Tuesday, Sep 8, 2020 • 2h, 2min

The Kubrick Series Episode 5: Redrum

The Kubrick Series

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An assortment of Kubrick's closest collaborators and various critics and analysts examine the mysteries of Kubrick's masterpiece of horror, which stands as his most mainstream and pleasing, yet deceptively cryptic works. Guests include actor and Kubrick’s long-time personal assistant Leon Vitali, Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown, biographer Vincent LoBrutto, assistant director Brian W. Cook, film critics Glenn Kenny, Keith Uhlich, Robert Castle and Tony Macklin, personal assistant Tony Frewin, Stephen King authority and author Tony Magistrale, authors Randy Rasmussen, R. Barton Palmer, Geoffrey Cocks, and Mario Falsetto, film professor Steve Mamber, author and filmmaker Jay Weidner, ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore, ROOM 237 filmmakers Rodney Ascher and Tim Kirk, director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), and film analyst John Krysko. Hosted by Jamey DuVall.

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Vincent LoBrutto

Adam Long

Tony Magistrale

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Transcript

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Adam Long

00:00

Hey there,

Kubrick

fans. If you like what you hear during this episode, be sure to visit our website at the Kubrickseries. com for more episodes and uncut interviews from the series. And you can also consider making a one time or recurring monthly donation in any amount of your choosing. If you'd like to support our podcast. That's the

Kubrick

series dot com Thank you.

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00:28

Over the course of 13 feature films, he examined a diverse range of topics and themes from the glories and dangers of technology.

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00:39

I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that

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Adam Long

00:42

To the moral conflicts inherent in war.

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00:45

Whose How do you want some? Our side, sir. How about getting with the program?

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Adam Long

00:48

He investigated the duality of man with unblinking honesty with a fierce intelligence. He embraced the ambiguous, revealing deeper layers of truth with every viewing of his work.

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01:03

You've always been the caretaker.

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Adam Long

01:06

His films were of their time ahead of their time and timeless.

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01:11

Mr President, I'm Not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10-20 million killed tops.

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Adam Long

01:18

In this series. We will examine the works of Stanley

Kubrick

, works that will continue to challenge, fascinate and exhilarate audiences for as long as there are movies. This is the

Kubrick

series.

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01:38

Episode five RedRum.

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01:51

In the 1970s, few films reflected the chaos, uncertainty and disillusionment of the time, with more visceral clarity than those in the horror genre.

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02:03

Way That's always mine. Little point, Yeah, Wow. To avoid fainting, keep repeating

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Adam Long

02:21

The horror renaissance extended beyond the cinema and into the world of publishing. And leading that charge was an up and coming writer named

Stephen King

.

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02:38

King's first two books Carrie and Salem's Lot announced the arrival of a new and exciting voice in American horror. Both were also adapted into highly successful films, the former for the big screen and the latter as a TV miniseries. King's 3rd book,

The Shining

, First published in 1977, became his first bestseller and firmly established his place as the preeminent Gothic writer of the modern age. During this period of time,

Kubrick

was obsessively searching for his next project.

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03:19

He had been approached to direct several films since the release of his previous effort, Barry Lyndon Network and Exorcist, too, among them, but he hadn't yet stumbled upon that magical material that spoke to him.

The Shining

was provided to him by Warner Brothers executive and close friend, John Calley,

Kubrick

biographer Vincent LoBrutto.

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Vincent LoBrutto

03:46

The first thing you would do is say, Okay, I want to do a horror film. His, uh, secretary was in the other room and she would hear, you know, he would start a book, and then after a period of time, boom, it would go against the wall. She would you don't throw it. So she gathered when he was reading

The Shining

because nothing hit the wall eventually, you know, uh, you know, he loved

The Shining

.

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Adam Long

04:15

It's difficult to pinpoint what it was in

The Shining

that

Kubrick

fell in love with, particularly sent. So much of King's novel was excised and altered for the film, but

Kubrick

claimed that he responded most to the central mechanics of the plot and the hybrid of the psychological and the supernatural.

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04:34

And how one might explain the other author of

Stephen King

, America's storyteller and Hollywood

Stephen King

Tony Magistrale.

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Tony Magistrale

04:45

One thing that strikes me is that King, as well as

Kubrick

, have left us a legacy that is a kind of that are kind of cultural reference points. When King found out that Stanley

Kubrick

was going to adapt the first best seller that he had published, he was a static, and I think that enthusiasm was so intense that King could only lose. That enthusiasm could only fall from the height that he was asked in terms of his in terms of his impression of Cooper and this this fall was precipitated by

Kubrick's

rejection of a screenplay that King wrote for his novel.

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Adam Long

05:34

As he had so often done in his career,

Kubrick

sought out an outside collaborator to assist him in flushing out the material into screenplay form for

The Shining

. That writer was Diane Johnson, A novelist whose 1974 book, the shadow knows, had impressed

Kubrick

for its gothic horror sensibilities. Film analyst John Crisco.

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John Crisco

05:60

He adapted both Clockwork Orange and Barry Lynn in on his own, and those are the first two times he had done that. And this time he goes back to having a collaborator who's a novelist and a woman. And to me, the anchor of the film is Shelley Duvall. More than Nicholson, especially emotionally and so to bring in a female writer is a fantastic notion to flesh out the script and this kind of stuff.

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Adam Long

06:23

This would be Johnson's first attempt at a screenplay. For three months. The two worked side by side at his estate, crafting a blueprint that satisfied

Kubrick's

mandates for the material that it be plausible without the use of cheap tricks and completely scary.

Kubrick's

longtime assistant, Tony Fruin.

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Tony Fruin

06:48

Well, I think he thought, I mean, you know, 90% of the the job was really cast incorrectly. You don't get Anthony Quinn in, and then you try to do get him to act like Cary Grant.

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Adam Long

07:02

Kubrick

chose a cast led by Jack Nicholson, an actor he had long admired for the role of Wendy

Kubrick

, strayed from the books Conception of a Blonde Model wife and cast highly accomplished actress Shelley Duvall.

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Shelley Duvall

07:20

Yeah, this whole place is such an enormous maze. I feel like I'll have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs every time I come in.

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Adam Long

07:26

And after an extensive search, young newcomer Danny Lloyd was chosen to fill the shoes of Danny Torrance, Dr Alan. It is said that

Kubrick

flirted with the idea of shooting

The Shining

in the States.

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07:41

But eventually he determined that he would be better served by filming on sound stages in England, where massive sets were constructed to depict the very authentic environment of the Overlook Hotel.

Kubrick

explained his approach to the set design with acclaimed journalist Michelle Samant upon the film's release.

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Stanley Kubrick

08:01

Well, first of all, we decided that, Oh, since it was a supernatural story that we didn't want to have any kind of impressionistic sets of, you know, an art director's idea of what, what a hotel full of ghosts would look like. We wanted it to look like a real hotel, and this also was carried forward into the lighting and everything else. It always seemed to me that the guide for this sort of thing was the way Kafka writes, as opposed to the films have been made about Kafka, Kafka writes in a very simple, almost journalistic style, and all the films have these bizarre sets and strange looking things and so on, and none of those Kafka films. As far as I'm concerned, I've ever really worked. Um, Kafka should be done, you know, like a very simple, straightforward like it's real. Once we decided that it should be look as realistic as possible. He went all over America, photographing different hotels and then to make it absolutely correct. All these photographs within, taken by the draftsman in every single detail, was copied in proportion in the right way. Perfect. So that, you know, we didn't fall into the trap. What I think is a trap of, you know, the sort of the, you know, haunted hotel look.

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Adam Long

09:21

Kubrick

was always known as a demanding, exacting director, But

The Shining

cemented his reputation with a long and grueling filming schedule and a swarm of endless takes, sometimes exceeding over 80 for a single shot.

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09:39

Garrett Brown

experienced this firsthand. Brown had just invented a revolutionary device that would forever alter the visual expression of the film camera, the

Steadicam

. It allowed the operator complete freedom of motion without the burden of Dolly tracks to create free floating and graceful gliding movement. The invention had been tested sparingly in a few films prior, but

The Shining

would utilize the

Steadicam

for the majority of its visual content.

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Garrett Brown

10:13

The original study can't demo consisted of 30 impossible shots that we made in and around Philadelphia to try and sell this notion in Hollywood. And I put that demo, which included, incidentally, shot running down the art museum steps and back up again chasing my then girlfriend. Now wife Ellen took that film to similar Products Corporation into Panavision and LA and ended up with a deal almost immediately from cinema products. And since end to Giulio. The head of that company had recently supplied the F .7 lenses to Stanley for Barry Lyndon to shoot the candlelight sequences over the fast lenses, right. He was on speaking terms of Stanley and sent him a film 35 millimeter film copy of My Demo and

Kubrick

Wired Back A What has become legendary around our parts to life, saying that you're you know, Dennis, Ms Dale, you're demo film on the mystery stabilizer is spectacular. You can count on me as a customer went on and on about it. He actually startled us by saying, I direct your attention to a part of the demo where a skilled counterintelligence photo observer can detect the shadow of the object on the ground and did do certain things about it. Of course, of course, we were shocked. We rushed to the screening room and played it. And sure enough, there was about 18 frames and shadow that we had to cut out, and I give away how it was done. And then he then he went on to say, Is there a minimum height at which it can be used? I'm guessing at this point that he had

The Shining

and galleys and was contemplating filming it. And I think, saw ahead, amazingly, that he would be better to have Len sites closer to the ground. So in response to that, we invented a variation on study can, which is the camera flipped upside down, which we've called all these years and low mode. Hell of a lot of

The Shining

ended up in London. Uh, but I think he understood a couple of things by them that it would be impossible for him to make the floors and they overlook all good enough for Dolly quality moves. That's a hell of an enterprise. Yeah. You know, even leveling rail when you have absolutely precise rail involves a lot of wooden wedges and so on. When they do Dolly shots on on floor typically, even if it's very carefully made, they usually lay down overlapping sheets. Apply with at least, uh, stop, because the Dalai will show up any variation in the terrain. Right? And my stuff, of course, is immune to that. So I think he had a strong incentive in any event, to chase us and did. But I had the rig in London at film 77, and we had a we brought it over to um or of wood to Elstree. Studios and Stanley had already commenced building sets and saw it and saw a demonstration of low mode, which we have worked up by now. Mhm asked if I wanted to do it, and I was pretty, uh, intrigued by that at that point and began to try and make that happen.

