The director Stephen King “would have preferred” over Stanley Kubrick on ‘The Shining’
Most authors would be thrilled to see their work adapted into one of the greatest horror movies ever made, but Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining have always had an uneasy relationship.
The titan of literary horror wouldn’t be foolish enough to dismiss the filmmaker’s talents, with King having praised Kubrick for being one of the finest directors of his era. However, he didn’t think he was the right person to do justice to his atmospheric ghost story, and he was happy to let it be known.
King’s issues with The Shining didn’t stop at Kubrick’s perceived artistic shortcomings, either, with the bestseller voicing his dissatisfaction with the casting. He didn’t think Jack Nicholson was enough of an everyman to convince as Jack Torrance the way he’d written him on the page, while he described the hiring of Shelley Duvall as Wendy to be “absolutely grotesque.”
Of course, everybody’s entitled to their opinion at the end of the day, and that applies more than most to the person who wrote the original story. However, seeing as The Shining is considered a benchmark for cinematic terror that finds both Nicholson and Duvall in spectacular form, delivering two of the genre’s finest and most iconic performances, it would be fair to say King is firmly in the minority.
He even prefers the 1997 miniseries of The Shining to Kubrick’s version, which isn’t exactly an opinion that’s been echoing throughout pop culture for the last three decades. It’s not a violent film, although there are plenty of sinister implications, but a filmmaker famed for their ability to craft a hard-hitting set piece that didn’t skimp on the brutality was spotlighted by King as his ideal directorial candidate.
“It’s a dangerous package to handle,” King said to Cinefantastique of the dangers inherent in on-screen violence. “It is all too easy to let violence dominate. A lot of good directors have floundered on that particular rock. And that’s one of the reasons I like Don Siegel, because he handles violence well.”
The regular Clint Eastwood collaborator was equally comfortable in drama and thrillers as he was in action and sci-fi, with King going so far as to say he “would have preferred Siegel direct The Shining” as opposed to Kubrick. There’s no denying the Dirty Harry orchestrator is a legend, but he’d have approached the Overlook Hotel in a completely different manner. Probably with less subtlety and more blood and guts, too.
King also shared his belief that Siegel “would be very successful directing Salem’s Lot,” which didn’t happen either when the two-episode event ended up settling on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Tobe Hooper when it made the jump from page to screen.
Quentin Tarantino didn’t care for the way that one turned out, but as a noted fan of Eastwood’s, maybe he’d have shared King’s appraisal and preferred the suburban vampire story if Siegel had been the one wielding the megaphone.
