NOVEL REVIEW: The Library Policeman by Stephen King (From his collection Four Past Midnight)

So we're once again back to Stephen King, the genius maniac masquerading as an author. I recently got for Christmas one of his novella collections called Four Past Midnight. The four novellas are: The Langoliers, Secret Window, Secret Garden, The Library Policeman, and The Sun Dog. This time, I'm going to be reviewing my favourite novella out of the four, The Library Policeman. I really liked this story because it reminded me very strongly of IT, one of my favourite King novels; just like how IT is about overcoming your fears to defeat a greater evil, The Library Policeman is about confronting and overcoming a childhood trauma to defeat the greater evil, and the two main antagonists of the novel, Pennywise the Clown in IT and Ardelia Lortz in The Library Policeman, are also very similar types of Lovecraftian horrors, Pennywise and Ardelia both feeding off of fear from the children.

The overall theme of the story was great, and I really liked the idea of the "Library Policeman" being used as a monstrous villain and a personification of Sam Peebles' (the protagonist) childhood rapist coming back to haunt him. I'm not sure if the library policeman is a concept unique to the United States since I've never heard of it here in Canada, but it's really interesting how King used something from one's childhood memories that might have been just a little scary and turn it into a stuff of NIGHTMARES. I don't even know what about the Library Policeman scared me so much, but it terrified the hell out of me. It felt so real and the fact that it kept triggering something in Sam that he didn't know how to deal with.

Sam was terrified of this library policeman for some strange reason, and he didn't know why. The reader follows through Sam's journey of discovering himself and coming to terms with his childhood trauma, where we eventually learn that he was raped in front of the library by a man who called himself the library policeman. Sam had been repressing this memory in fear that the rapist would return for him if he ever let anyone knew, and the repressed trauma eventually took the form of the library policeman, who was the exact, terror-inducing incarnation of Sam's rapist. 

Ardelia Lortz, the main antagonist is a creature akin to Pennywise the Clown. Her MO is that during story time at the library when it was just her and the kids, she would put them into a trance of some sort, terrify them, and drink their tears/fears in form of tears, which was what she used to sustain herself. Even in her sweet, human form she's pretty terrifying. As a young woman she can seduce anyone she wants to essentially do her bidding; as an old woman, she's supposed to be this kind, friendly woman, but is so oddly terrifying in everything she says and does. One of the things that King knows how to do best is writing compelling characters, SPECIFICALLY terrifying villains. It was a pretty cool concept and she bears a striking resemblance to IT: they both are shape-shifting demons posing as a friendly figure to children so that they could feed off of childrens' tears; they even share the same silver eyes and the characteristic of using puppets to do their bidding! Combining this with the the sorrow-feeding Outsider (from The Outsider) and Dandelo the emotion-feeder (from The Dark Tower series), it seems as though Stephen King was really keen on these types of Lovecraftian monsters.

The most scary part of the novel was definitely right at the end when Sam is confronting his childhood traumatic memory of being raped. King describes the scene in such horrific and graphic detail and yet keeps it as suspenseful as possible so when the rape is described, you do a big double take of horror. When he comes to face with the trauma and announces out loud that he WAS raped, he is able to confront the monster in the form of his rapist and defeat it, which I think is a really good message by King for victims of abuse: you shouldn't be suppressing your trauma, but be confronting it, and that's how you can start the healing process. I went into this story expecting a really good horror story; I got exactly that, but I also got a story that is essentially the MeToo movement before MeToo was even a thing. Stephen King is so great at weaving the theme of the MeToo movement into the story in a way that you don't even realize it's actually about confronting and defeating your rapist until you think about the story after it's over. It is absolutely brilliant/

I know I usually do a summery and a rating out of five here, but I don't think I'll be doing that anymore. I don't want my number rating to affect someone's views on a novel or a film, and honestly it is getting hard to give ratings lower than four out of five since all the stuff I'm reviewing are usually stuff that I really like. But overall, The Library Policeman is a great story. It's reminiscent of IT and The Outsider, and the overall theme of overcoming your childhood trauma and facing your fears is a really great message. Stephen King is VERY good at making his novels revolve around very real-life themes such as childhood fears or the death of a loved one, and these stories I think can really help people actually deal with these issues because of the focus King puts on these themes. 

My next two reviews are two films that are the recipients of Academy Awards in 2020. The first film is a Korean one which has received FOUR Academy Awards (including Best Picture). The second one is a film set in Nazi Germany and is the recipient of Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award. I think you can guess which movies they are, so keep your eyes peeled for them! As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

VALJEAN OR JAVERT: Who is the Hero? The Murky Morality of Les Misérables

I may have tackled something too complex for me... we'll see how it goes.

Les Misérables is an 1862 novel written by Victor Hugo and it was later adapted into a musical theatre production in 1980 by Claude-Michel Schönberg which was then adapted into a 2012 film directed by Tom Hooper. Les Misérables chronicles the life of Jean Valjean, a man arrested for stealing bread whose life was turned around by the kind and loving Bishop Myriel who sets Valjean on a path of redemption through his interactions with the cold, law-abiding Inspector Javert, the tragic yet strong Fantine and her daughter Cosette (who he eventually adopts after Fantine's death), the romantic young revolutionary Marius Pontmercy, among many others. While the story clearly focuses on Valjean as the "hero" of the story and Javert as the "villain", the reality is not as black and white as many might believe. What if Javert was the real hero of the story, chasing Valjean, a dangerous criminal?

The one misconception I want to address is this: "Because Valjean is the 'protagonist', or the 'hero' of the story, Javert has to be the 'antagonist', or the 'villain' of the story". This is a common misconception; you cannot equalize "protagonist" and "hero", and you cannot equalize "antagonist" and "villain". A PROTAGONIST is defined as "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text" while a HERO is defined as "a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities". On the other hand, an ANTAGONIST is defined as "a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary" and a VILLAIN as "a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot". From these definitions, you can clearly see that a protagonist is not always a hero and an antagonist is therefore not always the villain.

