STANLEY KUBRICK'S THE SHINING
Go to TOC for this film ( (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).
8 AM
I never expected an homage to Roger Vadim
TOC and Supplemental Posts | Part 1 - The First Ascent | Part 2 - The Interview | Part 3 - Closing Day |
Part 4 - A Month Later | Part 5 - Tuesday | Part 6 - Thursday | Part 7 - Saturday | Part 8 - Monday |
Part 9 - Wednesday Part One | Part 10 - Wednesday Part Two | Part 11 - 8 AM | Part 12 - 4 PM |
Films Home
LINKS TO SECTIONS OF THE ANALYSIS ON THIS PAGE:
Dick's Flight, 405 through 407
Jack Writes, Shot 408
The puzzle of which Jack is at the typewriter and/or when. The shot that breaks everything.
Dick Calls Durkin, Shots 409 through 425
Something missing at the airport. Might Angelo, the world's strongest flea.
Dick's Drive, Shots 426 through 428
Dick seems to not be the only one in the car, which is a Matador model. The red VW. HAL and Charlie. The tunnel is open.
Dining with the Roadrunner, Shot 429
All Work and No Play, Shots 430 through 480
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy in context of deja vu and repeating patterns.
42 and "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy".
Jack's Dark Silhouette the Same as Was in Dick's Car
The Photos in the Colorado Lounge
Jack Falls Down and Breaks His Crown
Storing Jack, 481 through 507
In Review, What Has Kubrick Given Us in This Section?
What's the teaser candy bait?
What's the distraction?
What's the food for thought?
What's the deep infrastructure?
DICK'S FLIGHT
405 Title shot 8 am (1:35:44)
The heartbeat continues. We can assume that it is Thursday morning, 8 a.m. During the previous Thursday section we'd had the snow storm, which had been predicted Tuesday, settling hard over the hotel, and observed Wendy and Danny outside playing and Dick inside shining to Ligetti's Lontano. The Torrances have been housebound for a week and cut off from communication with the outside world for four/five days, exempting the radio that Jack disassembled the previous night.
406 Aerial of plane (1:35:47)
A shot of a Continental airplane in flight presumably nearing the Rockies. There should be a terrific blizzard on the ground but they are twenty minutes out and the sky is only hazy and the plane is bright in the sunlight.
Fig. 1 - Continental flight to Denver.
407 CU Dick. (1:35:55)
Cut to a close up of Dick on the plane and zoom out. The seat next to him is empty, a magazine in it, but otherwise he's surrounded by passengers, a woman a seat over from him, next the window, reading another magazine. What appears to be orange juice is observed on a tray before her. Behind Dick is a man in a similarly colored suit to Dick's, though plaid, but with a dark shirt. The woman next him wears a dark vest with what might be American Indian inspired designs. The gentleman next her, in blue, rests, listening to headphones.
DICK (to a flight attendant): Pardon me, miss. What time will we get to Denver?
FLIGHT ATTENDANT: We're due to arrive at 8:20, sir.
DICK: Thank you.
Dick settles back in his seat, glancing anxiously at his watch.
He's wearing a taupe color suit with an orange shirt the color of the cover of the headrest on the blue seat. His tie has diagonal stripes in the same color scheme with beige and winter white. He's dressed roughly in the same color scheme as the bold striped design on the exterior of the jet. The bold graphic lines remind of both a plaque that was in Ullman's office and the color scheme on a vending machine in the hall where Dick raged and scattered carafes on Wednesday.
The area of the plane he's seated in has ivory walls with flecks of white, while beginning with the row behind him the plane's walls are instead black with flecks of white, aspects of dark and light, negative and positive.
JACK WRITES
THE PUZZLE OF WHICH JACK IS AT THE TYPEWRITER AND/OR WHEN - THE SHOT THAT BREAKS EVERYTHING
408 LS Jack in Colorado lounge. (1:36:30 begin crossfade to Colorado lounge and end at 1:36:33.)
With the crossfade to the Colorado lounge, the lamps of the lounge become as the sun burning through the plane's windows, though this would be from the wrong side (west).
Fig. 2 - Crossfade from Dick to the lounge.
The camera zooms in on Jack from the back of the Colorado Lounge, this being a shot much like the one in the Tuesday section preceding Wendy's entering and being told of the new rule. The room is bright, though the ceiling lamps aren't lit, white light pouring in through the windows despite the storm. A fire blazes in the fireplace. The heartbeat and eerie sounds, with the fade, are replaced with only the clacking of the typewriter and the howling of the wind outside.
Fig. 3 - Jack at the typewriter.
There was always something about the shot that never felt quite real to me. I finally realized that Jack seems to be wearing either the same green shirt and tan trousers that he was in that Tuesday section, or the dark sweater of the Thursday and Saturday sections.
What he wears this morning doesn't fit with what we will see later, Jack in the same burgundy color jacket, plaid shirt, and blue jeans that he was dressed in the day before, on Wednesday.
Nor does the wood next the fireplace match with what we will see later. Here there are two extra logs in the pile to the right.
The rhythm of Jack's typing doesn't seem to match here with typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." After his carriage return, as he continues, he's certainly not typing that.
A cigarette burns in the ashtray but once again we don't see Jack smoking.
So, what's going on if Jack isn't dressed as he should be? Should we pay any attention to the fact he's not typing "All work and no play makes a dull boy"? Why this shot when it so openly shows this is not Jack on Thursday? At least not the Jack who's been drinking imaginary alcohol in the Gold Room and is going to be later threatening to bash in Wendy's skull. But, as far as paying attention and noticing something that is very obvious, how many times had I watched the movie and didn't realize the discrepancy with the clothes? As I said, it is partly because I felt there was something false about the shot that helped promote my overlooking it. Which is also odd as the first time I saw the film I was very aware of the impossible window in the office, and was thus alert to other peculiarities, yet here was a shot I felt was off but I never examined it.
A very calm and cool shot of Jack typing (#208), from the Tuesday section, occurs when Wendy is exiting the Colorado Lounge after he had just taken his paper from the typewriter and ripped it up, angrily telling her she is not to enter the room again when he is in there. Then she is exiting and there is paper in the typewriter and Jack is already typing again, a relaxed look of concentration on his face. Kubrick had tied this into shot #207 as we have the sounds of Wendy's footsteps, as she exits, continuing from #207 to #208. What was less interesting to me than the impossibility of Jack having already put another piece of paper in his roller and typing away again, having flipped to another page in the scrapbook, was the break in character. He had been previously frustrated, then explosively angry in the scene with Wendy. In the space of a couple of seconds, he was utterly relaxed and focused on his work, though he had told Wendy that when he was interrupted it broke his concentration and it took a while to get it back.
Saturday, in shot #214, Jack is typing in the Colorado Lounge at the beginning of the section in which Wendy finds the lines are down and Danny sees the bloody twins. It's an isolated shot.
In shot #408, from the 8 a.m. section, Jack is typing in the Colorado Lounge after we've seen Dick on the plane. We are in at the beginning of the last day of the story, when Jack should be wearing a burgundy jacket and jeans, as he was wearing Wednesday night. Instead, he is in khakis and what looks to be the same sweater he was possibly wearing in the Saturday section.
These are the 3 shots which I think form a kind of base story, a story within the story within the story. And that base story is of a writer typing out his story of The Shining in a lodge. These are the only 3 "real" shots. The rest are the story that he is brewing.
How did I come up with such a ridiculous idea? Towards the beginning of the film, when Jack enters the lodge, in the Interview section, there is a person sitting near the door with a camera. I have noted in that section, how much the person looks like Marcello Mastroianni. I believe this is perhaps a reference to Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8 and 1/2. The person who at least looks like Mastroianni, who represents Fellini, having a camera, would also represent Kubrick, King, whomever, the teller of this story. 8 and 1/2 is about a film director who is reviewing his life and the people in it, having trouble with the film on which he's currently working, and that film becoming increasingly autobiographical.
It's a clue, this 8 and 1/2, as the 8 and 1/2 refers to the last two sections of this film, which are the segments 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., the only two sections of the film with numerical titles. One can look at this 8 a.m. and 4 a.m. as 8 and 1/2. One might say that shot #408 represents the same, which is the first shot in the lodge the last day of the ordeal.
But of course another way of looking at 8 and 1/2 is 8:30 or 8 and 30. 8:30 happened to be, in the Closing Day section, the time the plane would be leaving, which, as Ullman said, "Still gives us time to go over everything first."
