Analyzing Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining For The Great Villain Blogathon

Analyzing Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining For The Great Villain Blogathon 2015

As anyone who followed this blog for many years, you can easily guess that Stanley Kubrick is my favorite movie director, it is also a given that The Shining is my favorite film from his filmography (note : as favorite I don’t say that it is his greatest film, the answer to that topic might be 2001 : A Space Odyssey). When I got aware of this Blogathon, I immediately wanted to write about Jack Torrance. Apart from the fact that I deeply love this film and that Stephen King hates it (note : King is one of my favorite contemporary author but I disagree with him on many subjects especially this one) I like the fact that Torrance is not completely a movie villain as the classic definition of the term would designate.

First, a movie villain must impersonate an antagonist position with the hero of the story, he is the cause of evil or bad things happening to the hero. In The Shining, Torrance is at first presented as the central character and in some way he is the protagonist of the story. But he is also the father who brings his family to keep in order a closed resort during the winter. He is the bringer of evil since the Overlook Hotel is supposedly haunted. The last element stated as supposedly, the haunting of the hotel, is never really clear and depending on the reading of the film you choose to pick out, the spirits might be visions of Torrance’s mind.

Since the family is isolated in the hotel Jack suffers of writer’s block, of a clear sexual repression from an unsatisfied need for encounter, and a severe need for alcohol. Sober for a long time, Torrance seems to be rekinkling with his old habits as long as the film evolves. Even taking part at an evening in the Golden Age ballroom drinking a bourbon in a room filled with ghosts. At this point, Jack’s implication with the hotel is more than just a job. He is possessed by the power of the hotel and he is given a mission to take care of his family just like Grady did before. Grady was his predecessor and murdered his twin girls with an axe in a bloody way. He was then promoted by the hotel as a permanent resident something Jack now seeks for his career.

On some level, the character might be read as the evil counter part of Danny, his son who is gifted with the shining, deliberately bringing his young family to a resort where solitude and ennui is right at the corner. However, Jack is happy and seems to need to get there and take this job. His motivation is never really clear except from having some quiet time to finish his novel. From the beginning he seems to have a natural attirance towards this job and is fearless to do it.

Towards his job, we never see him actually taking care of the hotel or even his family. His wife, Wendy, takes care of all of this. She checks the furnace and plays with Danny while Jack tries to work on his novel. Most of the time he is wandering, throwing a ball to the wall and struggling to get words onto the paper.

There are many facets of Jack that I think that can be linked to the author’s personality; Stephen King was a noticeable alcoholic in his early days and I’ve always read the novel The Shining as a play on a writer having to write through writer’s block. King often put teachers or writers as his protagonist’s occupations and this is one of his recurrent themes. An old master has said that you have to write about what you know. He sure put it to value giving Torrance both the writer and the teacher titles.

Jack Nicholson is in the role of Jack Torrance in one of his most famous characters with the legendary scene where he’s trying to open the locked door toilet door with an axe. The documentary by Viviane Kubrick, Stanley’s daughter, shows the preparation of  the actor for this highly intense scene. Nicholson seems to have no trouble getting into the right piece of mind to do those scenes while actress Shelley Duvall, who plays Wendy Torrance, struggled with Kubrick’s dictatorial directing. She often complained that Kubrick asked him to redo some scenes more than a hundred times. Following The Shining and also One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicholson will often be asked to play over the top and his acting will be reduced to be a caricature of himself.

Let’s get back to our villain Jack Torrance, his job was to bring his family to keep the hotel from the possible degradation from the difficult winter elements. In the supernatural reading of the film, Jack was mandated to bring his super powered son to be a gift or an offering to the power of the hotel.

While another reading of the film is a Freudian one, which is probably more accurate when considering the many Freudian elements from Kubrick’s filmography, Jack the biological father of Danny must get Dick Halloran (the hotel’s chef and the man who exposes to Danny all about the shining) out of the way. Halloran is taking the role of Danny’s father figure because Jack is not a potent father figure. In Freudian words, a child who doesn’t feel that he is getting the right kind of fatherly love and strong father figure will try to get it from a more convenient and potent man. In this case, a man that understands him and that knows how to correctly protect him. One could add the Oedipus Rex complex to that where Wendy compensate for Jack’s lack of attention to his son and the child will get rid of his father to be the partner of his mother. A strong father figure has to be imposing a presence of the right kind of authority and indulge fear in his son’s mind that if he tries to get intimate with his mother his father will castrate his son.

