[soliloquy id=”4867″]
Stephen King recently spoke with Rolling Stone about his career, struggles with addiction in his past, and much more. One of the things that came up during the interview was his tendency to be outspoken about his distaste for what Kubrick did with the film adaptation of The Shining.
King explained to Rolling Stone that he does not understand the cult following that the film has amassed and implied that he simply doesn’t think it to be a good film by any measure.
“I don’t get it,” said King in relation to the film’s cult classic status. “But there are a lot of things that I don’t get. But obviously people absolutely love it, and they don’t understand why I don’t. The book is hot, and the movie is cold; the book ends in fire, and the movie in ice. In the book, there’s an actual arc where you see this guy, Jack Torrance, trying to be good, and little by little he moves over to this place where he’s crazy. And as far as I was concerned, when I saw the movie, Jack was crazy from the first scene. I had to keep my mouth shut at the time. It was a screening, and Nicholson was there. But I’m thinking to myself the minute he’s on the screen, “Oh, I know this guy. I’ve seen him in five motorcycle movies, where Jack Nicholson played the same part.” And it’s so misogynistic. I mean, Wendy Torrance is just presented as this sort of screaming dishrag. But that’s just me, that’s the way I am.”
