The shining 147 minute version review

144 Days. I did not leave the house for 144 days. Work had decided we should all work from home initially, and there was a sense we could get called in. This was a godsend. Mum was on the extreme shielding list, and dad was 78. I was in my room for six hours daily in front of this keyboard. I had to respond to any students who contacted the library. I had to do it as fast as possible. We, as a house, understood that if I was slack, they might call me in. None of us wanted that. Mum and dad went out because mum had her treatments and I can’t drive, dad can. It was intense, and other things came in, but that was the key. I sat in front of this keyboard for six hours a day for 144 days. No students contacted me. Students got in touch, but other staff, most of the time, dealing with it. Really…so no one in the scheme of things. But I could not leave this keyboard. For six hours a day. For 144 days. I wrote a diary. I looked at it. It’s a word doc. It’s about 430 odd pages. I’ve not checked, but that’s the ballpark. I’ve not really read it. I fear it would be repetitive except for the weekend when the deliveries would show up. But it would have more than Jack Torrance’s novel. This brings me to this about ‘The shining.’

The term ‘of its time is often attributed to sexual or racial politics or region. Class. culture…But isolation is a thing that has a very different character post-demic. The shining is a film about the effect of isolation that is at once simply not possible today yet totally relatable to anyone. Me and my friend Keith, who had chosen the film, indeed sees the shining once a year, almost like this a wonderful life. We both saw the movie in a cinema for the first time. We were not the only ones. There were substantial people in, over half the screen. I had seen black Adam on the opening Friday, which did not have these numbers. Each of them would have dealt with isolation in the last two years. And each and every one of them was gripped.

Opening with incredible vistas, it’s hard to talk about a film that has become so iconic it’s hard to remove from the cliche the jokes, the memes, and the genre, being a template for so much that has come after. But the way this sentence cut veer to me showed it was itself on the shoulders of giants. The opening vistas and the majestic scope. The intertitles at once tell us the day of the week while giving no indication of how many weeks we had been there, rendering them meaningless. The way the world changes in perspective is about joining this supernatural world while the other members become more estranged. 

This was the U.S extended cut of the film and, at 147, totally immersive. I can’t think of a Marvel where, when faced with that sort of run time, I’ve not gone to the toilet when the preview scene came on screen. In this film, having been seen before, every stage could be viewed that way. It took roughly 50 minutes before the daughters turned up, and the scary side unleashed its claws, but with that time to build up and a little more exposition, it hit a real punch. This is the first time I’ve seen the film in the cinema, and it was built in such a different way. Shelly Duvall’s Wendy did come across with far more agency. We see her perform the radio, do the food, and run the boiler and electrics for a job her husband is ostensibly doing due to his smooth demeanor and ‘man chat’ skills with the employers! I felt a woman trying to keep a family together and working to be supportive while conflicted. Indeed she does the bloody job.

I would go so far that, as times have changed, the portrait of a woman having put all this energy and effort into creating the space for her husband to be creative, to then walk into the shed and find the laptop full of porn and losing her shit with this totally relatable. Certainly more than Jack’s ego, which is nothing like I was on day 46 of my work-from-home when dad just wanted to give me tea before he went to the hospital as I fumed about needing to keep the bloody job!….. It’s a far more personal and relatable film than the expressionist aesthetic seems.

Danny also comes across as more than a spooky child trope. He does not merely see dead people. He is upset, scared, confused, honest, and, at times, quite petulant to the adults around him. Being a much older ten-year-old, we usually get to live within cinema land. right down to his outfit, which…frankly, I was rocking that look when the film was made, increasing how relatable it was.

We have a more excellent build, and some scenes are a bit longer for obvious reasons. Danny initially cut himself with the kitchen knife to write redrum, which I feel was cut from the U.k, and adds nothing. Still, the immediate sense of prolonged isolation made it a compelling watch. 

It makes the nature of Jack’s Possession more of a breakdown. In the Finale, when Wendy starts to see the ghosts herself also makes me wonder if Danny’s power may have come from her more than jack…and the route of Halloran coming to the rescue build so much better, knowing he is taking hours and calling in favors.

This edit and this screening added so much more to the film, to immerse in that world, and the slow build created a fantastic payoff. 

My shining fan of the film Keith totally enjoyed it. The sound in a screening took it to another level. He pointed out three specific errors as a room 237 fan, the documentary about the film I should impart.

1. The initial confrontation between Jack and Wendy and Jack needing space to concentrate…the chair comes in and out of shot.
2. The movement of the tennis ball from 237 runs erratically in terms of perspective. i spoke again To Keith about this last night and he said carpet and it is rolling the wrong way and said more clever things but it was after happy hour and I just sorted hexagoned into my beer. but it was perspective flipping and internet said it was continuity. do you have the internet?
3. Wendy and Danny are watching t.v Danny wants his fire engine. None of this reflects the fact. The tv is not plugged in.

Is this isolation, is this expressionism, and what levels do you want to watch it…either way, within a cinema. It can totally wipe over you like a crimson tide, and given a chance, I urge you to drown in this presentation.