Shining

Le typique Stanley Kubrick. Dans le film, il n'y a pas un instant qui ne fasse pas partie d'une mosaïque complexe d'un labyrinthe psychologique. Tout est parfaitement synchronisé, fluide, la caméra se déplace principalement dans des angles droits et en parallèle avec les murs de l'hôtel en forme de gabarit. Aucune note de musique ne retentit sans nécessité. Le minimalisme visuel et musical du plus grossier des grains amplifie parfaitement la sensation d'étouffement de l'environnement vide dans lequel se déroule l'histoire. Nous ne suivons pas seulement Jack Nicholson en tant que personnage de film, mais grâce au concept de réalisation visuellement naturaliste de Kubrick, nous devenons lui. Notre nervosité augmente également, nous craignons même ce dont nous serions capables à sa place. On peut à peine qualifier "Shining" d'"horreur", qui est réservé aux horreurs ordinaires pour le divertissement du genre. Bien que je regrette que sa froideur et sa précision calculée ne nous permettent pas de vivre l'histoire des personnages principaux autrement que dans notre imagination, je donne une note complète. Je respecte le cheminement isolé de Kubrick, car dans cette folie, je trouverai quelque chose de nouveau à chaque visionnage. (05/06/2002)

Redrum. Redrum. Redrum. The main asset of this movie is neither Nicholson, nor Kubrick’s precise directing, but the flawless atmosphere in the mountain top hotel. Kubrick’s loose adaptation of King’s novel is attractive due to it being actually only very loosely based on the motifs in one of King’s best stories and is not a mere idealess “one to one" adaptation (however much I may think that Torrance’s fall was far too sudden in comparison with the gradual descent in the book). redruM! (30/01/2007)

I may be strange, but I tried to read King's book three times, and I always put it down about 100 pages. I didn't like it. But the film immediately got to me through its suggestive atmosphere of creeping terror, in which Jack Nicholson's masterful performance plays a big part. He plays Jack Torrance like a harp, first quietly with all the dark undertones, and then suddenly he starts to yank on all the strings. Jack's transformation into a monster is gradual, and he's basically "making" this film. Kubrick admirably managed to create fear without darkness and cramped spaces. The fear of The Shining is an airy, light, spacious fear... And that's absolutely unique. The film also feels authentic because the evil seems to have no source – is it "from inside" Jack, or is it evil embodied in the genius loci? Is Jack's madness really just the work of his bruised psyche? The viewer is stuck in the same uncertainty as the main heroes of the film - it is difficult to determine the distribution of forces between reality and the supernatural. But everything only leads to one thing... REDRUM... did it also give you goose bumps? (30/01/2004)

The excellent minimalist soundtrack couldn't be better, and some scenes, especially the bathroom scene and the boy's vision of dismembered children in the hotel corridor, are truly horrifying, but I still have some reservations. Jack Nicholson, as excellent as he is, overacts disgustingly in some scenes; if that's the director's intention, I didn't quite get it. And Shelley Duvall, as she runs around the hotel with a knife in her hand, tries to play scared, but you can see in her face that she's not very good at it. But these are just tiny blemishes on the beauty of the whole. (11/11/2003)

Stanley Kubrick met with horror for the first and last time in 1980 to elevate the genre to slightly different dimensions, creating a valuable piece and one of his more digestible works. Nicholson's devilish one-man show and the musical accompaniment composed of disharmonies and squeaky sounds heavily contributed to this, maintaining an unpleasant feeling of tension throughout. However, the result somewhat pales in comparison to King's brilliant source material, possibly due to inadequate psychological groundwork. 70% (31/03/2006)