‘The Shining’ To Return To Theaters — Story Considered Autobiographical?
Only one day after author Stephen King’s 69th birthday, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has announced that they are sponsoring The Shining’s return to theaters for four showings in October at various theaters all across the country through Fathom Events. The Stanley Kubrick film will be shown as a two-day event on October 23 and 26 with an exclusive commentary by TCM’s host, Ben Mankiewicz.
Based on the horror novel of the same name, The Shining starred Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, a writer who takes the “easy” job as an off-season caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel while he tries to write the next great American novel. Along for the adventure was his wife (played by Shelley Duvall) and young son (Danny Lloyd) who had no idea what would be in store for the family. As Jack struggles with writer’s block, he becomes an alcoholic, starts to see weird things around the hotel, and slowly goes mad with murderous plans for this family.
Created three years after the novel was published, many have considered the 1980 Kubrick movie to be one of the best horror films ever made, but Stephen King himself was not a fan. According to Connor Adamson from Flick Chart, King felt that Kubrick had “entirely missed the point of his novel.”
Dir. Stanley Kubrick on the set of The Shining shooting the maze scene. pic.twitter.com/z7Q2lLHHuJ
— The Cinegogue (@TheCinegogue) September 21, 2016
Many of the events featured in the original novel would be autobiographical. King’s inspiration for The Shining came when he and his wife visited The Stanley Hotel in Boulder, Colorado, during the winter when the place was virtually empty. It was also during this time that King was struggling with alcoholism and was “privately terrified” about his own anger toward his kids.
In 1997, ABC featured another adaptation of The Shining as a three-part mini-series that starred Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay. Unlike the 1980 movie, Stephen King personally oversaw this project and many of the scenes of the mini-series were actually filmed at the Stanley Hotel. This version stretched to the story to six hours of air time.
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Stephen King’s first hardback bestseller is currently playing as an opera in Minnesota. According to NPR, The Shining opera, created by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell, was too good to pass up.
“Stephen King’s original novel is all about love, death and power. And those are the three foundational components for an opera,” said Moravec.
“It’s just part of our popular culture,” he says. “So we have to make sure that the pace of the opera, and the telling of the opera, doesn’t sit too long in one place — because the audience is already ahead of you.”
If it takes an opera version of The Shining for me to visit Minnesota for the first time, then so be it https://t.co/BRNoaZtzyc
— Nadia Neophytou (@NadiaNeophytou) May 25, 2016
The Minnesota Opera has found success in creating operas based on popular books and plays and The Shining is most recent adaptation. Other shows have been based on The Grapes of Wrath, Silent Night, and Doubt.
“If we get more people into the opera house because of the familiarity,” Moravec said, “and expose them to new and exciting and challenging music, we all win by that.”
But unless you are planning to visit Minnesota soon, you’ll need to settle to the theatrical release. The Shining will be shown at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on October 23, and at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on October 26. For tickets, theater locations, and more information, visit the Fathom Events website.
[Featured Image by Elise Amendola/AP Photos]
