Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece is full of doubles, doppelgängers, and alter-egos.
Mirrors, ghosts, doppelgängers, reflective surfaces, repetitions, and perfectly symmetrical frames…these are just a few cinematic devices which Stanley Kubrick uses to create an uncanny atmosphere in his 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining. Sigmund Freud defines the term “uncanny” in his essay “‘The Uncanny’” as something which is familiar yet somehow frightening. The Shining tells the story of a family of three — Jack (Jack Nicholson), Danny (Danny Lloyd), and Wendy (Shelley Duvall) — whose lives are terrifyingly disrupted when they move into the Overlook Hotel for the winter. Family is, by definition, the most familial subject matter, and therefore it is all the more terrifying when one’s family members somehow seem different. The Shining is filled with uncanny doubles, where those who look or act familiar are mysteriously different, which provoke feelings of terror. Kubrick creates this uncanny atmosphere by meticulously crafting a story-world...
Mirrors, ghosts, doppelgängers, reflective surfaces, repetitions, and perfectly symmetrical frames…these are just a few cinematic devices which Stanley Kubrick uses to create an uncanny atmosphere in his 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining. Sigmund Freud defines the term “uncanny” in his essay “‘The Uncanny’” as something which is familiar yet somehow frightening. The Shining tells the story of a family of three — Jack (Jack Nicholson), Danny (Danny Lloyd), and Wendy (Shelley Duvall) — whose lives are terrifyingly disrupted when they move into the Overlook Hotel for the winter. Family is, by definition, the most familial subject matter, and therefore it is all the more terrifying when one’s family members somehow seem different. The Shining is filled with uncanny doubles, where those who look or act familiar are mysteriously different, which provoke feelings of terror. Kubrick creates this uncanny atmosphere by meticulously crafting a story-world...
- 4/26/2017
- by Angela Morrison
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
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