Robbins
11/17/14
All Work and No Play
In horror movies like The Shining, the non-digetic sounds and camerawork are equally important. Stanley Kubrick uses many, unconventional shots, similar to Hitchcock's work. One scene that I felt was incredibly suspenseful, was when we finally see Jack working on his typewriter for the first time in the movie. A deep focus shot of the entire room is shown, making everything look very isolated in the enormous room. Jack has his back to the audience, and you see a figure emerge from a hallway. Both people are in shadow, and the music intensifies as the figure gets closer. The music builds to a loud crescendo as the figure reaches the table; Jack throws his arm in the air... a piece of paper, and the music goes quiet again. Although nothing was said in this scene, the non-digetic sound built the suspense for the audience.
A great example of Kubrick teasing the audience, leading us to suspense for unfortunately nothing. However this makes for the actual scares to be much worse, because we partly think they're going to be all suspense and empty scares like this one, but in fact they're the real thing. Another great time where Kubrick did this sort of a tease was when Jack was watching the diorama of the maze whilst Wendy and Danny were playing in the real thing, it was all suspense with another crescendo, into the horrifying slide of "Tuesday"
ReplyDeleteI think you are exactly right, Kubrick constantly teases with scenes that lead to nothing, but keep you on edge. You would think that it would eventually develop into a sort of rhythm where it was no longer scary, but it doesn't stop. One of the first scenes he really delivers on is when Danny is biking down the halls, turning the corners, just like he had before. And out of the blue, the two girls are in the hallway. Honestly, I would even call that a tease, it is creepy, but not on the same level as something like the bathroom scene.
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