Why Kubrick Changed the Ending to THE SHINING

i prefer the theory that around half way through we enter the book jack was writing, there are too many purposeful continuity errors for it to be anything else, in my mind.
some poindexters have covered at length this on youtube.

for me stephen king doesn't translate well to film because many of his books trail off leaving a disappointing ending, watch cell and try not to kick your tv through.

a reply to: flyingdutchman2112

He changed the end of eyes wide shut to appease the illuminati but they killed him anyways.

Source?

Here's mine.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

The Shawshank Redemption was one of the best films ever made and very true to the source material.

I would also include both The Mist and Stand by Me.

Despite it being a low budget, made-for-TV special, I've always liked The Langoliers.

I would have to agree that Shawshank & Stand By Me are probably King's best film adaptations.

Personally, and this is just my speculation, I think King had a lot of resentment for Stanley for two reasons.

#1 He believed Stanley fundamentally ignored the personal connection that King himself had to the characters and to the plot. Supposedly, King derived a lot of inspiration for The Shining from his own abusive alcoholic tendencies toward his wife and child(ren?).

#2 Over time, King has come to the same realization of Kubrick that Arthur C. Clark came to much earlier. That is - for someone who has no formal training in writing, film making, and no college education, Stanley Kubrick is inherently a deeper thinker when it comes to ideas in terms of a writer's ideas.

Clark once said that after a few days of spending time with Stanley, drafting up 2001, he realized very quickly that Stanley Kubrick had a more intuitive understanding of hard science. It was almost as though Kubrick were a PhD astrophysicist, and yet that wasn't even the case. But he thought and analyzed and experimented much like a traditional scientist.

And he asked all the right questions! That's important.

IMHO Kubrick is one of the worst great directors. His output is scanty (17 movies in 50 years, ffs!) and very patchy. A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece, and its immediate successor A Clockwork Orange is an utter abortion. Dr Strangelove aims to be both a Peter Sellers comedy vehicle and a serious critique of nuclear deterrence, and ends up being neither. The less said about Lolita, the better.

The Shining, is one of his best, memorably unsettling (even though the terrible "Was that it?" moment of Jack's death is a big disappointment, it is redeemed almost immediately with the headf#ck photo).

I strongly suspect that the reason Kubrick was so reclusive is because if he had had to answer any serious interviewer, his 'genius' would have been exposed as mere eccentricity.

But hey, I am no-one and my opinion of Kubrick is not important. I just felt like having a go at him.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
Personally, and this is just my speculation, I think King had a lot of resentment for Stanley for two reasons.

#1 He believed Stanley fundamentally ignored the personal connection that King himself had to the characters and to the plot. Supposedly, King derived a lot of inspiration for The Shining from his own abusive alcoholic tendencies toward his wife and child(ren?).

#2 Over time, King has come to the same realization of Kubrick that Arthur C. Clark came to much earlier. That is - for someone who has no formal training in writing, film making, and no college education, Stanley Kubrick is inherently a deeper thinker when it comes to ideas in terms of a writer's ideas.

I think it is a similar scenario to The Mist where the modified ending worked better than King's although in the latter case he admitted he wished he thought of that. King has a reputation for not being able to finish some of his novels succinctly and I think Kubrick and Darabont both executed that strategy perfectly.

Clark once said that after a few days of spending time with Stanley, drafting up 2001, he realized very quickly that Stanley Kubrick had a more intuitive understanding of hard science. It was almost as though Kubrick were a PhD astrophysicist, and yet that wasn't even the case. But he thought and analyzed and experimented much like a traditional scientist.

And he asked all the right questions! That's important.

I don't doubt it. I've always enjoyed Kubrick's work and found that it often takes many viewings to pick up on all the subtleties that he incorporated into his films.

Kubrick's film version of The Shining is a bit of an obsession of mine.

The thing that most people don't understand is that Kubrick was intentionally seeding the movie with hidden references, repeating numbers, impossible architecture, spatial impossibilities, and other oddities... NOT because he was trying to communicate a hidden theme (although several themes were intentional), but rather to play upon the human psyche's tendency to find patterns and attach meanings to things, and the sense of "inescapable fate" that this has upon the audience.

