The Shining Versus Get Out: Movie Review

In this Analysis of The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) and Get Out (Jordan Pele, 2017), I will compare and contrast both the films to analyze Mise-en-Scene. According to Barsam and Monaham (2016), Mise-en-Scene briefly stated, is the process of putting on an action. For example, in the critical analysis of movies, it means the general look and feel of a movie: what does the audience see, hears, and experiences while watching the movie? How does the movie influence the mood of the viewer? Barsam and Monahan continue to explain mise-en-scene when they state that it is what the movie can do or does to the viewer.

When they use the film gravity to describe mise-en-scene, they state that the look of the movie is not only overwhelming but also gives the viewer the feeling of being in the movie. It is the narcotizing effect of the movie. It is how the movie extracts you from your world and walks through all sceneries: for instance, they describe the film gravity to not only overwhelm and infatuates the viewers by the look but also give the viewers the feeling of experiencing space like they are there themselves. Thus, I will be performing an analysis of the aesthetic influence of the movies the shinning and Get out on the viewer. Therefore, I will be able to give an overview of the message directors wished to convey to the viewers of the films.

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick): mise-en-scene analysis

The first character of the film, Jack Torrance, adopts a descent of madness. However, Wendy Torrance looks vulnerable; she is in her dressing gown. The setting is Wendy Torrance’s new home, the Overlook Hotel. Wendy too, looks secluded. She is geographically hiding out from society, and so to believe, from mentally challenged Jack Torrance who is her husband. In spite of all the probable threats like lack of a proper meal, her sick son, and the fear of an avalanche, the more threatened by the mental illness of her husband. Her gown depicts how she is not ready to face the whole situation. She harbors vulnerability. The last character in this film is Danny Torrance. He is filmed in a jumper that is made of cotton has many colors. He is a child-a young boy.

The Overlook Hotel

The setting of the film, the rocky mountainside, with the menacing type of music, presents the dystopian effect of the film. The Overlook Hotel even makes things far inauspicious. Its location on the mountainside gives in an utter sense of isolation. Worst of all is the night filming, which gives the building a strange visualization, almost as if it is hovering over the inhabitants. It has a maze section that I would not dare set foot on.

Similarly, the inside of the hotel is not different. It is equally more of a maze and even better horrific except for its lurid lighting. However, why would an isolated in such a horrifying setting be that unpleasantly brightly lit? Instead of the drowsy form of lighting common in horror films as this. This may be a symbolism of the heightened insanity the building is yet to experience: The constantly increasing madness of Torrance.

When Ian Nathan commented about the film, he explained that everything in the movie describes the intended psychological implication of this film. Also, many have claimed that Overlook Hotel is a representation of Hell, and Jack Torrance and his insanity representing Satan. Jameson, in his description of the setting of the film, was not used to not only project the horrific feeling but also purposefully for illumination of character (insanity and vulnerability), stated that the emptiness and the spaciousness of Overlook Hotel symbolize Torrance’s absences, both mentally and physically. He explains that the unoccupied spaciousness of the Hotel encloses than rather release, causes frustration instead of liberation.

Moreover, the spaciousness also symbolizes the undefiled modernity. This is what Jameson means when he mentions that primarily, every aspect of the film is created through disruption of reality. Behind the closed doors are suspiciously even more horrific large empty spaces.

The human placement

What has come out significantly is how insignificant people are in this film. The impersonality by the director of the film is suitable for a horror film as this where humans are the victims of fate in the movie (Fhlaim 2017). When Jameson discusses the placement of the human figure, he refers to the scene where Jack directly down stares at Overlook and sees minute Danny and Wendy. He explains that this could be Torrance’s imagination. He, however, mentions that there cannot be surety to this about the director’s mind in this scene. It does not mean that the human is not important in this scene, but the fact that humans a hovered upon by the building and the mountain is strategic for the visual impression of the horror film.

Get out (Jordan Peele, 2017): mise-en-scene analysis

The Apartment Set-Up

The title of the film Get out, begin with humor ends up into a nightmare. Missy has some power over Chris since Chris is in her house and is dating her daughter. She intends to rip Chris of all his ego and push her agenda once she has gained control over her. This is particularly intentional as the director wants this to be noted.

