shining

1. Ms. Jordan Parkhurst
Girton College
14 March, 2018
Film Criticism
MPhil in Film and Screen Studies
Dr. Henry Miller
Expectation and Reputation: How Kubrick’s The Shining Rose from Critical
Derision to the Canon
Chicago Style
4448 words

2. 1
The critics of 1980 were not kind to Stanley Kubrick’s now-acclaimed film, The
Shining. “More boring—and on a couple of occasions downright embarrassing—than
anything else,” writes critic Gene Siskel in his review for the Chicago Tribune.1 While his
comments may seem insignificant and even comical in light of the film’s current pop culture
status and its constant praise in “best of” compilations (AFI’s “100 Years… 100 Thrills,”
Roger Ebert’s Great Movies, Sight and Sound’s “Directors’ Top 100 List,” etc.), they actually
denote the early stages of a cultural phenomenon involving The Shining and a small handful
of other films that have risen unexpectedly from critical aversion to become part of the
accepted film canon. By 1980, Stanley Kubrick was already a celebrated figure in the
cinematic world and had earned his reputation for perfectionism with visually stunning and
meticulously crafted works, like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange
(1971). And while many of his films—particularly the abovementioned—often polarised
critics upon their releases, none of Kubrick’s work had so seriously disappointed as did The
Shining, which was seen contemporarily as a striking professional failure.
With the well-established commercial success of the film’s source material—
Stephen King’s 1977 novel of the same name—came further audience expectations for the
narrative structure and tone of the film, both of which Kubrick wholeheartedly flouted by
removing much exposition, changing the narrative’s ending, and refusing to adhere to typical
cinematic conventions of telling ghost stories. Because of these unexpected choices, the film
affronted not only those who valued explicit textual fidelity in their filmic adaptations, but it
also stunned critics expecting a typical horror movie, which was admittedly promised through
the film’s promotion and ultimately not delivered. (See Figure 1) Because of this subversion
of genre conventions, combined with the unmet expectations that stemmed from both
Kubrick’s established reputation and the element of literary adaptation, the film was
1 Gene Siskel, “New this Week,” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1980, 8.

3. 2
immediately maligned. It appeared that, as Sight & Sound critic Richard Combs writes, “The
Kubrick magic for holding both audiences and critics in thrall seems to have come unstuck.”2
However, despite this apparent formula for failure, this essay will argue that it was
also these factors that allowed for the film’s rise to the cinematic canon, where it remains
situated. With the use of several works of André
Bazin that discuss the problematic natures of
auteurism and literary adaptation, combined in
part with Janet Staiger’s “The Politics of Film
Canons,” I will argue that this phenomenon of
hatred and subsequent ascension, in the case of
The Shining, is rooted in critical expectations and
their eventual dissipation as audience-fuelled
commercial praise emerged and dominated the
film’s popular perception.
As a cofounder of the seminal Cahiers du
Cinéma, André Bazin was a major proponent and
first-hand witness of the rise of auteurism as it became an internationally recognised school
of cinematic thought and a primary method of evaluating films by both the literary elite and
the more casual reviewers. However, unlike many of his colleagues, Bazin was not an
absolutist in regards to the concept of quality deriving from directorial reputation and the
merits of past work. In his essay, “La Politique des auteurs,” Bazin writes that, while he does
believe “to a certain extent in the concept of the auteur,” he is reluctant to indulge in the
fierce hatred or unfettered adoration of a film based solely on the director’s status, as he finds
that “the work transcends the director,” a claim he says colleagues François Truffaut and Éric
2 Richard Combs, “The Shining archive review: a whole new Kubrick?,” Sight & Sound,
November, 1980.
Figure 1

