Analysis of Kubrick''s The Shining, Table of Contents

Introduction

For the real film buff, I've gone through and listed shots, images from each, and length of time of shots. Because I raised myself on the old Evergreen Black Cat cinema books which took pains to do the same and loved studying them. And because that is the only way I felt I could really begin to do a good, involved analysis of Kubrick's films, which are very complex internally, and also all the films being related to one another.

Kubrick's films elicit a lot of whys and wherefores, "What does this mean?", because he included so many seeming puzzles inviting review, mysteries that demanded second and third notice, editing quirks and both subtle and obvious shifts in staging. My analyses haven't much to do with the psychology, but look at Kubrick's choices of stories, music, places he filmed, staging, the differences between the literature and the script that made it onto celluloid and how he chose to edit it all together, carrying themes from film to film, and based on these elements I dip into a variety of possible influences.

Analysis of The Shining - Table of Contents

Part Four -- A Month Later

Wendy Trundles Breakfast from the Kitchen, Shots 164 through 166
The problematic Gold Room halls and the lodge in general. The problem of radiant heat as versus forced air heat.
Danny's Circuit of the Colorado Lounge Area, Shot 167
Domestic Bliss, Breakfast in Bed, Shots 168 through 171
Jack's shining of the hotel experienced as deja vu.
Jack Plays Ball and Wendy and Danny Go for a Walk in the Maze, Shots 172 through 176
The Adler typewriter. Playing ball on the Navajo rainbow painting. The function of the rainbow as the doorway between the rational modern world, in which language articulates but is also a barrier, and a primordial world where mortals consorted directly with deity, and a proto-language of symbol and archetype united all. Jack as the giant and the tour of the grounds on Closing Day. Wendy and Danny take their own Camera Walk outside which shows some changes from Closing Day.
Jack as a Veritable Omniscient Presence Overlooks the World Maze as Wendy and Danny Enter its Heart, Shots 177 through 181
Danny's big wheel on the circle in the lobby where Dick will later lie slain. Jack loses his ball. Differences in the mazes and what they tell us about some of the peculiarities experienced around the hotel.
In Review, What Has Kubrick Given Us in This Section?
What's the teaser candy bait?
What's the distraction?
What's the deep infrastructure?

Part Five -- Tuesday

The Tuesday News, 182 through 184
Wendy slicing the mountaintop. The Carson City avalanche. Wendy's apron. News of the disappearance of Susan Robertson and the coming blizzard.
Danny Tries the Door of Room 237, Shots 185 through 191
Danny's circuit of the floor above the Colorado Lounge. The unobserved open door opposite Room 237. The ghost doorknob. Danny's third shining of the girls. The false illusions of the lodge blend with the artificiality of the movie set.
Jack Works, Shots 192 through 208
Many changes in the Colorado lounge. Some comparisons with A Clockwork Orange. The new rule.
The Fibonacci Sequence in Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, and its Relationship to the Maze
Jack's Attitude at His Typewriter as Wendy Exits
How Wendy's Opening the Can, and the Disappearance of the Chair and Table are Related and Commented upon by Kubrick in Jack's Notebook
In Review, What Has Kubrick Given Us in This Section?
What's the teaser candy bait?
What's the distraction?
What's the deep infrastructure?

Part Six -- Thursday

Jack Shines in the Colorado Lounge as Wendy and Danny Play Outside, Shots 209 through 210
Shining, Doubling, and the Use of Ligeti's "Lontano"
In Review, What Has Kubrick Given Us in This Section?
Shining in the Shining Mountains
Ah, c'mon, can't just be looking out the window? Being crazy, yeah, but just looking out the window?
The Food for Thought

