Bob and
dawnignited: I appreciate your responses. I'll preface what I have to say here by repeating that I've never seen the miniseries and adding that I've never read the book, either. However, with reference to the film and the decisions Kubrick made:
In the movie, Jack isn't a sympathetic figure. He isn't struggling with his alcoholism and the manipulations of the Overlook. Theres no real point in Kubricks Shining where youre rooting for him to "beat" the Overlook, so his fall is much less tragic than the book and even mini series.
1) I'll concede that Kubrick's primary aim with Jack definitely wasn't to get viewers to sympathize with him. However, that's not to say that he wasn't sympathetic. Kubrick's Jack was a man at the end of his rope, a man who was not only struggling with the fact that he never became the man (or writer) he wanted to become but also with the fact that he didn't want to live the life he was living, teaching English to stupid kids and married to an ugly and obnoxious woman and father to a weird ass kid who talks to his finger. Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. He was a man trapped by his own weaknesses/inadequacies (which are brought out and which ultimately bring him down once the hotel gets its hooks into him) and who was embittered to the point of madness. I actually do feel for Kubrick's Jack in a lot of ways, even if Kubrick was primarily concerned with sketching an other (darker) side of the coin portrait of the "perfect" American family.
2) Jack plainly was struggling with his alcoholism. He was struggling with it in the sense that he'd been maintaining his sobriety since injuring Danny and he was struggling with it in the sense that he was growing ever more resentful of his wife on whom he projected his anger and frustration in lieu of being able to use alcohol to escape from himself and his life.
From what you posted, it definitely sounds like King's Jack is more your typical film protagonist "good guy" who you're supposed to root for/side with, and it seems like the tragedy is more straightforward and Manichean. Trying to ignore the Kubrick vs King angle, I think the shades of gray added in the film make for a more complex and enthralling characterization, even if that makes it harder to identify with the character.
However by far the biggest characterization that Kubrick changed, and not for the better, was Wendy Torrance. In the movie Duvall is this mousy, submissive, screamer. Basically she's a typical horror movie female. She exists to act shocked and run and scream. In the book, and by default the TV adaptation since it follows the book, she's a much stronger and more capable female character.
Actually - and this goes to point #1 above - she exists to annoy you to the point where you're willing to sympathize with Jack and share, to whatever degree (likely not the same degree of homicidal rage but still
), in his irritation with her. And the fact that Jack gets destroyed while she saves Danny from him and eventually escapes with him in that snow plow thing proves that she's not a "typical horror movie female" in the derogatory sense implied.
Steven Weber just happens to give a more layered portrayal of Jack Torrance compared to Jack Nicholson.
I'm having a hard time imagining the lack of complexities and gray areas added by Kubrick leading to a
more layered characterization/portrayal.
I do love Jack Nicholson going bonkers, but you're pretty much waiting for that to happen because... well, it's Jack Nicholson.
To be fair, Jack is famous today for "going bonkers" largely because of
The Shining and how amazing he was in it. It's not like he spent decades before
The Shining going bonkers all the time so that by the time
The Shining came around it was old hat. He got famous for going bonkers largely on the strength of his performance in
The Shining.