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Speaker 10

13:42

I'm glad I did actually really learned how to operate the things on that film. We never I don't think we almost very seldom did more than a shot or two. It's sometimes a shot would occupy several, so but it wasn't that the shot was evolving so much. It's just that we were climbing deeper and deeper into yeah, The possibilities. You know, the operating got better and better, although I think you know by any standard, take five was good and take 14 was pressure. But I should go on to take 50 and 70. You realize, Hey, my foot is two inches closer to this wall. I can just see this and so on and so on. So there's a slight evolution in that regard. The lighting let's fix the wardrobe was fixed. The Anything held on with Gaffer's tape would start to be falling off. Take 50, you know. And the actors delivered every nuance, from apathy to hysteria so that he had it in the camp for his editing. And I think that's what he really wanted to want to be able to have A was torn and hard, hard autumn that selection of every possible.

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Adam Long

14:55

The film's extensive use of Brown's invention was just another example of how

Kubrick

cherished the opportunity to push the technical and the visual boundaries of the medium. His relationship with cinematographer John Alcott was essential in accomplishing these feeds.

The Shining

was the fourth collaboration for

Kubrick

and Alcott, But it would also be their last, as alcott would die of heart failure in 1986 at the untimely age of 55.

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Speaker 11

15:30

Kubrick's

longtime assistant, an actor,

Leon Vitali

Regional culture, is a very quietly spoken man. I mean, he really was. I never saw him get mad once or lose his, you know, loses temper or lose his marbles. As we say in England, Danny had, you know, a deep respect for his intellect is the wrong word, because it makes it sound like it's a real mental process.

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16:01

Although John would work out those those, you know, mental processes, lighting has a lot to do with calculation. Of course it does, you know, in all its forms. And Stanley had a lot of respect for that, and he and he had a lot of respect for the fact that John was very even tempered and calm when we were setting up.

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16:22

And sometimes, you know, we get as far as starting to shoot a scene after maybe a day or two days of lighting tests and rigging and God knows what. And Stanley would just say this doesn't look right and start again from scratch. And John, there wasn't a flicker of anything across his face.

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16:42

It's just okay then, we're starting again. And it was John also who who, you know, came up with this design for what Aeroflex produce, which was the tube that you could fit any lens to the end of. So instead of those little, you know, W do you find us a lot of directors used to use and still do, I guess, you know, Stanley had a tube that he could attach any lens, too.

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17:08

And that's how he looked around to find his first shot in any scene, you know? And it was John who who came up with that idea and and designed it and a reflex produced it, you know, specifically for standing. Um, so, you know, John had a deep understanding of the most of what he was there for and what he was doing.

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17:28

I never heard of even a sort of partially angry word of dissent or disagreement between them. It would always be a discussion or standing would say, Well, you know, uh, Jack up, You know, there's, you know, there's war lights and, you know, Even if the light meter said, you know, 5.6, you know, uh, you know, Stanley would say no put them up more because, you know, I don't believe it.

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17:54

John would say, that's what you want. That's what we'll do. He never said well, now you like me to say this and we should do it like that. He was very fluid and open and and, you know, a really nice man.

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18:08

Yeah.

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18:11

Uh, on the conversations, everybody just mouth them. Don't don't speak. And don't joke. Don't nod your heads when you're talking.

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Speaker 12

18:23

Just talk naturally to each other.

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Speaker 11

18:25

Okay, let's have a big okay, number one.

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Adam Long

18:31

Surprisingly,

Kubrick

allowed his daughter, Vivian, to film a documentary chronicling the making of the film. Perhaps what's most notable from this unprecedented view from Behind the curtain is what we observe from

Kubrick's

divers working methods with his two lead actors. With Nicholson, he's patient and jovial, and with

Shelley Duvall

, he's oftentimes Stern and controlling assistant director

Brian W. Cook

.

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Brian W. Cook

19:03

Jack was an absolute joy to work with. I mean, he really is he and Dustin Hoffman of the actors I've worked with right up there is two of the top six that I'd come across, you know, both to work with generous people, nice guys, absolutely brilliant. Artists pleasure to work with. I've been lucky enough to do three films with Jack, but yeah, he was terrific, Jack.

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19:27

And of course, for the first month, they were, like, sort of snakes. Really? Stan Lee and Jack wheeling around. And then once we sorted the hours that Jack was going to work out, we were fine with Jack was no fool. I used to say that some really you should have checked me, Jack, about what he's like working with us, you know, because he wouldn't. There's plenty of responses being here till 10:00 PM. No, Jax. He sussed it all out pretty quickly. And, yeah, he's a very cool operator.

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Stanley Kubrick

20:01

Action. Shelley, wait. Oh, come on. What do you mean, video? We're killing ourselves out here and you're going to wait on the radio. When you do it, you've got to look desperate. Shelley, you're wasting everybody's.

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Vincent LoBrutto

20:36

The question that always comes up with

The Shining

was the different approach that Kubrick had with Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.

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Speaker 10

20:43

It was difficult for Shelley because half the time she's crying and, you know, we used to have to adopt the approach that Stanley, myself and one of my assistants gave a really hard time. My other assistant, Michael Students and Doug really was the production manager for the line producer. Used to be really bother me to approach Because she didn't get hard. I mean, Jack used to go over the past seven every time he used to work on Shelley at 10:00, you know? Mm. But he was good, Shelley. But it's a very tough role for her. You know, she used to sort of argue standing was not making nearly used to say she was asked him what typical Sandy. He had an answer for everybody. And she says in what? You know what you want me to do And all that type of dialogue you get from some people, you say, Look, you're they actually do something brilliant.

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Shelley Duvall

21:36

If it hadn't been for that in a volley of ideas and sometimes butting of heads together, it wouldn't have come out as good as it did. And it also helps get the emotion up in the concentration of because it builds up anger, actually, and you you get more out of yourself. And he knew that and he knew he was getting more out of me by doing that. So it was sort of like a game.

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Speaker 10

22:06

She was very good in the film, and the little boy was fabulous. Did a perfect job. But that was Leon, actually, who had a tremendous amount to do with that. He looked after him, worked with him all the time, used to bring him in each day.

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Adam Long

22:18

Kubrick's

longtime assistant, an actor,

Leon Vitali

.

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Leon Vitali

22:22

4000 Children. I saw Wow! And it was. It started off with almost three no. Two months in Chicago. 2.5 months, No. Two months in Denver, Colorado. That's where I started. 2.5 months in Chicago, and then the rest of the time was in Kansas City, Missouri. You know, Midwest. You went to the Midwest child because that was would be a neutral, a neutral, directing, neutral accent. Uh, you know, Shelley and Jack had totally different kind of voice pans. So, um, you know this. This would kind of tie them together. Uh, so the Midwest was the target, So they sent out TV ads and newspaper ads wherever they could to get encouraged people to write into the local Warner offices and there were 4000 Children to look at an interview and probably, I'd say about 500 of those I kind of video tested or go back, um, for some kind of exercise. And the reason why he sent me to do that was simply because we had to talk and I was telling him about how interested I'd been. I'd become in in the mechanics of filmmaking, which I know nothing about. I was an innocent, you know, when I went to Maryland and and, you know, I started noticing things when I worked in Maryland and he started explaining things. So, you know, he understood that I I really had a desire to work in production. And so he sent me to do that because I could improvise with Children. So it wasn't just ever going to be If we got down to the point where a child was interesting and looked like, you know, something that might work, you know, it wouldn't be just called script readings and trying to make sense of dialogue, you know, these were in some cases they were not even four years old and or to about seven years old was the range of ages that I was seeing so many I could improvise with them some of the situations that we're in the actual story and see how they could, you know, work it, react with it and play with it and understand what was actually happening. So it was better for him to do it that way than to have you know what I would call cold casting, even in the way that, you know, it worked. He did it on Barry Lyndon, which was better than the way he used to do it before. This was another way, another approach which he thought would pay dividends. And it did.

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Danny Lloyd

25:04

They say, You think you're smart, don't you? You know? Well, you know, and I admit, I admit there I do think I am.

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Leon Vitali

25:17

I thought my job is going to end after, you know, I finished that process, but he just called me and said, I don't know what you think you're doing. You know when this is finished. But you know you're coming to England because I'm gonna need you to be with Danny and stay with Danny and coach you, Danny and from there he kind of you know, whenever Danny wasn't part of any period of shooting, um, he'd have me working with the d p or have me looking for, you know, casting for the small peripheral roles. Nothing important, but the smaller peripheral roles, um, you have been doing dozens of different jobs, you know, coaching other actors. They Scanlon, for instance. You know, I'm working with them. So, um, you know, it was it was a really, you know, we'll just a fantastic experience to start working in areas I've never worked in before. But with Danny, of course, he had wonderful parents, absolutely fantastic parents who, You know, as hard as it got. Remember for them, you know, there were 50. It was 15 months from when they left their home in Puri er to when they got back there. Finally, you know, there were those little times when you know it was like, God, how long is it going to go on? And, you know, and I quite understandably and but, you know, 99% of the time they were just wonderful. And they never forced themselves, you know, to be they, you know, they understood when we said it's better that you're not on set for instance, because if you're on set and he knows that he'll always be referring to you in something, his mind may not be focused the way we needed, so they were great. They were fantastic. And they took it in turns to bring in. You know, when we got into the studio, they took it in turns to, you know, they'd be sitting in their dressing room in Danny's dressing room all day. You know, uh, you know, or taking a walk around the studios or doing anything not to get bored stiff. I'm sure. Um and there were days when Danny was on standby, but never really called. So those days that they had to stay at home in case he was, you know, that was all part and parcel of it. And I became a part of that world of their world.

