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- Oct 5, 2008
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I went to a 45 year anniversary show of the movie and while it is good movie, its place is more about its place in time than its quality as a horror movie. I walked away from the movie with the belief that Kurbrick is not very good at horror. The biggest problem I think there is with the movie is that Jack's character is crazy from the very start of the movie and it is clear already hates his wife and his kid. There was a scene where Shelly Duval interrupts him while he was writing to offer him a sandwich and read his work and I laughed out loud in the theater at how much contempt Jack showed that he had for her. It is almost like Kubrick either didn't feel the need to tell Jack to reel it in some or that the story is being shown from the perspective as Shelley and the kid, as opposed the book which is from Jack's perspective more so. From the very start Jack feel like a menace and violent and the house really didn't have to do much of anything to push him over the edge. The book is different in this regard as Jack's character being remorseful for being an alcoholic and accidently hurting the kid while drunk. There isn't any arch to Jack but him just getting worse than what he is already
I think the cinematography was the best part of the movie but Kubrick was always exceptional at this. The score is good. The dialogue has weight and all the characters give at least good performances with Jack's maybe being too much over the top. The star of the movie in my opinion is Shelly Duval as she and Danny are the only ones grounding this movie in reality. I think a lot of people could have given a Jack like performance but Shelley playing her role straight as a scared spouse is hard.
The part that I think is intriguing is that I think the movie isn't about what it looks like it is about. The book is about addiction but I think the movie is really about abuse and maybe homosexuality. The video below outlines how there are these cues of things that hint at certain things like incest and being closeted. Kurbrick is too good of a director for any of this to be accidental. Especially, with glaringly obvious things like Jack reading an issue of Playgirl while waiting at the hotel for the manager. How do you explain a Playgirl sitting at a lobby at a hotel and Jack flipping through it That and Danny not having his pants on and the therapist asking where he was touch at the therapy session There is too much stuff like this that is out of place and overly sexualized for it to not be hint at something more than just addiction. There was a documentary that had some scenes in it that were cut from the movie which confirms this sexual angle was intentional even if Kubrick never publicly acknowledged it. I think he might have wanted to make it a bit of a mystery or the studio didn't want these themes front and center but the movie in my opinion would have benefitted with making abuse and sexual issues more overt. He hid them too well under other currents. There are some other theories on the internet too about this being about intergenerational trauma as Jack's timeline which he quotes as for being sober doesn't line up with other parts of the movie, the re-occuring theme of the stuff bear first scene in many scenes with Danny and then seeing the man in the bear costume with an open backdoor like kid's pajamas presumably giving the former hotel manage oral sex. I think Kubrick did this all intentionally but I don't know if we will ever know exactly what the intent was or if Kubrick was intentionally just stirring in red herrings to create an atmosphere of uncertainty. The idea of Jack being gay gives a different meaning to Jack typing out "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" as it may reference how his life as husband and father is unfulfilling as he is gay and alcohol and the golden bar might just represent an escape from this "straight" life. None of this is touched on in the book so whatever this is was created whole cloth by Kubrick.
The theme of the movie is not so much as a tragedy like the book and is instead about Shelley and Danny having to deal with a chaotic and menacing husband and father. I don't think this necessarily makes the movie bad but what I do think that it does is that it makes Jack's character not as deep because he is more like a cartoon than a man trying to do the right thing and just failing.
I would as a horror movie give it an 8.5 out of 10. The last 15 minutes are good as a horror movie but leading up to that, there is not much tension. It looks good. It sounds good. But much of it, at least by current standards is a little over the top. Jack plays his character with menace but I think sometimes he goes too far to be taken seriously as person and not a cartoon character. Sometimes things were so cartoony that I seriously started wondering if Kubrick was winking at the camera. I think the movie though should be watch and is a 10/10 in terms of what it is in its place in horror movies even if it isn't the best of the genre. It delivers on somethings and is too opaque on others, but not in a way that adds tension like in Japanese or Eldritch horror movies. Kubrick usually tries to say something in his movies but I don't know exactly what he was trying to say in this movie. If it is about sexual abuse that was never spelled out completely. If it is about a gay closeted man resenting his family, that was also not fully spelled out. I am not sure what Kubrick was trying to say if anything and maybe he decided to do the movie as he never tried horror before.
I think the cinematography was the best part of the movie but Kubrick was always exceptional at this. The score is good. The dialogue has weight and all the characters give at least good performances with Jack's maybe being too much over the top. The star of the movie in my opinion is Shelly Duval as she and Danny are the only ones grounding this movie in reality. I think a lot of people could have given a Jack like performance but Shelley playing her role straight as a scared spouse is hard.
The part that I think is intriguing is that I think the movie isn't about what it looks like it is about. The book is about addiction but I think the movie is really about abuse and maybe homosexuality. The video below outlines how there are these cues of things that hint at certain things like incest and being closeted. Kurbrick is too good of a director for any of this to be accidental. Especially, with glaringly obvious things like Jack reading an issue of Playgirl while waiting at the hotel for the manager. How do you explain a Playgirl sitting at a lobby at a hotel and Jack flipping through it That and Danny not having his pants on and the therapist asking where he was touch at the therapy session There is too much stuff like this that is out of place and overly sexualized for it to not be hint at something more than just addiction. There was a documentary that had some scenes in it that were cut from the movie which confirms this sexual angle was intentional even if Kubrick never publicly acknowledged it. I think he might have wanted to make it a bit of a mystery or the studio didn't want these themes front and center but the movie in my opinion would have benefitted with making abuse and sexual issues more overt. He hid them too well under other currents. There are some other theories on the internet too about this being about intergenerational trauma as Jack's timeline which he quotes as for being sober doesn't line up with other parts of the movie, the re-occuring theme of the stuff bear first scene in many scenes with Danny and then seeing the man in the bear costume with an open backdoor like kid's pajamas presumably giving the former hotel manage oral sex. I think Kubrick did this all intentionally but I don't know if we will ever know exactly what the intent was or if Kubrick was intentionally just stirring in red herrings to create an atmosphere of uncertainty. The idea of Jack being gay gives a different meaning to Jack typing out "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" as it may reference how his life as husband and father is unfulfilling as he is gay and alcohol and the golden bar might just represent an escape from this "straight" life. None of this is touched on in the book so whatever this is was created whole cloth by Kubrick.
The theme of the movie is not so much as a tragedy like the book and is instead about Shelley and Danny having to deal with a chaotic and menacing husband and father. I don't think this necessarily makes the movie bad but what I do think that it does is that it makes Jack's character not as deep because he is more like a cartoon than a man trying to do the right thing and just failing.
I would as a horror movie give it an 8.5 out of 10. The last 15 minutes are good as a horror movie but leading up to that, there is not much tension. It looks good. It sounds good. But much of it, at least by current standards is a little over the top. Jack plays his character with menace but I think sometimes he goes too far to be taken seriously as person and not a cartoon character. Sometimes things were so cartoony that I seriously started wondering if Kubrick was winking at the camera. I think the movie though should be watch and is a 10/10 in terms of what it is in its place in horror movies even if it isn't the best of the genre. It delivers on somethings and is too opaque on others, but not in a way that adds tension like in Japanese or Eldritch horror movies. Kubrick usually tries to say something in his movies but I don't know exactly what he was trying to say in this movie. If it is about sexual abuse that was never spelled out completely. If it is about a gay closeted man resenting his family, that was also not fully spelled out. I am not sure what Kubrick was trying to say if anything and maybe he decided to do the movie as he never tried horror before.