Part Seven -- Saturday

The Wires Go Down, Shots 212 through 226
White-out and Jack in the Colorado Lounge. Jack's new rule and the snowstorm.
Lines down, the Lodge Cut Off From the Outside World. Word play around ice cream and its relationship to CRM-114. The hotel and the emphasis on cleanliness.
The Radio Call to the Forest Rangerss. On flags and maps. The last of the "sha" sounds.
Danny's Final Vision of the "Twins", Shots 225 through 245
The Mirror Flip of the Times frm 11:40 to 6:10.. The open cabinet opposite the time cards foreshadows the cabinet in which Danny will later hide. Danny confronted by the shining of the murder of the girls. The ceiling lamps of the staff area. The peculiar double knob suspended in space. Dominant and recessive aspects.
Comparison With 2001
The Poster and the Girls. On the dominant and recessive aspects of the visions of the girls.
Call Us
As Above, So Below. Jacob's ladder and the Sabbath. On cycles represented in ShV and KDK.
Retiring the Big Wheel
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?

Part Eight -- Monday

The Summer of 42, Shots 246 through 247
The Summer of 42 and Room 242 at the Enchanted Hunters Hotel.
Jack Reassures Danny Everything's OK, Shots 248 through 253
M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E
But Why, After All, Touchdown Mickey?. Is there a reason? Does there have to be a reason? Seems it would have to do with WWII.
Jack's Single Conversation with Danny. The red car on the window sill as a presage of Dick's Snowcat.
In Review, What Has Kubrick Given Us in This Section?
What's the teaser candy bait?
What's the food for thought?
What's the discration?
What's the deep infrastructure?

Part Nine -- Wednesday (One)

Mom?, 254 through 262
Danny in the Room 237 hall on Wednesday. The ball. The seeming carpet reversal.
Let's Make it Clear How the Carpet Trick Works, Kubrick Has Used it Before, in 2001.
Danny's Apollo Seater and its Relationship to His Big Wheel. The use of polymorphism in The Shining and Kubrick's work in general.
Paroketh, QSth, The Abyss, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Danny enters Room 237 while his mother works in the basement checking the boiler. Migration of the silhouette in the painting in Room 237 to the boiler in the basement. The choking poster, the pyramid, and its vanishing pointing eye, and look there's Danny choking or screaming in Room 237 right before our very eyes.
Jack's Nightmare, Shots 263 through 276
Wendy and Danny and Colville's Painting of the Woman with the Terrier
Jack Feels Burdened, Shots 277 through 299
Jack's eyes open to Lloyd the bartender. The Jack Daniels (what's in a name). White man's burden. Perpetually five months on the wagon.
The Judgment of Danny
Which Room Was it?
In Review, What Has Kubrick Given Us in This Section?
What's the teaser candy bait?
What's the distraction?
What is the food for thought?
What's the deep infrastructure?

Part Ten -- Wednesday (Two)

The Three Perspectives of Dick, Danny, and Jack, 300 through 328
Dick, in Miami, is brought into the situation. Ground zero and the trapezoidal pyramids.
Comparisons with Eyes Wide Shut, its Maze, the Hedge Maze at Somerton, 237 as the Verona Restaurant. 236 and the hospital. ZKR. The themes of re-education (correction) in Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining, and the mystery of free will or predetermination.
Room 237. Its television and carpet. 2001 and Room 237. Resemblance of the bathroom to other rooms in the film. Beldam as the crone, and bedlam, an insane person.
Jack in Dick's Miami Home, Shot 329
Other links between the Miami home and the lodge.
There is Nothing in Room 237, Shots 330 through 339
Jack has seen nothing. Danny forsees Redrum which he will himself later write. A permutation of nothing, AIN, into a confrontation with self, ANI.
The Masquerade, Shots 345 through 346
Dick Calls the Forest Rangers, Shots 347 through 350
Good Evening, Mr. Torrance, Shots 351 through 367
Hell, Shots 368 through 389
The red bathroom. Comparing the Gold Room and Red Bathroom to the lobby.
About that Frank Lloyd Wright Inspired Bathroom
The Gold Room and the Arizona Biltmore
The Two Gradys, Charles and Delbert
Danny's Not There, Shots 390 through 397
Jack Unplugs, Shots 398 through 401
Fire Service, Shots 402 through 404
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?

