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The Shining Book Vs Movie

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Unfortunately, a lot of the violence that plays out through the Kubrick motion picture version of “The Shining” was in the form of domestic abuse that plays out with Jack and his wife Wendy and is quite strained and difficult as they constantly argue with each other over past situations such as Danny accident. While in the novel, they had a difficult relationship, but it was also a loving relationship that wasn’t quite as strained. Yet in the film the malicious viciousness is felt through the words the actors say, for instance, when Jack had finally lost his sanity and is attempting to attack Wendy he says to her, “Wendy, darling, light of my life. I’m not gonna hurt you. You didn’t let me finish my sentence. I said I’m not gonna hurt ya. …show more content…

In an interview back in 1982 with Michel Ciment, Stanley talked about some of the decisions he made concerning the adaptation. Within the interview Stanley mentions that when creating the screenwriting, the characters were altered a bit because they needed to be polar counterparts of themselves in the novel. He as well talks about how the problem when doing a rendition of a novel into film is that not all plot points are essential and those that are weak needed to be reinvented and altered in the story. Now why Stanley ultimately decided to change the ending of the book lies within a quote in the interview, “To be honest, the end of the book seemed a bit hackneyed to me and not very interesting. I wanted an ending which the audience could not anticipate.” (Ciment, “The Kubrick Site: Kubrick speaks in regard to The Shining”). Which does bring to light why he alter the ending of The Shining, where in the novel, Jack is able to take control of himself because of the influence of his son Danny and is able to tell him to run. So that Danny, Wendy and Dick is able to escape the Overlook Hotel before it explodes. However in Kubrick adaptation, he makes a twist where Jack never regains he’s sanity and essentially kills Dick, and while chasing his son Danny in the hedge, stops for a moment only to eventually freeze over while the Overlook hotel stands

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