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• 1 media/shining.jpg media/jack-nicholson-shelley-duvall-shining.jpg 2017-11-16T07:00:55-08:00 Cocco Page 5 16 The Shinning with the Uncanny image_header 2017-12-10T09:35:29-08:00

  Many movies integrate the uncanny into their stories, but, Stanley Kubrick’s, The Shining, uses the uncanny throughout the entire film and not just by adding all these different types of horrifying creatures but by effectively using creative cinematography. The movie is about a family agreeing to look after a hotel during a terrible snow storm. What the family doesn’t know is an evil presence lurks about the hotel and influences the father, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), into violence as their son Danny (Danny Llyod) using his psychic ability to see the horrific past as well as the future (The Shining). Freud is stated saying “This is that an uncanny effect is often and easily produced by effacing the distinction between imagination and reality, such as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality, or when a symbol takes over the full functions and significance of the thing it symbolizes, and so on” (Freud)— this ‘distinction between imagination and reality’ is seen through the entire film. As the story progresses, the viewers start asking themselves whether or not some of these characters are actually real. Aside from that Kubrick utilizes other techniques to get under the audience’s skin. For some people, mazes can freak people out, having the idea of never finding freedom. In the movie, the hotel can be seen as one giant maze due to the hotel being actually pretty large in size. Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall), Jack’s wife and Danny’s mother in the film, is even quoted in saying, “this whole place is like an enormous maze”(The Shining). The viewer even gets a sense of how large and disorienting the hotel is when Danny is riding his tricycle down the corridors, around 90 degree turns, each hallway being similar if not identical as the last, giving the sense of an endless maze. The cinematography plays a key role in this by chasing Danny as he’s riding around the hallways at his level. Not above, not in front, just behind him enough to give the viewer this lost feeling. Not only hallways of the hotel but on the outside of the hotel, lies an actual hedge maze that Jack chases Danny into. In the scene, the camera follows Danny the same as when he was on his tricycle except reverse. In this instance, Danny is chasing the camera giving the viewer anxiety on whether or not he will run into his father or escape the maze. The scene also puts viewers at the edge of their seats by having this chase not only in the dark but also in a dense fog. This fog furthers the unknown by eliminating one’s sight ahead. Kubrick also uses the idea of reanimating of the dead. In the movie, Danny sees twin girls wearing the same outfit, same hairstyle etc. These two girls died in the hotel and now haunt throughout the hotel. These twins make Danny see things horrifying scenes such as the blood pouring out of the hotel elevators. Another character that was reanimated was the bartender that Jack goes to whenever he is stressed out along with guests who were at the hotel during the 1920’s. This reanimation was sneaked in by Kubrick meaning the audience didn’t know they were reanimated til the very end of the movie giving the viewers an uneasy feeling. Not only does the reanimation of the dead fall under this uncanny category, but also this idea of androids being more and more human like fall under this umbrella of uncanny.