The Shining - Extended Edition. (15.)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson and Joe Turkel. 144 mins.
At last the Brothers Warner have gotten around to releasing the full length version of Kubrick’s horror classic on Blu-ray, two years after it was put back in cinemas. This is the 144 minute version which Kubrick cut down to two hours while it was still on release. It is therefore the version that was savaged by American critics who, after Barry Lyndon, were perhaps predisposed to see Kubrick as a spent force and sensed they could claim their biggest scalp since David Lean and Ryan’s Daughter.
They got it terribly wrong, but you can see what they meant. Logically it IS a bad film - it's too slow, the story is too simple, the nature of the supernatural threat is never clarified, the characterisations are banal and some of the acting is, well, questionable. It is a film which I don’t think you can see without at least one person in the audience snorting and scoffing, to make sure that you know that they find it silly.
This is especially true of Nicholson. The problem is that, in middle-distance running terms, he goes too early. Knowing that his character is going to go mad stuck in the isolation of the snowbound Overlook Hotel, it would be logical to start small and slowly build up towards the final homicidal burst. Nicholson is already Looney Tunes in the opening interview scene. Having boxed himself in so early his eyebrows are popping champagne corks by the mid point. But, of course, it's not really his performance. Kubrick was shooting each scene 30,40, 50 times so maybe it was a matter of him losing his grip in a couple of takes and Kubrick using those. While he’s larger-than-life, everybody else is a little less than. His wife and son Wendy and Danny don’t seem like complete people. Duvall's performance gets a lot of stick but I think she's great in the role.
The way the film works is that you don’t buy into the characters, you buy into the hotel. The elaborate, interconnected set is the film’s dominant character and once its dimensions are established by the long Steadicam shots of Danny riding his tricycle around, it gives audiences all the realism they need. It may just be a set of walls built in Elstree but it seems so real and has such a presence, that the idea of being trapped in it with this crazy ham actor becomes truly terrifying.
I did worry before if the “extra” 24 minutes might negatively affect the film, drag the pace down too much. While you can see why Kubrick chose to cut them, it is good to have them back and I’d say it was the superior version. In comparison the two hour version now seems too direct, too quick to get to the point. But apart from an early scene where a doctor examines Danny they make little material difference. Indeed, you probably won’t notice much difference until you check your watch at the end. Reading through the list of addition scenes and changes in this version I kept thinking that I had seen them before. It is as if they had always been there.
Room 237
Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson and Joe Turkel. 144 mins.
At last the Brothers Warner have gotten around to releasing the full length version of Kubrick’s horror classic on Blu-ray, two years after it was put back in cinemas. This is the 144 minute version which Kubrick cut down to two hours while it was still on release. It is therefore the version that was savaged by American critics who, after Barry Lyndon, were perhaps predisposed to see Kubrick as a spent force and sensed they could claim their biggest scalp since David Lean and Ryan’s Daughter.
They got it terribly wrong, but you can see what they meant. Logically it IS a bad film - it's too slow, the story is too simple, the nature of the supernatural threat is never clarified, the characterisations are banal and some of the acting is, well, questionable. It is a film which I don’t think you can see without at least one person in the audience snorting and scoffing, to make sure that you know that they find it silly.
This is especially true of Nicholson. The problem is that, in middle-distance running terms, he goes too early. Knowing that his character is going to go mad stuck in the isolation of the snowbound Overlook Hotel, it would be logical to start small and slowly build up towards the final homicidal burst. Nicholson is already Looney Tunes in the opening interview scene. Having boxed himself in so early his eyebrows are popping champagne corks by the mid point. But, of course, it's not really his performance. Kubrick was shooting each scene 30,40, 50 times so maybe it was a matter of him losing his grip in a couple of takes and Kubrick using those. While he’s larger-than-life, everybody else is a little less than. His wife and son Wendy and Danny don’t seem like complete people. Duvall's performance gets a lot of stick but I think she's great in the role.
The way the film works is that you don’t buy into the characters, you buy into the hotel. The elaborate, interconnected set is the film’s dominant character and once its dimensions are established by the long Steadicam shots of Danny riding his tricycle around, it gives audiences all the realism they need. It may just be a set of walls built in Elstree but it seems so real and has such a presence, that the idea of being trapped in it with this crazy ham actor becomes truly terrifying.
I did worry before if the “extra” 24 minutes might negatively affect the film, drag the pace down too much. While you can see why Kubrick chose to cut them, it is good to have them back and I’d say it was the superior version. In comparison the two hour version now seems too direct, too quick to get to the point. But apart from an early scene where a doctor examines Danny they make little material difference. Indeed, you probably won’t notice much difference until you check your watch at the end. Reading through the list of addition scenes and changes in this version I kept thinking that I had seen them before. It is as if they had always been there.
Room 237
