The Shining at 40 – Senses of Cinema

Introduction: “How Do You Like It?” (Forty Years On) – The Shining in the Age of Global Quarantine

July 2020

“Forever and ever (and ever)” since its release, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) has generated an uncanny amount of literature, by critics and fans alike. The critical response, following initially lukewar...

“Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are”: The Legacy of The Shining in Contemporary Cinema

Jeremi Szaniawski

July 2020

The Shining at 40

Much like Alfred Hitchcock with Psycho (1960), Stanley Kubrick sought, with The Shining (1980), to conduct an experiment in cinematic fear. While neither of the films can be reduced to it, this experimental dim...

Reflections on The Shining

Pip Chodorov

July 2020

The Shining at 40

Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) is a film about isolation and the threat of an invisible evil. It relates to our current situation insofar as now, in spring 2020, with the world locked down due to a microscopic en...

Jack’s Smart Home

Marta Figlerowicz

July 2020

The Shining at 40

In Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Fredric Jameson famously takes the Westin Bonaventure Hotel as an emblem of postmodern impersonality. “The Bonaventure,” he argues, “aspires to being...

King vs. Kubrick: The Origins of Evil

Filippo Ulivieri

July 2020

The Shining at 40

It is a common trope that authors rarely like films based on their novels. Stephen King, who at the time of this writing has seen 48 feature films and 26 television series adapted from his works, is no exceptio...

The Manly Veil

Alexander Nemerov

July 2020

The Shining at 40

The end of The Shining will always be enigmatic. In the movie’s final scene we see a photograph taken at the Overlook Hotel on July 4, 1921. It shows Jack Torrance front and center as the Gatsby-like maestro of...

The Shining and Us – Participants to the Dossier Reflect on Their First Encounter with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining

Marta Figlerowicz, Alexander Nemerov, Joy McEntee, Christine Lee Gengaro, Geoffrey Cocks, Ian Christopher, Mick Broderick, Jessica Balanzategui, Nathan Abrams, Valerio Sbravatti, Ilaria Franciotti, Rick Warner, Jeremi Szaniawski, Pip Chodorov, Daniel Fairfax and Filippo Ulivieri

July 2020

The Shining at 40

Kubrick and the Paranoid Style: Antisemitism, Conspiracy Theories, and The Shining

Nathan Abrams

July 2020

The Shining at 40

If, as I have argued elsewhere, Stanley Kubrick is an intellectual, Jewish, and “Talmudic” filmmaker, his text most susceptible to Jewish or Talmudic readings or, at least which has attracted the most scholarsh...

The Shining’s Uncanny Children and the Conflicted Nostalgia of Doctor Sleep

Jessica Balanzategui

July 2020

The Shining at 40

Through the character of Danny Torrance, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining influenced a new model of uncanny child character that has become a key trope of the horror genre since the film’s release in 1980. This ty...

Overlooking the Stairs: Precarious Balance in Kubrick’s Mise-en-Scène

Mick Broderick

July 2020

The Shining at 40

A number of recurring motifs, themes and ‘signature’ styles have been attributed to Stanley Kubrick over the years, mostly from an auteurist perspective. These include, for example, the use of mirrors, facial c...

The Shining’s Disjunctive Spaces

Craig Buckley

July 2020

The Shining at 40

Note Few buildings in the history of cinema are as essential to the plot of a film as the Overlook hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The film recounts the experience of the Torrance family who come to ...

The Puzzles in the Scrapbook: An Inside Look at One of The Shining’s Most Enigmatic Props

Ian Christopher

July 2020

The Shining at 40

In The Shining no attention is drawn to it and it appears open, such that the page layouts are recognisable, only three times. This is perhaps why up to now, despite its essential role in King’s novel, the Scra...