"All you can do is either pose questions or make truthful observations about human behaviour. The only morality is not to be dishonest.” - Stanley Kubrick prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? INTRODUCTION Decades after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” continues to baffle, enrage and entrance audiences. Books have been written, ink has been spilt, websites formed and videos made, all in the hope of untangling the film’s intricate narrative. Other labyrinthal films – Resnais’ “Last Year In Marienbad”, Erice’s “Spirit of the Beehive”, Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” come to mind – have been praised by critics and embraced by film buffs, but few seem to generate the sheer level of conversation, writing and academic interest as Kubrick’s. Indeed, over the past few years countless blogs have arisen, ascribing mystical, mathematical, supernatural and conspiratorial “meanings” to the film. These theories range from the probable to the bizarre to the downright insane, but in a way they’re all valid readings for a film which, in some ways, invites one to investigate, get lost and possibly lose one’s mind within its vast network of corridors. If on the one hand the internet generation has embraced “The Shining” as a film which can be mapped by careful analysis, its ambiguities conquered by DVD replays, high-definition screenshots, youtube videos and forum conversation, then on the other hand, a revived interest in the film has resulted in an abundance of what semiotician Umberto Eco calls “junk meaning”. This is excess chatter in which viewers ascribe to the film everything from Moon landing hoaxes to Mayan Apocalypses in the year 2012. On the other end of the spectrum we have those who don’t venture into the maze at all, shrugging in boredom or disinterest. Of course this is another quite valid response, as in many ways “The Shining” is about the act of either “watching” or “overlooking” “The Shining”. Kubrick invites his audience to “shine”, to navigate his labyrinth, picking, discarding and drawing conclusions as they sees fit. The entrance and exist to his maze are right there on the screen, how far one gets is not his concern. The first stumbling block for most audience members seems to be the question of whether or not the film’s ghosts are “real”. These are the same folk who view the monoliths in “2001: A Space Odyssey” as being literal alien teaching devices, and Dave Bowman’s transcendence at the end of that film to be the result of extra terrestrial intervention. Which is not to say that ET’s are not present in “2001”, but that one must look beyond the film’s genre tropes and tune into the more abstract, symbolic themes which Kubrick weaves. As David Cook argues in American Horror: The Shining (Literature/Film Quarterly, 12.1, 1984:2-4), “The Shining is less about ghosts and demonic possession than it is about the murderous system of economic exploitation which has sustained this country since, like the Overlook Hotel, it was built upon an Indian burial ground that stretched quite literally from ‘sea to shining sea’. This is a secret that most Americans choose to overlook; the true horror of the shining is the horror of living in a society which is predicated upon murder and must constantly deny the fact to itself.” Writer Padraig Henry echoes these sentiments: “The violence used to construct the hotel is wiped clean away by the hotel’s role as sanitised manifestation of American success. And this is one of the functions of Kubrick’s use of the hotel’s title (another being the rampant self-denial of its occupants). Kubrick is revealing how white male Americans deny the demons of their past by hiding them in assorted closets whilst all the time aggressively pursuing success at the expense of others, usually marginalized groups.” Flo Liebowitz and Lynn Jeffress, in “The Shining” (Film Quarterly, 34, 1980-81:45-51), conclude that “Torrance makes his devil’s bargain…and women, children and blacks suffer.” In other words, the film is less about ghosts than it is about a character who regresses into a monster partly as a result of the huge pressures to strive for some notion of “success”, a success which is itself dependent on exploitation and domination. The power of the shining, as Leibowitz and Jeffress maintain, serves as “a kind of survival skill that helps the oppressed to defend themselves, the relationships between the child, the black and the woman being the only ones free of the self-serving motives that govern those in which Jack participates." In being at once horror movie, socio-historic critique and psycho-domestic melodrama, “The Shining” thus thoroughly subverts conventional horror genre expectations. As Harry Bailey writes, “It is “The Shining’s” subversion of genre, its meta-generic complexity, which allows one to view it as nothing less than an elaborate political and cultural critique of the stereotypical American nuclear family, as symbolised by the psycho-historical maze of the Overlook. One is, of course, “permitted” to view “The Shining” as just a horror film, but where, per-chance, is the supernatural intervention? Only in the viewer’s imagination, a result of his/her pre-empting and pre-attribution of genre." The rest of this article will consist of a "scene by scene" breakdown of the film, as well as several seperate essays at the end which will attempt to touch upon the various readings of the film which have been floating around since the 80s. Though primarily interested in "The Shining" as a work of historical and political critique, this webpage will also use Freud's "Uncanny" and Jung's writings on "The Shadow" to analyse the film as psychodrama, and Frederic Jameson's "Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in an attempt to show that "The Shining" explorers the most characteristic problem of postmodernism - the dead-endness of postmodern nostalgia - the aesthetic, artistic and cultural moment under whose spell Kubrick began to fall as cinema moved beyond modernism.

Imperfect Symmetries A Guide to The Shining prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? by Jason Francois The Opening Shot Kubrick’s films begin with what I call "primer scenes". These are 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 (or rather, an attempt to reassert a particular brand of Colonialism)

The first shot of "The Shining" features the largest and oldest mirror in the film (water). 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 convey the impression of a maze, Kubrick implying that Jack is already trapped ("You’ve always been the caretaker"), drawn inexorably toward the Hotel. Note- The color yellow (Volkswagen/ball) deno tes objects used by the hotel to tempt or lure others. Recent HD releases of the film contains color errors which render the ball and car pink (amongst other bizzare color changes). Note also that during this primer scene, Jack passes 2 moving cars and 2 motionless cars, Kubrick introducing us to the theme of twins or doubles. 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 a 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 forward/backward double motion is itself necessary when trying to negotiate one’s way out of a maze, a process in which one must not only search for the centre, but remember past routes if one intends to get out. Significantly, the labyrinthal road that the car travels down is called the "Going to the Sun" road, and construction of it began in 1921. Later we will notice that the film itself ends with a photograph taken in 1921. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to-the-Sun_Road Legend has it that the Going to the Sun Mountain, and later its main road, were named after a mystical Indian who ascended the 9,642-foot peak to join the sun in eternity. The choice of road is no coincidence, as the film begins and ends with both credits and references to the year 1921. What's more, Kubrick's name is nowhere in the final credits, and the film begins with a cast scroll that is typically located where most films end. So what we have here is a film which folds in on itself like an ouroboros snake, the past and the present, beginning and end, merging indefinitely , one big cyclical repetition of history. 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 state, adopting a savagery akin to the ape men in "2001: A Space Odyssey".

