Y12 SIS Film

The power of the shining, as Leibowitz and Jeffress maintain, serves as “a kind of survival skill that helps the oppressed to defend themselves, the relationships between the child, the black and the woman being the only ones free of the self-serving motives that govern those in which Jack participates."

a revived interest in the film has resulted in an abundance of what semiotician Umberto Eco calls “junk meaning”. This is excess chatter in which viewers ascribe to the film everything from Moon landing hoaxes to Mayan Apocalypses in the year 2012.

As David Cook argues in American Horror: The Shining (Literature/Film Quarterly, 12.1, 1984:2-4), “The Shining is less about ghosts and demonic possession than it is about the murderous system of economic exploitation which has sustained this country since, like the Overlook Hotel, it was built upon an Indian burial ground that stretched quite literally from ‘sea to shining sea’. This is a secret that most Americans choose to overlook; the true horror of the shining is the horror of living in a society which is predicated upon murder and must constantly deny the fact to itself.”

but that one must look beyond the film’s genre tropes and tune into the more abstract, symbolic themes which Kubrick weaves.

“The violence used to construct the hotel is wiped clean away by the hotel’s role as sanitised manifestation of American success.

And this is one of the functions of Kubrick’s use of the hotel’s title (another being the rampant self-denial of its occupants).

white male Americans deny the demons of their past by hiding them in assorted closets whilst all the time aggressively pursuing success at the expense of others, usually marginalized groups.”

Flo Liebowitz and Lynn Jeffress, in “The Shining” (Film Quarterly, 34, 1980-81:45-51), conclude that “Torrance makes his devil’s bargain…and women, children and blacks suffer.”   In other words, the film is less about ghosts than it is about a character who regresses into a monster partly as a result of the huge pressures to strive for some notion of “success”, a success which is itself dependent on exploitation and domination.

Indeed, over the past few years countless blogs have arisen, ascribing mystical, mathematical, supernatural and conspiratorial “meanings” to the film. These theories range from the probable to the bizarre to the downright insane, but in a way they’re all valid readings

Though primarily interested in "The Shining" as a work of historical and political critique, this webpage will also use Freud's "Uncanny" and Jung's writings on "The Shadow" to analyse the film as psychodrama, and Frederic Jameson's "Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in an attempt to show that "The Shining" explorers the most characteristic problem of postmodernism - the dead-endness of postmodern nostalgia - the aesthetic, artistic and cultural moment under whose spell Kubrick began to fall as cinema moved beyond modernism.

In being at once horror movie, socio-historic critique and psycho-domestic melodrama, “The Shining” thus thoroughly subverts conventional horror genre expectations. As Harry Bailey writes, “It is “The Shining’s” subversion of genre, its meta-generic complexity, which allows one to view it as nothing less than an elaborate political and cultural critique of the stereotypical American nuclear family, as symbolised by the psycho-historical maze of the Overlook. One is, of course, “permitted” to view “The Shining” as just a horror film, but where, per-chance, is the supernatural intervention? Only in the viewer’s imagination, a result of his/her pre-empting and pre-attribution of genre."

Colonialism)

to the squeals of what sounds like native Indian women.

6. Kubrick introduces Jack as a writer and a schoolteacher (“to make ends meet" - another maze reference). Jack reads The New York Book Review (apartment) and PlayGirl magazine (hotel). He’s a man of contrasts, educated and articulate at the start of the film, but increasingly primitive and incoherent as the film progresses. There are traces of past Colonial generations in him as well. He’s sexist, misogynistic and racist, referring to his wife as a “sperm bank” and being repulsed by the notion of "niggers".

So the hotel seems stuck in a time warp. It's reliving a cycle of man's historic horrors. In addition to the Grady murders, something horrific seems to have happened in the years 1921 and 1942 (or perhaps 1821 and 1842?). The torrents of blood squeezing through the shut elevator doors hint at some past mass killing. But what mass killing? Kubrick provides hints, but intentionally never spells it out. The lines “we had to fend off Indian attacks” and “built on Indian burial ground” suggest native Indian genocide, yet the date 1921 suggests the end of World War I (actually referred to at the time as "the war to end all wars"). Two decades later, and the date 1942 suggests Word War 2- man essentially repeating his mistakes with a second, more destructive world war.

