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Are You Sure We're Related?: The Fan Girl Next Door And Her Sister Hash Out Their Differences Over Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING
By THE FAN GIRL NEXT DOOR
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Mar 16, 2009, 10:31 AM |
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For the first few years of her life, I thought my younger sister Karen was magically left on our doorstep one dark and cold February night. My parents, being decent people, took her in. I mean why would they have willingly wanted to have had another child? They had already gotten it absolutely perfect the first time around.
But seriously, before we really get started let me just say I KNOW we are related, I remember her. She was my partner in crime and the person who not only played with me but also really seemed to enjoy it. That was a big deal because I was extremely bossy as a child. I ruled the schoolyard with an iron fist, Mussolini with blond hair and plaid pants. If anyone dared to question me to say I would get my Garanimals in a bunch would have been an extraordinary understatement.
Also, I was just plain different as a kid but then again, so was Karen. Some girls played with Barbies, we re-enacted scenes from OVER THE EDGE, FOXES and ICE CASTLES. I remember seeing THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY and making our parents set up a DJ booth for us using my stereo and glass end tables from the living room. I sat there and played records, 8 tracks and talked into my "microphone", which was basically a ladle taped to a bottle of Wesson oil, like I had an audience. As if there were people who could actually hear me out there. Karen was there with me but she somehow could never seem to make it "On Air". My poor parents. They were charter members of the "Janet Fan Club", working diligently behind the scenes so I could have my shining moment of playtime.
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| Guess who I made play Robby Benson? |
Playing simple games such as "house" took a turn towards the macabre. We couldn't just play "house", it had to turn into a game of "apartment building" where one of our neighbors was a serial killer, offing each of us one by one. Gee, guess who got to be the serial killer and who got to be the hapless victim/neighbor going downstairs to do a load of late-night laundry?
Karen and I had the art of playing down to a science, we would naturally settle into our roles, and by naturally I mean I told her that was how it was going to be and, god bless her, she actually went along with it. She was receptionist to my lawyer, passenger to my pilot, entry level employee to my upper level management and customer to my grocery store owner. She totally didn't have a problem with being bossed around. Just look at how happy she was loading those items on the check stand:
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| Paper or Plastic? You'll take what I give you and like it. |
But enough about our childhood, I think you get the picture anyway. Now, about The Incident (Enter sinister music here)...
The incident took place just this past Halloween, which has always been a HUGE night for us. There we were, late Halloween night, after all the festivities, keeping it low-key. Long after all the candy had been dispersed to the little toddlers dressed as spacemen and tigers and even that creepy teenage brother and sister duo who show up every year, wearing only jeans and t-shirts, holding pillowcases and bellowing their completely uninspired plea for skittles and snickers bars.
The night was going along nicely enough. I was just flicking channels when I hit pay dirt: THE SHINING and it was only at the part where Jack Torrance is interviewing with Stuart Ullman for the hotel caretaker position! I turned to Karen, confident that she was sharing in my glee when the unthinkable happened, she made THAT FACE, the face she makes when I know she doesn't like something, a look that is somewhere in-between smelling bad cheese and complete disgust.
Me: What? You don't like this movie? (I choked the words out)
Her: Eh. I have always felt this movie was overrated.
The next thing I remember is everything going silent and the remote falling out of my hand in that slow-motion way that sometimes happens in the movies. Things were hazy, the room went dark and I remember waking up in a hospital room. OK, OK, so it wasn't that dramatic but are you kidding me? How could someone, let alone my own flesh and blood, think that THE SHINING is overrated?
Wasn't it her who re-enacted the baseball bat scene from THE SHINING with me? Two little girls going toe head to toe head. She, swinging a miniature bat I got from a Minnesota Twins baseball game (we went on bat day!) and mimicking the sobbing, snorting Shelley Duvall. While I chewed the scenery with abandoned glee, "Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in." Yeah.