The music throughout this primer sequence also has an interesting shift in tone. It goes from plodding and ominous (beating thumps) to the squeals of what sounds like native Indian women. 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 tennis ball on the wall echoes the crashing of an axe through a 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 also show us the horrors of at least three generations of history. The film's 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 is itself further fragmented in the Gold Room scenes which all involve Lloyd the bartenter and a large bottle of Jack Daniels. Note also that a deleted scene - cut by Kubrick after the film's premiere - featured Danny being given a tennis ball by Mr Ullman. This act, which occured at the end of the film after Jack's death, 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 generations of men live in a maze, a cycle whereby they repeat the same horrific actions in much the same way humanity is trapped in a loop, 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 . 2. 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. Note: The camera motion which tracks Jack during his first visit to the Hotel Lounge will be reversed during his second visit to the Lounge. Furthermore, whilst the first visit entailed Jack walking to the secretary and then to Ullman seated in his office, the second visit will be a reverse shot which tracks Ullman's walk to a seated Jack. Every scene in the film is mirrored like this, the camera and characters shifting positions appropriately. 3. Jack approaches Mr Ullman's office. To the left of the office door is an abstract painting, the head of a Native American Indian Chief buried within blocks of colors. 4. Mr Ullman (himself dressed in American reds, whites and blues, his head ALWAYS blocking an American Eagle behind him) 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. 5. Jack tells Mr Ullman that the journey took him 3 and a half hours (210 minutes). The number 21 will appear at regular intervals throughout the film. 6. 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 PlayGirl 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, misogynistic and racist, referring to his wife as a “sperm bank” and being repulsed by the notion of "niggers". 7. Wendy is likewise a woman of contrasts. Kubrick introduces her as a modern American woman and goes to 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 her book and the fact that objects behind Wendy and Danny are always paired off in twos - cans, books, tins, bottles etc). 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. Note - during this scene, Danny moves his "Tony finger" 11 times and is introduced drinking milk like Alexander De Large in "A Clockwork Orange". 8. Mr Ullman says the Hotel season closes on October 30th. This means that the Torrance's move into the Overlook on Halloween Day. Cowboys (TV) and Indians (Wendy). 9. 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. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 10. Danny stands before a bathroom mirror. Kubrick, who with "The Shining" began developing a semiotic language far beyond that which he utilized in "2001: A Space Odyssey", carefully places several important signifiers here. Consider these for the time being: a tub of Vaseline beside Danny, the number 42 and a green shower curtain. 11. Whilst speaking in the mirror, Danny moves "Tony" (his finger) up and down six times. The result is that Tony moves a total of 12 times; six in the mirror and six in real life. The next time Danny moves Tony, he will do so 21 times. 12. During this bathroom sequence, Danny experiences the film’s first shining. Here the audience is subjected to two short flash-back/flash-forwards. 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 whilst 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 = 12) “KDK1 calling KDK12” (past calling present) K is the 11th letter of the alphabet Twins, elevators, doors etc look like the number 11 Jack thinks he has “two 20’s and two 10’s” Film on TV- “Summer of 42” (21 doubled) Number on Danny’s shirt- “42” (21 doubled)

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 Professor Geoffry Cocks, in his book "The Wolf At The Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust", 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.



13. Danny blacks out and a doctor is called. Whilst the doctor examines Danny, Danny rests on a giant BEAR pillow and covers his crotch protectively. The doctor asks Danny if Tony ever tells him "to do things", at which point Danny says "I don't want to talk about Tony anymore". Note: Wendy is in the background whilst the bear pillow is in the foreground. This angle will be reversed during the famous "bear suit blow job" scene. 14. To the right of the doctor is the Disney figure, Goofy. Goofy is hanging from a string and is dressed exactly as Wendy is (even down to the oversized brown shoes) on the left of the screen. 15. The doctor says that Danny is fine. She says that he was in a "self induced trance" and that his "black out" was caused by a form of "auto-hypnosis". On the table before the doctor is a copy of Susan Sontag's "Illness As Metaphor". "Illness As Metaphor" challenged the "blame the victim" mentality behind the language society often uses to describe diseases and those who suffer from them. Sontag says that diseases are often perceived to be "expressions" of the victim and that the victim itself is often perceived to have directly caused its own disease. In other words, Kubrick is telling us not to trust the film's "surface explantions". Danny's "traumas" throughout the film, are caused by something or someone external to Danny. 16. Behind the doctor are two books, "The Wish Child" and "The Manipulator". "The Wish Child" is perhaps symbollic of Danny, "The Manipulator" of Jack and the Hotel. As Wendy smokes, her cigarette resembles an Indian peace pipe. Note: "The Wish Child" was written by Ina Seidel, author of "Das Labyrinth". "The Wish Child" is about 2 young children during the Napoleonic Era. 17. During her conversation with the doctor, 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. Mirrored Mountains

18. The film's opening shots show 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 always watch them from different points of view (left/right/forward/back). prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? Examples: Halloran stands before cans of Calumet Baking powder and is photographed from the right. Later, Jack stands before Calumet Baking powder and is photographed from the left. Every scene in the film is carefully shot to obey this "mirroring pattern", the camera carefully alternating stances, Kubrick employing an architectural structure to his camera work that is dissying in its precision. But reversals like this occur in other areas as well. 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. Even Wendy and Jack's tour of the Hotel will take them through a sequence of rooms "mirrored" precisely in the film's final showdown (kitchen, maze, quarters, gold ballroom etc).

19. During the car ride to the Hotel, Danny tells Wendy that he is hungry. Ironically, he and Jack then 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. Jack's thinly veiled contempt for his wife (he subtly mocks her lack of historical/geographical knowledge) is also hinted in this scene, his hatred and feelings of superiority, of course, bubble to the surface as the film progresses. Writer Harry Bailey on this scene: " What's also of interest is the sudden stark contrast between the Torrance's discussion and allusion to the starving Donner Party, to hunger and cannibalism, and the scenes a few minutes later (in film grammar terms, a 'setup/payoff') of being introduced to a Chef and shown around an enormous kitchen with vast quantities of food everywhere, in freezers and pantries. If only the Donner Party had made it to the Overlook and to Chef Hallorann! Instead we later witness a different kind of party, the Torrance Overlook 'Party' ("Great party, isn't it!?"), where instead of a material hunger for food, a different kind of spectral hunger prevails.



The scene in the car, though, is the first indication of Wendy's underlying uncertainties and fears about what lies ahead, about her (correct) apprehensions about Jack, the scene ending with Wendy looking at Jack, a sudden expression of shock on her face (foreshadowing her looks of horror and real terror later in the film) after Jack's "See! It's okay, he saw it on the television!". Perhaps Wendy's fears of going to a remote, isolated place combined with Danny's expression of hunger pangs to immediately conjure up in her a dread memory of hearing about the Donner Party? This scene isn't so much a critique of television as it is indicative of Jack's total abandonment of his paternal role in relation to Danny, his indifference to his education and welfare. And remember, who would remove a six-year-old child from school and all other social contact and isolate him in a remote hotel for six months (wouldn't this be illegal today? Or maybe Jack informed and reassured the school authorities: "But I'm a school teacher!")? Jack's supposed to be a school teacher, yet when it comes to his own son, he proves to be the most incompetent and impotent educator imaginable, the TV and alter-ego 'Tony' providing Danny's 'education' instead.



The other, somewhat minor or peripheral point, is that Danny and Jack are the only characters we ever see eating in the film. In the shorter 'European' cut of the movie, Danny is first introduced munching on a sandwich (a sandwich in which, via a cut-away, a giant bite mysteriously appears), and later eating ice-cream with Hallorann on his first day at the Overlook. And later still, after the Torrances are first alone in the now-vacated Overlook, Wendy's primary contact with Jack (her efforts to strike up a normal conversation with him) is via food, via serving him meals: the very first scene is of Wendy bringing Jack his breakfast with his 'sunny side up' fried eggs, while the next time we see them together it's the infamous "Whenever you see me typing" intimidation scene, Wendy bringing Jack a snack, Wendy responding to Jack's verbal abuse with the same expression of horror we saw earlier in the car. Food again. And Wendy with a large kitchen knife. And then Jack locked in the pantry, having helped himself to some dried food, gets a call from Grady*** ...