Kubrick suggests that it is this denial ("I have no recollection of that, sir") coupled with a refusal to confront history (pictures in a book) that keeps man trapped in this maze.

On the table before the doctor is a copy of Susan Sontag's "Illness As Metaphor". "Illness As Metaphor" challenged the "blame the victim" mentality behind the language society often uses to describe diseases and those who suffer from them. Sontag says that diseases are often perceived to be "expressions" of the victim and that the victim itself is often perceived to have directly caused its own disease.

In other words, Kubrick is telling us not to trust the film's "surface explantions". Danny's "traumas" throughout the film, are caused by something or someone external to Danny.

17. During her conversation with the doctor, Wendy says that Jack hurt Danny’s shoulder “5 months ago, and hasn’t had a drink since”. Later on, Jack will tell Lloyd that the incident occurred “3 years ago.” Which one is it? It doesn’t matter. Throughout the film time will be blurred. Violence is timeless. Ullman speaks of Charles Grady’s 1970 family murder, yet the audience always sees the dead daughters of 1920’s Delbert Grady.

18. The film's opening shots show Jack's car moving along the left side of the mountain. In the second car sequence, we see the car and road on the right side of the mountain. Mirrored events like this occur throughout the entire film. Scenes are thematically repeated, yet we always watch them from different points of view (left/right/forward/back).

19. During the car ride to the Hotel, Danny tells Wendy that he is hungry. Ironically, he and Jack then have a conversation about cannibalism. “You mean they ate each other up?” Danny asks. “They had to," Jack replies, "in order to survive”.   Of course, Jack’s casual defence of the early American settlers foreshadows his own forthcoming brutal acts committed under the guise of civility (his “duty”).

In other words, their deaths are literally on the walls of The Overlook. Indeed, if one looks closely at the Overlook Hotel, one will see that the violence of the past is always re-appropriated as its decor.  

Jack's supposed to be a school teacher, yet when it comes to his own son, he proves to be the most incompetent and impotent educator imaginable, the TV and alter-ego 'Tony' providing Danny's 'education' instead.

Jack's thinly veiled contempt for his wife (he subtly mocks her lack of historical/geographical knowledge) is also hinted in this scene, his hatred and feelings of superiority, of course, bubble to the surface as the film progresses.

Note: the painting above Jack's bed resembles the opening shot of the film.

28. The Hotel is a place of contrasts. American flags, stark reds, whites and blues, US eagles, pre-packaged foods, and other trinkets of Americana, constantly clash with the Navajo Indian artwork, native murals and ornaments. We get the sense of two civilizations at war, a clashing of cultures symbolised in the final duel between baseball bat (America) and axe (tomahawk).

29. This theme of doubles is itself carried out throughout the film. The narrative leaps forward in pairs of days (Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday etc) as well in times (8 am, 4 pm etc). There are also 2 pairs of bathrooms.

The movie also ends with two frozen images of Jack - one frozen in death in the hedge maze, the other frozen in time in the photo from 1921.

(his violent assault on Danny, admitting it but then dismissing it all as Danny's fault, deflecting from all his own past failures by treating his own family with abject contempt and then blaming them for everything) until it overwhelms him.

The architectural design of the Gold Room is also interesting. Its silouette resembles a Mayan/Aztec pyramid, the huge chandeliers like glittering Sun Gods. The hotel thus seems to have conquered and encorporated ALL of America. From the North American Indians (Navajo, Apache, Blackfoot, Iroquois etc) to the Central and South American Indians (Mayans, Aztecs) to the African Americans brought over in the slave trade, to modern minorities. The hotel crushes and absorbs these cultures, encorporating their iconography, their languages,  their symbols, art and traditions, into its sanitized concrete walls.

He emerges from beneath a ladder, composed to resemble a Sioux Indian energing from his tipi or tent.

