THE SHINING LOCATIONS:
Viewing down the Mountain, Revisiting “The Shining”, Google Maps Redux
Viewing down the Mountain 2, Revisiting “The Shining”, Google Maps Redux
Kubrick opens many of the sections of The Shining with a shot looking up the mountain ath the Overlook from below. The above spruced up shots from Google Maps give us an idea of what it is to look down the mountain from the lodge, which we're never given a chance to do in the film. One has the impression of gazing over the world, and even the maze itself, the world maze.
The studio set shows the maze in front of the lodge. Though the hedge maze is clearly not observed before the real-life Timberline in aerial shots and the looking-up-from-down-the-mountain shots (because, of course, it wasn't there in real life) and in some books the studio facade and maze is stated to be behind the Overlook, the Snow Cat's approach to the real Timberline/Overlook undeniably shows we should understand the studio maze as being in the front. In my analysis, I cover why I believe we are actually supposed to see the maze as being both in the front and back of the Overlook.
What we never see in the movie, which can be observed in Google Maps, is that the mountain before the lodge is a veritable maze of ski slopes traversing every which way. With the tall trees acting as obscuring maze hedges, try entering this without directional guide posts. Even with guide posts observed in Google Maps, it is easy to become lost.
Google maps.
Originally posted on blog 2012. Transferred August 2018 to html.
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