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Secrets of The Shining: Or How Faking the Moon Landings Nearly Cost Stanley Kubrick his Marriage and his Life. By Jay Weidner AND DAVID BOWIE MAJOR
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Secrets of The Shining:
Or How Faking the Moon Landings Nearly
Cost Stanley Kubrick his Marriage and his Life.
By Jay Weidner
Copyright 2009 Sacred Mysteries Productions
For more information on how Stanley Kubrick faked the Apollo moon landings go here
The Shining is surely Stanley Kubrick's most misunderstood masterpiece.
I use the word 'masterpiece' guardedly because I have never really thought that The Shining was a very good film.
At the time, in 1980 when I first saw it, I didn't like it at all. The way that Kubrick threw out so much of Stephen King's great source material and replaced it with a lot of things that just didn't seem to make any sense, really bothered me.
Hopefully, before I am finished with this essay, the reader will see it is only when Kubrick dramatically alters the script from Stephen King's novel that we can begin to understand what Stanley Kubrick is trying to tell us in his version of The Shining.
It should be understood from the beginning that The Shining is Stanley Kubrick's most personal film (outside of, possibly, Eyes Wide Shut). Before we are done here it will be easy to see that Kubrick was only using Stephen King's novel as a launching pad (excuse the pun) to be able to tell a completely different story under the guise of making a film based on a best-selling novel. He did this for a very important reason - mainly to save his life.
Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
In fact, let's start at the beginning.
There are two main characters in the film, Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) and his son Danny (played by Danny Lloyd).
It is important to understand here that Jack and Danny are two aspects of Stanley Kubrick himself. Jack is the practical, pragmatic guy who wants to be a great artist. And he is, apparently, willing to do anything to accomplish his goal of being an artist (writer). Jack, like Stanley has black hair, he is idiosyncratic and even smokes the same cigarettes as Stanley (Marlboro).
Danny is the other side of the great director. He is the child-like Kubrick. It is Danny who is actually the real artist.
The Danny side of Kubrick side is psychic, youthful and sees things that no one else sees. Danny also has a tendency to tell people things that should be kept quiet.
The first part of the The Shining is probably the longest, most boring, 58 minutes in Kubrick's career.
The opening of the film takes place with us witnessing Stanley's pragmatic side, Jack, cutting a deal with the Manager of the Overlook Hotel.
The deal between Jack and the Manager of the Overlook is that Jack can write (that is - create) all that he wants as long as he "takes care" of The Overlook.
One other important point is that the Manager of The Overlook tells Jack that the previous caretaker went crazy from the stress of the job and killed his wife and two girls.
Jack says he is "intrigued" but takes the deal anyway.
The Manager of the Overlook Hotel is wearing red, white and blue. Jack's wife Wendy (played by Shelly Duval) and his son Danny also wear red, white and blue for almost the entire first hour of the film.
In this symbolic interpretation the Overlook Hotel is AMERICA. It was built, just like the Manager says, on the graves of Indians. Even when walking on the floor of the Overlook Hotel, one finds oneself trampling over various Native American symbols.
The Overlook Hotel itself is America.
Like America, the Overlook Hotel is new and shiny. It is ostentatious, corny and architecturally boring. As the Manager tells Wendy "All of the best people stayed here".
But there is something very deep happening. Kubrick brushed shoulders with the elite of the world. He knows what is going on.
We have to begin to understand Kubrick's story from his use of symbols. As I like to say: if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a symbol is worth a thousand pictures. For it will be through the use of symbol that the real story of The Shining can be revealed.
The Manager of the Overlook, while interviewing Jack, has an American Eagle right behind his head. It is as if "The Eagle" is the power behind the Manager.
Not only is the Eagle the symbol of America but it should be noted that the Lunar Lander of the Apollo 11 mission was called "The Eagle". To the Manager's right on the desk is an American flag.
Symbolically the Manager (played by Barry Nelson) is the face of the government of the United States. Jack has cut this deal with the government to be the "caretaker" of the Hotel.
The Manager tells Jack that his main job is to prevent the Overlook Hotel (America) from appearing like it is decaying. The Manager reiterates that this is Jack's primary responsibility.
On their first day in the Hotel, Danny has a vision of the previous caretaker's daughters, and he sees that they are twins. The previous caretaker's daughters were not twins in the Stephen King novel. This discrepancy between the book and the film will grow in importance as we continue.
Jack, Danny and Wendy also meet Dick Halorann who is the cook for the Overlook. He befriends Danny and it is through him that Danny discovers that he is not alone when it comes to psychic ability.
Dick warns Danny to stay away from Room 237.
Jack, Wendy and Danny have now fully moved into the Hotel. There is a long cold winter ahead of them. At first Jack loves the hotel but he is having problems with his writing. Also he cannot sleep. Meanwhile Wendy and Danny are having fun.
Jack is not writing. Instead he is throwing a tennis ball at the wall in the room where his typewriter sits. On the wall, which is being struck by the tennis ball, is a Native American artistic motif that looks suspiciously like a group of rockets about to be launched.
Jack throwing the ball at the rocket/arrows on the wall.
Apollo was the god of Archery. Jack is playing ball with Apollo's arrows
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