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Info: Kubrick's 'The Shining'... US & International versions

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Came across this article, I’ve only seen the American version (which as far as I remember has all of these scenes mentioned - except for the epilogue) I think it would be interesting to see the “international” version (even though it would be the opposite of the usual preservations around here, actually having LESS footage) - the author of this article doesn’t mention any additions in the international version, but I wonder if there would be any alternate line readings etc, has anybody here ever seen the epilogue with Wendy and Danny in the hospital? Was it ever shown on tv?

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/films/cutshining.htm

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Originally posted by: Murch
Came across this article, I've only seen the American version (which as far as I remember has all of these scenes mentioned - except for the epilogue) I think it would be interesting to see the "international" version (even though it would be the opposite of the usual preservations around here, actually having LESS footage) - the author of this article doesn't mention any additions in the international version, but I wonder if there would be any alternate line readings etc, has anybody here ever seen the epilogue with Wendy and Danny in the hospital? Was it ever shown on tv?

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/films/cutshining.htm


I'm assuming it must have at some point, because I have (an admittedly hazy) memory of having seen the epilogue.
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I know Kubrik wanted his DVD releases in full frame (I think). But wasn't The Shining actually shot in widescreen?
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It was shot open matte. I caught a screening last year, and you could faintly see the extra picture information above and below the edges of the 1:85 theatre screen.

Where were you in '77?

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Kubrick shot his last three films open matte, but always intended them to be shown 1.85:1 theatrically. In 1991, when he approved new digital transfers of all his films for laserdisc, he opted to have his films unmatted whenever possible. Given the low resolution of laserdisc and the unavailability of 16x9 enhancement, he didn't like how the matting wasted so much of the picture when there's perfectly safe image underneath. However, there's no reason to keep them unmatted now that we have high resolution 16x9 DVDs and also high-def formats. His storyboards for The Shining had marks showing that the images were to be composed for 1.85:1 first, but also made safe for 1.33:1 in the event of mattes not being added.

Just a rundown of official aspect ratios for his films:

Killer's Kiss - 1.37:1
The Killing - 1.75:1
Paths of Glory - 1.85:1
Spartacus - 2.20:1 (or 2.35:1 on 35mm prints)
Lolita - 1.66:1
Dr. Strangelove - 1.66:1
2001: A Space Odyssey - 2.20:1
A Clockwork Orange - 1.66:1
Barry Lyndon - 1.66:1
The Shining - 1.85:1
Full Metal Jacket - 1.85:1
Eyes Wide Shut - 1.85:1
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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Originally posted by: Murch
...has anybody here ever seen the epilogue with Wendy and Danny in the hospital? Was it ever shown on tv?


Only a lucky few ever saw the epilogue. I believe that only days after The Shining's release in theaters in the US, Kubrick decided that scene had to go, and actually employed editors to go around to movie theaters and snip it out. And I don't think the movie was in wide release for the first week or so.
The footage was probably destroyed. Oh well. He's the artist.

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Originally posted by: Bahax
Originally posted by: Murch
...has anybody here ever seen the epilogue with Wendy and Danny in the hospital? Was it ever shown on tv?


Only a lucky few ever saw the epilogue. I believe that only days after The Shining's release in theaters in the US, Kubrick decided that scene had to go, and actually employed editors to go around to movie theaters and snip it out. And I don't think the movie was in wide release for the first week or so.
The footage was probably destroyed. Oh well. He's the artist.


It's bunk that Kubrick destroyed footage. For example, his estate has all the 2001: A Space Odyssey deleted footage (the negatives are indeed gone, but they survive as 65mm color separations).

"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick
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You say the talk of destroyed footage is bunk - but what about these statements from Leon Vitalli (Warner Bros repsentative and former Kubrick assistant)....

http://www.dvdtalk.com/leonvitaliinterview.html

Q: Obviously Kubrick shot cans and cans and cans and cans and reels and reels and reels of film for each of his films. Has that work been archived and is it being saved so that at some point people can be able to get a window into his creative process?