(With all that food consumption, it's time for a visit to one of the Overlook's bathrooms ... )

***The symmetric obverse to the environment and circumstances of the Donner Party: whereas the Donner Party were in a wide open hostile landscape without any food, Jack is suffocating, claustrophobically locked up in a little room with so much food he's tripping over it. The Donner Party resort to cannibalism, Jack's resorts to a spectral madman." 20. The Torrances arrive at the Hotel. Some claim that there are 21 cars parked infront the Hotel now, and that 42 were parked during the earlier introductory sequence. Note: Ullman will say "good bye girls" to two pairs of twins, possibly foreshadowing the death of the twins in the 1920s and 1970s. 21. An exterior shot of the Overlook Hotel carefully dissolves to an interior shot, such that the triangular rooftop of the Hotel (tent shaped) seems to morph into the image of a workman's large ladder. We then pan sideward to reveal Jack sitting on a chair, reading a PlayGirl magazine. Note the way the Hotel's rooftop fades onto this image of a ladder. It will prove important later on. 22. The magazine Jack reads has articles mentioning incest, taxes, criminals, mazes, souls and spirits on its front cover. This will be discussed later.

23. 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. From here on, Danny is constantly associated with "playing", "toys" and "games". Like Dave Bowman, he is a creative artist/warrior. 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. From the onsent, he seems to dispise her. 24. Danny is in the game's room playing darts. There are banks of 24 photos behind him. He then "shines" and sees 2 little girls, dressed in blue dresses. The blue of their dresses becomes the pleasant blue of the walls outside the Torrance's appartment in the very next shot. In other words, their deaths are literally on the walls of The Overlook. Indeed, if one looks closely at the Overlook Hotel, one will see that the violence of the past is always re-appropriated as its decor. 25. Wendy and Jack approach their new bedroom. Jack looks at two grown up twins as they walk away, mirroring Danny's encourter with the twins seconds earlier. Jack and Wendy are given a tour of their new bedroom by Mr Ullman. Ullman describes the room: "Livingroom, bedroom, bathroom, and a small bedroom for your son." Jack look's into Danny's room and smiles: "Perfect for a child!" Note: the painting above Jack's bed resembles the opening shot of the film. 26. Above Danny's bed is a picture of 2 bears. Recall the image of Danny laying down on a bear whilst being examined by the doctor. These symbols will prove important later on. Note also the phallic shape of the mirror in Jack's room and the overall architectural layout of the room. 27. Jack and Wendy 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. 28. 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). 29. This theme of doubles is itself 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). Heck, there are even two versions of the film (one cut being 24 [42-reversed] minutes shorter!). 30. Jack and Wendy are taken to the Gold Room. The Gold Room sign states that the spectral house band that plays there is called "The Unwinding Hours". Of course, the term "Unwinding Hours" has many associations with what is happening in the film and to Jack. As Harry Bailey writes: "Jack is literally "unwinding", both relaxing and going crazy, but he is also returning to the past (or nostalgia) via the "unwinding" of time, pulled back into the hotel's history as well as reflecting on his own past (his violent assault on Danny, admitting it but then dismissing it all as Danny's fault, deflecting from all his own past failures by treating his own family with abject contempt and then blaming them for everything) until it overwhelms him. The architectural design of the Gold Room is also interesting. Its silouette resembles a Mayan/Aztec pyramid, the huge chandeliers like glittering Sun Gods. The hotel thus seems to have conquered and encorporated ALL of America. From the North American Indians (Navajo, Apache, Blackfoot, Iroquois etc) to the Central and South American Indians (Mayans, Aztecs) to the African Americans brought over in the slave trade, to modern minorities. The hotel crushes and absorbs these cultures, encorporating their iconography, their languages, their symbols, art and traditions, into its sanitized concrete walls. Turned upside down, the Gold Ball room also resembles a Mayan Ball Court (the ceiling becomes the terraced seats), where ancient games and rituals were performed. Here, in The Overlook, the Hotel will use a Gold Ball (yellow tennis ball) to "play with" Danny and Jack. 31. We're first introduced to Hallorann in the "Gold Room". He emerges from beneath a ladder, composed to resemble a Sioux Indian energing from his tipi or tent. 32. A woman brings Danny to the Gold Room. Jack makes a comment about "bombing the universe". This is perhaps a reference to "2001: A Space Odyssey". Danny is the Star Child, who, in the screenplay for "2001", destroys a ring of orbiting missile silos. Notice too how Wendy quickly calls Danny to her side, refusing to let the boy stand by her husband.

33. 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 then shows them 2 rooms, the Cold Room and the Store Room. In the Cold Room we’re shown stacks of meat. These are frozen bodies, slaughtered families, the long forgotten murdered carcasses of the past. This room mirrors the murkily labelled Gold Room, where the wealthy 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. 34. They then proceed to the Store Room, which is filled with preservatives (the fruits of a civilization's victory). Note Danny's jacket, which says "Flyers". Throughout the film Danny (the starchild) is associated with "rockets", "universes" and "flying". He's also associated with Alex De Large - a figure of unbridled play - when we first see him drinking milk. 35. Danny shines and we the audience are invited to do so as well, Hallorann taking up position beside a stack of Calumet baking powder cans, his silhouette perfectly mirroring the image of the native Indian Chief behind him. Thus Kubrick mirrors one ethnic minority with another: a black Head Chef with the head of a red Indian Chief. (Throughout the film, Hallorann will often be shot in profile, just like the image on the Calumet Can) 36. Jack will later shine at this same location. In both instances, "TekSun" and "Golden Rey" boxes will be vissible in the background. These brand names allude to the act of "shining" (rays, suns, beams etc). Connecting the two scenes, you thus have a father "shining" and "accepting the job of killing Halloran" on the same location his son "shines" and makes the connection between Halloran and those slaughtered by the Hotel in the past (natives, blacks, whites - anyone who opposes the spread of White Imperialism). Halloran continuously shot in profile to resemble Indian Chief prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 37. Scatman Crothers, the actor who plays Hallorann, famously acted with Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", another film which featured a large, wordless Indian. Crothers himself looks like he may be mixed race, both Native Indian and African American.

38. 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 by dying himself.

39. 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. 40. Left alone, Danny and Hallorann have a conversation in the kitchen. 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 appears looming over Danny. 41. Hallorann tells Danny that past horrors leave traces in the present like "burnt toast".

42. 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. The traits which he refuses to acknowledge and look at. The red flower by the mirror represents this danger and hostility. 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 sequence is predominantly shot with green hues. 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. 43. Jack throws a yellow tennis ball against a large Indian tapestry. This tapestry has 2 blue figures on it, resembling the slaughtered Grady girls. The sound the tennis ball makes also resembles the sound Jack's axe will later make when he hacks down a pair of "twin" doors. Note: Jack throws the ball 12 times against the wall.

44. 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.

