In one of the scenes near to the beginning of the film Danny is lying on his bed being talked to by a psychiatrist. She sits down on his bed and puts her arms over his legs, an important detail I will refer to later on is that Danny is covering his crotch area at this specific point. The conversation between them refers to 'Tony'. 'Tony' being the so called imaginary friend of Danny's, although later on in the film it is clear that 'Tony' is a much darker entity. The beginning of this scene is shot using a long shot to show parts of Danny's surrounding room. Colour connotations of red can be seen, presumably to represent blood but can also link to the love Wendy has for her son as she is getting him this help. Wendy stands against the back wall of Danny's room as if in slight fear of him. All these things are a use of mise-en-scene. Shot-reverse-shot is used during the conversation the psychiatrist and Danny have in his bedroom, this takes place through the use of various close ups to show the exact emotion of the characters face. The entire sequence is shot with high key lighting, unusual for a horror film. The generic horror convention of the use of low key lighting allows darkness to fill a room and shadow to form and dance within the shots but within this sequence there is no sight of dark shadows. But although there are no shadows, the bathroom stool Danny first used when communicating with 'Tony' is slightly visible in the left hand corner. This is a clever use of mise-en-scene as the entire conversation is based around this 'Tony' being. Danny seems to become uneasy when 'Tony' is brought up as if he is subconsciously telling him to stop revealing information. The tone of Danny's voice changes from being quite monotone to distrsseed with a hint of anger like the voice is not his own.
The meaning of the iconic bear suit scene in the ending half of the film is highly debated among fans of 'The Shining'. This is because unless you actually look into it, it seems like a pointless scene. It is definitely one of the weirder scenes within the film as the bear suit is quite surreal. From the long shot from Wendy's point of view it is clear to see that the being in said suit is commuting some form of sexual act on the Grady as there is a butt-flap on the suit that is open and revealing a not too flattering full moon. The long shot quickly zooms into a close up of the bears face which is accompanied by non-diegetic music that could be said to mimic Wendy's fast paced heartbeat. It fits the horror convention of non-diegetic music because the music used is high pitched and uses the string section of the orchestra most frequently. This type of music made me feel tense as it penetrated my ears and rattled my brain. The fast zoom could signify the confusion and fear of the situation because when scared, minds race, just like how fast the zoom occurred. Equal to the first scene I discussed, high key lighting is used during this shot. You would think that more low key lighting would be used because it's a horror film and more shadows could be created to inject fear into its audience.
Linking the two scenes together is the tie of bears. Also, if 'The Shining' is played both forwards and backwards at the same time then overlapped both scenes happen to coinside; evidently the director must have somehow planned this. Again, linking the scenes together, I previously mentioned the important detail about Danny covering his crotch area. This is interesting because obviously in the second scene the sexual innuendo of the sequence is the main theme whilst in the first scene obviously the main theme is childlike innocence and protecting the sanctity of bears being a childhood item. Subtly, all of the details of each sequence directly contrast with one in the other. This could suggest that Danny was abused by someone, possibly Jack, as is represented by the bear; the bear meaning to be a symbol of someone Danny thought he could trust to look after him. Even the use of mise-en-scene with the door way or exit is showing before a close up. This signifies that there is time to escape but once a conversation has started or a particular detail has been noticed it will be much more difficult to make it leave your mind.
I believe that both scenes affect the audience differently as everyone is an individual. It will confuse some but terrify others, it all depends on how you perceive things and how far you look into them once the credit roll. Although the average film goer is most likely not to notice these similarities and differences within two sequences or even how alike some shots are filmed, subconsciously, their brains will be making small links that they will understand once they really think about it. There are so many conspiracy theories out there about 'The Shining' it's hard to know where to start, but the use of bears in my opinion is definitely one of the most obvious ones.
In conclusion, I personally think that all these links to bears in the film do have deeper meaning. Deeper meanings are what get an audience interested in a movie a lot of the time. People like clever plot twists even if they don't realise they're there. The sheer amount of thought that goes into directing such an intricate film is outstanding.
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