The first time I watched The Shining was after reading the book in 1983. It was a Betamax rental, and I was very disappointed in it. I especially didn't like how Wendy was portrayed.

Watching it again over ten years later my opinion had softened. Wendy looked and acted the way she was because of how rough her marriage and life had been. But Shelley Duvall was hated by media critics as well as those on the primitive online Prodigy forums. She was seen as whiny, crying, ugly, awful, and worst actress that ever was. She won a Razzie for her performance.

However, years later, in the past decade or longer, online opinions toward Shelley Duvall as Wendy have softened considerably. Nowadays her performance is praised, and viewers think she is fantastic in the movie. Even first-time watchers on youtube videos all like her, as well as the movie as a whole.

So, what brought the change? Why is there so much praise for Shelley Duvall nowadays versus the vitriol she used to receive?

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lizzpop2003 t1_iufa2eq wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:51 PM

The revelation that the performance was largely the result of some pretty severe abuse she was subjected to.

[deleted] t1_iuh0kqm wrote on October 31, 2022 at 7:22 AM

Which itself was conjecture and lies that people just accepted as truth and ran with it for decades.

kneeco28 t1_iufbyrq wrote on October 30, 2022 at 10:05 PM

Upon release, a lot of people didn't like the movie (everyone recalls how Duvall was nominated for a now-withdrawn Worst Actress Razzie, but Kubrick was nominated for Worst Director as well) and when something like that happens people like to have someone specific to blame. And Kubrick and Nicholson were already icons, plus people are always quicker to blame women.

Speaking of misogyny, a lot of people laughably still begrudged Duvall making movies with a director other than Altman, as if she never should have worked with anyone else out of loyalty or gratitude or some stupid shit.

Then you have the countless differences between the book and the movie, many vis-a-vis the character, that people resented and laughably blamed her for.

Then you get to the issue that, as amazing as her performance is, it's also incredibly, deliberately weird (so is Jack's but, again, he had more credit and in any event is a man). When a woman does things unconventionally on screen, people lose their fucking minds. Skim any thread on The Dark Knight Rises on Reddit and see how long before you come across a comment from someone whose opinion about the movie begins and ends at how Marion Cotillard's body slumps when she dies. Same with Duvall running up the stairs in the Shining. It's nonsense.

Anyway, with time people (other than Stephen King lol) began to appreciate the brilliance of the movie and, by extension, the performance, and we got behind the scenes footage that showed how horribly Duvall was treated on set (e.g. https://youtu.be/8o-n6vZvqjQ?t=892) and people began to come to their senses.

But she's incredible in the movie and if there isn't a great book about her career already, someone could make a lot of money writing one.

boisosm t1_iuf6v7p wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:30 PM

It was mainly due to the reports coming out about how bad Duvall was treated on set and it made her lessen her acting career to almost retirement and caused a strain to her mental health. Also, people did a second opinion about her character and started to like it.

Dream_A_LittleBigger t1_iufap3e wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:56 PM

Because we found out she was cruelly victimized by Kubrick and manipulated to get the performance we see on film.

jamesneysmith t1_iufaow9 wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:56 PM

Probably because of the reports coming out about how Kubrick emotionally tortured her during production.

FrenchTrouDuc t1_iug0a0l wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:05 AM

Gotta love people in this thread talking about "abuse" and "torture" without really having an idea of what they're talking about. Read the actual interview she gave on the subject, Kubrick was a very demanding director to work with and it was a tough, long shoot but neither of those things constitute abuse. Also don't blame the film for her mental health problems when her issues only got really bad two decades after the movie was shot

TheRuinerJyrm t1_iuf743b wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:32 PM

Couldn't tell ya. I've liked both her and the film since I was a child.

QuintoBlanco t1_iugoowc wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:38 AM

The short answer is that many people didn't get the movie when it was first released.

The movie is of course very different from the book.

In the movie it's clear from the start that both Jack and Wendy are in a bad place.

I think people are more sensitive to picking that up today, then in the late 70s / early 80s.

The book is about alcoholism, the movie is about mental illness and controlling behavior/gaslighting.

Back then, movies/shows about mental illness were far more on the nose, so people just didn't understand the movie.

And of course the book leans far more into the supernatural aspect.

Kubrick understood the essence of the story. I think King was too close to the subject matter, to fully understand what he had written.

King identified with Jack and wrote Wendy as a perfect wife.

Kubrick understood that Wendy should be the main character.

mickeyflinn t1_iuhsw1b wrote on October 31, 2022 at 1:15 PM

I am baffled that people had a negative view of it.