The Kubrick Corner

THE SHINING Kubrick seems to approach his films from at least 3 positions: 1. The adapted story (book) 2. The narrative structure (form) 3. Some philosophical truth (content) On one hand he's telling the simple story of the novel (a man losing his mind in a haunted house), but from "2001: A Space Odyssey" onwards, he further insisted that the narrative structure of the film mimic the themes of the story being told. So if "Full Metal Jacket" is about building up and breaking down men, the narrative itself will likewise follow this trend, falling apart in the second act and later reassembling itself in the third. If "A.I" is about contrasting the fantasy of a robot (I want to be real) with the reality of others (he is not real) then Kubrick insists that the film likewise contrast a fairy tale fantasy with a sci-fi reality. Similarly, if "The Shining" is a story about characters trapped in a maze, psychological or otherwise, the narrative itself will mimic a maze- weaving in and out, going down paths and ending suddenly when blocked. All Kubrick films reflect their themes in the way their narratives unfold, until film language is transcended and form literally becomes content. Imperfect Symmetry A Guide to The Shining by Jason Francois Kubrick’s films begin with what I call "primer scenes", self contained sequences designed to brief the audience on the themes and ideas that will be explored in the film that follows. The introductory sequence of "The Shining" briefs us on 4 important themes: 1. Mirrors 2. Mazes 3. Temporal motion 4. A return to the past (colonial/pre civilization eras) The first shot of "The Shining" features the largest and oldest mirror (water) in the film. We see an expansive lake with a near symmetrical reflection of an island and mountain range. This imperfect symmetry will feature heavily throughout the film, as Kubrick subjects us to an orgy of visual and aural duality, flawed mirror images, echoes, repetition and parallels, in which characters and objects have doubles, twins, doppelgangers and alter-egos. Even dialogue is persistently repeated, both person-to-person and scene-to-scene. After the first shot, the camera immediately swoops overhead as it pulls in on Jack’s yellow Volkswagen. These overhead tracking shots give the impression of a maze, Kubrick implying that Jack is already trapped (“You’ve always been the caretaker“). He’s being drawn to the Hotel, and ultimately, a predetermined fate.

Note- The color yellow (Volkswagen/ball) is used to denote objects used by the hotel to tempt or lure its inhabitants.

Once the Volkswagen comes into view, Kubrick begins his first and only use of scrolling credits. The credits come from below as the car moves forward, creating symmetry of motion. Essentially, Jack is trapped in a current, being pulled toward the Hotel. This dual motion applies later on, as the film’s narrative simultaneously “shines” both forward into the future and backward into the past. This backward and forward double motion is itself necessary when trying to negotiate one’s way out of a maze, a process in which you must not only search for the centre, but also remember your past route if you intend to get out.

Note also the name of the road above which Kubrick's camera flies. This is the "Going to the Sun" road and construction of it began in 1921. Of course the film itself ends with a photograph taken in 1921.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to-the-Sun_Road

Romantic legend has it that Going to the Sun Mountain, and later the road, is named for a mystic Indian who ascended the 9,642-foot peak to join the sun in eternity. The choice of road is no coincidence. The film begins and ends with both credits and references to the year 1921 (note- scrolling end credits at beginning), the film folding in on itself, the past and the present, beginning and end, merging indefinitely, one big cyclical repetition of history. In other words, the road begins where it ends.