45. 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 also talk on the TV of the Martin L. King assassination (rumoured to be in the original US cut of the film). Hallorann is warned of his death, but still carries on. Racist "golliwog" doll rests where Hallorann dies

46. 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. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 47. All three locations at which Jack smashes the ball are symbollic. Firstly, when Jack smashes the ball 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 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 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). Note: A Winnie The Pooh bear rests on the floor as well. Wendy is linked to Winnie The Pooh when Hallorann says "Now, are you a Winnie or a Freddie?"

48. 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's stuck in a comfortable routine which gets him nowhere and which he can not break free of. 49. 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.

50. 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"). Regarding Jack's growing aggitation, writer Harry Bailey says: "Jack displays what has been termed a 'negative solidarity', a displaced and aggressively enraged sense of injustice. His self-loathing is committed to the idea that, because he must endure increasingly austere working or living conditions (a menial job, poor wages, loss of benefits, increasing career precarity, etc, having lost his job as a teacher) then everyone else must too, making life hell for everyone else. Negative solidarity can be seen as a close relation to the kind of ‘lottery thinking’ that underpins the most pernicious variants of the American Dream. In lottery thinking we get a kind of inverted Rawlsian anti-justice- rather than considering the likelihood of achieving material success in an unequal society highly unlikely and therefore preferring a more equal one, instead the psychology of the million-to-one shot prevails. Since Jack will 'inevitably' be wealthy in the future, this line of thinking runs, he will ensure that the conditions when he becomes wealthy will be as advantageous to him as possible, even though on a balance of realistic probabilities this course of action will in fact be likely to be entirely against his own interests. More than lottery thinking, which is inherently (if misguidedly) aspirational in nature, negative solidarity is actively and aggressively anti-aspirational, utterly negative and destructive in the most childish fashion, and drives a blatant “race-to-the bottom”. Negative solidarity operates under the invisible, though clearly contradictory and self-refuting, assumption of reflexive impotence (actively going to extremes to 'prove' that one is impotent to do anything). Jack then actively endeavours to make life a total misery for everyone else, resorting to racism, sexism, and child abuse." 51. The term "playing" also has a 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. 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 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 unconscious primal desires. Jack is jealous that others may play whilst he is constrained to Duty (how dare you play whilst I have to work?), 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) and outcasts (homosexuals, gypsies etc). The caretakers of the country are thus made to commit genocide and horrors (holocaust) out of nothing more than national duty and personal animosity. A sense that the Other (Danny/Wendy/Jews) is responsible for their own misfortunes (the inability to ever really be worthy of The Gold Room/The American Dream) 52. When Wendy and Danny explore the hedge maze, they both repeat the line “the loser gets to keep America clean." The line relates 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. The line is possibly also a reference to a series of near-racist "weeping or crying indian" advertisements which ran on TV durng the 70s, in which a Native American Indian shed tears as he urged Americans to keep their land clean and free from pollution. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R-FZsysQNw ). The line also has a double meaning. Later, when Jack "loses" to Danny in the hedgemaze, he dies and becomes a spectral caretaker, forever keeping the Overlook (America) clean. 53. Wendy and Danny make 12 "turns" in the maze. When Wendy and Danny reach the centre of the maze, Kubrick cuts to a shot of Jack looming over a model of the maze, looking down at his family like a giant. This cut encapsulates Jack's delusionary power over his family at the very moment his son has mastered the maze, a mastery which will allow him to elude his father at the end. Boogey Mom's gonna getcha! Victims of the Steadicam Danny on his Big Wheel resembles Wendy's dress prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 54. Wendy is in the kitchen opening a large tin. As always, she is identified by blues, whites and reds. Only later in the film do Danny and Wendy reject this color scheme. 55. The television next to Wendy makes reference to a 24 year old missing woman. The television news reporter speaks also of "mirrored weather patterns" (snow on one side, sunshine on the other). 56. Danny is on his Big Wheel. He rides up to room 237 and tries the door. It is locked. Later, this sequence will be repeated with the camera on the opposite end of the corridor, this time with the door open. 57. Jack is typing in the Colorado lounge. Wendy walks up to him - again with the red, white and blue color scheme - and offers to make him something to eat. Jack swears at her and tells her to stop bothering him. We get the impression that Wendy sincerely loves Jack, but that this love is complicated because Jack has a history of abusing her, not just physically, but abusing her with his constant put-downs and hostile body language which conveys the impression that he considers her to be a worthless person. Faced with a situation like this, a person like Wendy, if they love their partner, has to keep their distance emotionally for reasons of self preservation. 58. Wendy and Danny play in the snow. Jack is upstairs in the Colorado lounge, gazing menacingly out the window. He's beginning to look rather feral, with his crazy eyes and growing beard. It is at this moment that he first seems to shine, receiving some unspoken message from the Hotel. 59. 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“). Significantly, it is at this point that she stops wearing the "red, white and blue" color scheme, adopting now a more earth tone palette. 60. Tough guy Danny (again in red, whites and blues) continues to ride his Big Wheel, exploring the Overlook like an intrepid adventurer. Our bite sized hero is stopped in his tracks, however, when he is confronted by the Grady twins. "Come play with us, forever and ever and ever," they chant, before Danny covers his eyes. "They're just like pictures in a book," Tony comforts Danny, Danny wiggling his finger 21 times. Earlier, when we first met Tony, Danny wiggled him 12 times (six in the mirror, six in the bathroom).

61. As the film progresses, we will witness various spectral images and ghostly visions. Jack's "ghosts" - which he seems to conjure up himself - are representative of everything he desires: The American Dream (Gold Room), alcohol (Lloyd), beautiful women (woman in 237), riches, fame etc. He feels entitled to wealth and riches, and dreams of reasserting a particular brand of 1920's America, a nostalgic image which he hopes to "connect to" or "preserve". The final shot of the film is thus Jack's ultimate fantasy: being sucked into this romantic image of America where he's the centre of attention and women know their place. In other words, Jack's "ghosts" are what Jung called The Shadow, Jack's darkest aspects which he projects but refuses to acknowledge as being part of himself. Similarly, Wendy will be assaulted by repressed memories in the form of various pop-up ghosts, whilst Danny is haunted by both the Shadows of his father and of the Overlook Hotel. Jung's Shadow will be explored later in greater detail. Suffice to say, the spectral visions of Wendy and Danny represent the "dark undersides" of the "seductive ghosts" which Jack flirts with. IE- The riches of the Overlook are appealing, but the bloodshed that purchased these riches are revolting. Likewise, the taste of alcohol is pleasing, but it often leads to unhinged violence. Note- Jack’s alcohol demon (Jack Daniels) is a composite of father and son (Jack and Danny). The film will go on to show that Danny has a seductive longing for both his son (Danny) and alcohol (Jack Daniels). 62. Danny and Wendy watch "The Summer of 42" on television. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? Some points about "The Summer of 42" a. It has the number 42 in the title. The importance of these numbers will be explained in another article (see Freud's "Uncanny").