I have stated that I've thought that shots 208, 214 and 408 are linked.
Shot 208 plus 214 plus 408 is:
830.
The sense of these being the three shots that didn't fit, which formed their own story, came with just a combination of feel and research, over time.
In 2012 I went through and wrote up all the shots of the film, and number order, because I thought it would simply be a good thing to do, a kind of helpful thing to do as well, for me, and maybe someone else would find something useful in it. Plus, I was tired of discussing the film with others and not having a shot order to which could be referred. Also, it was an opportunity to study the film more in depth as far as the language of the shots, how they unfold the lodge and story, how they were edited, their flow, point and counterpoint. Doing this was a more precise way of furthering my appreciation for it and Kubrick's peculiar style. In order to try to ensure the shots were in order and I'd not missed any, I did this several times.
As I've said, many years ago, the Marcello Mastroianni look-alike had stood out to me, and I had thought it was an amusing reference to 8 and 1/2 with the 8 a.m. and 4 a.m. chapters. Was there more to it than that? I didn't know, but thought it reasonable there would be something else, that this wouldn't be just a little secret jewel of an homage to Fellini, that instead it would have something to do with saying something about The Shining by reference to another work.
#208 had been a shot that always seemed to out of step with the rest of the film, that it was instead a shot of "the author", not the Jack as the character in The Shining.
Then, in 2012, it struck me that in the middle of the the sequence of the last couple of days Jack appears wearing different clothing in shot 408. This didn't fit. I don't think we should look at it as a shot that Kubrick felt he needed, but he didn't have one of Jack in his burgundy jacket and plaid shirt, and so resorted to one in which Jack was wearing different clothing, hoping no one would notice. I had indeed noticed the shot as anomalous earlier but had passed over it, simply not thinking about it, dumping it in with some of the other anomalies, because there are so many. One day in 2012 I just stopped passing it over and decided it was part of a puzzle for which there was an answer in the film.
Having for some time considered these three shots were the kernel, feeling they had to do with the author rather than Jack as character, I decided to really look at them. Having ruled out another shot my husband had asked me about, I realized that the last shot of my choice three was #408. Oh, 8 a.m. and 4 a.m. Here was the 8 and 1/2 association there in #408, the last of my selection of anomalous shots that formed their own story. Well, that was tidy. Then, it occurred to me to add the total numbers of the three shots, and there was 830, yet another 8 and 1/2. 1/2 past 8.
One might propose, "In these three shots we still have the hotel and all its related constructional, geographical impossibilities". But, no. taking these three shots as kernel, of the author, we know absolutely noting about the lodge of the kernel story. We don't know the exterior, we don't know the relationship of this lounge to the rest of the hotel at all. All that we know of the kernel story of the author's hotel is what we see in these three shots.
As said above, this is just a kernel story, a story inside a story inside a story. But, to me, it forms a platform for the others.
Could it be my theory only coincidentally has numerical support? Certainly. But I do think there's strong support for my theory in the dual 8 and 1/2 syncs of 408 and 830. Plus, the first shot of Jack in the film, when he enters the lobby of the Overlook and passes by the Marcello look-alike, is shot 10. If you're looking for 8 and 1/2 as 840 instead of 830, there it is. 830 plus 10 is 840.
People likely do this with much of what they see in a Kubrick film. They see something which doesn't fit with what they knew or expect, but they will overlook it because of Kubrick's ability to keep the viewer focused upon only the thing or idea he wants the viewer to center upon. So it is that individuals will overlook the fact that the Jack in this scene is wearing clothing different from what Jack is wearing during his final two day long episode in which he becomes the human counterpart of the judging wrath of god according to the book of Jack.
Within this 8 and 1/2, these 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. titles, I think we also have hidden another reference to the labyrinth that opens the film. For more information on this, read the post The Labyrinth and the Ascent to the Overlook.
DICK CALLS DURKIN
DICK CALLS DURKIN - SOMETHING MISSING AT THE AIRPORT - MIGHTY ANGELO, THE WORLD'S STRONGEST FLEA
409 LS Landing strip. (1:36:52 begin crossfade to the airport landing strip, ending at 1:36:54.)
Crossfade from the Colorado lounge to the landing strip at the airport, choked in white, guide lamps marking the way. The horizon line is nearly level with the height of the first flight of stairs leading up to the grand staircase in the lounge, the grand staircase seeming to climb into the sky. The landing strip runs diagonally through the lounge to the right rear door through which Wendy entered on Tuesday, through which Danny entered on the day prior.
Fig. 4 - Plane comes in for a landing crossfade from the Colorado Lounge.
The lights remind of the lamps on the tables in the Gold Room, their showing a clear diagonal line when viewed from the side as the camera followed Jack across the room from the door.
Fig. 5 - The plane lands.
410 LS Durkin's. (1:37:08 begin crossfade to Durkin's, ending at 1:37:11.) Crossfade to Durkin's Auto Supply.
Fig. 6 - Crossfade from the landing strip to Durkins.
Outside of Durkin's we view to the left a red Snowcat, seeming twin to the one at the hotel, but it is a different make. A horn honks. Cars pass on the slushy road. Wind howls. A man who has been attending a car leaves it for the building, the car starting, but we don't view it driving away.
411 MS Durkin's interior. (1:37:21)
Cut to the front room of Durkin's, the phone ringing. Larry Durkin is viewed passing outside a window. He enters the wood paneled room, stamping his boots, dusting the snow off his left and right shoulders. He passes between an older individual on the right, seated on a bright red chair reading, and an individual on the left looking at a pin-up calendar that's beside a Master charge poster with an "i" on it, that poster having a similar color scheme to the design we'd seen on the Continental plane. Below the poster for the card is a red and white display cabinet for windshield wipers that is partially blocked by a blue-gray and white machine (one like it was seen in the garage of the Overlook on Closing Day, I guess an old battery charger). We can only read QUICK REPLACE on the top of the cabinet as the rest is blocked with a cloth. The front of the cabinet shows rain expressed as black drops. Below is SE.... S..., probably reading SEASON SALE. The shot seems natural but has also the feel of being artificially staged. The man looking at the pin-up calendar recalls the pin-up elements of the lodge, in particular the boiler room scene. We don't see his face. He rather seems there only for the purpose of bringing our attention to the pin-up woman.
Fig. 7 - Inside Durkin's.
A clock on the wall reads 9:08. Dick is making his call 48 minutes after he was supposed to have landed at 8:20.
Stepping behind the desk, Durkin answers his phone. Behind him are Amoco supplies, a poster on how Amoco oil is right for your car, another that reads "propane bottles filled". On the counter before him we see a record album atop newspapers. I can't make out the singer or title on the album but the picture features a female singer cast in blue light.
DURKIN: Durkin's garage.
DICK: Hello, can I speak to Larry?
DURKIN: Speaking.
412 MS Interior airport. (1:37:35)
Cut to Dick on a phone at a phone carousel at the airport. The light of the airport shows his suit as gray instead of taupe, and his shirt more a rust red. He wears a beige overcoat and a blue scarf. A wine red knit cap rests on his briefcase with his address book and change. Beyond him we see people milling.
We have a sub-story going on behind him of an individual looking through their blue bags, then clothing, searching for something. This calls to mind how many times in The Shining an object or piece of furniture is suddenly missing, sometimes to return and sometimes never seen again.
As Dick speaks, a couple of police officers or security stand nearby while the man continues to search through his case. A man and woman in a dark jacket with a light print pass by and pause in the frame behind Dick.
DICK: Hi, Larry, this is Dick. Dick Halloran.
413 MS Durkin. (1:37:38)
Cut to Durkin viewed now from behind the counter. A cartoon plays on the television, a strongman green flea pestering a dog and making great leaps as he walks. From this view we see to the right and rear two open doors to rear rooms, a wall display for "hi tails" showing three kittens, and a NAPA poster with NAPA enclosed in a hexagon. A time clock is in the left room. As Durkin speaks and moves we then see a display for "Pooch Air Fresheners" hanging from the wall.