The Volkswagen's journey further and further into the wilderness also highlights the theme of moral regression. Modern man Jack will eventually regress into a more primal, animalistic state, adopting a savagery much akin to the ape men in "2001". The music throughout this primer sequence also has an interesting shift in tone. It goes from plodding and ominous (beating thumps) to the savage squeals of an Indian woman. Audio rhythms like this take place throughout the film. For example, Danny’s bicycle mimics the sound played during the chase through the maze, and the beating of Jack's ball on the wall echoes the smashing of the axe through the bathroom door. Throughout the film, Kubrick uses these themes to suggest that the present is merely an imperfect reflection of the past. Man (Jack) is trapped in a maze and is doomed to REPEAT his past horrors. Kubrick applies this theme to both a microcosm (family) and macrocosm (America) as I will later explain. Throughout the film, Kubrick will show us the horrors of at least three generations of history. The three caretakers, Delbert, Charles and Jack, are all interchangeable. They’ve each attempted to murder their families and all represent man at three specific points in time. Furthermore, the current father and son roles of Jack Torrance and Danny Torrance are assumed by another Jack and Danny (Jack Nicholson and Danny Lloyd) thereby perpetuating the cycle of horror outside the film. Danny Lloyd's name itself is further fragmented in the Gold Room scenes which all involve Lloyd the bartenter and a large bottle of Jack Daniels. Note that the deleted hospital scene at the end of the extended version of the film hints that Danny will later head back to the hotel and assume Jack’s role. So what we have here are various generations extending in all possible directions. The past (Delbert and Charles). The future (Danny). The present (Jack) and outside the film (the real life actors). Kubrick shows that these three generations of men live in a maze, a cycle whereby they repeat the same horrific actions in much the same way mankind is trapped into constantly repeating the same mistakes. Danny, however, unlike his forefathers, retraces his steps and takes a different path. By refusing to make the same mistakes, Danny escapes and survives, while his father is left frozen in time. But the irony, of course, is that Jack was not trapped at all. In exactly the same way that we the audience are literally looking right at our answer, so to is Jack literally holding the solution to his predicament in his own hands. Trapped in a maze and carrying an axe, he doesn’t think of cutting his way out. _______________________ "This sort of thing has happened before, and it has always been due to human error."- HAL, 2001 A Space Odyssey. SCENE BY SCENE BREAKDOWN 1. Jack arrives at the Overlook Hotel. In the background, behind a door signposted “The Gold Room”, two mysterious figures in 1920’s dress stand observing him. Jack walks up to the front desk and receives instructions from the secretary on how to get to Mr Ullman’s office (take a left turn). Already Kubrick is playing with the notions of the Hotel being a maze, as characters constantly make use of the words “right” and “left” as if laying out map plans. Mr Ullman (dressed in American reds, whites and blues) then asks Jack if he had trouble finding the place. Jack replies that he had no trouble at all. As the film progresses we will see that Jack’s problems arise only when he tries to LEAVE his maze. 2. Kubrick introduces Jack as a writer and a schoolteacher (“to make ends meet" - another maze reference). Jack reads The New York Book Review (apartment) and PlayBoy magazine (hotel). He’s a man of contrasts, educated and articulate at the start of the film, but increasingly primitive and incoherent as the film progresses. There are traces of past Colonial generations in him as well. He’s sexist and racist, referring to his wife as a “sperm bank” and being repulsed by the notion of "niggers". 3. Wendy is likewise a woman of contrasts. Kubrick introduces her as a modern American woman and goes to unrealistic lengths to quickly depict her as educated and liberated. Her introductory scene is awash with reds, whites and blues and she smokes cigarettes and reads The Catcher in the Rye (note the "mirrored" or "doubled" covers of the book). But of course she’s nothing of the sort. She’s a simple housewife (always doing housework), bullied and terrorized by a husband who has a history of alcoholism and child abuse- yet she doesn’t leave him for fear of being independent. 4. During an early bathroom sequence Danny experiences the film’s first shining. The audience is subjected to two short flashback/flashforwards. The first is of an elevator spilling blood, the second of the dead Grady daughters. Both images will be repeated throughout the film. Both show the aftermath of the film’s two horrors. The first horror is that of the Grady family murders, the other is of an apparent bloodbath. The elevators themselves hint as to when this bloodbath occurred. The left elevator is always portrayed as having stopped on floor 1 while the elevator on the right is always portrayed as being stuck on floor 2. Aside from the frequent doubling of objects, the numbers 1 and 2 feature prominently in the film. Some examples: 1921- Date on picture 1921- Date the "Road to Overlook" began construction 12- mirror image of 21 Room 237- 2+3+7 adds up to 12 “KDK1 calling KDK12”- past calling present K is 11^th letter of the alphabet Jack thinks he has “two 20’s and two 10’s” Film on TV- “Summer of 42” Number on Danny’s shirt- “42” So the hotel seems stuck in a time warp. It's reliving a cycle of man's historic horrors. In addition to the Grady murders, something horrific seems to have happened in the years 1921 and 1942 (or perhaps 1821 and 1842?). The torrents of blood squeezing through the shut elevator doors hint at some past mass killing. But what mass killing? Kubrick provides hints, but intentionally never spells it out. The lines “we had to fend off Indian attacks” and “built on Indian burial ground” suggest native Indian genocide, yet the date 1921 suggests the end of World War I (actually referred to at the time as "the war to end all wars"). Two decades later, and the date 1942 suggests Word War 2- man essentially repeating his mistakes with a second, more destructive world war. Authors like Prof. Geoffry Cocks, in "The Wolf At The Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust" also argue that the film is about the Holocaust, pointing to references like the name of a famous Jew on Jack's baseball bat and Jack's typewriter being the same brand as used by the Nazis to type up their extermination lists. He also cites images, like the twin boilers, as being references to "gas chambers". At any rate, Kubrick’s use of a moving timeline suggests that humanity has not learned its lessons. Man keeps murdering his family, denying it, and then doing it again. Kubrick suggests that it is this denial ("I have no recollection of that, sir") coupled with a refusal to confront history (pictures in a book) that keeps man trapped in this maze. 5. During her conversation with the psychiatrist, Wendy says that Jack hurt Danny’s shoulder “5 months ago, and hasn’t had a drink since”. Later on, Jack will tell Lloyd that the incident occurred “3 years ago.” Which one is it? It doesn’t matter. Throughout the film, time will be blurred. Violence is timeless. Ullman speaks of Charles Grady’s 1970 family murder, yet the audience always sees the dead daughters of 1920’s Delbert Grady. 5b. Jack calls home. Wendy answers the phone. A Cowboy film is showing to the left of the frame, whilst Wendy occupies the right of the frame. This is a subliminal reference to Cowboys and Indians, Kubrick implying that Wendy will assume the role of the tormented native. 6.a. The opening shot shows Jack's car moving along the left side of the mountain. In the second car sequence, we see the car and road on the right side of the mountain. Mirrored events like this occur throughout the entire film. Scenes are thematically repeated, yet we watch them from different points of views (left/right). Examples: Halloran stands before Calumet Baking powder and is photographed from the right. Later, Jack stands before Calumet Baking powder and is photographed from the left. Reversals like this occur throughout the film. Weather reports will jump from sunny to snowy, characters will enter rooms on the right and exit on the left and several scenes will feature a 180 degree jump cut, essentially flipping the image around. 6.b. During the car ride to the Hotel, Danny and Jack have a conversation about cannibalism. “You mean they ate each other up?” Danny asks. “They had to," Jack replies, "in order to survive”. Of course Jack’s casual defence of the early American settlers foreshadows his own forthcoming brutal acts committed under the guise of civility (his “duty”). This little tale of "Wagons" and "Donner parties" also foreshadows Jack falling off the wagon and indulging in ghostly parties. 