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Speaker 11

27:44

This little guy, Danny Lloyd, Was it enjoyable?

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Scatman Crothers

27:48

It was beautiful. It's just like my son. You see tears. There will be tears of joy because I think the Lord I'll be here was able to work with.

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Leon Vitali

28:10

That's a beautiful people if you mentioned

The Shining

. You know, one of the, you know, things that people always say. Oh, yes, you know, the bike going over, the rug on the floor and the rug on the floor. And they think about those iconic kind of shots and atmospheres that Stan Lee created. All they talk about when Jack went mad, you know, and very rarely give the credit that Shelley was due and is due for what she did in that film. She was quite aware that she was being put through the mill. She understood that. I mean, she didn't always feel good about it. And why would, why would she? It was a constant pressure for six months from the moment that we filmed the first kind of moment when she was feeling uncertain. And, you know, she understood something was seriously wrong, which probably was, You know, when Dani wanders in with all those bruises on his neck after Jack's had his nightmare, you know, from that point on, you know, she had to pitch it at such a highly charged emotional level. And how do you do that on a day by day basis without going totally mad for for a period of six months. I mean, so family kind of seized on that, and it wasn't particularly attractive or or feel good in any way. You know, he was quite aware of what he was doing, but, you know, he felt the need to do it. And Shelley was surely understood. Understood that, she said. I think, she says in the documentary, I know it's a means to an end, but, you know, it wasn't a pleasant experience for her whatsoever. So that's a really good kind of illustration, and I will give you another one That contrasts even further from Jack and Shelley. Um, would be scant man who, You know, was a man who could remember every word of every song he'd ever sung since the 30s, but sometimes found it difficult to remember. You know, five lines of dialogue, you know, in a take. And so you know, there's this, you know, I think in the Guinness Book of Records or some film kind of, you know, you know, funny things that happened in films. You know, there's this reference to how many takes he did on Set in in the Kitchen with Danny, for instance, or inside. You know, the food stores where he has to list off all these, You know, everything he's got and how many of it, like 35 bags of this and 25 bags of that 15 and 14, you know, which were difficult things for any actor to remember in a real constant flow, you know, great or hesitation. And so I was scant mons dialogue coach. And what we understood was that maybe for the first or second or third takes, he'd be okay. I mean, not what Stanley wanted in, you know, an emotional reach. But the dialogue was there. But the longer you went on, the more uncertain Scanlon would get. He was getting on. He was, you know, 68 years old, you know, film those scenes and, you know, and then then sometimes, sadly, you know, his confidence would would go simply because Danny was asking him to keep it going and repeat it and repeat it and do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again. But to his credit and fantastic as he did, he went with that. So Stanley was incredibly patient with him, very softly spoken, very gently guiding him and telling him, No, you do it again. It's not quite right. Do it again. It's not quite right. And what you get in that scene between Danny and Scammon at the kitchen table is you're looking at Scatman is if he's one of the most accomplished screen actors of all time. He beautifully orchestrated and so wonderfully pitched that it just comes out so beautifully, you know, you know, every one of those actors and Danny was another one where you know he'd come on so prepared because, you know, I videoed all our rehearsals. And then he said, you know, get him a little more like this or a little more like that, or I don't like what you're doing with him here, or I like what you're doing with him there, said Danny was prepared so Stanley could be very patient with him, soft and gentle with him. So you're absolutely right. The way he dealt with each actor was absolutely different from How he dealt with another one.

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Matt Reeves

32:50

Of anything you know, within the sort of

Kubrick

storytelling was the sense of dread and anticipation that he was able to capture so perfectly in that film.

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Adam Long

33:06

Director of Cloverfield and Let Me In,

Matt Reeves

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Matt Reeves

33:11

At the center of it was it was a family, it should be. You know, the source of that of the of the horror in that story is this family that descends into horror as the as the father starts to really lose it. And there's nothing more primal or terrifying than this idea of a father turning on his family and threatening to kill his wife and son. Um, there's something so dark and primal about that, Um, and he tells that story in such a, you know, with such patience, Um, and with true dread, you sit there, you know from the beginning, right from the beginning, with the shot from the music right at the beginning, that this is not going in a good direction. Right from the start.

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Adam Long

33:56

Film analyst John Crisco.

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John Crisco

33:59

There's such a collage of instruments and sound, and Echo's Heart beats all these kind of things that lend to the size of the place and how much N dwarfs the people inside of it. So you have three different kinds of music or sound throughout the film. You have these synthesizer pieces by Wendy Carlos at the beginning. There's also bits of her things that she did throw them because it's her stuff that synthesized heartbeats or, uh, synthesized like dissonant sounds of pots and pans or this kind of thing. But then you have

Kubrick's

Fantastic, fantastic, always memorable in every film choices of of, uh, you know, uh, prewritten or source music. And so first we have the classical stuff and a wide variety from, you know, like Ligety. Um, we have Shostakovich, we have Khachaturian, and these are all very eclectic, experimental classical music, uh, that completely fit what's being depicted but hadn't really been heard much before. And in fact, you know, a lot of people don't even think it's, uh, score or music. They think it's like background sound effects, which is an amazing compliment to the film itself. And then we have the third my favorites, which are these 1920s swing music, and I love them.

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Adam Long

35:31

As was the case with most

Kubrick

films. Upon their initial release, most critics were unimpressed with

The Shining

, while Jack Kroll of Time magazine called it the first epic horror film. Most critics fell into the camp of Disapproval, led by Pauline Kale when she complained that clearly, Stanley

Kubrick

isn't primarily interested in the horror film as scary fun. Critic at TonyMacklin. net, Tony Macklin.

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Tony Macklin

36:05

He may well be the top director for film criticism for the learning how to watch films because his films almost always are rejected and negated by critics on their initial reading on their initial or watching. They go to the film with their expectations. And when he doesn't meet their expectations, they say he's a failure. No, it's them who has failed because people don't like what they don't understand. And I think in

The Shining

the the final picture when we see Jack on in a picture on the wall When, uh, it was the July 4th ball 1921 And we see the Jack from 1921 in that picture, and most critics have just said it doesn't mean anything. But to me, the more I thought about it, the more I considered it, pondered it. It really is a statement about where this country has come, and once I got on that wavelength. The American dream has been corrupted. The American dream is made into cartoons. The American dream has been, has been wasted. Uh, And then when I read Pauline Kael's review, um, she said, When she reviewed

The Shining

and she was she was a major critical voice, maybe the major critic in the 60s and 70s for the New York magazine. And she hated

Kubrick

film. She didn't like that, but I think it was because she went so often unable to understand him as he as he had to be understood. I read her review recently, and she uses the word seems It seems to me She used that word nine different times and she said that picture that I was just saying it really was the key to me or the keystone or the thing that reverberated, she said, Quote the picture seems not to make any sense. It just seems like a dumb finish. Well, no, it it seems like the critic doesn't get it. There is a kale. I saw it and didn't understand it and therefore rejected it. And I think that's that's the test of

Kubrick

that we see so many reviewers on first looking at the film, saying, I don't like this. That's not what I thought it would be. It's self indulgent because somewhere unexpected, it's no good. No, it means that they failed. As a reviewer,

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Adam Long

38:58

Author Geoffrey Cox,

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Geoffrey Cox

39:00

I remember when the film came out very famous and very good film reviewer Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic He hated that I hated

The Shining

and he said, You know,

Kubrick

is just a failed filmmaker because he doesn't know how to make a horror film. And Kauffmann said, You can see that when in the one really good scary moment they have when Jack is sneaking up on Wendy, when she's looking through his manuscript and she realizes that something is very, very wrong, Kauffman said, Terrible

Kubrick

could have scared us, but instead he shows Jack sneaking up and he kills the entire moment. Well, Kauffmann didn't understand what

Kubrick

was after. He didn't want us to be scared. He wanted us to see those people on the screen scared So that we could identify with them and say, no, this is this is really real. This isn't just a means of making me jump and making me feel like I've spent my $3 well and seeing this film. But rather it's to open my mind and my heart to these people, because when Jack sneaks up on Wendy and scares the hell out of her and she screams and turn around, turns around clutching her bat, you really feel for her. You really think, Oh my gosh, this poor woman. It's not about you getting a thrill in the in the theater audience. It's about her as a human being who herself is discovering something terrible about her world. And I think that's a much more valuable thing. And I think people over time appreciate that more than just a good scare.

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Adam Long

40:33

Many critics and audience members were also angered that the film did not reflect the tone or the themes of the book. Film analyst John Crisco.

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John Crisco

40:43

You can't criticize a film for not being a book. Your film is not book book is not film. And so if you're coming in from the perspective of someone who has read the book, loves it or love

Stephen King

, you're very apt to be disappointed.

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Adam Long

40:58

Author

Randy Rasmussen

.

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Randy Rasmussen

41:00

I suspect Hubert regarded these source novels or short story in the case in 2001 as basically raw material that he could start with and do what he wanted to that I I don't think that's being disrespectful to a source, the corsages by itself. It doesn't need, you know,

Kubrick

or his adaptations to have its own integrity, although obviously some authors probably didn't appreciate the kind of tampering that

Kubrick

did. But he does what many of his characters do, Uh, which is to take something and turn it into something of their own.

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Adam Long

41:41

The differences between King's book and

Kubrick's

cinematic adaptation are substantial. Less emphasis on the supernatural, more ambiguity all around. A change of the room number from 217 to to 37, the death of the hollering character in the book.

