SHINING: aiutatemi!!!!!
Matteo N.
del 1980 mi aiuti per favore!!!!!
Un film stupendo, un vero capolavoro...forse sono stupida, ma non riesco a
capirne la fine. Perchè nella foto di gruppo del 1921 dell'Overlook Hotel
si ritrova anche Jack Torrance?
grazie mille a chi vorrà delucidarmi:))))))
PAOLIS
qualcuno più edotto la riveli.
posso solo dirti quello che mi è sempre sembrato: un ultimo sberleffo. Quasi
un sogno nel sogno nel sogno visto che di visioni e
premonizioni è intriso il film e quasi un'entrata ufficiale nell'albo dei
frequentatori dell'hotel, della sua storia, in una trasfigurazione finale,
falsa nella realtà, ma ultima identificazione col precedente portiere a mo'
di scherzo perfido finale.
bah, ho esagerato?
paolis
Matteo N. ha scritto nel messaggio <7e651m$i72$1...@nslave1.tin.it>...
Alberto
> Non conosco una spiegazione dichiarata dal regista e spero ci sia e che
> qualcuno più edotto la riveli.
Io ho trovato questo. Non spiega granche', ma spiegare logicamente una
storia di fantasmi sarebbe una scelta abbastanza bizzarra e tutto
sommato inutile:
Stephen King ha espresso in definitiva delusione nei confronti
del film ma ha continuato a sentirsi onorato che un regista così
prestigioso abbia portato sullo schermo il suo libro. Kubrick in effetti
ha eliminato del materiale e ha fatto cambiamenti. Fra i più notevoli
c'erano le siepi a forma di animale del romanzo di King, che prendevano
vita in modo sinistro e cambiavano forma: il regista prese l'idea in
considerazione, ma le possibilità offerte dagli effetti speciali non
soddisfacevano le sue strette esigenze di credibilità. La sua soluzione
fu di creare un gigantesco labirinto formato da una complessa
disposizione di viletti ed angoli. Il progetto labirintico esprimeva una
logica purissima e offriva la metafora della trappola e della fuga.
In effetti Kubrick discusse con King un finale alternativo,
proponendo di far finire il film con la famiglia Torrance che cena
piacevolmente a un tavolo dell'hotel mentre il direttore è impegnato a
dare il benvenuto al nuovo guardiano e alla sua famiglia. Mentre questi
ultimi passano accanto a quelli che stanno mangiando, i loro occhi
guardano dritto attraverso i membri della famiglia Torrance, che sono
divenuti fantasmi invisibili. King disse a Kubrick che secondo lui il
pubblico si sarebbe sentito imbrogliato. Lo scrittore teneva la mente
aperta, senza preoccuparsi del fatto che King volesse cambiare la storia
ma piuttosto se i cambiamenti funzionassero dal punto di vista
drammatico.
A John Hofsess, Kubrick dichiarò: "Molto all'inizio avevo deciso
che il finale del romanzo non sarebbe andato bene. Non volevo la
classica conclusione -il grande luogo malvagio brucia completamente". Il
regista e la sua collaboratrice alla sceneggiatura, Diane Johnson,
decisero di usare l'idea del labirinto di siepi che ritenevano
visivamente eccitante.
Il principio di Kubrick era di evitare le trappole del tipico
film horror: non ci sarebbero state porte scricchiolanti o scheletri che
rotolavano fuori dagli armadi. Per stabilire la credibilità, il regista
girò il film in quella che sembra luce naturale senza gli effetti
melodrammatici tipici del genere. "E' solo la storia della famiglia di
un uomo che tranquillamente diventa pazza tutta insieme", spiegò Kubrick
a John Hofsess.
Un primo trattamento della sceneggiatura rivela che Kubrick
stava andando in una direzione diversa prima di arrivare alla trama
usata per il film definitivo. In quella versione il film finisce quando
Jack aggredisce Wendy alle spalle e lei lo pugnala allo stomaco con un
coltello. Jack muore e Wendy scappa fuori quando sente il motore di un
gatto delle nevi. Danny ha una visione di Halloran che arriva e parla a
Grady, una visione da cui si capisce che il cuoco è lì per uccidere
Wendy e Danny. Halloran diventa un maniaco assassino e Wendy corre per
tutto l'albergo con un coltello. Danny riesce momentaneamente a fermare
Halloran con il suo potere psichico e Wendy arriva di corsa e lo uccide
a pugnalate. Un album sul tavolo da scrittore di Jack contiene una
fotografia di una festa di Capodanno del 1919 in cui appare Jack. Wendy
fugge con Danny sul gatto delle nevi. La mano di un uomo chiude l'album
e lo porta via. Appare un cartello che dice: "L'Overlook Hotel sarebbe
sopravvissuto a questa tragedia, come era successo per molte altre. E'
ancora aperto ogni anno dal 20 maggio a 20 settembre. FINE".
Il Dominatore di Chicago
sovrannaturali:
>Perchè nella foto di gruppo del 1921 dell'Overlook Hotel
>si ritrova anche Jack Torrance?
>grazie mille a chi vorrà delucidarmi:))))))
Una possibile spiegazione sta nella circolarità degli eventi.
La presenza del labirinto o di altre raffigurazioni concatenate in circolo
(i corridoi dell'overlook) suggeriscono una lettura di questo tipo.
Per cui Jack Torrance non è da intendersi come un 'essere umano', ma come
una sorta di entità malvagia sovrannaturale (la lettura sovrannaturale è
l'unica in grado di spiegare la sua fuga dalla cella frigorifera).
Un'entità che si reincarna periodicamente (mantenendo anche lo stesso
aspetto fisico) per tornare ad uccidere serialmente nel suo 'luogo magico
rituale', l'Overlook Hotel.
Il Michael Jordan di It.Arti.Chicago.Bulls (All times best monthly poster of
IACinema, 652 posts, March 1999) aka La leggenda della fortezza del Cinema
aka Il braccio secolare del Mito della Settima Arte aka Davide Tosi
Il Principe Rupert (3-segue)
"Vai Polonius o inginocchiati, i mietitori han designato l'alba del loro raccolto
Tutti i tuoi diabolici cucchiai anneriti arrugginiranno nel nostro grano
Ora sopporta il Principe Rupert vagabondare sul suo prato ombreggiato dall'albero della pioggia
La lucertola diventa fango. E là nasce un cigno"
Pete Sinfield - 1970 - 'Prince Rupert Awakes'
Andreij Nikol' evic
Matteo N. <nau...@tin.it> wrote in message 7e651m$i72$1...@nslave1.tin.it...
