TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Narrative music in the background, providing the contours of the scene

The opposite can be found in another work by Kubrick, The Shining (1980), during the conversation in the hotel washroom between Jack Torrance and the former hotel security guard, Delbert Grady. Here the brisk diegetic music remains distantly audible in order to lessen the embarrassment and strangeness of the scene while preserving the slow pace induced by the long pauses between each line of dialogue. Because of its uninterrupted nature the music prevents total silence and redefines the nature of the tension, contributing its own quirky nature to the sequence. It is no longer cold and frontal, but more strangely troubling and more difficult to grasp.