7. Jack, Wendy and Danny arrive at the Hotel and are taken on a quick tour. This sequence provides us with several important bits of information. Firstly, Kubrick hints that Danny is already able to navigate the maze alone. He’s alone in the gaming room and is then found “wandering alone outside” by a hotel assistant. Secondly, we learn that the hedge maze was constructed independently and is a separate entity to the Hotel. Thirdly, we learn that Wendy does not object to being indirectly told that her place is in the kitchen, and fourthly, by his glances at the TWIN female assistants, we learn that Jack isn’t sexually fulfilled by Wendy. She reminds him of his past and he dispises her. 8. The Hotel is a place of contrasts. American flags, stark reds, whites and blues, US eagles, pre-packaged foods, and other trinkets of Americana, constantly clash with the Navajo Indian artwork, native murals and ornaments. We get the sense of two civilizations at war, a clashing of cultures symbolised in the final duel between baseball bat (America) and axe (tomahawk). This theme of doubles is carried out throughout the film. The narrative leaps forward in pairs of days (Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday etc) as well in times (8 am, 4 pm etc). There are also 2 pairs of bathrooms. Two associated with both the Torrance family and images of murder (in their Boulder apartment and their Overlook quarters), and two (the green and red ones) with Jack’s regression into madness and the hotel’s past. The Overlook Hotel itself breaks down into two sections, one old and one remodelled (one past and one present). The movie also ends with two frozen images of Jack - one frozen in death in the hedge maze, the other frozen in time in the photo from 1921. There are also two typewriters. One white. One Blue. Grady and Charles also mirror present Jack and past Jack (photograph). 8b. We're first introduced to Hallorann in the "Gold Room". He emerges from beneath a ladder, composed to resemble a Sioux Indian tipi or tent. 9. Hallorann then gives Wendy and Danny a tour of the maze-like kitchen (“I feel like I need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs”). He shows them 2 rooms. The Cold Room and the Store Room. In the Cold Room we’re shown stacks of dead meat. Frozen bodies of the past. This room mirrors the murkily labelled Gold Room, where the dead of the past, likewise linger frozen. The trio also don’t exit the Store Room via the door they entered. They enter the room via the right of the hall, and exit via the left of the hall. 10. They then proceed to the Store Room, which is filled with preservatives. Hallorann takes up position beside a stack of Calumet baking powder cans, his silhouette perfectly mirroring the image of a native Indian Chief behind him. Thus Kubrick mirrors one ethnic minority with another. An Indian Chief with a "nigger Chef". 11. During the Store Room sequence, Danny learns that Hallorann can also shine. Shining is a process which allows one to both look into the past AND foresee the future, essentially allowing Danny and Hallorann to learn from the past and prevent future horrors. In Danny‘s case, this means breaking the cycle and learning from his father‘s mistakes. In Hallorann’s case, this means acting as a sacrificial warning to future generations (Danny) by dying himself. 11.b Both Danny and Jack are warned twice. Their first warning comes from the PRESENT, their second warning come from the PAST. Warning from the Present: 1. Hallorann warns Danny. 2. Ullman warns Jack. Warning from the Past: 1. The Shining warns Danny of Jack. 2. The Shining (Jack's nightmare) warns Jack of Jack. Both father and son fail to heed the warnings of the present, but unlike his father, Danny will later use his shining visions to prevent his doom. In contrast, Jack succumbs and literally becomes his murderous vision of himself. 1. Danny ignores first warning. 2. Danny pays attention to second warning and overcomes the past. 1. Jack ignores first warning. 2. Jack ignores second warning and becomes the past. 12. Left alone, Danny and Hallorann have a conversation in the kitchen. Danny and Halloran lean forward and fold their arms, creating an almost mirror image. Kubrick keeps the shots tight and the background constantly out of focus, until Danny delivers the line “Is there something bad here?”, upon which a menacing row of giant knifes suddenly jumps into focus and appears looming over Danny. (Scary when you notice it- more so in the European cut of the film.) 12.b. Wendy and Jack are given a tour of their new bedroom. They stand side by side, like a happy couple, in the bathroom and say, "it's very homey." Ironically, Jack will later try to kill his wife at this exact spot. 13. Wendy navigates the maze, pushing the breakfast trolley into the bedroom. In this sequence there are 2 Jacks. One in the mirror and one on the bed. Inside the mirror, Jack’s conversation with his wife is sarcastic and almost bitter, but when we jump to a direct image of Jack he opens up and speaks honestly. Thus, the mirror image represents Jack's nasty, evil aspects. This is his true reflection; the traits which he refuses to acknowledge and look at. The red flower by the mirror represents this danger and negativity. Later on, in the Gold Room bathroom, the color red will feature even more prominently. This color scheme is reversed with Danny. Danny's first mirror (Colorado home) sequence is predominantly shot in green. This harkens to the green schemed bathroom sequence in which Jack meets the rotting female corpse. In Danny's first bathroom sequence he sees "something bad". In the second bathroom sequence we learn that the "something bad" is his own father. Jack realises this when he sees himself in the mirror, and frantically backs away from the rotten corpse. 14. Danny explores the Hotel on his Big Wheel. He encounters the Grady girls. Their line “come play with us forever and ever” mirrors Jack’s “stay here forever and ever”. Similarly, Danny’s line “it’s ok, they’re just pictures in a book” mirrors Jack’s “it’s ok, he saw it on tv.” TV and picture books record images in much the same way the Hotel records horrors from the past. The Hotel then replays these images forever and ever. The irony is that despite the fact that we as humans constantly record images, we never learn from them. 14.b. Television and other electric forms of communication appear throughout the film and are associated with Wendy, Danny and Hallorann. Jack, in contrast, lives a disconnected life with his typewriter. Wendy, Danny and Hallorann watch TV (summer of 42/roadrunner), while Hallorann listens to the radio twice and uses the telephone twice. When Hallorann leaves for the overlook, there’s talk on the TV of the Martin L. King assassination. Hallorann is warned of his death, but still carries on. 15. The tennis ball appears 3 times and is used by the Hotel to “play with” or control the film’s characters. It appears firstly when Jack repeatedly beats the ball against twin Indian murals (suggesting violence), secondly when the Hotel uses it to lure Danny to room 237 (where he re-lives his child abuse), and thirdly in the deleted hospital scene, where the Hotel again uses the ball in an attempts to lure Danny back to the Overlook. All three locations at which Jack smashes the ball, are symbollic. Firstly, when he smashes it against the wall, he is lashing out at the two blue dressed figures on the Indian tapestry (Grady daughters). Secondly, when he's smashing it on the ground in the Colorado lounge, he's hitting the EXACT same spot where he will later kill Halloran. Note the racist "Golliwog" doll on the floor at this point (deemed derogatory toward Africans). Thirdly, when he throws it across the corridor, he is hurtling it toward the EXACT same spot where Wendy will later see Halloran's dead body. Fourthly, between Halloran's dead body and Wendy's body are a stack of children's toys, over which the ball flies. Thus Kubrick links the murdered daughters, Indian genocide, Halloran, Wendy and Danny, all with this simple tennis ball. This symbolic instrument of violence and Americana (American sport). 16. Whilst Wendy and Danny are constantly exploring or doing “housework”, Jack seems content to stay within his familiar surroundings, doing nothing, spinning in hopeless circles. He's regressing and refuses to progress. He is stuck in his routine. A routine which gets him nowhere and which he can not break. Jack spends most of his time at the heart of the Hotel, inside the Colorado lounge, moving in repeated patterns at the centre of his maze. Kubrick implies that Jack ultimately forgets how to deal with the basic paradoxes (mirrors) of his nature. Rather than exploring and discovering, making choices and risking success and failure, Jack prefers to sit in the centre of an enclosed world, looking at his maze from afar but never entering. 