34. They then proceed to the Store Room, which is filled with preservatives (the fruits of a civilization's victory). Note Danny's jacket, which says "Flyers". Throughout the film Danny (the starchild) is associated with "rockets", "universes" and "flying". He's also associated with Alex De Large - a figure of unbridled play - when we first see him drinking milk.

35. Danny shines and we the audience are invited to do so as well, Hallorann taking up position beside a stack of Calumet baking powder cans, his silhouette perfectly mirroring the image of the native Indian Chief behind him. Thus Kubrick mirrors one ethnic minority with another: a black Head Chef with the head of a red Indian Chief. (Throughout the film, Hallorann will often be shot in profile, just like the image on the Calumet Can)

36. Jack will later shine at this same location. In both instances, "TekSun" and "Golden Rey" boxes will be vissible in the background. These brand names allude to the act of "shining" (rays, suns, beams etc).  Connecting the two scenes, you thus have a father "shining" and "accepting the job of killing Halloran" on the same location his son "shines" and makes the connection between Halloran and those slaughtered by the Hotel in the past (natives, blacks, whites - anyone who opposes the spread of White Imperialism).

Shining is a process which allows one to both look into the past AND foresee the future, essentially allowing Danny and Hallorann to learn from the past and prevent future horrors.

In Danny’s case, this means breaking the cycle and learning from his father‘s mistakes.

Both father and son fail to heed the warnings of the present, but unlike his father, Danny will later use his shining visions to prevent his doom. In contrast, Jack succumbs and literally becomes his murderous vision of himself.

The final shot of the film is thus Jack's ultimate fantasy:  being sucked into this romantic image of America where he's the centre of attention and women know their place.  

Inside the mirror, Jack’s conversation with his wife is sarcastic and almost bitter, but when we jump to a direct image of Jack he opens up and speaks honestly. Thus, the mirror image represents Jack's nasty, evil aspects. The traits which he refuses to acknowledge and look at.

44. Danny explores the Hotel on his Big Wheel. He encounters the Grady girls. Their line “come play with us forever and ever” mirrors Jack’s “stay here forever and ever”. Similarly, Danny’s line “it’s ok, they’re just pictures in a book” mirrors Jack’s “it’s ok, he saw it on tv.”   TV and picture books record images in much the same way the Hotel records horrors from the past. The Hotel then replays these images forever and ever. The irony is that despite the fact that we as humans constantly record images, we never learn from them.

Firstly, when Jack smashes the ball against the wall he is lashing out at the two blue dressed figures on the Indian tapestry (Grady daughters). Secondly, when he's smashing it on the ground in the Colorado lounge, he's hitting the EXACT spot where he will later kill Halloran. Note the racist "Golliwog" doll on the floor at this point (deemed derogatory toward Africans). Thirdly, when he throws it across the corridor, he is hurtling it toward the EXACT spot where Wendy will later see Halloran's dead body. Fourthly, between Halloran's dead body and Wendy's body are a stack of children's toys, over which the ball flies. Thus Kubrick links the murdered daughters, Indian genocide, Halloran, Wendy and Danny, all with this simple tennis ball. This symbolic instrument of violence and Americana (American sport).

ne can abstract this idea and apply it to the real world. For a simple example, consider Nazi Germany (The House), blaming the poverty and frustrations of her people (Jack), on Jews (Danny) and outcasts (homosexuals, gypsies etc). The caretakers of the country are thus made to commit genocide and horrors (holocaust) out of nothing more than national duty and personal animosity. A sense that the Other (Danny/Wendy/Jews) is responsible for their own misfortunes (the inability to ever really be worthy of The Gold Room/The American Dream)

The line also has a double meaning. Later, when Jack "loses" to Danny in the hedgemaze, he dies and becomes a spectral caretaker, forever keeping the Overlook (America) clean.

41. Hallorann tells Danny that past horrors leave traces in the present like "burnt toast".

59. Wendy uses the radio to communicate with outsiders, thereby completing her task of transcending her maze. Later on, Danny will transcend his maze by contacting Hallorann (“an outside party“).   Significantly, it is at this point that she stops wearing the "red, white and blue" color scheme, adopting now a more earth tone palette.