4. 3
Rohmer dispute.3 Further, Bazin states, “It is unfortunate to praise a film that in no way
deserves it, but the dangers are less far-reaching than when a worthwhile film is rejected
because its director has made nothing good up to that point.”4 In addition to these two issues
that Bazin identifies, a third concern, which he does not explicitly consider but indeed
implies within his essay, exists: the possible rejection of a director as an auteur when a piece
of work does not seem to cohere with their existing oeuvre. Of course, a true auteurist would,
as Bazin notes, blame their own critical senses when “discern(ing) a decline” in the work of
an established auteur, a tendency Bazin finds “fruitful.”5 But in much the same way that
elements of high fashion trickle down to more accessible markets, auteurism, while still
discussed among film theorists, became over the following decades a common facet of
informal film criticism, though perhaps in a somewhat diluted form that ignores Bazin’s
contestations. Therefore, this self-reflexive and forgiving practice of which Bazin speaks is
often forgotten, leading to the critical disrepute of previously adored directors.
Though the occurrence of this rejection is rare and, of course, never a unanimous
consensus, the auteurist belief in art’s inability to “transcend” its creator can lead to the
rejection of a director as a result of a perceived outlier film: if art cannot transcend its creator
and that art is “bad,” the creator must also be “bad.” Such was the case with The Shining in
1980. Because, as Bazin says, “the yardstick applied to the film is the aesthetic portrait of the
film-maker deduced from his or her previous films,” critics were quick to compare this film
with his already beloved works and deem it inferior.6 In his New York Daily News review
from May 23rd, 1980, critic Ernest Leogrande calls the film “pointless” and writes, “With the
formidable amount of technical work represented by this movie, it’s painful to see it produce
3 André Bazin, “La Politique des auteurs,” [1957], in The French New Wave: Critical
Landmarks. (London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film Institute, 2009), 131.
4 Ibid., 145.
5 Ibid., 142.
6 Ibid., 144.

5. 4
so little and such a sorry contrast with preceding works like ‘Dr. Strange,’ ‘Lolita,’ ‘2001’
and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (the sadistic violence of which had a point). This is not Kubrick’s
finest hour.”7 Similarly, Sight & Sound’s Combs took the time to praise these past works,
asserting that they “offered food for both critical exegesis and popular entertainment, tackling
‘important’ subjects that happened to coincide with commercial vogues: anti-establishment
satire, mind-blowing star roving, social banditry and social engineering,” which he believes
The Shining does not.8 Perhaps most damningly, Gary Arnold of The Washington Post writes,
“At this melancholy point in his career, Kubrick seems incapable of begging, borrowing or
stealing an effective brainstorm,” demonstrating the exact antithesis of Bazin’s “fruitful”
auteurist ideals.9
In these instances, and in many more reviews written contemporaneously, critics
demonstrate their corrupted auteurist tendencies by telling readers that this film, rather than
being simply uninteresting or average, is bad as a Stanley Kubrick film—that, ultimately,
Stanley Kubrick failed. Of this kind of criticism, Bazin also writes, “In other words, all they
want to retain in the equation auteur plus subject = work is the auteur, while the subject is
reduced to zero.”10 Though these reviews do, of course, address the film’s plot, the discussion
often devolves—notably in the aforementioned Arnold review—into an essay meant to
condemn Kubrick at every turn: “I’m not sure what Kubrick and his great cinematographer,
John Alcott, thought this lighting scheme would accomplish,” “Kubrick resorts to a rattling,
banging score (mooged-up selections from Bartok, Ligeti, Penderecki and others),” etc.11
Based on the frequency and conviction of these kinds of negative reviews, it would appear
7 Ernest Leogrande, “The Shining’s a no-glow show,” New York Daily News, May 23, 1980.
8 Combs, “The Shining archive review: a whole new Kubrick?”
9 Gary Arnold, “Kubrick’s $12 Million Shiner,” Washington Post, June 13, 1980.
10 Bazin, “La Politique des auteurs,” 142.
11 Arnold, “Kubrick’s $12 Million Shiner.”

6. 5
that The Shining was destined for long-term disdain as the film that demonstrated Kubrick’s
artistic fallibility or merely a film lost to obscurity.
However, though The Shining may have had quite a dissimilar reception had it been
directed by someone with a different cultural status, it is also, I believe, because of Stanley
Kubrick’s presence that the film is now considered a canonical work. In part because of the
dilution that befell auteurism as it grew in popularity, most critics were quick to write off The
Shining because of its differences from prior Kubrick films; but interestingly, the public was
not so hasty in their dismissal, coincidentally adhering to Bazin’s point that “when one is
dealing with a genius, it is always a good method to presuppose that a supposed weakness in
a work of art is nothing other than a beauty that one has not yet managed to understand.”12
The general public was not put off by the negative criticism and may have even grown more
intrigued as a result of it. After grossing 44.4 million dollars in the United States—notably
placing it above fellow 1980 horror film, Friday the 13th—the film’s rampant presence in pop
culture began almost immediately, with jokes about the film appearing in episodes of popular
shows like Mork and Mindy (1978-1982) and elements being borrowed in new B-horror films
like Madhouse (O. Assonitis, 1981), Nightmare (R. Scavolini, 1981), and Madman (J.
Giannone, 1981). Initially because of Stanley Kubrick’s reputation and later because of the
film’s own merits, the public’s interest remained intact after the film’s negative publicity and
only grew as more people saw it, keeping the film alive in the realm of popular culture and
allowing for its eventual critical reassessment in the following years.
One rare critic, the aforementioned Richard Combs of Sight & Sound, who himself
was ambivalent towards the film upon its release, foretold The Shining’s fate, writing, “The
Shining, finally, is an iceberg that may in time prove to be one of the great Kubricks (with
12 Bazin, “La Politique des auteurs,”144.