So in Les Mis, because the story focuses on Valjean, we can say that he is the protagonist and that Javert, his adversary, is the antagonist. But when it comes to the hero and the villain, it is not as simple and clear-cut as you may think. While Valjean is definitely a heroic character (he is selfless, brave, and forgiving), he also portrays villainous characteristics; after all, it is his stealing of the silver goods from Bishop Myriel that sets him on the right path, and Valjean is a criminal. On the other hand, Javert is also undoubtedly a heroic character: he is simply a lawman diligently doing his duty to the country by persevering after the dangerous convict Valjean. Despite this, Javert's unwavering devotion to the law blinds him to see the world as either black or white; in Javert's mind, one is either good or evil and no one is morally middle (although Javert is very much a "morally middle" character). Javert's villainous characteristics show however, during the Les Amis de l'ABC's (the student revolutionary group with Marius) rebellion; Javert actively attempts to thwart the revolt and purposefully lead the students to their deaths by posing as a Les Amis spy and feeding them false information, and his clear blindness of (or perhaps a refusal to accept) the corrupt and faulty monarchy and the fanatical devotion to the government and the law leads him to make the choice to lead students to their deaths.

Interestingly, his disdain for the rebellion is actually understandable if we look at Javert's early life. Javert was born in 1780 and dies in 1832. This means that Javert would have been around 9 years old when the French Revolution began (1789) and puts him in his early to mid twenties (about 23 years old) when the Napoleonic Wars began in 1803, meaning that he would most likely have fought in those wars. This puts Javert in an interesting situation: from what we know of his character, it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume he was a militaryman for almost all of his life, and as a child, he firsthand witnessed the horrors that revolution could bring and the radical changes that took place in government (the Revolution began in the rule of the monarch and eventually reverted back to a monarchy).
     If we are to make the educated guess that Javert has always been a firm believer (almost to the degree of being a fanatic) in the government and the law, it is not difficult to believe that Javert saw monarchy as the most ideal form of government (after all, the revolution did fail to bring a significant change in government as it basically reverted to a monarchy). And because Javert finds no fault in the law, and by extension, the government, it is entirely logical that he wouldn't have supported the movement of the Les Amis as even if he saw issues within the government, he would have known the atrocities associated with rebellions (which would have put him off of the idea completely, experiencing all of that as a child) and would have eventually seen resistance against the monarchy as being futile, and he was technically right as the Les Amis' rebellion ended up failing quite horribly.
     While all of this is more or less speculation on my part, if one were to try and explain Javert's fanaticism to the law to the point of becoming blind by his faith towards it, it would be possible to explain his character as a result of being shown the atrocities of (and eventually the failures of) revolutions at the very young and impressionable age of 9 or 10, which than paints a picture of Javert as someone who is merely trying to keep the peace because he has (or at least believes he has) learnt the lesson. And you have to admit that growing up during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars COULD NOT have been a very pleasant experience for Javert
     Additionally, Valjean was already 20 by the time the French Revolution took place (born in 1769) and began his prison sentence in 1796 and got out in 1815, meaning that he was significantly old enough by his arrest to know that there were serious issues with the monarchy, a wisdom and knowledge that the younger Javert did not have (but Javert WAS apparently a prison guard at age 16).

So there are two big ways to view the morality of Les Mis:

1. Jean Valjean is reformed man trying to do good in the world while Javert is the soulless devotee to a corrupt government whose goal is to rid the world of any good and ensure that the tyrannical regime stays.
2. Inspector Javert is a just lawman doing his duty to capture Jean Valjean, a dangerous criminal, and put him behind bars because he is a danger to society.

It's a conundrum, isn't it? You can't definitively say that neither Valjean or Javert is good or bad. They're both heroes of their own story, and the villains of the others'; because the story is told generally from Valjean's POV, Javert is portrayed as being more villainous than he actually is.
Here, I have a third option that I really think summarizes the situation of morality in Les Mis perfectly:

Neither Javert nor Valjean is the hero or the villain: They are morally grey characters struggling to survive with what they are given and try to do what they believe to be the right thing.

So, is there a hero and a villain in Les Mis? If so, who are they? 
     I believe that the answer is YES. There actually are three characters who can be summed up as the true hero and the villains of this story: Bishop Myriel and the Thénardiers.
     Bishop Myriel is truly a faultless character: he is selfless and noble through and through. He is a man who lives with the philosophy of kindness and love. He helps Valjean when he is in need without question and without caring Valjean's criminal status (I'm not quite sure if he knew Valjean was a criminal or not but even if he did know, he wouldn't have cared). Furthermore, when Valjean runs off in the night with his precious silver and is arrested the next day, the Bishop lies to the soldiers that the silver was a gift to Valjean from himself and actually chastises Valjean for forgetting to take the silver candlesticks with him. After the police leave, the Bishop tells Valjean to use the silver to become an honest man. Although the Bishop does not appear in the story afterwards, his kindness and love towards Valjean is the turning point of his character: Valjean cannot comprehend the compassion he had been given because he was hardened into a man knowing nothing but hate during his (arguably too long) time in prison. He begins to realize how horrible he was, betraying the trust of the one person who had been kind to him, and feels shame. It is at this point that Valjean vows to become a man of light, doing nothing but good, and the entirety of Valjean's character for the rest of the story is the result of Bishop Myriel's love and compassion.
     Next are the villains of Les Mis, the Thénardiers. I genuinely cannot think of a SINGLE redeeming qualities of these characters. They do nothing but cheat and swindle and rob people out of their money, and their first song in the musical, "Master of the House" is solely dedicated to their crimes and the glee they get from it. They are abusive to young Cosette, cheats Fantine out of money (lies to her they need money for a sick Cosette), and after they lose their inn, they essentially become con artists and cheap pickpockets. One of the worst things their characters ever do in the musical is this particular line they sing during "One Day More": "Watch 'em run amuck, catch 'em as they fall, never know your luck when there's a free for all. Here a little 'dip', there a little 'touch', most of them are goners so they won't miss much!". It is meant to be seen as being more comedic than anything, but I just found the idea of these two not caring about the lives of schoolboys who are essentially fighting for a better life for all (something that's going to positively affect the Thénardiers). It gets even worse as in the novel, they steal from the corpses of killed students. I cannot stress enough how much I HATE these two. As a small consolation, Madame Thénardier dies in prison after being arrested by Javert (go Javert!), but Monsieur Thénardier scams some money from Marius and goes to America to be a slave trader. Apparently Monsieur Thénardier is protected from karmic punishment, although I guess having punishment come to Madame Thénardier in the novel is at least better than both of them surviving and still running cons in the musical.

Although Hugo liked making his characters morally grey, it seems like there were at least three who were indisputably good or evil.