Note how very unalike the interiors of Durkin's and the airport are, and yet Kubrick has it so their structure in the film frame is much the same so that the eye stays in a similar space going between one set and the other. The black column to the left in the airport behind Dick is in the same place as the black strip running down the paneled wall to the electrical outlet left of Durkin. The open phone cubby at the airport is paired with another cubby to the right, and a similar effect is created at Durkin's with the pair of open doorways to Durkin's screen right. At the airport we have a sub-story to Dick's screen left of a person who is looking for something in their luggage, and at Durkin's we have the television to his left with its sub-story of the cartoon. The activity on the left, at the airport, of the man searching through blue bags, a red bag situated nearby, is balanced on the right of the frame at Durkin's with a blue and red and white box that will change position.
Why the strong man flea? In A CLockwork Orange Kubrick had inserted a body builder tending Alexander, the author, who takes the place of his wife. Is there some correspondence? Or is the cartoon shown because of the presence of a bull dog in it? In order to answer that I needed to find the cartoon and watch it, and after a long time searching I finally came across it.
The cartoon is 1958's "To Itch His Own", featuring Mighty Angelo, the World's Strongest Flea. While taking an impromptu vacation from the flea circus, he takes up residence on a country dog that he ends up protecting from Butcher the bulldog.
A letter from the flea to the circus is briefly shown on the screen behind Dirkin. It reads:
Dear Sam:
I've been working too hard so I'm going to take a rest on some nice quiet dog in the country.
Yours truly,
The Mighty Angelo
P.S. I'll fix the door when I get back. The M.A.
How very appropriate, considering Jack will soon be revealed as having typed over and over and over again "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy."
In A Clockwork Orange a story was alluded to in which a character was erroneously found at fault for things another had done. The same happens with the innocent, country dog bullied by the bulldog. The flea clocks the bulldog with a brick, takes his bone and a cushion the bulldog had stolen from the flea's host dog, and gives them to the country, host dog. The bully dog assumes the other dog had hit him and goes to beat him up. The flea beats up the bull dog with a mallet and the bull dog throws away his whiskey, thinking these poundings he's getting at the hand of an invisible agency must all be a hallucination. When the bull dog sets up the other dog to be picked up by the pound, the flea thwacks the guy from the pound with a board and then puts the board in the paws of the bulldog so it appears as though he had done it and the bulldog is carried off to the pound instead. The cartoon ends with the strong man flea settling down to watch television on the back of his host dog, and we hear a voice from the television call for a dog named Glassie.
The Online etymology dictionary gives glass as coming from a word meaning "looking glass" (Old Norse "gler") and this from a word meaning "to shine" (PIE "ghel"). That name may be coincidence but you have to admit comparisons can be drawn between the cartoon and what's happening at the Overlook. Who is responsible for what? Is there an invisible agency at work or not?
If we return to the game room at the Overlook it will be remembered that a poster next to the ski poster is for La Maison de la Glisse, a sports outfitting store in France. Glisse does not come from the same word as glass, it doesn't seem, but I wonder if Kubrick isn't drawing a connection between the two, this cartoon that ends with the dog named Glassie, and La Maison de la Glisse.
DURKIN: Hey, how are you doing? How's the weather down there?
Fig. 8 - Durkin answers the phone.
414 MS Dick. (1:37:41)
Cut to Dick at the airport. We see the two officers still and the man searching a blue bag while another man approaches.
DICK: I'm not in Florida, Larry, I'm calling from the Stapleton Airport.
415 MS Durkin. (1:37:45) Cut back to Durkin.
DURKIN: What the hell you doing down there?
416 MS Dick. (1:37:46)
A woman in a red jacket passes right to left. A couple of individuals with brown bags pass left to right.
Fig. 9 - Dick at the airport.
DICK: Well, I just got in from Miami and I've got to get up to the Overlook today. What's the weather like up there?
417 MS Durkin. (1:37:51)
DURKIN: Well, the snowplows are keeping things moving in town but the mountain roads are completely blocked.
418 MS Dick. (1:37:58)
The man and the woman in the dark jacket with the light print again pass by left to right, this time completely exiting the frame, whereas before they stopped and lingered then were gone in the next shot.
DICK: That means I'm going to need a Snowcat to get up there, Larry. Can you fix me up with one?
419 MS Durkin. (1:38:03)
DURKIN: What's the big deal is about getting up there today especially in this kind of weather.
420 MS Dick. (1:38:08)
We see in the background a man with red skis speaking to the person who is still searching their luggage. A man who is perhaps a pilot passes left to right. A man in a tan coat passes right to left, then a man in a dark suit passes left to right while a woman in a plaid jacket approaches the individual searching their luggage.
DICK: Larry, just between you and me, we've got a very serious problem with the people who are taking care of the place. They turned out to be completely unreliable assholes. Ullman phoned me last night and I'm supposed to go up there and find out if they have to be replaced.
We see in the background the man who was searching his luggage now checking his jacket pockets.
Dick's speaking of the prospect of replacement takes us back to the wiperblade display at Durkin's and our being able to read "Quick Replace..."
421 MS Durkin. (1:38:24)
DURKIN: How long is it going to take you to get up here.
With the cut back to Durkin we see, on the counter, a small box that previously had its blue face towards the camera now has its red face towards the camera. The blue face had inset a blue and red graphic that resembled a stylized eye with a red pupil. This switch may be a matter of continuity, but when Durkin had approached the counter and placed down his gloves he had also knocked the box, an action which might draw the viewer's attention to it. Is there a change in attitude that goes along with the slight change of the box? One could say that there is. Durkin is no longer questioning Dick's intention and has acquiesced.
422 MS Dick. (1:38:27)
Cut back to Dick, a woman in a fur coat of alternating horizontal pelts passing left to right in the background with several others.
DICK: Oh, about 5 hours. I'm going to rent a car here at the airport.
423 MS Durkin. (1:38:32)
DURKIN: Okay, Dick, I'll take care of it.
424 MS Dick. (1:38:33)
The man still searches a case while the man with the red skis stands nearby.
DICK: Oh, thanks alot, Larry, I really appreciate it.
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425 MS Durkin. (1:38:36)
DURKIN: That's all right, drive carefully.
Durkin hangs up the phone and a crossfade out begins.
Dick's language, his phrasing, stands out here. It's not the same as in the book--but then a lot that is in Kubrick's movie isn't the same as in the book.
One wonders what the man was looking for. His ticket? Wallet? We need to return to the Colville painting of the dog, which I examine in the Wednesday Part 1 section, and how it relates to The Killing. In that film, at the end, Johnny has made it to the airport with his cash loot from the heist crammed into a suitcase. He wants to carry it with him but he has to check it instead. The dog had escaped a woman's arms and charged onto an airport tarmac, causing the vehicle towing luggage to the plane to swerve. Johnny's suitcase had fallen and all his money had spilled out. His girlfriend tried to get him to escape, but he is dispirited by both guilt and the loss of the money. He walks pretty much into the hands of the police.
As Kubrick has intentionally linked earlier to The Killing, via the Colville print of the woman with her dog at an airport hung above the television in the Boulder apartment, I think it's very likely we are being referred back to that airport scene again.
DICK's DRIVE
DICK TAKES TO THE ROAD AND SEEMS TO NOT BE THE ONLY ONE IN THE CAR, WHICH IS A MATADOR MODEL - THE RED VW - HAL AND CHARLIE - THE TUNNEL IS OPEN
426 MS Dick. (1:38:39 begin crossfade from Durkin to Dick driving toward the camera, crossfade ending at 1:38:42.)
I read an interview with one of the crew who shot from the helicopter, and they are the same crew who shot footage in Denver. A story was that they had to find and shoot a Matador car as this was what Dick was driving in England.
The car being a Matador fits in with the Minotaur/labyrinth. A bull fighter.
Fig. 10 - Crossfade from Durkin to Dick driving toward the camera.
Though it's day, the storm is so severe it appears to be evening. Dick is listening to KHOW out of Denver with Hal and Charlie.
HAL: Well, good morning here...
427 MS Dick. (1:38:46 begin crossfade ending at 1:38:49.)
Now a crossfade from the car driving toward the camera to the camera on Dick's right in the car, so Dick and himself are at right angles to each other. The crossfade shots thus also form crossroads, Dick appearing to drive straight into himself from the side, Kubrick continuing the 90 degree switches we've seen earlier.
Fig. 11 - Crossfade has Dick at right angles to himself.
HAL: ... with Hal and Charlie on Radio 63, KHOW Denver, and, Charlie, we have what you'd call your bad day out there.