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42:02

He is the savior of Wendy and Danny. In the film, he is killed within a minute of entering the hotel and perhaps most notably, the insertion of American Indian motifs, including a history of the hotel's construction on Indian land. Author Tony Magistrale.

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Tony Magistrale

42:22

My God, the hotels built on an Indian burial ground, you know, and and that that's it. I mean, you know, that starts it off, and then you then you've got these wonderful appropriations of of Navajo culture that doesn't festoon the hotel. You know, every everywhere, from the sculpture to the wall hangings to the burgers that are on. And, of course, you know, you you've got a black man being essentially murdered on top of an Indian, uh, top of an Indian design on the floor. Mm hmm. So you've got this. You've got this kind of Did you want to talk about holocaust? You know, if it's possible to make the plural for Holocaust because, you know, a lot of a lot of Holocaust scholars say there's only one Holocaust. But if you if you can, If you can expand that definition of the Holocaust to include what what the white man did to the Native American and what the white man did to the African American in the history of this of this country, then you've got an interesting metaphor. That's it worked there with Halloran being murdered on top of this Indian design that's been appropriated by the white men who owned the hotel.

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Adam Long

43:33

The film's harshest critic was the man who originated the property,

Stephen King

. Over the years, he blasted the film and its director, claiming

Kubrick

had no understanding or appreciation of the horror genre. King was so incensed that he set out to produce another version of the film based on his own original screenplay, A project that eventually came to fruition as a TV miniseries in the 90s.

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Vincent LoBrutto

44:02

King worked very hard, and this is one of the reasons why he was so upset. You do understand that he was so upset with

Kubrick's

version and has said so many negative things over time that the only way

Kubrick

would give him back the rights to his own novel so he could do 1999 miniseries on ACC was if he if he promised if he signed a contract that promised that he would never talk about

The Shining

in public again, Really?

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44:32

Isn't that something? Wow. Yeah, I know. That's how vociferous King's criticism has been over the years of

Kubrick's

film.

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Adam Long

44:44

Regardless of the widespread dismissals from the critical establishment,

The Shining

performed well at the box office And went on to become one of 1980s top grossing films.

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44:57

But many years would pass before the majority of the fresh, critical thinking on the film began to emerge as passionate

Kubrick

files seemed more eager than ever to explore the depths of the film's enduring mysteries. Author of Stanley

Kubrick

. A Narrative and Stylistic analysis Mario Falsetto

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Mario Falsetto

45:19

You think you're kind of going along in the film and you kind of your understanding things, and then suddenly I'm, you know, with one cut, you kind of have to rethink everything you know and say, Oh, no, I really don't get this or what does this mean? You know now I thought I was really following everything properly and and it's kind of always sort of reminding us that that there's still a lot going on that we don't know. Um, in a

Kubrick

film, uh, that that we haven't quite figured everything out yet.

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Adam Long

45:54

Author

Randy Rasmussen

.

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Randy Rasmussen

45:56

He can lead to in certain directions, but I don't think he wants to force feed you conclusions. You're not quite sure. Is there any kind of supernatural agent at work here or not?

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Adam Long

46:08

Author Tony Magistrale.

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Tony Magistrale

46:11

Look at look at the way in which the ghosts appear in

The Shining

. Even. Let's take let's let's analyze this for just a couple of minutes. The ghosts appear in

The Shining

, almost invariably reflected through mirror imagery. Mhm. Every time the hotel speaks to Jack, it's primarily through a mirror, even the images like kick of the image of that bathroom in Room 237, where Jack walks in and sees this beautiful woman who turns into the old hag. Where does that come through? It comes through the mirror. So there is this sense. I mean, one could make the argument from a filmic interpreted interpretation that there is the sense that every time Jack encounters the spirits of the hotel, he's actually encountering a an interior vision of himself, an interior version of himself.

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Adam Long

47:16

Critic Keith Uhlich.

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Keith Uhlich

47:18

Do you? Do you think it's a movie about the supernatural, or do you or do you think that it's his subconscious?

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47:26

It is all that and more, and that's why. And that's why it's great, because, uh, it unsettles you to the point that you don't know quite where the inspectors are coming from. You know, again, it's like, uh, the the way he does the ghosts, you know, it's kind of like they just they disappear and they're they're you know, it's kind of like they don't like materialist with effects with obvious effects. And, you know, Kubrick have even been able to, you know, like, if you look at the miniseries

The Shining

, it's kind of like, you know, you have Danny's little Danny. Danny's uh um talk. You know the ways. Like Tony, Danny is a spirit guide. Tony, you know, in the mini series is like this floating older version of Danny of Danny himself in glasses. And you know, you don't find that out to the end that it's his older, the older version of himself talking to younger version of himself. But it looks cheesy on screen. Um, but you know, way Cooper does it. It's just like Danny is Danny Finger just moving and him doing that little boy Now that's how a child would kind of talk. And that's maybe how a ghost I believe a ghost would come, you know, to him in that way, it's like and it makes sense in that particular world, and then the way Jack charts is going to come to him, it's just like their there in their corporeal and they feel real and they can open doors, you know? I mean, how does jacket out of the, you know, the refrigerator? It's like Grady lets them out The hell. What is he thinking? Grady? You don't know. You just hear grading on the other side and somehow the doors open and it makes sense in this context, the doors open and I would just say is another example, you know, not who like digital effects or something. It's like, you know, I'm a big fan of Alex Proyas film Dark City, which has a lot of digital effects. And it's just like the way Roger Ebert talks about that film on the commentary track. You know what he's talking about, What the mind Ray that is emanating from, uh, Rufus Sewell's head. He's like, You know, this is what I picture a mind right would be like, and I agree with you. But in this case, because in the context of this world, that effect makes sense. You know, it's just like for whatever reason, that effect looks right to me. So it's just it's kind of a matter of does this effect look right? You know, in a way. And so the way

Kubrick

does it is just very, you know, low, um, low tech, which is just, you know, lighting cues and, you know, and and having good actors doing the right thing. So the guy who plays Grady, you know, is very unsettling because he's he starts out very polite, and then he starts spouting racist rhetoric, and it's like and you feel like it's connected to

Jack Torrance

in the way. And then, like even that weird shot, which I still don't know what to make of it. So unsettling the guy in the dog costume giving the blowjob to the to the other guy in the room. It's like what the funk is that you don't know what that is, You know, it's just like and why, and Wendy seeing it, and it's kind of like And as I think about it now, okay, if you take it, it's like Jackson conscious. It's this weird sexual fantasy that makes absolutely no sense, really, because a lot of times, you know, sexual fantasies don't make sense. They kind of skipped a beat like, you know, it's like a record player skipping, and it's kind of like. But if you imagine it is kind of like a wife stumbling upon her husband's dirty laundry, you know, in a sense, his sexual fantasy all of a sudden, Then then, then there is a sense sense to it. It's kind of like the Overlook Hotel is absorbing Jack and absorbing his subconscious as, of course, and that's the key to the final image of the movie. I think is that the hotel absorbs him because it is where he belongs, because he's always been the caretaker he is, you know, he's like he goes to the hotel and he goes crazy, But I'm going crazy. He discovers the place he was always meant to be.

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Speaker 10

51:47

So you know, this is another way in which that move another level in which that movie is working, Colbert makes it into something more like Call Home in evolution. It's another evolutionary step, and the evolutionary step project Torrance is to go back home to where he belongs. And but in doing that, he goes absolutely bonkers

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Adam Long

52:08

Critic

Glenn Kenny

.

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Glenn Kenny

52:10

And it's interesting, too, that people talk about whether or not the film is psychologically convincing. You know, look at Jack Nicholson. He's crazy from the beginning, you know? Um, well, is he I mean, um, the fact that we're debating it in the first place uh, brings up a whole other barrel of ambiguities. This is a guy who's got a lot of problems to begin with. You know, he doesn't start out as this nice guy who goes crazy. He's clearly, uh, in a lot of danger right from the start. He's rather half heartedly stopped drinking. We don't know whether he actually has any talent as a writer, but we do know that he's not getting anywhere with it. He pretty clearly holds his wife in contempt. He doesn't understand his son. All of this is not a surprise. It's It's right there. His his insincerity of, uh, my wife's a confirmed harb film buff. I mean, he it's pretty, you know, he doesn't start off as this normal dude who then gets screwed up. He's screwed up, dude from the beginning. And when you know. And he's sitting on a huge amount of rage and resentment. Film analyst John Crisco, when Jack and Wendy and Danny are driving up to the hotel for closing day, also a lot of people fail to notice that Jack is, um, sarcastic. Condescending?

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Danny Lloyd

53:40

Dad? Yes, I'm hungry.

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Jack Nicholson

53:48

Well, you should have eaten your breakfast.

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Speaker 11

53:51

We'll get you something as soon as we get to the hotel. Okay. Okay. Mom. Mhm. Hey, wasn't it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?

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54:03

I think that was farther west in the Sierras. Mhm.

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54:08

What was the Donner party?

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54:13

They were a party of settlers and covered wagon times. They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.

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54:26

I mean, they ate each other up. They had to in order to survive. Jack. Don't worry, Mom. I know all about cannibalism. I saw it on T V C. It's okay. I saw it on the television.

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Vincent LoBrutto

54:48

So a lot of people also missed that. Like when they get to the hotel, he starts being a jerk or whatever, especially with Wendy. And they falsely think, Oh, it's the hotel's influencer. It's the ghost's influence. No, he was like that before. He is stuck in a loveless marriage, which comes through his scene with Lloyd at the bar. But his feelings on all those counts are shown before they get to the hotel, so they're not influenced by that.

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55:13

He doesn't like his son or his wife. He's trapped. But also it's the fallacy and that he's going, Oh, well, I'm not really a teacher. I'm a writer and I'm looking forward to five months of peace. But in that there's a fallacy in his logic, because he doesn't realize. Okay, there's going to be five months piece, but he's going to be locked up with his family for five months.