> Chiunque abbia visto Shining, il film di Stanley Kubrick con Jack
Nicholson
> del 1980 mi aiuti per favore!!!!!
> Un film stupendo, un vero capolavoro...forse sono stupida, ma non riesco a
> si ritrova anche Jack Torrance?
> grazie mille a chi vorrà delucidarmi:))))))
E' il ciclo dell'eterno ritorno. Jack Torrance in realtà non se ne era mai
andato da lì.
"Shining" è fondato sulla "memoria": il cimitero indiano (si riconoscono
motivi indiani sui vestiti di Wendy); i cercatori d'oro antropofagi
(Halloran e il cibo); il richiamo ai crimini del passato dei quali il film
ne narra il ritorno. E' un lungo filo che il folle accetta in mano vorrebbe
recidere: per entrare nel ciclo dell'eterno ritorno, Jack Torrance deve
rinunciare alla sua filiazione (Danny), anche Mr. Grady glielo
ricorda:"Adesso bisogna scegliere....Non capisco come mai non si sia già
deciso..." Recidere il filo, uccidere Danny.
Andreij Nikol' evic
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- E' tutto chiaro, Alex bello?
- Come un lago senza fango, sir.
Così limpido come un cielo d'estate sempre blu.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federica Arnolfo
> Non conosco una spiegazione dichiarata dal regista e spero ci sia e che
> qualcuno più edotto la riveli.
Ecco le spiegazioni dichiarate del regista, in una lunga intervista che
ha rilasciato ad uno dei suoi maggiori biografi, Michel Ciment. Il testo
dell'intervista e' reperibile, in italiano, nel volume "Kubrick", di
Michel Ciment, MIlano Libri edizioni.
---
Michel Ciment: In several of your previous films you seem to have had a
prior interest in the facts and problems which surround the story -- the
nuclear threat, space travel, the relationship between violence and the
state -- which led you to Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A
Clockwork Orange. In the case of The Shining, were you attracted first
by the subject of ESP, or just by Stephen King's novel?
Stanley Kubrick: I've always been interested in ESP and the paranormal.
In addition to the scientific experiments which have been conducted
suggesting that we are just short of conclusive proof of its existence,
I'm sure we've all had the experience of opening a book at the exact
page we're looking for, or thinking of a friend a moment before they
ring on the telephone. But The Shining didn't originate from any
particular desire to do a film about this. The manuscript of the novel
was sent to me by John Calley, of Warner Bros. I thought it was one of
the most ingenious and exciting stories of the genre I had read. It
seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and
the supernatural in such a way as to lead you to think that the
supernatural would eventually be explained by the psychological: "Jack
must be imagining these things because he's crazy". This allowed you to
suspend your doubt of the supernatural until you were so thoroughly into
the story that you could accept it almost without noticing.
Do you think this was an important factor in the success of the novel?
Yes, I do. It's what I found so particularly clever about the way the
novel was written. As the supernatural events occurred you searched for
an explanation, and the most likely one seemed to be that the strange
things that were happening would finally be explained as the products of
Jack's imagination. It's not until Grady, the ghost of the former
caretaker who axed to death his family, slides open the bolt of the
larder door, allowing Jack to escape, that you are left with no other
explanation but the supernatural. The novel is by no means a serious
literary work, but the plot is for the most part extremely well worked
out, and for a film that is often all that really matters.
Don't you think that today it is in this sort of popular literature that
you find strong archetypes, symbolic images which have vanished somehow
from the more highbrow literary works?
Yes, I do, and I think that it's part of their often phenomenal success.
There is no doubt that a good story has always mattered, and the great
novelists have generally built their work around strong plots. But I've
never been able to decide whether the plot is just a way of keeping
people's attention while you do everything else, or whether the plot is
really more important than anything else, perhaps communicating with us
on an unconscious level which affects us in the way that myths once did.
I think, in some ways, the conventions of realistic fiction and drama
may impose serious limitations on a story. For one thing, if you play by
the rules and respect the preparation and pace required to establish
realism, it takes a lot longer to make a point than it does, say, in
fantasy. At the same time, it is possible that this very work that
contributes to a story's realism may weaken its grip on the unconscious.
Realism is probably the best way to dramatize argument and ideas.
Fantasy may deal best with themes which lie primarily in the
unconscious. I think the unconscious appeal of a ghost story, for
instance, lies in its promise of immortality. If you can be frightened
by a ghost story, then you must accept the possibility that supernatural
beings exist. If they do, then there is more than just oblivion waiting
beyond the grave.
This kind of implication is present in much of the fantastic literature.
I believe fantasy stories at their best serve the same function for us
that fairy tales and mythology formerly did. The current popularity of
fantasy, particularly in films, suggests that popular culture, at least,
isn't getting what it wants from realism. The nineteenth century was the
golden age of realistic fiction. The twentieth century may be the golden
age of fantasy.
After Barry Lyndon did you begin work straight away on The Shining?
When I finished Barry Lyndon I spent most of my time reading. Months
went by and I hadn't found anything very exciting. It's intimidating,
especially at a time like this, to think of how many books you should
read and never will. Because of this, I try to avoid any systematic
approach to reading, pursuing instead a random method, one which depends
as much on luck and accident as on design. I find this is also the only
way to deal with the newspapers and magazines which proliferate in great
piles around the house -- some of the most interesting articles turn up
on the reverse side of pages I've torn out for something else.
Did you do research on ESP?
There really wasn't any research that was necessary to do. The story
didn't require any and, since I have always been interested in the
topic, I think I was as well informed as I needed to be. I hope that ESP
and related psychic phenomena will eventually find general scientific
proof of their existence. There are certainly a fair number of
scientists who are sufficiently impressed with the evidence to spend
their time working in the field. If conclusive proof is ever found it
won't be quite as exciting as, say, the discovery of alien intelligence
in the universe, but it will definitely be a mind expander. In addition
to the great variety of unexplainable psychic experiences we can all
probably recount, I think I can see behaviour in animals which strongly
suggests something like ESP. I have a long-haired cat, named Polly, who
regularly gets knots in her coat which I have to comb or scissor out.
She hates this, and on dozens of occasions while I have been stroking
her and thinking that the knots have got bad enough to do something
about them, she has suddenly dived under the bed before I have made the
slightest move to get a comb or scissors. I have obviously considered
the possibility that she can tell when I plan to use the comb because of
some special way I feel the knots when I have decided to comb them, but
I'm quite sure that isn't how she does it. She almost always has knots,
and I stroke her innumerable times every day, but it's only when I have
actually decided to do something about them that she ever runs away and
hides. Ever since I have become aware of this possibility, I am
particularly careful not to feel the knots any differently whether or
not I think they need combing. But most of the time she still seems to
know the difference.
Who is Diane Johnson who wrote the screenplay with you?
Diane is an American novelist who has published a number of extremely
good novels which have received serious and important attention. I was
interested in several of her books and in talking to her about them I
was surprised to learn that she was giving a course at the University of
California at Berkeley on the Gothic novel. When The Shining came up she
seemed to be the ideal collaborator, which, indeed, she proved to be. I
had already been working on the treatment of the book, prior to her
starting, but I hadn't actually begun the screenplay. With "The
Shining," the problem was to extract the essential plot and to re-invent
the sections of the story that were weak. The characters needed to be
developed a bit differently than they were in the novel. It is in the
pruning down phase that the undoing of great novels usually occurs
because so much of what is good about them has to do with the fineness
of the writing, the insight of the author and often the density of the
story. But The Shining was a different matter. Its virtues lay almost
entirely in the plot, and it didn't prove to be very much of a problem
to adapt it into the screenplay form. Diane and I talked a lot about the
book and then we made an outline of the scenes we thought should be
included in the film. This list of scenes was shuffled and reshuffled
until we thought it was right, and then we began to write. We did
several drafts of the screenplay, which was subsequently revised at
different stages before and during shooting.
It is strange that you emphasize the supernatural aspect since one could
say that in the film you give a lot of weight to an apparently rational
explanation of Jack's behaviour: altitude, claustrophobia, solitude,
lack of booze.
Stephen Crane wrote a story called "The Blue Hotel." In it you quickly
learn that the central character is a paranoid. He gets involved in a
poker game, decides someone is cheating him, makes an accusation, starts
a fight and gets killed. You think the point of the story is that his
death was inevitable because a paranoid poker player would ultimately
get involved in a fatal gunfight. But, in the end, you find out that the
man he accused was actually cheating him. I think The Shining uses a
similar kind of psychological misdirection to forestall the realization
that the supernatural events are actually happening.
Why did you change the end and dispense with the destruction of the
hotel?
To be honest, the end of the book seemed a bit hackneyed to me and not
very interesting. I wanted an ending which the audience could not
anticipate. In the film, they think Hallorann is going to save Wendy and
Danny. When he is killed they fear the worst. Surely, they fear, there
is no way now for Wendy and Danny to escape. The maze ending may have
suggested itself from the animal topiary scenes in the novel. I don't
actually remember how the idea first came about.
Why did the room number switch from 217 in the novel to 237 in the film?
The exterior of the hotel was filmed at the Timberline Lodge, near Mount
Hood, in Oregon. It had a room 217 but no room 237, so the hotel
management asked me to change the room number because they were afraid
their guests might not want to stay in room 217 after seeing the film.
There is, however, a genuinely frightening thing about this hotel which
nestles high up on the slopes of Mount Hood. Mount Hood, as it happens,
is a dormant volcano, but it has quite recently experienced pre-eruption
seismic rumbles similar to the ones that a few months earlier preceded
the gigantic eruption of Mount St. Helens, less than sixty miles away.
If Mount Hood should ever erupt like Mount St. Helens, then the
Timberline Hotel may indeed share the fiery fate of the novel's Overlook
Hotel.
How did you conceive the hotel with your art director, Roy Walker?
The first step was for Roy to go around America photographing hotels
which might be suitable for the story. Then we spent weeks going through
his photographs making selections for the different rooms. Using the
details in the photographs, our draughtsmen did proper working drawings.
From these, small models of all the sets were built. We wanted the hotel
to look authentic rather than like a traditionally spooky movie hotel.
The hotel's labyrinthine layout and huge rooms, I believed, would alone
provide an eerie enough atmosphere. This realistic approach was also
followed in the lighting, and in every aspect of the decor it seemed to
me that the perfect guide for this approach could be found in Kafka's
writing style. His stories are fantastic and allegorical, but his
writing is simple and straightforward, almost journalistic. On the other
hand, all the films that have been made of his work seem to have ignored
this completely, making everything look as weird and dreamlike as
possible. The final details for the different rooms of the hotel came
from a number of different hotels. The red men's room, for example,
where Jack meets Grady, the ghost of the former caretaker, was inspired
by a Frank Lloyd Wright men's room in an hotel in Arizona. The models of
the different sets were lit, photographed, tinkered with and revised.
This process continued, altering and adding elements to each room, until
we were all happy with what we had.
There are similar movie cliches about apparitions.
From the more convincing accounts I have read of people who have
reported seeing ghosts, they were invariably described as being as solid
and as real as someone actually standing in the room. The movie
convention of the see-through ghost, shrouded in white, seems to exist
only in the province of art.
You have not included the scene from the novel which took place in the
elevator, but have only used it for the recurring shot of blood coming
out of the doors.
The length of a movie imposes considerable restrictions on how much
story you can put into it, especially if the story is told in a
conventional way.
Which conventions are you referring to?
The convention of telling the story primarily through a series of
dialogue scenes. Most films are really little more than stage plays with
more atmosphere and action. I think that the scope and flexibility of
movie stories would be greatly enhanced by borrowing something from the
structure of silent movies where points that didn't require dialog could
be presented by a shot and a title card. Something like: Title: Billy's
uncle. Picture: Uncle giving Billy ice cream. In a few seconds, you
could introduce Billy's uncle and say something about him without being
burdened with a scene. This economy of statement gives silent movies a
much greater narrative scope and flexibility than we have today. In my
view, there are very few sound films, including those regarded as
masterpieces, which could not be presented almost as effectively on the
stage, assuming a good set, the same cast and quality of performances.