17. This repetition frustrates Jack and so he lashes out at Wendy whenever disturbed. When Wendy asks Jack to take her for a walk Jack refuses and says that he needs to “spend time writing”. But Jack’s book itself manifests his inability to risk change, and his preference for the ceaseless repetition of the familiar ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"). 17.b. The term "playing" also has symbollic double meaning. Consider this... Danny wants friends to play with. The twins want to play with Danny. Danny is told to play with his toys because his father is feeling a bit murderous. Wendy and Danny play in the maze. Jack plays with a tennis ball. The tennis ball beats against a pair of twins on the wall. The ball rolls to Danny whilst Danny plays. Danny enters room 237. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Jack and Danny play murderous games in the maze. Grady's girls were playing with matches. Danny was playing with Jack's papers before he broke his arm... It is the Caretaker's duty to dispose of all those who seek to play. Playing is burning down the hotel with matches (can I get my fire engine?). Playing is exploring and chartering the hedgemaze. Playing is mapping the Hotel in a Big Wheel. Playing is the unbridled creative play of the Star Child. It's the boundless freedom of Alex (Clockwork Orange). Playing, in short, is against the wishes of the House, which seeks total, blind obedience. Notice that as soon as Danny arrives at the Hotel, he's already "found wondering alone". He's off in the games room, playing, solitary and without duty or care. So the meaning of "playing" is two fold. On one hand, it represents the playful, rebellious spirit of those who shun duty and disobey the House. Secondly, it's the Hotel tapping into Jack's unconcious primal desires. Jack is jealous that others may play whilst he is constrained to Duty (how dare you play whilst I remain here stagnated?), and so the Hotel unleases Jack to play murderous games. In short, the Hotel deliberately mismanges Jack's resentment. It directs Jack's anger away from itself and onto the nearest victims. One can abstract this idea and apply it to the real world. For a simple example, consider Nazi Germany (The House), blaming the poverty and frustrations of her people (Jack), on Jews (Danny). The caretakers of the country are thus made to commit genocide and horrors (holocaust) out of nothing more than national duty and personal animosity. 18. When Wendy and Danny explore the hedge maze, they both repeat the line “the loser gets to keep America clean.” The film frequently compares the Hotel to America. Therefore the line means that the loser gets to become the caretaker of the hotel. In some books, some authors state that the line relates to the phrase “blood makes the grass grow” or to the American Indians (the loser in the war for America) who ironically are now more concerned with keeping America clean than their white victors. 19. Wendy uses the radio to communicate with outsiders, thereby completing her task of transcending her maze. Later on, Danny will transcend his maze by contacting Hallorann (“an outside party“). 20. As the film progresses, the Hotel will create personal demons for each character. Jack is haunted by alcohol and his past history of child abuse. Wendy, a “confirmed ghost story addict”, will be assaulted by an onslaught of pop-up ghosts and Danny by a violent father who he fears will chop him and his mother up. Note- Jack’s alcohol demon (Jack Daniels) is a composite double of father and son. Jack and Danny. 21. The following sequence is the most important. Kubrick essentially shows us Danny learning and Jack forgetting. Enticed by temptation (“you have no business going in there”) Danny steps into room 237 where he suffers an unseen horror. This unseen horror is simultaneously mirrored with Jack’s unseen nightmare. While Jack has a nightmare in which he (Grady) kills his family, Danny goes into room 237 where he relives his past child-abuse. So both father and son assume past roles and step into a horrific situation of the past. They re-live past events which we the audience (in the present) are unable to see, but which we the audience will soon observe in the future. Why does Kubrick keep us blind and not show these two scenes? Because both father and son are likewise blind. Both father and son are faced with two horrors: Room 237 and the Grady nightmare. Danny was repeatedly warned not to go into room 237, yet he still went in. But later on, Danny learns from this mistake and subsequently uses his “shining” (foresight) to prevent his and Wendy’s death. Like Danny, Jack has been twice warned. But in contrast, Jack lives the horror of Room 237 but then promptly denies it (“there was nothing there”). His refusal to admit the past, opens him up to be exploited by the Hotel. Suddenly the bar is stocked with beer, he has money in his pocket, he gets his orders from Delbert and the line between Jack and Charles Grady begins to blur. 22.b. Before Danny enters room 237, he is shown sitting on the floor playing with toy cars. The Hotel throws him a ball and he stands up. Danny then says "Mom", upon which a picture of an Indian woman appears on the left of the screen. This figure (resembling Wendy with her twin ponytails) is symbolic of "Mom". Danny then walks toward room 237. He says "Mom" again, upon which the audience sees the picture again, this time directly infront of room 237. The picture (Mom) is moving and watching as Danny enters the room. Thus, Kubrick seems to be saying that Wendy was a witness to the abusive acts that went on in room 237. She sees the abuse happen, but remains in denial. Her husband is a good man, she says to herself. It was just a simple accident. She refuses to admit that there is anything wrong with her marriage. She refuses to admit that mankind is capable of commiting horrors. Later, when she sees Danny bruised, she yells "You did this to him!" But then she promtly blames it on a "woman in a bathtub". But we never actually see Danny blame a "woman in a bathtub". When Jack goes to the bathroom and sees himself in the mirror he realises that he himself is responsible. Of course he then denies this and buries the truth with alcohol. 22. After the nightmare, Jack breaks down and falls beneath the table. Kubrick uses the diagonal framing of the table to suggest Jack’s instability. When a bruised Danny walks in (his Apollo 13 T-shirt torn), Wendy stops consoling her husband and then accuses Jack of injuring her son. Note that throughout the film, Danny wears the symbolic colors RED, BLUE and WHITE. In this scene, though, the color RED is ommited from Danny's clothing. However the hotel put's RED on Danny by applying the large RED BRUISE on his neck and by associating him with the bright red room 237 key. The hotel thus completes Danny's color scheme. You want to be part of America (red white blue), then accept the bloodshed. Once Danny learns this, he rejects the RED-BLUE-WHITE color scheme and begins to wear more earth-toned natural colors. 23. Jack gets upset and seeks solace in alcohol. He heads down a corridor which leads to the Gold Room. This corridor is lined on the left, at regular intervals, with mirrors. As Jack walks down the corridor, he mumbles a line exactly when passing each mirror. First mirror: Who? Me? Second Mirror: Fuck you. Third Mirror: Animal growl followed by outward slashing of his hands. Jack is now aware of his mirror personality. He hates his true reflection. He hates who he really is and he can not stand to look at himself. He is in denial. 25. Jack sits down at the bar. Opposite him are yet more mirrors. He can't stand to look at himself so he buries his face in his hands. Rather than face himself and his true ugliness, he seeks alcohol and drunkedness so as to hide from himself. Suddenly, the mirrors are covered by stacks of booze. The bottles of alcohol (red rum) symbollically and literally cover up his pain and prevents him from seeing himself. Despite knowing what alcohol led him to do in the past (broke Danny’s arm), Jack sits at the bar and says he’d “give his soul for a beer.” Of course the bartender then pops up and they have their famous conversation before a mirror. During this conversation Jack mentions “White Man’s Burden”, a poem by Rudyard Kipling which spoke of the virtues of Imperialism. It was the European white man’s burden, or duty, to conquer native savages and aborigines, for they did not have European language, education, writing, medicine, or religion. The poem rationalized that it was noble to conquer these brutes - for their own good - and thus justified imperialism, colonialism, and the subsequent slaughter of indigenous people. In this same vein, Jack views it as his “duty” to “correct” his wife and child. This civic “It’s just business” attitude is carried on in Full Metal Jacket. 