"The Shining" -session film: Stanley Kubrick in mind, Stephen King in the heart

The tricycle rumbles across the endless corridors of Overlook Hotel. The scary twins. The dramatic showdown on the stairs of the Colorado Room. A whole handful of scenes from Stanley Kubrick's legendary Stephen King adaptation "The Shining" was modeled on director Mike Flanagan for his adaptation of King's sequel "Doctor Sleep". But what may seem at first like sacrilege turns Flanagan into a surprising movie pleasure that takes up nothing less than breaking the rift between Stephen King, the author of the book's original, and Stanley Kubrick, the author of the movie's adaptation.

"The Shining", the book about the supernaturally aware five-year-old Danny Torrance and his newly dry father Jack, who hopes to keep afloat after being thrown out at a school as winter caretaker of the lonely Overlook Hotel, was filmed by Kubrick in 1980 - much to the annoyance of King. Because Kubrick had rejected a script written by King and occupied against its desire Jack Nicholson in the lead role.

King hated the movie. He described him as a "beautiful big Cadillac with no engine under the hood", and found movie mom Torrance, played by Shelley Duvall, was "one of the most misogynist figures ever to appear in the cinema."

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No, says director Mike Flanagan in an interview that horror fans appreciate for his Stephen King adaptation "Gerald's Game" and for the Netflix series "The Haunting of Hill House," of course, it's not a good idea to try reconciliation between two grandmasters of pop culture. But otherwise, he simply could not approach the project.

Flanagan sits in a suite at the London West Hollywood Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, telling that Kubrick's film, which he once considered "too young", made a tremendous impression on him. It was only much later that he read King's novel - and was surprised how much the stories differed. "For someone who idolized both King and Kubrick, it hurt a bit," Flanagan said.

In Video: Ewan McGregor and Rebecca Ferguson on "Doctor Sleep"

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MIRROR ONLINE

In 2013, Stephen King followed the sequel to the Torrance family and Overlook with "Doctor Sleep." It picks up the thread forty years after the events at the snow-covered hotel. Danny is, like his father Jack, an alcoholic and is in a hospice with his supernatural talent dying people to the side. The "emergency call" of a young girl named Abra (Kyleigh Curran) also equipped with the "shine" forces him to face his own trauma.

Flanagan describes his reading of the follow-up novel as a "schizophrenic experience: I read Stephen King, think great what he does to Danny Torrance - but all the images in my head are Kubrick imagery!" And so he had the opportunity to create a "descendant" of "The Shining," who has King and Kubrick as parents. " He also has Kings blessing. "Without his consent," says Flanagan, "I would not have made the film."

Ewan McGregor plays adult Danny Torrance - although he initially thought it was not a good idea. In the face of a film landscape that relies increasingly on sequels, reissues and prehistory to minimize the risk, McGregor assumed that someone wanted to do with a sequel of Kubrick's horror classic box office. "It was not until I realized that it was Stephen King himself who continued this story that I thought fair enough ."

"Doctor Sleeps Awakening"
USA, UK 2019
Director: Mike Flanagan
Screenplay: Mike Flanagan, based on the book by Stephen King
Performers: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran
Production: Warner Bros., Intrepid Pictures, Vertigo Entertainment
Rental: Warner Bros.
Length: 152 minutes
FSK: from 16 years
Start: 21. November 2019

But only the conversation with Flanagan convinced him completely. "There was obviously room here for something to talk about beyond pure horror," he says. "'The Shining' was the story of an alcoholic, Jack, and this is Danny's, who grew up with an alcoholic father." The fact that he was tempted by the material also has to do with his own experiences: in her heart this is a story about the fight against addiction, says McGregor, who himself renounced alcohol nearly twenty years ago. "I do not believe that alcoholics are bad people and sober people are good, but it's about taming their demons."

The antagonists of "Dr. Sleep" are also obsessed with a strange addiction: a hippie troupe led by Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson, who steals McGregor out of sight) intoxicates herself here with the dread of psychic children. Danny is soon involved in the fight against the long-lived vampires, and the showdown is in the very same Overlook Hotel that was the setting for The Shining.

In the video: The trailer for "Doctor Sleeps Awakening"

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Warner Bros.

Flanagan interweaves the contradictions between Kings original novel and Kubrick's film adaptation (fans will remember that the hotel was rubble and ash at the end of the novel) amazingly elegant. In some places, the handling of the original material - the Kubrick Estate provided Flanagan with the Blueprints of the Overlook Hotel as well as some original material - will not only find approval among fans. But Flanagan manages his venture surprisingly well over long distances, both narrative and visually.

For fans, "Doctor Sleep" offers numerous tributes not only to Kubrick's film but also to King's book; Unbelievers should feel well entertained by a thrilling horror movie featuring memorable characters.

In the early reviews of "The Shining", which were initially largely skeptical of the film, there was sometimes talk of the intellectual cold, the emotional warmth of Kings novel face. Flanagan is very much on King's side - not least insofar as "Doctor Sleep" proves yet another fixture of Stephen King's reverence, the question of death and the aftermath.

"I think King is optimistic," says Mike Flanagan. And thus culminating, though "The Shining" was a thoroughly pessimistic play, "Doctor Sleep" in an unexpectedly confident note.