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

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

d. The film is about discovering pictures in a book and becoming "wiser". e. The "Summer of 42" mirrors the "Winter of 21" at the end of the film. How "The Summer of 42" relates to "The Shining" a. 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.

b. Some have suggested that the hotel learns from the film how to seduce both 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?) c. 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.

d. The scene highlights the Oedipal issues within the family. Danny is affectionate toward his mother, but considers his father to be an adversary. e. The scene highlights Wendy's domesticated role (she is there to serve and tend to the boy and his dad), as it involves a woman taking care of and preparing food for a boy in a kitchen. f. 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. g. The film is about the improper sexual relationship between a boy and an older person. Room 237 is symbolic of a traumatic past incident in the Torrance family's life. An incident of abuse. Could Danny's abuse have been sexual? There are faint paedophilic overtones in The Shining, but these topics shall be explored in a different article. CLICK picture to MAGNIFY CLICK picture to MAGNIFY prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 63. Danny tiptoes into the family room. He is wearing a Mickey Mouse sweater. We first saw Mickey Mouse when Danny had his visions in Boulder, Colorado. Note that this shot is photographed from the "inside" of the room. This shot will later be "mirrored" and shot from the "outside" when Jack and Danny enter Room 237. 64. A whip-pan reveals Jack sitting on the edge of his bed. This whip-pan will be repeated later when Jack sees the old hag in the mirror of room 237. 65. Jack's image is mirrored to a pair of trousers and an oddly shaped mirror to his left. This mirror - shaped like a phallus - is the same shape as the markings on the bathroom floor of Room 237. 66. Danny sits on Jack's lap and they have a conversation. During this conversation, Danny has a red stripe on his shirt, exactly where his neck will be bruised and bloodshot later on. Jack strokes Danny's "bruise" tenderly, removing his hands from it only once he starts his "crazy face" routine.



67. Danny spends the first half of their conversation staring into the mirror off screen, and then the second half of the conversation looking directly into Jack's eyes. He's comparing his father's evil reflection with his real life image, looking for some kind of validation or disproof. "You wouldn't hurt mommy and me, wouldcha?" Danny asks, trying to dispel the horror he sees in the mirror. But though Jack protests his innocence, Kubrick cuts to a wide shot which reveals the exposed bathroom/toilet behind the couple.



68. This "love scene" between Jack and Danny will be repeated later on when Jack and Danny vist Room 237. During the surreal Room 237 experience, the mirror in the Torrance's appartment (which reflect's Jack's bed) will take the form of a large "mirror pattern" or "bed" on the floor of Room 237's bathroom. Similarly, the curtains and bedroom of Danny's room, will become the curtains and bathtub of Room 237. Finally, Jack and Danny's embrace will take the form of Jack and the woman embracing. But as we see when Jack looks into the bathroom mirror, this embrace is not beautiful or affectionate, but vile and horrific. 69. So the "love scene" between Jack and Danny in the Torrance's appartment is "repeated" as the nightmarish (surrealist/psychadelic) sequence in Room 237. By contrasting these two scenes, and forcing both the audience and Jack to face these buried traumas, Kubrick reveals the underlying horror festering beneath the seemingly tranquil family surface.

70. The following sequence is the most important. Here, Kubrick essentially shows us Danny learning and Jack denying/forgetting. Enticed by temptation (“you have no business going in there”) or perhaps his brave need to face his traumas directly, 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 kills his family like Charles Grady (an attempt to remove all trace evidence of his guilt?), 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 unlike his father, Danny confronts his trauma and learns from the past. He 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 STILL 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. 71. 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. We see the number 11 on his shirt. Danny takes 11 visible steps toward Room 237. 72. Wendy hears Jack screaming. She runs to her husband. A long tracking shot followers her. Some writers insist that she takes 42 steps to him. It seems that these numbers (11, 12, 21, 24, 42) appear whenever shinings or horrors occur. These numbers will be explored fully in another article. 73. Danny walks toward Room 237's open door (this scene is itself a reflection of the previous Room 237 corridor scene - note the location of Kubrick's camera). 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". Kubrick then cuts to a point-of-view shot. Danny 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. Arrow carpet The picture of Wendy FOLLOWS and WATCHES Danny as he enters room 237 74. 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 T-shirt torn), Wendy stops consoling her husband and then accuses Jack of injuring her son. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 75. Throughout the film, Danny wears the symbolic colors RED, BLUE and WHITE. In this scene, though, the color RED is omitted from Danny's clothing. However the hotel puts 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 outright and begins to wear more earth-toned natural colors. 76. 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, now aware of his mirror personality, hates his true reflection.