It is useless to say that Jack is a failure and at the end of the film he is tricked by his son when at the same time the sacrifice of Halloran helped Danny and his mother to save them from another horror at the Overlook.

A great villain makes a great film and I personally think that Jack is a great villain with a complex construction and he is not easy to define but always interesting to observe and enjoy.

The Shining

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

With the recent release of Room 237, an entertaining documentary on the different analysis and critics of Stanley Kubrick’s very personal interpretation of Steven King’s best seller The Shining. Being one of the few who read the book prior to watch the feature film, I will already advance that Diane Johnson’s, along with Kubrick’s, vision of the story is far more efficient and holds up a better meaning and mystery. This long rewriting took eight months and even if King’s novel was far from mediocrity, with the Jack Nicholson version we are in for a better Freudian reading and a greater work of art.

A father brings his wife (Shelley Duvall) and their son to a remote Hotel in the Colorado for the entire winter while there are almost no ways to get there and escape. This recluse time was supposed to reunite the family, let Jack write his novel and take care of the Overlook Hotel in case if there were breakage of any kind. The only breakage that happens is when Jack suffers from writer’s block and that isolation and the privation of alcohol, Jack is ancient alcoholic. Added to that, Danny (Danny Lloyd), their son, has a gift that he shares with Chef Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers). 

 With this premise installed we can go on the many things that make it one the greatest danse macabre of all time. First, the mood of the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s and the decor gives to the film a very unique feeling. The pure bright lighting and the white, almost too white snow gives an aspect of bleak tragic winter. Every year the first snowfall of the season reminds me of The Shining’s immaculate winterland.

This unsettling mood is also well served by the tremendous photography of John Alcott, too often forgotten and in the shadow of his director. With The Shining, we discover the best use of the Steadycam, a device that is fixed on the cameraman and that gives a feeling of human vision. It also gives more natural movements of the objective. It renders an eerie feeling to the scenes where “we” follow Danny on his Big Wheel and when the camera is behind Jack when he bends over the miniature reproduction of the maze. This technical aspect of Kubrick’s film is very subtle but plays on another level in our watching experience.

Earlier, I mentioned that Johnson and Kubrick brought a deeper Freudian angle to the plot and the original material. It is not that difficult to read The Shining as an adaptation of the Oedipus Rex complex. Where the little boy is over protected by his mother and his father can’t interact and is not able to act about it. Long before Jack’s breakdown we feel that Danny is scared of his father more than a kid should be. Conventionally, the discipline is indulged to a child by his father as a strict but just figure. However, we learn that in the past Jack broke Danny’s arm by accident in an excess of wrath and booze. Note that the arm represents a phallic symbol as in the Oedipus Rex complex the boy is afraid that his father caught him and castrate the boy for loving his mother the wrong way and more than him. It is also a position where the child tries to take the role of the father and dethrones him from his status. More often than not, a father that is too strict and hard on his child will be replaced by another man that is more honest and respectful. In this case, it is Chef Dick Halloran with whom Danny connects with his gift. He represents a man that is ready to sacrifice everything for the widow and the orphan.

Having not seen Room 237, I yet read that it brought many wacky theories on the meanings of Kubrick’s movie. Of them all there is one about the genocide of Amerindians and another about the Holocaust. The later won’t be addressed since there are no obvious links I saw the film a dozen times. But, the first one isn’t completely inaccurate since it is mentioned early in the film that the Hotel was built on an Ancient burial ground. Plus, Shelley Duvall’s outfits are themed with Indian elements and hanged tapestries remind of the Art of these people. Even if these elements are brought to our ears and eyes, it is more an element of decor and detail that Kubrick is well known for controlling everything in the development of his projects. It brings a sense of mystery and an eerie opposition of the white man versus the Indian people but it would be too simplistic to just put it there.