Well, that was a long rant. I honestly really love Les Misérables as a story, and it's probably because I'm crazy for history and this has some historical elements in it. But I really loved the fact that Victor Hugo managed to make nearly every character be morally grey and not explicitly good or evil (even Marius is like this as he is actually a Bonapartist in the novel) which makes reading about their actions just so much more interesting because having a morally grey character means that it is much more . Even though I haven't actually read the novel yet, I'm in love with the musical itself and all of these songs (and I'm going to go watch it live for the first time this June!) and I think it's just written beautifully. Victor Hugo's creative genius also must be given praise to: he writes his character so well that I was so deeply invested in their well-beings even in their much more stripped-down musical counterparts (Javert in particular is my favourite because he shows some great character conflicts). I seriously love Les Misérables and I truly recommend everyone to at least give some of the songs a listen or watch the full 10th Anniversary performance with the Dream Cast, you won't regret it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG-gojr493E.

My next post will be a review of a Stephen King book/novella (I'm not quite sure what to call it), from his collection, Four Past Midnight. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: Dead Poets Society (1989)

Before I begin, I would like to dedicate this post to Robin Williams. He is one of my all-time favourite actors, and a source of inspiration for many. His saying "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world", is one that helps me to stay positive to this day.
Robin, you were taken from us too soon.
Thank you for your contributions.
Rest In Peace, Oh Captain My Captain.

"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary." 

- Captain John Keating

Robin Williams is one of my all-time favourite actors. Some of his movies like Good Morning Vietnam and Mrs. Doubtfire are some of my favourite movies to this day, but no movie resonates in me as much as Dead Poets Society. This movie carries a beautiful message of essentially not being constrained by expectations of society and being yourself, which is something that I think is so crucial in society where there still is a big call by the conservative population to make everyone sort of conform to the "ideal societal values". Watching Robin in this film is also what gave me the inspiration to become a teacher because I wanted to be someone who could change the world even a little bit, one student at a time.

This film is just filled with so many great quotes that could be applied to real life very easily. "Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Don't be resigned to that. Break out!" Even in today's much more liberal society, there is still a heavy pressure on young people to get those traditional, high-paying jobs like doctors, lawyers, etc. and the value is most definitely on money, and not what you enjoy. Of course, I'm not saying that it's not important to have a good job with a good pay: it is important for survival; but what's the point of having a good job if you're absolutely miserable at it? Mr. John Keating (Robin's character in the film) really strikes that message in; he says "And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." Yes, the academic jobs are crucial for life, but without the arts, there's no beauty in life; we have to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." (Henry David Thoreau).

How do we "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life", then? The answer is simple: "Carpe diem, seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may." You just have to seize the day. This is seen pretty evidently in the books; all of the kids are so restricted by their parents' wishes and desires for them (lawyers, doctors, bankers, etc.) that they can't even begin to unearth the surface of their true, imaginative selves; remember, "No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world". This desire for conformity and "Tradition" (the motto of Welton Academy) is seen best in a brief interchange between Mr. Keating and school Headmaster Nolan; Keating says, in a conversation about his creative teaching methods: "I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself." Nolan responds harshly with, "At these boys' age? Not on your life!" This brief exchange shows that the adults in the society wants to force the kids to conform, so that they'll follow the old-fashioned values of their parents and to suppress free-think. While this idea definitely is dangerous (forcing something on people at the a young age is never good), Mr. Keating does seem to admit to the pros of "conformity" to a degree.

Although he urges the boys to "seize the day" and be daring, he also understands that being too much daring isn't always good; he says: "There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for." and "Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone." And this, along with the message of "Carpe Diem" leads to a VERY importance message/theme in life: MODERATION. Yes, it is importance to express yourself and be daring and brave, but you must do all of them in moderation. You can't just live by your passions all the time; you have to be smart and make logical decisions. It's fine to do what you love doing, but you also have to plan ahead; look to the future and make the best choice. You can do what you enjoy as a career, BUT it also should be something that will give you a good quality of life; that's what Keating emphasized to the members of the Dead Poet's Society: they can go ahead and meet up and read poetry and be creative, but they shouldn't risk their life with expulsion by being stupid. Being bold can be being stupid.

So, is it important to Seize the Day and be brave and daring and express yourself? Of course. But is it important to keep things in moderation? Of course. The real takeaway message here is though, don't let ANYONE define you and who you're meant to be. Neil was the victim of this. He let his father have too much control over his life; he let his father define who he was until too late. And to him, suicide may have been the only argument he had left against his unwilling-to-listen father; and while we are meant to resent Neil's father for driving him to suicide, we can also empathize with Neil's father: All Mr. Perry wanted was for his son to have a good, successful, comfortable life; it's been mentioned multiple times that his family wasn't particularly rich so Mr. Perry had to work hard to get Neil into Welton and on a path to a difficult, but ultimately satisfying (at least in Mr. Perry's eyes) life. We can see where Mr. Perry comes from, so it's hard to hate him completely, and he does seem to care deeply about his son, which is most likely why he lays all the blame on Keating rather than himself because he can't come to terms with the fact that he caused his son's death.

So like I said, don't let ANYONE define you and who you're meant to be. Carpe Diem, "Seize the Day", "suck out all the marrow of life". But don't be foolish about it either: don't "choke on the bone"; be in moderation. Balance your deepest dreams and desire with practicality. I think that Neil and all of the other boys would have been fine if they were allowed to express themselves WHILE they continued their studies; if Neil could have continued acting as a hobby, than he wouldn't have killed himself. The film was a war between the freethinking, radical thinkers of the Dead Poets Society and the hard-nosed, traditionalist teachers and adults. Mr. Keating is the moderator in all of this: he is a freethinker yet a respected teacher; a man who encourages his students to follow their passions, but not to let that take over. I think that everybody needs to be like John Keating: everyone needs to find a middle ground between radicalism and traditionalism; to be perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

DPS Rating: 5/5

So I know this wasn't much of a review as me rambling on about life and kind of getting cynical, but it's a new approach I'm trying, so please let me know what you think about it below! As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: Joker (2019)

"I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize, it's a comedy."

The Joker is a character throughout fiction whose name is almost synonymous with evil, chaos, anarchy, and insanity. No sane person would ever describe him as "sympathetic" or "humane". But with Joaquin Phoenix, those are the words you would use to describe Arthur Fleck; gone is the anarchistic evil-genius who wants to watch Gotham burn, replaced by a weak, damaged man who just simply wants to fit in, to be accepted for who he is. Joker is not a "comic book movie"; it's a social commentary to raise awareness of  people with mental illness and how horrible society is still treating them overall. A big contributing factor to this of course, is the drastically changed character of Joker.

