The Shining

Movies of the cause feelings like happiness, sadness, anxiety, etcetera, but, does the director really know how to do that? Of course he does, using some elements combined, the director can provoke different sensations and the way is through our senses. For instance, Stanly Kubrick in his film The Shining creates a stressful environment, in which the spectator is more sensitive to be surprised with three specific elements: music, colors, and point of view. The first, music, appeals to our ear. And the last two, catch our eye in different ways.

First of all, hearing. Throughout the movie, the music keeps its tempo and volume, but suddenly, as the tension gets higher, both the volume and frequency also increase, these sudden and loud sounds are related directly with bad news, an explosion or a child's scream, to mention some, and every human that hear them activates a biological alarm that affects the brain and incites to response in a stressful way.

Second, seeing could be considered as a fraught element in the movie because the spectator recognizes brilliant colors throughout, and the theory of color says that striking colors are used to warn about danger. In the movie there are a lot of examples, for instance red in the furniture or in the recurrent Dany's dream in which blood pours out from the walls. These striking colors have a higher impact due to the fact that the high contrast with the pale colors in the rest of the hotel and even outside because of the snowy season.

Lastly, the point of view, when the camera focuses on the character's face creates uncertainty and this makes the brain works to interpret the situation, so, this interpretation will be influenced by the information perceived by hearing and seeing. In this way the spectator's feeling will be reinforced no matter what it is about. In The Shining most of the scenes use this resource mainly with Dany's face, for example when he is alone and near room 237 and if we add the audience is expecting something wrong, because of the sounds and the high contrast colors, the terror increases.

In conclusion, the feeling that a beholder experiences when he or she is watching a movie is nothing more than a human response generated by the blend of sensations perceived in that moment and The Shining is an excellent illustration of this because gathers the necessary sort of elements to achieve its goal, to catch the attention and to make the audience suffer throughout the film.