KnockBack, Episode 243 | The Shining (film) (Video) (Patreon)

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While 1977's Stephen King novel The Shining preempts (and obviously inspired) the film that would come three years later in 1980, it's the movie and not the book that's most well-regarded. That's primarily due to auteur Stanley Kubrick, who delivered a film adaptation of King's horror story for the ages, one readily celebrated and obsessed over to this day. Drawing from a unique, one-of-a-kind aesthetic, rich use of color, sound, and symbolism, and exacting expectations from cast and crew, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a tentpole in the long history of cinema, the realization of something both profound and unsettling, not only on-screen, but entering real life, too. That's what makes art art, though, and what makes it so easy to celebrate The Shining as the true expression of brilliance it is, even if it's uncomfortable and, at times, outright frightening.