The Shining
A Book-To-Film Comparison
Adam Scullin, August 15th 2014
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writer: Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson (screenplay)
Stephen King (novel)
Release Date: May 23rd, 1980
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
*WARNING* This article features heavy spoilers for both the book and film versions of The Shining.
It’s no great secret that as far as Hollywood adaptations of popular novels go, the odds of the film surpassing the quality of the novel (let alone matching it) are stacked against them.
We are, on occasion, presented with films that are able to beat the odds and create something that matches its source material. Examples include Peter Jackson’s incredible Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Even these examples are a stretch, as the fact is that a film simply cannot have the level of detail that a film can have.
Every film adaptation of a novel falls into one of two categories; faithful and unfaithful. Does it follow the same plotline of the novel? Does it minimise its changes from the source material? Does it stay as true to the novel as it can? If so, then this is a faithful adaptation.
Does it stray away and create its own characters and/or events? Does it change the ending? If so, then this is an unfaithful adaptation.
Time has shown that faithful adaptations are more likely to be successful than unfaithful ones, but this doesn’t mean that unfaithful adaptations aren’t any good or are inferior in any way. Example? 1980’s cult-classic horror The Shining (based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name).
It is not often you see that a classic film adaptation of a classic novel released in such a short period of time.
One of the few examples include To Kill A Mockingbird, where Harper Lee’s novel was released in 1960 and the Robert Mulligan film adaptation (starring Gregory Peck in his Oscar-winning role of Atticus Finch) came just two years later, in 1962.With the film being created in such a short span of time, there wasn’t much opportunity to alter the meaning or the plot in any major way, which makes To Kill A Mockingbird a rather faithful adaptation.
History did not repeat itself with The Shining, with Stephen King’s bestselling novel released in 1977 and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation hitting cinemas in 1980. The Shining is, and forever shall be, a shining example (no pun intended) of how different a film and novel can be while staying so similar.
The Similarities
Let’s start with the similarities. Both book and film tell, essentially, the same tale.
Jack Torrance, a former teacher-turned-writer with a history of alcoholism, accepts a job as the caretaker of The Overlook Hotel (a remote hotel in the mountains of Colorado) over the course of the winter. When accepting the job, Jack is informed that the previous caretaker murdered his family and then killed himself, supposedly due to cabin fever.
Coming along with Jack is his wife, Wendy, and their son Danny. Danny has a strange ability to foresee events and read minds, although he has little or no control over this ability. Upon arriving at the hotel on Closing Day, Danny meets the hotel’s chef, Dick Halloran, who also has the ability Danny has. Dick calls it ‘the shining’.
As the winter progresses, Jack becomes increasingly irritable and strange, spiralling into madness. This is exemplified perfectly in a scene where Jack enters ‘The Gold Room’, a great big ballroom and bar within the hotel, and sees it filled with people and Jack gets a drink at the bar, despite there being absolutely no alcohol left in the hotel during the winter.
As all this happens, Danny continues to see horrible things around the hotel (these things differ from novel to film). It reaches a point where Danny is attacked by a ghost within the hotel, causing him to contact Dick Halloran telepathically, asking for help.
As Dick races to The Overlook, Jack finally snaps and attempts to kill Wendy and Danny, who hold him off long enough for Dick to arrive, providing Wendy and Danny with a vehicle to escape on.
It is here, at the end of the story, where the differences between novel and film lose all subtlety.
The Differences
The Ending
In the film, Jack kills Dick Halloran with an axe and then chases Danny into The Overlook’s giant outdoor hedge maze (which is not featured in the novel). Danny manages to trick Jack and escape the maze, where Wendy is waiting to put him in the Snowcat (the vehicle Dick arrived in) and escape, leaving Jack to freeze to death in the maze.
In the novel, Jack attacks Dick with a mallet, breaking his jaw and knocking half his teeth out, but this only leaves Dick unconscious. When Jack finally tracks down Danny to the third floor, he is about to strike down when Danny begins speaking not to Jack, but to the hotel itself (Confused? Stick around for the explanation). Danny buys himself enough time to get away and remind Jack that the boiler (which must be maintained every day, otherwise it will explode and destroy the entire hotel). As Jack runs to try and stop the boiler before it explodes, Wendy, Danny and Dick escape The Overlook in the Snowcat as The Overlook explodes behind them, leaving Jack Torrance as the only character to die in the novel, which brings us to the second major difference.
Jack Torrance
Jack Torrance’s development as a character differs an incredible amount between book and film. In the film, we see the hotel tricking Jack into thinking he needs to kill Wendy and Danny, although this is nothing but visions that Jack sees, and from the beginning Jack had an essence of madness about him, something unsettling about his on-screen presence. This begs the question of whether there is really anything wrong with the hotel at all? Danny also has visions, but after all he is his father’s son, so doesn’t it stand to reason that any mental issues Jack is having could also be experienced by Danny? Wendy has no negative experience with the hotel itself until Jack is attempting to murder her, which can easily be put down to the severe stress of the night. While I don’t personally feel that this is the case, there’s no doubt the Kubrick’s film presents Jack’s issues and The Overlook hotel as more of a psychological issue than a supernatural one.
In the novel, Jack is a very happy-go-lucky family man in the beginning. His decent into madness is much more tragic than it is in the film, and is much more evenly-paced and gradual. However, even more important than the way in which Jack loses his mind is the reason he loses his mind. As I said earlier, the film shows the hotel manipulating Jack (which leads us to question if the hotel
really did it at all), while in the novel it is the hotel that weakens Jack to the point that it actually possess him, leaving no doubt that the novel presents a supernatural issue. In the end, when Jack finds Danny on the third floor, it is not Jack that Danny speaks to. It is the hotel. In fact, throughout the ending of the novel he is really even referred to as Jack. It is usually either ‘monster, ‘it’ or ‘The Overlook’. Stephen King really emphasizes the fact that this is no longer Jack Torrance.
In Conclusion
While there are so many differences between the book and the film, I don’t want to drag this article out too long. Ultimately, the book and the film versions of The Shining tell the same story but exemplify how altering the meaning of a story can completely change how it is viewed. Stanley Kubrick’s film gives us The Shining from a psychological standpoint, which is why it is considered one of the greatest psychological-horror films of all-time. King’s original novel gives us The Shining from a supernatural standpoint.
Which is better? Personally, I enjoyed the novel more. The supernatural element scared me and drew more emotion from me than the psychological element of the film did, but does this really matter? Stanley Kubrick’s film is my fifth favourite film of all-time, and the fact that both novel and film are so great is the reason I cherish The Shining is so much. For one story to have been presented to us by one of the greatest authors of all time and then by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time is an incredible privilege that so many of us don’t even acknowledge. Book or film, doesn’t matter. The Shining is an incredible experience, and whether you read as The Overlook/Jack desperately attempts to fix the boiler or if you watch as Jack Nicholson plows his axe through the bathroom and delivers one of history’s most iconic one-liners, you’re bound to come away having indulged in a piece of cinematic or literary history.
An original theatrical poster of The Shining
One of the more common covers of Stehen King's novels
Jack Torrance freezes to death after being outsmarted by his 8-year-old son
Throughout cinematic history, there are few films more pulled apart and analysed than Stanley Kubrick’s theatrical enigma The Shining. The subject of hundreds of theories (ranging from underlying themes regarding the genocide of Native Americans to Kubrick’s supposed hand in faking the Apollo 11 moon landings) and even more debates. Would you be interested in an article focusing on these theories and what my own personal take on the meaning of The Shining is? Let us know on Facebook. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this brief study of insanity!