Horror Actressing: Shelley Duvall in "The Shining"
Tuesday, March 31, 2020 at 4:00PM by Jason Adams
Why isn't the face of "Cabin Fever" that of Shelley Duvall's? Why isn't it her Wendy Torrance huddled behind that bathroom door holding a knife that we see, instead of Jack Nicholson's Jack peering through the broken slats? I mean we all know the answer -- it rhymes with "Fuctural Fisogyny" -- but maybe we should start to do something about that. All of the news stories we've seen over the past few weeks about the victims of domestic abuse being quarantined at home with their abusers feels like a good start to having that conversation. Losing your mind trapped in a single location is scary, but being trapped in one place with a person you love who has lost theirs is scary tenfold.
For all of the abuse that Shelley Duvall suffered as an actress at the hands of her director Stanley Kubrick in the making of The Shining it feels just, and way overdue, to re-situate the film as that of Wendy Torrance's story of survival...
It's not a tough re-situation, y'all -- Shelley has been there this whole damn time giving the best damn performance in the film. It's time to snatch it right out of their hands, smack 'em back with a baseball bat, and seriously give Shelley Duvall the credit she deserves for turning in one of the single greatest Horror Performances that's ever been put on a screen big or small.
Long derided as hysterical and unappealing, Duvall's Wendy needs to be repeatedly and loudly re-framed as that of a gas-lit woman facing down the abyss of total annihilation and saying "no thank you, and fuck you also," as she picks up a baseball bat and starts swinging. Like Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at a certain point Wendy is running along on the fumes of survival instinct alone, and like Sally she manages to make it out, and on top of that she manages to bring her son with her.
Yes Duvall's performance shines a bright light on a twisted face of absolute terror we might not want to see in ourselves, but therein lay its truth and honesty. We all go a little mad sometimes. It's what we do with the madness that matters.
previously in this series:
- Barbara Hershey in Insidious
- Bonnie Aarons in Mulholland Dr
- Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion
- Haley Bennett in Swallow
- Lupita Nyong'o in Us
- Max Von Sydow in The Exorcist
- Ronee Blakley in Nightmare on Elm St
- Sonoya Mizuno in Ex-Machina
- Una O'Connor in The Invisible Man
Reader Comments (18)
She got a lot of shit for that performance but I thought she killed it in displaying the kind of fear that she would have. Especially with Jack Nicholson going insane in that film.
As always, your writing is inspiringly beautiful. Thanks for your great work and for highlighting one of the best horror performances ever. She's my Best Actress of 1980, telegraphing sheer panic as few performers have ever done. It's not overdone hysteria, it's primordial terror personified, as authentic as it is electrifying.
The shit Duvall received for her work in this film over the years, including a Razzie nomination, is unforgivable and the sort of insanity not even the Overlook could conjure.
She's amazing in it and I've always seen The Shining as Wendy's story just as much as Jack's. She should have been Oscar-nominated.
I think Duvall is absolutely amazing in the film, and I'm all for this new perspective, especially in light of how horrifically she was treated while the film was being shot. People need to realize that Jack Nicholson wouldn't be as memorable without Shelley Duvall playing her complementary notes along his.
Like Veronica Cartwright in Alien she sells catatonic terror.
Like Veronica Cartwright she does catatonic terror perfectly.
The very best!! Love Shelley Duvall - always and forever.
@markgordonuk "catatonic terror" That is the, well, perfect description. I've always found Jack to be a bit too self-conscious as Jack; it's as if he is winking at the audience ("I'm killing this role, ain't I?"). But Shelley plays it just right.
Really hated seeing Diana Ross’s daughter/Bryan Cranston ruin this famous scene with that idiotic Mountain Dew commercial.
How many takes did Kubrick make Duvall do for that staircase scene, about 80-100? No wonder her character goes nuts.
jason, nice article. i remember seeing The Shining when i was 12 years old, and the real reason i was so frightened by it was watching Duvall's palsy of terror. people underestimate how difficult it is to play real fear on camera; she's aces here.
An iconic performance. Love her forever.
There's a scene in this movie where she encounters a bunch of skeletons in clothes and it's scary because she sells it. The movie works 100% because of her.
It's a wonderful performance in a horror film. Wendy needs to be that broad in her reactions to balance out the absurdity of Jack's transformation. It's an over the top performance in a film that overwhelms the audience with terrifying grandeur. There needs to be a human element that matches the extremes of the circumstances to make the circumstances believable to an audience.
I never understood several Razzies choices but their bias against The Shining puzzled me. Ok, perhaps knowing that King didn’t like the movie adaptation of his novel and that first reviews weren’t spectacular, they aimed to strike a successful and popular film
Undoubtedly deserved an Oscar nom
I also want to point out the Kings criticism is disingenuous. In the book the character presents as tougher and more level headed and collected. But once the mechanisms of the plot are under way she’s utterly useless, plays no role whatsoever in protecting either herself or her son, and quite literally has to be knocked unconscious for the finale to even take place.
Kubrick basically gives Duvall the final third of the movie. Jack has fully lost it and Danny is either catatonic or on the run. King’s assertion that Wendy spends the movie crying, screaming, and acting stupid is pure bullshit. The character starts from a place of almost literally no agency and in the face of unimaginable terror manages to pull through and get the hell out of there. Just because she’s screaming and crying the whole time doesn’t mean she’s weak. Kubrick is not sentimental about it so we as the audience aren’t given the chance the embrace her in a way that would make her a “badass” or “sympathetic” in a precious way. That’s why I think people have a hard time appreciating what Duvall is doing here.
Also the scene with the doctor at the beginning is a genius and very un-fussy way of setting up the circumstances of that character perfectly.
To make a joke: The only reason the face of Cabin Fever isn't Shelley Duvall's is because it's actually Eli Roth's. Ooh...faced! (I'm so sorry.)
Duvall made this movie, the most realistic acting in it.
I remember reading the book while listening to Pink Floyd’s Animals — which oddly made a great soundtrack/accompaniment — and was looking forward to the movie when SK was going to direct. SD was the reason the movie worked so well, as least for me.