CHARLIE: What you'd call your heavy snow. Snowing hard throughout the Denver metro area...
428 MS Dick. (1:38:55 begin crossfade ending at 1:38:58.)
Crossfade from the camera facing Dick's right side to looking into the front seat from the rear.
Cut to Dick coming up on the Boulder exit, we see a police car to the right and a tow truck. On the left we will soon see police dealing with directing traffic around an overturned Mack truck that's crushed in the top of a VW.
Another effect we have now with the crossfading is it appears as though there are at least two people in the car: Dick and a shadow presence. The reflection in the rear view mirror appears to be the profile of a face, showing the nose and mouth, but instead it is Dick's forehead and his hat. Even knowing this, the eye tends to view the reflection as a profile that belongs to another individual.
One wonders if for Dick the shining is still being experienced and if, in effect, both Danny and Jack are thus traveling with him.
Fig. 12 - Crossfade has Dick at right angles to himself, side to rear, with his face reflected in the mirror.
CHARLIE: ...many of the mountain passes, Wolf Creek and Red Mountain passes are already closed and the chain law is in effect right now at the Eisenhower Tunnel.
Fig. 13 - Dick passes the Boulder exit.
HAL: I guess we just heard from the news department, Charlie, only a few of the flights are still landing out at Stapleton International Airport, and with these early storms like this...
Fig. 14 - The Mack truck wreck with the red VW.
HAL: ... I guess the entire airport will probably be closed within the hour.
CHARLIE: They're just not prepared. The storm will continue throughout the day and the National Weather Service has declared a stockman's and traveler's weather advisory for all areas outlying the Denver metro region. Get those cows in the barn.
HAL: There you go. Many businesses...
If Dick has appeared to be driving straight into himself, finally we do have a wreck, a VW bug squashed by a Mack truck. In the film's opening section, as the camera soared in over the Overlook, we saw in the parking lot a red VW that looked as if it had been battered in a collision, the wheelhubs and rear replaced and of a different shade. But here, it's instead the top of the VW that is crushed.
The Torrance's car in King's book was a red VW. That the wreck is at the Boulder exit adds some weight to this VW referring to the VW in King's book.
Of course, it can't go without mention that via the radio announcers we also have Hal and Charlie present. These were real announcers but via them Kubrick makes a link between the rogue computer in 2001 and Charles Grady.
HAL had just previously been brought to mind when Jack removed the relays from the two-way radio, silencing it, reminding of Bowman removing HAL's memory banks, and now HAL appears in the film.
Because of a small clip from the film Carson City having been used by Kubrick in the Interview section, we've been alert to tunnel resemblances or word play as the plot of Carson City was concerned with the building of a railroad which necessitated the drilling of two tunnels in either side of a mountain, these becoming one tunnel when they met. <
And, now, here's what is odd about this so-called Mack truck wreck.
Fig. 14b - The Mack Truck has no body and its rear carriage has no wheels.
Fig. 14c - The Mack Truck has no body.
Fig. 14d - All that we see of the Mack Truck's body which amounts to some kind of windshield.
We are expecting, due the shapes, to see a Mack truck that has rolled on top of a VW. That's what it looks like from a distance, the flat bed to the rear and the Mack truck body to the right. So, because we're expecting to see that, that's what we see, when instead the flat bed appears to have no wheels, and we can see right through he Mack truck cab chassis to see there is no body attached to it? What am I looking at here? Maybe someone can help me in sorting this one out.
DINING WITH THE ROADRUNNER
429 MS Wendy and Danny interior of Suite 3. (1:39:26.)
Cut to Wendy and Danny watching television (off-screen) in the bedroom of Suite 3.
Fig. 15 - Wendy and Danny in Suite 3 watching television.
The cartoon that they're watching refers to the wreck we've just seen.
TELEVISION: If you're on a highway and roadrunner goes beep beep, just stop aside or you might end up in a heap.
Someone didn't step aside in that red VW.
A bowl (probably breakfast cereal) and a half-full glass of chocolate milk rest on a small table before them, the table covered with a red and white checkered cloth. Wendy smokes, anxious. Danny is expressionless, wearing a brown robe over his red pajamas. Wendy is wearing the same clothes that she was wearing the previous day.
TELEVISION: Roadrunner, roadrunner, runs down the road all day. Beep beep! Even the coyote can't make him change his ways. Beep! beep!
When we were first introduced to Danny and Wendy at their Boulder apartment, they were having lunch on a red and white checked tablecloth and watching a Roadrunner cartoon. A parallel is being drawn, a link is made between their situation at the lodge and their situation at their home in Boulder, one combining with the other, only now Danny is drinking chocolate milk that is set to the left of his plate, whereas before he was drinking white milk that was to the right of his plate. If Danny likes chocolate ice cream, as was served him by Dick on Closing Day, then he would certainly like chocolate milk.
I'm surprised that they would be watching a Roadrunner cartoon on a weekday. As far as I was aware, Roadrunner cartoons only ran Saturday mornings.
Fig. 16 - The scene of Danny and Wendy in Suite 3 watching television is to be compared with the Boulder apartment scene where they eat lunch.
This scene reminiscent of Boulder comes after our having seen Dick pass the Boulder exit and the wreck of the red VW near it. Thinking on this, when we look again at the Boulder scene, the blue box of Q-tips cotton balls now reminds of the blizzard through which Dick is traveling.
TELEVISION: Roadrunner, the coyote's after you. (Sound of explosion.) Roadrunner...
WENDY (taking Danny's arm): Honey?
TELEVISION: ...if he catches you, you're through. Roadrunner, the coyote's after you...
WENDY (taking Danny's chin and turning his face to her): Listen to me for a minute, will you, hon?
TELEVISION: ...if he catches you you're through. That coyote's really a crazy clown...
WENDY: I'm just going to go and talk to daddy for a few minutes.
TELEVISION: ...when will he learn that he never can hold you down...
WENDY: And I'll be right back. Now, I want you to stay here and watch your cartoons, okay?
TELEVISION: ...running down the road's his idea of having fun.
WENDY: Okay?
DANNY/TONY (speaking in Tony's croak): Yes, Mrs. Torrance.
WENDY (kisses Danny): All right. Now, I'll be back in about five minutes. I'm gonna lock the door behind me.
Danny returns to watching the television. As Wendy leaves she takes the baseball bat that was resting next to Winnie the Pooh in the background. She had previously carried the bat when she believed a crazy woman was somewhere in the hotel, as per Danny's story. As we know that she's about to have a confrontation with Jack, we assume she is carrying the bat to protect herself from him, but Wendy doesn't know Jack's in a killing mood. So she may still be instead worried about there being another person in the hotel.
The time on her watch, facing us, was 12:00. For Wendy, as she glanced at it, the time would be 6:30. But it is light outside when she goes downstairs and we know that 4:00 has yet to arrive, or so the movie tells us, for the next section of it is 4 pm. And yet the time will be 6:55 when she locks Jack in the freezer in this section.
When Wendy ran into the Gold Room seeking Jack in the previous section, to tell him that there was a crazy woman in Room 237, she had placed her hand on his shoulder, her wristwatch prominently showing and it was about 12:00 or 12:05 for us facing her, which means it was about 6:30 or 6:35 for her, and Dick Hallorann, back in Miami was next shown watching the beginning of the night's news broadcast.
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY IN CONTEXT OF DEJA VU AND REPEATING PATTERNS
430 MS Wendy and Danny interior of Suite 3. (1:41:11 begin crossfade from the bedroom to the Colorado lounge, crossfade ending at 1:41:14.)
Fig. 17 - Crossfade from Suite 3 to the Colorado Lounge.
Crossfade to Wendy entering the dark Colorado Lounge from its left (as one faces the rear), the crossfade placing the Winnie the Pooh, back at the suite, on the grand staircase where Jack will later pursue her. Lamps burn in the floor above. There is no fire in the fireplace. Jack is nowhere to be seen. She calls for him, he doesn't answer. She steps into the pool table area beyond, and again calls for him.
431 MS Wendy. (1:41:56)
Cut to Wendy still facing the pool table area. Her watch appears to read 3:20. She turns and walks toward the table on which is Jack's typewriter, a box of manuscript, and the scrapbook.
432 MCU typewriter and Wendy. (1:42:12)
Cut to a shot of the typewriter from its rear and below, paper in the carriage, Wendy's head entering above the paper and coming into full view, the typewriter and its paper appearing much like the monolith in 2001.