The Joker has always had a consistent character: he's a psychotic genius and a leading figure in Gotham's criminal underworld who is obsessed with plunging Gotham into chaos; his backstory is also generally consistent: a criminal who becomes disfigured and insane after falling into a vat of toxic chemicals. But Joaquin Phoenix's Joker was created in a toxic society that didn't care about him or didn't attempt to understand him. It's like Arthur says, "Everybody's awful these days. It's enough to make anyone crazy". In the film, Arthur's laughter is involuntary. He suffers from a brain damage that causes a neurological disorder similar to tourette syndrome that forces him to laugh at uncontrollable times. This makes him a social outcast because despite his card explaining his condition, no one cares about him. Everybody just treats him like he's a freak and expects him to "normal" like everyone else. Arthur is clearly angry and saddened about this, as he writes, "The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't" in his notebook of jokes.

What's interesting about this Joker is that Arthur didn't really cause most of the violence on purpose. He triggered a series of violent events that was essentially caused by an act of self-defence (sort of). I did like it though that he began to lose more and more of his humanity as he went on but still retained some of it at the end. This is very obvious as while Arthur does kill people mercilessly, his murder of them is not without reason (to an extent). Everyone that Arthur kills has objectively been cruel to him (the Wayne Workers, his abusive mother, the co-worker that got him fired, and Murray who mocked him on TV). He even says "I killed those guys because they were awful". And they were. Those people he killed were awful people; especially the Wayne workers. They were well-off, entitled people. Arthur even makes a statement about the imbalance between the wealthy and the poor: "Ugh, why is everybody so upset about these guys? If it was me dying on the sidewalk you'd walk right over me! I pass you everyday and you don't notice me! But these guys? Well because Thomas Wayne would cry about them on TV?"

It is true that people only cared about the Wayne employees because they were rich and because they were "normal" and "successful". The disparity between the wealthy and the poor is so big, and Arthur's right when he says "Everybody just yells and screams at each other. Nobody's civil anymore. Nobody thinks what it's like to be the other guy. You think men like Thomas Wayne ever think what it's like to be someone like me? To be somebody but themselves? They don't." While I won't agree or disagree, I won't deny that there isn't some truth to this comment; that maybe we don't care enough about "the other guy" like Arthur.

Political commentary aside, I can't finish this blog without commenting on the fantastic acting from Joaquin Phoenix. I had only seen him in Gladiator (2000) and Hotel Rwanda (2004), so while I knew he was a great actor, I didn't expect this amount of mastery going in. Phoenix's highlight scenes in this film are his laughs. Like previously mentioned, Phoenix's Joker laughs because of some sort of muscle disorder caused by brain damage, meaning that he can't control his laughter. Not only does he have the laughter down perfectly, but he also shows the immense pain Joker is going through so painfully well. You can see the pain in the rest of his face when he laughs and it becomes very hard to watch sometimes when a sob breaks out of the laughter once in a while, reminding you that this is a man in horrible pain. In nearly every line he says, you can hear pain and sadness and even anger towards a society that "abandons him and treats him like trash", and it makes you wonder if those people really did what they deserved because we finally get to see what it's like to be "the other guy". I can 100% see an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and Best Picture, and even though I think Phoenix would deserve an Oscar for this role, he's against very tough competition this year with Taron Egerton (Rocketman), Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and a number of other actors who I'm sure is just as deserving.

WARNING: THE NEXT PARAGRAPH DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS, SO PLEASE SKIP TO MY CONCLUDING THOUGHTS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM YET.

This really has nothing to with the actual review, but I have a little theory that everything that happens after Murray's death (and perhaps a good portion of the film) is all in Arthur's mind. It is obvious that Arthur IS an unreliable narrator; he imagined being with Sophie (which took up a good portion of the film), and is prone to "fantasies". I think that much of the movie is an exaggeration of Arthur's mind. For example, it feels very silly to think that just because someone in a clown mask killed three affluent men, the city begins to fall into anarchy. I think that while there were "Clown Protests" going on, it was nowhere near as severe as the film out to be. At the most, I think it was just a small group of angry fanatics protesting against the corrupt Gotham.

However, I do think that Joker DID kill Murray, but much of that is likely exaggerated; Arthur suddenly becomes very "normal" and courageous: he dances like he never could before, he outrageously kisses one of the other guests without repercussions, and he no longer laughs uncontrollably. While the interview definitely DID happen and Arthur DID kill Murray, I think that the interview is an idealized version of what Arthur wishes the interview would have been like. The fact that other stations report Murray's death IS proof that the "execution" DID happen, but I think that Arthur was simply arrested and taken to Arkham State; he was never saved, he never did the bloody smile with that almost ridiculously large mob of people around him. And that's why other's laughing at the end. He IS the joke. He's not this great leader of revolution he believes himself to be through his delusions; he's just a crazy man who started a small movement that maybe did cause the death of the Wayne, but overall had no effect on society. His life is a comedy; a tragic comedy. His life is still a tragedy; he just chooses to see it as a comedy.

THE SPOILERS HAVE ENDED, YOU MAY CONTINUE READING.

What more do I have to say? I absolutely love character studies, movies that revolve about mental illness and psychology, and the Joker has also been one of my all-time favourite fictional characters. The slow pacing really worked to build Arthur Fleck as a character in this movie, the plot was definitely something realistic enough that we could sympathize with Arthur, but at the same time detached ever so slightly enough that it wouldn't incite any serious conflict in real life. Joaquin Phoenix delivered the best acting I've ever seen from an actor; hats off to Mr. Phoenix for bringing life to a Joker that is such radically different, yet will be immortalized next to the other greats such as Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, and Heath Ledger. Joker receives a 5/5.

So next film review will be about an actor that has been my favourite for many years. It was watching him that sparked my interest in acting. Even though he is no longer with us, he is still an inspiration to me; he is my Captain. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

P.S. Also I AM aware that all of my posts have been very, VERY positive with the scores (my last two along with this one and the next one had a 5/5). Don't worry, I will actually actively criticize things too. I just wanted to write some positive things about movies & books that I really love.