Kubrick was trying to produce an in-the-moment psychological effect upon viewers. It worked.

People who are still trying to parse meaning from all those references are "lost in the maze," so to speak.

Seriously, I could go on about this for days.

The key to Kubrick's intentions can be found in Sigmund Freud's Essay on "The Uncanny," which Kubrick insisted he and his screenwriter read before sitting down to write the first draft. This was the only essay Freud ever wrote about the arts, and it explains the following:
1) The use of mirrors
2) the use of doubles
3) the use of repeating numbers
4) the use of repeating patterns
5) the use of the ambiguous ending

The spatial impossibilities are not addressed in the essay, but they were clearly intentional. He had those interior sets built to his exact specifications and purposely built impossible doorways and windows. The most striking examples of this are:
1) When Danny magically teleports from the first floor to the second floor during his big-wheel ride (bet you didn't notice that)
2) When the outside shot of room 237 with the open doorway reveals that the geometry of the room is impossible... the beginning of that scene made me feel unbalanced for years before I understood why. Kubrick is VERY subtle with this stuff.

His intention with all of this is to make the familiar feel "unfamiliar" and off balance. Hence, "The Uncanny" feeling that can more strongly be felt in art than in life, according to Freud.

a reply to: audubon

His output is scanty (17 movies in 50 years, ffs!) and very patchy.

Quality over quantity. And from the 1950s all they way up to his last five years on this planet, he raised a family, outside of the conventional norms of mainstream society.

But hey, I am no-one and my opinion of Kubrick is not important. I just felt like having a go at him.

Well we appreciate you being a straight shooter.

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: audubon

His output is scanty (17 movies in 50 years, ffs!) and very patchy.

Quality over quantity.

OK then, scratch the "17 movies in 50 years" and replace it with "three decent movies in 50 years".

a reply to: audubon

OK then, scratch the "17 movies in 50 years" and replace it with "three decent movies in 50 years")

While I respect your opinion I must politely object, and beyond that it will be the end of this conversation as to not veer into a cinephile-off.

Paths of Glory, The Killing, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, & Eyes Wide Shut.

10 absolutely timeless and essential films to any film buff. Perhaps you are like me, and just needed to have a second look many years later. I had a sudden rediscovery of Kubrick in my mid 20s not too long ago.

It's still going on but... It's all about Twin Peaks, now. Prepare yourselves for me to shatter your world with Twin Peaks in the not too distant future.

originally posted by: audubon

originally posted by: ColdWisdom
a reply to: audubon

His output is scanty (17 movies in 50 years, ffs!) and very patchy.

Quality over quantity.

OK then, scratch the "17 movies in 50 years" and replace it with "three decent movies in 50 years".

Well, he could have quit after 2001 and gone down in history as one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Just like Coppola could have quit after the Godfather, and certainly after Godfather 2.

But Kubrick went on direct two movies that are on most critics "best of genre lists," in Full Metal Jacket and The Shining.

These weren't just decent movies.

Before I discovered the film's connection to Freud's essay The Uncanny, I spent way too much time in the maze, lost and wandering.

I'll share a few links with you all. Be careful -- the authors of these articles are very clearly lost in the maze, and if you spend too long there, you'll get lost too. This first link is perhaps the best example of what happens when the Overlook wraps its walls around you. Seriously, don't spend to much time this deeply in the maze:

adhoc.fm...


The author of the second link makes some very good observations. The problem is that he's clearly still lost and not all of the connections he makes are legitimate. But some are and it's worth a look. Of particular interest to me are the points he makes about the symbolism of bears in the movie.

www.collativelearning.com...

And then the best set of Overlook's impossible maps: www.idyllopuspress.com...

Even after all the times I've seen this movie, it's possible for me to notice something new.

A few years ago, I read a post by someone talking about the subliminal "question marks" on the blue, flowered wallpaper in the scene with the twins in the hallway.

So, I figured that person was an obsessive connecting dots that Kubrick never intended. UNTIL last night, when I saw a still frame of that same scene that clearly shows a reflection in the SHAPE of a QUESTION MARK visible at the same time that the question marks are visible on the WALLPAPER.


Here's the pic:



And if you think that's strange, a few seconds later there's a doorknob on the ceiling.