A: I'll tell you right now, okay, on Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Barry Lyndon, some little parts of 2001, we had thousands of cans of negative outtakes and print, which we had stored in an area at his house where we worked out of, which he personally supervised the loading of it to a truck and then I went down to a big industrial waste lot and burned it. That's what he wanted.

Q: Wow.

A: He didn't want anybody to either show…because basically in Eyes Wide Shut, there were four middle scenes which were cut out of it otherwise everything that he shot is on the screen. But those are gone. Basically, for the most part anyway, all you're going to see are like maybe 20, 30, 40 takes of the same thing, but for some reason, whether it's the tracking shot that had stopped halfway through because something had gone wrong or the acting was bad or flubbed line or what have you, were basically the same. What's there to see? You know? What is there to see? People know he took hundreds of takes sometimes. That's known about him. But for him, it's what was up on the screen.

It's not that I don't sympathize or understand why people get agitated, but when you come down to it, I would rather have it the way Stanley wanted it than the way a lot of other people. You could have had a hybrid of 100 ways of showing his films if it wasn't for Stanley being insistent about the way he wanted them to be seen.

Also (from the digital bits) :

Bill Hunt: I know that when Columbia TriStar recently went back to do a collector's edition of Dr. Strangelove, they wanted to use the alternate "pie fight" ending, but the Kubrick estate denied the request.

Leon Vitali: Well, again... Stanley never wanted any of that to be seen. Stanley was never one to save a lot of deleted scenes and trims and so forth. He felt that if he didn't use it in the movie, it had no business being seen.


found this quote from shelley duvall here about the ending: http://www.anchorbay.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=832&page=21&highlight=shining


Shelley Duvall (1981)
He cut out the final sequence of the film after several days in the theatres.
I think he was wrong, because the scene explains some things that are obscure for the public, like the importance of the yellow ball and the role of the hotel manager in the plot. Wendy is in the hospital with her son. The manager visits her, apologizes for what happened, and invites her to live with him. She doesn't say yes or no. Then he goes into the hallway of the hospital, passes in front of Danny, who is playing on the ground with some toys. When he gets near the exit, he stops and says, 'I almost forgot, I have something for you.' And he pulls from his pocket the yellow ball that the twins had thrown at Danny. It bounces twice (we spent a whole day filming so it would bounce the right way), Danny catches it, looks at it, then lifts his eyes towards the hotel manager, stupefied, realizing that throughout the story he was aware of the mystery of the hotel. Ullman walks out the door with an evil smirk on his face and gets in his car with Jack in the back. There was a Hitchcockian side to this resolution, and you know that Kubrick was crazy about Hitchcock.
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There's a lot of errors on Vitali's part. For example, he ends up describing the aspect ratio situation wrong... he's confusing the video transfers with Kubrick preferring not to shoot in anamorphic formats like Panavision. Kubrick's widow mentioned in an interview that Kubrick actually wanted to participate in supplemental material after he retired (after Eyes Wide Shut), but it never happened obviously. I'm fairly sure that she hinted at Kubrick being interested in recording commentaries.

As for the Dr. Strangelove alternate ending, I'm fairly sure it's just lost. Columbia also lost the original negative. It only survives because Kubrick kept a pristine fine-grain positive in his personal collection (well, other than some grainy and dupey 4th generation prints in Columbia's collection). Columbia used to take horrible care of their films. The negative for Lawrence of Arabia was being stored in a 80 degree abandoned bowling alley at the time it was to be restored (back in 1988). From what I've heard, until their restoration program was started in the late 1980s, it's a miracle that so much of their library still survives.

Kubrick was quite the packrat, so the deleted Shining stuff is probably all there somewhere (either in his archive or at Warner Brothers). I mean, Charlie Chaplin insisted that hundreds of cans of outtakes from his films to be destroyed, yet they still exist.
"I was a perfect idiot to listen to you!"
"Listen here, there ain't nothing in this world that's perfect!"

- from The Bank Dick