26. Wendy rushes to the Gold Room and tells Jack of a woman in Room 237. Jack visits the room and embraces the beautiful woman, but when he looks into the mirror (into the past and into himself) he sees his true ugly self. Jack pushes the corpse away, and then promptly dismisses the incident. The following scene has Jack (back turned to a bedroom mirror) denying seeing anything. Bathroom: Jack looks in mirror and sees ugliness Bedroom: Jack turns back to mirror and says he saw nothing So Jack has opened himself up to past demons by accepting booze and denying the past murders/horrors. He remakes mistakes, despite his awareness of the end result. He knows that alcohol led him to break Danny’s arm, and he knows that he has and will murder his family, but he just can’t break the cycle of horror. 27. Jack returns to the Gold Room. A woman walks across the screen, a red hand print on her back. A butler swerves to avoid hitting the woman and collides with Jack. Alcohol is spilt all over Jack's clothes. The red hand print is the Hotel's way of pushing Grady into Jack. One caretaker is pushed into another. They're merged by alcohol (advocaat) which leaves a messy (bloody) stain. Jack is then taken to the bathroom by Delbert Grady. It is important to note that Charles and Delbert are two separate people. Charles killed his wife and family in 1970. Delbert, however, exists in the 1920s. Charles is the mirror image of Delbert, and Jack is a mirror image of Charles. The bathroom sequence is thus a sort of three way conversation. Charles exists in the mirror behind the butler. Kubrick signifies a shift in conversation between Jack/Delbert and Jack/Charles by abruptly breaking the 180 degree camera rule. Note that Al Bowlly's "It's All Forgotten Now" is played on the soundtrack during the bathroom scene. Kubrick has it slurred down, fading in and out, as if played on the winding down gramophone of memory. The song's place in the film- it plays in the background as a bewildered Jack speaks to Grady in the bathroom about the fact that Grady has killed himself after brutally murdering his children- indicates that what is forgotten may also be preserved through the mechanism of repression. 28. Why doesn’t Jack encounter Charles outside of the mirror? Because Delbert represents the start of this cycle of murder. He has a British accent, embodying the British colonists who succeeded the American founding fathers. Delbert then relates how he “corrected” (Kubrick frequently portrays humans as having errors that need to be fixed - “What is your major malfunction soldier!”) his wife and daughters. 29. Grady recalls that he “corrected” his daughters and when his wife tried to prevent him from doing his “duty”, he “corrected” her as well. All this talk of “correction” and “duty” relates back to the White Man’s Burden, which uses burden and duty as euphemisms for conquest, murder and genocide. Murder is referred to as “duty” or “correction”. Human beings essentially hiding brutal acts under a façade of civility. One only has to think of Americas "war on terrorists" and the justification that the US is bringing "democracy" and "freedom", to see these concepts working in the world today. Man constantly demotes his enemy (these aren't humans, they are terrorists!) in order to justify his own violent acts. These aren't black people, the British Empire said, these are a subspecies! We are allowed to enslave them! These aren't humans, these are "commie bastards", we're allowed to kill them. These aren't Americans, they are immoral infidels! We are allowed to kill them! Once you turn the Other into a beast, you are free to convince others to kill or harm them. And this violence is always done under the guise of civility. Democracy, freedom, correction, pacification, god's will, collateral damage, smart bombs, neutralizing etc etc, are all violent or military terms which are created in order to minimize emotional responses. 30. Wendy prowls the Hotel with a baseball bat. She does not believe Jack. She still believes that there is a woman in the Hotel. She stumbles across Jack’s manuscript and is shocked to see that Jack has spent all his time typing nothing, accomplishing nothing, moving nowhere. 30b. Jack literally "steps out of the photographs" and appears behind Wendy. She turns and screams. Later, Grady will step "out of the past" behind Wendy in a similar fashion. She also once again turns and screems. Kubrick also links Jack and Grady subliminally, by placing bleeding wounds on their heads. Jack's wound occurs when Wendy hits him with the bat. Grady's wound perhaps occurs due to his wife slashing him with a knife (not shown, but Wendy is holding one). The point here is not simply to show the historical repetition of violence, but to show how violence has and can be overcome. Past woman (Wendy with knife) discovers the violence of man and is silenced (Grady murders). Modern woman (Wendy with bat) discovers the violence of man (manuscript) and TRIUMPHS over man (knocks Jack out). 31. Jack is back in his domain, at the centre of his maze. He finds Wendy in the Colorado Lounge looming over his manuscript. While Jack is awash with American reds, whites and blues, Wendy is increasingly made to resemble an Indian squaw. She’s taken off the yellow jacket with Indian stylings, but her long black hair is now worn down. She wears animal skin slippers and boots, and her earth tone clothes still feature native symbols. Her "look" is now identical to the picture of a native indian woman featured on the left of the screen when Danny walks down the corridor to room 237. 31b. Wendy and Jack begin to argue. He mentions his "contract" which he has "signed" and agreed to "uphold". This is symbolic of the American Declaration of Independence. When attacked by Jack, Wendy proceeds to slowly LURE him out of his maze. She BACKTRACKS (just as her son will do) across the Colorado lounge and leads him up the stairs, further and further AWAY from the centre. As Jack approaches the top, his verbal abuse gets desperate (give me the bat Wendy!). Jack is being drawn OUT of his domain and grows increasingly weaker. Like the mythical Minotaur (a myth which Kubrick says he based the film on), Jack lingers at the top of the stairs, leaning forward as if unable to go further. Unable to leave his maze. While Wendy's strength is her ability to explore her surroundings, Jack's is his failure to grow. He is stagnated. Wendy hit's him where and when he's at his weakest. 31c. Wendy has two choices; she can lock Jack away in either the Cold Room or the Store Room. She can freeze him (death) or preserve him (life). She opts for the later, thereby temporarily putting off the inevitable. Wendy fumbles with the latch 24 times. Throughout the film, actions will be drawn out to fit a 12, 21, 24, 42 rhythm. 32. Jack, in the progress of his madness, shows signs of childlike regression. "Jack is a dull boy", “my head hurts real bad”. “I need a doctor” (Danny’s nickname is Doc) and he sits cross-legged like a child, eating oreos and milk. Notice he wakes up on a bag of Salt. The Hotel preserves him. 33. Grady taunts Jack in the food locker. “I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed.” Again, the civility of “business” is used to mask horror. American government referred to the stealing of Indian lands as “relocation”. Nazis referred to the extermination of a race as a “solution” and “cleansing”. Humans can come up with all sorts of flattering euphemisms to hide vile acts. It is interesting to note that when Grady mentions "business" 5 Calumet baking powder cans pop into view. When we first saw a Calumet can it was linked to Halloran. Here it is linked to "taking care of business". So Kubrick is saying that Jack has to take care of Halloran. He has to kill him. So "business" is symbollic of death, violence, murder and genocide, but why 5 cans? The number 5, if anything, possibly represents the 5 muders which Jack completes: Halloran, the twins, Grady and Grady's wife. Another important detail in this scene is the stack of "GOLDEN RAY" boxes behind Jack. Earlier in the film, when Danny stands in the same location and SHINES (he sees Halloran talking about ice-cream) there are a stack of TEK SUN boxes behind Danny. The words "Golden Ray" and "Tek Sun" allude to sunshine or shining rays. Perhaps Kubrick is subtly letting us know that both Jack and Danny shine in this precise spot. Jack shines and learns he has to kill Halloran, Danny shines and learns he can communicate with Halloran. 34. Meanwhile, Hallorann must navigate his own personal maze. His long and difficult journey to the hotel involves many complicated paths and changes in landscape. In one scene, while driving the snowcat, his coat’s bulky hood takes on the silhouette of the Indian chief shown earlier. Hallorann: 1. Tries to make contact with the hotel by phone. 2. Tries to have the Forest service make contact with the hotel by radio. 3. Flies to Denver. 4. Lands at Denver. 5. Rents a car. 6. Drives to Boulder. 7. Tricks a friend in order to borrow a snowcat. 8. Drives the showcat to the Hotel. During these scenes Kubrick always shoots Hallorann in profile, linking us back to that store room image of a native Indian silhouette.