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Adam Long

55:34

Film Professor R. Barton Palmer.

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R. Barton Palmer

55:37

Well, I think I think it's quite it's quite true that this is a film that is all about creativity and the artist. And that

Jack Torrance

comes to represent a kind of dark side of the creative process in which the necessary solitude, selfishness and self centeredness of the artists, uh, turns in on itself and uh, becomes not, uh, something that is expressed in some kind of of object that it creates. In other words, Jack is a kind of anti

Kubrick

.

Kubrick

is the figure that turns his obsessions and ideas into art, and Jack is Jack is absolutely blocked from doing that, and So what you get in the film is a nightmare of versions of of the artists. And I think it's a film that is in many ways very, very, very self reflexive, and that it, uh, takes into account the process of creation that generates it and and depicts the absence of that. So it's a film in which creativity is splashed all over the screen. And yet, and yet the main character is someone who's who's absolutely blocked. It's not. It's not that he has Writer's block in the traditional sense, is that Is that what he discovers is that there's complete emptiness, uh, in inside him in terms of what he has to say, and and that that creates a space for all these other pathologies to connect ones that are in the hotel. The ones that are in him, Uh, and his murderous rage is the kind of, uh, interesting mixture of forces internal extra. So I think I think what you get there is, uh, very, very close to a kind of anti autobiography of the artist's destroying himself, uh, and very fittingly, ending up in a maze from which he is unable to educate himself and dying not in some dramatic way, but by freezing to death in a kind of horrific image of pointlessness and lack of energy and direction. Um, that is just so appropriate to the way the story has been told by two brick from the very beginning. And this is really what? What what Kim didn't like? I didn't like this particular negative twist. The

Jack Torrance

character who in the novel is much more controlled by the forces in the hotel, um, and is more of a victim and a victimizer.

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Adam Long

58:46

Author Geoffrey Cox

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Geoffrey Cox

58:48

Jack is frozen into that photograph at the end of

The Shining

because he's always there. The hotel will always be there. People like Jack servants of Evil will always be available. They'll always be uncalled. They'll always be on staff.

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Adam Long

59:03

Author Tony Magistrale

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Tony Magistrale

59:05

Well, you know, I think you know. I mean, look at look at that photograph again at the end that ends that film and and and And there he is. Everybody's coupled up, You know, everybody's an informal attire. It's obviously the July four ball, and they're all you know. They're all having their all in high spirits, But everybody's coupled up except Jack. And he's in the center of the family and the photograph with his arms outstretched, almost welcoming, you know, here, here he is, the maitre d you know, the party planner. You know the guy who's going to lead the celebration. But again, I think it's really interesting to contextualized that photograph in light of the series of of of moments all through the film that suggests that Jack wants desperately, uh, to, uh, to join the ruling class of the hotel and not just be viewed, as you know, another version of Delbert Grady and the hotel. The hotel is constantly seducing him to make him believe that that's possible. You know, Grady says to him when? When he spills the avocado on him, Gravy says to Grady says to him in the in the hotel bathroom, You're the important one, sir, you're the important one, and and and and even even Lloyd, the bartender says, Your money's no good here. The orders from the house and and you know Jack continually wants desperately to be part of that of that ruling class. And yet, all through the film, every time the hotel seduces Jack with the promise of upward mobility, upward social mobility. They take it away from them. The beautiful woman it turns into the hag. Delbert Grady humiliates him in the in. The in the locker room. Looks like your wife has gotten the best of you. Perhaps we've underestimated her, even in the red bathroom. That scene moves very clearly from one where

Jack Torrance

is in a position of dominance and power to one where Lloyd, where Delbert Grady takes over the position of power and even the way the camera films it where Delbert Grady is pictured in the frame of a mirror with the camera looking up at him. Well, Jack is always crouching rat like beneath, uh, suggests again, the differential in power critic Tony Macklin. So if you watch the red, white and blue the colors that

Kubrick

uses in that film, they're used over and over and over again. American flag. There are Americans on the flag. On the wall. There's an American flag on the table. Uh, Denny is wearing an

Apollo

shirt. There's a whole structure, but it's also become the Road Runner and Wile E.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:02:20

Coyote. And in a sense, I think Maybe Danny's The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote is

Jack Torrance

. This is Jack Nicholson character. So it seems. It seems to me that in that film, probably more than any

Kubrick

says, the American dream is dead.

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01:02:42

I've always wanted to make the argument that all of this is under the umbrella again because I want to read this as a as a kind of quasi Marxist interpretation. Uh, that all of this is under the umbrella of a kind of, uh, kind of patriarchal capitalism that's at work at the hotel.

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01:03:04

And that's the reason why the hotel is attracted to Jack and not to Wendy and not to Halloran and not for Danny, Because what do what do these three people represent? Well, what is an African American? The other one is a woman, and the other one is a child. I mean that this hotel goes to the only white males that's available there is interesting and not and not insignificant.

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Speaker 10

01:03:34

Critic Keefe Ulich probably write reams about Scatman Crothers and how and how crazy nuts Cubic treated him and what that means, the film and you know and the idea of blackness and in

The Shining

time out New York critic Keith you like, you know, like when you see Scotland Crothers in that room with a naked Afro women paintings around him, it's kind of like What does this mean?

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01:04:01

I'm still not sure what it means if there's like some critique of racism going on here, playing on some kind of idea of blackness and the black mystic, you know, or whatever or the holy or the Holy Black man you know, in in in There. And, of course, then the ultimate cruelty.

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01:04:17

I mean, I'm not, honestly, the deaths that you, I think you feel most in

The Shining

is Scatman Crothers Death, which which really makes it interesting, you know, to in terms of like, a race reading of the film, because that's, you know, it's kind of like here's a man who's in a role that you kind of, I think would be conditioned to believe is the the Heavenly Negro who will come and save the white boy with the powers and everything.

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01:04:46

And yet, then, and I think I think it's actually a difference from the book. I think Dick Halloran survived in the book. If I'm not, uh, but no. Cooper can seem like the company like, Hello, anybody here? Hello?

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01:04:59

And it goes on agonizingly to the point that it's ridiculous at a certain at a certain point. And then Nicholson just jumps out the actual, like, takes him down. And it's kind of like it's kind of like that might be the moment when Dick Halloran becomes effectively human and you feel it.

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01:05:16

Yeah, so you can write a whole race commentary on

The Shining

and what it's doing. And there's probably, and you could probably find problematic aspects.

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01:05:24

I mean, if you've got someone like Bell hooks to kind of, you know, exercise that side of it, I'm sure you'd come up with some really interesting insights into that. You know, it's just in terms of Is there a racist element to it, or is there something that that's making it, you know, more human here.

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01:05:41

And if you imagine that this is all kind of like, in some sense, Jack,

Jack Torrance

is subconscious, you know, um, it is addressing something within him, something unspoken within him that Grady is now, you know, You know, coming out the previous care taker, even though He's saying, Well, Mr Torrance, you've always been the caretaker.

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01:06:04

So then have you always been me? You know, it's kind of like there's this. There's this line of thinking that's being teased out of there.

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Adam Long

01:06:14

Many of the film's initial audiences saw a slightly different version of the film than the majority. That's because

Kubrick

shot a four minute epilogue that he quickly decided to excise during opening weekend film critic

Glenn Kenny

and film professor Steve Manber.

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Speaker 12

01:06:32

One day only the opening day in American theaters, there was about a four minute scene that took place in the hospital. It was a visit by Oldman, the hotel manager, to the hospital where the Shelley Duvall character was staying in a room.

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01:06:49

He visits uh, Wendy Torrance in the hospital and tells her that all the things that she and the audience saw the blood coming out of the elevators, the men in costume doing dirty things to each other, the whole manifestation of the 1920s version of the overlook. Uh, there's no physical evidence that any of that happened, and, uh, he tries to very nicely, uh, assure her that essentially what she saw was in hallucination.

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01:07:18

She's completely spaced out and not moving, and all she does is kind of stare out into space. You know, it's one of those great

Kubrick

kind of looks of a character's eyes, like pregnant Lee going up into their hands. But what made it really depressing is that while he's talking to her, you hear this ball bouncing against the wall.

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01:07:38

And after he does his little speech to her, you cut to the hallway in the hospital there, outside the room. And there's little Penny throwing the ball against the wall, just like Jack kept doing.

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01:07:53

And I think what's clearly implied is that little Danny's going to someday get his turn and he's going to wind up, you know, back, back there again. So, uh, it repeats the very important

Kubrick

motif of kind of ironic, cyclical rebirth. And apparently

Kubrick

decided that scene was not necessary, that that that that in itself spelled things out too much.

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01:08:22

And, uh, you know, that evening a Warner Brothers representative with some Scotch tape and a razor blade went and cut that out, and it was gone, and it's never been put. That's never been put in as an extra on the DVD version. It's never been restored and probably never was. Never will be restored. It will never be seen.

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Adam Long

01:08:41

Steadicam

inventor

Garrett Brown

.

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Speaker 11

01:08:44

Best stuff I ever shot never ended up in the movie. There's a whole sequence in a hospital. Shelley in the hospital would be shot and has to. After the last thing that I shot on the picture. And it was only in the film for the very first screening in New York, I was cut out immediately.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:09:02

I think that was the closing scene, wasn't it?

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Speaker 11

01:09:05

It was, and somebody made fun of it and disappeared.

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Adam Long

01:09:10

The deleted scene. Maybe one piece of the puzzle, which will likely never see the light of day. But fans of the film continue to seek out new avenues in which to explore the maze that is

The Shining

.

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01:09:24

Take the efforts of film analyst John Fell Ryan. In a practice known as Radical projection, Ryan screened two copies of the film side by side, one playing backwards and one playing forwards. His discovery shed light on the parallel relationship between the film's 2/2.

