Transition And Reinterpretation
There are many differences between book and film, but there are also an awful lot of similarities. It would be fair to say that the Overlook is central to both versions. When reading King's novel, it is clear that the Overlook is some sort of monster, a fun house of evil things; whereas Kubrick's Overlook feels more like an inanimate coffin for malevolence; a flypaper for the occult. But that aside, inside the pages of the book are entire chunks of dialogue, character developments and motifs that make it unharmed into Kubrick's film. Outside of the obvious central characters, from page to screen we see the woman in the bath, Halloran in Florida, Grady and Lloyd, the ghost riddled ballroom, the Colorado Lounge, and more. From book to screen, Lloyd is still the best barkeep to Portland, Maine...Portland, Oregon for that matter. Grady still thinks Danny and Wendy need corrrrrecting, and Jack even smashes his way through the bathroom door (albeit with a slightly more colourful catchphrase). It is Kubrick's free and easy mix n' matching of various moments into one, which transfer the spirit (pardon the pun) of King's novel into something new yet familiar. Kubrick replaces the red eyed stranger that haunts Danny's 'shinings' with the Grady twins. But in doing so, he also makes allusions to other parts of the book that do not make it on screen. Most notably, in having the girls request Danny play with them "forever and ever"; he channels something that, in the novel, comes from an unknown creature, which resides in the darkened concrete play ring outside the hotel. In the novel, the woman in the bath merely torments Jack, but she becomes an object of desire to him in the film; a meshing of moments when, in the book, Jack finds himself dancing with a seductive ghost woman that he had earlier presumed was the woman from Room 217. Kubrick seems to have an affinity with certain parts of King's novel, and is intent on translating them to his vision. In doing so, I feel that one can follow the narrative of those plot strands from the book, and see a direct correlation between the two mediums. This is important to remember when moving onto point 2...