77. Jack sits down at the bar. Opposite him are yet more mirrors. He can't stand to look at himself and so he buries his face in his hands. Suddenly, the accusative mirrors before him are covered by stacks of booze. Liquid denial, the bottles of alcohol (red rum) symbollically and literally cover up his pain, preventing Jack from facing himself. 78. 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 half-blocked 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, the poem says, 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". 79. Jack speaks of using too much force on Danny at precisely the moment Wendy runs into the room and speaks of a "crazy woman" harming Danny. The implication is that, in the past, Jack abused Danny and then, in a violent rage, accused his wife of being "crazy" ("Are you out of your fucking mind?") when she confronted him. Now that Danny has been hurt again, Wendy's reponse is to likewise place the blame on a "crazy woman", on her own failings, her own shortcomings as a mother. Not only is she in denial, but she is so traumatized that she internalizes the blame and blames herself. This is exactly the sort of "victim blaming" that Susan Sontag's "Illness As Metaphor" speaks about. Indeed, the term "blaming the victim" was itself born of William Ryan's book of the same title, in which he critiqued the near-racist book "The Negro Family", which attempted to divert the responsibility of poverty from social structural factors to the behaviors and cultural patterns of the poor. 80. Wendy rushes to the Gold Room and tells Jack of a woman in Room 237 who strangled Danny. "Are you out of your fucking mind!?" he yells, despite having just been talking to himself. 81. Hallorann is watching TV. The news anchor speaks of contrasting weather patterns and of people going missing. Hallorann shines and has a horrific vision. The pictures on Hallorann's wall, one of which is a woman who assumes a pose similar to the woman in Room 237, hints that Hallorann is seeing the repressed horror of Room 237. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 82. Like Danny, Jack enters Room 237, Kubrick using a POV (point-of-view) shot to link both scenes. 83. The Room 237 apartment features the same architectural layout as the Torrance's Room 3 apartment. But with its garish colors, purple furniture and penis shaped patterns on the carpet, this is a surreal, nightmarish re-imagining of the Torrance family abuse. 84. Jack enters the green bathroom. Here, Kubrick begins to link various signifiers. We recall the green bathroom in which Danny first shines. The phallic shape on the floor is also identical to the mirror in which Danny watched Jack embrace him on the bed. The shower curtains also mirror the curtains that block Danny's room from Jack's bed. The whip-pan which reveals the rotting corpse is also the whip-pan which reveals Jack sitting on the bed. 85. Jack sees a beautiful woman and embraces her, but when he looks into the mirror (into the past and into himself) he sees his true ugly self (he abused Danny). Jack pushes the corpse away, and then promptly runs out of Room 237, locking the doors to this traumatic memory and throwing away the key. Note: Kubrick mirrors shots of Jack backing away from the old hag with shots of the old hag walking toward Jack. Both Jack and the old hag have their arms outstretched like zombies. They are one and the same. This kind of "zombie imagery" is continued (deconstructed, undermined, parodied etc) when Jack "creeps" toward Wendy on the steps, arms outstretched and when Wendy chases Danny toward the maze, arms outstretched. 86. What Kubrick's done is thus given us two "love scenes" between father and son. One on a bed to the side of a mirror, and one literally inside the mirror, symbolized by the pattern on the floor. Note that even the camera angles used to shoot both these scenes are "mirrored", both scenes shot from "mirrored" or "reversed" angles. 87. By linking Wendy to the "crazy woman" and Danny to the "beautiful woman", the Room 237 sequence thus places out like an event which symbolically involves the entire Torrance family. Jack embraces Danny, abuses him, is confronted by Wendy (whom he admonishes for being deranged and crazy), looks into the mirror and then sees that it is he who is really guilty. On another level, the imagery in this scene is ripe for a Freudian reading. A Freudian would say, for example, that the struggle that takes place in room 237 is between Eros (the life instinct) and Thanatos (the death instinct). Eros is epitomised by sex, sex give us vitality, fortifies our sense of being alive and banishes the dread of our own mortality. However when Jack looks in the mirror and sees the decaying form of the old woman the fortress of his Eros is breached and overrun by his Thanatos. Again according to Freud, the aggressiveness impulse represents a fusion which saves an organism form the innate self destructive tendency of the death instinct by extroverting it as a desire to kill, thus after Jack meets his Thanatos in room 237, the only recourse he has then is to murder, in order that he may still feel alive. Note the pattern on the bathroom floor prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 88. Hallorann dials 10 numbers, walks 12 paces, puts down his phone and looks concerned. 89. Jack returns to Wendy and dismisses the incident in Room 237. Turning his back to a mirror (and himself) he denies seeing anything. Bathroom: Jack looks in mirror and sees ugliness Bedroom: Jack turns back to mirror and says he saw nothing 90. "What about those bruises on his neck?” Wendy says, “Somebody did that to him?" Searching for someone to blame and unable to look at her husband, Wendy accepts Jack's offer that Danny abused himself. 91. In a marvellously horrific speech, Jack blames Wendy for "fucking up his life" and "holding him back". Before storming out of the room, Jack looks directly into the camera and into Danny's room. 92. Jack walks aimlessly throughout the Hotel, until he sees balloons and confetti strewn across one of the corridors. Tired of "shovelling driveways" and working in "car washes", he begins to fantasize that he is a member of "all the best people". From here on, Jack will always be dressed entirely in Reds, Whites and Blues. 93. Hallorann calls the rescue service. He takes 12 steps when speaking. The officer on duty tells him to call back in 20 minutes. 94. Jack walks up to the Gold Room, pleased to see a huge party in progress. He blocks out his horrible life and dips his toes in the high life. This is the American Dream, the riches, fame and power that Jack always desired. Jack laps up the attention, the wealth, the money, all his drinks on the house. This is Jack's vision of himself as a successful writer and he loves it. 95. Like Doctor Bill crashing the masked party in "Eyes Wide Shut", Jack is out of his league but nevertheless makes an attempt to fit in. "Of course, l intended to change my jacket...before the fish and goose soiree," he says, trying to sound sophisticated. 96. The band plays Al Bowlly's "Midnight The Stars And You", and just as the song's lyrics state, Jack has surrendered completely to the lavish beauty around him. 97. Earlier Jack had no money in his pocket. Now he has money but the bartender won't take it. Too important to pay, he’s living this little fantasy to the fullest. 98. 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. Perhaps the red hand print is the Hotel's way of pushing the butler into Jack. IE - one caretaker is pushed into another, the duo merged by alcohol (advocaat) which leaves a messy (bloody) stain. Regardless, it's Grady's line - "You're the important one, sir" - that's the key. In this fantasy, it is less the access to alcohol than it is the recognition, status and priviledge of being amongst the social elite, that entices Jack. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 99. 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 existing in the mirror behind the butler. Kubrick signifies the merging of all three by breaking the 180 degree camera rule at key times. Writer Padraig Henry on Charles and Delbert: "Charles Grady was the name of one of the previous caretakers at The Overlook, whereas Delbert Grady is the GHOST or spectre of Charles Grady. Kubrick is distinguishing between the ontological status of a (past) human being and a spectre: if Charles and Delbert were 'the same person', then there would be NO DIFFERENCE between a human being and a ghost (or, for instance, no difference between listening to a live concert and a recording of that concert; attending a play and watching a filmed recording of that play; reading a historical account and witnessing the later recorded event; between a painting and what it supposedly depicts, etc). A spectre like Delbert Grady or Lloyd occupies the 'space' between being and nothingness, between the metaphysics of presence and the metaphysics of absence, that of the UNDEAD, neither physically alive on the one hand nor totally departed or dead on the other. A recording...a return of the repressed ... a spectral presence. Just like the photograph of Jack Torrance at the end of The Shining. A 'recording', a fleeting snapshot, a spectre of a moment from/in the past. This is what haunts us..."

100. Jack looks into the mirror and sees Grady's horrible reflection. Seeing this, he accuses Grady of murder. Grady remains pleasant and confused, however, stating that he has no "recollection" of any of this. Of course, Al Bowlly's "It's All Forgotten Now" begins to play on the soundtrack precisely at the moment Grady states he has no "recollection". 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 indicates that what is forgotten may also be preserved through the mechanism of repression. "I have no recollection of that," Grady says, before admitting to "correcting" his family. He has no recollection of murder, only of "correction". 101. 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.

102. 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 the current "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. Likewise, the British Empire propagated the notion that Africans weren’t humans but an entirely different subspecies, all in an attempt to justify their mistreatment and enslavement. Time and time again, man has degraded and re-categorised the Other: "Those aren't humans, those are commie bastards! We're allowed to kill them! Those aren't Americans, those are immoral infidels! We are allowed to kill them!" Once you turn the Other into something completely unlike yourself (an animal, a savage, an infidel etc), you are free to convince others to kill or harm him. And this violence is always done under the guise of civility, duty or righteousness. Democracy, freedom, correction, pacification, god's will, collateral damage, smart bombs, neutralizing etc, are all violent or military terms which are created in order to minimize emotional responses. 103. Grady tells Jack that Danny is a "wilful" boy who has a "great talent" and is attempting to use this "great talent" against Jack's "will". Jack, less interested in killing Hallorann, whom Grady says has been called, seems more interested in reducing Danny's "will" and reinstating his own. Reinstating his own "will" to do as he pleases. "It's his mother," Jack says, always shifting the blame, "she's interferes." But what exactly does Wendy do that is such an interference? 104. Wendy is in her room. She hears Danny screaming. "Danny wake up!" she says, but Danny remains unresponsive. It's Tony who answers: "Danny's not here, Mrs Torrance. Danny's gone away." 105. Jack unplugs the radio, cutting the hotel off from outside civilization. KDK1 has been cut off from KDK12, Jack increasingly wishing to "disconnect" from the Electric age and return to the Literate Age of typewriters and ink. Note: this scene resembles the disconnection of HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey". 106. Dick Hallorann makes another futile phone call, and takes another 12 steps. 107. Hallorann hops on board a plane and races - very slowly - to the rescue. An air-hostess states that the plane will arrive at 8:20. 108. Jack is typing frantically away at his typewriter. This shot fades to a shot of Dick's plane landing. From here on, the sound of "typewriters" being violently tapped will feature prominently on the soundtrack. 109. Hallorann uses an airport telephone. This is his 4th and final phone call (2 pairs). Significantly, whilst several white characters were unable to provide help, Hallorann finally receives assistance when reaching out to Larry Durkin, a fellow African American. 110. A cartoon plays on the television behind Larry. Throughout the film, numerous references to cartoons appear, man's violent nature assimilated by media/culture and reflected back as entertainment for kids. Note the 3 little pigs on the poster behind Larry. 111. A box (by Larry's glove), and the rectangular sign behind it, rotate upside down midway in Larry's conversation with Hallorann. The result is that the blue surface which faced us, becomes completely red when Hallorann mentions the Torrance's being "completely unreliable assholes". This is a baffling detail by Kubrick and I've yet to see any plausible readings of this moment. Interesting too is that Tony Burton is a boxer (who himself appeared in all six Rocky films), and here he is with a mysterious rotating box. 112. Hallorann drives his rental car. Note the squashed Volkswagen beetle which Halloran passes whilst driving down the snowy road. Halloran passes a "squashed" Volkswagen Beetle on the way back to the Hotel prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 113. Danny and Wendy watch "The Roadrunner Show" on TV. Some claim that the Roadrunner character "beeps" 42 times whilst the word "beep" is said 21 times by the singers of the song. During this scene, Danny is wearing a brown coat that resembles "bear fur". Note that when we're first introduced to Danny, "The Roadrunner Show" also played in the background. 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. 114. Wendy prowls the Hotel with a baseball bat. She stumbles across Jack’s manuscript and is shocked to see that Jack has spent all his time typing variations of the phrase "All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy" countless times.

