I never had that sense. I guess at the bar he seems pretty upset that Wendy doesn’t let go of the incident where Jack yanks Danny’s arm so maybe she’s a nag. But I thought the movie seems to portray the whole family as pretty good/normal, at least when Jack is sober. Book might be different, I don’t know.
shareJack comes of as bit sarcastic and hostile so I thought this comes from a certain place in his mind.
shareHe cleary was.
He was in that phase where she thinks he does not need blow jobs anymore, or she should not be as sexy anymore since the kid is big now, and she turned into a full time mom who has zero time for him.
Hence his drinking and his visions of other more alluring women. And his conflict with Danny and her.
This guy hasn't gotten any for a long time.
Yes it's possible the lack of sex is what angers him and that happens to a lot of husbands with their wives.
shareLack of sex with Wendy would be a blessing.
shareHow so? Can you elaborate?
shareA picture is worth a thousand words: https://assets-in.bmscdn.com/iedb/artist/images/website/poster/large/shelley-duvall-1046894-18-08-2017-00-13-00.jpg
shareSuch a beautiful woman, no wonder Kubrick cast her.
share😄
shareNot just sex.
It's lack of being HIS woman.
She is Danny's mom full time. Jack is there only to help her with that.
I doubt he was ever on board with this plan. No man ever is.
She is actively pitting him against his son. I am sure she ignores it and she does it unintentionally. Yet, it seems clear to me that this neglect cannot end well.
[deleted]
The Wendy from the movie didn't seem like the type of wife that "goes down" on her husband. I figure that she probably wouldn't do anything beyond the "missionary position". Christian sex in other words.
shareThe setting is 1980.
He is a writer.
They both look like ex hippies, free thinkers and open minded.
I say not only she regularly went down on him, but it also would be weird if they did not do anything wilder, like orgies or swinging.
NOW not only she took all of that away, she thinks it would be ok for everyone else.
Former hippies? Interesting way of looking at it. Never thought of it that way before (probably came up in the era of "free love"). Though I always believed that Jack more than likely cheated on her (the movie implies this). I was also thinking the same thing. Jack never wanted to be a father.
shareI think Jack is an average ok 70s dad.
He seems present and on board with parenting.
But his role clashes with Wendy's attitude: he fucked up, she never forgives him. She is in charge of Denny, Jack is pushed aside.
It seems that if he was ever casually fine with being a father, he is resenting it now, as he finds himself to be the bad guy.
I think his evil side is brought out by his wife's treatment and attitude.
"As long as I live. She'll never let me forget what happened". The Wendy from the movie seems like the passive aggressive type. So I can see her doing something like that.
I incidentally read an article about King and Kubrick's respective interpretation on what's eating our good friend Jack. Per "far out magazine.com" "King believed that Torrance was inherently a good guy who was “bent one way and then the other” by various cosmic forces of evil. Kubrick masterfully blurred these conventional definitions of morality by making Torrance a psychopath. He thought the horror of humanity was much more compelling". I relooked the definition of the expression "what's eating him?" To make sure I was using it in proper context and found the following example on Cambridge dictionary:
"idiom informal. used to ask why someone seems angry or upset: Jack's in a strange mood - I wonder what's eating him?"
Truth is stranger than fiction 😄
Thanks for the article.
Yes I think Kubrick was going for a more general sense of horror, as in something that is already inside that can be brought out.
I also find that he wanted to highlight the middle class, good folks, "normal" roots of evil, to make it even more horrifying. That's why he wanted to stress the family dynamics in it, and probably why he picked this book to adapt.
Indeed! King believed that It would have been more poignant to show a seemingly "normal man's" descent into madness. As opposed to someone like Jack Nicholson. Who was already crazy to begin with.
