The Shining

The compositions of shot and the set design in The Shining harmonize on screen. Every shot you cant help but notice the complimenting colors, and detail, and the astounding symmetry. One example of the complimenting colors is when Wendy and Danny are seen in their room watching television; every color around them was nearly the same shade of brown. This goes for Wendy’s overalls, to Danny’s sweater, and for the chocolate milk. For some reason this delivers a weird feeling that I cannot describe. Almost every scene had incredible symmetry. When the actors were directly in the middle of the frame the furniture was in locations that complimented the position of the actor. An example of this is when Wendy and Danny were watching television. Kubrick pulled the camera back so the actors were at the bottom of the frame evenly distanced apart on the same furniture, while a cordless TV was directly in the middle of them, with great big windows also evenly dispersed. This happens several times in the film most notably in the larger areas where there is more furniture only making their placement that much more impressive. Kubrick also liked having singles shots last for long durations while the camera was moving with the actor, which made me feel like I was in the hotel as well. I believe this helped create atmosphere and subliminally convinced the viewer that this was a real living and breathing hotel, and worked much better than a fixed shot of the actors. The composition of scenes and the Kubrick’s incredible attention to detail was just stupendous, and helped make this film one of the greats.