The Shining’s Overlook hotel remains one of the most disturbing locations in horror.
Fritz Lang had vast chunks of city built forMetropolis.
InAlienorBlade Runner, perhaps.
The impossibly creepy motel and Victorian house of horrors inPsycho, maybe.
The set in Stanley KubricksThe Shining,Id argue, towers over all these.
This is partially becauseThe Shininghas such a simple story to tell.
At first glance, Kubrick and Walker appear to have created the perfect fusion between exterior and interior shots.
The set generates tension not through claustrophobia and dark spaces, but with high ceilings and lonely expanses.
Characters are frequently dwarfed by gigantic columns or huge windows.
The pure white ceiling and floor merely accentuate the startling crimson of the walls.
Its but one example of how Kubrick uses colour and design to reflect the mood of his characters.
Its vastly different from the supernatural ballroom or evil-looking bathroom seen in the films final act.
The director described the process of designing the films sets in aninterviewwith writer Michel Ciment.
We wanted the hotel to look authentic rather than like a traditionally spooky movie hotel, Kubrick said.
The hotels labyrinthine layout and huge rooms, I believed, would alone provide an eerie enough atmosphere.
His stories are fantastic and allegorical, but his writing is simple and straightforward, almost journalistic.
Not everyone agrees with Agers thesis, but Id argue its too plausible to dismiss entirely.
Besides, Kubrick makes it obvious from the outset that the hotels architecture is vital to his story.
This maze, with its eight-foot high walls, was complex enough for the crew to get lost in.
The Shiningis the perfect example of the use of set design to enhance a narrative.
The Shinings shoot was long and arduous.
In his quest for perfection, Kubrick went through take after take.
Scatman Crothers and Shelly Duvall clashed with the director.
The latter even collapsed, exhausted, which was caught on camera by Vivian Kubrick.
Kubricks maniacal approach to filmmaking resulted in one of the most unusual entries in the horror canon.
Its performances are desperate and sometimes bizarre, its images wavering violently between the starkly real and the surreal.