"Where's the character arc for Jack? He's crazy in the beginning. He's crazy in the end!" 😄
I'll never forget the back and forth between them. King stated that Kubrick is the kind of director that "thinks so much and feels so little". And Kubrick quipped by saying that King is the kind of writer that "feels so much and thinks so little" 😄
When you say "I also find that he wanted to highlight the middle class, good folks, "normal" roots of evil, to make it even more horrifying ". You mean like the struggles of the working class?
https://youtu.be/x98qcNZ8Fz0
King recalling the time he meet Kubrick over the phone had me in stitches at the 1:31 part. "It's 7 in the morning. I'm hung over. Haven't finished shaving. Blood is dripping down my face. My kids are crying in the background because they don't want their breakfast and this guy wants to have a fucking discussion about the afterlife!" 😄
For a second there. I thought Wendy was working at Denny's 😄
shareYeh, Wendy didn't like it when he was boozed up. Let the guy have a good drink every now and then to let off some steam you old nag.
shareI suppose drinking a little bit can decrease stress. I thought Wendy hated how stressed out Jack can be.
shareAll work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Jack needs to play once in a while, and was probably pissed that he has to be a workhorse until he drops without having any fun. I can't see Wendy being that exciting, and shut the door on fun once Danny arrived.
Add to that him being an artist with artiste dramas, creative problems, self doubt eating away at him. He probably needs somebody stronger to put him in his place. Somebody he can open up to, give him a boost and clear his mind. Somebody that's not whiney Wendy.
Or maybe he's just a drunk, always has been a drunk with a bad temper, and thought starting a family would be a good idea. The right thing to do. Wrong, that's not Jack. Jack doesn't like to be tied down.
This is just conjecture.
No, dysfunctional marriage with no obvious current mistreatment going on, at least until they haul off to the Overlook.
He clearly doesn't think much of her, she's plain and lacking in sex appeal, and IMHO he married her for the convenience of having someone do his laundry and be his enabler, most women would have left and taken full custody of the kid if he broke his own child's arm in a drunken rage. And she married him because he's attractive and sexy and is going to be a big-shot writer some day, she probably thinks she got someone out of her league.
Of course, if he ever DID make it big as a writer, he'd dump her for someone hotter.
I always figured their marriage (in the movie-- I know the book is different) was a case of mutual settling, with both parties thinking they couldn't do any better. Would explain Jack's resentment of both Wendy and Danny.
shareYeah, they didn't seem to like each other very much, did they!
I agree they both settled, and Wendy was fooling herself that they were happy, and that Jack didn't. And that he'd cheated on her more than once and she'd made a big deal of forgiving him, and he was planning to ditch her and Danny the minute his novel hit the best-seller list, but in the meantime he had his meals cooked and his laundry done, and someone who'd do what he wanted in bed. Yeah, I know the marriage was totally different in the book, but that's how it reads on screen.
Yeah, onscreen, it feels like he really dislikes Wendy and she just goes through the motions of their being an ordinary family. There's something put-upon about her cheerfulness. It's rather sad because I've known people who stay in unhappy relationships either because they didn't want to be alone or because they have such bad self-esteem that they think they deserve it.
shareAlso, if Wendy left, she'd have to get a job and a put her kid in daycare, she seems to be a stay-at-home mom. I suspect that the dread of having to work full-time and still do all the housework and 90% of the childcare was, and is, enough to keep a lot of young mothers in unhealthy relationships. So, I expect she told herself that she and Jack were happy enough, and that boys need fathers and a stay-at-home mother, and that really, she married up and she's going to be Mrs. Famous-Novelist. While as I said above, Jack is out of there the moment he gets a chance.
Or at least that's the vibe I got. That's how the best psychological horror films work, they set up weaknesses in people and relationships, and let those weaknesses turn into the San Andreas Fault.
That's absolutely true!
shareHe's bored, as much as anything else, and just wants a drink. Which he can't do as a (recovering?) alcoholic.
shareAre you kidding me!? She treated him like a king. Breakfast in bed, offered him something to eat while he was writing, always by his side, had no reason to put up with his bullshit.
What more could you ask for in a wife?
Though I obviously don't approve of the last one.
I guess I missed what in the movie indicated to you that she mistreated him, or are you trolling. She seemed like a nice wife. Jack is the one who did the mistreating. Mean to his wife, abused his son, and she still brought him breakfast in bed? But if the way she mistreated him is by not giving him any "action", that would make sense. How can you blame her.
share