Fig. 18 - Wendy looking down on the manuscript.
It's come time for her to have her awakening revelation, just as the primate had its awakening in 2001, an evolution of intelligence that led to it using a bone as a club weapon upon others. Here, Wendy will use the bat on Jack.
433 CU manuscript in typewriter. (1:42:28)
Wendy reads in horror, typed over and over on the page, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Fig. 19 - The manuscript in the typewriter.
We have had the eagle paired with the Adler typewriter via its logo. Though we don't see its logo, if one examines how the shot of the page in the typewriter is filmed, one can again see a bird shape, its head, wings and tail fanning out.
She looks through the pages of the manuscript on the side, all of it reading, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
She scrolls the paper up, and we view variations.
"...All work and no play makes Jack a dull bog
Alll work and no play makes Jack a dull bot...
All work and no ply makes Jack a dyll boy..."
434 MS Wendy from behind typewriter. (1:42:39)
Cut to Wendy turning from the typewriter to the box of manuscript.
435 MS manuscript in box. (1:42:51)
Cut to the manuscript in the box, all of it reading, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
 434 |
 435 |
436 Wendy viewed from behind the box. (1:43:00)
Wendy bends in to look at the pages, bewildered.
Fig. 20 - Shocked, Wendy looks at the manuscript in the box.
We see above Wendy opposing blue and red triangular shape decoration on the ceiling. I am reminded of the blue, white and red box we'd just seen on the counter at Durkin's, and also the trapezoidal shapes in the film, for the black outline of the red creates a trapezoid.
437 MS manuscript in box. (1:43:09)
Cut to Wendy going through the numerous pages of manuscript which show only occasional minor variations on "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" though there are many differences in placement on the page. A couple of times we see "All work and no play makes Jack adult boy." One time we see a handwritten correction, the b in boy formed into a capital B. "All work and no p lay makes Jack a dult Boy."
Fig. 21 - The inverted pyramid manuscript page.
Fig. 22 - All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
438 Wendy from behind the box. (1:43:36)
She now rapidly goes through page after page, the light in the balcony glowing above her.
Regardless the meaning of the phrase, which was different in releases of the film in other languages, the manuscript could be viewed as futile repetition on a grand scale. The phrase is typed in paragraphs, in individual sentences, in blockquotes, but it is still, despite these variations, the same work repeated again and again and again and again, ad infinitum.
In the Tuesday section when Jack returns to typing after ordering Wendy out, we hear a shift capital letter, two others, a space, four letters, a space, three letters, a space, three letters, a space. He was not, then, typing, "All work and no play..."
One is reminded of Jack's having said he'd experienced deja vu before, but that this was ridiculous. Rather than looking at it as crazy Jack simply having typed the same phrase over and over again in a fit of insanity, the repeated phrase is another expression of this deja vu and repeating patterns, such as in the world maze where we had the same repeating patterns ad infinitum. This use of the repeated phrase is, after all, a Kubrick invention. It did not appear in the King book.
Before continuing, read the short post Kubrick's The Shining, and the influence of Roger Vadim's 1962 film, Le Repos du Guerrier, on Jack's writing table and his novel that is all repetitions of a single sentence.
42 and "ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY"
I was thinking about the role of the number 42 in the film one day, then was considering how Jack's typing of the phrase over and over again wasn't just obsessive but could be seen as a type of meditative exercise, and it suddenly occurred to me that the key strokes for the phrase would be 42.
They are, including the spaces (spaces are key strokes as well) but without the period.
The first page Wendy looks at in the typewriter is without the period. The last page on which Jack had been working. Now, when Wendy checks out the box, all the sentences have periods.
But then we hit an inverted pyramid style of the phrase.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
and no play makes Jack a dull boy
no play makes Jack a dull boy
play makes Jack a dull boy
makes Jack a dull boy
Jack a dull boy
a dull boy
dull boy
boy
On the page following this we have the phrase again typed out normally but it has no periods. Moving on to the following pages, however, we have periods.
The above is curious to me because the inverted pyramid design has been used for occult purposes in meditative practice on a name, such as abracadabra.
As said, it had occurred to me when I was deliberating the use of 42 and its possible relationship to IHVH as 42 when spelled out in full. As I noted in the Interview section.
We haven't seen the number 42 on Danny's shirt until just previous his vision, while he was looking in the bathroom mirror. We had only seen 4? on his sleeve in the kitchen. Keeping with the above story of Jacob, when Jacob awoke from his dream, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." And he made a memorial pillar of the stone which had been his pillar.
The word for lord here is IHVH. The Tetragrammaton is the 4 lettered name of God which is forbidden to be spoken for fear of blasphemy, which amounts to a an imposition of silence. The four letters are I H W H, or Yod, He, Waw and He (a silent letter). Tetragrammatos means having 4 letters. The gematria in this short form is 26. So how did 42 come to be associated with it. It is through the three consonants of the name spelled out: IVD HH VV. These have a gematria of 42. I-10, V-6, D-4, H-5.
I shall now refer to Aaron Leitch's page on The Divine Name of Extension beginning with his discussion on Agrippa's extension of IHVH to 72 by use of the pyramid.
I
IH
IHV
IHVH
The discussion further relates that this was thought to even activate what was being written. Or, in the case of a word, like abracadabra, used for a talisman for a sick individual, the retraction of the word down to one letter was intended to lead to the illness disappearing over time as well.
Kabbalistically, in the writing of the name IHVH in a pyramid fashion, going from the highest to lowest points, one begins first with Ain, "no thing"; the I in IHVH is the father, fire, the world of Atziluth, that of the divine; the H is the mother, in the world of Briah, the world of creation, corresponding with water; V refers to the world of formation, Yetzirah, and is the "son", corresponding with air; the final H is earth, the world of action, Assiah, the daughter.
But first of all there is Ain, "no thing".
Aaron Leitch gives a picture of the name emanating out in this manner in concentric circles, and it takes me back to Danny's game of darts, which I write on at same length here.
The dart board is where we first see 237, given in an inverse permutation of 732. In its concentric rings we could conceivably also find these radiating worlds. Red would be the I of Atziluth, the next green circle being the veil between it and the next world. The first circle of alternating black and white fields would be the H of Briah, followed by a veil. The next circle of alternating black and white fields would be the V of Yetzirah, followed by its veil, and finally the world of H, that of manifestation, Assiah. The alternating spokes of black and white are found throughout the film with the patterns of shadow and light created on the ceiling by the ceiling lamps, such as in the Saturday section where Danny happens upon the girls.
Again, let's go back to the page in the typewriter where we see the V in the left margin. V belongs to the son, the world of formation, Yetzirah.
As Wikipedia notes:
"Yetsirah" as in "making" is as opposed to "Briah" as in "Creating": actually taking whatever matter that was created in the "Briah" and shaping it into the basic elements.
I give this from Wikipedia as it makes clear the relation of formation to making. ITsR means to mold into form, squeeze into shape, as a potter fashions and forms, and means to make. A like word that comes from it means imagination, mind. Curiously, ItsR comes from a root meaning to narrow, be in distress.
In the sentence beside which the V appears, there is a letter left out, and it is in the word "makes". The K is absent. As stated above the V of IHVH refers to the world of ITsR, Yetzirah, the world of making, of formation, as opposed to the creative activity of Briah, H.
Fig. 23 - All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
A manuscript by Nathan Bjorge, laying out the differences between the four above worlds, relates the following passage on Yetzirah from philosopher and theologian Henry Corbin:
Between the universe that can be apprehended by pure intellectual perception (the universe of the Cherubic Intelligences) [i.e. Briah] and the universe perceptible to the senses, there is an intermediate world, the world of Idea-Images, of archetypal figures, of subtle substances, of 'immaterial matter'. This world is as real and objective, as consistent and subsistent as the intelligible and sensible worlds; it is an intermediate universe 'where the spiritual takes body and the body becomes spiritual,' a world consisting of real matter and real extension, though by comparison to sensible, corruptible matter these are subtle and immaterial. The organ of this universe is the active Imagination; it is the place of theophantic visions, the scene on which visionary events and symbolic histories appear in their true reality...
If the Tetragrammaton is being referred to, one in effect has the idea of a creation as an infinite repetition of the godhead, in a sense, arranged in various ways but always amounting to the same thing. A repeating pattern that Jack records and which sends him round the bend.
