The Shining:- Room 237 scene and Ending Photo scene

     The scene opens with a long shot of room 237. The mise-en-scene in this scene consists of beige walls, a green and blue swirl patterned carpet and lilac sofas. The lighting is high key, which seems abnormal for a film of the horror genre, and allows you to see everything that is happening. The camera pans 180 degrees, revealing an open door, leading into the bedroom. The camera is handheld, and moves through the door. The bedroom has the same colour scheme, but the bed has a black sheet with silver zigzags on it there is a door at the back of the room which is slightly ajar. This is the only scene in the film where the colour red is not used. This could be due to the fact that red is associated with meaning danger, whereas green and blue mean safety and trust, so it is as if what’s in the room is trying to lure people into the room, so they can injure them. The black sheets, however, imply death, evil and mystery. This relates to the dead people in the hotel, the evil presences and the mystery of what’s in the room with them. The fact that so far in the scene we haven’t seen who’s perspective we are seeing this from makes me intrigued, and makes me want to find out who it is, but also what’s in the room. The camera continues to move through the bedroom, and approaches the bathroom door. A hand emerges on the left of the screen, and pushes the door open.  We now have a full view of the bathroom, which is mostly green, continuing the false sense of security. There is a rule of thirds, with the bath at the back of the bathroom directly in the middle of the scene. The shower curtain is drawn exactly halfway. Although the green should suggest security, I don’t feel secure. The scene actually suggests that something bad is going to happen, rather than security. There is a cut to a mid shot of Jack, who looks shocked or awe struck. There is then an eye line match cut, which takes us back to the previous view of the bathroom. We can see a figure bathing in the bath. The figure pulls back the curtain, revealing it to be a naked, young looking woman. There is another cut to Jack who smiles eagerly. Another cut takes us back to the image of the bathroom, where the woman starts to stand up in the bath. The cut to Jack this time reveals he is still smiling smugly. The woman steps out of the bath, and the non-diagetic music suddenly increases as she does so, creating tension. There is another cut, which shows that Jack looks even smugger than before, and the cut back to the bathroom shows her walking towards the camera and she stops in the middle of the room. Currently, I feel confused as to whom this woman is, but also I get the gut feeling that this isn’t going to bode well. Jack starts walking towards the woman, who looks directly at him. They stand still, staring at each other for a few seconds, until they suddenly start touching each other and passionately kissing. There is a close up on both of their faces, but Jack’s face is more visible, and he looks like he’s enjoying it more than her.

    This scene opens with a long shot of ‘The Gold Room’ which is featured frequently throughout the film, and is the bar that Jack visits to get away with his family problems. The song ‘Midnight, The Stars and You’ is playing non-diagetically throughout the scene. The mise-en-scene in this scene is red pillars on both sides of the screen, almost bordering it, furniture covered in white tarp on each side, and gold curtains on the doors of the gold room. There is a sign saying ‘The Gold Room’ to the right of the door. The scene is almost symmetrical, which makes the scene look well made. The camera zooms slowly, revealing more about the mise-en-scene as it does so. As it zooms, the rule of thirds is used throughout the scene, first the curtain splits it into thirds, then the door. In the background, we can see 21 black and white pictures, these become more and more visible as the camera zooms in. Each picture has been hung perfectly, and all of the gaps between them are the same size, making the scene look neat. The camera keeps zooming, and only stops when there is an close up on the picture directly in the centre. The picture is of the guests of a ball in the gold room of the overlook hotel, but something seems off about this picture. There is then a cut, which takes us to an extreme close up of the picture, and we can now see the guests more clearly. Here, we notice that directly in the middle on the front row of people, is Jack Torrence. This confused me slightly, and made me wonder if Jack may have visited the overlook hotel before. Then, there is a cut to an even more extreme close up of Jack’s face in the picture. He is smiling and waving at the camera, with that creepy smile that the character is known for. His eyes seem to pierce into your soul, and he’s happy about that. The camera then tilts downwards, revealing the caption at the bottom of the picture. It reads: ‘Overlook Hotel, July 4^th Ball, 1921’. The camera stays on this briefly, then fades to black as the film ends. At this point, I think that this is impossible, because the film is set in the 1970s, so the character of Jack Torrence probably wouldn’t have even been born at that point in time, so surely he can’t be at a ball that happened over 50 years ago, not looking a day younger than in the rest of the film. Personally, I think this was a good way to end a film like this, with a plot twist that just destroys everything you thought you knew about the film, and it is a good way to mess with the viewer’s mind.