Here's Johnny!!!

I've found it really difficult to write much about the Structuralism: Binary Opposition lecture. I found some of it quite interesting but I don't think it's a very effective way of analysing a film, scene or character, at least not as effective as denotation, connotation, myth. However, I've had a go, looking at Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

The two binary opposites I identified in the film are;                  love - hate
                                                                                               reality - imagination
It is the fact that both of these thing blur together which makes the film so terrifying.

When the film starts, Jack appears to be a family man who loves his wife and child, although as his sanity slips away he begins to hate both of them more and more. At first he shows this just with contempt and annoyance, but this quickly transforms to murdurous rage. This makes the audience extremely uncomfortable, more so probably than during a different type of horror film, as a father/husband figure is supposed to be someone the family can trust and who loves them. This monster is much more frightening than say a vampire, with whom there is no emotional connection.

The blurring of reality and imagination is both interesting and alarming to the audience, as it makes the film totally unpredictable. Jack seems to be imagining many things - a party full of people in 1920s dress, conversations with the bar man and with the waiter, the waiter convincing him that he needs to kill his family... However, after his wife locks him in the food-store cupboard, it is the "imaginary" waiter who releases him. This could have been a figment of his imagination too - he could have made his own escape in reality - but there is no sign that this may have happened.

Another example is the old lady in the bathtub - it wasn't just Jack who saw her - his son, Danny, saw her too, and he even came away with bruises from her. We know that Danny can "shine", which is why he can see her, but niether the audience nor Danny realised that these images of people which he can see were capable of harming him.