Note the squashed Volkswagen beetle which Halloran passes whilst driving down the snowy road. Note also that the nude models in Halloran's room. They mimic the poses assumed by the nude woman in room 237. The pictures themselves are ironic, suggesting a sense of female and black empowerment, yet they're sexually objectified and sit submissive for the male gaze. Of course this could all be quite incidental. Both "Eyes Wide Shut" and "A Clockwork Orange" feature similarly "frank" paintings.

Racist "golliwog" doll rests where Hallorann dies

Note: In the pantry, Jack and Danny both shine at the same location. When Danny shines, "TekSun" boxes are visibile behind him. When Jack shines, "Golden Rey" boxes are vissible behind him. The brand names allude to the act of "shining" (rays, suns, beams etc).

Mirrored Mountains

Arrow carpet

Summer of 42

Early in the film, Danny and Wendy watch "The Summer of 42" on television.

Some points about "The Summer of 42":

1. It has the number 42 in the title. The importance of these numbers will be explained in another article (see Freud's "Uncanny")

2. The film is about a boy becoming sexualy active and attaining manhood.

3. The film is about a boy being seduced by an older woman.

4. The film is about discovering pictures in a book and becoming "wiser".

5. The "Summer of 42" of the film, mirrors the "Winter of 21" at the end of the film.

How "Summer of 42" relates to The Shining:

1. The number 42 fits in with the idea of repeated numerical patterns (12,21,42) and mirrors the "winter of 21" shown in the final photo.

2. Some have suggested that the hotel learns from the film how to seduce Danny and Jack. For example, Danny watches the film on TV and in the very next scene, is seduced in the bathroom. (rocket sweater=erection?)

3. On the TV screen, a woman (Jennifer O'Neill) is just beginning to seduce a kid, which he will later describe as his crossover point into manhood. Jack will soon be seduced by an older woman in room 237, and it will be his crossover point, as in the next scene he turns against Wendy and Danny.

4. The scene highlights the Oedipal issues within the family. Danny is affectionate toward his mother, but considers his father to be an adversary.

5. The scene highlights Wendy's domesticated role (she is there to serve and tend to the boy).

6. The boy in the film becomes "wiser" when he finds a secret book of pictures. Danny becomes "wiser" when he learns to use his shining to help himself.

7. The film is about the improper sexual relationship between a boy and an older person. Room 237 is symbollic of a trumatic past incident in the Torrance family's life. An incident of abuse. Could Danny's abuse have been sexual? There are faint paedophillic overtones in The Shining, but these topics shall be explored in a different article.

Halloran continuously shot in profile to resemble Indian Chief

Danny linked to "bear"

Cowboys (TV) and Indians (Wendy).

Halloran passes a "squashed" Volkswagen Beetle on the way back to the Hotel

Batter up! America's two favourite sports, baseball and murder

The picture of Wendy FOLLOWS and WATCHES Danny as he enters room 237

The RoadRunner Song playing on Danny's TV:

RoadRunner, running down the road all day.
RoadRunner, even the coyote can't make him change his ways.
RoadRunner, the coyote's after you.
RoadRunner, If he catches you, you're through.

