“The Shining” Essay: Scene 1

1: This scene is the climax of Jacks insanity. At the start of the clip Jack is talking about what Wendy wants to do with Danny. There is a lot of red present through out the scene, at the start of the clip you can see a red door behind jack, who is wearing a red jacket, this is shown through out the film as most of the doors and other props are red. A connotation of red is normally danger and this defiantly applies to this film. This contrast with Wendy as she is predominantly wearing green, a connotation of green is sometimes safety, this could apply as Wendy is holding a baseball bat to protect herself. 

 

As jack walks toward Wendy and Wendy walks away there is a constant high pitch crawling non diegetic sound in the background, this is a typical convention that is feature in other horror films as it successfully proves to make the viewer tense. However when Wendy is asked for her input the sound stops, this could mean that her answer is important and key to the plot, which it proves to be as what she says sparks the rage fuelled response she receives from Jack. There is then a similar low pitched drone noise after Wendy finished and jack starts talking again, maybe to show Jacks growing anger and insanity towards Wendy. This noise proceeds to get louder and quieter when jack speaks making the viewer tense again as though something significant is about to happen.

As jack continues to follow Wendy, he walks round the table and some windows come into show, because of the sun coming through the curtains, it make it look like there are crosses in the windows. The film does this several times throughout relating to religious themes and other themes such as sacrifice and betrayal. 

 

Between the windows there are again some red books. It then cuts back to Wendy who has a different colour scheme behind her, the colours shown are warm calm colours like brown and orange, maybe suggesting that she is the only same one left in the hotel. Or even foreshadowing later evens when Jack freezes to death. It then cuts back to Jack still talking but when it cuts back to Wendy, for a split second you can see a red door in the background to the far left and Wendy looks at the bat, suggesting that she is having thoughts about using the back, or even killing Jack.

Wendy the proceeds to walk up the stairs and starts swinging the bat at Jack and the crosses in the window come into shot again but this time with a light shining through and on Wendy's side, as she is higher up than jack on the stairs as well, this may imply that god is on Wendy's side.

The Scratching high pitch noise then comes back as jack walks up the stairs and starts threatening Wendy and when jack talk about “bashing your brains in”, the drone also stops, only leaving the high pitch noise. When jack stops smiling, Both noises come back but far more intense this time, as though this is the climax, it then lets out a loud shriek when when jack is hit and one more when he starts rolling, then one more low pitch thud when he his the bottom and stops rolling.

For me, this scene is a good piece of cinematography, but not entirely scary due to its age, I'm sure 20 years ago it was terrifying, but in today’s day and age with the advances in technology, the whole film is pretty out of date, but a great film none the less.