61. As the film progresses, we will witness various spectral images and ghostly visions. Jack's "ghosts" - which he seems to conjure up himself - are representative of everything he desires: The American Dream (Gold Room), alcohol (Lloyd), beautiful women (woman in 237), riches, fame etc. He feels entitled to wealth and riches,

54. Wendy is in the kitchen opening a large tin. As always, she is identified by blues, whites and reds. Only later in the film do Danny and Wendy reject this color scheme.

In other words, Jack's "ghosts" are what Jung called The Shadow, Jack's darkest aspects which he projects but refuses to acknowledge as being part of himself. 

The riches of the Overlook are appealing, but the bloodshed that purchased these riches are revolting.

So the "love scene" between Jack and Danny in the Torrance's appartment is "repeated" as the nightmarish (surrealist/psychadelic) sequence in Room 237. By contrasting these two scenes, and forcing both the audience and Jack to face these buried traumas, Kubrick reveals the underlying horror festering beneath the seemingly tranquil family surface.

70. The following sequence is the most important. Here, Kubrick essentially shows us Danny learning and Jack denying/forgetting. Enticed by temptation (“you have no business going in there”) or perhaps his brave need to face his traumas directly, Danny steps into room 237 where he suffers an unseen horror. This unseen horror is simultaneously mirrored with Jack’s unseen nightmare. While Jack has a nightmare in which he kills his family like Charles Grady (an attempt to remove all trace evidence of his guilt?), Danny goes into room 237 where he relives his past child-abuse. So both father and son assume past roles and step into a horrific situation of the past. They re-live past events which we the audience (in the present) are unable to see, but which we the audience will soon observe in the future.   Why does Kubrick keep us blind and not show these two scenes? Because both father and son are likewise blind.

Both father and son are faced with two horrors: Room 237 and the Grady nightmare. Danny was repeatedly warned not to go into room 237, yet he still went in. But unlike his father, Danny confronts his trauma and learns from the past. He subsequently uses his “shining” (foresight) to prevent his and Wendy’s death.

The picture (Mom) is moving and watching as Danny enters the room. Thus, Kubrick seems to be saying that Wendy was a witness to the abusive acts  that went on in room 237. She sees the abuse happen, but remains in denial. Her husband is a good man, she says to herself, it was just a simple accident. She refuses to admit that there is anything wrong with her marriage. She refuses to admit that mankind is capable of commiting horrors.

75. Throughout the film, Danny wears the symbolic colors RED, BLUE and WHITE. In this scene, though, the color RED is omitted from Danny's clothing. However the hotel puts RED on Danny by applying the large RED BRUISE on his neck and by associating him with the bright red room 237 key. The hotel thus completes Danny's color scheme. You want to be part of America (red white blue), then accept the bloodshed.

Once Danny learns this, he rejects the RED-BLUE-WHITE color scheme outright and begins to wear more earth-toned natural colors.

During this conversation Jack mentions “White Man’s Burden”, a poem by Rudyard Kipling which spoke of the virtues of Imperialism. It was the European white man’s burden, or duty, the poem says, to conquer native savages and aborigines, for they did not have European language, education, writing, medicine, or religion.

The poem rationalized that it was noble to conquer these brutes - for their own good - and thus justified imperialism, colonialism, and the subsequent slaughter of indigenous people. In this same vein, Jack views it as his “duty” to “correct” his wife and child.

Now that Danny has been hurt again, Wendy's reponse is to likewise place the blame on a "crazy woman", on her own failings, her own shortcomings as a mother. Not only is she in denial, but she is so traumatized that she internalizes the blame and blames herself. This is exactly the sort of "victim blaming" that Susan Sontag's "Illness As Metaphor" speaks about. Indeed, the term "blaming the victim" was itself born of William Ryan's book of the same title, in which he critiqued the near-racist book "The Negro Family", which attempted to divert the responsibility of poverty from social structural factors to the behaviors and cultural patterns of the poor.

Kubrick begins to link various signifiers. We recall the green bathroom in which Danny first shines. The phallic shape on the floor is also identical to the mirror in which Danny watched Jack embrace him on the bed. The shower curtains also mirror the curtains that block Danny's room from Jack's bed. The whip-pan which reveals the rotting corpse is also the whip-pan which reveals Jack sitting on the bed.

