Optical illusion sets in THE SHINING (film analysis)

hi folks Rebecca here with yet another video on  the intricacies of The Shining I didn't think   there was much left to explore in this movie book  this theme slapped me in the face recently while   I was researching a related topic and I found  it's so interesting I was like I have to make a   video on this okay so most haunted house horror  films predictably use moody colors dark sets   cobwebs and dust creaking doors and tilted camera  angles to create a cliched sense of menace but the   shining cops for some very different psychological  devices in previous videos I've gone into subjects   like foreshadowing and the spatial impossibility  of the hotel layout but yet another device is   that the film creates a sense of unease in the  viewer via the presence of jarring geometric   patterns probably the two most obvious examples  of this are the carpets of the room 237 hallway   and inside room 237 itself this utterly bizarre  carpet pattern features arrow like protrusions the   points in both directions along the hall that's  quite fitting because Danny loops back on himself   as he rides his tricycle around here it's easy to  think that he rides down to separate hallways but   they're actually the same one between the first  two shots here the carpet seems to shift beneath   Danny so that he's sitting on a narrow protrusion  that points one way and then the other the colors   of this carpet orange brown and big red dots  are very strange as is the imposing size of the   pattern then we have the equally bizarre copper  pattern inside room 237 giving the impression of   a bumpy floor instead of a flat one the design  is big and bold like the one in the hallway all   of these stork protrusions are pointing to the  place we really don't want to go the bathroom   where the horrible naked hag is this carpet bends  opened across each of the steps into the bedroom   which adds to the geometric strangeness they could  have just been bare steps between these two rooms   but instead the continuation of the carpet gives  the sense of an unstable or uneven floor pink and   green cushions and furniture match this carpet in  the two it should be a cheerful looking Department   given all this bold color but I find it pretty  unpleasant purples and greens together seem like   her sickly combination to me perhaps the presence  of black in the carpets adds to this sense of   weirdness though sure it's the carpet that stands  out as being weird more than anything else in   this set but also look at the big dark curtains  which give a strong impression of nighttime these   curtains have clashing diagonal lines and vertical  strips creating a disjointed horizontal zig-zag   pattern into the bedroom and we have the same care  and pattern on the entire right wall but also the   same pattern is on the bed covers take a good  look at those bedspreads and notice how on the   side of the bed facing us the pattern gives the  optical illusion of long rectangle boxes pointing   in one direction but if you hold your gaze on  it it seems to shift back and forth so that the   protruding long box you thought you saw becomes  inverted and instead you see in boxes going in   the other direction here's some similar optical  illusion examples take a moment to look at them now the effect isn't so obvious here with the  curtains because of the folds in them and on   top of the bed our angled view of the same  pattern creates an unpleasant messy zig-zag   pattern similar to the cans but more convoluted  now some of you might be thinking nah man you   just reading way too much into all this this  is just pareidolia the tendency of humans to   see things such as faces and shapes and contacts  where they aren't there but that's actually what   I'm gana I believe Kubrick had these patterns  put into these sets specifically because he knew   that we would have a pareidolia response at the  subconscious level and that the resulting sense   of unease would in turn add to the unsettling  ambience of the Overlook Hotel take a look at   these images and notice how they give you the  impression of shapes that aren't there or movement   where there is none and how these mind-bending  opticals creates a slight feeling of anxiety as   your brain struggles to make sense of these flat  patterns which you know we expect to see something   that is 3d however these are obvious examples if  Kubrick have made the optical illusion elements of   the Overlook Hotel blatant enough to intrude into  the conscious mind it would defeat the point the   point of it is to make in a subconscious effect  so that the most we think of are consciously is   to just say to ourselves something like hey that's  a weird carpet design zigzags and other or natural   geometric patterns tend to be a bit discomforting  to us because of their reality bending optical   illusion of fact and I think Kubrick has made  use of this brand of visual trickery in these   scenes to give us a feeling of psychedelic unease  if you think about it this