Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Kubrick co-writer talks.

Kubrick
The Terror Trap has a solid interview with the co-screenwriter of The Shining, Diane Johnson.

Johnson talks about working with Stanley Kubrick and her thoughts on Stephen King's original story. She talks about Kubrick's technique for adapting novels to screenplays and discusses a scene that was written and Kubrick subsequently cut from the film:

"He (Kubrick) actually took out a scene that I considered more important. If you've read the novel, it's the scene where Jack finds the scrapbook in the boiler room. And I thought that was very important because you had to know the moment in which he came under the control of the hotel. It's like the moment in a fairy story when the hero takes the poison apple. The main character makes a mistake that brings them into the grip of evil. That was when Jack made his mistake.

Before that, it could have gone either way. It's his vanity and his hope to be a great writer that leads him to take this scrapbook as a gold mine of subjects. That was written and shot. I was sorry to see that Kubrick cut that out. I would have argued to take out something else."

 

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