7. 6
Paths of Glory, Lolita and Barry Lyndon), or may be the start of a whole new Kubrick.”13
Yet, even in this positive statement, the flaws of auteurism appear, with Combs eliminating
the film’s attributes entirely in his theories and reducing the work to merely the director.
Bazin asks, “All works of art, from the Venus de Milo to the African mask, did in fact have
an auteur…. But did one really have to wait for such erudite addenda before being able to
admire and enjoy them?”14 Further to this line of questioning, I ask: does one have to adhere
to this “addenda” when it is known? For The Shining, the name attached, the “signature at the
bottom of the painting,” was both harmful towards and essential for its reputation and is,
therefore, an inescapable part of its historical reception.
Another unavoidable element when analysing The Shining’s journey from disgrace to
admiration is the factor of adaptation and the debate regarding the value of textual fidelity.
Unlike Kubrick’s past adaptations, the film’s development coincided exactly with the source
material’s release and success; the film was publicly discussed for the first time in January of
13 Combs, “The Shining archive review: a whole new Kubrick?”
14 Bazin, “La Politique des auteurs,”133.
Figure 2: Still from the original 1980 trailer

8. 7
1977, the same month that King’s book was published.15 Therefore, when the film was
released, the commercial success of this novel was still quite fresh, as were the impressions it
left on readers. And because of the film’s unambiguous affiliation—keeping the title,
explicitly mentioning the novel in the film’s advertisements, etc.—high expectations for
textual loyalty existed and allowed for the possibility of condemnation in the event of
unfaithfulness. (See Figure 2) Further prompting this kind of comparison-based dismissal
was the writer of the novel, Stephen King himself, who has been perhaps the most vocal
critic of Kubrick’s and Diane Johnson’s adapted screenplay. Despite having allegedly agreed
that Kubrick “could adapt the story to his heart’s content” and being initially “very happy that
(he) would be making a film out of his book,” King conducted a veritable press campaign
against the film as it was released, asserting at one point, “I think he wants to hurt people
with this movie. I think that he really wants to make a movie that will hurt people.” 16,17 With
this absolute and aggressively exhibited disapproval, King invited warmly the criticism of the
film, which emerged in abundance from reviewers.
Regardless of their opinions on King’s work itself, critics seized this opportunity,
mourning the elements of the novel that were neglected by Kubrick and plainly dismissing
any additions. Variety critic Jim Harwood maligns the differences in his review, stating,
“With everything to work with, director Stanley Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack
Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King’s bestseller. In his book,
King took a fundamental horror formula — an innocent family marooned in an evil dwelling
with a grim history — and built layers of ingenious terror upon it…. But Kubrick sees things
15 Tim Gray, “‘The Shining’ Anniversary: Stanley Kubrick & His Mysterious Classic,”
Variety, May 23, 2016.
16 Samuel Wigley, “Producing The Shining: Jan Harlan on Kubrick,” British Film Institute,
June 1, 2015.
17 Roger Luckhurst, The Shining. (London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film
Institute, 2013), 8.