35. Danny writes “redrum” on a door. He says the word "redrum" in his Tony voice. Tony (The Shining) is warning him of MURDER. Note the number of times Danny says "redrum" in his Tony voice.

35b. Wendy sees "redrum" reflected in the mirror as “murder”. The camera then zooms in quickly so that the mirror becomes the entire screen. Suddenly we’re in the mirror image. We’re in the reflected past where Jack mirrors the horrors of both Charles and Delbert Grady.

Up until this point, Jack has metaphorically been two people: the present man with choices, and the past man who made the wrong choice. But now we’re in the mirror and there is no more symmetry. Jack is all bad and is about to complete the "business" of killing his family with an axe (the word labyrinth originally meant ‘house of the double axe’).

36. Jack’s attack is halted when Hallorann arrives. Thematically, the cycle of violence is then closed. Delbert kills the black man (elevators of blood). and becomes Delbert. Charles kills his family and becomes Jack. Jack then tries to kill his family, but is interrupted by the death of a black man. Thus Danny prevents the past from reoccurring, albeit only the one generation he is mirrored with.

36b. While Jack and Danny each battle their way through their own mazes during the film's climax, Wendy navigates her way through a maze of her own horrors. In one scene she sees a man in a bear suit engaging in oral sex with a man in a tuxedo.

This scene confuses many, but it's simply indicating Wendy's unconscious fears. Throughout the film, the "feminine other" merely exists to do chores, tend to children and satisfy the old sperm back. This is her duty: cook, clean and fuck.

But in this scene, Wendy's existence as the "femnine other" is finally rendered useless. With this homosexual act, her last duty as "sexual partner" has been cast aside. Man pleasing man without woman. Essentially she fears that Jack no longer wants to have sex with her. Her purpose and worth as "woman" is being called into question. This is her own private horror.

This scene also recalls a moment at the beginning of the film. In this early scene, Danny is examined by a doctor (notice he covers his crotch). During this examination he lays down on a giant bear pillow (Kubrick links Danny to bear in much the same way he links Domino in Eyes Wide Shut to the toy tiger).

The scene itself is all about introducing the audience to Danny's child abuse. When we see the bear symbol again (man in a bear suit), it's once again a scene of abuse. But this time it's sexual.

The subliminal message here is that Wendy discovered some sort of sexual abuse between Jack and Danny, or perhaps the connection is the other way around, and Kubrick is saying that the sexual abuse (and evil in general) that took place in the Hotel is akin to the modern physical abuse which takes place in the family unit.

On a simpler level, the primal symbol of the bear suit shows how the elite perceive those below them. The "help" are mere animals, who sit on their knees, dutifully tending to their masters. The caretakers are unsophisticated and barbaric, whilst the elite, dressed in their suits and tuxedos, are far more cultured and civilized.

Also note that in the final hospital scene, deleted from all versions of the film, Ullman vists Wendy in the hospital whilst wearing a large bear fur coat.

So we have 3 bears. Danny laying on a bear and covering his crotch, bear engaging in fellatio (orders of the house) and Ullman dressed as a bear.

37. Danny races outside and Jack gives chase. Jack hesitates before stepping out of the Hotel. He pauses and flips on the lights, uncertain and scared of venturing outside.

38. Jack’s lust to kill results in a regression from human to beast. Jack’s facial hair grows longer, he loses all human speech and he limps hunched over- unable to walk upright like a human. By the end of the film, Jack resembles the ape-men of 2001, his axe gripped like the ape’s femur-bone weapon.

39. Danny and Jack navigate the hedge maze. The son/present is being chased by the father/past (I’m right behind you Danny!). But Danny retraces his steps and takes a different path, leaving his father lost to die in the maze.

40. Wendy sees Halloran's dead body (exactly where Jack smashed the ball). She then hears a voice and turns to see Grady. This scene mirrors an earlier scene where Wendy stumbles across Jack's work and was surprised to find Jack behind her.

1st scene- Wendy find's Jack's work (typewriter)

2nd scene- Wendy find's Jack's work (murder)

1st scene- Jack steps out of the past (photographs) and surprises Wendy.

2nd scene- Grady steps out of the past and surprises Wendy.

Grady and Jack are themselves linked by the bloody red wounds on their heads.

40.b. Before he dies Jack yells “San Francisco here I come.” Jack's line links back to the earlier Donner party conversation. Jack is about to freeze to death, much like the Donner party did. The Donners were headed to San Francisco and Donner Pass is relatively close (less than a 3 hour drive from) the City.

42. The final scene of the movie is a zoom-in on the picture of Jack in his past life at the Overlook Hotel. The caption at the bottom of the picture reads: "Overlook Hotel, July 4th ball, 1921".

July 4th is the official demarcation of the birth of America as a country. A country built on horrors people often overlook.

But its important to note that the film ends on TWO frozen images. Jack FROZEN in the snow and jack FROZEN in the picture. The first Jack is a barbaric, regessed, animal. The second Jack is a cultivated, modern man.

43. The credits roll and Kubrick simultaneously encourages us to remember, while acknowledging that we won’t. The lyrics from the film’s closing song (“I've known all my whole life through, I'll be remembering you whatever else I do") contrasts with the sound-effect of people vacating a theatre, as Kubrick finally mirrors The Shining’s lost audience with the characters at the Overlook Ball.

SOUND EFFECT: People leaving theatre.

SOUNDTRACK: You refuse to see and refuse to remember.

_________

No horror movie that I am aware of has the incredible level of depth that this film has. In refusing to rely on any of the cinematic shock effects currently in vogue, Kubrick has made a film that gets more frightening every time you see it.

Furthermore, the act of structuring the film as a breadcrumb peppered maze, actually enforces the message being preached. Here we have a film where all the horrors are largely unseen because the audience itself is blind. Only audiences who shine, who trawl the Overlooks corridors, prowling the "pictures in the book" and making the necessary connections, are able to escape the maze.

Couple that with the further irony that this was Kubrick’s most profitable film and you have a very dark joke on your hands.

Overhead view of the film's maze

The Ending

The film ends with two frozen images.

1. Jack frozen in the snow.

2. Jack frozen in the photograph.

On the most basic level, Jack is frozen in the snow because it's cold and it's snowing. Similarly, on the most basic level, Jack is trapped in the photograph because the Hotel has the power to absorb and reincarnate him.