Needless to say, I was dumbstruck. She went home and months later it was still bugging me. What kind of crazy shit was she smoking to lay this revelation on me and WHY didn't I ask her for some before she left? So, I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation so she could tell me the reasons explaining why she wasn't as crazy about the movie as I thought she was:
The Fan Girl Next Door: When you were here on Halloween, we were flicking through channels and happened upon THE SHINING and I think you might have used the word overrated.
Karen: Yeah.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Why do you think that?
Karen: Well, I think it's an OK movie, I just don't think it's as good as everyone makes it out to be. It is REALLY overacted for one thing. Shelley Duvall is god awful. I don't feel like rooting for her. I never felt bad for her. The kid is annoying.
The Fan Girl Next Door: So, you can kind of understand why he wants to kill them?
Karen: (Laughs) I kind of wanted to kill them too.
The Fan Girl Next Door: The opening credits are impressive though, right? The score the camera sweeping over the mountains. Chills, Right?
Karen: I don't have any problem with the cinematography or direction. Jack Nicholson was really good in it, he played it hammy. That was how it was supposed to be I guess. Also, it wasn't very true to the book.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Right, it wasn't. The 1997 TV miniseries with Steven Weber and Rebecca De Mornay was actually true to the book, Stephen King even commented on that. You saw that one didn't you?
Karen: No, I never saw that. Kubrick's version though feels like even before he goes crazy he hates his family.
The Fan Girl Next Door: In the miniseries Steven Weber's Jack Torrance fights it because he loves his family, he adores them, but Nicholson's Jack Torrance seems ready to kill them on the car ride up to the hotel.
Karen: It feels like he [Nicholson's Jack Torrance] wishes both of them [Wendy and Danny] would just tumble down the mountain. Also, he had already hurt his kid. I don't know, it just wasn't surprising to me, he seemed extremely unhappy and like he hated his family.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Weren't there ANY creepy moments for you in the movie though? Moments that stuck out?
Karen: I think the only part that really creeped me out was when he was kissing that girl in the bathtub and then she turns into an old woman. That part kind of creeped me out, and those two little girls are creepy.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Oh, yeah, well that's horrible.
Karen: The creepiest thing about the movie is the little boy actually.
The Fan Girl Next Door: With the finger and the whole "Tony" thing?
Karen: That drives me crazy, it makes it hard for me to watch. Because he is just so annoying.
The Fan Girl Next Door: (Laughs) Well, What about Scatman Crothers? He's awesome.
Karen: Well yeah, Scatman Crothers is cool.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Maybe it was an age difference issue, I was older than you at the time we saw it. That could be why I love it now, because it had such an impression on me as a kid. Just the feeling , the creepiness, the mood, the music, everything about it affects me. The idea of being trapped somewhere with some who wants to kill you. It isn't like the violence runs in and hits you over the head. It builds, the tension builds. You know things are going to go badly, you're just waiting for when.
Like movies nowadays, people just start getting butchered right away. The building, the anticipation, I think that is why I like THE SHINING so much. Even though I know how it's going to play out every time I see it, it never gets old.
Karen: I gotta tell you, for me personally, I've never been a big fan of Stanley Kubrick. I really don't care for his movies.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Oh my god.
Karen: (Laughs) I don't know, his imagery, something, it just doesn't do it for me.
The Fan Girl Next Door: His work doesn't make you feel anything?
Karen: No. It doesn't do anything for me.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Is that because you're dead inside?
Karen: (Laughs, pretending to be me, asking her questions) 'Is that because your a heartless bitch?'
The Fan Girl Next Door: (Imitating her) Well that could very well be but it doesn't change the fact I don't like Stanley Kubrick!
Karen: (Laughs)
The Fan Girl Next Door: Just from a personal standpoint, between you and me..Well, it's not between you and me, it will probably go in the article..
Karen: This is between you, me and whoever reads this.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Yeah, it's between you, me and the 4 people who read my column.