9. 8
his own way, throwing 90% of King’s creation out.”18 Certainly this is an exercise in
overstatement, but, nonetheless, this review represents the sentiments of many critics; Gary
Arnold of the Washington Post similarly writes, “While retaining the outline of King's
hauntedhouse [sic] fable, Kubrick obscures or weakens most of the underlying psychological
turmoil and minimizes the sinister possibilities in the setting,” despite finding the novel itself
“hokey.”19
Here, what on the surface seem to be legitimate, though hyperbolic, assessments of
the film’s perceived shortcomings are actually condemnations of change and of unfamiliar
material. Bazin, in his essay, “In Defence of Mixed Cinema,” writes about this kind of
criticism, along with the ultimate incomparability of the written word and the visual image
and the symbiotic relationship that the mediums share. In the latter work, Bazin discusses
these topics at length, citing Christian-Jacque’s 1948 adaptation of La Chartreuse de Parme
as an example of film and literature’s beneficial relationship, which, despite the obvious
differences between Stendhal and King, does still hold up:
The drama of adaptation is the drama of popularization…. Shall we…condemn the
film by Christian Jacque? Yes, to the extent that he has been false to the essence of
the novel and wherever we feel that this betrayal was not inevitable. No, if we take
into consideration first of all that this adaptation is above the average film level in
quality and secondly that, all things considered, it provides an enchanting introduction
to Stendhal's work and has certainly increased the number of its readers…. After all,
(adaptations) cannot harm the original in the eyes of those who know it, however little
18 Jim Harwood, “Film Review: The Shining,” Variety, 1980.
19 Arnold, “Kubrick’s $12 Million Shiner.”

10. 9
they approximate to it….No, the truth is, that culture in general and literature…have
nothing to lose from such an enterprise.20
In this passage, Bazin highlights the ultimate futility of evaluating the filmic text based on the
literary text, a practice still regularly employed in regards to modern cinema. However, in
regards to The Shining, time has allowed for this divorcing of the two texts in the eyes of
critics. In 2016, on the 36th anniversary of the film’s American release, Variety critic Tim
Gray writes of the “Mysterious Classic,” discussing its non-traditional path to acclaim and
the film’s relation to the novel. In this discussion, Gray quotes “The Overlook Hotel” fan-site
founder and Oscar-winning director, Lee Unkrich, writing, “Unkrich says, ‘Stanley used the
novel as a springboard. You can’t look at it as an adaptation. They’re in the same airspace,
but the characters are so different.’ King wrote about a normal family that began slowly
disintegrating; Kubrick showed a family that was a ticking time-bomb of dysfunction from
the very start.”21
This “airspace” that Unkrich mentions is referred to by Bazin as a shared “essence” or
“spirit” between two works which matters in adaptation more than the exact text—though it
still has no bearing on the objective quality of a film. Further to this concept of the “essence,”
Bazin continues on in “In Defence of Mixed Cinema” to write about Jean Renoir’s
adaptations of Madame Bovary (1934) and Une Partie de campagne (1946), which Bazin
asserts are “more faithful to the spirit than the letter.”22 He writes, “What strikes us about the
fidelity of Renoir is that paradoxically it is compatible with complete independence from the
original. The justification for this is of course that the genius of Renoir is certainly as great as
that of Flaubert or Maupassant.”23 Although King’s novel is quite different than the works of
20 André Bazin, “In Defence of Mixed Cinema,” in What is Cinema?. (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1967), 65.
21 Gray, “'The Shining' Anniversary: Stanley Kubrick & His Mysterious Classic.”
22 Bazin, “In Defence of Mixed Cinema,” 66-67.
23 Ibid., 67.

11. 10
Flaubert or Maupassant, the point Bazin makes here rings true; Kubrick’s work stands on its
own and is, in a sense, a good adaptation because of its equal or greater quality in relation to
its source material.
An interesting contrast to this situation is the second adaptation of King’s novel; years
after Kubrick’s adaptation, the embittered Stephen King decided to write his own screenplay,
which was made into a televised miniseries in 1997. The adaptation was indeed faithful to the
text, complete with hedge animals, an epilogue showing a ghost version of Jack at Danny
Torrance’s graduation, and lines like, “Sorry’s for wimps, for people who aren’t—aren’t—
who aren’t of managerial timbre!” at the climax of Jack’s mania. (See Figures 3 and 4) With
the release of The Shining documentary, Room 237 (R. Ascher, 2012), came another
retrospective article on Kubrick’s adaptation, in which The New Republic’s David Thomson
assesses this later version, writing “(King) believed that Kubrick and his screenwriter, the
novelist Diane Johnson, had spoiled his book. So he remade the project himself… watching
that the director didn’t get it wrong…. It was scary in a conventional way—it felt like
Figure 3: Steven Weber as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1997)