115. We see Wendy flip through 24 of Jack's pages. 116. 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 screams. 117. 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 earth tone clothes which 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. 118. 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. Note: when Jack asks Wendy what it is that she would like to talk about, she says "she forgot". Also, Jack says "Wendy, my treasure, light of my life," which are the first words of Nabokov's "Lolita". 119. 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. 120. While Wendy's strength is her ability to explore her surroundings, Jack's is his failure to grow. He is stagnated. Wendy hits him where and when he's at his weakest. 121. Some believe Wendy swings her bat 42 times. She actually swings it 41 times and once when first startled by Jack.

122. 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. 123. Wendy fumbles with the latch 21 times. Throughout the film, actions will be drawn out to fit a 12, 21, 24, 42 rhythm. I suspect there is some mirroring pattern between incidents which feature "12s" and "21" and incidents which feature "24s" and "42s", some sort of thematic link, but this theory has not been investigated. 124. "Let me out of here and I'll forget the whole goddamned thing! It will be just like nothing ever happened!" Jack yells, again agreeing to forget what happened. 125. When Jack first says, "Open the door! Let me out of here!" a Frosted Flakes cereal box appears behind Wendy, its mascot, Tony the Tiger, featured prominently on its front surface. Does this imply that Danny opened the door for his father? 126. Jack, becoming increasingly mad, 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. 127. Jack makes "typing motions" on the door with his fingers, whilst on the soundtrack the music resembles the sound of typewriters chattering. Some have suggested the film becomes a sort of meta-horror film, the audience watching Jack's demented novel draw to a conclusion as Jack frantically types away in real life. 128. Jack wakes up on a bag of Salt. The Hotel preserves him. Note that after Wendy and Jack have their violent encounter in the Colorado Lounge, both Wendy and Jack promptly go to sleep, both trying to "block" the traumatic memories.

129. 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 Hallorann. Here it is linked to "taking care of business". So Kubrick is saying that Jack has to take care of Hallorann. He has to kill him. But why 5 cans? The number 5, if anything, possibly represents the 5 muders that the caretakers complete: Hallorann, the twins, Grady and Grady's wife. 130. Another important detail in this scene is the stack of "GOLDEN REY" boxes behind Jack. Earlier in the film, when Danny stands in the same location and SHINES (he sees Hallorann talking about ice-cream), there are a stacks of TEK SUN boxes behind Danny. The words "Golden Ray" and "Tek Sun" allude to sunshine or shining rays. Thus both Jack and Danny shine in this precise spot. Jack shines and learns he has to kill Hallorann, Danny shines and learns Hallorann will die like the Indian Chief on the can behind him. 131. Grady opens the pantry door on the condition that Jack "takes care of business" in the "harshest manner possible". "You give your word?" Grady asks. Jack nods: "I give you my word." Earlier, when Jack yelled for the door to be opened, we saw a picture of Tony the tiger. Could Tony/Danny have opened the door because Jack "gave his word" not to harm anyone? 132. 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. 133. Like a scene out of "2001: A Space Odyssey", Hallorann's snowcat glides slowly through the night, its lights puncturing the cold darkness. 134. The warnings lights on top of the snowcat flash 42 times before Kubrick fades to an interior shot of the vehicle. The wipers then slash 12 times, before Kubrick fades to a POV shot in which the wipers slash once during the fade and then another 12 times. Note- Hallorann pulls some amazingly interesting facial expressions during this scene. 135. Danny writes "REDRUM" on the bathroom door. Wendy wakes up and sees the word reflected in the bedroom mirror. This "mirror" is the very same mirror that "witnessed" Jack and Danny on the bed and Jack "hugging" the woman in Room 237 136. Wendy hugs her son protectively, echoing the aforementioned hugs. 137. 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 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’). 138. Wendy was sleeping. Could Danny have gone downstairs and set free Jack? 139. Jack hacks down two doors, just as Grady hacked down two twins decades ago. 140. Jack yells "Wendy, I'm home!" ("Honey, I'm home!") at the first door and "Here's Johnny!" at the second door. These are all references to TV talk shows and TV sitcoms, the film critiquing the idealized suburban sitcom families of post-World War 2 America. Framed by the door like a TV set, many authors (Nelson, Ciment) cite Jack's head as being representative of the intrusion of the TV into the family home. Like all the newsreports that litter the film, Jack's attempted murder of his family is "just news". We the audience have been desensitized to these horrors, TV conditioning us into accepting Jack's rampage ("It's okay, he say it on the television") as a perfectly "normal" part of modern society. 142. Jack hacks at the bathroom door 12 times. 143. Hallorann arrives in the snowcat. The lights on the snowcat flash 12 times. 144. Hallorann takes 21 steps to the front door of the Overlook. 145. Jack takes 24 steps with his axe. 146. Jack kills Hallorann. Thematically, the cycle of violence is then closed. Delbert kills the black man (elevators of blood) and becomes Charles. 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. Batter up! America's two favourite sports, baseball and murder prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 147. 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. 148. This scene recalls several signifiers throughout the film. Recall: the tub of Vaseline, Danny covering his crotch protectively whilst resting on the bear pillow, the bear pictures above Danny's bed, the stool and mirror near Danny's bed, the eyes of the elevator which mirror the eyes of the bear. Also recall the image of Danny standing on a stool whilst being framed by a doorway, a shot which mirrors the bear performing fellatio whilst also being framed by a doorway. So whilst the first scene with the bear and the doctor was all about introducing the audience to Danny's abuse (and then denying it by resorting to explanations of "auto hypnosis"), this scene reintroduces the bear symbol again and forces us to confront the sexual and abusive traumas that Wendy has blocked out of her mind. The subliminal message here is that Wendy discovered some sort of sexual abuse between Jack and Danny, perhaps witnessing one perform fellatio on the other. Lines like "she interferes", "I'm right behind you Danny!", "I'm cumming!", "It's like I go to sleep and he shows me things, but when I wake up I can't remember everything", "Tony is the little boy who lives in my mouth", "Tony told me never to tell anyone", "Is Tony one of your animals?", "Does Tony ever tell you to do things"? all have a sexual dimension. Note: Wendy says "Danny" before seeing the bear-suited man performing oral sex.

