Shining

In the organizer's words:

Shelley Duvall (1949-2024) was one of the great cinema faces of the seventies. It was her performance in Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING alone that made film history: the scene in which she locked herself in the bathroom of the Overlook Hotel to escape her insane husband, who attacks the door with an axe while she stands helplessly behind it with a panic-stricken face and a steak knife in her hand, is unforgettable. Even if this movie is reflexively associated with Jack Nicholson: Duvall's role of Wendy Torrance, who has to watch her husband Jack go berserk in a labyrinthine hotel in a murderous crescendo, is quite essential to the movie. Not only does she fill it out magnificently, but without her, much of Nicholson's demonic possession would fall flat.

Kubrick's Stephen King adaptation has lost none of its disturbing effect even after more than four decades. The plot is only on the surface that effective horror thriller; in fact, the film is a virtuoso study of the interaction between reality and appearance, reality and illusion, as well as the traumatic abysses that open up beyond common sense.

Part of the FilmGalerie's fall series "IN MEMORIAM. Cinematic flashbacks" from 29.10.-3.12.2025.