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: Rocketman (2019)

Taron Egerton (Left) as Sir Elton John (Right)

Sir Elton John (original name Reginald Dwight) is a British rock music legend, and his musical prowess has been put on par with other legendary rock stars such as Freddie Mercury, Sir Paul McCartney, and David Bowie. Recently, he has announced that he would be retiring from touring to spend more time with his family and has begun his Farewell Tour: Farewell Yellow Brick Road. Apart from his musical career, he has also appeared in the 2017 film Kingsman: The Golden Circle as himself, which is where he met and befriended actor Taron Egerton, who would later go on to portray Elton himself in the biopic which I will be discussing today.

To begin with, I was genuinely impressed by the overall acting from the entire cast. Taron Egerton not only LOOKED like Elton John, but I loved that the movie showed all the parts of Elton's lifestyle and didn't shy away from the rougher portions like the drug abuse, suicide attempts, and even his promiscuous sexual life, and I really respect that Elton, as executive producer actually made sure to paint a rather accurate picture of his personal life, warts and all, showing the sex, his addiction to cocaine, his suicide attempts, and finally his triumphant return. Egerton really showed all the emotions Elton was going through amazingly, and he made the movie an excruciatingly emotional experience to sit through. It was rather depressing watching Elton John suffer through one horrible human being after another and never finding the courage to admit that he needed help until it could have been too late (a suicide attempt and a heart attack that got more or less ignored was two disasters too much), and the fact that none of that is fabricated to add dramatic tension (all of that IS real) was really messed up.

Apart from Taron Egerton, the other three breakout stars I think were Richard Madden as Elton's manager/lover John Reid, Jamie Bell as Elton's longtime friend & lyric writer Bernie Taupin, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Elton's distant mother Sheila. Even though Madden was playing an abusive, cruel, manipulative human being, he was so damn charming and charismatic the rest of the time that while I definitely hated him throughout the film, I also wanted to see more of the character. Bell and Egerton seriously have an amazing onscreen chemistry and I'm not sure if they've acted together before, but they really feel like best friends. Bryce Dallas Howard is sort of known for playing very easily hated characters (Example being The Help), and she was absolutely brilliant in this. She played Elton's cold, uncaring, perhaps even emotionally abusive in some sense, mother (who really was like that in real life) amazingly, especially with the extremely hurtful line "You’ll never be loved properly"; and yet, she also portrays a softer side with that line as well. This is shown even more when Elton attempts suicide later and she is genuinely in tears, concerned for her son, suggesting that maybe Shelia is a more deeper, complex person then we see.

Finally, I'd like to talk about the song choices in this film. As far as I'm aware, all of the music in this film were Elton John songs, but it was sung by the cast. All of the song choices were perfect for each of the scene they were used in, and I really liked that it was in a musical format (mainly because I really love musicals) but each of the songs added more depth and emotion into those scenes because it felt like Elton was narrating his life with his songs (a rather strange choice since it was Bernie Taupin who wrote the lyrics, not Elton). My favourite one were no doubt "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "I'm Still Standing" because of the sheer raw emotion you can hear in those particular songs that didn't exist as much in the originals.

Overall, Rocketman was a great movie. I really loved the cast, the songs, and I really respect the fact that they portrayed every part of Elton's life, warts and all, with no censorship or "sugarcoating" them like they did with Bohemian Rhapsody. Taron Egerton may not sound EXACTLY like Elton John, but he comes damn close and having Taron's less trained voice sing them worked much better to convey the emotions. I can definitely see an Oscar nomination coming for Taron (although he'll have a rather heavy competition this year with Joaquin Phoenix and Tom Hanks also deserving one). Rocketman gets a well-deserved 5/5.

You know how people say laughter can sometimes be the best medicine? Well I think it's time to put a smile on someone's face by reviewing a certain movie about a clown (and it's NOT a Stephen King movie). As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

COLLECTION REVIEW: Night Shift by Stephen King

So this review will be a little bit different from the usual as in that I'm not reviewing any story in particular, but instead I'll be reviewing Stephen King's 1978 short story collection Night Shift. This is not a Stephen King novel; rather, it is a collection of twenty short stories written by King and published in different magazines. Because I don't have a singular story to focus on, I'm going to break the book down into groups. Before I get started though, here are the stories:

1. Jerusalem's Lot
2. Graveyard Shift
3. Night Surf
4. I Am the Doorway
5. The Mangler
6. The Boogeyman
7. Gray Matter
8. Battleground
9. Trucks
10. Sometimes They Come Back
11. Strawberry Spring
12. The Ledge
13. The Lawnmower Man
14. Quitters, Inc.
15. I Know What You Need
16. Children of the Corn
17. The Last Rung on the Ladder
18. The Man Who Loved Flowers
19. One for the Road
20. The Woman in the Room

GROUP 1: Stories 1-4

The first four stories are simple, basic horror fiction clichés. They deal with vampires, mutated rats, deadly viruses, and alien invaders. They're very much cliché horror fiction themes that you would have seen in the 1800's when the concept was first being created/established. Despite all that, they don't feel old-fashioned or clichés. Stephen King's classic talent in building up the suspense of the story works extremely well here. The buildup to the final monsters work so well in creating the horror portion of the stories. Specifically, the characters' thoughts really create a creepy, unnerving atmosphere as they approach the monsters they are about to face. Because King presents these characters' thoughts so well (a specific talent of Mr. King's that I haven't even been able to mimic), the final payoff of what are objectively silly and overdone concepts by today's standards. King's ability to create suspense and tension in his works I think seriously worked perfectly in these stories.

GROUP 2: Stories 5-8

The next five stories are the very popular, gory-slasher horror stories. It wouldn't be Stephen King without some gruesome descriptions of people dying, and Night Shift isn't void of them, thankfully. These stories are definitely the gruesome slashers that we love and expect from King (meaning that there are a lot of gruesome deaths), but they are all supernatural-based, with a possessed laundry press, the boogeyman, a people-eating monstrous blob, and toy soldiers that come alive. In these stories, King focuses on the gruesome natures of these stories, describing in detail the deadly killings that ensue, and this is a great example of his talent as a horror author.

