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9 p.m PDT Sunday, April 27, Monday, April 28, and Thursday, May 1 ABC |
on broadcast TV, we get what we click. Sitcoms starring Midwestern comics and Queens nannies. "X-Files" clones. A "Dukes of Hazzard" reunion movie. However, with ABC's well-appointed-but-bloated adaptation of Stephen King's novel "The Shining" -- stretched out over three nights beginning Sunday and thus inaugurating ABC's May sweeps smorgasbord -- we get what King thrusts upon us. The author, a veritable miniseries bogeyman (ABC has aired five King masterpieces in the last decade), has gone on record complaining that the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film of "The Shining" isn't true to his vision. More recently, however, he has reportedly come to terms with the Kubrick-isms -- the blood-drooling elevators, the Diane Arbus-inspired ghost twins -- that (he says) mucked up his story and sent Jack Nicholson once and for all through the breach of acting disasters, never to return. In fact, King is now contractually not allowed to dis the Kubrick version. With a budget for the new miniseries -- officially titled "Stephen King's 'The Shining'" -- clocking in at $23 million, what unspools across the tube is a vanity project of no small proportions. Of course, it's nearly impossible to sit through the miniseries without making comparisons to the Kubrick film: The camera set-ups are similar and so are some of the grab-you-by-the-gullet jolts. One detail King restores in this go-around is the notion that the hotel's Edward Goreyesque animal-shaped hedges could come to life, and they do -- thrillingly. And while the Kubrick film was made on a sound stage, director Mick Garris (King is the executive producer) returned to the scene of the crime, as it were. Exteriors and interiors were shot at The Stanley, the impressive real-life Colorado hotel that inspired The Overlook Hotel in King's book. The author apparently looked over every detail, even giving himself a cameo and adding a sentimental epilogue. God forbid the hand of art -- or editing -- should prevail. The result is what you might call a literal interpretation of "The Shining," as dramatically attenuated and thin on emotional substance as most of King's books. On the one hand, its scenes are true to the novel. On the other hand, once you see "The Shining" on television, you'll never think of it as a supernatural horror story again. Indeed, the new "Shining" turns out to be the ultimate woman-in-peril TV movie. Forget the ghouls and the ghosts, the corpses that materialize out of nowhere. (Well, don't forget that decomposing lady in the bathtub.) Forget the idea that a romantic edifice can nurture the sins of the past. Forget the notion that Jack Nicholson's performance, veering off in egregiously wrong directions, is something we're going be living with years after Steven Weber ("Wings"), cast as caretaker Jack Torrance, is an acting footnote. Restaged for the small screen, "The Shining" plays like every other network sob story of domestic violence -- a family at the mercy of a husband's rage. Poor self-esteem and easily-threatened masculinity are the true specters camping out with the Torrance family as it hunkers down for a long winter. At the Overlook, defrocked schoolteacher Jack hopes to write a play, repair his scandal-ridden work record and prove to himself that he can, indeed, care for his family. In this version, it's not supernatural influence that keeps Jack from his goals, but the twin demons of alcohol and self-hatred that turn a well-meaning husband into a stark-raving metaphor for disenfranchised males everywhere. His wife, Wendy (Rebecca De Mornay), and child, Danny (Courtland Mead), become the targets of his paranoia, fed by distinct instructions from the hotel's ghouls to get rid of those annoying family members who are holding him back. Like the best of the women-in-peril genre, this "Shining" also contains the requisite scene of the woman sporting two (if not three) broken knees, dragging herself on hobbled limbs toward the door for an ungodly period of time, perhaps weeks. De Mornay's is a performance Tori Spelling would be proud of. Scary topiary animals aside, we've seen this all before, and not just in Kubrick's camp carnival of souls. For TV watchers, there's nothing new here -- "The Shining" is on television almost every night.
Robin Dougherty is a regular contributor to Salon.
Stephen King's The Shining (9 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Thursday, ABC) P R E V I O U S T V F E A T U R E S"Ivanhoe" By Joyce Millman (04/18/97) Dead Air By Joyce Millman (04/11/97) "Rebecca" without the ghosts By Joyce Millman (04/11/97) Food Fairyland By Joyce Millman (03/26/97) "Daria" vs. "Jenny McCarthy" By Joyce Millman (03/10/97) |