10 Best The Shining Moments
2. The Bathroom Scene
“You’ve always been the caretaker. I should know, Sir. I’ve always been here.”
After Jack’s insanity begins to manifest on the screen, we see him enter the golden ballroom which is inexplicably filled with well-dressed guests. This doesn’t bother Jack, who heads straight to the bar for a drink. As he begins dancing away to the music that is playing, he bumps into a waiter who spills advocaat down himself. The waiter guides Jack to the bathroom to get him cleaned up, and they enter a tomato-red bathroom which seems incredibly out of place with the grand 1920s-esque pink and gold design of the ballroom. It is here that Jack interrogates the waiter, whose name is Delbert Grady.
The conversation begins politely, Mr Grady treating Jack as a patron of the hotel, but it takes a turn when Grady begins talking about his daughters misbehaving, describing how he had to ‘correct’ them. He pushes Jack to do the same regarding his wife and child. This is ultimately the turning point from Jack being a bad-tempered man losing his mind to a genuine danger to his family. There is tension between the two men, their sly stares fixed on each other, their words suggestive and laced with dark intent. The drastic change in setting makes this moment stand out from what occurs in the rest of the movie – this bathroom is so out of place that it’s possible it isn’t even real. How much of this is fabricated by Jack’s imagination?
In this scene, and the one where Jack first sits at the bar and meets Lloyd, Jack is facing a mirror. There are mirrors opposite the bar, behind where the drinks would be, and mirrors in the bathroom. If you dismiss the idea of ghosts, it is likely that Jack was talking to himself in the mirror, treating his reflection as another person. This is also the case in room 237, where Jack encounters another ghostly presence in yet another bathroom. Kubrick often featured bathroom scenes in his films, especially at crucial or exposing moments for the characters. The bathroom is a naturally vulnerable space, emphasising the intimacy of the two characters’ interaction.
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1. The Staircase Scene
“You’ve had your whole fucking life to think things over. What good’s a few minutes more gonna do you now?”
Wendy is peering over the typewriter, fearful of what she has read. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is written over and over again, on countless sheets of paper.
This is what Jack has been working on, this is what he has so desperately been clutching to his concentration for. He hasn’t left the hotel, hasn’t spent any time with his family – all for this. It is truly terrifying to see the paper from Wendy’s perspective, the camera flicking between her hands and her face as she gathers speed, picking up more and more paper with the same words. She’s stopped by Jack, who we now understand has completely lost his mind.
Jack is terrifying. He’s mocking Wendy, barking his retorts to her whimpering statements as he backs her towards the staircase. As Wendy begins to ascend the stairs, she starts swinging the baseball bat she is holding at him, whilst he continues to slowly pursue her. His facial expressions and grabby hands are erratic, but the pace at which he chases Wendy is menacingly slow.
The true horror of this scene shines through in the performances of both Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall, who shot this scene an alleged 127 times. Duvall has mentioned how the stress of the role was so great that it affected her health, and that she cried so much during filming that she physically couldn’t produce tears anymore and had to keep water bottles around in order to rehydrate between takes. The matter of whether Kubrick was abusive to Duvall has long been a matter of contention, with those close to Duvall claiming that the rumours are false. Ethical or not, it resulted in one of the greatest scenes in cinema history.
Kubrick’s filmmaking prowess shines through expertly in this scene, the camera slowly advancing on Wendy, as if some sort of perverse realisation of Kubrick’s mistreatment of the actress personifying her, Duvall. The shot flicks between Jack and Wendy as they ascend the stairs, Jack reaching his arms out to snatch the camera, and Wendy swinging the bat right at us. We are placed in the middle of the action, unsure who is going to prevail in this slowly boiling disaster. Everything comes together perfectly – the shots, the music, the performances and the tension – to create the greatest moment in the greatest horror film of all time. It doesn’t get much better than this.
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The Shining continues to horrify audiences to this day, not losing it’s spark for a single second. Kubrick created a masterpiece with The Shining, redefining horror and creating an experience that offers so many details within every frame. It is a film that boasts truly terrifying scenes whilst still offering an intelligent and thought-provoking piece of art.
In a film so well crafted and so iconic as The Shining, there are plenty of other moments that very nearly made this list. Which moment makes your hair stand on end, or makes you shrink back in your seat? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to follow @thefilmagazine on Facebook and X (Twitter) for more insightful movie lists.
Written by Holly Carter
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