GROUP 3: Story 9 & 10

The two stories Trucks and Sometimes They Come Back are sort of transitional pieces. These stories combines the previous stories of supernatural & gore horror with the next set of psychological horror stories. Trucks is a story about a group of people who get cornered in a diner by trucks that have become sentient (a silly concept yes), and this feels like a traditional King novel; while there are some very gory scenes of people being slaughtered by the automobiles, there is also a huge amount of psychological horror going on as the humans begin to break down under the pressure of the situation. Sometimes They Come Back was my favourite out of the two, as it was definitely more psychological out of the two, and the slow breakdown of the lead's psyche as he was haunted (literally) by the ghosts of his past was so fascinating and frankly pretty scary to read about. This is interesting because while it utilizes the gory and supernatural elements of the first portion of stories, but also contains large elements of the next set of stories, psychological horror.

GROUP 4: Stories 11-15

The next five stories are very much psychological horror. All of the stories focus on a singular character very closely, rather then multiple characters. More than anything, they are, of course, focused heavily on the mind; characters' thoughts on specific events or actions are directly shown, and therefore creates the image of an unreliable/biased narrator, and this is indeed shown in Strawberry Spring where the strict following of the narrator's thoughts is a crucial element to the story, and it reaffirms the concept of an unreliable narrator by the ends as the most major plot twist directly involves the existence of an unreliable narrator. The other four stories also focus on a singular character and heavily on their thoughts throughout the story. I really liked these stories in particular, not only because of a general interest in psychology, but also because it reminded me heavily of The Shining, which is one of my all-time favourite King novels that also focuses quite a bit on psychological horror.

GROUP 5: Stories 16-19

The last set of stories are "human" horror stories. Continuing from psychological horror, the next four stories also focus usually on a single human being or at least emphasizes the humanity in characters and also deals with "human" themes, the one interconnecting theme being loss. In each story, the main focal character deals with the loss of someone significant (so there is psychology mixed in there as well), but its main attribute is the humanization of the characters and the extreme pathos you feel for the characters as a result. Another big element of the stories is that at the start, they feel very cheerful and happy, but takes a very drastic turn in the last few pages as the mood shifts completely into depressing territory, and it's in these parts that you can fully feel Stephen King's immense talent as an author, as reading these particular stories really force you to go through a roller coaster of different emotions from happiness to extreme depression, and the fact that King manages this in less then fifty pages and still tell a complete story so unlike his usual novels is genuinely very, VERY impressive.

GROUP 6: Story 20

The next final story is a culminating-themed horror story. It blends psychological horror with a "human"-focused story, describing each thought and movement of the characters in unsettling agony. It's hard to describe it, but the story deals with the mortality of human life and the psychological consequences it can have. Because it feels so much more realistic then any of the other stories, The Woman in the Room is EXTREMELY difficult to get through because everything in can feel too familiar in a horrifying way to many people. While it wasn't familiar to me, the entire concept of the story is definitely  something that could happen to me (or anyone else in the world for that matter), which genuinely terrified me unlike any of the other stories, and while it's not what you would expect of a "horror" story, I am not exaggerating when I say it is a deeply horrifying tale that really gets you thinking about life and death, a rather deep topic, and the fact that it provokes thoughts is what really makes this story a clear winner out of all of the others.

Overall Thoughts

I seriously loved this collection of short stories. While there definitely is a bit of a bias due to my love of works of Stephen King in general, there is still no doubting that King is an extremely talented author who I don't doubt could do just as good writing any genre of novels (perhaps except for romance...) as he takes an extreme amount of talent in order to write a coherent story with characters, plots(s), and theme(s) in less then fifty pages, and make it good. Every story in this collection is so gripping and terrifying (in different ways) that really draws you in. What's even more fantastic is King's uncanny ability to write compelling characters that entrances you to become genuinely interested in their well-beings and that just adds to the impressive list of King's abilities: creating and developing compelling, likeable characters in a span of fifty pages or less, something that I have always loved about King; characters have always been my favourite portion of a good story, and Stephen King never has a shortage of them. Almost every character he creates manages to be relatable or at least VERY likeable or even just very interesting in one way and I can never go a few pages into one of his novels without feeling sympathy for a character, and he nails this portion in Night Shift.

Overall, Stephen King's Night Shift gets an indisputable 5/5.

So, my next posts will be spaced apart more then usual. I have a lot going on right now so I can't guarantee weekly posts from now on. While I'll try for bi-weekly posts, I can't really promise that either. But at any rate, for my next few posts, you will be looking at reviews of films, starting with a certain rock & roll legend, Mr. Reggie Dwight. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

ADAPTATION REVIEW: The Shining (1980)

With two little words “Heeere’s Johnny!”, Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson brought Stephen King's 1977 novel, The Shining to life in 1980, instantly creating one of the most quotable and homaged films of all time. Despite the film's success and fame, King himself actually didn't like the film, and have even said it's the only adaptation that he could "remember hating". However, in 1981 non-fiction book Danse Macabre, he listed the film among those he considered to have "contributed something of value to the (horror) genre" and considers it as one of his "personal favourites". So I think it's fair to say that he enjoys the film as a horror movie, but not as an adaptation, which is probably why it was remade into a (pretty lacklustre) miniseries in 1997 with King as writer.

The film has been praised for Kubrick's stunning visuals and fantastically directed scenes along with phenomenal acting from Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance. Despite its success as a film, does it succeed as an adaptation? Before I begin to compare the two works, here is a (hopefully short) synopsis of the plot:

Plot Synopsis

Jack Torrance, a former teacher-turned-writer and a recovering alcoholic takes a job as the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the mountains of Colorado. While Jack and his wife Wendy are happy that Jack has found a job, their five year old son Danny is not happy about it, telling them that "Tony", his imaginary friend, has given him warnings about the hotel. On their first day there, Danny befriends the hotel's friendly chef Dick Hallorann, who tells him that the warnings Danny have been getting is due to "the shining", a psychic ability that allows the possessor to see premonitions about the future, and that the hotel is also able to "shine" and is dangerous.

Months goes by, and the Torrance family is shut in the hotel due to heavy snowfall, and strange things begin to happen; Jack starts acting more more strange and the entire family begin to see phantasms of the hotel's bloody past, except they seem to be gradually becoming more and more real. It's eventually revealed that the hotel is somehow sentient and evil and that it has been causing people to enact horrible acts of violence and its main goal now is to take Danny's "shine" to feed itself. Jack eventually gives into the madness caused by the hotel and sets his mind on killing Danny and Wendy in behalf of the hotel. Thankfully, Danny and Wendy outsmart and manage to escape, leaving Jack to die in the Overlook.

