The Shining

Scene analysis: the shining

For the first scene to analyse I have chosen the part which sees Jack (Jack Nicholson), in my opinion, finally descending into his madness as he sits in the golden room bar then investigates room 237 for the “crazy woman” that attacked his son Danny. To begin Jack is seen sat at an apparently empty bar. This initial set up shows a close up of Jack. I believe that this shot is quite effective as it allows me to see the change in Jacks face and then the later laugh as he realises, or believes, that Lloyd the barman is standing before him. The shot then changes to show us a medium shot of Lloyd standing before the backboard or the bar. I believe that the lighting is amazing here as, to me, it shows Lloyd as the main part of the scene as it shows him clearly and surrounded by light however Jack is backed by the darkness of the room, alternatively I believe that Jack now clearly has something blocking him and his mind from re capturing the light before his final decent into the madness. Playing on the madness edge again, once the shot has returned to a medium shot of Jack sat at the bar we can see the Mise-en-scene of him being surrounded by green tables, which again makes me believe that I am being shown Jacks gradual fall into the sickness and madness. This continues until his wife Wendy runs down the hall and into the gold room screaming for Jacks help. In my opinion this simple long shot to medium shot pan and back to long shot take shows me that Wendy has snapped Jack back into reality as the original close ups and medium shots showed me that Jack was perhaps locked in with himself and his madness he now is shown with more space and less of the green objects that littered the previous shots of jack sat at the bar. Later we see a long shot of Mr. Halloran in his bed and again I saw that he was surrounded by green, in my opinion this seems to show that the madness is always going to happen and even the most “powerful” character of Mr. Halloran has fallen into some form of insanity. Later shots as Jack enters room 237 are shown from a point of view perspective which plays on a horror convention as it makes me feel slightly more tense as I, as a viewer, have now been inserted into the scene and in turn the horror. Also the movie once again plays on the use of colour, in my opinion, to show off the decent of madness as most of room is also covered in green colours however purple is now introduced that makes me believe that Jack will perhaps fall towards the more psychotic side of madness and laugh as he does it. The scene continues as Jack comes to a bathroom that again is coated in a sickly green colour, this is a part that I believe is most important as after seeing what Jack has seen with the woman in the bathroom we are shown a close up of Jacks face that shows a creepy smile and the first step which to me seems like I am witnessing Jack welcoming the madness and willingly falling for it.

The second scene I chose is the scene where Jack has finally broken and is now trying to murder Wendy and Danny In their room. This scene begins with the mid shot of Wendy and Danny as she hears Jack trying to break through the door. The diegetic sound coupled with the non-diegetic music, for me, adds a lot of tension as it suddenly appears moments before Jack begins the attack and doesn’t give me a chance to relax as it is constantly adding tension to the scene. Wendy then escapes into the bathroom with Danny, this made me feel slightly confused as the high key lighting and white walls gave me confidence and a sense that they had found a safe zone however it also plays to the convention of horror as they are now isolated in an almost inescapable room with Jack closer and closer to getting them (this is similar to a scene in aliens when our remaining survivors find themselves trapped in a defendable room that the aliens are quickly breaking into and they have little to no chance of escape). The scene later shows us a close up of Jacks face once he finally reaches the bathroom door and begins to yell through to Wendy. While this seems small I believe that it plays towards the horror aspect really well as we can see how immediate the danger is in that jack is right next to the door, it also allows us to see the emotion portrayed which seems to show that Jack is finally completely fallen into this madness as he is about to murder his wife and son and he is laughing, smiling and joking and sometimes it almost seems like he is simply doing it to himself. Again the movie plays to a convention of a near PoV shot as I feel I am placed opposite Wendy as we both witness the axe coming through the door. As this shot allows me to see both this and the look of complete terror on Wendy’s face I truly begin to fear what is about to come. A part that I find is clever is when we see a mid-shot of Jack as he places his head through the hole he has just created, while to me, on my first viewing not knowing what was to come, thought that was not particularly scary, the shot suddenly cuts to the famous close up of Jacks head in the hole which allowed me to see the true extent of the madness and the subsequent “HERE’S JOHNNY” line that has been parodied time and time again (even in the Simpsons) in its original terrifying glory.