[转贴精品评论] 走近库布里克: 闪灵 Understanding Kubrick: The Sh

A nice Kubrick touch that suggestively underlines the aggression is that Roadrunner cartoons -- those bastions of aggression and Wile E. Coyote's failures -- are on TV in the film. When we first see him near the beginning of The Shining, Danny is watching Roadrunner (in a way he later becomes Roadrunner to Jack's Coyote) as he sits at the table with his mother and eats a sandwich. The TV has a cartoon on in Durkin's garage as Larry tells Hallorann on the phone that he will get him a snowcat to take him to the Overlook Hotel through the storm. And Roadrunner is playing on TV -- we hear the "beep beep" -- as Danny is watching with his mother just before she goes and discovers Jack's manuscript.
An odd coincidence is that the photograph on the wall of the hotel at the end of the film showing Jack's visage at the July 4th Ball, 1921, is dated one day after an actual murder occurred in Massachusetts that has some uncanny similarities with the events at the Overlook. On July 3, 1921, in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a man was killed with an ax by his wife, as his daughter took refuge in a hedge. Aggression and its modes are timeless, from apes, to Roadrunner, to Haverhill, to the Overlook.
A third quality to look for in a Kubrick film is that objects and/or machines are characters. From the Doomsday machine in Dr. Strangelove, to HAL and the monoliths in 2001, to the Overlook Hotel and the hedge-maze in The Shining, objects have great -- often destructive -- values in Kubrick's films. Sometimes man dismantles machines such as Dave's dismantling of HAL and Jack's taking of the batteries out of the ham radio and snowcat to render them useless. But machines also can be the means of fleeing the past and entering the future, such as the pod that transports Dave into a higher state of life and the snowcat which Hallorann brings that allows Wendy and Danny to escape. The hedge which traps Jack and freezes him in its maze shows what happens when Jack goes deeper and deeper into the maze of his psyche, from which he cannot escape.
Perhaps the most difficult thing for the viewer to overcome in a Kubrick film is the human beings. I have already suggested that they are banalities in a banal environment, but the real difficulty is that since the viewer can't relate with the characters he usually fails to see their purpose. This became very apparent in viewers' reactions to Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance. He was accused of everything from being boring to over-acting. But there was definite purpose in his characterization. Nicholson's and Kubrick's Jack Torrance is a combination of banality and absurdity. Most viewers went to The Shining expecting Jack Nicholson to be ballsy and stylish as he was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Instead, as early as the initial interview scene, something seems wrong. The character is ordinary. Nicholson has a chance to be clever, but he isn't. He seems slightly out of synch. And as Jack Torrance becomes more extreme, Nicholson remains out of synch. But Nicholson's performance is not without purpose. Jack Torrance is a man who wants to create and can't. Since he is unable to create, he regresses into himself and gives himself to the hotel and its memories. When Grady the caretaker tells him that his son Danny has "a very great talent [shining]" and that his son "is attempting to use that very talent against your will," Jack becomes the enemy of his son's talent. They match wills. Jack is not the creator/communicator he wants to be; his son is. Nicholson faces a great acting challenge. He changes from the banal would-be writer in the interview to the absurd, impulsive extrovert at the bar to the lively, vicious killer at the end. Nicholson has to change from the ordinary to the elemental. He can't be smooth and stylish. And in not being smooth and stylish, unfortunately he loses many viewers.


A final quality a viewer should be aware of is that a Kubrick film is satiric, and often the satire is aimed at America and its values. But so much of the irony is so real that we may not realize Kubrick's tone and approach. Kubrick gives us constant reminders of America in The Shining. The flag is a reminder that he often uses. There is a small American flag on Stuart Ullman's desk in the interview; there is an American flag on the wall when Danny plays darts; there is an American flag in the Park Service; there is an American flag hanging from a pole after Jack's nightmare. Danny wears an Apollo sweater. There is a constant use of the colors red, white, and blue. Television provides American culture. The American culture is a cartoon and a caricature. When Jack is pursuing Wendy to try to kill her, he does a parody of Nixon speaking about the three little pigs. And when he breaks through the bathroom door, he utters the classic television introduction, "Here's Johnny!"
The conclusion of The Shining contains an ultimate comment on America. We see a picture on the wall of the Overlook Hotel; it is inscribed "Overlook Hotel; July 4th Ball, 1921" and the smiling visage of Jack Torrance appears in it. In another life, in 1921 post-war America, America was a land of promise. Americans were happy, America's Independence was being celebrated, and Jack was smiling. But in the present, America has lost her values and promise. A smiling, partying Jack Torrance has turned into a madman. His smile is now replaced by a look of frozen emptiness. The party is over.
The Shining is a difficult film to fathom. But if we are willing, Kubrick gives us a wealth of material to see and to contemplate. Kubrick's style should be enough to set us on our way. His marvelous tracking shots, his intricate details (e.g., the maze designs), and his color schemes can be tantalizing. With the added awareness that banality, aggression, objects, ordinary characters, and satire often play meaningful parts in a Kubrick film, we should be able to deal with it.