149. On another 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 "toes" and "knees" (Tony), 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. 150. But the fact that it is Wendy who witnesses this scene - and it's the first horror which she sees - implies that it is primarily her own personal horror. Throughout the film, Wendy merely exists to do chores, tend to her child and satisfy the old sperm back. This is her duty: cook, clean and fuck. But in this scene, Wendy's existence as Woman is finally rendered useless. With this homosexual act, her last duty as "sexual partner" has been cast aside. Man pleasing man without woman. Her purpose and worth as "woman" is being called into question, now that her role as protector and provider for her child has been thoroughly destroyed. CLICK picture to MAGNIFY CLICK picture to MAGNIFY prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 151. 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.

152. Jack’s lust to kill results in a regression from human to something akin to a wild 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.

153. 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 (an old Indian trick) and takes a different path, leaving his father lost to die in the maze. 154. Wendy sees Halloran's dead body (exactly where Jack smashed the ball). She then hears a voice and turns to see a spectral figure. With his glass of alcohol and a cut on his head, the spectral figure resembles Jack (Wendy cracked Jack's skull) and is perhaps the other Grady caretaker. Regardless, 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.

155. Before he dies Jack yells “San Francisco here I come" (place DVD subtitles on for assistance). Jack's line perhaps 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. The the song Jack is singing is "California, Here I Come", which was written for the 1921 Broadway musical Bombo, starring Al Jolson. Jolson also recorded the song in 1924. So yet again, 21s and 24s pop up. In early Warner Bros Cartoons, the song was often played during the hasty departure of a character, Kubrick perhaps linking Jack to the "RoadRunner" character of old cartoons. More importantly, though, the lyrics "California here I come, right back where I started from" highlights the cyclical nature of the film and the notion of continual repetition. The first line of the song: "When the wintry winds are blowing and the snow is starting in to fall, then my eyes turn west-ward, knowing that's the place I love the best of all" of course also conjures up the general tone of Jack's wintery demise. 155b. If you put "closed captioning" on (different from subtitles), it reveals that Jack says "Help me!" and "Help...please...." several times during the maze sequence. See: http://imgur.com/a/9PV75/the_shining_captions Some say Jack's "gibberish" at the end of the film (before he dies in the maze) can also be played backwards on tape to reveal the words "Help Me!". See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY_UinVaHB4

156. Wendy's visions "expand" as she continues through her maze. First she sees the "bear suit" vision and confronts the trauma of her son being abused by her husband AND of her husband being abused (he's a lapdog to the hotel) by the Overlook and its social structures. Her next few visions show that Wendy has begun to face horrors on a much vaster scale: the elevators of blood, of Halloran dead and the skeletons in the Colorado lounge show her confronting the genocidal past of the Overlook. Whilst early in the film she chirped happily about "all the best people" and the "beauty of the Hotel", here she reels in disgust. 157. Jack collapses in the snow, surrounded by darkness, a single light illuminating him from behind. The shot conveys a sad sort of lonliness. 158. The final scene of the movie is a zoom-in on a picture of Jack in his "past life" at the Overlook Hotel. On another level, the picture represents Jack's fantasy - attainment of which is wholly improbably unless one resorts to supernatural explanations - in which a lowly man and talentless writer achieves the American Dream and all the wealth and riches this entails. 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. The picture also has a subtle political message. Kubrick peels back the cultural and sociological layers of civilisation (see contrast between the two frozen images of Jack) that function to anaesthetise our senses and shows us the beast that resides Minotaur-like within all of us. The Shining tells us that human beings ar e blind to their true natures but scratch the surface (i.e. remove the civilising and social constraints) and those natures re-assert themselves with a vengeance. Thus the film itself can be seen as a critique of the very cultural and social institutions of government that seek to mask impulses of power and conflict on which civilisation itself was built upon and by which it continues to function today. 159. Jack's pose at the end of the film is similar to the "Baphomet Pose" on The Devil's Tarot Card. The Devil's Tarot Card is derived from Elivas Levi's image of Baphomet. The devil is the card of self bondage to an idea or belief which is preventing a person from growing or being healthy. It can also be a warning to somone who is restrained and/or dispassionate and who never allows him or herself to be rash or wild or ambitious, which is yet another form of enslavement. Though many decks portray a stereotypical Satan figure for this card, it is more accurately represented by our bondage to material things rather than by any evil persona. It also represents an addiction to fulfulling our earthy base desires. Should the Devil represent a person, it will most likely be one of money and power, one who is persusive, aggressive and controlling. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" ? 160. In interviews, Kubrick said the final shot of the film "hints" at reincarnation, but "hinting" at something and "being" something are two entirely different things. It seems, rather, that the shot portrays Jack's deepest fantasy, his desperate desire to latch on to some comfortably nostalgic vision of glorious days gone by. What the film does is undermine this fantasy image of White Imperialism (and the Roaring Twenties) and show the mechanisms of repression which are needed for this seductive image to persist. 161. It's important to note that the film ends on TWO frozen images. Jack FROZEN in the snow and jack FROZEN in the picture. Whilst the first image shows Jack as a barbaric, regressed animal, the second portrays his fantasy image of himself, that of Jack as a cultivated, wealthy man. They are not images, however, but flip-sides to the same person, the same ideology. One cannot survive without the other. The lowly caretaker cannot tend to his duties without the fantastic possibility of one day fully achieving the American Dream, and the suited caretakers (“all the best people”) can’t “take care” of their national/political/corporate duties without relying on lapdog servants like Jack

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, 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 COVERED, GOLD ROOM SIGN BACK TO THE RIGHT... 162 In the final shot of the film, the chairs have moved to the opposite side of the bank of photographs. 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. 163. The credits roll. Mysteriously, Kubrick's name is no where in the final credits. ALL his post "Strangelove" films end with a "directed by Stanley Kubrick" on the first credit card, but NOT "The Shining". The implication is that the film is not over, that it begins immediately again with the credit scroll at the start of the movie, the 1921 picture morphing into "The Going To The Sun Road", construction of which began in 1921, Jack forever trapped in the Overlook's grip, determined to be the Golden King (Golden Rey boxes feature prominently in the film. "Rey" is Spanish for "King") of the Hotel, dancing the dance of the Gods with "all the best people". 164. I resist a "supernatural" reading of the film with literal "ghosts" and literal "reincarnations". But on one level, doesn't The Overlook depend on "reincarnation"? To survive, it must continually resurrect a certain image of itself, a certain murderous underside which perpetuates its continual existence. "Full Metal Jacket" deals implicitly with this, the military resurrecting "Cowboys and Indians" mythology so that the grunts can go forth and conquer land in the noble guise of freedom and democracy. The Overlook and everything it represents - Colonialism, capitalism, white imperialism, corruption and exploitation on a grand scale - is locked in a cycle of reincarnation, plucking lies out from its past so that it may seduce those who would so readily murder for a dance in the Gold Room. 165. As the credits roll, 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. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-co