Tuesday 26 January 2010

How is suspense crteated in The Shining





How is suspense created in The Shining?

The film The Shining is a 1980 psychological modern horror masterpiece directed by Stanley Kubrick and is based on the Stephen King novel called The Shining. The film is about a caretaker called Jack Torrance and his wife Wendy and Physic child Danny. Jack aspects a job supervising a hotel for the winter; as his family get use to there new home, paranormal things begin to happen uncontrollably. This makes Jack want to murder his entire family.
Suspense is created in this film through different technical elements to amplify the drama going on around it. For an example:- when the black character return back to the hotel to help Danny and his mother Wendy. The use of non digetic music made the suspense of his death more sinister. The cut leading up towards his death was lengthy, this made the sense gripping. Also the return of the Black character showed a stereotype “the black guy dies first.” The filming shots towards the build up to his were done well. The use of medium long shots played well with the background music. The music and the shot types lead up well to display his death. As the rhyme of the music intensified the faster the cut types were. Until it the views witnessed his death; a cut on action shot was used. The audience saw Jack raise the axe, and then jumped to an extreme close up the weapon, then the weapon striking him. The slow start of this sense directed the brutal dramatic ending of the character.
Though the music was the same through out the film, the pitch of it changed due to what was happening in the sense. This made it slightly boring if you were aware of this happening, because you would know when the music was bound to come. Even though the music was a down fall for the film; the film had great camera shots which made it fit into its genre “modern thrill.”

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