The Shining Opening Analysis

One film represents the psychological horror genre is The Shining, similarly to the film we aim to produce. The opening 15 minutes should establish the characters, setting, beginning storyline and situation to the audience. The Shining does this impeccably well through many techniques through cinematography, editing, misé en scene and sound.

The Shining centres around a man, his son and wife who become the caretakers of a secluded hotel. The son sees disturbing visions and hallucinations of the hotel's past using "The Shining". The father begins unsuccessfully writing a novel when he slowly becomes insane as a result of cabin fever and former guests of the hotel's ghosts.

 

 

The film begins on an long, establishing shot of a remote river surrounded by mountains and green scenery. While the amount of colour shades is very diverse from greens, yellows and blues. Moreover, movie opens in broad daylight which is peculiar for the horror genre which usually places the setting in a dark and gloomy setup. This disorientates the viewer and gives the illusion that something is peculiar. The camera moves in a similar way to a slow, tracking shot. The atmosphere relaxes the audience who will be anxious for the scares the movie has yet to show. The angle looks very straight until the camera nears towards a tiny island of trees submerged in the river, when the frame is canted to make the scene appear distorted. Movement of the camera is very smooth and peaceful unlike the shaky handheld type shots which are common to the horror genre. Sound contributes to the visual element of the extract. Non-diegetic music is the only thing to be heard in the whole scene with instruments such as deep trombones being played in an echoing way to make the music sound ominous.

This shot transfers to the next in a fade which could indicate a passage of time but certainly shows a change of location. An aerial shot depicts a small country road nestled the middle of trees and in close proximity of the river shot in the establishing shot. An almost microscopic car is seen travelling across the road with nothing else surrounding it. Inference of isolation is shown by how little the scene is place in the natural scene and the car on it's own. Isolation is also referred to in dialogue later on within the next few minutes, making it a prominent theme throughout the movie and moreover it is a recurring theme in the psychological horror genre. The camera follows the car, meaning that it contain great importance. Only one other car is seen driving along the stretch of road throughout the whole opening credit. The non-diegetic music at this time is alternating between the deep, ominous tones and screech, inhumane sounds.

The next two minutes of the film stay relatively the same with a compilation of two or three long shots, shot similarly to the previous ones, cut together bluntly in editing. The car continues to travel along the road and into increasingly mountainous and cold appearing areas. At one point during the sequence, the camera closes in on the car and overtakes it, placing the primary focus of the shot onto the scenery instead of solely on the car. The colour scheme becomes increasingly colder as the scene and journey progresses. The sequence ends on a shot of a grey hotel embedded within the mountains, it blends in to the mountains giving the impression that the building isn't really there.