One could argue that the phrase ultimately means nothing as it's said that the phrase is different in different language releases, but the fact remains that this phrase is referred to repeatedly in the film.
JACK'S DARK SILHOUETTE THE SAME AS WAS IN DICK'S CAR
439 Pan from right to left in the dark pool hall area behind Wendy to viewing her. (1:43:45)
Cut to a shot from behind Wendy, in the dark pool hall area, panning from right to left to Wendy from behind going through the pages. On the right a dark silhouette enters the frame. The silhouette reminds of the few photos we have seen in which there was an ambiguous dark form. It reminds, too, of the dark silhouette in Dick's car, and the reason it reminds of Dick in the Matador car is because it has been carefully staged to look like it.
JACK: How do you like it?
Wendy screams, grabbing up the baseball bat, turning to Jack's voice. Shocked by the manuscript being the same phrase over and over again, she realizes she is dealing with an unhinged individual.
WENDY: Jack!
JACK: How do you like it?
Jack enters the room, still in silhouette, Wendy backing up.
Fig. 24 - Jack, in silhouette, appears from behind the wall.
If one checks back, it is indeed the dark silhouette that was in the rear of Dick's car.
Fig. 25 - Jack in silhouette is the same as the silhouette in Dick's car.
The duplication must have been pretty important to Kubrick, as with other carefully staged curiosities. It's one of the more very obvious examples that can't be argued by anyone as being anything but careful staging.
Fig. 26 - Jack in silhouette is the same as the silhouette in Dick's car.
Fig. 27 - Jack in silhouette is the same as the silhouette in Dick's car.
Fig. 29 - How Jack emerges from behind the pillar/wall, turning from the figure in Dick's car to Jack.
If one compares the silhouette of Jack with the silhouette in Dick's car, one can see how they are meant to be read as the same, consciously or unconsciously. With the silhouette on the left in Dick's car, we see the protruding edge above the cheekbone as the knit cap. Though Jack's silhouette is the same, we expect Jack. When he steps forward we see his hair is carefully arranged in such a way that this is the cause of the much exaggerated forehead in in his silhouette. Kubrick has arranged the two to be mirrored shadows, and rather than Jack moving fully forward into the light, we cut away while he is still in silhouette then move to a frontal MS of him out of silhouette as he steps fully into the light.
This silhouette figure is to be compared with the one viewed in the old photo of the lodge, probably not longer after it was first built.
Fig. 30 - Comparing the silhouette of Jack coming out from behind the wall with the silhouette in the old photo.
And much the same as the silhouette in Room 237 that migrates onto the boiler.
Fig. 17 - The silhouette in the painting at the entry of Room 237.
I also discuss this in the first part of my analysis on 2001 as a form of the same emphatic foreground silhouetting occurs there.
THE PHOTOS IN THE COLORADO LOUNGE
So, where was Jack? Was he in the vicinity and had heard Wendy? Was he possibly on the second floor around Room 237, though he was horrified by what was in it the day before? Had he been there all the while and Wendy didn't see him because he blended in so well with the area he couldn't be seen? Was he in one of the pictures? Was he instead in the car with Dick? Are we to see Dick and Jack as one and the same person, as revealed by this silhouette, as though twins? Is this why Jack's silhouette here is observed on screen right, and the same silhouette is observed in the car on screen left?
I thought I'd take a look at the photos on the walls here. The pictures on these two rear walls are the same in the Tuesday section and in the scene this day at about 8:20. They are not the same in the dark shot before Jack enters. I'll go into that in a moment.
Fig. 28 - Before showing Dick's silhouette, the camera first tracks right to left out from behind the photos, as if it is Jack moving, watching Wendy, then Jack steps into the frame from the right.
We are reminded of the Tuesday scene in which Jack told Wendy to stay out of the lounge...if she heard him in there. We'd had the disappearing table and chair before the screen right pillar/wall. Here, we've the sense of Jack appearing out of nothingness, but it is from behind the screen left wall.
The film ends with emphasis on a single photo, and yet the film never before then lingers upon any photos, despite there being many in the Overlook, and attention drawn to their existence from the beginning with the poster of the Camera Walk and the individual with the camera sitting next the entrance as Jack enters. In fact, the photos are barely shown at all and when they are they are out of focus and part of the backdrop.
Below is from Closing Day.
Fig. 32 - Our first look at the photos in the Colorado Lounge on Closing Day, these on the side of the right pillar/wall.
Below is from Closing Day. In the 8 am section, we briefly see these photos behind Wendy as she backs up the stairs away from Jack. They are unchanged.
Fig. 33 - Our first look at the photos in the Colorado Lounge on Closing Day, these on the right side of the staircase.
Below is from Closing Day. We have some repeats here of the photos we saw on the other end of the lounge. As these images are all from one long shot without any cuts these repeating photos would be duplicates.
Fig. 34 - Our first look at the photos in the Colorado Lounge on Closing Day, these on the wall behind the staircase.
Next we have the photos as viewed from the billiard area of the Colorado Lounge, as seen on Tuesday evening. There are some repetitions of photos observed earlier in the side view of this area and at the stairway.
Fig. 35 - On Tuesday, our first look at the photos behind the pillar/walls in the Colorado Lounge on Closing Day
Below, from what we can see of the photos in the 8 am section, as Jack types, they appear unchanged from Tuesday.
Fig. 36 - How the photos on the back of the pillar/walls appeared at the beginning of the 8 a.m. section.
When Wendy later moves through the lounge to the billiard area in the 8 a.m. section, preceding her looking at the pages in the typewriter, a number of photos that had been seen on the columns in the Tuesday and 8 am sections appear on the side of the column.
Fig. 37 - Photos on the side of the right pillar as Wendy steps back into the foyer area before looking at Jack's manuscript.
Again, photos from the side of the column as Wendy goes to the billiard area.
Fig. 38 - Photos on the side of the right pillar as Wendy steps back into the foyer area before looking at Jack's manuscript.
Finally, in the last shot of the photos in the Colorado Lounge, from Jack's POV, we see the photos are now different from Tuesday and earlier in the 8 am section. Most notably, three of the photos that had been in the center horizontal row, in the first 3 spots (see fig. 37), have done the 90 degree shift so that they are here in the center horizontal row, in the first 3 spots.
Fig. 39 - Before showing Dick's silhouette, the camera first tracks right to left out from behind the photos, as if it is Jack moving, watching Wendy, then Jack steps into the frame from the right.
JACK FALLS DOWN AND BREAKS HIS CROWN
440 MCU Jack. (1:44:21)
Cut to Jack entering the room and going to stand behind his chair.
JACK: What are you doing down here?
441 MCU Wendy. (1:44:30)
WENDY: I...just uh...wanted...
442 MCU Jack. (1:44:36)
WENDY: ...to talk.
JACK (nodding his head): Okay. Let's talk. (He flips through the pages.)
Behind Jack, the panes of the windows, the light pouring through them, give the effect of the windows being barred.
JACK: What do you want to talk about?
443 MCU Wendy. (1:44:56)
WENDY: I...I...
444 MCU Jack. (1:45:02)
WENDY: I can't really remember.
JACK: You can't remember. (Advancing toward her.)
WENDY: No. I can't.
445 MCU Wendy. (1:45:14)
Cut to Wendy backing away, the rainbow mural behind her.
446 MCU Danny in Suite 3. (1:45:17)
Danny appears to be shining. The camera zooms in. He hears his father's voice, watery sounding.
JACK: Maybe it was about Danny? Maybe it was about him.
447 Shot through red filter of the bloody elevator hall, furniture floating by. (1:44:36)
JACK: I think we should discuss Danny.
448 MCU REDRUM Door. (1:44:35)
 440 |
|
 441 |
 442 |
 443 |
 444 |
 445 |
 446 |
 447 |
 448 |
449 Shot through red filter of the bloody elevator hall. (1:44:36)
JACK: I think we should discuss what should be done with him.
Listening to the fluid voices in conjunction with the blood flooding the hall, one realizes that the voices are as if filtered by the blood, coming through it, or within the blood.
The green light of either Room 237 or the stairwell seems to enter the shot from above. Actually, the color we see is likely the cream paint of the hall but with the red and the lighting it appears green, which I would think is intentional.
Fig. 40 - The bloody hall.
450 MCU Jack. (1:45:46)
Cut to Jack, the far left red doors of the lounge behind him.