Part Eleven -- 8 AM

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?

Part Twelve -- 4 PM

The Mystery of How Jack Gets out of the Storage Room, 508 through 511
Jack released from the "story" room. The double lock and the blending of C1 and C2.
Dick in the Snowcat, Shots 512 through 514
REDRUM, Shots 515 through 518
Jack Attacks, Shots 519 through 561
Kubrick comments on Jack's blood marking the door with Penderecki's "Passover Canon". Implications of resurrection conferred by the music.
The Murder of Hallorann, Shots 562 through 588
Dick reaches the hotel. Snowcat before the pyramid of snow. The cabinet in which Danny hides. Change of orientation of the kitchen to the hotel's layout. The murder of Dick.
The Beast and a Reason it's so Disturbing, Shots 589 through 591
Entering the Maze, Shots 592 through 606
Jack pursues Danny into the maze, the entrance of which has shifted.
Great Party, Isn't It, Shots 607 through 613
Danny Reaches the Maze's Center, Shots 614 though 615
Dick Disappears Amidst Skeletons and Cobwebs, Shots 616 through 620
Danny Covers His Tracks in the Heart of the Maze, Shots 621 through 624
The Red Hall and the Bloody Elevator, Shots 625 through 628
The Reversed Elevator Doors and How They Relate to the Switch in Dominance of the Girls When Danny Sees Them Murdered
Jack in the Heart of the Maze, Shots 629 through 634
The Escape of Danny and Wendy, Shots 635 through 657
Jack Frozen, Shot 658
July 4th Ball, 1921, Shots 659 through 661

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Supplemental

The Real Horror of The Shining : The Misogyny of the Audience for Wendy Torrance

The Shining Locations: Mapping the Two Ascents, Their Relationship to the Continental Divide, and Why it Matters

A 7 Circuit Cretan Labyrinth Possibly Hidden in the Opening Shots of The Shining

The Alex Colville Painting That Doesn't Appear in "The Shining" But is Written All Over It. On the yellow VW.

The Relationship of The Yellow VW in "The Shining" to the "Traumnovelle" Novel. How the yellow VW is able to comically hold so much relates to a yellow bag Albertine dreams about and the credenza in which Bill hides the Rainbow Fashions bag.

The 1974 film Himiko and its relationship to why we view the helicopter filming in the opening of The Shining

Kubrick's The Shining, the Use of Colville's "Woman with Terrier", and its Relationship to Kubrick's The Killing and a Kubrick LOOK Photo

Remembrance and Repetition in Kubrick's The Shining

Anamnesis and Railroad Imagery in Kubrick's Work

Comparing Hitchcock's Treatment of a Window in Spellbound with Kubrick's in The Shining

Management of Psychic Space with the The Elevator, the Two Girls and Danny's Room

Exploring the Monarch Poster in the Game Room and its Relationship to 237 and the Maze

Comparing Kubrick's LOOK Photos of Girls Testing Their New Hearing Aids with the two girls in The Shining and Diane Arbus' Photo of the Twins

A Brief Look at Close Encounters Through the Eyes of The Shining

In Which Kubrick Tricks Us Into Not Noticing the Open Door Opposite Room 237

The Shining, The Birds, and The Summer of 42

How Touchdown Mickey Relates to The Isolation of the Overlook in The Shining: The Story of the Shutting Down of BBC Broadcasting and Hitler's Invasion of Poland

How the Kubrick Carpet Trick Works

The Relationship Between the Chess Game in 2001, Dave’s Dinner in the Room Beyond the Infinite, and Danny on the Reversed Rug in The Shining

The Possible Dialogue Between Kubrick's The Shining and Tarkovsky's Solaris (On the Rolling Ball)

