Stephen King notoriously shared some not so kind words over the past few decades over Kubrick’s wildly different adaptation of his 1977 novel. “The Shining” may not be a 1-1 recreation of the source material, but it stands as one of the best examples of what an adaptation can be.
King’s story of a recovering alcoholic battling his demons alongside his family in a haunted hotel nestled deep in the Colorado Rockies took on a much meaner bent in Kubrick’s hands. In the 1980 film, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is off from the start. The horror derives, not from a complex individual staving off his impulses, but from a mother (Shelley Duvall in an outstanding performance) and her gifted son (Danny Lloyd) essentially being held hostage by their serial abuser, while trapped in a frigid environment that emboldens all of his worst tendencies. Making Jack a ticking time bomb from the beginning imbues a sense of dread before the spirits of the Overlook Hotel make themselves known.
We’ve already seen what an adaptation of “The Shining” with King’s written approval looks like and it’s not pretty. The 1997 ABC miniseries was so terrible it momentarily made me question whether the novel was ever good to begin with. It shows that being slavish to the source material doesn’t always make for the best results. A director has to do what’s right for the film to work. Sometimes that means deviating from the book, and other times, it means trimming down your film. Plenty of productions end up having footage that ends up on the cutting room floor, but what’s not common, however, is doing so while the film is already out in the world.
