12-07-2017, 01:43 AM
(12-05-2017, 10:35 AM)David Horn Wrote: I notice that Eric was the only one to mention Dr. Strangelove. If any Kubrick movie had real impact, it was that one.
Maybe, but I don't enjoy watching it nearly as much as I do the Shining.
The Shining was just such a beautifully made film, as well as very frightening--the sweeping shots of the snowy mountain scenery and the continuous, maze-like shots of the hotel's interior, with its unsettling spatial logic. Beautiful use of music as well, the Berlioz and the Bartok and the 1930s ballroom numbers adding to the creepiness. The story, as we all know, is by Stephen King and is about a small family headed by an alcoholic father with a history of abuse who, in order to devote his time to writing, isolates them from the rest of the world in a haunted hotel, and quickly descends into homicidal madness. I thought one of the most chilling scenes in the film was early on, before the family even arrives at the Overlook with its horrors, when Wendy discusses Danny with the pediatrician and makes excuses for her husband's violent past behavior--"it's just one of those things."