‘The shining’ is a horror film adaptation
on Stephen king’s bestselling book. The film is set in an n isolated hotel up
in the mountains and the plot involves jack Torrance going mad and trying to
murder his wife and son, as advised by the ghost of a dead caretaker.
The first scene that I decided to analyse was the opening sequence
due, mainly, to its camera angles and shot scales.
The sequence begins with and continues to stay in a high angle,
long shot, which is focussing on the car
of the Torrance family. I felt that when this was shown it made me feel like
the camera was Imitating a predator stalking its prey. This parallels to
another film called the predator. In that movie the camera often uses the point
of view shot of the predator, at a high angle looking down on its prey. This
technique used by the director made me feel uneasy because it felt like even at
the start of the film the family is being set up as the victim
Another technique that made me feel uneasy in this sequence was
the high tension music at the start. The way it went from a low pitch to high
pitch felt very unnatural and it isn’t something that makes people feel
uncomfortable so I felt that the technique used was very effective and the
director should be commended for the way she uses the camera and sound to
create an effect on the audience. In addition to the music that created
tension, the shuddering scream from a non-diegetic woman, truly made the hairs
on the back of my neck stand on end, which was the part of the film in my
opinion. The reason that it put me on edge was because it left a lot of
questions, the most predominant of which was, who was this woman? Is she the
wife of the caretaker who was brutally murdered? Or is it the wife of jack
Torrance?
The final technique that I found effective was the camera cutting
to a longshot which focuses on the hotel. This shot shows the audience that
this will be the main location for this film. Also the fact that it showing
that there are no other signs of society for miles and miles around shows how
isolated the hotel is which creates an atmosphere of danger and tension.
This opening scene created a sense of horror right from the start,
due to the camera angles making it seem like a predator hunting its prey, much
like the thriller film ‘predator’. It also uses non-diegetic sound, the high
pitched screams and music, to create this atmosphere of tension. Finally the
camera focusing on the house exaggerates how isolated the hotel is which emphasizes
the danger the family are in.
The next sequence that I analysed was the sequence in which Danny
writes redrum on the door of her mother’s bedroom and then repeats it several
times until his mother wakes up, seeing that in the mirror, it spells murder.
The first technique was the several uses of mise-en-scene in the
sequence. The first use of mise-en-scene used was the fact that the ‘redrum’
written on the door, was written using a red lipstick. The colour red is
universally used to indicate danger which is used in this scene to emphasise
the of this word, which turns out to be 'murder', but because you see the word
in the colour red, you know that danger surrounds the word without knowing its
true meaning.
The second use of mise-en-scene used in this scene is the door
itself. The door is shaped like an upside-down cross. This indicates an almost
satanic presence surrounding the word 'redrum'. This use of mise-ene-scene really
touches on one of the conventions of horror, which is the theme of good vs.
evil, and a biblical theme, with the satanic cross. I think that this is quite
a subtle use of horror because most people wouldn't see this straight away and
therefore not find it scary. However after watching it repeatedly it does
create an atmosphere of fear and a more psychological level as a pose to a
'jump' moment.
Once again in this scene the non-diegetic music used in this
sequence is giving off a similar effect of tension as the opening sequence. Just
like in the opening sequence, the music builds up to a climactic moment, in this
case, the moment when jack bursts through the door with his axe. The music,
just like in the beginning, had an unnatural tone to it which is very unsettling
opinion the music is an effective use of scaring audiences because the sounds
can comfort or discomfort people quite quickly. finally the moment when jack
bursts through the door can be compared to the quite modern horror film ' my
bloody valentine', where the two female victims have been barricaded themselves
in a part of the super market and are trying to get out of the window whilst
the murderer is trying to break through the door with a pickaxe. It is similar
because of the constant camera cutting throughout both scenes in order to build
tension and emphasize the amount of action is being played out in these scenes.
Also the constant struggle to open the window parallels in both scenes puts the
audience and also myself on the edge of my seat because not having read the
book I didn’t know if the wife and child would stay alive.
In conclusion I think that the director of the shining uses
mise-en-scene effectively to create an atmosphere of tension and fear, in use
of the colour red, and also the satanic. She also uses the music, like in the
opening scene and then throughout the film, to build tension up to a climactic
finale of jack trying to kill his wife and son. Even though I am not reviewing
this film I would give it an 8/10 for the techniques used because they were
very well prepared and executed. However I would probably only give it a 5-6/10
because I was not scared personally besides the awful shriek at the start of
the film. However I can appreciate that it was made a while ago and that when
it was made it was considered scary.
