Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, Joe Turkel, Anne Jackson. Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson. Cinematography: John Alcott. Production design: Roy Walker. Film editing: Ray Lovejoy. Music: Wendy Carlos, Rachel Elkind.
There are those of us who don't love The Shining. There used to be a lot more of us: When it first opened, Stanley Kubrick's movie met with lukewarm reviews and a general feeling that it was a well-made but not particularly interesting horror movie. Today, the word tossed about often is "masterpiece," and the ranking on IMDb is a whopping 8.4 out of a possible 10. But for me the film is all tricks and no payoff, and the central problem is Jack Nicholson. I know, it's an intensely committed performance, like all of his. But it's one-note crazy almost from the start, partly because the demonic eyebrows and sharklike grin are in full play. Jack Torrance should go mad, nut just be mad, and Kubrick hasn't allowed Nicholson to make the transition of which the actor is fully capable. But Kubrick is less interested in creating characters than in playing with shock effects. Shelley Duvall is forced to turn from a loving and resourceful mother to a blithering nutcase before reverting to the former by the end of the film. Then, too, there are the clichés on which the story is based: the isolated hotel built on the old Indian burying ground, the hedge maze, the kindly but obviously doomed Black man, and so on. Even the supernatural elements are muddled: What does the extrasensory communication, the "shining" of Danny (Danny Lloyd) and Halloran (Scatman Crothers), have to do with the presence of ghosts in the hotel beyond being a way to provide a rescue at the end? The film works for me only if I let myself take on some of its director's notorious cold detachment, and I want movies to let me do more than just admire technique.