The Shining: Shows What Adaptation Can Do

By Bethan Power · June 24, 2013

As a writer, there is nothing more terrifying than the inevitable writer’s block. It gets us when we least expect it and gnaws away at our self-esteem and patience until, in utter desperation, we go to drastic lengths to rid ourselves of it. Jack Torrance has this very affliction in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and in a bid to hop back on the inspired writing train of thought he takes to an old isolated hotel for the winter with his family. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot actually, and so the horror film that still thrills over thirty years after its release is born.

I first saw The Shining in my freshman year as a film undergraduate. Now, I will put my hands up and admit that I am not a well-versed film academic in the horror and thriller genre. Sure, their subject matter fascinates me, and I’ve even written my own feature thriller, but my imagination runs away with me too much when I watch them and I freak out before I have chance to get pulled in. I think it’s largely down to the filming style—that low-budget, almost homemade feel that The Blair Witch Project pulled off so well. Take that and stir it in with the incomprehensible fear of the monster in your blind spot and the spirit just behind you. Eeeekk! You can imagine the apprehension I felt sitting down to watch this compulsory viewing, surrounded by fellow students I did not know closely enough to admit my weakness to. Not good.

And you know what? I sat through the whole thing. I jumped, I swore to myself, and I did cover my eyes and ears at a couple of moments, but I was truly engaged and lapped up the story like I would in any other genre. That really surprised me. The original Stephen King novel of the same name is a good read in a more traditional horror sense, but Kubrick rejected King’s screenplay version for his own less literal adaptation that opens up the scary movie genre to something very new. And boy does it work.

The sets are grand and the space is open. The characters are deep and thought-out. And the film has a purpose other than to scare. That’s what makes it work so well. So many films within this genre exist only for scare after scare after scare. The characters are of no consequence and the plot (if there is one) is simplistic at best. But The Shining is all about the characters. No stereotypes are used as pawns in the chess game of scary-scary-die; this film has multi-faceted characters with true arcs and true relationships, not the least of whom is Jack Nicholson’s beautiful portrayal of Jack Torrance.

Kubrick insisted the film be shot chronologically, which although exceptionally expensive to achieve (all sets hat to be lit and on standby for this to be possible) helps the demise of Jack’s sanity to really be felt in the acting as Nicholson got to experience the demise of his character without leaping back and forth chronologically within a day of filming. Having a solid character arc is a strong foundation for any screenplay and The Shining pulls this off with ease, taking you on a journey with a likeable character and gradually introducing the madness so it builds and before you know it a madman fills the screen instead of the loveable Jack that once was. Sure you have the odd conventional horror scenes—creepy kids, blood everywhere, sinister typing—but the characters keep you grounded and keeps you in the story rather than trying to freak you out with random scary images. Also, but the connection with Jack helps to heighten the fear and empathy with the supporting cast in later scenes.

This film really displays the potential for adaptation. As mentioned before, Kubrick rejected King’s screenplay and chose to use his own. Despite this being typical of autocratic Kubrick, it also allowed a less literal adaptation both of the novel and the genre as a whole to manifest itself on the big screen. If you read the novel as well as see the film then you can see just how different they are. It shows that two people using the same source material can create something entirely different yet both marketable, and in turn creates a promising outlook for writers everywhere. I mean, Shakespeare’s Hamlet has been adapted for film no less that sixty one times. And it still sells. Putting a new spin on old stuff is a method that clearly still works, and works well.

This film is great. It’s great because it reworked the horror thriller genre to conform to it, rather than conforming to the genre. It’s great because it has a fantastic protagonist who takes you along on their descent into madness. It’s great because it’s a meticulous Kubrick creation that is authentic to the last take (it actually holds the world record for the most retakes—the scene that describes ‘shining’ took no less than 148 takes).

And it’s great because despite my aversion to all things horror, the compelling characters and story kept me safe from crying, screaming, fainting, or all of the above in my lecture class, which would have ended in utter humiliation for the rest of my university career. So thank you Kubrick, thank you from the bottom of my heart, for letting me keep my “girl with big glasses who sounds like she is from a period drama” status—as opposed to the status of “girl who hysterically cries at ghosts.”