The labyrinthine aspect of the Overlook Hotel is represented in many ways and it is more those elements that critics and enthusiasts should try to seek for meaning. The impossible architecture of the Hotel having doors, windows and long corridors that can’t exist give a strange effect to the overall look. There are many apparitions but the Hotel itself is living and giving the family a hard time. Just like the reproduction of the outside maze inside the Hotel Hall and the maze itself that takes place the final scenes. There are many symbolisms in these elements and they seem to mean to engulf the family in itself. 

About the family, Jack Nicholson, Danny Lloyd in his only role, and Shelley Duvall are almost the only characters of this cabin fever masterpiece. Back when I started discovering films I used to think that Nicholson was the best actor of all time. Since, he always does his Nicholson thing in every role and I tend to think that he is more of an intense actor that plays more or so the same part. On the other side, Duvall, a cokehead of the Robert Altman gang, hated the director. Making her redo more than a hundred times the same scene over and over again she broke into tears probably as many times as she redid some scenes. There was a clear animosity between those two. Watch Vivien Kubrick’s (Stanley’s daughter) short shot on the sets to witness their sheer opposition. Her performance is good and I think it was probably what Kubrick wanted from her; she just doesn’t shine besides Mr. “over the top” Nicholson and is perfect persona for the Jack Torrance profile. The little Lloyd gives a good performance considering his once in a lifetime presence.

This brings our tour to my favorite scenes of The Shining. As you now must acknowledge, the writer of those lines is a strong defender of its prestige and the movie even made it to his “if they asked me” ballot of the 2012 Sight and Sound poll.

The first scene that I deeply love is the double scene in the Ballroom and the Men’s restroom discussion. The gold palette of the ballroom and the music that haunts this scene is superb. Then the red blood restroom is unsettling and the little camera trick that reflects the two actors.  I also like the fact that Kubrick uses exactly the same camera movements (tracking shots) when he enters in a room multiple times.

Another scene or sequence I cherish is the first visit of the Hotel where we discover for the entire sets. We have the luck to feel the last day of occupancy. Then it is closed for the winter and the mood drastically changes.

The third and final scene I’d like to highlight is the moment when Jack throws his ball against the wall and begins to be enchanted by the walls surrounding him. It is the last time we see Jack playing before he breakdown because of his novel. Except that time with the baseball bat, I guess.

Finally, it is quite a release to pen down this review, or small essay, or call it what you want, because I admire Stanley Kubrick very much and this film more than I would admit. Thinking about the many qualities and meanings of The Shining was very inspiring but also scary to try to express my admiration and the many aspects that must be regarded. Even if I’m more than sure I will have forgotten a thing or two I think that those 1300 plus words are what this self proclaimed film critic thinks about this Horror masterpiece.

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)

The films of Stanley Kubrick became the references of the modern day Cinema. He was the ultimate “auteur” within every genre he explored. Kubrick’s own particular vision and exploration of narratives characterizes his oeuvre. Subsequent viewings of all his films makes every experience richer and more meaningful to the spectator.

A Clockwork Orange may be the most famous film made by Stanley Kubrick, the ultra-violence depicted, the scandals, the banishments, and the aura around it makes it one of the most popular film of all-time. In this critics’ opinion, every Kubrick picture is a masterpiece. A Clockwork Orange is no less.

Alex (Malcolm McDowell) a young man lives by night getting high on “shakes”, violence, rape, and stealing. He dresses as a dandy by day and as some kind of punk with army boots and white clothes by night. As the leader of his droogs Alex fulfills their need in drugs, sex, and brawls. One day his lead of the gang needs to be reinforced, so he decides to give them a good lesson. Formed of three other droogs; his gang, evidently exasperated by Alex, plans a trick to be sure he will get in for good by a stronger authority than his mild mannered parents and the weird/pederast principal of his school to reform his behaviour. Later after ending up in prison, he’ll offer himself to get a treatment that cleans the brain from “bad” or “wrong” thoughts from his nature. He’ll then be able to get back into society with a normal/passive temperament. This treatment will dehumanize Alex and rehabilitate him to the society.