This synopsis is true for both novel and the film, so I'll now talk about the major and minor similarities between the film and the novel:

The Loyal Factors

All of the characterizations are more or less on point. Jack is a recovering alcoholic and a former teacher with anger issues who aspires to write a play during their peaceful time at the Overlook and slowly descends into madness (FUN FACT: King reflected a lot himself and his own alcoholism onto Jack when he was writing). Wendy is a loving and caring mother and wife who is desperately trying to keep together a failing marriage and trying to understand her unusual son. Danny is a young boy with above-average intelligence, supernatural powers, and is given  far too much responsibility and power for his young age, and "REDRUM" being "MURDER" spelt backwards is also accurate to the novel. Hallorann is still a kind-hearted and courageous man who becomes a mentor figure for Danny and is brave enough to fly across the country to save Danny, a boy who he's known for few hours at the most.

Jack's interactions with the hotel ghosts are fairly accurate. Lloyd the bartender who creates alcohol out of nowhere to serve to Jack is consistent and in both versions are crucial in the downfall of Jack. Grady, the hotel's former winter caretaker who murdered his wife and two daughters who has been reincarnated to be a butler, is also in the film and his actions of freeing Jack from the freezer and his speech about "punishing" Wendy and Danny is book-accurate. The short sight of a man dressed in a bear outfit performing oral sex on another man is (unsurprisingly) something from the novel, although their story is more expanded upon and it is a dog costume in there. Also accurate is the nude corpse of an old woman that Jack and Danny both encounter in room 237 (room 217 in the novel; this change is due to the actual hotel that they filmed in not wanting them to use 217 on the chance it might scare people so they invented 237), and Wendy's assumption that the bruise Danny received from her was actually caused by Jack.

So Stanley Kubrick did actually including the major parts from the book. But despite that, the film doesn't feel like Stephen King's The Shining, but more like Stanley Kubrick's original film, The Shining, with inspirations from Stephen King's The Shining. This is mainly due to some major changes in terms of plot, details, theme, and character development, which will be discussed in the next section:

The Disloyal Factors

The biggest change in the adaptation is most definitely Jack Torrance. While the basics of his character, i.e. a recovering alcoholic with anger issues who wants to write a play, is accurate to the novel, there was a whole another level to the character of Jack. The film's portrayal of Jack makes it clear that he would be the main antagonist of the film, because of how creepy Jack Nicholson was as the character right from the start. The novel, however, was the complete opposite. Jack's downfall into a villain is so much more upsetting because of how likeable Jack was. Jack in the novel was, while still an alcoholic with anger issues, also a very caring father and husband to Danny and Wendy. Yes, there were moments when his violent side slipped out, but throughout the majority of the novel, he had a surprisingly loving relationship with Danny especially, and was constantly trying to become a better father and husband and shake off his alcoholism. This is why in the novel, it's particularly distressing to the readers and the characters when Jack goes on his murderous rampage, while in the film, the rampage was something everyone sort of knew was going to happen.

This also marks a significant change from the film and the novel concerning Jack as the antagonist. In the film, Jack definitely seems to be aware that he's trying to kill his wife and son, and doesn't seem to have any qualms about doing so. The novel Jack definitely didn't want to harm his wife and son. You can clearly tell that he wasn't acting out of his own consciousness; it was the hotel controlling him, and he even throws off the control for a brief moment at the end to tell Danny he loves him. This is so frustrating because Jack was such a complex character who was fighting his inner demons, ultimately losing the battle because of the evil spirits in the hotel overtaking him. The film Jack isn't any of that. He isn't particularly loving to Jack or Wendy, he doesn't seem to be doing anything to try and make the situation better, and most importantly of all, I'm not even actually sure the hotel had anything to do with Jack going crazy; the film Jack felt like someone who was one bad day and a drink away from going on a full rampage. Because of this major character change, while Jack Nicholson did an amazing job playing the film's version of Jack, the character just seems to drag down the whole point of the adaptation because of the creepiness to his character.

The Overlook was always shown as an ancient, deadly evil in the novel that takes control of Jack against his will and forces him to try and kill his family. The film's Overlook is shown as nothing much more then a supernatural place that is a bad influence to Jack, goading him on just enough so that they could tip him over to the darkness, and it just doesn't make the Overlook that important since Jack feels like he was always going to go crazy, whether the Overlook was there or not, unlike the novel where Jack has to be forced to go on the murderous rampage. You can really see how Kubrick changing Jack, while giving us a more creepy central character, makes the complex plot of the novel so much more shallow.

Jack also uses a roque mallet in the novel, which is apparently a small version of a croquet mallet, which is a bit confusing since there was a fire axe at the hotel, so I'm not sure why Jack didn't use that instead. In the novel, Jack never actually sees the old woman's nude corpse, so he definitely doesn't kiss the corpse (who previously looked young and beautiful). The old woman's backstory isn't explained in the film, her being a rich old woman whose young lover had left her, and she committed suicide in the bathtub; in the novel Jack runs away before he even sees the corpse. In the novel, Jack also begins to do his own research into the hotel's history, and discovers that the hotel had a very blood one, being the location for mob shootouts, suicides, and murders. The hotel also had a boiler that had to be relieved of its pressure regularly or it would blow up, which becomes quite crucial in the novel's plot.

Another big change was Dick Hallorann's fate and Tony. In the film, Hallorann is killed by Jack the moment he enters the hotel, but in the novel, he takes a beating from Jack, survives, and actually helps Danny and Wendy escape the Overlook and becomes a surrogate father of sorts to Danny. Tony, Danny's imaginary friend is also changed. In the film, he's the croaky-voiced persona in Danny's finger. In the novel, however, Tony actually is a separate figure, always appearing a distance away from Danny so Danny can't see him properly. In the end, Tony is actually revealed to be an older version of Danny. Why he takes that form is never explained.

Jack's abusive, alcoholic father is also mentioned throughout the story. Jack is most likely an alcoholic because of his father (and Danny is an alcoholic as well in the sequel Doctor Sleep) and he is constantly haunted by his father's ghost and hears his father's voice everywhere, and the Overlook uses this to their advantage to make Jack's mind vulnerable enough for them to be able to control him.