You couldn't do that with a great silent movie.
But surely you could not put 2001: A Space Odyssey on the stage?
True enough. I know I've tried to move in this direction in all of my
films but never to an extent which has satisfied me. By the way, I
should include the best TV commercials along with silent films, as
another example of how you might better tell a film story. In thirty
seconds, characters are introduced, and sometimes a surprisingly
involved situation is set up and resolved.
When you shoot these scenes which you find theatrical, you do it in a
way that emphasizes their ordinariness. The scenes with Ullman or the
visit of the doctor in The Shining, like the conference with the
astronauts in 2001, are characterized by their social conventions, their
mechanical aspect.
Well, as I've said, in fantasy you want things to have the appearance of
being as realistic as possible. People should behave in the mundane way
they normally do. You have to be especially careful about this in the
scenes which deal with the bizarre or fantastic details of the story.
You also decided to show few visions and make them very short.
If Danny had perfect ESP, there could be no story. He would anticipate
everything, warn everybody and solve every problem. So his perception of
the paranormal must be imperfect and fragmentary. This also happens to
be consistent with most of the reports of telepathic experiences. The
same applies to Hallorann. One of the ironies in the story is that you
have people who can see the past and the future and have telepathic
contact, but the telephone and the short-wave radio don't work, and the
snowbound mountain roads are impassable. Failure of communication is a
theme which runs through a number of my films.
You use technology a lot but seem to be afraid of it.
I'm not afraid of technology. I am afraid of aeroplanes. I've been able
to avoid flying for some time but, I suppose, if I had to I would.
Perhaps it's a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. At
one time, I had a pilot's license and 160 hours of solo time on
single-engine light aircraft. Unfortunately, all that seemed to do was
make me mistrust large airplanes.
Did you think right away of Jack Nicholson for the role?
Yes, I did. I believe that Jack is one of the best actors in Hollywood,
perhaps on a par with the greatest stars of the past like Spencer Tracy
and Jimmy Cagney. I should think that he is on almost everyone's
first-choice list for any role which suits him. His work is always
interesting, clearly conceived and has the X-factor, magic. Jack is
particularly suited for roles which require intelligence. He is an
intelligent and literate man, and these are qualities almost impossible
to act. In The Shining, you believe he's a writer, failed or otherwise.
Did the scene where he fights with Shelley Duvall on the stairs require
many rehearsals?
Yes, it did. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Shelley was
able to create and sustain for the length of the scene an authentic
sense of hysteria. It took her a long time to achieve this and when she
did we didn't shoot the scene too many times. I think there were five
takes favouring Shelley, and only the last two were really good. When I
have to shoot a very large number of takes it's invariably because the
actors don't know their lines, or don't know them well enough. An actor
can only do one thing at a time, and when he has learned his lines only
well enough to say them while he's thinking about them, he will always
have trouble as soon as he has to work on the emotions of the scene or
find camera marks. In a strong emotional scene, it is always best to be
able to shoot in complete takes to allow the actor a continuity of
emotion, and it is rare for most actors to reach their peak more than
once or twice. There are, occasionally, scenes which benefit from extra
takes, but even then, I'm not sure that the early takes aren't just
glorified rehearsals with the added adrenalin of film running through
the camera. In The Shining, the scene in the ballroom where Jack talks
to Lloyd, the sinister apparition of a former bartender, belongs to this
category. Jack's performance here is incredibly intricate, with sudden
changes of thought and mood -- all grace notes. It's a very difficult
scene to do because the emotion flow is so mercurial. It demands
knife-edged changes of direction and a tremendous concentration to keep
things sharp and economical. In this particular scene Jack produced his
best takes near the highest numbers.
He is just as good when he walks down the corridor making wild movements
before meeting the barman.
I asked Jack to remember the rumpled characters you see lunging down the
streets of New York, waving their arms about and hissing to themselves.
Did you choose Shelley Duvall after seeing her in Three Women?
I had seen all of her films and greatly admired her work. I think she
brought an instantly believable characterization to her part. The novel
pictures her as a much more self-reliant and attractive woman, but these
qualities make you wonder why she has put up with Jack for so long.
Shelley seemed to be exactly the kind of woman that would marry Jack and
be stuck with him. The wonderful thing about Shelley is her eccentric
quality -- the way she talks, the way she moves, the way her nervous
system is put together. I think that most interesting actors have
physical eccentricities about them which make their performances more
interesting and, if they don't, they work hard to find them.
How did you find the boy?
About 5000 boys were interviewed in America over a period of six months.
This number eventually narrowed down to five boys who could have played
the part. That worked out to about one child in a thousand who could act
-- actually not a bad average. The interviews were done in Chicago,
Denver and Cincinnati, by my assistant, Leon Vitali, the actor who
played the older Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon, and his wife, Kersti.
I chose those three cities because I wanted the child to have an accent
which would fall somewhere between the way Jack and Shelley speak. The
local Warner Bros. office placed newspaper ads inviting parents to make
applications with photographs for the part. From the photographs a list
was made of the boys who looked right. Leon interviewed everyone in this
group, subsequently doing small acting improvisations which he recorded
on video tape with those who seemed to have a little something. Further
video work was done with the boys who were good. I looked at the tapes.
Where does Danny Lloyd come from?
He comes from a small town in Illinois. His father is a railway
engineer. Danny was about five-and-a-half when we cast him. We had
certain problems shooting with him in England because children are only
allowed to work for three hours a day, and may only work a certain
number of days in a calendar year. But, fortunately, rehearsal days on
which you do not shoot are not counted in this total. So we rehearsed
with him one day and shot on the next. I think his performance was
wonderful -- everything you could want from the role. He was a terrific
boy. He had instinctive taste. He was very smart, very talented and very
sensible. His parents, Jim and Ann, were very sensitive to his problems
and very supportive, and he had a great time. Danny always knew his
lines, and despite the inevitable pampering which occurred on the set,
he was always reasonable and well-behaved.
What did the Steadicam achieve for you in the film?
The Steadicam allows one man to move the camera any place he can walk --
into small spaces where a dolly won't fit, and up and down staircases.
