Facebook: Kubrick's The Shining

[Wellesnet]

Kevin Stoehr
Danny Lloyd's one other performance was a movie about Watergate. Community college science teacher now. He forbids his students to ask about The Shining

Mike Lafavore
REDRUM

Joseph McBride
That sweater helped me fully understand Kubrick. I realized Danny is the Star Child from 2001, the next step in human evolution.

Laurent Vachaud
in french, Stephen King's book was called L'enfant-lumière.

Joseph McBride
I see that the full title of the French edition was SHINING, L'ENFANT-LUMIERE, and that edition was published in 1977 (the Kubrick film was released in 1980). Intriguing choice of title.

Laurent Vachaud
Joseph McBride, first it was just called L'enfant-lumière. They added Shining after the film was released.

Joseph McBride
Laurent Vachaud, Thanks for clarifying that.

Laurent Vachaud
I remember thinking exactly like you when i first saw the french title. It was already out that Kubrick had picked the book to be his next film ( Brian De Palma told Michael Henry about it in Positif in early 1977 ) and it made me think of the starchild ).

Kevin Stoehr
Danny as Star Child. I will have what you are smoking. Many boys like rockets and astronauts. 2001 reference maybe, but only to rocketry. Danny Torrance's tragic life (far from that of an archetypal advance for humanity) continues in King's Doctor Sleep, now about to be filmed. I see King's story as an Abraham-Isaac extrnsion. King saw it more as a story about alcoholism, which is also true of Doctor Sleep. King is a successful member of AA. Kubrick told Nicholson it is an ultimately "optimistic" film because any ghost story suggests immortality.

https://www.ifc.com/2016/06/the-shining ... y-theories

Danny's story is a very tragic tale, couched in horror symbolism, dealing with the extreme breakdown of family values at the hands of a failed recovering alcoholic. In some ways it echoes the awful family life of Barry Lyndon and foreshadows the descent of Private Pyle into madness. Everything beyond the human drama is a red herring, as it was for King too. I found the documentary ROOM 237 to be instructive about how far some can really go with interpretive overreach. As with a scholar who obsessed about the possible symbolism engendered by simple continuity errors surrounding the Indian blanket at the start of The Searchers.

Joseph McBride
As Jean Cocteau put it, "Even the mistakes of the continuity girl are part of the unconscious poetry of a film."

Kevin Stoehr
Yes, including that very quick moving shadow of the cameraman's helicopter in the opening landscape shots of The Shining.

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Joseph McBride
As we know, Kubrick's film is different in many ways from King's novel. I am talking about how I see the themes of the film fitting into Kubrick's oeuvre. I am not talking about Moon-landing theories. Obviously the film is also a great study of child abuse. And a ghost story. It is many things. But it made Kubrick's oeuvre clear to me as a whole.
Manage

Kevin Stoehr
I didn't think you were going the moon landing route, of course. I just had a problem with the linkage of Danny with a "next step in humanity," as a sign of evolution. On another note, Jack Torrance's descent also reminds one of Humbert's unraveling in Lolita, not to mention Barry Lyndon's and Private Pyle's (General Ripper had already descended). . And the sex-death conjunction in the Room 237 scene reminds me of the drive-in scene in Lolita (during a Hammer horror flick, no less) as well as the visit by Dr. Harford to the dead patient whose daughter comes on to him. Freud's Eros-Thanatos. It would have been very interesting if Kubrick had included that final scene that he left on the cutting room floor: Halloran's later visit to see Wendy and Danny. It would have ended not on the supernatural chill of the photograph but rather on the human drama. Spoiler: in King's sequel Doctor Sleep, Jack Torrance makes a brief re-appearance, as does the Overlook.
Manage

Joseph McBride
I saw that final scene in THE SHINING when it opened in Westwood, and I miss it. I think part of the point of THE SHINING is that Danny's supernatural gifts enable him to survive the abuse of his ape-like father; hence the connections between the apes in 2001 and the Star Child at the end of that film. THE SHINING illuminated 2001 for me as well as the rest of Kubrick's work, which I was having trouble grasping as a whole at the time. While THE SHINING works powerfully as a film about child abuse -- a theme that means a lot to me, as my book THE BROKEN PLACES: A MEMOIR shows -- it is not "only" about that, since the supernatural aspect of the story is also crucial. Kubrick surprised Jack Nicholson by telling him he thought the story was essentially optimistic. Kubrick explained if ghosts exist, then there is an afterlife, which is optimistic. But it is also optimistic that the child the father tries to kill manages to outwit, outrun, outlast, and destroy the father while triumphantly surviving -- though, as the ending of the film suggests (and the missing coda ironically reflects upon), Danny will certainly have lasting traumatic scars. But his "shining" powers will enable him to continue surviving -- even if Halloran's powers could not save him. Evil is a strong force in THE SHINING, but I read the ending of the film as it is now as Jack-the-eternal-"caretaker" (an ironic term for a destroyer) having finally been destroyed.

Kevin Stoehr
Very interesting. You would be highly intrigued by King's sequel Doctor Sleep in light of this, especially in terms of Danny's emotional scars. Kubrick makes clear in his post-2001 interview with Playboy that he is not a pessimist and that he is highly interested in the theme of immortality, especially in the form of different intelligence. His movies make one ask, though: why would want to be immortal in such a cosmos? The Trump era certainly makes me ask that. But as the song goes: "we'll meet again"
Manage

Federico Casal
Beautiful personal interpretation. I never quite thought of it like that, and I've seen the film countless times. In contrast to the European cut --a less "socially grounded" ghost story--, the American version of the film has a little more material that enhances the racial/social class tensions of the film, strengthening the theme of abuse's historical connotations.
Manage

Laurent Vachaud
It's mainly a film about an abused child. Abuse and specially child abuse was at the heart of many Kubrick films. The scene between Jack and Danny on the bed echoes the abuse scene between Alex and his tutor Mr Deltoid on the bed in A clockwork orange.The moon landing theory is fun but it is really crazy to consider it seriously.

Kevin Stoehr
Private Pyle was an abused man-child. Works for a few of his films anyway, including Barry Lyndon

Laurent Vachaud
Lolita, A clockwork orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full metal Jacket. Even Eyes Wide Shut, where Milich's daughter is an abused child too. In 2001, Bowman is submitted to a "treatment" by the ET in order to morph into the starchild. It can be seen as a kind of abuse.

Kevin Stoehr
yes, I forgot about Milich's daughter! And ultimately AI: Artificial Intelligence. And I am sure his envisioned but unrealized Aryan Papers would have included a child character.
Manage. Also interesting that Kubrick used his own daughter as Heywood Floyd's daughter during the phone call. He sends long distance birthday greetings without much emotion. Timothy Carey's character in Paths of Glory is also an abused man-child a la Private Pyle

Kevin Stoehr
Lolita is ultimately the abuser, no?

Laurent Vachaud
Of course. And more generally many of his films are about a higher order which through abuse deprieves the main character of his free will. Abuse turning people into robots or slaves basically.
Manage

Laurent Vachaud
in Lolita the Peter Sellers character can be seen as looking for young girls for a sex ring.

Kevin Stoehr
Quilty: "I like to watch"

Laurent Vachaud
Kubrick's daughter, ironically, is now a scientologist and an Alex Jones adept. Sadly enough she turned into a robot herself in a way. Go read her Twitter account. Looks like she is brainwashed. Sad. very sad story which took its toll on Stanley Kubrick IMHO.

[LBantock]

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