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The Shining movie is different enough from the book in key elements as to go in a completely different direction. Also, though it's an enormously famous, atmosp

The Shining movie is different enough from the book in key elements as to go in a completely different direction. Also, though it's an enormously famous, atmospheric horror movie, Stephen King disliked it, especially because it changed certain key elements. The odd thing about it is how it conserved the atmosphere of the book superbly, while also deviating so drastically in a very selective way. Now, specifically: In the book, the hotel itself is much more of a living thing of its own, with its own sentience, not just a haunted building. In the movie, it's more just a sinister building with a terrible past, now filled with malevolent ghosts. The Wendy of the book is a tough, scrappy fighter who shows enormous resourcefulness in protecting her son both from his increasingly deranged father and also the deeply evil hotel that wants to eat the boy's soul. In the movie, Kubrick, for fuck knows what reasons, turned her into a partly hysterical, mousy shrew that saves herself and her son more by luck than by tough effort. This was one of the two things Stephen King most hated about the movie version, he felt that one of his good, tough characters was destroyed by Kubrick for no good reason at all.. The other thing King most hated in the film was the characterization of Jack Torrance. He tried to convince Kubrick not to use Nicholson because he felt the guy had far too sinister a presence in general. The novel Jack on the other hand was a mostly normal, likable guy slowly made insane by the hotel. The movie version was more of an already unpleasant man with repressed insanity trying to preserve some goodness, and failing horribly with the help of the hotel's evil spirits.

scarecrowbob 2y ago
I think King is a stranger to his own writing. Having read a lot of his writing about writing, and having spent a lot of time (especially in my formative years) reading his writing, I think my understanding of his writing would sound totally foreign to him. Like, I think he's got a lot of issues with father's and sex, to be blunt. I think Kubrick found a similar reading and built an excellent film around it. I think that King wrote an excellent novel about those themes precisely because he could do that with no self-consciousness, completely unburdened by that reading. He focuses on craft, which is great and has made some terrific literature. At the same time, I think he too-easily dismisses reading text at any deeper level. That's great for writing but less helpful for digging up what makes the writing good. Similarly, it's helpful for living our day to day lives but less helpful for getting us out of dysfunctional patterns.

scarecrowbob 2y ago

I think King is a stranger to his own writing. Having read a lot of his writing about writing, and having spent a lot of time (especially in my formative years) reading his writing, I think my understanding of his writing would sound totally foreign to him. Like, I think he's got a lot of issues with father's and sex, to be blunt. I think Kubrick found a similar reading and built an excellent film around it. I think that King wrote an excellent novel about those themes precisely because he could do that with no self-consciousness, completely unburdened by that reading. He focuses on craft, which is great and has made some terrific literature. At the same time, I think he too-easily dismisses reading text at any deeper level. That's great for writing but less helpful for digging up what makes the writing good. Similarly, it's helpful for living our day to day lives but less helpful for getting us out of dysfunctional patterns.