Karen: (Laughs)
The Fan Girl Next Door: How do you think you and I and mom and dad would have handled the situation of being stranded like that?
Karen: When we were kids?
The Fan Girl Next Door: Yeah, well now it would be a bloodbath (A fun dig at our mom and dad, who are now divorced)
Both: (Laugh)
Karen: If it was dad who went nuts, I probably just would have ended up dead because it would have been hard to see him as evil and fight him off. Like if it were me, Jon [Karen's husband] and Dylan [Karen's son] up there, that would really be something because Jon loves us so much.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Jon would be more like the miniseries character, he would be able to fight it.
Karen: There are problems in their [Kubrick's Jack and Wendy Torrance] marriage already, she is so weak and just spineless.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Your right, I'm supposed to be speaking up for it but one thing that has always bothered me was she didn't seem to get really ANGRY, truly pissed off, you know? Like yell, 'You fucker!', grab the bat and just beat the shit out of him , like not even threaten him. I mean he hurt and is ABOUT to hurt their child. She didn't go into mama bear/tiger mode enough for me.
Karen: If it would have been me and if Jon had broken Dylan's arm we never would have been up there in the first place. The last place I would want to be with him is a big hotel stuck up in the mountains. He would have been, well, on his own.
I mean we wouldn't even be together. That right away is a problem for me. OK, he BROKE your kid's ARM but you're going to go do this with him? So, right away, I'm not on her side. Some women maybe are able to sympathize, I was not. Personally, I would not want to be around someone who would hurt my child. That is my first red flag that the movie doesn't work for me. Also, when he's on the stairs with her I think it's hilarious! He's like, (Imitates Jack Nicholson), "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to BASH YOUR BRAINS IN". That to me is funny.
The Fan Girl Next Door: When THE SHINING was showing in theaters, I've always wondered if the movie audiences chuckled at that part?
Karen: Well I did when I saw it, I've always laughed at that part. I always thought it was hilarious. I was never scared..
The Fan Girl Next Door: Is that why we re-enacted it?
Both: (Laugh)
Karen: Seriously, there's nothing about that movie that has ever really scared me. It's supposed to give you this feeling of claustrophobia and helplessness, like you're trapped.
The Fan Girl Next Door: See, I would be affected by that so the movie gets to me.
Karen: But for me it's like a huge, huge hotel and where does she decide to hide? In their room. I mean she goes back to their room and takes a frickin' NAP!
The Fan Girl Next Door: OK, I need to agree with you on that, I felt that was absolutely ridiculous.
Karen: I would lock the kid and I in a place where he couldn't get to us or keep hiding where he couldn't find us. Like I said, the hotel is huge.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Well he was taking a lot of naps too before the shit went down. I guess they [Wendy and Danny] could have discovered parts of the hotel that he didn't even know about. But hindsight is 20/20 I guess.
Karen: Right, and granted they weren't able to leave and he disabled the snowcat or whatever, BUT he didn't do that until almost the end of the movie, she was freaking OUT for most of the movie. I would have been like, 'I'm out of here. I'm not sticking this out with you!' Like I said, huge hotel. Why would you go back to the one place he knows you're going to be? Then, lay down and catch a few Zzz's?
The Fan Girl Next Door: Yeah, I don't get that either. You know Kubrick supposedly kept the type of movie they were making away from Danny Lloyd, the actor who played Danny. He kept it fun and light and I don't know how he did that, how he kept it from him. [Mimics Kubrick] 'Ok kid, say redrum, redrum and walk around holding a big knife'. I don't know how, even as a child, he didn't know what was going on.
Karen: He's just stupid I guess.
Both: (Laugh)
The Fan Girl Next Door: Now, when we played that baseball bat scene as kids, was your heart just not in it? Did you even know what we were doing?
Karen: I thought we just played it for laughs because there was nothing scary about it.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Now I feel like an idiot, I was totally in character.