We used an Arriflex BL camera, which is silent and allows you to shoot
sound. You can walk or run with the camera, and the Steadicam smooths
out any unsteadiness. It's like a magic carpet. The fast, flowing camera
movements in the maze would have been impossible to do without the
Steadicam. You couldn't lay down dolly tracks without the camera seeing
them and, in any case, a dolly couldn't go around the right-angled
corners of the maze pathways. Without a Steadicam you could have done
your best with the normal hand-held camera but the running movements
would have made it extremely unsteady. The only problem with the
Steadicam is that it requires training, skill and a certain amount of
fitness on the part of the operator. You can't just pick it up and use
it. But any good camera operator can do useful work even after a few
days' training. He won't be an ace but he'll still be able to do much
more than he could without it. I used Garrett Brown as the Steadicam
operator. He probably has more experience than anyone with the Steadicam
because he also happened to invent it. The camera is mounted on to a
spring-loaded arm, which is attached to a frame, which is in turn
strapped to the operator's shoulders, chest and hips. This, in effect,
makes the camera weightless. The tricky part is that the operator has to
control the camera movements in every axis with his wrist. He watches
the framing on a very small television monitor which is mounted on his
rig. It takes skill while you are walking or running to keep the horizon
of the camera frame parallel to the ground, and pan and tilt just using
your wrist. A further problem is caused by inertia, which makes it
difficult to stop a movement smoothly and exactly where you want it. In
order to stop on a predetermined composition you have to anticipate the
stop and keep your fingers crossed.
The Steadicam allowed you to do even more of those long-tracking shots
you have done in all your films.
Most of the hotel set was built as a composite, so that you could go up
a flight of stairs, turn down a corridor, travel its length and find
your way to still another part of the hotel. It mirrored the kind of
camera movements which took place in the maze. In order to fully exploit
this layout it was necessary to have moving camera shots without cuts,
and of course the Steadicam made that much easier to do.
In the normal scenes you used dissolves and many camera movements. On
the other hand, the paranormal visions are static and the cuts abrupt.
I don't particularly like dissolves and I try not to use them, but when
one scene follows another in the same place, and you want to make it
clear that time has passed, a dissolve is often the simplest way to
convey this. On the other hand, the paranormal visions are momentary
glimpses into the past and the future, and must be short, even abrupt.
With respect to the camera movements, I've always liked moving the
camera. It's one of the basic elements of film grammar. When you have
the means to do it and the set to do it in, it not only adds visual
interest but it also permits the actors to work in longer, possibly
complete, takes. This makes it easier for them to maintain their
concentration and emotional level in the scene.
Did you always plan to use the helicopter shots of the mountains as the
main-title background?
Yes I did. But the location, in Glacier National Park, Montana, wasn't
chosen until very near the end of principal shooting. It was important
to establish an ominous mood during Jack's first drive up to the hotel
-- the vast isolation and eerie splendour of high mountains, and the
narrow, winding roads which would become impassable after heavy snow. In
fact, the roads we filmed for the title sequence are closed throughout
the winter and only negotiable by tracked vehicles. I sent a second-unit
camera crew to Glacier National Park to shoot the title backgrounds but
they reported that the place wasn't interesting. When we saw the test
shots they sent back we were staggered. It was plain that the location
was perfect but the crew had to be replaced. I hired Greg McGillivray,
who is noted for his helicopter work, and he spent several weeks filming
some of the most beautiful mountain helicopter shots I've seen.
Did you have all those extras pose for the last shot?
No, they were in a photograph taken in 1921 which we found in a picture
library. I originally planned to use extras, but it proved impossible to
make them look as good as the people in the photograph. So I very
carefully photographed Jack, matching the angle and the lighting of the
1921 photograph, and shooting him from different distances too, so that
his face would be larger and smaller on the negative. This allowed the
choice of an image size which when enlarged would match the grain
structure in the original photograph. The photograph of Jack's face was
then airbrushed in to the main photograph, and I think the result looked
perfect. Every face around Jack is an archetype of the period.
What type of music did you use?
The title music was based on the Dies Irae theme which has been used by
many composers since the Middle Ages. It was re-orchestrated for
synthesizer and voices by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, who did most
of the synthesizer music for A Clockwork Orange. Bartok's Music for
Strings, Percussion and Celesta was used for several other scenes. One
composition by Ligeti was used. But most of the music in the film came
from the Polish composer Krystof Penderecki. One work titled Jakob's
Dream was used in the scene when Jack wakes up from his nightmare, a
strange coincidence. Actually there were a number of other coincidences,
particularly with names. The character that Jack Nicholson plays is
called Jack in the novel. His son is called Danny in the novel and is
played by Danny Lloyd. The ghost bartender in the book is called Lloyd.
What music did you use at the end?
It is a popular English dance tune of the twenties, "Midnight, the Stars
and You", played by Ray Noble's band with an Al Bowly vocal.
How do you see the character of Hallorann?
Hallorann is a simple, rustic type who talks about telepathy in a
disarmingly unscientific way. His folksy character and naive attempts to
explain telepathy to Danny make what he has to say dramatically more
acceptable than a standard pseudo-scientific explanation. He and Danny
make a good pair.
The child creates a double to protect himself, whereas his father
conjures up beings from the past who are also anticipations of his
death.
A story of the supernatural cannot be taken apart and analysed too
closely. The ultimate test of its rationale is whether it is good enough
to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. If you submit it to a
completely logical and detailed analysis it will eventually appear
absurd. In his essay on the uncanny,Das Unheimliche, Freud said that the
uncanny is the only feeling which is more powerfully experienced in art
than in life. If the genre required any justification, I should think
this alone would serve as its credentials.
How do you see Danny's evolution?
Danny has had a frightening and disturbing childhood. Brutalized by his
father and haunted by his paranormal visions, he has had to find some
psychological mechanism within himself to manage these powerful and
dangerous forces. To do this, he creates his imaginary friend, Tony,
through whom Danny can rationalize his visions and survive.
Some people criticized you a few years ago because you were making films
that did not deal with the private problems of characters. With Barry
Lyndon and now withThe Shining, you seem to be dealing more with
personal relationships.