One part exposing Kubrick’s fear of America (he left New York for England because he was afraid of the violence and the nuclear menace in the USA) and one part the demonstration of the nature of humans that couldn’t be castrated or sedated. Humanity must have a choice of its actions and it should be moral. We can’t brainwash someone and erase his entire personality. Human nature is formed of good and evil and both must get into our minds to fully balance themselves. Sometimes in society we have to be clever and be better but other times we must fight and stand our guards. Be passive in some situations just makes us bland as sheep. The meanings of A Clockwork Orange are interesting and one must notice that this is a masterpiece as for its content so for its visuals.

Every frame of this film is composed of superb imagery and as a perfectionist as Kubrick was it shows how he took so much time working on a film refining a particular idea. The scene under the bridge where the droogs beat up a drunk bum is lit like a Film Noir with such a mastery that even if this is a cruel scene this is one of the most beautiful scenes of Cinema. Visually the colours, the frames and the movement of camera in A Clockwork Orange doesn’t have any flaws.

Adapted from Anthony Burgess’ novel by the same name, this feature is way much better than the original material and I think the same for Kubrick’s version of The Shining. The symbolism and the psychological/philosophical depth of Kubrick’s films can’t really be described, you have to see/live those films to fully appreciate every aspect of them all. The differences between Burgess and Kubrick are that the film success in bringing an entertaining story with the most unfriendly character ever presented. This is one of the most pessimistic films and one of the most ironic too. Nobody would want to live in this kind of world where everyone is ugly and inhuman. The dehumanization of Alex is done by vicious scientists and his rehabilitation is the action of political manipulations. Evil is everywhere and irony reigns. The roles switched in many cases, the writer who got beat up and got his wife raped by Alex and his gangs gets his revenge by torturing the mild dehumanized Alex without any remorse.

On a technical aspect, the use of classical music, especially Beethoven’s, Alex’s favourite compositor, sets the standard that Kubrick already did with 2001: A Space Odyssey. Those classical masterpieces were remixed and are characterized by the perfect use of music in films. When I hear Beethoven my mind automatically will remind me of the accelerated threesome scene, the record store just before, or the morning when Alex puts on music in his room. This is a celebration of the magnificence of Beethoven’s oeuvre. The first time we discover this film, the music of Beethoven makes a clash because this is such a beautiful, elegant, and passionate piece of art that Alex isn’t the type of individual who’ll connect with this kind of music. You would think that in this near future he would listen to some distorted guitar à la Black Sabbath or The Stooges, something dark and heavy, but still. Kubrick probably choose those masterpieces that transcended time and imagination, like his other pictures he needs something that doesn’t reflect a time period but that evokes and awakes many layers of emotions. A Clockwork Orange is an example of mastery in the use of a soundtrack and demonstrates how a score should fit with the imagery it presents.

Like any other masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange has its detractors. Some say it’s too violent, others say that it depicts a surreal world of nonsense and coldness. The violent aspect of the film is there and the weaker hearted may find some scenes unwatchable but still, this is a film that denounces this kind of gratuitous violence. On the other hand, sure this is a surreal world, this is a science-fiction movie that projected the world of tomorrow just like George Orwell’s 1984. The last argument of the detractors, the most justified in my opinion, is the cold approach of Kubrick towards the story and the characters. Kubrick is not a warm director and his characters are more pieces of chessboard than the players of a John Cassavetes movie. He uses them to tell the story. The objective of the camera always seems distant to the characters and they are shot with blissful movements of camera. It creates some sort of objectivity through the subjectivity of the story. Unlike Hitchcock, for example, we are not pulled into the story as the wrong man. We are the watchers of the story, Kubrick uses other tricks to interpel his public. His favourite director, Max Ophüls and his always moving camera influenced the work of Kubrick. The uncommon camera angles and unique framings destabilize the viewer in his experience.