Karen: (Laughs) She is swinging the bat wildly, not going anywhere near him with it and he's just being, Jack. It was comical. Like that scene with him at the typewriter, (Imitates him) 'When you hear me typing in here...
Together: ...or whatever the fuck you hear me doing in here..
Karen: I mean that's funny to me and Duvall reacts like (Does a timid voice) 'Ok honey'.
The Fan Girl Next Door: I know. OK, HON? Are you SERIOUS? 'Now just who do you think you're talking to like that?' That would have been MY reaction.
Karen: Your reaction to her is, Who is this person and why does she deserve to live?
The Fan Girl Next Door: (Laughs)
Karen: What does she contribute to the world that we are going to miss when she gets killed? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The Fan Girl Next Door: I never liked her character either, especially as I got older. Oh, and the award for worst doctor in a movie goes to.. Anne Jackson. After she gives Danny an examination before they leave for the hotel, she says, "Oh, I think he'll be fine". Right, there's nothing to be worried or alarmed about, the kid just blacks out and talks to his finger. Oh, and the father broke the child's arm not too long ago? No problem.
Karen: (Using a calm tone) You're going to an isolated mountaintop retreat for the winter where you'll be cut off from the outside world? I see no problem.
Both: (Laugh)
Karen: Well that goes back to the whole, 'Well, a parent loses his temper, you know how it is' thing. NO, I DON"T know how it is. You don't grab your kid so hard that they break their arm. Losing your temper, 'sit down, be quiet!' is one thing but to explain a broken arm away like, 'Well. you know how it goes'.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Do you think the Jack Torrance character would have been more affective in Kubrick's version had he been a really nice, sunny and likable person?
Karen: I think it would have been much more effective if he would have been this loving father and husband, who adored his family and would do nothing to hurt them. Then, all of a sudden he is in the influence of this place, with all of these spirits. Maybe play him like he's happy but something in his life is missing and he just wants to write this book but the problem isn't his family. So then, these evil spirits or whatever exploit that void in him and try to get in that way. So, he just loses it, he's no longer himself. That's what I never got from THE SHINING, it felt like that was him all along, that place just help to discover it. That is who he wanted to be all along.
The Fan Girl Next Door: He just needed a little extra push.
Karen: Yeah, he just needed a venue and a reason. It's like he wasn't pushed into it at all. 'Here's an ax, they'll never find out', Sweet! It was never, 'No, I'm not going to hurt my family, I love them.'
The Fan Girl Next Door: There was very minimal struggle. He almost brought his own weapons up with him.
Karen: It was like he went up there almost hoping he would have an opportunity to kill his family.
Both: (Laugh)
Karen: You never felt like he was really conflicted. I think that would have made for a much more interesting movie [To show more conflicting emotions] . He was already violent, it felt he was on the verge of losing it anyway. I can suspend disbelief for a movie but the things that are basic, human fundamentals I think should always make sense. I don't think you should be expected to just take whatever is shoved at you.
You know that part in SAW when he has the mom and the little girl at gunpoint and the mom gets the gun and she doesn't shoot him? That just doesn't ring true to me.
The Fan Girl Next Door: So, if there are elements to a movie that don't ring true, It can really affect your enjoyment of the movie?
Karen: Yeah. I think what I expect to ring true more than anything is the human element. Not everyone is the same, true BUT I think there is a basic human thing that should always ring true. A woman protects her child. If it doesn't ring true I don't care about the people and I HAVE to care about the people.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Do you think one of the reasons I like THE SHINING so much was because of when I first saw it? It gives me warm feelings of when I was a kid?
Karen: Hmm, I don't know.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Because I remember that part when Scatman Crothers is giving them the tour and showing them where the food is and what food is stored there. I remember as a kid thinking about how awesome that would be to have all of that food at your disposal. Like you could open a 164 oz can of fruit cocktail, only eat a fraction of it, throw it out and it would be OK to do that. Wasting the food and going in a room and eating whatever you wanted whenever you wanted.