If this is true it is certainly not as a result of any deliberate effort
on my part. There is no useful way to explain how you decide what film
to make. In addition to the initial problem of finding an exciting story
which fulfills the elusively intangible requirements for a film, you
have the added problem of its being sufficiently different from the
films you have already done. Obviously the more films you make, the more
this choice is narrowed down. If you read a story which someone else has
written you have the irreplacable experience of reading it for the first
time. This is something which you obviously cannot have if you write an
original story. Reading someone else's story for the first time allows
you a more accurate judgement of the narrative and helps you to be more
objective than you might otherwise be with an original story. Another
important thing is that while you're making a film, and you get deeper
and deeper into it, you find that in a certain sense you know less and
less about it. You get too close to it. When you reach that point, it's
essential to rely on your original feelings about the story. Of course,
at the same time, because you know so much more about it, you can also
make a great many other judgements far better than you could have after
the first reading. But, not to put too fine a point on it, you can never
again have that first, virginal experience with the plot.
It seems that you want to achieve a balance between rationality and
irrationality, that for you man should acknowledge the presence of
irrational forces in him rather than trying to repress them.
I think we tend to be a bit hypocritical about ourselves. We find it
very easy not to see our own faults, and I don't just mean minor faults.
I suspect there have been very few people who have done serious wrong
who have not rationalized away what they've done, shifting the blame to
those they have injured. We are capable of the greatest good and the
greatest evil, and the problem is that we often can't distinguish
between them when it suits our purpose.
Failing to understand this leads to some misunderstanding of A Clockwork
Orange.
I have always found it difficult to understand how anyone could decide
that the film presented violence sympathetically. I can only explain
this as a view which arises from a prejudiced assessment of the film,
ignoring everything else in the story but a few scenes. The
distinguished film director Luis Bunuel suggested this in a way when he
said in the New York Times: 'A Clockwork Orange is my current favourite.
I was very predisposed against the film. After seeing it, I realized it
is the only movie about what the modern world really means.' A Clockwork
Orange has been widely acclaimed throughout the world as an important
work of art. I don't believe that anyone really sympathizes with Alex,
and there is absolutely no evidence that anyone does. Alex clashes with
some authority figures in the story who seem as bad as he is, if not
worse in a different way. But this doesn't excuse him. The story is
satirical, and it is in the nature of satire to state the opposite of
the truth as if it were the truth. I suppose you could misinterpret the
film on this count, if you were determined to do so.
How do you see the main character of Jack in The Shining?
Jack comes to the hotel psychologically prepared to do its murderous
bidding. He doesn't have very much further to go for his anger and
frustration to become completely uncontrollable. He is bitter about his
failure as a writer. He is married to a woman for whom he has only
contempt. He hates his son. In the hotel, at the mercy of its powerful
evil, he is quickly ready to fulfill his dark role.
So you don't regard the apparitions as merely a projection of his mental
state?
For the purposes of telling the story, my view is that the paranormal is
genuine. Jack's mental state serves only to prepare him for the murder,
and to temporarily mislead the audience.
And when the film has finished? What then?
I hope the audience has had a good fright, has believed the film while
they were watching it, and retains some sense of it. The ballroom
photograph at the very end suggests the reincarnation of Jack.
You are a person who uses his rationality, who enjoys understanding
things, but in2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining you demonstrate the
limits of intellectual knowledge. Is this an acknowledgement of what
William James called the unexplained residues of human experience?
Obviously, science-fiction and the supernatural bring you very quickly
to the limits of knowledge and rational explanation. But from a dramatic
point of view, you must ask yourself: 'If all of this were
unquestionably true, how would it really happen?' You can't go much
further than that. I like the regions of fantasy where reason is used
primarily to undermine incredulity. Reason can take you to the border of
these areas, but from there on you can be guided only by your
imagination. I think we strain at the limits of reason and enjoy the
temporary sense of freedom which we gain by such exercises of our
imagination.
Of course there is a danger that some audiences may misunderstand what
you say and think that one can dispense altogether with reason, falling
into the clouded mysticism which is currently so popular in America.
People can misinterpret almost anything so that it coincides with views
they already hold. They take from art what they already believe, and I
wonder how many people have ever had their views about anything
important changed by a work of art?
Did you have a religious upbringing?
No, not at all.
You are a chess-player and I wonder if chess-playing and its logic have
parallels with what you are saying?
First of all, even the greatest International Grandmasters, however
deeply they analyse a position, can seldom see to the end of the game.
So their decision about each move is partly based on intuition. I was a
pretty good chess-player but, of course, not in that class. Before I had
anything better to do (making movies) I played in chess tournaments at
the Marshall and Manhattan Chess Clubs in New York, and for money in
parks and elsewhere. Among a great many other things that chess teaches
you is to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something
that looks good. It trains you to think before grabbing, and to think
just as objectively when you're in trouble. When you're making a film
you have to make most of your decisions on the run, and there is a
tendency to always shoot from the hip. It takes more discipline than you
might imagine to think, even for thirty seconds, in the noisy,
confusing, high-pressure atmosphere of a film set. But a few seconds'
thought can often prevent a serious mistake being made about something
that looks good at first glance. With respect to films, chess is more
useful preventing you from making mistakes than giving you ideas. Ideas
come spontaneously and the discipline required to evaluate and put them
to use tends to be the real work.
Did you play chess on the set of The Shining as you did on Dr.
Strangelove (with George C. Scott) and on 2001?
I played a few games with Tony Burton, one of the actors in the film.
He's a very good chess-player. It was very near the end of the picture
and things had gotten to a fairly simple stage. I played quite a lot
with George C. Scott during the making of Dr. Strangelove. George is a
good player, too, but if I recall correctly he didn't win many games
from me. This gave me a certain edge with him on everything else. If you
fancy yourself as a good chess-player, you have an inordinate respect
for people who can beat you.
You also used to be a very good photographer. How do you think this
helped you as a film-maker?
There is a much quoted aphorism that when a director dies he becomes a
photographer. It's a clever remark but it's a bit glib, and usually
comes from the kind of critic who will complain that a film has been too
beautifully photographed. Anyway, I started out as a photographer. I
worked for Look magazine from the age of seventeen to twenty-one. It was
a miraculous break for me to get this job after graduation from
high-school. I owe a lot to the then picture editor, Helen O'Brian, and
the managing editor, Jack Guenther. This experience was invaluable to
me, not only because I learned a lot about photography, but also because
it gave me a quick education in how things happened in the world. To
have been a professional photographer was obviously a great advantage
for me, though not everyone I subsequently worked with thought so. When
I was directing Spartacus, Russel Metty, the cameraman, found it very
amusing that I picked the camera set-ups myself and told him what I
wanted in the way of lighting. When he was in particularly high-spirits,
he would crouch behind me as I looked through my viewfinder, holding his
Zippo cigarette lighter up to his eye, as if it were a viewfinder. He
also volunteered that the top directors just pointed in the direction of
the shot, said something like, "Russ, a tight 3-shot," and went back to
their trailer.