As you may have guessed this is a film I love with passion. I have seen it a dozen times and each viewing has showed me a different aspect of the film. When I think about the perfect director I always put Stanley Kubrick in number one. Even if it’s not my favourite Kubrick or my favourite movie of all-time, A Clockwork Orange will always have a special place in my cinephile heart.

Top films of Stanley Kubrick by LMdC

Stanley KUBRICK

This unpretentious list of the Top films by me, Michaël Parent, a Historian of Cinema and wannabe film critic, is a personnal appreciation of the films of one of the first filmmakers I had the chance and/or availability to watch all his films. This "quest" is going on for many other directors around and you will see the fruits of these personnal quests through the reviews and tops to be posted here on Le Mot du Cinephiliaque.

Feel free to click on the links of the films from the top, they lead you to the so-called review of the film.

1. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2. The Shining (1980)
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
4. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
5. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
6. Paths of Glory (1957)
7. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
8. Barry Lyndon (1975)
9. Killer's Kiss (1955)
10. The Killing (1956)
11. Spartacus (1960)
12. Lolita (1962)
13. Day of the Fight (1951)
14. Fear and Desire (1953)
15. Flying Padre (1953)
16. The Seafarers (1953)

#4 Stanley Kubrick

Cinephiles who voted for Stanley Kubrick:
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Phil Concannon
Ed Howard
Jonathan Nadeau
Michaël Parent

Lists:
The Cinematheque
Digital Dreamdoor
Entertainment Weekly
FilmJournal
MovieMaker
nighthawknews
Sight & Sound 2002 Poll (critics)
Sight & Sound 2002 Poll (directors)
They Shoot Pictures Don't They?
Total Film

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

2001: A Space Odyssey is to me the quintessence of Cinema and visual art! So much has been written about the fourth best film of all time. (#1 Citizen Kane #2 Vertigo #3 La Règle du Jeu on the 1000 greatest films list of all time by They Shoot Pictures Don't They?). Easily the best Science-fiction film of all time, for many critics and maybe to me too it's considered as the best film of all time! However, to me Kubrick only made memorable films. And 2001... is one of the rare films that qualifies as perfect films. The story transcends Science-fiction and Cinema itself. Every second, every frame, every image of the film is unforgettable and untouchable. It won't be easy to rate this film...


The story told here is about humanity, its past, its near-present and its future. Having read the book by Arthur C. Clarke and having seen 2001... 5 times, I can say that everytime I rewatch it, I rediscover it and everytime it impresses me more than the last time. The rythm is so slow that it feels like the film was shot in slow-motion or like if the time stands still. Even if in the story there are millions of years of gap between some scenes. I agree that the story can annoy some viewers and the unnarrated parts are uncommon to some viewers that need to get explanations on what is going on the screen. I would recommend to these picky viewers to read the book to fully understand some of the subtil elements of the plot.

The classical tunes used in the soundtrack give so much depth to the images that it feels like a religious experience to watch an ear. Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra is now considered has a classic and could not be used without being a direct reference to 2001.... And the Blue Danube ballet has never been used in a better situation than in this film.

2001... has often been compared to its Soviet follower Andreï Tarkovsky's Solaris and I think that both are equally perfect films. Tarkovsky has always said he thought Kubrick's film was too cold and unhuman. This is an interesting argument, because in 2001... Kubrick opposes man against the machine, an old confrontation that always bothered creators of all time (Wegener's Der Golem, Shelley's Frankenstein, etc.). Human's creation becoming envious of its creator and trying to destroy its fatherhood. "The slave becomes the master"... I think the cold aspect of 2001... comes from the fact that it is so near the religious experience that it fells more than human. It's the story of humanity and its evolution and how it should become god-like.


Starting on the basis that Man created God to fill his spiritual emptiness. In the 20th Century, Nietszche exposed the idea that god is dead and that it is to humanity to take his place and role. His whole theory of Man accessing the "Superman" state. The grand finale of the film represents the "Superman" born to protect the planet earth. Kubrick's vision included the protection from a potential Nuclear war that already obsessed him as a theme he exploited in his earlier film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.


Well, the odyssey of 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey that takes its viewer in places that only the mind can go and that only 2001... can bring the mind in these places.