Rose and Chris are preparing to travel to meet Rose’s parents when Chris becomes even more anxious. Chris asks the inevitable question of whether Rose’s parents know he is black. However, Roses teases him as she asks if they should know. The producer here probably intends to keep Rose’s trust over her parents. The focus is completely set up on Rose providing a lengthy view of her responses so that the viewer maintains in mind that she has nothing to hide. Then comes the scene where Chris advances to kiss Rose. The producers allow Rose to gain full control of the scene. This was meant to maintain the nature of the film. The viewer also gets the feeling Rose and Chris are meant to be no matter what.

The sunken place

Thirty minutes into the film, Chris senses ill motive as he takes the sit to hold a conversation about his smoking problem with Rose’s mother, Missy Armitage. Walter, the family groundskeeper, had just insanely chased Chris. Besides, it is fascinating how Georgina, the family housekeeper stares at her reflection as if infatuate or rather narcotized. Horrified could be the term.

Chris is still thrilled with Georgina’s and Walter’s mannerisms. As he meditates upon this on his return to his bedroom, Missy is there alone, quite in the living room. He accepts her invitation to join her. Earlier, she had offered a therapist to help him quit smoking. The viewer can only think of a snare for Chris. Later, the therapist brings back the dark memories in Chris that reveal the secrets about the demise of his mother. This is when Chris falls into the sunken place.

For many years, there has always been a joke that blacks are usually the first to die in many horror films. However, Get out is radical. The film was produced at a period when only a few individuals held any belief in a post-racism era. The horror in the movie got out of hiding long ago. The sunken place in the film is a metaphor of a state of seclusion, representing marginalization of the black people in the industrial complex. Also, it is a representation of how black people, unfortunately, get ensnared by rich Americans.

The outstanding issue that makes Get out distinct from other horror movies is that it uses humor and horror to handle racism. The film tackles racism in a modern manner. In typical horror movies, you would see black people haunted and scampering to save themselves. This film, however, handles the hidden form of racial segregation.

In the first scene of the movie, a black man in cold strides down an unfamiliar street. Then a white driver stalks the man and eventually takes the opposite direction. A man who is wearing a metal helmet gets out of the car, strangles the black man, and drags his body to the car. This black man who I murdered by a stranger was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Black people have lived in fear in America because of scenes like this.

The producer of the film intended for the Americans to place themselves in the predicament of the blacks. When Rose and Chris are driving to Rose’s parents, Rose, who is the driver hits a deer. When they call the police, the police discuss the situation with rose and eventually asks for Chris’ identification. Similar situations make blacks anxious and fearful. This is a depiction of what it feels to be black, what runs through the minds of black people.

In conclusion, the misunderstood phenomenon in the shinning is whether or not Jack is mad or has demonic possessions. However, the actual presence of ghosts, the encounter between Jack and Lloyd, the bartender, and when at the end of the film Wendy sees the blood in the elevator, and the skeletons send Jack into possession. I find the structure of the film, particularly horrifying in comparison to the suspense. Diane Johnson quotes summarizes everything about the shinning when she says that a movie is commendable when it is completely scary and without cheap tricks.

As for Get out, the hypnotic powerless Chris is even more horrifying. He is violated and remains with no means of thinking about what happened. The film’s most horrifying sunken place was used to reveal an era of hidden racism, cultural appropriation, and the legacy of slavery. Then without the horror in the film, there cannot be any sense to it or racism to criticize.

References

1. Barsam, R., & Monahan, D. (2015). Looking at movies. WW Norton & Company.
2. Kilker, R. (2006). All Roads Lead to the Abject: The Monstrous Feminine and Gender Boundaries in Stanley Kubrick’s’ The Shining.’ Literature/Film Quarterly, 34(1), 54-63.
3. Ní Fhlainn, S. (2017). Book Review: The Shining: Studies in the Horror Film. Horror Studies, 8(1), 165-167.