interested in following through on any of these, the images you see to the side are direct links to Amazon. All you have to do is click!
The Shining in Book and Film
By Elizabeth Eckhart
Stephen King’s The Shining, originally published in 1977, was a commercial success and helped to cement the author’s stature in the world of popular literature. The book also served as the basis for a Stanley Kubrick film of the same name which, despite being panned by critics upon its initial release in 1980, is now regarded as one of the greatest horror films of all time.
The novel, in summary, follows the story of a character named Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic with a violent temper. Jack lives with his Wife Wendy and young son Danny, who is imbued with psychic power. After Torrance loses his job as a high school teacher for hitting a student, he manages to secure a job as the caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. The family will live in the hotel throughout winter. The Overlook is inhabited by ghosts, who Danny can see and commune with. Danny becomes friendly with the Overlook’s cook, Dick Halloran, who also has Danny’s psychic ability. Eventually, the ghosts start to communicate with Jack, and they persuade him to murder his family, as previous caretakers had done in the hotel.
At the climax of the book, Jack is chasing after his wife and son with a roque mallet, and the topiary animals outside of the hotel come to life. Dick Halloran tries to intervene to save the family, and he is viciously attacked by Jack. Jack regains composure long enough to try to save his family, and the boiler room explodes as Wendy and Danny escape.
Now, 36 years after the initial publication of King’s novel, a sequel has been slated for release this month. King’s new book is titled Doctor Sleep, and it will reportedly follow the story of Danny Torrance, the child with extrasensory perception from The Shining, as a grown man. Torrance is now in his 40’s and works in upstate New York as a hospice care provider who uses his special abilities to soothe terminally ill patients as they’re dying. King has also disclosed that a gang of vampires with psychic abilities become involved in the story at some point…
With talk of this new sequel, one can’t help but wonder how the new book will perform in the marketplace, and whether or not public interest will merit a film adaptation. King has produced a huge volume of work over the course of his career (well over 50 novels, and that’s not even accounting for scripts or shorts), and a large percentage of those works have been adapted for either TV mini-series or feature length films. Some adaptations have been strong, while others have left much to be desired.
The Shining makes particularly good fodder for this discussion, as it long since polarized fans. For all the similarities between King’s novel and Kubrick’s film, there are many differences. Stephen King himself was highly critical of Kubrick’s film when it was originally released.
In more abstract terms, the tonal differences between the two seemed to be a product of the artists’ conflicting spiritual ideologies. King’s work is commonly laden with spiritual undertones, whereas a defining characteristic of Kubrick’s films is a cynicism so potent that, at times, it borders on misanthropy. King’s biggest complaint with the film was that Kubrick dedicated too much attention to the neurosis of Jack Torrence, and directed a film which places too much emphasis on the mental instability and volatility innate to the character, while undermining the more supernatural parts of the story. King felt that Kubrick’s religious skepticism made for a situation where, because Kubrick himself couldn’t believe in supernatural occurrences, he failed to produce a believable film. King also did not like Kubrick’s decision to cast Jack Nicholson, as Nicholson already had a reputation for playing brooding and neurotic characters, and his descent into insanity would hardly surprise viewers. King had hoped for an actor who would evoke more sympathy from viewers. King’s notion was that the character was troubled, but fundamentally moral, and that he fell victim to the corrosive influence of the spirits in the hotel. In the mid-nineties, King directed his own adaptation of The Shining, which was a three-part mini-series for ABC. Was this version truer to King’s novel? Perhaps. Was it more compelling? It was certainly no Kubrick film…
In more concrete terms, though, there are several differences between the book and the film. Kubrick’s version substitutes a large hedge maze for topiary animals. In the book, the Overlook burns down and Jack Torrance perishes in a boiler room explosion, whereas in the movie, he freezes to death in the hedge maze.
Another key difference is that in King’s novel, Jack Torrance doesn’t end up actually murdering anyone. In the movie, however, Jack kills Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers). The book ends more optimistically, with Dick Halloran spending time with Danny over a summer vacation on the east coast. In the film, we get one extended zoom on a photograph of a full ballroom, with the image dated in the forties — but there, in the very foreground of the image, stands Jack Nicholson. Apparently, his spirit has been permanently integrated into the restless community of ghosts in the hotel.
The Shining, both the book and the film, occupy a very special place within our collective cultural consciousness. We see it referenced and parodied everywhere, from TV cartoons to countless other feature length horror novels and films. Let’s hope that this new novel from King serves as an adequate follow up to The Shining, and resonates with the public; and, if popular interest merits it, let’s hope that whatever film treatment it receives does the book justice.
Author Bio: Elizabeth Eckhart is a film and entertainment writer for DirectTVcomparison.com. She still considers the The Shining Jack Nicholson’s most powerful role, and is excited/concerned about the upcoming sequel. She lives and works in Chicago.
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