Stanley Kubrick's The Shining :
Go to Table of Contents of the analysis (which has also a statement on purpose and manner of analysis and a disclaimer as to caveat emptor and my knowing anything authoritatively, which I do not, but I do try to not know earnestly, with some discretion, and considerable thought).
Some of the things I discuss in my main analysis of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining are perhaps lost due the sheer volume of data in those lengthy posts. So, I thought I'd make a brief post giving an example on the way framing of shots can tie seeming dissimilar scenes together psychically, and largely unconsciously.
In the Interview portion of the analysis I discuss a little what happens with this framing during Danny's vision in the bathroom and immediately after.
We are all well familiar with Danny's vision of the bloody elevators when he is in the bathroom of the Boulder apartment.
We next are shown the two girls in shot 57.
We return to the elevators in shot 58, then go to a shot of Danny in the cabinet in which he will later hide while Jack is killing Dick. Shot 60 returns to the elevator hall, blood covering the camera. After a period of darkness, shot 61 opens on Danny's room.
These are clean cuts, no fades. Things are slightly off in the elevator hall, as well as in the flowered hall where the girls are, they are not perfectly symmetrical environments, and that very slight asymmetry caused me to wonder what would happen if we overlaid the elevator hall with the hall of the two girls.
The far left pillar in the elevator hall fits neatly with the left pillar behind the girls.
Next we have the Boulder bedroom.
Overlaying the elevator hall with the next scene of Danny's bedroom, the bathroom door fits neatly into the left wall of the elevator hall up to the far right line of the first extrusion. Note, too, how the lower line of brown, decorative tiling in the bathroom fits perfectly in with the lower edge of the dado rail at the height of the wainscotting.
The far right of the section of elevators aligns with the bedroom's right corner.
The way these details align with each other doesn't seem to me to be happenstance. Transitions are less disruptive and the sets mesh together in a manner where the unconscious eye must make note of the conformities. Thus, through these alignments, may be imported into Danny's bedroom the halls of Danny's vision of the lodge.
Just phenomenal composition.
Transfered to html 2013 from an earlier post on blog made before 2012. Approx 354 words or 1 single-spaced page. A 3 minute read at 130 wpm.
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