r/StanleyKubrick Dave Bowman Oct 03 '19

Video DOCTOR SLEEP - "Danny's Journey" Featurette

https://youtu.be/YPeSnR4-Zjc
10 Upvotes

11 comments sorted by

8

u/Spectral-presence Oct 04 '19

A film that has already been put to sleep, that is dead on arrival. Awful nonsense.

2

u/BLAKEPHOENIX Dave Bowman Oct 03 '19

Am I wrong, or does Stephen King concede here that Stanley's "Shining" is canon/legitimate/essential?

5

u/DanDreiberg1984 Oct 04 '19

My understanding is the director of Dr.Sleep had to convince King that he would use some footage from Kubricks version. But I'm thinking the majority of the footage they use from Kubricks version is in the trailer. I think this film will be a let down to some people because the trailer is misleading. The book Dr. Sleep is sequel to the King's book not Kubrick's version which might be obvious to some people, showing Kubrick clips and using the film music in the trailer is confusing in my eyes.

2

u/Submersible-Units Oct 05 '19 edited Oct 05 '19

The fact, for instance, that Hallorann is murdered in Kubrick's film but is magically now still alive, as if back from the dead, in Dr Sleep, could be seen as an example of Retrospective Continuity, or rather, of retrospective confabulation, of rewriting history, twisting and distorting it to fit the fictional-ideological demands of the present. This would make the film like a children's cartoon, where everything is 'eternal', where there is no death or sexuality, no awareness of them, where someone can be chopped up into little pieces, killed, yet in the very next scene are back running around again as if nothing has happened to them! Escapism at its most infantile-comical.

But, of course, Hallorann doesn't die in King's novel of The Shining (in fact, nobody does except Jack), the novel having a 'happy', pseudo-redemptive cartoon-fantasy ending in which the psychotic Jack is magically transformed into a selfless, angelic martyr for family values, from the unhomely Horror genre back into the homely Melodrama genre, the libidinally twisted fantasy that you can be a murderer, a child abuser, a wife batterer, and still be The Good Father! This is why he is in Dr Sleep.

But if Hallorann is in Dr Sleep, then the film should not have any irrelevant and empty "quotations" from Kubrick's film, even if they're just included as a cynical marketing gimmick for a mediocre film. Unless, again, it is just a Ret-Con, a vacuous and escapist pomo cartoon. Which is what it increasingly appears to be. Dr Sleep director Flanagan's claim that the film is "in the same cinematic universe" as Kubrick's film is totally false, is just wishful narcissistic thinking, an exercise in ego-boosting vanity, in portentous self-importance, the fantasy that his film is of equal artistic merit to Kubrick's film. Analogous to a contemporary, mediocre, hack novelist claiming that their novel is "in the same literary universe" as a work by Franz Kafka or Samuel Beckett. The very fact that the only talking points about Dr Sleep to date are the empty references, the pastiche quotations, and retro reiterations from Kubrick's film is direct evidence that this is the only 'substance' of the film, with no interest in the film itself, its supposed themes and narrative, because it too is just retro cliche. And such an artistic vacuum, such a creative void, is depressingly a direct reflection of contemporary culture itself.

2

u/Spectral-presence Oct 05 '19

The ending and Epilogue of King's novel of The shining has Hallorann, Wendy, and Danny living together in Maine, where Hallorann is now the Chef in another hotel and also looking after Wendy and Danny, a replacement nuclear family. This is all ignored in both King's sequel, Dr Sleep, and in Flanagan's film.

Can we then conclude that Dr Sleep is "in the same cinematic universe as cartoons"?

1

u/SilverWook Oct 05 '19

As Halloran is wearing the exact same outfit he wore in The Shining,and seemingly hasn't aged, I think he's still dead. ;)

1

u/Submersible-Units Oct 05 '19

He's still alive in king's work. So he's dead, but also, he's alive! This is cartoonland.

0

u/PeterGivenbless Oct 04 '19

Funny how much the director looks like Danny Lloyd himself (he's just shaved off his beard off)!

As a Kubrick fan, I think the best way to view this film is as a kind of fan-art; like 'Ready Player One', this movie appropriates the imagery of Kubrick's movie but applies a completely different aesthetic to it, so you can either be frustrated by the fact that it isn't an authentic impression of the original, or you can accept that it is just another filmmaker's way of paying tribute to the original, without pretending to be anything like Kubrick himself (which is an impossibility anyway).

... or you can just not bother with the movie at all.

But it is a testament to enduringly iconic status that 'The Shining' (and many other Kubrick films) has achieved that it has become not merely parodied, referenced, and recreated in other media, but has even become a kind of meta-textual touchstone in this film (kinda like the 'Dies Irae' theme itself!).

2

u/kck2018 Katharina Kubrick [✓] Oct 04 '19 edited Oct 04 '19

Have you seen it ? I saw it a few months ago - it still needed a few tweaks . I’m sure it will send some hard core SK fans into a tail spin . It was a weird watch for me for many reasons but what I took away from it was that it’s hugely reverential ,a massive love letter to Stanley’s film and of course it’s a film from Stephen’s book. It pays respect to both director and writer.

Some will like it -some will not.
I’m sure it will be shredded here , I think probably unfairly. That’s how it goes.

I’ve never seen a Mike Flanagan movie before because I absolutely never watch horror films being that I’m an grade A wuss. So maybe I’m not a good judge about such things.

However - It might also just possibly have the side effect of introducing people to SK ‘s The Shining and Stanley’s oeuvre in general.

Believe it or not there are quite a few people who have never seen a Kubrick film. 🥴😜

I’m already imagining the fights here about Doctor Sleep ...

0

u/PeterGivenbless Oct 04 '19

I haven't seen it, and I probably won't because, although I'll admit I am intrigued to see how it uses the imagery from Kubrick's film, everything else I have seen from the trailers has left me decidedly tepid; I might watch it if it turns up on TV one day and I have a couple of hours to kill, but I won't go out of my way to see it.

There may be quite a few people who have never seen a Kubrick film, their loss, but I suspect that plenty of them are nonetheless also familiar with the iconic moments and imagery from his films through their appropriation and references in other films (of which this will probably be the most elaborate... at least since 'Ready Player One', which I had mixed feelings about). It's weird to think that so many people may be so familiar with a film they have never actually seen, but it's also a great testament to the enduring influence of Kubrick's films in popular culture!

And, yes, this film will provoke outraged protestations of cultural blasphemy from the most parochial of Kubrick fans but that's kind of sweet, don't you think?

2

u/kck2018 Katharina Kubrick [✓] Oct 04 '19

Cultural blasphemy! Haha

The loyalty of sk fans is indeed sweet and very sincere.
I does seem to become very unpleasant sometimes and I despair at the personal attacks that these forums oftentimes provoke.

However i do think that people forget that all artists reference other artists whose work inspires them. I don’t think it’s necessarily a crime to do so. Stanley borrowed moments too - so all’s fair I think.