12. 11
Stephen King—but it wasn’t good enough to surpass Kubrick’s film.”24 A testament to this
assertion is the work’s modern absence from public consciousness despite its initial praise for
Figure 4: The ghost of Jack Torrance at Danny’s graduation, The Shining (1997)
its adherence to the text, supporting the Bazinian assertion that a “word-by-word translation”
is “worthless.”25 Ultimately, what this failed experiment tells us is that Kubrick’s
amendments to the narrative worked and are inextricably responsible, at least in part, for the
long-term success of his adaptation, despite their initial dismissal.
The last component I wish to discuss in relation to The Shining’s reception is the
film’s genre categorisation. As mentioned earlier in this essay, Kubrick’s advertising
campaign for this film guaranteed “a masterpiece of modern horror”—a phrase which, at the
time, conjured images of recent hits, like The Exorcist (W. Friedkin, 1973), Halloween (J.
Carpenter, 1978), The Amityville Horror (S. Rosenberg, 1979), The Omen (R. Donner, 1976),
and the adored adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie (B. De Palma, 1976). Indeed, several of
these works and their creators are mentioned in The Shining’s reviews as superior films and
more capable directors of horror. In a discussion of the film and Kubrick more generally,
24 David Thomson, “Why ‘The Shining’ Continues to Shine,” New Republic, March 22,
2013.
25 Bazin, “In Defence of Mixed Cinema,” 67.

13. 12
Sight & Sound writer P.L. Titterington writes, “Judged simply as a horror film, or even a
thriller, The Shining appears an odd exercise,” and cites The Times critic David Robinson as
boldly commenting that Carpenter or De Palma could have made comparable films in a few
months.26
Much in the same way that critics saw The Shining as a bad Stanley Kubrick film,
critics also initially saw The Shining as a mere failure within its genre because of its
departures from established horror tropes and practices, as well as its apparent infidelity to
the spooky and kitschy traditions that had become so beloved. Far removed from the classic
horror visuals—long shadows, dark stairwells, dimly lit rooms—established even in early
films like Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) and The Phantom of the Opera (R. Julian, 1925),
The Shining’s bright and colourful atmosphere is, though a cosmetic element, a common
starting point for genre-related criticism. (See Figures 5 and 6) In her review entitled
“Devolution,” esteemed New Yorker critic Pauline Kael unabashedly expresses her
disappointment in the film’s divergences, writing:
It took nerve, or maybe something more like hubris, for Kubrick to go against all
convention and shoot most of this gothic in broad daylight.…There isn’t a dark comer
anywhere… But the conventions of gothics are fun. Who wants to see evil in daylight,
through a wide-angle lens? We go to The Shining hoping for nasty scare effects and
for an appeal to our giddiest nighttime [sic] fears—vaporous figures, shadowy
places.... Clearly, Stanley Kubrick isn’t primarily interested in the horror film as scary
fun or for the mysterious beauty that directors such as Dreyer and Murnau have
brought to it.27
26 P.L. Titterington, “Kubrick and ‘The Shining’,” Sight & Sound, Spring, 1981.
27 Pauline Kael, “Devolution,” The New Yorker, June 9, 1980, 130-132.

14. 13
In short, because The Shining did not obviously correspond to the pre-existing films—
particularly the nascent batch—regarded as canonical within the horror genre, it was difficult
for critics to accept as a successful work with the category.
Janet Staiger, in her essay, “The Politics of Film Canons,” helps to explain this
situation of exclusivity and the often conservative nature of canons, writing, “The idea of
‘Renaissance painting’ or ‘realist drama’ or ‘American horror films’ provides a grip on a
large and historically specific group of objects. Yet, very often, only a select set of works are
given as examples of a group with these becoming not merely typical instances, but
exemplaries.”28 Because The Shining was not typical, it could not be, in the eyes of then-
tastemakers, “exemplary” of the genre. Staiger also notes that this system, in addition to
defining cultural preferences, has the tendency to “suppress a number of interesting questions
about styles, genres, national movements, and the relation between signifying practices and
groups of people.”29 Ultimately, however, The Shining escaped this suppression, because its
28 Janet Staiger, “The Politics of Film Canons,” Cinema Journal 24, no. 3 (1985), 9-10.
29 Ibid., 11.
Figure 5: Nosferatu (1922)

