The shining
The scene initially starts with a close up of the door and
an open lock, the doors design is wooden, this could tell us or give meaning
that the is something bad with in the room, because an upside down crucifix(
the basic design of the door) signifies evil and satin making the room appear dangerous
and evil. The unlocked door could be foreseeing that is going to happen later
on in the film, that they will have to or need to lock this door, the use of
mise-en-sen to me makes this scene seems negative and makes me think about what
is going to happen throughout the scene. The use of close ups in generic in the
horror genre not only to exaggerate a characters emotion but shown here to emphasize
the importance of the lock and upside-down crossed style door.
As Danny enters the room there is a close up zoomed out into
a mid-shot I think that this was done to emphasize the isolated nature of the
film I think that with the use of this shot Danny appears to be in danger and
seems to me to be almost trapped in that room this is also emphasised because
of the low key lighting in the room, this makes the room seems smaller and I think
that this was shot this way to almost drown the actor and the scene with the
fact that the film progressively persists in showing the isolation that the
family is in.
A quick camera pan to jack could show the shock of Danny
that his father is still awake, and the fact that jack isn’t facing the camera
he is glaring at the wall could indicate that he has been awake for some period
of time, the mise-en-sen shows this because jack is wearing a dressing gown
this backs up the idea of jack being awake for a period of time and hasn’t just
been woken up. The camera has jack completely in the middle of the shot this
could potentially indicate his level of sanity knowing later in the film that
he shifts slightly out of centre shot this could have been done purposely to
make the audience believe that jack, although staring at nothing, has some
aspects of sanity.
After the initial sight you have of jack in the bed room you
see him turn his head toward Danny (the camera) I thought that this gives the audience
an insight of what is going to happen in the film, I found that the slow head
turn as well as the non-diegetic high pitched strings that this action gave the
scene a unsettling feeling to it, like something was about to happen. Instantly
after this there is a jump cut to the other side of jack where you can see
jack, jacks reflection in the mirror and Danny, I think that the director did
this to maybe symbolise the split with in jack the line between sanity and insanity,
the idea being that you aren’t the person in the mirror the reflection in the
mirror is not you, I think that this was used well as you can see the lost
expression on the actors face but can also see the reaction of Danny this to me
gave the audience a clear insight of what either character was feeling
therefore letting me interpret what is going to happen next, this is a
convention of the horror genre; letting the audience imagine what is going to
happen, depending on your imagination this scene could potentially scare you
just with what you think is going to happen I think that this technique was
used thoughtfully and very well.
The camera stays in the same position and then jump cuts to a
mid-shot of jack looking at Danny, this shot doesn’t have the mirror reflection
in it and also features jack gesturing Danny where to go, almost like he is
reaching out to him and that his sanity is being restored because of the lack
of the mirror in the shot. The music throughout this scene is no-diegetic and
is repeated high pitched stings which is also a convention of the horror genre,
the music indicates that there is still danger in the scene, to me this makes
the scene still appear unnatural and creepy, the way that jack calls his son
over is also very unnatural, its very nerving the way that things are said, it’s
as if the character jack is using his words to taunt Danny or make Danny feel
uncomfortable, this performance really adds to the effect of the scene and gives
further meaning to the film, by the audience being able to detect abnormality’s
within a characters voice.
Danny walks into the shot slowly, like he is reluctant and
is placed on jacks knee slowly with no change in the facial expression of the
actors, this again could signify jacks insanity (repetitiveness is also a generic
convention of the horror genre) or the unnaturalness of the situation, the way
that both the characters are acting is almost like the character haven’t done
this before, because of the awkwardness shown, however as the scene progresses
jack seems to relax more and be more comfortable with what he is doing whereas
Danny has no expression and is tense making you think that its Danny that’s awkward
and doesn’t want to be in that situation, this makes you think that there could
be bad history between them or jack did something that Danny didn’t like. As this
progresses the camera jump cuts to face the front of the actors, the camera
also gets closer this could have been done so that you can see the emotional barrier
between the characters.
While the characters converse the non-diegetic music gets
higher in pitch and more repetitive, the make tune played over and over again,
this is a convention of the horror genre and I think that it was used to make
the conversation more and more intense like something is about to happen that
will make you jump but it doesn’t. within the conversation the character repeats
the words forever and ever and ever, these words are said earlier in the film
by two twin sister girls that were murdered in the hotel, this makes what he is
saying seem almost spine chilling, the repetition of the words creates for me a
tension because I know that Danny has heard what his dad is saying from two
dead girls, to me this makes this scene one of the best scenes in the film
because you can really start to depict the mentality of the character jack.
Molly Ryan.
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