Monday, February 13, 2012

clairvoyance in 'the shining'




the clairvoyance in 'the shining' is always accompanied by krzysztof penderecki. this is the first vision danny has in the movie. we see images of blood, the two daughters, and we also see a visual representation of danny's fear. the sequence ends with the blood completely covering the screen, turning it to black. the next scene then starts with the doctor checking up on danny because he had fainted. we can't be sure if these are the images that danny saw or if the images he was actually seeing were far worse and this sequence was just kubrick's audio/visual representation of danny's vision. 

i love the abstract nature of the sequence; it's just flashes of images paired with creepy music, communicating a specific feeling that danny must be experiencing. it's close to how we actually imagine things, hazy and disjointed images accompanied by emotion that somehow makes sense to whoever is doing the imagining. since raw emotion can't really be communicated on screen, the best substitute is music. in this case, penderecki's music is the substitute for danny's dread, fear, etc. music/sound design should elicit emotion in movies, but it can't be too obvious in its purpose. kubrick really knew his shit.

1 comment:

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