THE SHINING: A horror film about the US Federal Reserve

Today, I was searching around the Net for that iconic photo of Jack Torrence in the ball room from the end of THE SHINING. Doing some research, it turns out that the photo was actually real, and not staged, and Kubrick had Nicholson's head cropped onto the party host. Apparently, the party-goers depicted in the photo are related to Woodrow Wilson and his administration. Other scenes in the film hold political subtext as well. Here's some more info on this:

http://io9.com/5882985/watch-this-insane-breakdown-of-stanley-kubricks-hidden-narrative-in-the-shining

Pretty fascinating how Kubrick, as a filmmaker, was capable of balancing so many hidden messages in one picture. I once studied his and Milena Canonero's work on the costume design for the film for a term paper, and it was interesting finding how costumes were used to foreshadow events that would take place in the film. For example, check out Jack's tie in his meeting with Ullman. The color and pattern on Jack's tie matches the color and pattern of the Overlook maze, where Torrence eventually dies.

So, are people looking too far into this film? Is it just an average horror flick with some cheap thrills (as Stephen King once stated)? If any other director in 1980 had taken on the project, then perhaps I'd say that. But, with Kubrick, I doubt that any of this is merely coincidence.

I will be watching this video very soon!

This is like something out of the recent ROOM 237 mockumentary. What have they done to you, Brandon?

I don't think this analysis is all that nutty. The fact that Kubrick used that photo at the end of the film gives the theory some backbone. I wish some more facts could be provided about that photo, however. I also don't think that it'd be out of the ordinary for Kubrick to install some political or historical subtext into a horror film.

This is certainly not as bad as the theories alleging that Kubrick helped to fake the moon landing and that he was killed by the Illuminati because he "knew too much".

Control wrote:

So, are people looking too far into this film?

Yeah, I think so.

There is Kubrick, the filmmaker, and then there is "Kubrick," the near-mythical creation of his devotees, who is an omnipotent God-like master of cinema who created films that were encoded with all kinds of secret messages, waiting to be discovered. Kubrick was, no doubt, a brilliant man and a brilliant filmmaker. But he was not out to concoct puzzles in film form (those who knew Kubrick frequently laugh at the bizarre readings people make of minutae in his films). His films are very clear and direct (even EYES WIDE SHUT, his most dreamlike, elusive film, practically "explains" itself in the final scene).

Now, in THE SHINING, there is an ongoing strand about the "elite," since, after all, the Overlook Hotel is the home of the movers and shakers of the world. And in that, we can find a sort of veiled statement (which fits with the rather distasteful attitude Kubrick displays toward the privileged and powerful in his films, from PATHS OF GLORY to EYES WIDE SHUT). I think it's fair to take the photograph as contributing to that, but taking it as a very direct, specific political statement (or even as a major component of the film) seems to me to be ludicrous.

Oh, BTW, here's De Palma on THE SHINING:

"In The Shining you're dealing with a director who is working for the first time in this genre and who seems to have a bit of contempt for it. He is obviously not interested in the conventions of the genre he's chosen; in fact he seems to feel there would be something cheapening or demeaning in drawing from the wellspring of the normal genre conventions. Instead you sense that he wants to revolutionize it and make it something profound or significant. But the result is inevitably heavy-handed because what he has actually done is failed to realize the intrinsic beauty of the basic form per se.

The real trick is not to ignore the conventions but to take them and then personalize them."

I don't wanna watch this video. I already watched Room 237 and I regret it.

I watched ROOM 237 last night.

I don't see what's so bad about "looking too far" into a film, such as THE SHINING. A lot of the theories in the documentary, at a basic level, make sense, with the ideas surrounding the Holocaust/WWII subtext in THE SHINING making the most sense. Kubrick had been interested in the Holocaust and human atrocities for some time, and had even planned on making his own film surrounding the events that took place in Europe during WWII.

Kubrick wasn't a director who would sloppily throw scenes together, miss continuity errors, or not plan how scenes would transition from one to another. He certainly had ideas that he attempted to project in THE SHINING and this documentary does a good job at pointing out some of the things that viewers may have missed on first, second, third, fourth, or even fifth viewings.

I didn't care for how the documentary went on some whacky tangent about Kubrick and the moon landing hoax, though.