Having moved the body of the post to html, am restoring for the comments on the section.
If you are inclined to leave a comment, please keep it civil and relevant. I moderate.
Comments for an Analysis of The Shining – Tuesday
Tags:
Comments
14 responses to “Comments for an Analysis of The Shining – Tuesday”
-
I believe that Danny’s brief vision of the girls as he tries 237 door is simply a warning to stay out, and a post-cognitive reflexive response on his part. It is perhaps the hotel’s way of telling him that the room is the central lair of the evil in the place. I used to think maybe 237 was where Grady had stacked his wife/daughters’ bodies, but now I think the room is simply the “see-all” “know-all” heart of the hotel’s abilities and evil presence.
-
The two girls have always struck me as being connected in a way with the double doors of room 237. Not that they were killed there, but Kubrick seems to me to use them as doors. After all, it’s via the two girls that Danny is invited to come and play with them forever and ever and ever. The hotel itself could be behind them.
-
I like your point about double, or duality..I think this seems to be a recurring theme throughout the movie…I don’t think they were killed in room 237 at all, I actually think they are Charles Grady’s girls and were killed where Danny saw them, in the staff (west) wing..I think they are shown at room 237 when Danny first sees it because they are warning him to stay out (that it is the heart of the hotel’s evil), and that the double doors represent the hotel’s history of ghostly duality (Delbert Grady of the 1920s, convincing Charles Grady of the 1970s to assume the murderous path). The young woman in room 237 might be the Grady girls’ murdered mother, but I think this unlikely. I think room 237 is indirectly related to the girls at best.
-
I ended up reading this excellent analysis as I was surfing the net, looking to see if other people had similar ideas as myself on the reason for the Susan Robertson reference. It seems to me that she is the same age as the naked woman in 237 (age 24). I’m a fan of movies involving the supernatural when all of the characters’ actions can be explained without resorting to the paranormal. If Jack Torrence killed Susan Robertson, it’s possible that Danny walked in on him. Jack may have hurt Danny at that point, and it adds more credence to Danny’s knowledge of a murder, which is not a premonition, it has already occurred. When Jack returns to the room he is consumed by the actions of Grady, and imagines the dead woman, who was presumably older. Danny’s reliance on Tony as a defense mechanism increases, etc…
-
Interesting interpretation. I am not sure the Susan Robertson thing is an actual part of room 237, or just something Kubrick added to confuse us. I still hold to my belief that room 237 is basically the beating heart of the evil presence in the hotel, and can take any form to seduce, tempt, or hurt. In Danny’s case, he was strangled by the presence, whatever form it took (as we do not see Danny’s encounter in room 237). I think the “woman” in there may not be the ghost of an actual person, but just one manifestation of the evil presence in the hotel.
-
Lindsey, I think at the very least the introduction of Susan Robertson, however throw away it seems, is intended to keep the options open ended for what happens at the Overlook. “Who was the woman? Well, think back, it could have been Susan Robertson!” Danny first goes to the door of Room 237 after this. And when Wendy approaches Jack to tell him about the story of the impending storm, we have the first on screen exhibition of his abuse. She is one of the primary doors to a non paranormal option and in that way the story can continue to build out in diverse directions after the movie is over and done with, becoming not just a supernatural mystery but a possible thriller. Not to mention her disappearance adds to the sense of anxiety.
-
After recently watching the film again, (it never gets old!) I wondered about the curious specific reference to the missing Susan Robertson in the news report on the tv as Wendy is in the kitchen preparing a meal. Kubrick would not arbitrarily inject something into the storyline, so I wonder if in fact Jack, who is slipping into madness, did in fact murder Susan. The Torrances would have already been at the Overlook for a month, and Susan had been missing 10 days, so the timeline would fit. While the age of the initial young woman in room 237 would appear to be around Susan Robertson’s age (24), I still think there probably isn’t a literal connection between her and room 237. I still maintain that room 237 is simply the central beating heart of the evil presence in the hotel, and it can manifest in any way shape or form once the force in the room has been tapped into. Kubrick may have simply put the Susan Robertson story in just to create ambiguity, make us wonder if the hotel (through Jack) had done something to her. He makes us wonder just how early Jack succumbs to the Hotel’s evil intentions. It is conceivable that the lost Susan Robertson stumbled upon the hotel before the snow comes, and Jack does something bad to her. It just adds to the overall sense of uncertainty and dread around the isolated hotel, which is exactly what Kubrick wanted!
-
The ghostly doorknob just blew me away!
And I immediately referred it to the silver doorknob on Danny’s bedroomdoor in the Boulder appartment.
I checked it and the similarity is obvious > http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/5707/doorknob.jpgAs you already suggested Danny is sleeping/dreaming when teking a ride on his bigwheel and encounters Room 237 and has visions of the twins and we see the ghostly doorknob.
Again this is a parallel to Danny’s trauma of his father abusing him, hence the doorknob of his bedroom showing up in the Room 237 encounter-vision/dream.
Just a thought…. Thanks for your wonderful analysis!
-
Sprout, there is a similarity, as you show. I had previously wondered if the Boulder’s bedroom door isn’t suggested, as it is rounded whereas the fronts of the doorknobs at the Overlook are flat or slightly concave. I was never really certain, however, that the knobs may be identical. But they could be. They look very much alike especially in the screen grab you have.