15. 14
innovative spirit was met with enthusiasm by the public, whose zest quickly spread to the
critical realm. Roger Luckhurst, in his book on the film writes, “Kubrick’s relationship to the
horror genre was soon grasped in a different way by more reflective critics,” who noted that
the film “seemed to have a parodic or subversive approach, turning Gothic conventions on
their head, locating the horror not in supernatural threats to the nuclear family but erupting
from its domestic heart.”30
While the latter portion of this passage is true in some respects, it’s important to note,
as well, that Kubrick did in fact include elements of supernatural horror, albeit through
cinematic methods that were not initially understood by critics. When Kubrick died, Sight &
Sound writer Jonathan Romney wrote something of a eulogy, entitled “Stanley Kubrick 1928-
1999: Resident Phantoms.” In this piece, Romney discusses the nuances of The Shining and
gives insight into the process behind its creation. He writes that, when adapting King’s novel,
Diane Johnson and Kubrick referred heavily to Sigmund Freud’s essay, “The Uncanny,”
which defines its titular phrase as “‘that class of the frightening which leads back to what is
known of old and long familiar.’ Or… ‘something which ought to have remained hidden but
30 Luckhurst, The Shining, 9.
Figure 6: The Shining (1980)

16. 15
which is brought to light.’”31 Romney directly connects this principle to the photograph at the
end of the film, asking, “But if his picture has been there all along, why has no one noticed
it? When you do see it, the effect is so unsettling because you realise the unthinkable was
there under your nose…the whole time.”32 In addition to this element of psychological
horror, other Freudian concepts of the uncanny appear, as well, including repetition, mirrors,
the undead, twins, recurring images, and retracing steps—components which, largely because
of this film, are cemented as tropes within the horror genre.33
Because The Shining’s primary elements of horror are subtler than prior canonical
horror films and because they are based in acute discomfort as much as fear, this film did not
seem at first to be the “masterpiece of modern horror” Kubrick proclaimed it to be. However,
as with the previously discussed factors, this widespread viewpoint was re-evaluated after the
film’s warm audience reception and commercial success. As early as 1987, critics began to
appreciate the film’s revolutionary approach to a tired genre, increasingly viewing it in the
same light as prior Kubrick works.34 Today, The Shining‘s reputation has far transcended the
works with which it was once compared, outstripping Carrie and Halloween to become not
only a classic of horror but also a classic of modern film.
In a 2015 interview with Kubrick’s brother-in-law and producer of The Shining, Jan
Harlan, he summarises what occurred in relation to this film’s reception. Harlan says, “The
film wasn’t particularly well received in the beginning because people who expected a real
horror film were disappointed because there was no resolution. People who expected a good
Stanley Kubrick film (a serious matter!), they were disappointed because it wasn’t a terribly
31 Jonathan Romney, “Stanley Kubrick 1928-99 Resident Phantoms,” Sight & Sound,
September, 1999.
32 Ibid.
33 Gray, “‘The Shining’ Anniversary: Stanley Kubrick & His Mysterious Classic.”
34 Tim Cahill, “The Rolling Stone Interview: Stanley Kubrick in 1987,” Rolling Stone,
August 27, 1987.

17. 16
serious film. He had to live with that.”35 Legendary critic Stanley Kauffmann was still
complaining seven years after the film’s release, writing in a review of Full Metal Jacket
(1987) that “The Shining grabbed sweatily for pseudo-profundities in a gimmicky horror
story.”36 Nonetheless, this negativity is almost entirely forgotten today, replaced in the public
consciousness with fan theories about the film and a general sense of its importance in
popular culture. Because of Kubrick’s risks and refusals to cater to critical expectations, the
film was hated and is now loved, and its journey from one pole to the other is a fascinating
case study in the dangers of expectation and the importance of reconsideration.
35 Wigley, “Producing The Shining: Jan Harlan on Kubrick.”
36 Stanley Kauffmann, “Blank Cartridge: A review of Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal
Jacket”,” New Republic, July 27, 1987.

