How Does Stanley Kubrick Use Cinematography In The Shining

THE SHINING

The key to a great movie is using cinematography to control the mood and tone of a piece in order to affect the viewers' feelings. In Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", the cinematographer manipulated the lighting to create a certain mood and cast of light onto the scenes. Since lighting is the key to cinematography, it can have a major impact on a films narrative. During the scene of The Shining, entitled "Great Party, Isn't It?" the cinematographer used light to put emphasis on what was happening. The scene starts out indoors under fluorescent lighting. Normally when filming under fluorescent light the shot is given a green tint and the colors do not produce correctly. Although, in the movie, there is no green tint, and the colors seem to be correct. To create that effect a correction gel was used. A Correction gel is a thin piece of polyester that has been dyed a specific color. When filming under fluorescent light correction gels can eliminate certain tints. Although the color correction gel for fluorescent light looks magenta it doesn't actually add magenta to the light it simply removes the green. During the next part of this scene, one of the main characters walks around a corner and the lighting takes on a dramatic change. A strong red tone is added to the shot. In the movie the color red is a
significant color. It normally hints to the audience that something of importance is about to happen. A good way to portray this in a scene is to use a color-effects gel. These gels are used to color the light intentionally. This part of the scene also has a few shots that show a good sense of depth in the hallway. By using a hard light to illuminate the scene there is a contrast of shadows. The shadows are what create the sense of depth. The key lights in the scene are coming from over-head, which is what produces the shadows. In the next part of the movie, one of the characters is outside at night being chased by another character in a snow-covered maze. The color temperature in this scene is different from all the interior shots. A color-effects gel, like the on used in the previous scene was also used in this shot. The entire outside shot was given a very blue tint. The color blue is a good way to indicate that it is night time. Blue is used to give the allusion of the moonlight striking the snow. The dense shadows that were created in this scene also give the feeling of depth. When the character is running in the snow, there is a light in the distance. That light is producing a contrast of shadows that flow to the subject. The entire scene is dark, yet the cinematographer was still able to produce a good sense of depth in the shot. This outdoors scene also used a motivated lighting scheme. Motivated light is light that comes from a practical source. In this scene the motivated light is coming from the path lights in the maze. It is producing a very hard light and putting dense shadows on the characters. The next scene is back to an interior shot of one of the character at the end of a long hallway.
The light in this scene is coming from a window. Although it is suppose to be night time, there seems to be a lot of light coming in from the window. Enough light to illuminate the entire shot. The blue color-effect gel was also used in the shot to try and produce the "night time" effect. This is one of the only shots where I feel the lighting was not working for the scene. When the character turns the corner in the hallway, the entire room is filled with an overpowering blue tint. This shot does not seem to be
believable. A good cinematographer can manipulate lighting in a scene to represent whatever mood the movie is attempting to portray. In Stanly Kubrick's "The Shining", the cinematographer was able to adapt the lighting by using different color temperatures. The gels used in this movie created the scenes, whether it was a blue moonlight glow, or a red hue forewarning importance. Cinematography is an art form, not just an aspect of a movie.