JACK (voice returning to normal): What should be done with him?
451 MCU Wendy. (1:45:51)
WENDY (the barred windows behind): I...I...I don't know...
452 MCU Jack. (1:45:55)
JACK: I don't think that's true. I think you have some very definite ideas about what should be done with Danny and I'd like to know what they are.
453 MCU Wendy. (1:46:07)
WENDY: Well...I think...maybe he should be taken to a doctor.
454 MCU Jack. (1:46:15)
JACK: You think maybe he should be taken to a doctor.
455 MCU Wendy. (1:46:19)
WENDY: Yes!
JACK: When...
456 MCU Jack. (1:46:21)
JACK: ...do you think he maybe should be taken to a doctor?
457 MCU Wendy. (1:46:24)
WENDY: As soon as possible?
458 MCU Jack. (1:46:26)
JACK (mocking): As soon as possible?
WENDY: Jack!
459 MCU Wendy. (1:46:30)
WENDY: Please!
460 MCU Jack. (1:46:33)
JACK: You believe his health might be at stake.
461 MCU Wendy. (1:46:38)
WENDY: Yes!
462 MCU Jack. (1:46:41)
JACK: You are concerned about him.
463 MCU Wendy. (1:46:45)
Wendy: Yes!
464 MCU Jack. (1:46:47)
JACK: And are you concerned about me?
465 MCU Wendy. (1:46:50)
WENDY: Of course I am!
JACK Of course you are!
466 MCU Jack. (1:46:54)
JACK: Have you ever thought about my responsibilities?
WENDY: Oh, Jack, what are you talking about?
JACK: Have you ever had a single moment's thought about my responsibilities? Have you ever thought for a single solitary moment about...
467 MCU WENDY. (1:47:08)
JACK: ...my responsibilities to my employers?!
468 MCU Jack. (1:47:10)
JACK: Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the Overlook Hotel until May the first? Does it matter to you at all that the owners have played their complete confidence and trust in me and that I have signed a letter of agreement? A contract! In which I have accepted that responsibility!
469 MCU Wendy. (1:47:26)
JACK: Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is, do you?
Wendy, having reached the steps, begins backing up them.
470 MCU Jack. (1:47:34)
JACK: Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities?
471 MCU Wendy. (1:47:39)
Wendy steps back to the first landing of the stairs.
JACK: Has it ever occurred to you? Has it?
WENDY (swinging once): Stay away from me!
JACK: Why?
WENDY: I just want to go back to my room.
JACK: Why?
WENDY (ascending the main grand staircase): Well, I'm very confused. And I just need a chance to think things over?
472 MCU Jack. (1:48:01)
JACK: You've had your whole fucking life to think things over. What good's a few minutes more going to do you now?
WENDY: Jack! (2nd swing.) Stay away from me! (3rd swing.) Please! (4th swing.) Don't hurt me! (5th swing.)
JACK: I'm not going to hurt ya.
WENDY (6th swing): Stay away from me! (7th swing.) Stay away!
JACK: Wendy...
Wendy swings an 8th time.
JACK: Darling...
Wendy swings a 9th time.
JACK: Light of my life, I'm not going to hurt ya.
Wendy swings a 10th time.
JACK: You didn't let me finish my sentence.
Wendy swings 11th time.
JACK: I said, I'm not going to hurt ya.
Wendy swings a 12th time.
JACK: I'm just gonna bash your brains in!
Wendy swings a 13th time. A 14th time.
JACK: I'm going to bash them right the fuck in!
Wendy swings a 15th time.
Jack laughs, Wendy swinging a 16th time.
WENDY: Jack! Stay away from me!
473 MCU Wendy. (1:48:36)
She swings an 17th time.
WENDY: Don't hurt me!
She swings an 18th time.
Fig. 41 - A traumatized Wendy defends herself on the staircase.
JACK: I'm not gonna hurt ya!
Wendy swings a 19th time.
WENDY: Stay away from me!
Swings a 20th time.
474 MCU Jack. (1:48:42)
Swings a 21st time.
WENDY: Please!
Swings a 22nd time.
JACK: Stop swinging the bat.
WENDY (swings a 24th time): Stay away! (Swings a 25th time.)
She swings a 26th time as Jack says...
JACK: Put the bat down, Wendy.
Wendy swings a 27th time.
WENDY: Stop it!
A 28th time. A 29th time.
JACK: Wendy.
A 30th time.
JACK: Give me the bat.
A 31st time.
WENDY: Please!
A 32nd time.
Jack sticks his tongue out at her.
Fig. 42 - Jack torments Wendy.
WENDY Stay away!
A 33rd time.
JACK: Give me the bat.
A 34th time.
475 MCU Wendy. (1:49:00)
WENDY: Stop it!
A 35th time.
JACK: Give me the bat.
A 36th time.
WENDY: Jack! (A 37th time.) Stay away from me!
JACK: Stop swinging the bat.
A 38th time.
WENDY: Please, stop!
476 MCU Jack. (1:49:06)
JACK: Give me the bat, Wendy!
A 39th time.
WENDY: Stay away from me!
40th time.
JACK: Wendy!
41st time.
WENDY: Stay away!
JACK: Give me the bat.
42nd time.
WENDY: Stay away!
Jack grabs for the bat as he says, "Give me the bat..."
43rd time. She whacks his wrist.
477 MS Wendy from beyond Jack. (1:49:13)
JACK (grabbing his wrist): AH, God damn it!
44th time. She clobbers him on the head.
478 MS Jack. (1:49:15)
479 LS Jack. (1:49:16)
Cut to Jack falling back down the stairs.
480 LS Jack from behind Wendy. (1:49:23)
Cut to Jack lying on unconscious on the first landing of the stairs.
Incredible performances. Jesus, what insanely, magnificent performances.
Colorado comes from the Spanish word meaning red or ruddy. Rather than REDRUM meaning only murder, at present this could be "red room", Wendy and Jack having their confrontation in the Colorado Room or Lounge.
Fig. 43 - Jack knocked out at the bottom of the stairs.
I hope I've finally gotten an accurate count on those bat swings. I don't want to have to count them again. Believe it totals 44. I know a lot of people say she swings the bat 42 times but I count it as 44. I could be incorrect.
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STORING JACK
WENDY STORES JACK IN THE C1 STORY ROOM - AS WITH THE two-way radio, THE SNOWCAT HAS BEEN DISABLED
481 MS Jack dragged through the kitchen. (1:49:25 begin crossfade from the lounge to the kitchen, ending at 1:49:28.)
We see Jack on his back being drug through the kitchen, blood on his forehead. Knocked out flat, he makes gurgling sounds, his mouth open. We hear Wendy's efforts. Jack appears to try to talk and his eyes flutter as they reach the kitchen table.
Fig. 44 - Dragging Jack across the kitchen floor.
At 1:49:38 he vocalizes something like, "Un-kay-ray", followed by a couple indistinguishable low syllables. Then at 1:50:03 we hear something like, "Jay-hee". These vocalizations don't sound like Jack's, seeming in a much deeper voice, but are mixed in with his gurgles, disappearing as he regains full consciousness.
Over the storeroom scene enters Penderecki's "Polymorphia", but the above vocalizations don't belong to it. The music, suggesting the ability of something to appear in different forms, was also playing when Wendy discovered Jack's "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" manuscript.
482 MS Wendy backing toward C1. (1:49:51.)
Cut to Wendy walking backward, struggling with the effort of dragging Jack. Reaching the C1 locker, she releases Jack's legs to unbolt the top lock. She begins to struggle with the second, bottom lock.
483 MS Wendy from below. (1:50:05.)
Frantic, Wendy struggles with the bottom lock as Jack begins to regain consciousness.
484 CU Wendy. (1:50:08.)
Wendy continues jerking at the lock, unable to get it open. She glances down at Jack.
485 MCU Jack. (1:50:11.)
He is looking up at her, still struggling to regain his senses, gurgling. We hear Wendy continue to jerk at the lock.
486 CU Wendy. (1:50:16.)
She still struggles with the lock.
487 CU Wendy's hands. (1:50:18.)
Finally she realizes the pin is what's holding the lock in place. She removes it which, on its chain, flops down and strikes against the door. I make note of this because of it being mentioned earlier by Hal and Charlie that the Eisenhower tunnel was open but the chain law was in effect.