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Speaker 10

01:09:46

The last images of the The inscription overlook hotel, July four ball, 1921, and the first image is of the mirrored lake in the Super imposition that becomes like a postcard invitation.

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01:10:02

And then the road, the Road of spirals through Jack's head. And so we understand that and the super imposition. We understand it. This is a journey into Jack's mind. Other great things like like the interview takes place while he's having his, you know, ax murdering, fit and his family is leaving in the Snow Cat while he's arriving at the interview.

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01:10:35

When Danny is discussing with Tony his trepidation about going to hotel, we see the infamous dog man shot underlying the Danny's fears of a sexual nature. And this is underline that Danny's visions, um, and the forward version are overlapped with with images of Wendy so that he, his fear is also strongly connected to his mother.

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01:11:10

Superposition is a great shot where he's lying in bed, being examined by the doctor and superimposed over him over his head as his screaming face. Mhm wow through that whole scene, the screaming like when? When, uh, Jack meets the manager and his assistant in the lobby of the first day of work murders written over over them, meeting for the first time, as if that that's there.

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01:11:44

All interior motive as they tour the Colorado Lounge and the manager is espousing of the elitist nature of the hotel. Danny and Sauce is busy writing red rum on the law.

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Adam Long

01:11:58

While most audiences consider

The Shining

a straightforward horror film, curious inconsistencies and subtle visual tells indicate that there is so much more than meets the eye. For instance, the black teddy bear with the red vest, which rests at Jack's feet as he tosses the tennis ball near the beginning of the film.

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01:12:19

And how that mirrors the exact spot where a bloodied hollerin lies dying near the conclusion. Mirrors dominate the film. A particularly telling illustration, maybe the scene where Jack first travels down the hall to the Gold Ballroom. The hall is decorated with four large mirrors. Whenever Jack passes each of them, he incurs a violent physical reaction upon close inspection.

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01:12:47

You can find many errors in continuity, but could they be intentional? After all,

Kubrick

was a perfectionist. Here's one example. Why is Jack one month off when he tells Lloyd How long he's been on the wagon lapses and continuity aside, what is Jack holding in his hand? In that final framed photo?

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01:13:12

The ambiguity of

Kubrick's

films had always left them open to diverse interpretations. But

The Shining

, as it has proven during the decades since its release, is particularly fascinating in the varied and often times outrageous speculations and inspires. At times, it seems that diehard

Kubrick

fans have used

The Shining

to hang their metaphors of choice.

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01:13:37

Kubrick's

closest confidants and many

Kubrick

fans have vehemently denied that

Kubrick

had any ulterior agenda other than to make an extremely effective, scary movie. When we aired the initial version of this episode 10 years ago, the conspiracy surrounding

The Shining

were not yet widespread amongst the public.

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01:13:59

In fact, the documentary that propagated many of these theories room to 37 was still two years away from release. But we were honored to be joined by that film's director and producer during their pre production of the film. After the episode aired, we received many irate and sometimes threatening emails from fans that felt that we were somehow sullying the reputation of their beloved film.

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01:14:26

Our intention in including these insights from various journalists, authors and filmmakers, was not to endorse any specific theory about

The Shining

, but merely to illustrate how people view and interpret films through the prism of their own experiences and obsessions, and how the open endedness of

Kubrick's

masterpiece provided an ideal platform for them to do just that.

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01:14:52

While some of these theories can fall into the category of eye rolling conspiracy, we believe that most of what you're about to hear are merely expressions of subtext, an essential tool that many filmmakers employ during the creative process.

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01:15:08

We begin with

ABC News

reporter

Bill Blakemore

. He was one of the first to offer an alternate interpretation of the film. In 1987, as

Kubrick

was releasing full metal Jacket, Blakemore penned an article that speculated that

The Shining

was actually a metaphor for the genocide of the American Indians.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:15:29

I grew up on the South side of Chicago, where, among other things, the Calumet City and Calumet River are just to the south, and Calumet is the French word for peace pipe. The first French explorers word for peace pipe and Lake Michigan there was first explored by French explorers before the British. I believe when I was a kid spending summers in the sand dunes of Western Michigan.

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01:15:57

My dad took my sister and me out when we were about 10 to find as he'd heard we would, and we did little pieces of Indian pottery. So early on, I was aware, um, of the genocide of the Indians. And then I became a journalist in the Middle East. Um, in high school, I learned about the horrors of the Holocaust in the 1950s, read Anne Frank.

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01:16:19

Then I came to cover wars in the Middle East and, uh, that the Israelis, the Palestinians, the horrors of what had come out of Christendom for all of the Jews, the horrors of other genocides. And there, of course, have been five of them since the Holocaust. The Nazi Holocaust. It's something our species does. Anyway. It was 1980. I was with three friends.

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01:16:44

I was based in Beirut. We went to see this new

Kubrick

movie, and I already knew that he was Ah, uh, the greatest kind of artist ever since 2001 came out. I'd realized this. I was terrified by the movie. I went in intentionally knowing nothing about it. I hadn't read the King book. I gripped the belt buckle of my of my belt during it. I was so frightened when I fall off my seat for terror.

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01:17:13

I was really frightened by the movie, and when it was over and the four of us were driving up out of the underground parking lot, I remember I said, I suddenly said to my friends, that movie was about the genocide of the American Indians and they said, What are you talking about? And then I mentioned the Calumet Baking Soda can.

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01:17:33

In its first appearance, I hadn't yet realized the second appearance of them that appears on the shelf, right behind Halloran's head. From Danny's point of view straight on, you can read the full word parliament at the moment that in the moment of astonishing cinematic beauty, when when Halloran, while still talking to Wendy, turns down and looks down at Danny and shines like some ice cream.

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01:17:58

Yeah, yeah, there's Sirius symbolism going on here, Um, and this was later confirmed by his co writer, uh, that this Indian stuff was all quite intentional. In fact, in one of the books of

Kubrick

, you can see there's a photograph that is described as Stanley

Kubrick

carefully arranging items on the shelves in the in the cold locker room.

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01:18:20

There, Um, I went back and saw the movie again very soon after that and saw that there's a second time when he, when Jack is in the cold storage locker room, when he is talking through the door to the ghost, um, of Grady and behind Jack's head. And that scene there's about seven or eight that I forget exactly how many of these Calumet baking powder cans none of them straight on.

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01:18:42

To me, these represent the dishonest treaties between white men and and and what we know happened with the horrible urges in in the Forces that over swept Native America. That first screening, when I, you know, caught my press and was sort of my my heart stopped racing. When we were coming back out of that garage.

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01:19:05

I remembered that Jack, that great shot behind Jack, where he is throwing the ball so insensitively up against the wall against the Indian motifs. And I remember noticing that there was American Indian motifs on one or two of the bits of clothing that, uh, that Wendy is wearing

Kubrick

is so great an artist that he is trying to boil down.

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01:19:25

I believe in everything he possibly can, exhausting his sense of reality as seen through the prism of a horror movie and thus conquering the genre at the same time. White Man's Burden Lloyd My Man, White Man's Burden

The Shining

is full of mute evidence or rather, non verbal reference to the genocide of the American Indians and to American history.

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01:19:53

Here's what I rather suspect who Brick may have meant as he discovered what this movie might do, since it is also a movie about our denial, our inability to see it, Um, he's even playing with us when he has Jack say, straight into the camera, talking, uh, to Lloyd, the bartender kind of slow tonight, isn't it? And as

Kubrick

said, that the longest lines are not always outside the best restaurants.

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01:20:20

I rather suspect that once you after you see the movie, if you're lucky enough to see it the first time, without knowing any of this and you see it cold and innocent, get terrified by it and experience the terror that the little family and the hotel experiences not knowing quite why you're scared and then go back and come to realize little by little that it's a movie about the horrors of genocide, the horrors of empire sweeping across, driven partly by extractive industries.

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01:20:49

Going after gold, the Gold Room, the cold room that G is sort of written like a C in the movie. You can then go back and see the movie again, knowing both levels, because you can remember the horror you first felt at each scene.

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01:21:05

And now realize, as you're watching it another time that this is, um, emblematic of a representative of, or a tiny, microcosmic version of actual horrors that happened, um, to to the Indians and others. You can make the connection in a way in your own memory of your first viewing of the movie.

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01:21:25

And Cooper has done something astonishing there because, of course, it's impossible for any one individual to feel the horrors of an entire race. Being hounded to death like the American Indians were or like the Jews in the Holocaust or the victims of any of the other five genocide since the Holocaust.

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01:21:42

An individual can't do that, But an individual who has seen this movie been terrified the first time when you see it innocently and go see that again, realized what it's about and remember that whole for the first time. It's a pretty close proximity. They're beginning to feel the horror.

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01:21:55

And yeah and

Kubrick

remember what later worked a long time on a movie about the Holocaust and then finally said, Um, when when Stephen, uh, Spielberg's uh, Schindler's List came out well, I guess I won't have to do it now because that's come out and this sort of changed the general thinking about it. But there are wonder. There's at least one academic now, a fellow.

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01:22:18

I read this book a few years ago who was writing at the University, one of the universities in Michigan. I forget exactly where who says. In his book about

Kubrick

, he says he tells that story. I just told says, But actually Cooper had already made his Holocaust movie. It's

The Shining

.

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Adam Long

01:22:34

The book that links the themes of

The Shining

to the horrors of the Holocaust is titled Wolf at the Door, and its author is Jeffery Cox.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:22:45

I think Blakemore was absolutely right, and I think that shows that

Kubrick

, as usual, is concerned about organized violence, especially in the modern world where the state can become this powerful force for evil and which is, Yeah, you know, the power of the state only magnifies the inherent evil that

Kubrick

sees in human beings generally.