The point of the two images, however, is in the contrast. "Snow Jack" has regressed to a barbaric, growling apeman. "Photograph Jack", in contrast, is a cultured and civilized modern man.

"Snow Jack" is alone and poor. He has no power, he's simply a caretaker. A glorified janitor. "Photograph Jack", in contrast, is the centre of attention. He is very powerful, has photographs devoted to him, and with his outstretched arms we get the impression that he is a "care taker" on a far grander scale.

By freezing the beast and the man, and presenting them alongside one another, Kubrick is showing that they are one and the same (though because of his power, technology and intelligence, modern man is arguably capable of far more horror and bloodshed).

Both modern Jack (alcoholic and abusive father) and past Jack (rich, power figure) ooze hypocrisy and are adept at denial. Like the animal, the civilized man is prone to barbaric acts. He copes with these acts in the modern world by denial and delusion. The elevators of blood, the history of violence, child abuse and alcoholism, are all horrors that are denied because man erects mental blocks in an attempt to avoid trauma, steadfastly refusing to confront both his nature and his past.

The bathroom motiff in this film (and Kubrick's other pictures), highlights this theme. The bathroom is a place of seclusion and privacy. A place in which man conducts his messy animal affairs behind locked doors. For Kubrick, the bathroom is symbollically the only place where man is truly himself.

The idea of having both men "frozen" (photo/snow) also heightens the notion that they can't break free of their personal mazes. While the Baby at the end of "2001" implies growth, and the children at the end of "Full Metal Jacket" imply a blind obedience, the frozen men at the end of "The Shining" imply an inability to progress. They're trapped, frozen in place, doomed to a history of repetition.

CHAIRS TO THE LEFT, GOLD ROOM SIGN TO THE RIGHT...

CHAIRS TO THE RIGHT, GOLD ROOM SIGN TO THE LEFT...

CHAIRS TO THE LEFT, GOLD ROOM SIGN BACK TO THE RIGHT...

Thanks to Evan for the pictures above.

BEGINING OF FILM: Chairs on left, Gold Room sign on right.

MIDDLE OF FILM: Mirror image. Chairs on right, Gold Room sign on left.

END OF FILM: Return to initial image. Chairs back on left, Gold Room sign back on right. Chairs now covered up.

This simple sequence highlights the themes of the film. Left to right to left, repeating the same sequence and finally covering it up.

What's Jack reading?

Social Taboo in The Shining

Bestiality, paedophilia, necrophilia, incest and infidelity are all themes that reside in the deepest recesses of The Shining. (We can add cannibalism to that list too, but for the purpose of this brief article, I’d like to focus on sexuality.)

Sex is a creative process between male and female. Usually an act of love between husband and wife. But at no point does Jack show even the faintest hint of love or passion for Wendy. She annoys him. She disgusts him. She reminds him of his own failures as a man, writer and father. Instead of holy matrimony, Kubrick gives us the love between man and his perversions.

Within the walls of the Overlook Hotel, we witness embraced corpses, caretakers making love to animals, traces of incest and sexual abuse and Jack trading passing glances with young hotel attendants. Everything but the social norm of marriage seems to satisfy Jack. In this perverse environment, Jack becomes a symbol for every conceivable form of abuse, sexual or otherwise. He abuses his wife, he abuses his son, he abuses himself, he abuses the Other.

This abuse is systematically denied and buried beneath a labyrinth of lies, and only comes to light when Wendy confronts the bitter truth. She looks down at her husband’s work (“all work and no play” where “play” is “death”) and comes to a moment of personal realisation. Her husband is a monster. Wendy can no longer live in denial.

Kubrick uses “books” to introduce both Wendy and Jack. Wendy sits smoking whilst reading “The Catcher in the Rye”. She strikes us a modern, liberated and independent woman. But eventually this facade is eroded, as Kubrick finally presents her as a fearful housewife and timid caretaker of her husband.

Similarly, Kubrick introduces Jack as a literary and well-spoken man. He’s an academic. A professor type who seeks solitude and time to write. However this façade is quickly shattered. He leers at women, reads a 1978 issue of Playgirl and is abusive toward his son. And like Wendy’s double sided “Catcher in the Rye” book, Jack’s magazine reveals much about his personality.

Poor screencap of Jack's magazine

The magazine, carefully chosen by Kubrick, states the following points on the front cover:

Playgirl, January, 1978 issue.

Interview: The Selling Of (Starsky & Hutch's) David Soul

Incest: Why Parents Sleep With their Children

New 7-Day Wonder Diet

Rate yourself- Do you communicate in bed?

How Your Tax Dollars Give New Identities To Convicted Criminals

How to avoid a dead end affair

Close up of Jack's January 1978 issue

The “selling of David Soul” refers to Jack selling his soul for another glass of whisky. He gives his life to the Hotel and in return it provides him with booze. It’s an exploitative transaction. Jack does the bidding of the house, and the house keeps him deluded and blind, his ugly reflection hidden behind a booze fuelled haze.

The Incest article touches upon the film's paedophilic undertones (explored in another article). Consider this: Tony first appears when Jack physically abuses Danny and Danny first shines in the green bathroom, with the curtains drawn ominously behind him. During a conversation to the doctor about Tony, Danny also covers his crotch whilst laying on a giant brown bear. “Does Tony ever tell you to do things?” the doctor asks. “I don’t want to talk about Tony anymore,” Danny replies. Danny also watches "The Summer of 42" plays on the television. This film is about a paedophillic relationship between woman and boy. Note too that Danny is identified with the number 42 and that Jack plays with a yellow tennis ball, the same "ball" that lures Danny to room 237.

Of course Jack is the only one with keys to room 237 and a picture of Wendy (“Mom, are you there?”) follows Danny to room 237.

The subliminal point of these scenes is that Danny is abused in 237. He lies and says an old woman did it, but when Jack embraces this beautiful woman he sees himself in the mirror and recoils in horror. He sees the ugly truth. He did something terrible to Danny. He runs away, turns his back to the bedroom mirror (himself) and denies his actions.

Finally, the “Do you communicate in bed” article is possibly an ironic reference to Wendy and Jack’s marriage, whilst the “How to avoid a dead end” fits in with the film’s maze motifs.

The deleted hospital scene.