The Shining
Written by Stephen King and directed by Stanley Kubrick, The Shining is a psychological horror that lived up to all the popular hype around it. It was released on the 23rd of May in 1980 which made $20 million within the first three years. It follows the story of Jack, Wendy and their son Danny's move to an isolated hotel in the middle of a snowy mountain range. With the location being this, it lays the perfect foundations for a typical horror convention. After watching this film it made me feel awkward and nervy with Jack's twisted mind polluting my mind.
In the scene where Wendy believes Jack is the one who has made the marks on Danny's neck, she backs away slowly up a staircase clenching a baseball in her hand. Jack is tormenting Wendy by saying gruesome things like he will bash her brain in while she cry's with tears of desperation running down her face. The lighting in this scene is very interesting and I have my own set of beliefs about. The main lighting is coming from the window, as Jack comes up the stairs, the lighting makes one half of his light and the other dark. This symbolises two halves to Jack, the good and the bad. As he edges closer to Wendy, the lighting changes until there is no high key lighting on his face. This shows his evil transformation and also shows that all the good has gone and the bad has taken over him. At the top of the staircase high key lighting is presented which suggests that Wendy is on the stairway to heaven. When people have near death experiences they see a bright light at the end of a tunnel. This reminded me of a that and made me think that Wendy is in a near death experience of herself. The high key lighting gives us a little bit of warmth in this dark scene of Jack going mad and makes us realise Wendy is trying to find safety.
When she finally gets to the top of the stairs that is the moment she strikes out at Jack with the bat. This justified my understanding of the light being the protection in what Wendy relied on. With Jack and Wendy slowly going up the staircase, the high key lighting slowly fades away on Jack's face making his face turn red from the colour of his surroundings. This made me feel threatened because the red reminded me of danger and made him look demonic. Once Wendy strikes him, he dramatically collapses and falls down the stairs back into the high key lighting making him bright indicating he is harmless and unable to attack while knocked out. It was peaceful a ending to that scene while Wendy makes her escape from Jack. Although, I didn't still feel safe on my own behalf or Wendy's because he could wake up at anytime.
Another scene that displays interesting camera lighting is the scene where Jack is in the bar having a conversation with the bartender, Lloyd. Jack is facing Lloyd in a close-up shot with his hands on his eyes with a low key lighting in the background. I think this is trying to show that Jack doesn't want to ascend into the darkness which is indicating he doesn't want to turn bad but his mental health is too bad just to turn away from it. Low key lighting is a common horror convention and I think this is why it was put in this scene. The lighting gave me a sense of mystery, it was hard for me to understand Jack and I think this is why it was done to confuse the audience and emphasise that Jack is no longer normal. The sources of light in this shot are from the bar, behind Lloyd and candles behind Jack. The high key lighting stands out especially behind Lloyd, making every camera shot facing him seem as if he is non-existent. I felt from this that Lloyd was just a figment of Jack's imagination and that Lloyd didn't exist. The lighting on the bar lights up Jack's face from a low angle which is a classic convention of horror therefore gave Jack a creepy look about himself. The way the lighting had been placed below him made me feel as if he was a greater power or that's what he thought of himself, as if he thought he was superior. Lighting is balanced is this scene, there is a good mixture of low key lighting and high key lighting. It is a big room which is lit up with very few candles making only certain parts high key lighting. With mixed lighting gave me mixed emotions of Jack, what was happening and my security when watching the film.
Overall, I think Kubrick did a fantastic job with the lighting in this film. It definitely is a big element in this film and it makes it feel as if its part of the story. The use of low key and high key lighting throughout this film shows Kubrick has a brilliant eye for detail. High key lighting in other horror films generally means security and that it is building up for low key scenes, and that is where most scares/ false scares tend to be. However in The Shining, we do not feel secure even in the high key lighting scenes. The purpose of this horror film from my perspective is to play with your mind rather than scaring you. I think it does great in fulfilling this purpose and the lighting is amazing in doing this. For me, in certain scenes lighting is not important and I think Kubrick has done this on purpose because he doesn't want you to focus on the lighting but in other scenes you can tell he does want you to focus on the lighting. For example, the scene where Wendy is trapped in the bathroom while Jack is trying to kill her. The lighting in the bathroom didn't add any emotion or feelings to me, it was more Wendy's emotions and camera work. I think Kubrick made The Shining to perfection with making the lighting a sufficient factor in some scenes and not others.