The Shining is a Psychological Thriller starring Jack Nicholson as a caretaker, tasked with taking care of an isolated hotel, with a disturbing past over the long winter.
The opening sequence begins with a sweeping establishing shot, of a yellow beetle while the introduction credits roll; this shot could help to establish the isolation and separation between the “real world” and the hotel. This, with the use of eerie, tension building music fulfils the audience’s expectations because it sets the experience of a horror film by putting the characters in an unfamiliar environment and then watching them fall into demise, this also happens in Hostel (Roth, 2005) The Blair Witch Project (Myrick, 1999) etc.
The Shining conforms to the psychological Horror genre in that the location has a history of violence or tragedy, also that a character may have mental problems or diffuculty coping with life. Jack’s demon was drinking but he has since given up. However, his son develops a bond with an imaginary friend “Tony”. These issues help escalate, what would usually be a boring experience, into something of a classic.
The Shining conforms to the psychological Horror genre in that the location has a history of violence or tragedy, also that a character may have mental problems or diffuculty coping with life. Jack’s demon was drinking but he has since given up. However, his son develops a bond with an imaginary friend “Tony”. These issues help escalate, what would usually be a boring experience, into something of a classic.
Jack Nicholson was cast as the starring role in The Shining, already with over 25 films under his belt; he could have been used to gain media attention as he was a rising star and not the directors and caster's only choice. Steven King, the author of the novel, said that the casting was a bad idea as the plot / acting was too similar to his recent “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” however, due to its critical positivity he could have been cast to emulate that success.
The film is an independent film, as the production studio was owned by Kubrick himself. It did not utilise any particular marketing techniques, however unlike Kubrick’s other releases which gained attention by word of mouth, and it was released nationwide in America
The Institutional context is quite evident as the opening sequence has quite low production values, as often Independent films do. The Shining has a budget of $19 million, however the production team were able to create the largest set ever built for a film, making a scale model of the hotel, in a British studio, which conflicts with the general low production values of the rest of the opening sequence.
Some interesting observations - now work at laying the post out more effectively and use subheadings to show which section you are analysing.
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