Scene In Cinema Camera Coverage #2: The shining

Stanley Kubrick’s psychological horror The Shining (1980), adapted from Steven King’s third published novel of the same name, explores the mental deterioration of writer and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), while staying at the isolated Overlook hotel with his family, during his time working as the hotel’s caretaker.

Throughout the ominous bathroom scene from the film, the particular camera coverage effectively embodies Kubrick’s distinct visual style and shot composition evident throughout the influential filmmakers acclaimed filmography.

A signature Kubrick-esque motif, which is heavily employed throughout the film, is the use of symmetrical shot composition. Immediately as Jack Torrance and Delbert Grady (Phillip Stone) enter the bathroom, the scene is presented to us as a wide-angle shot framed symmetrically as a one-point perspective. Subsequently, the cinematography throughout the rest of the scene is framed with the actors accurately positioned in the center of the frame within the spatial constrictions of the bathroom. Accompanied by the lingering duration of the camera shots, the near perfect symmetrical cinematography creates a strange and eerie feeling, which greatly reflects the nature of the films ambience.

However the most astounding aspect in this scene is the ingenuity behind Kubrick’s use of space, his deliberate positioning of the actors within the environment and the way he uses the camera to capture the scene, which effectively heightens the films surrealism. As soon as the camera cuts to the second shot after Jack hears Delbert Grady introducing his name, the camera cuts to a shot positioned directly from the other side, thus breaking the 180-degree rule of cinematography. This has been deliberately employed in order to create a strange visual flow to disorientate the viewer and to emphasize the tension created between characters in the story world. Apart from the initial wide shot and the second Medium wide shot which depicts Grady and Torrance both in frame, the following intercutting single shot close-ups isolate the two characters from each other. While Torrance faces the direction of the mirror and is surrounded by the red colour of the bathroom walls, Grady stands in font of the mirror and is bathed in bright near overexposed backlighting. Consequentially with the construction and planned positioning of the actors in these shots, the director effectively depicts the mental deterioration and insanity of the films protagonist. By creating Grady’s inhuman and spirit-like appearance, Kubrick enables the audience to question his existence, supplying us with the feeling that Torrance is actually talking to himself in the mirror. Lastly, as he’s surrounded by the colour red in the bathroom, it symbolizes the foreshadow-ment of Jack Torrance’s evil hunger for murder.