Right Wing Radio Duck

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) Hedge maze chase scene (2:11:10-2:19:35)

The Shining is an adaptation of Stephen King’s claustrophobic tale of a boy’s special gift and his father’s descent into madness while secluded in the snowbound Overlook Hotel.  Over the course of the movie, Jack goes from being a recovering, repentant alcoholic looking to catch a break with his writing to a madman, trying to kill his family due to the corrupting influence of the hotel.   Despite not appearing in the source material, one of the tensest, most dynamic scenes in the movie comes at the climax when a murderous axe-wielding Jack chases Danny through the snowy hedge maze, intercut with scenes of Wendy witnessing the supernatural horrors of the hotel.

The scene begins with Danny running into the entrance of the hedge maze followed by a limping Jack carrying an axe.  The camera follows Danny closely as he rounds corner after corner of the hedge maze (as shown below).  The camera movement parallels the many scenes of Danny riding his tricycle through the corridors of the hotel.  The situation is also foreshadowed in the ealier scene in which Danny goes through the hedge maze with Wendy (with Wendy initially playfully chasing him saying things like “I’m gonna getcha”) .  The camera’s positioning right behind Danny during this scene suggests a point of view shot from Jack, giving the illusion that he is much closer to Danny than he actually is.  The camera then cuts back to Jack.  The camera’s positioning of always being right ahead of him similarly suggests a point of view shot from Danny. Then, we see an actual point of view shot from Jack’s perspective, revealing that Danny is much further than the previous camera positioning suggested as well as focusing on the footprints to reveal that they are the method Jack is using to follow an out of sight Danny through the maze.  The camera then focuses on Danny’s feet as they kick up snow, leaving footprints to drive this point home.  All the shots in the scene are eye-level shots.  It’s particularly interesting because they put us as the viewer on the same level as both the murderer and his almost victim.  This is atypical for this kind of situation.  Camera angles are usually used to either highlight the discrepancy of power between victim and victimizer (high-angle shots on the victim to give the appearance of weakness, low-angle shots of the attacker to make them appear powerful) or to cause the viewer to further empathize with the victim and further fear the victimizer (eye-level shot of victim, low-angle shots of attacker).

The camera follows Danny through the twists and turns of the hedge maze.

Eye-level shot of Jack screaming as he chases Danny.

Throughout the part of the scene taking place in the hedge, “Kanon” by Penderecki  is playing nondiegetically.  The song is full of shrill, cacophonous violins that heighten the tension of the scene.  The music suddenly stops as the camera cuts back to Wendy who is back in the hotel.  When she discovers the body of Halloran (who was earlier killed by Jack), the music returns, loudly.  This lull in the creepy music, as well as focusing on the actions of a sympathetic character who doesn’t seem to be in danger, only to suddenly and sharply bring back the music and present a danger in the form of the ghosts of the hotel, is an auditory version of the traditional jump-scare which are almost completely absent from the movie visually.  The tension is removed, preventing the viewer from acclimating to it, before bringing it back, both in the form of the supernatural elements of the hotel and the return to the chase in the hedge maze.  At this point the music changes to Penderecki’s “Utrenja- Kanon Paschy”, which has similar violin music, but also eerie chanting voices, perhaps suggestive of the voices of the ghostly patrons of the Overlook.

The mise-en-scene of the hotel up until this scene has typically consisted of warm, earthy colors, claustrophobic corridors, walls overly decorated to the point of seeming cluttered, and busy geometric patterns like in the carpeting and the Native American artwork.  There are occasional jarring bits of red, like the elevator doors, but the sudden plunge into cool colors with the scenes outside in the snow and even inside the dark hotel is a complete departure from the previous mise-en-scene.  Before, the hotel felt smothering, but at the same time, it was a refuge from the cold weather outside.  In this scene, the color palette is darkened by lack of lighting and then, when Wendy sees the skeletons, shares the same shades of blue as the scenes outside.  This makes the hotel seem as cold (figuratively) and sinister as the maze outside.

The change in color palette also goes to a lot of red, as when Wendy witnesses first the bloody Halloran, the bleeding party guest (shown below), and, of course, the blood pouring out of the elevator (shown below).  She walks through a red-pink room (shown below) to see the bright red elevator door open and crimson blood pouring out (amidst the tuba pulses of Penderecki’s “Untenja- Kanon Paschy”). It’s visually startling, but this just serves to make the supernatural elements all the more obvious.  Up until the scene where the ghost of the caretaker lets Jack out of the storeroom, the supernatural elements are questionable in the diegesis of the film.  Whenever Jack sees the ghosts, it’s in the presence of a mirror, suggesting that perhaps they are reflections of his inner turmoil or hallucinations of some kind.  At this point, we as viewers accept that the supernatural part of the film is real.  The difference in color, besides the obvious connotations with the color red being associated with blood and evil, gives the viewer visual clues of what’s supernatural and what isn’t.

The party guest, reddish-pink room, and the blood pouring out of the elevator all show the change in mies-en-scene to include more red colors.

This scene is very important as it is the climax of the movie.  From the beginning when the murder suicide of the previous caretaker is discussed, we see Jack plunge further and further into madness as well as more and more supernatural occurrences in the hotel, both of which culminate in this scene.  Jack’s death, along with the less discordant music of Penderecki’s “Polymorphia” provides the viewer closure and release from the tension that has steadily been growing throughout the movie.

Works Cited

Kubrick, Stanley. The Shining. 1980.

(1090 words)

“Le Marais” (final paragraph)

As an anthology, Paris Je T’aime follows an interesting thematic path through the stages of a loving relationship.  The first three films, including Le Marais, deal with the beginnings of new love. The short films in the middle deal with various types of being in love, most of the films at the end deal with love falling apart in different ways, and the last film depicts a woman who has probably not really been in love, at least not for a while, who falls in love with Paris.  Le Marais fits perfectly into this pattern as the segue between the films about falling into love and being in love. Also, as Bordwell says, in the article “Can you spot all the auteurs in this picture?” about anthology films, “At one level, we enjoy the varied treatments of a theme, but at another we’re supposed to recognize each director’s personal vision, as we know it from other films.”  In this short film, Gus Van Sant’s trademark of a cinematic treatment of homosexuality makes the work perhaps too obviously his even without the opening credit before the film, but the story and presentation tell a compelling tale of a chance meeting leading to a relationship.