Dorothy Oxborough's Pastels of First Nations' Children in The Shining

How Shot 306 in The Shining Duplicates Shot 230 in Lolita, #237 Intimately Connected with Charlotte's Death, and That Watery Death (Perhaps) Connected with Hitchcock's Psycho

Roger Vadim's 1962 film, Le Repos du Guerrier and its direct influence on Jack's writing table and his novel that is all repetitions of a single sentence

Kubrick's Lolita and Hitchcock's Vertigo, with a Touch of The Shining

Comparing Jack's Nightmare in The Shining to the Problem of the Monster ID in Forbidden Planet

That Thing in the Elevator in The Shining

The Clenched Fist of Jack Torrance

The July 4th 1921 Ball Photo

Possible Influence of the 1969 Traumnovelle film on The Shining

The Shining and L'Inhumaine?

The Nietzsche Stone, The Shining, and the Opening of 2001 : The Influence of the Nietzsche's Madness and Dostoevsky's Horse

Nietzsche, The Shining, and The White Man's Burden

Examining the Relationships in The King of Marvin Gardens, and the Possibility of a Reference to Kubrick's Lolita (also a brief discussion of Crothers and Nicholson, who are both in this film, being reunited in The Shining)

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The Maps

Maps of the Overlook Hotel

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The Locations

I had thought it fun to study the locations of the shots on the Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier National Park in particular, and below are posts showing shots from Google Street View of the locations. All of the below are in the blog portion of the website.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view pinpointing the locations of the opening shots on Going-to-the-sun-road are in the following posts:
St. Mary Lake
Serpentine Bends
Before the Narrows
Helicopter Takes a Pass
Entering the West tunnel
Exiting the West Tunnel
The East Tunnel (not used in the film)
After the West Tunnel
Last Shot of Glacier Park in the Opening

Though the Overlook is in Colorado, these opening shots, along with the Closing Day shots, pinpoint a kind of psychological place for the lodge as being on the Continental Divide. The final crossfades to the lodge occur before it. In the opening, the VW travels east to west and the final crossfade out to the lodge occurs east of the Continental Divide. In the Closing Day section, the VW travels west to east on the road and the final crossfade to the lodge occurs west of the Continental Divide. Kubrick often gives us several perspectives of a scene. Such as with there being several perspectives for the "shining" in Room 237. Such as the several mazes. We have the set maze outside the Overlook, we have the map for the maze (different from the set maze), we have the model maze (different from the set maze), and then finally he shows us the "world maze" in which the left mirrors the right side. This is a double labrys--the labyrinth--and we may find the same with the VW approaching the Overlook from either side of the Continental Divide.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view pinpointing the locations of the ascent on Closing Day.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view pinpointing the locations of Monarch Pass and the Monarch.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view pinpointing the location of the Boulder apartment.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view showing the view down the mountain and the maze of ski slopes before the Timberline.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view of the Miami Channel 10 radio station and where the Stapleton airport was once located and the Westminster/Boulder exit from Denver that Dick passes by on his way to the Overlook.

Repurposed shot from Google Maps street view showing the exterior of a snow-drenched Timberline/Overlook.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view showing Dick's travels up the mountain to the Overlook. Through sheer luck I believe I may have been able to pinpoint the location in which the Snowcat is shown in a pristine winter wonderland that hardly seems real, but is.

Repurposed shots from Google Maps street view showing a couple supplemental, pretty shots of the Timberline area.