Karen: Yeah, have a whole place to yourself like that. Some people wish they could run around a department store by themselves and look around, have free rein over the whole place. Well, minus the whole evil spirits and people trying to kill you thing.
The Fan Girl Next Door: That whole premise was always attractive to me, even with DAWN OF THE DEAD (The original), I remember thinking, 'Oh cool, they have that whole mall to themselves!' but then it was like, 'Wait, the zombies are trying to kill them'. I couldn't get over the fact they could go into all the stores and take anything they wanted. It's like ,'No no no, you're missing the big picture here'
Karen: Right.
The Fan Girl Next Door: God, maybe I don't like THE SHINING as much as I think I do.
Both: (Laugh)
The Fan Girl Next Door: You carry a strong argument. I mean I thought I would be shooting back all of his brilliant shit at you and you would be thinking to yourself, "Whoa Janet, you're right."
Karen: (Making fun of me) 'Oh man, you just blew my mind. My mind has officially been blown.'
Both: (Laugh)
The Fan Girl Next Door: Can we go back to Kubrick and what you said about not really liking his work?
Karen: Sure.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Have you ever seen EYES WIDE SHUT?
Karen: Yeah, didn't care for it.
The Fan Girl Next Door: (Silence) Wow. Well, let me pose the question in a different way, Remember the orgy scene that Tom Cruise walks through in the movie? How do you think you and I and mom and dad would have handled the situation of being surrounded by a sex orgy like that?
Both: (Laughs)
Karen: Dad would have been between us with his hands firmily planted in front of our eyes.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Ha, yeah (Imitating our dad) 'Ok, just keep your eyes closed, we are going to get out of this room.'
Karen: Just like he did when we saw AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, during the shower and sex scene! Do you remember? He used to do that.
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| Oh Karen, Dad is really not going to like this. |
The Fan Girl Next Door: Ha yeah. Like we just watched Griffin Dunne get disemboweled but god forbid we see Jenny Agutter's tit. You know I probably shouldn't leave this stuff in about what we would do during the orgy scene in eyes wide shut, I think it's funny though.
Karen: It is, especially about dad covering our eyes during nude scenes in movies.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Why do I not have a filter? Why do I think of shit like that?
Karen: Well, you do have the ability to know when to say it. It depends on the company you're in. It's not like you would throw that out at a school function.
The Fan Girl Next Door: Well, I don't know what my ultra-intelligent argument is for THE SHINING now. I've never been one for describing films in a deep, philosophical way. I don't have a tweed sports coat with the elbow protectors and a pipe, holding a glass of brandy.
Karen: Well you don't have to explain why you like it, you just do.
The Fan Girl Next Door: I like it because I like it. It's good because it's good. I like pizza too, you can only describe why you like it so much.
Karen: Right. It's like, Why do you love pizza? Well, it's cheesy and it tastes good.
The Fan Girl Next Door: That's the same reason why I love THE SHINING!
She made sense, just because I had forced her to watch and then play THE SHINING with me didn't mean she liked the movie. She just didn't think the movie was as great as I did. I mean, time HAD passed, we were older and she had a family of her own. Sometimes, once you grow up and stop relating to a movie you notice things that seem highly implausible. Also, perhaps it is OK for her to have an opinion that differs from mine. Gee Janet, what a concept! After all, In the immortal words of John Cusack in HIGH FIDELITY, "How can personal preference be wrong?"
In all seriousness though, I am proud to call her my sister. In this world of materialistic, pretentious and phony people she is one of those people who is REAL and I love her for that. As cliche as it sounds, it's true, I could not have hand picked a better person to be related to. She is my best friend, one of those 'Which 3 people would you bring on a desert island?' kind of people. I am honored to call her my family and it has been a pleasure knowing her. I look forward to us becoming a pair of amusingly cantankerous old chicks together.
And for all of that I am willing to overlook the Kubrick thing.
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