488 MS Wendy. (1:50:21.)
Wendy opens the door.
489 MCU Jack. (1:50:24.)
Jack's head is lifted from the floor, his right cheek smeared with saliva, Wendy dragging him into the storage room.
490 MS Wendy. (1:50:29.)
Wendy has Jack half in the door of the storage room and he becomes lucid enough to speak.
JACK: What are you doing?
491 MS Jack from Wendy's POV. (1:50:32)
Jack attempts to grab the outside door frame to keep himself from being dragged into the storage room.
JACK: Hey. Hey wait a minute. Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing?
Wendy rushes past Jack, he attempting to grab her.
492 MS Wendy's feet. (1:50:43)
We watch from outside the storage room as Wendy slips past Jack's grasp. She begins to shut the door.
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493 MS Jack. (1:50:47)
Wendy slams the door as Jack struggles to turn himself over. Standing, he finds his right ankle has been injured and leaping to the door he instead falls into a tower of boxes to the right of it, two Rice Krispies boxes and some other box falling to the floor (before, when seeing the room with Dick and Wendy, there had been boxes of Ritz Crackers instead).
Fig. 45 - Jack lamed.
494 MS Wendy. (1:50:47) Wendy does the bottom lock, replacing the pin. It doesn't appear as though she attends the top lock.
Fig. 46 - Wendy locks the door.
But why two locks anyway?
No, three? for there is a third one, a padlock, above these two?
JACK (beating on the door): Hey! Wait a minute! What are you doing? Open the door!
Wendy takes a carving knife from a rack on a column.
JACK: God damn it! Let me out of here! Open the god damn door!
Exhausted, Wendy kneels down beside the dining table, overcome.
495 MCU Jack from below. (1:51:13)
JACK: Wendy, listen. Let me out of here and I'll forget the whole god-damned thing. It'll be just like nothing ever happened.
496 MS Wendy. (1:51:22)
Wendy cries.
497 MCU from below, Jack. (1:51:26)
Jack listens with interest to Wendy's crying. We see his reflection in the door.
JACK: Wendy, baby, I think you hurt my head real bad. I'm dizzy. I need a doctor.
498 MS Wendy. (1:51:59)
She cries, listening.
JACK: Honey! Don't leave me in here.
Wendy stands.
WENDY: I'm going to go down...I'm going to try to get Danny down to Sidewinder in the Snowcat today.
She approaches the storage room door and we see behind her the door to chef's office, an exit door and the wall clock.
WENDY: I'll bring back a doctor.
Fig. 47 - "I'll bring a doctor back."
Let's briefly compare this shot of the exterior of C1 with it on Closing Day.
Fig. 47a - Entering the "story" room.
This time? Only one switch box to its side instead of two. The two switchboxes to the side. Why? Remember that we saw the C2 locker then a right-angle/90 degree turn happened, and Dick showed Wendy into the C1 locker which is in the position that the C2 locker would occupy if it exists. On Closing Day the two switch boxes says to me that one belongs to C2 though it's located here, they both occupying the same space. That the switch box is gone in this section says to me something in the nature of the room has changed in the way that they occupy the same space.
Usually, a disappearance is accompanied by a 90 degree turn, a right angle turn. Where is our right angle turn? It's seen behind Wendy, against the wall under the display board. That metal box thing (whatever it is--a freezer?) was located against Dick's office wall.
Fig. 47b - The box that was next to Dick's office wall.
That's where the 90 degree turn is here, it's that box having moved and being now under the clock.
499 MCU Jack from below. (1:52:28)
JACK (smiling): Wendy?
WENDY: I'm going to go now.
JACK: Wendy!
500 MS Wendy. (1:52:38)
Fig. 47 - Wendy in the kitchen, listening to Jack.
We see the clock behind her reads 6:55. This doesn't fit with what is supposed to be the general time. If we flipped the clock upside down, it could be more like 1:35 in the afternoon.
WENDY: Yes?
501 MCU Jack from below. (1:52:43)
Jack laughs.
JACK: You've got a big surprise coming to you. You're not going anywhere.
502 MS Wendy. (1:52:51)
JACK: Go check out the Snowcat and the radio and you'll see what I mean. (Laughter.) Go check it out!
Wendy exits down the hall door that leads past the other lockers.
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503 MCU Jack. (1:53:03)
Jack slams the door, laughing.
JACK: Go check it out! Go check it out.
Fig. 48 - Jack informs Wendy she's not going anywhere.
With all the talk about cutting up into pieces, the box of pimento pieces by the door stands out. So does the box below with the number 2375. Not 237, but close enough.
504 LS Wendy. (1:53:15)
Fig. 49 - Our first glimpse of this hall near the far exit/entrance.
Wendy runs into a hall we've not seen before. At the far end it intersects with another hall in which we see a red and black diamond pattern wall hanging that is the same diamond pattern in the entry to the toilet and powder room area off the Gold Room. There is no lobby here, no great room. She seems to emerge from that side hall from screen right as she does a slight curve to the left and back--though it seems she should instead come from screen left. If she does come from screen right she is then emerging from an area that, given the rug, could correspond with the red bathroom and perhaps the path she took with Dick to the kitchen on Closing Day. She runs past another pair of the red elevators and turns into an entry that gives access to yet another exterior door of the lodge. We see on the right wall a painting of geese and a yellow ball of a sun that was briefly glimpsed in the secretarial office when Bill Watson entered Ullman's office on the day of the interview.
505 LS Wendy exterior. (1:53:22)
She presses through the door out into the snow, the world all watery blue, ice and white.
Fig. 50 - Wendy pushes open the door.
The camera shifts so we can see the garage.
Fig. 51 - The view Kubrick offers of the exterior, not showing the maze.
506 LS Wendy exterior. (1:53:36)
Wendy runs through the snow to the garage.
507 MS interior garage. (1:53:43)
Cut to the interior of the garage. The hood of the Snowcat is open. The garage door is slightly open, enough to see Wendy running through the light blue of the storm. In contrast, the light coming in through the two garage windows is a glaring greenish white. It's a hot light rather than cool.
Wendy enters the garage where she finds resting on the Snowcat what I suppose is the distributor cap, its wires cut.
Fig. 52 - The disabled Snowcat.
By the time one reaches this point, one is pretty well as exhausted, pummelled and overloaded as Wendy. Shelley's role had to have been draining as hell, playing full bore fear mode day after day (we know that it was, she's said so), scene after scene of adrenaline-drenched confusion. As she climbs the stairs with Jack, backing away with him, one feels the strength being sucked out of her body, her shoulders pulled lower and lower, unable to hold her head up, belittled, bullied, all she really wants to do is go to her room--and finally awakening to the horror this is a man who's going to kill her. Having become fully aware of that fact, after knocking Jack out, at the end she abandons the bat and takes up the knife, and, still, even as she picks up the knife, one can tell she doesn't know what to do with it, just as she had told Dick she wouldn't know what to do with most anything in the kitchen. Shelley communicates all of this, the desire to collapse overruled by the knowing she has to keep going. There's not even any relief had in locking Jack up except a moment to try to collect herself before proceeding with the next step of her plan, because she cares about him as well as Danny. He's injured, she worries about him as well. It's exhausting. Then Jack tells her she won't be able to get off the mountain and, no matter her exhaustion, Shelley communicates getting that blast of adrenaline back in response to having to cope with this next surprise.
And all made even more complex by the fact she wasn't playing a character with whom people were going to be wholly sympathetic for a variety of reasons.
The Problem of Wendy
Please read next The Real Horror of The Shining -- The Misogyny of the Audience for Wendy Torrance.
In review, what has Kubrick given us in this section?
Two Jacks. There's the Jack typing away in the Colorado Lounge, dressed in a dark top and light khakis while another Jack in a burgundy jacket and plaid shirt and jeans tries to kill his wife.
What's the teaser candy bait?
Jack's silhouette doubling Dick's silhouette.
What's the distraction?
I'm tired. Aren't you tired? That scene of Jack going after Wendy is absolutely exhausting. Exhaustion is distracting.
What's the Food for Thought?
The strongman flea cartoon.
What's the deep infrastructure?
The strongman flea cartoon.
tl;dr version?
Jack finishes his book and doesn't take criticism well.
First placed online 2007-2009 in loose form. Added all shots 2012. Approx 13.964 words or 28 single-spaced pages. A 107 minute read at 130 wpm.
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