Notes on the Analyses

Are you one of the league who find Kubrick's cinema fascinating and wonderful but are also confused by seeming peculiarities? Are you certain those often under-the-radar-over-the-head weirdnesses must mean something? Or maybe you're just curious? Here's my request. That you, please, think in terms of art with intention, which isn't conspiracy and has nothing to do with conspiracy theories. Would you think of music composed of unspoken themes as being conspiracy? What's difficult is teasing out the artist's conscious intention as versus accidental as versus the viewer's role as an active pilgrim walking the road that art provides to accessing the unconscious and mythic, the vast knowledge that has been archived in your brain from birth forward of symbols and metaphors and archetypes through navigating the warehouse of such that is actively and passively feeding you in the cultures of everyday society. As an author and artist, I know what it is to hope for at least a few such pilgrims, confident they are the minority, that most think in terms of being only entertained, and to attempt to compose for both. Even with those who are just wanting a good story, or who want to dissect a film for practical good-cinema purposes, the majority would likely admit that it is the inherent mystery in Kubrick's films that functions as their primary gravity. It is that sense of something deeper, a subterranean coherence that provides the glue, that compels individuals to return and perhaps begin to move, without their even realizing it, from a passive state into a more active, participatory role where art becomes a transformative experience rather than just visual popcorn. For that matter, even a simple detective story can actively engage the viewer, and Kubrick's films have a touch of the detective genre to them. For instance, at the end of The Shining Kubrick zooms in on Jack seemingly appearing in an old photograph of The Overlook, and he is holding what looks like a little slip of paper, a little rectangle of white in the palm of his hand, as if displaying it for us, but what is it? One is compelled to try to solve the mystery of Jack in the photo, what could be in his hand, so one watches the movie again. That's the sleuthing, detective part of watching Kubrick's films.

The most important thing which must be kept in mind with Kubrick's films is there is the surface or principle story and then the internal or sub-story. In many of his films, if we're really paying attention, set elements pretty much immediately destroy the surface naturalism. One may not notice this deconstruction the first, second or third time one watches the film. Through constructive disorientation and disconnectedness, and sleight of hand as to where our eye focuses, Kubrick, the magician, intentionally obfuscates and reveals these elements that betray the overt and naturalistic story line as being artifice, a studio fiction that rests upon something both more solid and also bizarre. The surface story lines are the principle ones, but they are maintained and supported by the sub rosa dialogue. These deconstructive elements are plainly there, alongside his tremendous effort to make things look real and believable, and play with a purposeful sense of disorientation that when locked into exposes a puzzle that annihilates the sense of reality. This destruction of the film's naturalistic story line is difficult enough to conceive of and accept, and it's easy enough to stop at this point and decide these puzzling aspects of Kubrick's films are errors. But they are not. They are part of the art of a director cleverly designing the overt story line to be unimpeded by an internal story that tears it apart. Indeed, the sub rosa elements of the internal story may be discreet but they are enough in evidence to complicate the surface story with an aura of attractive, indefinable mystery, which is one of the reasons viewers return to Kubrick again and again. To work with the "reason" and "why" of the internal story line is to try to settle into Kubrick's sensibility, examining how these internal stories form a dialogue in his oeuvre with repeating themes and ideas, elaborated upon from film to film. The internal stories haven't a "plot"; they aren't that kind of story. Instead, you have to be willing to deal with comprehending the themes and ideas represented in them as ultimately forming a different terrain for the setting of the surface story, guiding and interacting with the overt story and giving it a new form in the hands of the participant viewer who is engaged rather than a passive recipient.

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Link to the main TOC page for all the analyses

STANLEY KUBRICK'S THE SHINING Shot-by-Shot Analysis Table of Contents

Introduction

Analysis of The Shining - Table of Contents

Part One -- The Opening

Part Two -- The Interview

Part Three -- Closing Day

Part Four -- A Month Later

Part Five -- Tuesday

Part Six -- Thursday

Part Seven -- Saturday

Part Eight -- Monday

Part Nine -- Wednesday (One)

Part Ten -- Wednesday (Two)

Part Eleven -- 8 AM

Part Twelve -- 4 PM

Supplemental

The Maps

The Locations

Notes on the Analyses

STANLEY KUBRICK'S THE SHINING
Shot-by-Shot Analysis
Table of Contents