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Speaker 11

01:23:16

Mhm.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:23:22

Yeah, Yeah, the ad was of the elevator doors sliding open and that massive blood flowing out. And that struck me. It did the job that ads are supposed to do. It got my attention. And so I went and saw the film and I was disappointed. I thought, Well, gosh, that was It wasn't scary. It was interesting in some ways, but my initial reaction was not his best work, but there was always something that drew me back to it.

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01:23:59

I kept thinking about the film and even dreaming about it, and I've had other colleagues of mine who had the same reaction is that their first impression was negative, but the film just would not leave them alone. And so I went back to see it again and again and again, and I began to see what you always see in

Kubrick

films. All these little details with which he fills his scenes and they keep popping up.

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01:24:24

I had a person write me a couple of weeks ago saying, Did you know that in

The Shining

on the bulletin board next to the phone? When Wendy is calling the Ranger's office, there's a little sign that says Ice cream E Y E S C R E A M. And so if you Google that you'll find that it's a Freudian term, which means the fear of being pierced in the eye by a sharp, sharp objects.

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01:24:49

Just a little detail like that. And you wonder, Why is that there? And in terms of

The Shining

, it struck me that obviously Danny is seeing things he sees into the past and into the future through his mind. But it's very much a question about witnessing and seeing visions of what the world has been like and is like and will continue to be like. And there's a motif here of eyes and seeing and having ones eyes open.

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01:25:23

So that little sign on that bulletin board is another very subliminal message that says eyes and screams and terror and horror. After Danny is examined by the pediatrician, he's passed out after seeing his first vision of the overlooks horrors, the pediatrician and his mother, Wendy, leave the room. They're going to go talk, and he's supposed to stay in bed.

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Speaker 11

01:25:53

Shall we go into the living room?

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:25:55

Yes, on his door are, as you'd expect to find on a child's room door, all sorts of cartoon characters. And what's interesting about the shot, as Wendy and the pediatrician leave the room is that it's quite apparent that there has been what you might otherwise think is a continuity error. One of the cartoon characters is missing.

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01:26:20

It's quite obvious there's a big space where before there was a cartoon character and we know that because when Danny is in the bathroom about to have his first vision of the elevator doors in the Overlook Hotel and what's in store for them and what the world is really like.

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01:26:39

The camera tracks in slowly from inside Danny's room towards the bathroom, and it goes by the door on the left and you see all the cartoon characters and on right on the edge of the door. The last cartoon character you can see is the one that's missing, and it's dopey from Snow White and the seven Dwarves.

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01:27:00

And clearly, unless it is a continuity error, which I doubt

Kubrick

has removed it because what he's representing their again at a very subliminal Freudian level out of the corner of your eye sort of thing is that Danny is no longer is innocent. He didn't know before. Dopey doesn't know anything, and now he does know something.

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01:27:23

And then, as Wendy and the pediatrician moved down the hall toward the living room to talk about Danny, there's a shot from the end of the hall, and they approach, and you can see into what is clearly Jack and Wendy's bedroom and on the wall on the bedroom way in the background. Of course, it's in focus because

Kubrick

was a master of that sort of thing.

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01:27:47

Deep focus, so he could put lots of things in the background that you could see. There's a big poster on the wall, or I guess it's a painting, and it's A painting that was very popular back in the 1970s. They were called big eyed Children, and they were these cute, kitschy drawings of cute Children that had huge eyes.

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01:28:08

And there is that, and again it reinforces the idea of eyes and seeing and suddenly having one's eyes opened as it were so constant. Little details like that underscore this motif of a child discovering a very dangerous what Dana Paul in another scholar on

Kubrick

, is called a dangerous found world. And I think you find that there's a a major famous.

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01:28:36

You could even argue it's the major theme in most of his films, and that is the phenomenon of a child or a young person finding out about all the horrors of the world. There's a a very moving line in Steven Spielberg's artificial intelligence, which, of course, he took over from

Kubrick

and made into a film.

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01:28:58

And when Monica abandons the robot boy in the forest, she says, she cries to him as she's driving off. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the world and how all the horrors in it. And If you look at

The Shining

and other films, especially in the 70s, clockwork orange and Barry Lyndon, the motif is one of the case of

The Shining

a child.

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01:29:24

In the case of Barry Lyndon, a young man in the case of a Clockwork Orange, A teenager, a 15 year old boy discovering the world. And it's a world of evil and danger. And so that sort of motif is one of the reasons I think

The Shining

in particular, was

Kubrick's

main vehicle in terms of making the Holocaust film he otherwise didn't make.

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Speaker 11

01:29:52

Now, as far as the Holocaust specifically goes, this gradually dawned on me as I saw all sorts of things that were specific to that time period and to the nature of the horror that the Nazis perpetrated by means of the so called final solution. Hi, hon.

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01:30:15

Mhm.

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Speaker 12

01:30:19

How's it going?

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:30:23

Fine. Jack's typewriter, a German machine. Oddly, which means Eagle and

Kubrick

very often in his films, would use the Eagle as a representation of dangerous state power. The thing that I think really clinches it for me. If if it weren't there, I would be much less sure about my thesis.

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01:30:47

And that is, the constant repetition of the number 42 and 42 is a number that in many ways in the history of the Holocaust, is associated with The final solution because it was in January of 1942 that the Nazis all gathered, and Reinhard Heidrick told all these other top Nazis, in effect, that Hitler had said, We're going to do this. We're going to kill them all And here's how we're going to do it.

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01:31:15

And so the fact that 42 keeps popping up throughout that film is can't be an accident. There can't be that many accidents. It's clearly part of a pattern of reference. And then, if you go back into

Kubrick's

own cinema and you go back all the way to Lolita, you find out that Vladimir Nabokov in his novel use the number 42 as something that would pop up in the life of Humber, Humber.

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01:31:49

Everywhere he went with the number 42 it would be an address. It would be a hotel room number. It would be a highway sign number, and Novikov used 42 as a symbol of the Sort of malevolent fate that was stalking, numbered and also of his own paranoia. And although

Kubrick

doesn't make anything of it in his own film of Lolita, he only mentions 42.

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01:32:15

Once visually, I think That stayed with him, um, as in King's novel, the Overlook Hotel was built in 1907. There's, of course, also the 1921 Party that makes an appearance in the film, and is of course, The venue for Jack being in that photograph at the end of the film. 21 being three times seven of course, um, Danny's jersey that he's wearing that they're watching the summer 42 on TV, isn't there?

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01:32:55

Isn't there something like multiples of the room number there? Oh, yes, that's right. This is a little bit one off in the novel. The room where the Grady girls are murdered is or whether great or the woman in the bathtub can be found, Um, is to 17, and

Kubrick

changes that 2 - 37. And actually this was a student of mine. And of course, it said that.

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01:33:20

Well, you know, if you're looking for the number of 40 to the product of two and three and seven, If you multiply those numbers is 42 now.

Kubrick

said that he had to change the number because the owners of the Timberline Lodge, where the second unit work is done. That's where they show the when the that's where the exteriors of the hotel are shot.

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01:33:48

Um, according to

Kubrick

, the owners of the Timberline Lodge didn't want people to be afraid of staying in their room to 17. So they made that a condition of him using the over using the timber line. And That makes sense. And so he changed it to 237.

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01:34:11

Now the question is, why 2 37? He could have chosen any other number. Um, and it is true, As you note, that One can get 42 out of two and 3 and seven. And since there is a pattern of multiples of seven in the film, uh, it would be consistent with that pattern.

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01:34:32

And I wouldn't be at all surprised that Cooper very consciously thought, Well, that's another place where I can bury this reference to the ultimate horror that underscores all the horrors in the Overlook Hotel. Because quite clearly, the Overlook Hotel is a typical

Kubrick

high space of cold, malevolent danger. It is a symbol of incredible earthly power, and it's very high up.

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01:34:60

It's literally at the top of the world, and it overlooks everyone, and overlook has many meanings, meaning to supervise or or to control and so forth. And so it wouldn't be at all surprising that

Kubrick

uses that space as a space where the people, as in the actual story of

The Shining

, carry out murders, in defense of their position and out of the passions of their mind.

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01:35:26

And there are lots of other things in the film. The music. A lot of the music has Connections with the 1930s and 40s, and with fascism and with Nazism. There's also the same that, uh, kind of gives you a book.

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Speaker 11

01:35:44

Its title, uh, Wolf, the wolf at the door that we haven't discussed yet and the whole fairy tale of the three Little pig Little pig, Little pig Let me come in not by the hair on your chin, chin chin.

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01:36:07

Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:36:26

Cooper is doing. There is showing that even in childhood stories, there are intimations, very clear intimations of the real dangerous world out there again. You have

Kubrick

.

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01:36:40

They're taking a genre, in this case, the genre of childhood cartoons and twisting, twisting this cartoon around to show that the cartoon itself, while light and entertaining and not dangerous to anyone, Uh is, in fact, another indication of our consciousness of those things within us and around us that are anti social and dangerous and malevolent.

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Adam Long

01:37:09

One of the more outlandish theories comes courtesy of filmmaker and author Jay Weidner. Wide nurse take falls squarely in the camp of conspiracy as he argues that within the framework of

The Shining

,

Kubrick

is admitting to his involvement in the faking of the

Apollo

moon landing.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:37:28

I just spent about 10 years looking through the

Apollo

archives with fellow researcher named Richard Hoagland going through the NASA work and covering the moon landings. And I've become extremely familiar with the NASA imagery. Um, and, uh, there's always something peculiar about the

Apollo

photographs that always worried me or kind of a photographer and a filmmaker.

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01:37:58

Uh, it just seemed odd, for one thing, how good the composition was, even though the astronauts couldn't see through the viewfinder of their half the blinds. And yet the composition and the lighting was just first rate, Almost like Stanley had done it almost.

