UNSEEN EYES

It is partly a testament to Kubricks perfectionism, and partly due to his single-minded vision, that this catastrophic event is unnoticable in the finished version of the film.

Kubricks use of camera angles throughout this scene, and in fact the film, take advantage of the Steadicam system, and were used extensively for the first time in the film. Though the system Kubrick used was actually a jury-rigged version of the Steadicam, being actually a camera mounted on a wheelchair mechanism.

Cameras tend to follow the characters as if someone - or something - is watching closely, and following all the events that take place. There are few scenes that feature any movement in which the camera remains static. This camera technique is also used to implicate the viewer, at home or in the cinema, as a willing accomplice in the unfolding horror - we too, in our seats, are goading on and encouraging the unfolding tragedy : that�s what we came here for. To see an alcoholic wife and child-beater collapse into madness in a deserted hotel and murder his family : through Kubricks use of the camera he implicates the viewer, the voyeur, as implicitly as involved as the Overlook itself.

This - murder - is our entertainment. And the use of televisions as a motif, and a character in themselves, is made clear in the American version of the film : we spend time watching people watching television as their family collapses, using the screen as a surrogate family in the absence of, and collapse, of the genuine article.