I make comparisons between the “shinings” with Jacob’s ladder, which is associated with dreaming, yes–and Danny likens his visionary experiences to being like he goes to sleep and can’t recollect everything when he wakes up.
-
-
Wow, I have seen this film many times and never noticed the ghostly doorknob on the wall in the hallway by room 237, or the open door of room 236! Just goes to show the brilliance of Kubrick, there is always something new to discover! That open door really disturbs me for some reason. It’s just eerie! I think Danny is naturally curious about room 237, based on what Halloran told him about the room, and also his own hunches. I’m sure Danny knows something is very wrong with the hotel, and room 237 is the key, although he doesn’t know quite how just yet. The brief vision of the two girls clearly seem to be a warning for him to stay out, or bad things will happen. If the girls are in fact the murdered Grady girls, then they probably are implying that Danny will suffer the same fate that their family did if room 237 is entered.
But what of the open door across the hall, it is clearly not open when Danny first rolls up to room 237, but once he steps off his scooter, and approaches room 237, the door of what seems to be room 236 is clearly open. Kubrick was such a meticulous director, this surely cannot be an accident or oversight. It must mean something. But what? Is someone, or something lurking in the open door? Could it be Jack, perhaps? Or maybe Susan Robertson? Or just a trick of the hotel itself? The possibilities seem endless? Danny clearly doesn’t seem to notice the open door, he is focused on getting away from room 237 as quickly as possible it seems, once he finds the doors locked.
That open door across from room 237 is so obvious, yet hidden at the same time, it’s as if the hotel is playing a sick game of hide and seek or truth or dare with Danny, urging his curiosity. It seems to me that someone, or something is in that open room, watching Danny from the shadows. Remember just before this scene, we hear the tv news report Wendy watched in the kitchen about Susan Robertson having gone missing. I have to believe Kubrick intends us to make some connection with this in some way with the hotel. Maybe Susan somehow stumbled onto the hotel while she was lost, and either encountered a mentally unstable Jack, or the hotel’s forces, unbenownst to the Torrances. At any rate, perhaps she lost her life to Jack or by her own hand, and the hotel assimilated her like all the other victims it has claimed. I suppose we will never know, but I get the strong suspicion that Jack, Susan, or the hotel is watching Danny from that open door. Susan is somehow related to the hotel, I feel sure of this now.
But wow, that open door really gives me the creeps! Adds a whole other layer to the confusing maze that is the Overlook.
-
And another thing, in the film, we only see one murder actually occur, Jack killing Halloran. But it is of course known that many other deaths probably happened at the hotel over the years. But maybe, just maybe, Jack succumbed to murder FAR earlier in the plot than we are intended to believe. Danny started seeing horrible visions of terror and blood as early as the Boulder apartment. Of course, Danny doesn’t know what “redrum” means, only his subconscious, Tony does. Tony clearly wants Danny to know that the hotel means BIG trouble for him and probably his whole family. But I now have a tentative theory that maybe another murder occured during the Torrance’s stay at the Overlook. Not Halloran’s which happens at the end of the movie, but one much earlier.
Maybe, just maybe, Susan Robertson stumbled upon the Overlook either just before the big snow, or after, and somehow Jack found her, unknown to Wendy & Danny. This wouldn’t have been hard to do, Jack had basically made Wendy & Danny for that matter feel pretty off-limits to much of the hotel, so Jack pretty well had the run of the whole place to himself. And Jack clearly was showing major signs of mental instability very early on (remember when he was watching Wendy and Danny play in the snow, and an evil glow seemed to light him up from nowhere). So my tentative theory has Susan somehow finding the hotel, and running into Jack (who was basically possessed by the hotel), who killed her and stashed her body somewhere. This seems entirely plausible to me. Why else would Kubrick include this specific kernel of information, it clearly seems to imply that more is going on at the hotel than meets they eye.
I think early on, shortly before or after the snow began to fall, Susan found the hotel, and Jack found her, and they had some kind of unknown encounter, and Jack or the hotel (which were basically one and the same) by that point killed her, and maybe just maybe she was hidden in room 237 or the open door (room 236?)seen when Danny tries to open room 237. So perhaps all of the very early visions Danny had via Tony were warning of more than one murder.
If this theory is true, and Susan was at the Overlook and died, then the body count during the Torrance’s stay was 3, rather than 2.
-
Josh, we’re certainly set up to entertain the possibility of Susan having made her way to the hotel–I do believe that. But The Overlook is a place of so many peculiarities and impossibilities that I, personally, can’t look on Kubrick’s “The Shining” as a standard kind of storytelling where we are to find somewhere in the mysteries an answer that satisfies the desire for a literal interpretation.
As I’ve written about the open door, I think Kubrick hid it in plain sight. It’s obviously there, once one notices it. It’s partly just plain wonderful cinematic sleight of hand, as the audience is so focused on what Kubrick intends to be focal point that we miss this obvious WTH. He could do that and even have Danny ride right past the room and we still miss the open door. A true magician. And it works in well with the audience missing much at The Overlook, just as does Bill miss much in “Eyes Wide Shut”.
-
-
193 CU Jack.(43:18) jack is sitting between the two chess pawns (one on each side)
-
You’re right. It does look like chess pawns to either side of him.
-
Leave a Reply