Interestingly enough, the things you would associate with The Shining: the Grady twins, the blood elevator, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." and "Here's Johnny!" are all Kubrick additions. The novel had other creepy elements, such as a room in the Overlook becoming stained with blood for Danny as it flashes back to a massacre that had taken place there, or an empty wasps nest that Jack gives to Danny that becomes filled with wasps again at night (which represents the hive mind of the hotel), along with hedge animals coming to life; these hedge animals would move when you weren't looking like the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who, but later came to life and chased people around, trying to kill them. Another change is the bear-man. If you're confused as to what I'm talking about, it's this scene:

In the novel, these two were revealed to be homosexual lovers; the older man being the hotel's manager Horace M. Derwent in the late 1940s and the man in the "bear suit" (a dog suit in the novel) was Roger, a young man who was infatuated with Derwent, although Derwent is very verbally and emotionally abusive towards Roger. Derwent essentially tells Roger that he would consider being his lover again if Roger dresses up like a dog and humiliates himself. Roger does so, and his ghost appears throughout the novel to terrorize Danny.
Interesting Note: Delbert Grady, the Overlook's former winter caretaker and now waiter, is first named as Charles Grady in the film, but then is named Delbert Grady again as a ghost. (Perhaps this means that Jack and Grady are both reincarnations of former Overlook managers from different years who are drawn back to the hotel to be "reclaimed", and Charles Grady is the reincarnation of Delbert Grady. This could explain why the Overlook seems to be able to take control of Jack so easily.)

One of the most major changes however, is the ending. In the film, Jack chases Danny out into the hedge maze (a film creation), but Danny manages to outsmart him and Jack gets lost in the maze and freezes to death. The film then goes back into the Overlook Hotel and focuses onto a picture from 1921 where Jack is standing in the midst of a party, suggesting that Jack really has always been there, just like Grady (i.e. Jack is a reincarnation of one of hotel's former managers). In the novel, however, Jack has a more heroic and tragic ending. Like mentioned earlier, Jack throws off the control of the Overlook briefly to tell Danny he loves him. The spirits then force Jack to bash his own head in with the roque mallet and possesses Jack's dead corpse. Danny then reminds the possessed corpse of Jack about the boiler, which they had completely neglected to tend to. Overlook Jack tries to get to the boiler on time to relieve the pressure, but he doesn't make it in time, and the hotel blows up, killing Jack and (presumably) destroying the evil entity inside the hotel.

It's clear just from my three paragraphs on Jack Torrance that Kubrick's film did a great disservice to the novel. But does being a bad adaptation make it a bad film? As we've seen from Jurassic Park, that's definitely not the case. So now I'll be discussing how the novel and the film did by themselves, and then assess The Shining as an adaptation.

Personal Opinions

The Novel:

This was one of the first Stephen King novels I've read, and I really loved it. King has a way of writing all of his characters in such a way that not only do you believe they're real, but also get attached to them very quickly. This was the case with Jack Torrance for me. He was such a likeable character, and you get sympathize with and understand this character so well that when he actually falls into the control of the Overlook, you do get a real shock as he goes from being the most likeable character to basically the main antagonist of the novel. King also did an amazing job of chronicling the bloodied history of the Overlook without making it boring and genuinely kept me in suspense all the time because I knew something bad was going to happen, but I didn't know what, so the twist worked really well (especially since I hadn't watched the movie yet). It's also only 450 pages, so it's a pretty quick read as well. The novel by Stephen King gets a 5/5.

The Film: 

I didn't dislike the film. It does work really well as a horror film. There's no doubt that Stanley Kubrick is a master filmmaker. Some of the visuals in the film are stunning and some of the most iconic moments are all Kubrick additions, which really shows that Kubrick is an amazing director. Jack Nicholson is AMAZING in the film and the man is genuinely terrifying when he's got an axe. I also did like the ambiguous ending of the film with the photo, which kept me thinking about it for a while, trying to understand why Jack was in that picture, something that the novel didn't necessarily go into as much, leaving the ending very clear-cut. Despite all that, there are some issues with the film. The acting wasn't great; Scatman Crothers was a great Hallorann, but the little kid playing Danny was pretty bad and Shelly Duval (Wendy) was flat most of the time, but she was really good at being terrified (although apparently that was because Kubrick was so demanding on set that Duval was apparently quite badly traumatized). Jack I definitely felt could have had more to his character; even putting the novel aside, film Jack was very flat and there was definitely a lot of character backstory that could have been provided for Jack, and the lack of the backstory didn't really make Jack as interesting as he could have been, and I think ultimately, that was the biggest flaw of the film. But overall, it's a solid, well-made film. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining gets a 4/5.

Overall Assessment

Would Stanley Kubrick's The Shining have benefited from being a more loyal adaptation of the book? Definitely. I think that if Kubrick had made Jack a much more sympathetic character and allowed him more backstory, the audiences would have been genuinely shocked at Jack's fall to evil. Without that, Jack was just an extremely creepy character, and everybody was just waiting for Jack Nicholson to go insane and run around trying to kill people. And while this works for a slasher film, The Shining was never a slasher novel to begin with. It's a complex story about the strengths and weaknesses of the human mind, and I really don't think the film captured that very well. It is rather demanding to ask a film to keep everything from the novel, but the film was already almost an hour and a half. I really think they could have taken out the maze chase, maybe add ten more minutes and have a much more accurate adaptation while still making it a good horror movie.

As an adaptation, The Shining gets a 2/5. It just changed too much from the source material to make it an accurate adaptation of any sort, and its score was lowered even more because of them changing Jack's character so much, changing what was originally a very complex character trying to fight his inner demons and losing that fight because of the evil nature of the hotel to an already crazy person just going more crazy, not even necessarily because of the hotel, and that just degrades the Overlook's danger and Jack as the character too much to keep any complexity from the novel. The film was still good, but it felt so lacking in character development for Jack, and I really think the film would have benefited from a better story for Jack. I really don't think there was any excuse for them to leave out so many plot points from the book, especially when I think they could have fit most of them in with a long running time. But I don't really think it was because of incompetency, but rather Kubrick was inaccurate on purpose, putting his own creative spin on the touch. While I understand why he made those changes, I still think the movie was lacking a bit. I admit though that I loved Jack Nicholson and Jack Torrance and all of the iconic imageries, so while it's a bad adaptation, I can't really help myself but love the film just a little bit. So just like Jurassic Park, here's the lesson: If you're going to be unfaithful to the source work, the film better me AMAZING. Spielberg did it perfectly, Kubrick did it pretty well.

I'm going to be doing another Stephen King work for my next review. It's neither a novel or a film per say but rather a short story collection. You'll see how the review goes. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur