Three minutes into the movie and we come face to face with the words, The Interview in block letters resembling the beginning of a chapter. ", Doctor: "Does Tony ever ask you to do things? Guillermo del Toro said hi to her once. The Shining Caretaker Explained, Every Shining Character Who Returns In Doctor Sleep. Kubrick deliberately left many things unexplained, including many details from the third act he did, however, explain why Jack Torrance appears in The Shining picture at the end. Of course, the ghost of Grady freeing Jack from the freezer remains hard to explain away, although that doesn't stop some from trying. This led to him intentionally reversing a lot of features from the book, changing them, experimenting with them and using disrupted continuity. He came as the caretaker, but this hotel had its own guardians - who'd been there a long time. Danny on the other hand after the physical trauma goes into a semi-conscious state, Tony taking hold of the reigns and keeps on repeating the word redrum in a very mechanical trance. There is also Jack and Danny's conversation in the apartment suite with Danny on Jack's lap. He also informs Jack about Danny involving an outside party (Halloran) in the situation and stresses on words like will, to upset Jack. Its Tuesday, and frankly speaking shits about to go down. In any other film from any other director, you may discard the information as sheer coincidence, but Kubrick was famously cryptic, scattering clues and imagery throughout each and every one of his films leading to a more concealed secret. The Shining's Room 237 is known for having a female specter, as referenced when Jack encounters a woman in the bath. Wendy distraught over Dannys deteriorating state goes looking for Jack and finds hundreds of pages by his typewriter, all of them clustered with the sentence All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All Rights Reserved. This truly sums up the enigmatic genius of the great Stanley Kubrick. The horrific happenings, the fact that the Torrance family is trapped, and the suggestion that Jack has been in the hotel for decades support The Shining analysis that the Overlook represents hell. Connecting the dots, The Shining bear man and his partner could be stand-ins for Danny and Jack. Where the clear subtext and The Shining abuse theory diverge is on the type and extent of the abuse. published July 29, 2020. Hasnt she ever challenged him on this? We see a disoriented Danny walking towards them and spot bruises on his neck, with Wendy putting the blame on Jack, eventually reminding him of his earlier physical assault on Danny. Theseus was a king of Athens and one of the legendary heroes of old. When she's not writing, you can find her trying to learn a new language, watching hockey (go Avs! Wendy seems to be thoroughly disturbed by this and runs away. Simply put, this The Shining analysis posits that the film is just as much about the genocide of Native Americans as it is about ghosts haunting the hotel. Here he is discussing said adaptation. In the psychiatrist scene Danny lays on the bed with his jeans removed and his hands curiously covering his groin area, just as Jack did in the fatherly love scene. But believers of this theory point to the word below the skier as proof: Monarch.. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. One strong and memorable element of The Shining that didnt directly factor into any of these theories was the soundtrack. Is this implying that Jack forced his son to perform felatio in the fatherly love scene? The bear man appears to be giving felatio to the man on the bed, just as the dog man in the book was carrying out a sexual submission role with his partner. The novel and subsequent film differ in significant ways. The Overlooks cook, Dick Hallorann, arrives to help Wendy and Danny after the latter reaches out to him through the shining, but is ambushed and killed by Jack. In this post, well break down the six biggest theories on The Shining, including our own theory that its actually a Christmas movie! But, to be perfectly honest, every other piece of evidence in support of this theory is beyond far-fetched and not to be taken seriously. Ager cites Jack's experience in Room 237 as evidence that he's abusing his son. In one of the most beautiful 5 minutes on the big screen (the heavenly use of colors and symmetry and such calm destruction of the imaginary axis), we see Grady convince Jack to correct his family and reminds him that he has always been the caretaker, which was then shown in the B/W picture at the end. The most obvious parallel is that both stories feature their combating opponents showing down in a sprawling maze. Wendy Torrance, (played by Shelly Duvall) frantically roams the halls of the Overlook Hotel looking for her son Danny while her husband, Jack Torrence ( played by Jack Nicholson) goes on an axe rampage. In the games room, Danny encounters the two girls who are supposed to be the Grady twins. ", Related: What Jack Nicholson Was Really Like Filming The Shining. One of the most memorable scenes from The Shining is the blood coming out from the elevator. Danny (manifested as his own father in room 237) embraces the naked woman and sees the horror of his predicament in a mirror. Jack hadnt slida single drop of liquor for the past 5 months, a vow out of guilt. While he may be one of the weirdest Overlook Hotel ghosts in the movie, Mike Flanagan decided to keep all the ghosts that would've stuck with Danny the most, and that wasn't the bear man. The dog/sexual abuse interpretation hasnt been confirmed by those involved in the film, so its up to each viewer if they accept it or not. This makes sense when going back to his conversation with Grady in the bathroom, where the butler tells Jack that he has always been the caretaker. It also fits with the role of both Grady characters mentioned in the film: the past caretaker and the ghost. Danny writes REDRUM with a red crayon on the door of the bathroom while Wendys sleeping and starts repeating it to wake her up. In addition to the sexual innuendos of the doctors conversation, theres one further scene in the film that adds to the mystery in question, occurring when Hotel managers Stuart Ullman and Bill Watson approach Jack on the closing day of the Overlook. It could well be a metaphor for the immortality of evil, with Jack being the most relatable character to the audience to depict that and also to be noted is Gradys absence and the fact that the picture appears only after Jack froze to death. For more information, please see our Stephen King's Doctor Sleep follows an adult Danny Torrance after the events at The Overlook Hotel and his endeavor to find closure. Coming back to The Overlook, Jack then starts hacking through the main door of their quarters with an axe, while Wendy and Danny run into the bathroom. Its understood for people to develop a separate identity as a result of trauma, with the identity built upon the very details of such incidents, i.e, Tony living in Dannys mouth and Dannys reluctance to talk about it. Kubrick used a yellow car instead of a red one and used a red snowcar contrary to yellow in the novel. Additionally, lines of dialogue such as white mans burden further support this association. Back in Boulder, we meet Jacks wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and his son Danny. At The Overlook Hotel, there is a picture of two bears above Danny's bed, and there's a prominently featured bear skin rug in the lobby. Coincidence much? Sam Kench is an internationally-awarded screenwriter, independent filmmaker, and film critic. Without Kubrick around to spell out his intentions, the answer is probably not. In an interview (via Huffington Post), Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan discussed why he didn't include this particular character, and his reasoning makes sense. Bullingdon bares a striking resemblance to Danny Torrance. The novel provides Roger and Horace's story as an example of atrocities that have happened in the hotel; in a cruel act of domination, Horace instructed Roger to attend one of the hotel's balls in the costume and behave like a dog for the other guests. This is one of the more popular and widely circulated The Shining theories, but its also one of the sillier interpretations. As well as the incest parallels with the film Lolita, The Shining also carries abuse parallels with another Kubrick film called Barry Lyndon. Privacy Policy. When Shelley Duvall witnesses the bear giving oral sex to another man, she is confronting the true horror and cruelty of her husbands actions toward her son, animating in front of her eyes as a disturbing vision. With a narrative that's as puzzling and confusing as the hedge maze found in the terrifying climax, The Shining has led fans to rack their head for it's various meanings for the past 40 years. Because of that, The Shining book and movie are very different entities, and details that are explained or at least easier to interpret in the novel are either not included or left very ambiguous in the film. He might have had his anger under control for a while before taking the job, but he went back to it there. From the sinister musical scoring to the casts class acts, the film has all the components for a great horror movie. The aforementioned Room 237 doc covers this theory and the following video digs even deeper into this Native American genocide interpretation. At first glance, the scene in which The Shining bear appears seems brief and, quite frankly, somewhat forgettable given all the other intense imagery in Kubrick's classic. The one on the left would be overlapped by the stretched size of 237, seen in the bathroom scene and the one on the right shows a stairway going downstairs where Room 237 is. We see Jack at a table and the camera zooms in from behind, like an entity of its own very similar to most of the movie where the camera has a quite latching presence. The sexual abuse theme is even communicated in the making of documentary. It seems that commitment to family is a problem for all of these males. Here is a piece of evidence which on its own acts as virtual confirmation of this theme. There seems to be many hints in the film that Wendy is aware of her sons abuse and is covering up and denying the issue. When Jack walks from the reception to the room, the camera travels in a perpendicular fashion highlighting the angle of the room and the apparent absence of a wall behind Ullmans room. Kubricks mind is the limit to its extensiveness. And the parallels continue. A very expensive split-second because it requires a working second storey to be added to the already incredibly large Lounge set. This theory not only gives The Shining a darker turn but also gives meaning to the over-analyzed s cene of the man in the tuxedo and the one in a bear costume. Watch the scene below and let us know what you think the scariest scene in The Shining is. Hedge animals and objects coming to life, Gradys ghost, generalized and plot favored characterization, the spirit of the Overlook Hotel and playing safe with the gore; stuff like this grows campy over time and Kubrick turned this into an atmospheric psychological horror. But there are also plenty of ludicrously far-fetched The Shining conspiracy theories that made the cut as well. This theory goes all the way back to classic Greek myths. Yes, one involves the furries. Here's the end of The Shining explained. He also informs Danny about the hotels ability to shine owing to its tragic past from being built on an Indian burial site to the murders, discovered and undiscovered. Kubrick was never into the idea of making a typical horror film, and he certainly got what he wanted out of the film, even if Stephen King didn't like it. Master the art of visual storytelling with our FREE video series on directing and filmmaking techniques. He is unable to put his undivided attention towards detailing while writing the story or thinking about it, since his consciousness pertains to a limit of recollection. Vitali became a close career-long collaborator of Kubricks and on the set of The Shining he was assigned to work closely with the young actor Danny Lloyd (there are several parallels in The Shining between actors first names and the first names of characters two Jacks, two Dannys and two Lloyds). The young woman had inexplicably transformed into an old lady who walks after the frantic Jack laughing all the while. Kubrick was renowned for not allowing visitors during a shoot, but in the documentary we see James Mason and his family visiting the Torrance apartment set. The visual imagery along with the symbolism, sound and production design, character mannerisms or dialogues have their own story to telland every single one of them could take you down through a different path, like a maze except theres no area of convergence. The last of our The Shiningmovie theories is the most cogent of the bunch:The Shining abuse theory. Kubrick decided to direct a comparatively crowd appealing film, maybe as a result of the financially poor performance of Barry Lyndon, which by many revered critics and filmmakers is considered to be his best film. Buy a book on film making from any part of the world, either Russia or Japan or Sweden, and youll find this name mentioned not once but in every chapter, ranging from minutely monumental details like breaking the 180 degree rule to establishing genres like science fiction and satirical comedy. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within. One of the many mysteries of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is why Jack appears in the photo at the end, and it actually has a semi-simple explanation. At the time, the film made modest profits and was met with lukewarm reviews ("Even the film's most startling images seem overbearing and perhaps even irrelevant," shrugged . I've never read the book. The Shining is a film about cyclical violence, and about how we can't escape the dark specter of history. The Shining Ending Explained: Why Jack Is In The Photo, The Shining Movie's Most Significant Difference From Stephen King's Book, IT Chapter Two's Shining Reference Hints At Stephen King's Shared Universe, The Shining Has An Alternate Ending You Will NEVER See, What Jack Nicholson Was Really Like Filming The Shining, Lloyd the bartender was never a real person, The Shining: The True Story & Real-Life Hotel Behind The Movie. Charles Grady killed his family with an axe, and Jack was on track to replicate that. It's certainly an impactful moment that brings the movie full circle, seeing Jack become a part of the famous Overlook hotel ghosts once and for all. The novel decided to show all the images at the beginning, while Kubrick decided to use the conventional step by step process to create suspense. Coming to Room 237 again, it was Jack who physically assaulted Danny and not the old lady, who serves as a metaphor for the disgusting act carried out by Jack on Danny, and this is exactly why it is shown through a mirror. He also made a brief appearance in one of the bizarre " WTF ?" scenes in the 1980 adaptation of The Shining by director Stanley Kubrick. The most disturbing aspect of the movie and something that creeped me out after thinking about it (I am an avid horror movie fan but this aspect is just terrifying). Kubrick thought topiary animals might be too goofy and cute, but he always liked the idea of a maze." This scene is during the most climatic part of the movie. Jack as warned by Grady kills Halloran with a strike to the chest in the lobby. Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. Halloran grows concerned about whats going on in the hotel and flies back to Colorado. The infamous bear costume scene and the quick view of Jack reading a Playgirl magazine are pointed to as evidence that Dannys abuse goes beyond physical into sexual. Along with a painting on the wall of the Overlook that could be interpreted as the head of a bull atop the body of a man, though not in a literal sense. This fan theory posits that Danny is Theseus and Jack is the minotaur in Kubricks extended metaphor. The Bear Man is the biggest evidence of Dannys sexual abuse. Either way, The Shining is not so much a ghost story in a literal sense, but a story about the ghosts (or demons, in some cases) of violence and abuse, and how these can come back to continue with the cycle. "I love it so much, but I was afraid that once we brought him back, it evokes all the images from the original down to the open butt flap of the costume. Also to be noted, this is the first time we see Jack in the burgundy jacket, the color similar to that of the liquid gushing out of the elevator in Dannys vision. . Perhaps explaining The Shining in this manner falls more in line with the book rather than the film despite the conjecture to the contrary. Its eyes are similar in design to the floor dials of the gaping mouth elevator, which weve already identified as symbolic eyes, and the teddys mouth is bright red, which again is similar to the gaping mouth doors of the elevator. One of the things that horror stories can do is to show us the archetypes of the unconscious; we can see the dark side without having to confront it directly. And both of them have sexual relations with a minor within their own family unit. But there was always one particular scene in the movie that left me with an unsettling feeling: the bear man scene. In the book, the man dressed in a suit is actually Horace Derwent, the mysterious owner of the Overlook Hotel, and the man in the costume (which is a dog in the book) is Roger, a one-time lover of his. The Shining's Overlook Hotel itself also has a history of cyclical violence: it was built over an Indian burial ground, and by its existence is a testament to the violence of colonization. Directly above Dannys bed is a framed picture of two bears, one standing and one sitting. The first thing to note is that in the film the guy is dressed in a bear costume instead of a dog costume. Stanley Kubrick's iconic Stephen King adaptation is intentionally dense and even nonsensical at times. In The Shining, Danny and Hallorann are the two characters with shining abilities, which allows them to communicate with each other even when miles apart. Its now even more clear why Kubrick chose such a sombre piece of music for the fatherly love scene. Others believe its the blood of all the lives claimed by the forces of the hotel, which might be the most convincing explanation. Related:Are Charles & Delbert Grady The Same Person? This is one of the more straightforward and most believableThe Shiningtheories in circulation. Proponents of this theory also point to objects and furniture in the background moving and disappearing between takes as further evidence. On the way he sees the corridors filled with balloons and ribbons and discovers a huge party going on in the Gold Room. 13 minutes into the movie when Danny wakes up in his bedroom, his head rests on a bear pillow and very surprisingly 13 minutes from the end we encounter the bear man. The scene with the man in the dog costume and the man in a tuxedo is the one used to support this theory, which says the dog represents young Danny Torrance (who earlier in the film is shown to have a plush toy) and the man in the tuxedo represents Jack. She was also a contributor for FanSided's BamSmackPow and 1428 Elm. Not only that, but Wendy is wearing Jacks blue robe. Theres the woman in room 237 obviously, but theres also a woman walking down a flight of stairs in the lobby who he briefly stares at and theres the two women who say goodbye to Ullman outside the Torrance apartment Jack is last to enter the apartment and sneaks a sly peak at them. One of the most chilling and surprising shots in the movie is the man in the horrible, bear suit giving felattio to a man dressed in a tuxedo. If you love The Shining, then theres a good chance that youre a fan of the horror genre. Based on the book of the same name by Stephen King, The Shining follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic who takes a job as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Sees the corridors filled with balloons and ribbons and discovers a huge party going on the. 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