What kind of photography were you doing at Look?
The normal kind of photo-journalism. It was tremendous fun for me at
that age but eventually it began to wear thin, especially since my
ultimate ambition had always been to make movies. The subject matter of
my Look assignments was generally pretty dumb. I would do stories like:
"Is an Athlete Stronger Than a Baby?", photographing a college football
player emulating the 'cute' positions an 18-month-old child would get
into. Occasionally, I had a chance to do an interesting personality
story. One of these was about Montgomery Clift, who was at the start of
his brilliant career. Photography certainly gave me the first step up to
movies. To make a film entirely by yourself, which initially I did, you
may not have to know very much about anything else, but you must know
about photography.
Do you have a preference for shooting in a studio or in real locations?
If the real locations exist, and if it's practical getting your crew
there, it is a lot easier and cheaper to work on location. But sometimes
going away on location is more expensive than building sets. It costs a
lot of money today to keep a crew away from home.
Why did you do The Killing in a studio?
Because the sets were fairly cheap to build and the script let you spend
a good chunk of time in each of them. Also, at that time, it was much
more difficult to shoot in location interiors. There were no neck mikes
or radio transmitters, and the cameras were big and the film slow.
Things have changed a lot since then. But I remember having an argument
at the time with a cameraman who refused to shoot a scene with a 25mm
lens, insisting that the lens was too wide-angled to pan or move the
camera without distorting everything. Today, people think of a 25mm
almost as a normal lens, and a wide-angle lens goes down to 9.8mm, which
gives you about a 90x horizontal viewing angle. The Shining could not
have had the same lighting if it had been filmed on location, and
because of the snow effects it would have been extremely impractical to
do it that way. We would have been far too much of a nuisance in a real
hotel, and in the case of those which were shut in the winter, they were
closed because they really were inaccessible.
What kind of horror films did you like? Did you see Rosemary's Baby?
It was one of the best of the genre. I liked The Exorcist too.
And John Boorman's The Heretic?
I haven't seen it, but I like his work. Deliverance is an extremely good
film. One of the things that amazes me about some directors (not
Boorman) who have had great financial successes, is that they seem eager
to give up directing to become film moguls. If you care about films, I
don't see how you could want someone else to direct for you.
Perhaps they don't like the actual shooting.
It's true -- shooting isn't always fun. But if you care about the film
it doesn't matter. It's a little like changing your baby's diapers. It
is true that while you're filming you are almost always in conflict with
someone. Woody Allen, talking about directing Interiors, said that no
matter how pleasant and relaxed everything seemed on the surface he felt
his actors always resented being told anything. There are actors,
however, with whom communication and co-operation is so good that the
work really becomes exciting and satisfying. I find writing and editing
very enjoyable, and almost completely lacking in this kind of tension.
Today it is more and more difficult for a film to get its money back.
The film rental can be three times the cost of the film.
Much more than that. Take a film that costs $10 million. Today it's not
unusual to spend $8 million on USA advertising, and $4 million on
international advertising. On a big film, add $2 million for
release-prints. Say there is a 20% studio overhead on the budget; that's
$2 million more. Interest on the $10 million production cost, currently
at 20% a year, would add an additional $2 million a year, say, for two
years -- that's another $4 million. So a $10 million film already costs
$30 million. Now you have to get it back. Let's say an actor takes 10%
of the gross, and the distributor takes a world-wide average of a 35%
distribution fee. To roughly calculate the break-even figure, you have
to divide the $30 million by 55%, the percentage left after the actor's
10% and the 35% distribution fee. That comes to $54 million of
distributor's film rental. So a $10 million film may not break even, as
far as the producer's share of the profits is concerned, until 5.4 times
its negative cost. Obviously the actual break-even figure for the
distributor is lower since he is taking a 35% distribution fee and has
charged overheads.
But you came to realise very early in your career that if you didn't
have the control of the production you couldn't have the artistic
freedom.
There is no doubt that the more legal control you have over things, the
less interference you have. This, in itself, doesn't guarantee you're
going to get it right, but it gives you your best chance. But the more
freedom you have the greater is your responsibility, and this includes
the logistical side of film-making. I suppose you could make some kind
of military analogy here. Napoleon, about whom I still intend to do a
film, personally worked out the laborious arithmetic of the complicated
timetables which were necessary for the coordinated arrival on the
battlefield of the different elements of his army, which sometimes were
scattered all over Europe. His genius on the battlefield might have been
of little use if large formations of his army failed to arrive on the
day. Of course, I'm not making a serious comparison between the burdens
and the genius of L'Empereur and any film director, but the point is
that if Napoleon believed it was necessary to go to all that trouble,
then a comparative involvement in the logistical side of film-making
should be a normal responsibility for any director who wants to ensure
he gets what he wants when he wants it. In a more fanciful vein, and
perhaps stretching the analogy a bit, I suspect that for Napoleon, his
military campaigns provided him with at least all of the excitement and
satisfaction of making a film and, equally so, I would imagine
everything in between must have seemed pretty dull by comparison. Of
course this is not an explanation of the Napoleonic wars, but perhaps it
suggests some part of the explanation for Napoleon's apparently
irrepressible desire for still one more campaign. What must it be like
to realize that you are perhaps the greatest military commander in
history, have marshals like Ney, Murat, Davout, the finest army in
Europe, and have no place to go and nothing to do? Then, continuing with
this by now overstretched analogy, there is the big-budgeted disaster --
the Russian Campaign, in which, from the start, Napoleon ignored the
evidence which suggested the campaign would be such a costly disaster.
And, finally, before his first exile, after fighting a series of
brilliant battles against the Allies' superior numbers, Napoleon still
had a final opportunity for compromise, but he over-negotiated, gambled
on his military magic, and lost.
