Analysis of 'The Shining'

The Shining is brought together very well. The directors and characters have taken the everyday fears of their target audience and used them in the film to play on the consumers fears in order to help create tension and suspense. The setting of the hotel worked very well, as hotel's are usually linked back to this idea of safety, and because this movie plays on that stereotypical idea, it creates a high level of suspense. The director has places 3 vulnerable characters in this movie, a mother, father and their young son. This allows the audience to bond and relate to a wider range of characters.

This movie would be classified as a 'Thriller' due to the exciting plot, and this idea of having this fear of  the unknown. The clear evil characters, for example, Jack (The father) is seen as being the main cause of this, as we see the transformation of his character evolve throughout the movie, allowing the audience to distinguish the good characters from the bad by the end of the movie.

An effective technique that was used in this film was the use of 'Male gaze', this was used a number of times throughout. The most clear use of this technique is when Wendy, (the mother), is holding the baseball bat towards Jack, (the father), whilst backing away from him. This expresses the idea of 'Male gaze' due to the female character being portrayed as a strong woman in the position that she is expected to be most vulnerable. 

Sound was used in almost every minute of this movie, in order to help make the audience feel a certain way in each scene. The music used was very important as it was parallel to the actions taking place in every scene. An example being, when the camera is tracking Jack through the kitchen towards Danny and there was non-diagetic parallel sound being played. This sound was deep, loud and quite fast, making the audience feel worried for Danny. 

Mise-en-scene was used very well in this movie, as considerable thought went into the props used and the choice in costume for each character. For example, the colour of the walls in the bathroom are painted red, this foreshadows the danger ahead and could be a symbol for death. 

My group has gained a lot of inspiration from this movie from the use of tracking and quick shots, it allowed us to understand the importance of camera use and the large effects that they actually have in making us, as the audience, feel a specific way. We are going to think carefully on our choice of setting, as we want it to be somewhere that isn't cliche. Furthermore  the use of sound will have much thought put into it, much like the shining, we will use a lot of sound to help create a certain mood amongst the audience. Finally, the use of mise-en-scene, 'The Shining' helped us realise that the smallest detail in each shot counts, therefore, we will take this into consideration when filming and make sure that every little detail is thought about.