Note: Kubrick mirrors shots of Jack backing away from the old hag with shots of the old hag walking toward Jack. Both Jack and the old hag have their arms outstretched like zombies. They are one and the same. This kind of "zombie imagery" is continued (deconstructed, undermined, parodied etc) when  Jack "creeps" toward Wendy on the steps, arms outstretched and when Wendy chases Danny toward the maze, arms outstretched.  

89. Jack returns to Wendy and dismisses the incident in Room 237. Turning his back to a mirror (and himself) he denies seeing anything.   Bathroom: Jack looks in mirror and sees ugliness Bedroom: Jack turns back to mirror and says he saw nothing  

91. In a marvellously horrific speech, Jack blames Wendy for "fucking up his life" and "holding him back". Before storming out of the room, Jack looks directly into the camera and into Danny's room.

From here on, Jack will always be dressed entirely in Reds, Whites and Blues.

94. Jack walks up to the Gold Room, pleased to see a huge party in progress. He blocks out his horrible life and dips his toes in the high life. This is the American Dream, the riches, fame and power that Jack always desired. Jack laps up the attention, the wealth, the money, all his drinks on the house. This is Jack's vision of himself as a successful writer and he loves it.

Kubrick signifies the merging of all three by breaking the 180 degree camera rule at key times.  

100. Jack looks into the mirror and sees Grady's horrible reflection. Seeing this, he accuses Grady of murder. Grady remains pleasant and confused, however, stating that he has no "recollection" of any of this.   Of course, Al Bowlly's "It's All Forgotten Now" begins to play on the soundtrack precisely at the moment Grady states he has no "recollection". Kubrick has it slurred down, fading in and out, as if played on the winding down gramophone of memory. The song's place in the film indicates that what is forgotten may also be preserved through the mechanism of repression.

102. Grady recalls that he “corrected” his daughters and when his wife tried to prevent him from doing his “duty”, he “corrected” her as well. All this talk of “correction” and “duty” relates back to the White Man’s Burden, which uses burden and duty as euphemisms for conquest, murder and genocide. Murder is referred to as “duty” or “correction”, human beings essentially hiding brutal acts under a façade of civility.

Man constantly demotes his enemy ("these aren't humans, they are terrorists!") in order to justify his own violent acts.

Once you turn the Other into something completely unlike yourself (an animal, a savage, an infidel etc), you are free to convince others to kill or harm him. And this violence is always done under the guise of civility, duty or righteousness. Democracy, freedom, correction, pacification, god's will, collateral damage, smart bombs, neutralizing etc, are all violent or military terms which are created in order to minimize emotional responses.

110. A cartoon plays on the television behind Larry. Throughout the film, numerous references to cartoons appear, man's violent nature assimilated by media/culture and reflected back as entertainment for kids. Note the 3 little pigs on the poster behind Larry.

While Jack is awash with American reds, whites and blues, Wendy is increasingly made to resemble an Indian squaw. She’s taken off the yellow jacket with Indian stylings, but her long black hair is now worn down. She wears animal skin slippers and boots, and earth tone clothes which feature native symbols. Her "look" is now identical to the picture of a native indian woman featured on the left of the screen when Danny walks down the corridor to room 237.

He mentions his "contract" which he has "signed" and agreed to "uphold". This is symbolic of the American Declaration of Independence.

Also, Jack says "Wendy, my treasure, light of my life," which are the first words of Nabokov's "Lolita".

129. Grady taunts Jack in the food locker. “I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed.” Again, the civility of “business” is used to mask horror. American government referred to the stealing of Indian lands as “relocation”. Nazis referred to the extermination of a race as a “solution” and “cleansing”. Humans can come up with all sorts of flattering euphemisms to hide vile acts.

It is interesting to note that when Grady mentions "business" 5 Calumet baking powder cans pop into view. When we first saw a Calumet can it was linked to Hallorann. Here it is linked to "taking care of business".

During these scenes Kubrick always shoots Hallorann in profile, linking us back to that store room image of a native Indian silhouette.