In your screenplay about Napoleon, did you adopt a chronological
approach?
Yes, I did. Napoleon, himself, once remarked what a great novel his life
would be. I'm sure he would have said 'movie' if he had known about
them. His entire life is the story, and it works perfectly well in the
order it happened. It would also be nice to do it as a twenty hour TV
series, but there is, as yet, not enough money available in TV to
properly budget such a venture. Of course, there is the tremendous
problem of the actor to play Napoleon. Al Pacino comes quickly to mind.
And there is always the possibility of shooting the twenty episodes in
such a way that he would be fifty by the time he got to St. Helena....
Al, I'm joking! I'm joking!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicola de Angeli
>Un film stupendo, un vero capolavoro...forse sono stupida, ma non riesco a
>capirne la fine.
No, Matteo, non sei stupida...
Ciao
Nicola
Diego Cuoghi
in mente, e così via. Dal momento che si muove su un livello non verbale
l'ambiguità è inevitabile; ma l'ambiguità di ogni arte, di un bel brano
musicale o di un dipinto. Spiegarli non ha senso, ha solo un
superficiale significato culturale buono per gli insegnanti e i critici
che devono guadagnarsi da vivere"
Stanley Kubrick
-----------
"Un regista non ha niente da 'dire'. Deve mostrare"
Francois Truffaut
------------
"L'arte non dovrebbe mai cercare di diventare popolare. E' il pubblico
che dovrebbe cercare di diventare artistico"
Oscar Wilde
----------
"A chi non capisce l'allusione è inutile fornire la spiegazione"
Guido Ceronetti
-----------
"In quasi tutti gli esempi moderni l'interpretazione è un rifiuto
filisteo di lasciare in pace l'opera d'arte. La vera arte ha la facoltà
di innervosirci. Ridurre l'opera d'arte al suo contenuto e poi
interpretare questo significa addomesticarla. L'interpretazione rende
l'opera d'arte docile e accomodante".
Susan Sontag
-----------
"Naturalmente le interpretazioni di "Lolita" sono moltissime, ma io sono
d'accordo con tutte. In fondo la diversità delle reazioni è il miglior
complimento che si possa fare a un autore, più sono meglio è"
Vladimir Nabokov.
-------------
eccetera, eccetera... :-))
--
D I E G O C U O G H I
---------------------------------
http://www.giramondo.com/~diegoc
Stefano Cobianchi
> eccetera, eccetera... :-))
"Se ne puoi parlare, non stai facendo del cinema"
David Lynch
--
when I am king you will be first against the wall
with your opinions which are of no consequence at all
--
STYLE MATTERS
--
LynchTown, la mailing list per chi vuole discutere
del cinema di David Lynch. Per iscrivervi mandate
un messaggio vuoto a lynchtown...@onelist.com
Federica Arnolfo
> eccetera, eccetera... :-))
"L'interesse maggiore sta in chi analizza. Non ho niente contro il fatto
che qualcuno studi i miei film. Voglio solo dire che questo non e' il
modo migliore per farne esperienza".
(Lars Von Trier)
"Le domande, le risposte o le sensazioni che si possono suscitare nel
pubblico sono radicate nella questione del tempo umano, questo e' un
argomento per me di grande interesse, sono quesiti senza soluzione".
(Emir Kusturica)
Federica
--
Expanded Cinemah - http://www.etabeta.it/cinemah
"Viviamo in un universo sconfinato, dove c'è spazio
per ogni tipo di finali e per un numero infinito di incipit."
(Robert McLiam Wilson)
Andreij Nikol' evic
Federica Arnolfo <Fe...@flashnet.it> wrote in message
1dq3n8n.hnqxca1l8n3i8N@[192.168.111.8]...
> "L'interesse maggiore sta in chi analizza. Non ho niente contro il fatto
> che qualcuno studi i miei film. Voglio solo dire che questo non e' il
> modo migliore per farne esperienza".
> (Lars Von Trier)
>
> "Le domande, le risposte o le sensazioni che si possono suscitare nel
> pubblico sono radicate nella questione del tempo umano, questo e' un
> argomento per me di grande interesse, sono quesiti senza soluzione".
> (Emir Kusturica)
"Non c'è modo di dare a un attore ciò che il suo talento non possiede già.
Il regista ha solo il compito di fornire all'attore delle idee, non di
insegnarli
come recitare o di ingannarlo."
(Stanley Kubrick)
"Secondo me, l'attore, in un film, deve essere molto docile, e veramente
non deve fare proprio nulla. Deve avere un atteggiamento calmo e naturale
- cosa d'altronde nient'affatto semplice - e deve accettare di essere
utilizzato
e integrato nel film dal regista e dalla macchina da presa."
(Alfred Hitchcock)
"Mi piace collaborare con gli attori, ma le star mi fanno un po' paura.
A parte le star che io ho contribuito a creare, mi rende un po' nervoso
lavorare con un "grande" (.....) Il modo in cui mi piace lavorare, è provare
prima l'attore; poi quando vedo dove l'attore andrà, piazzo la macchina
da presa perché vi si adegui."
(Steven Spielberg)
"Non vedrete mai in uno dei miei film che gli attori mi imitano.
Interrogate gli attori che ho diretto e domandate loro se si sono mai
sentiti a
disagio, vi diranno di no."
(Orson Welles)
"L'attore di cinema deve arrivare alla ripresa in uno stato di verginità.
Più lo sforzo sarà di carattere intuitivo, più il risultato sarà spontaneo"
L'attore di cinema deve lavorare non sul piano della psicologia, ma su
quello della fantasia. E la fantasia si accende da sola, non ha interruttori
che le dita possano accendere in qualsiasi momento."
( Michelangelo Antonioni)
"Non credo che esistano grandi differenze fra la recitazione teatrale
e quella cinematografica. Ma diverso è il mezzo e diversa è la distanza
dallo spettatore."
(Luchino Visconti)
Andreij Nikol' evic
( - 264 al 2M )
- E' tutto chiaro, Alex bello?
- Come un lago senza fango, sir.
Così limpido come un cielo d'estate sempre blu.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH (tm)
Si vede che non mi conosci !
Io trasformo TUTTO in metro di
giudizio, anche se c'era o meno
da parcheggiare fuori dal cinema !"
Davide,,,,
-----------------------------------------------------------