18. 17
Bibliography
Arnold, Gary. “Kubrick’s $12 Million Shiner.” Washington Post, June 13, 1980.
Bazin, André. “In Defence of Mixed Cinema.” Essay. In What is Cinema?, translated by
Hugh Gray, 53–75. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1967.
Bazin, André. “La Politique des auteurs.” In The French New Wave: Critical Landmarks,
130-48. London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film Institute. 1957.
Cahill, Tim. “The Rolling Stone Interview: Stanley Kubrick in 1987.” Rolling Stone, August
27, 1987.
Combs, Richard. “The Shining archive review: a whole new Kubrick?” Sight & Sound,
November, 1980.
Gray, Tim. “‘The Shining’ Anniversary: Stanley Kubrick & His Mysterious Classic.”
Variety, May 23, 2016.
Harwood, Jim. “Film Review: ‘The Shining’.” Variety, 1980.
Kauffmann, Stanley. “Blank Cartridge: A review of Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal
Jacket”.” New Republic, July 27, 1987.
Kael, Pauline. “Devolution.” The New Yorker, June 9, 1980.
Leogrande, Ernest. “‘The Shining’ a no-glow show.” New York Daily News, May 23, 1980.
Luckhurst, Roger. The Shining. BFI Film Classics. London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of
the British Film Institute. 2013.
Romney, Jonathan. “Stanley Kubrick 1928-99 Resident Phantoms.” Sight & Sound,
September, 1999.
Staiger, Janet. “The Politics of Film Canons.” Cinema Journal 24, no. 3 (1985): 4–23.
doi:10.2307/1225428.
Thomson, David. “Why ‘The Shining’ Continues to Shine.” New Republic, March 22, 2013.
Titterington, P. L. “Kubrick and ‘The Shining’.” Sight & Sound, Spring, 1981.
Siskel, Gene. “New this Week.” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1980.
Wigley, Samuel. “Producing The Shining: Jan Harlan on Kubrick.” British Film Institute.
June 1, 2015.

19. 18
Works Consulted
Baudry, Jean-Louis, and Alan Williams. “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic
Apparatus.” Film Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1974): 39–47. doi:10.2307/1211632.
Bazin, André. “For an Impure Cinema: In Defence of Adaptation.” Essay. In What is
Cinema?, translated by Timothy Barnard. Montreal: Caboose. 2009.
Bazin, André. “How Could You Possibly Be a Hitchcocko-Hawksian?.” In Howard Hawks,
American Artist, 32-34. London: Palgrave Macmillan on behalf of the British Film
Institute. 1995.
Ebert, Roger. “The Shining.” In The Great Movies III. University of Chicago Press. 2010.
Fisher, Mark. “What Is Hauntology?” Film Quarterly 66, no. 1 (2012): 16–24.
doi:10.1525/fq.2012.66.1.16.
Hantke, Steffen. “Academic Film Criticism, the Rhetoric of Crisis, and the Current State of
American Horror Cinema: Thoughts on Canonicity and Academic Anxiety.” College
Literature 34, no. 4 (2007): 191–202. doi:10.1353/lit.2007.0045.
Hofsess, John. “The Shining.” The Washington Post, June 1, 1980.
Jameson, Fredric. “Historicism in The Shining.” In Signatures of the Visible, 112–34.
Abingdon: Routledge. 1992.
Jameson, Richard T. “Kubrick’s Shining.” Film Comment, July/August, 1980.
Kroll, Jack. “Stanley Kubrick’s Horror Show.” Newsweek Magazine, June 2, 1980.
Malcolm, Derek. “From the archive, 2 October 1980: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining -
review.” The Guardian, October 2, 1980.
Maslin, Janet. “The Shining.” The New York Times, May 23, 1980.
Mayersberg, Paul. “The Shining.” Sight & Sound, Winter, 1980.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Placing Movies: The Practice of Film Criticism. University of
California Press. 1995.
Schickel, Richard. “Cinema: Red Herrings and Refusals.” Time, June 2, 1980.
Thomas, Kevin. “Kubrick’s ‘Shining’: A Freudian’s Picnic.” Los Angeles Times, May 23,
1980.
Tierney, Matt. “True to the Spirit.” Film Criticism 37, no. 2 (2012): 67–71.
Truffaut, François. “A Certain Tendency in French Cinema.” Cahiers du Cinéma (31), 1954.
Wexman, Virginia Wright. “Evaluating the Text: Canon Formation and Screen
Scholarship.” Cinema Journal 24, no. 2 (1985): 62–65. doi:10.2307/1225367.

20. 19
Worland, Rick. “Politics, Film Studies, and the Academy: A Commentary.” Journal of Film
and Video 46, no. 4 (1995): 42–56.