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01:38:14

And then when I was watching the DVD of 2001, a space odyssey is about 10 minutes into it watching the eight sequences When, um, and very appreciative of how beautiful they were and Stanley's incredible threat spring projection work on the 18 when suddenly I realized that there was a fingerprint which had to be in a front screen projection scene.

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01:38:45

And that would be the separation line between the stage set and the background screen that there was always this slight difference in texture. And that set me sent me back to the Apollo archive because the same strange feelings visual feelings that I got from the eight scenes I also had received when I went through the

Apollo

work and that was a sense of unreal ness.

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01:39:18

And one of the things that felt unreal was the incredible not just the composition and the lighting of the

Apollo

photographs, which are really quite good. Um, but the the strange thing of everything being in focus, whether it be the mountains, way behind the astronauts or all the way up to the visors on their helmets, just like in the eight scenes, everything is in focus.

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01:39:48

Um, whether it be the club that the bone club that the eight uses, uh, all the way to the Mountain desert mountain behind him. And that's because everything is on a very close plane of focus in a front projection situation where the screen is literally right next, right behind the actor. And so there's a very small depth of field in that.

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01:40:16

And so everything kind of stays in focus. And then I realized how they had done the everything in focus bit and began going through the

Apollo

footage and realized that the telltale um, evidence was the separation line between the stage set and the background projected image. There was always a difference in ground texture, image, texture. Um, it exists.

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01:40:43

It both ends in the

Apollo

footage and in the cubic footage, Um, but the fact that the 2, 2001 Space Odyssey ran co current with the

Apollo

program the fact that Stanley Cubic insisted that I slide should be Released on the serious anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 and a lot of other things.

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01:41:04

But most of the evidence that I have that, uh, indict Stanley as the person who did the moon landings is buried inside his very famous film,

The Shining

. I actually wanted you to articulate 1.1 particular scene, which is Danny, when he first approached his room to 37. And how that parallels to this theory you've been describing? Yeah, I think that that's the scene that does it.

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01:41:33

Actually, it's almost exactly one hour into the film. Danny is playing on the oddly hexagonal shaped carpet pattern with his truck, if you remember, and and then you know in the scene, a ball suddenly rolls out of nowhere. A tennis ball. The ball that Jack Nicholson was throwing on the wall earlier that disappears into the hotel finally reappears, and the ball is echoing what the twin girls were saying earlier.

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01:42:07

Which is, uh, do you want to play with us, Danny? And it's a ball. And Danny decides that Yes, he does want to play stands up. He walks down the hallway to room 2 37. He opens up, the door is open, he pushes it open, and then the scene fades out.

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01:42:27

Well, it's a crucial scene in the movie, and, uh, it's a crucial scene in my theory because, uh, it explains just about what Stanley, Everything that Stanley is trying to convey about what happened with the faking of the moon landings. And, um, the first thing we note is the odd carpet pattern. Uh, I always wondered, you know why?

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01:42:50

Even after I figured out that the film was about faking of the Apollo moon landings, I could not figure out why the carpeting had this odd shape on it. Um, for some reason, thankfully, I Google imaged in the landing strip where Apollo 11 and 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 took off. Um, a launch pad 39 a, um, at, uh in Miami. And, uh whoa, I could not believe it, but they're the pattern exactly, Not exactly.

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01:43:24

But so closely emulated the pattern that was on the carpeting that Danny was sitting on that I really couldn't believe it. Including the driveway leading up to the launch pad is exactly exactly the same configuration as the bottom thing coming out of the hexagonal pattern on the carpet. So Danny is playing.

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01:43:46

We see that there's a launch pad, and then, of course, Danny stands up and we see his sweater after the ball of stone. Danny stands up and we see a crudely Shown sweater, which was Apollo 11 on it with a rocket launching. And so I mean, it's not even symbolic. Danny is a rocket who launches off the pad, and, um, and then the rocket is Apollo 11, and it's pretty clear.

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01:44:15

And then Danny grows down the hallway and he goes to room 2 37. At this point when I'm watching

The Shining

my first time when I'm figuring this out, I've got my laptop On by this point, and I stopped the movie, and somewhere in the dim recesses of my my, uh, education, I remember somewhere that the moon was 237,000 miles away, and I always remembered that because it was it was an even number.

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01:44:47

In other words, it wasn't 237,000, 180 or something. Hence, we now know why Cuba it changed in 82 37 to signify the symbolic distance that his fake rocket sitting on Danny's back would travel to get to the place where he would have to fake the landings which was inside the room once they got to the moon. The fake moon.

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01:45:11

Now all this may people may be saying, Well, this guy is completely out of his mind and all that. But I beg you to watch the film and see it because it's pretty unreal. But the most unreal thing of all is that key rig puts a a key tag on the key, sitting in the door knob of room to 37.

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01:45:30

Of course, it says room number 2, 37 9, But he has room with our ROM with large letters. And then he has the old European style word number with per NO, which we don't use anymore. And they had a large and in a small oh, and then the numbers to 37. Or if you take just the number of the letters that are capitalized on that key to R.

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01:45:56

O. M and the N, and you try to make all the English words that you can out of it, you're only going to get two words. We get more, but that's it. That's announced. That doesn't count, but I'll pro now. But the two words that you get our moon and room and you can't get any other words.

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Adam Long

01:46:17

This isn't meant as a slight to Mr Weidner, but at this point It should be noted that moon and room aren't the only two words you can form from the letters provided by that key tag.

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:46:31

There's also the word moron and that is, that is it. It's the moon room. It's the moon room. It's the fake room where he does the faking of the moon launch. And this is sealed later, when again Kind of defying the novel. Jack Nicholson completely denies that anything is going on in room 237 to to Wendy.

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01:46:55

Um, And then this goes forth. When, when, uh, the great scene, the culminating scene where, uh, Wendy discovers Jack Nicholson hit the novel that

Jack Torrance

is writing, and she's anxious to read it, and he's working in his secret room where she's not allowed to be in on it, and she's not allowed to know what he's working on.

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01:47:17

So she has to sneak into the room. She sneaks into the room, and she finds a course that he's just in the room writing the same sentence over and over. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

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01:47:30

However, the thought that he chooses to use on the typewriter, uh, makes the all the word. All also appeared to look like a 11. And then you can realize that he's saying a 11 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. A 11 is the term the euphemistic term that they used for Apollo 11.

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01:47:55

At that point, Jack Nicholson confronts

Shelley Duvall

or, I mean Wendy, played by Shelley Duvall. And then the whole crux of everything is revealed when he begins taunting her with And Are you concerned about me?

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Speaker 11

01:48:11

I'm of course you are. Have you ever thought about my responsibilities? What are you talking about? Have you ever had a single moments thought about my responsibilities? Have you ever thought for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities to my employers? Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the Overlook Hotel until May? The first?

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01:48:38

Does it matter to you at all that the owners have placed their complete confidence and trust in me that I have signed a letter of agreement, a contract in which I have accepted that responsibility? You have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is. Do you?

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Vincent LoBrutto

01:48:55

He is going to honor this agreement, even if it means the death of Danny. What

The Shining

is on shining is about 25 different movies, and this also was done on purpose. But what it was doing on one level was using subliminal imagery to tell a very disturbing story. And he's doing it throughout

The Shining

. Um, he's lining shots up so that there's one frame in the shot where something happens where an alignment occurs.

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01:49:35

And in that alignment you get another paragraph in the story, and he's doing it continuously throughout the film. And he's airbrushing. I think subliminal images into the films, including pictures of himself and, um, he's, uh, that's that's one level, okay, he's doing a whole subliminal seduction. He'd read O'Brien's books In the 70s.

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01:50:04

There's no doubt about it, and he's using the methods that the advertisers were using that O'Brien, exposed in his books of using sexual imagery, bury underneath the upper layer of advertising imagery. So there's, you know, penises and the ice cubes and women's breasts in the glass of tonic and and this is all they're really doing this and Cubic knew it, and he added it into

The Shining

.

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01:50:34

And this is the reason why

The Shining

is so creepy because there is a lot of seriously perverted sex going on in front of you if you don't even know it. The one moment that struck me was he's in the waiting room in the lobby, which I thought was You want to go into that? I mean, you really want to go into that? Because Playgirl magazine was read, it was well known in the 70s that Playgirl magazine was not read by Raymond.

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01:51:02

Yeah, men. They went to the newsstand that said that they never women never bought it, but men bought it all the time. Jack Nicholson, I contend to you, is gay in the film, he's not only gay, um, the only person in the family that he's attracted to is Danny. Well, the scene with Dani and Jack in the bedroom when he goes to get the fire track, there's all these strange illusions, All right, Fire.

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01:51:29

There's only two words in the world in the English language that begins with F and ends with U. C. K. Okay, the one is a rather famous word, and the other one is fire truck. Okay, now Danny has an obsession with the fire trucks in the bedroom, right? Mhm. And later, when they're watching the Road Runner cartoon Wendy and Danny.

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01:51:53

If you look in the corner of the background, you'll see that the teddy bear is in the corner with the fire truck in front of it, and I'm gonna try and be nice here. But the way the shot is lined up, the teddy bear is, it's sexually turned on, and the image that makes that happen is the ladder of the fire truck, and it's in a perfect position to give the bear you know what?

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Speaker 11

01:52:23

So if you look at this and you can see that this is only the beginning, is

The Shining

a parable for the Holocaust?

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Adam Long

01:52:32

The genocide of the American Indian, the faking of the moon landing? Or is it the ultimate depiction of the creative process of a failed marriage or the cancer of racism, or the dominance of the white man or the American male in general?

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01:52:50

Maybe it's intended to be all of these things, or maybe it's none of them. But how many films have inspired this degree of speculative interpretation These theories inspired the documentary room 237 from director

Rodney Ascher

and producer

Tim Kirk

. And it's a rabbit hole that provides few, if any, concrete answers.