is a really strange and   unsettling set but it doesn't use dark corners and  long shadows like we normally get in horror movies   the music is creepy as hell but even without the  music this set feels very strange just to look at   I think the geometric patterns in the decor are  a crucial elements here and in the outer hall see   how the carpet trails off giving the impression  of a different pattern in the distance see how   the striped wallpaper in room 237 gives the  impression of a vertically ribbed surface   this is even more pronounced as we approach the  bathroom door where we can see the light and dark   wallpaper stripes even more closely and it looks  like there are vertical slats lit by the lamps   off screen to the left as if the wall is a giant  radiator given that the wallpaper is virtually   the same color as the doorframe it also looks like  the door frame itself is kind of echoing outward   and the contrast of this wallpaper with the top of  the cream-colored actual radiator same color this   creates an odd little zigzag break in the pattern  is this stuff all just incidental or is it visual   trickery done on purpose I'm not claiming to be  right about all these things that I'm pointing out   but those freakish copper patterns they've got who  have been chosen to make us feel uneasy with their   strange geometry and strange color combinations  a difference what very prominent example of this   geometric optical illusion trickery is the  confusing top-down view of the overlooked   maze it's confusing because we're seeing Danny and  Wendy in the maze but we shouldn't because it just   looks like it's a cut so a different view of the  tabletop model it's a very impressive practical   effect shocked given that this movie is was done  well before the CGI era the maze pattern also   blatantly mismatches the tabletop one that Jack  was looking at it has no edges and it's far bigger I mean can you imagine anyone finding their way  through a real mess of this size and it also   appears to be mirrored vertically and horizontally  apart from the entrances to the center portion but   this doesn't make sense because it means there  isn't a single route for getting through this   maze if you can get through it because we don't  see any exits with the standard maze you can find   your way through by simply following the left or  right wall continuously until you end up outside   but you can't do that here specifically related  to our theme in this video though is that this   maze has unnerving zigzag patterns stretching  outward diagonally from the four Center corners   it's a trippy pattern giving the impression that  the center of the maze is at the top of a pyramid   structure a similar impression of diagonal edges  is here in the outside maze too though the overall   pattern is very different again and in this one  there is no large open area in the center oh by   the way something either noticed in this shot  is that Wendy and Danny actually approach a   dead end in the last couple of frames and here  we see that there are three pairs of entrances   or exits to the center space in this shot we see  an alcove in the background right behind them and   they walk past all three pairs of mirrored exits  and then we see the edges of the opposite dead-end   alcove coming to the upper corners of the shot  in the last few frames the camera actually pulls   out slightly beyond where the dead end of this  central maze is and we can see here that there   is no access at either end of the central area  however in the final maze chase the layout has   changed again so that Danny can actually get  into the center via an opening at the end of   the central hallway section unlike the rest of  the maze the bushes bridge across the top here   and by doing that it renders any external maze  Maps kinda useless because from top down a gap   with an arch over it would just look like a wall  effectively this is a secret opening in the maze   that wouldn't be visible in a top-down map anyway  I went way off topic there just notice these extra   things I thought you might find interesting  but the main points here for this video is   that this maze makes us feel uneasy because of  its strange geometry particularly those zigzag   diagonal patterns now on to a very different type  of clue I think this one very strongly supports   my suggestion that these mind-bending geometric  patterns are mostly intended for thematic effect   and this is the Wendy sifts through Jack's insane  manuscript which is just one sentence endlessly   repeated and the pages of lines are typed up in  bizarre patterns some of them like the triangular   paragraphs would take a fair bit of careful effort  to type up this pattern is created by the deletion   of one word from the beginning of each consecutive  line so that the word boy is on a diagonal streak   on the right side of each paragraph all the pages  create jarring horizontal streaks that sometimes   distort into waves and zigzags the top page has a  double spaced streak running from top to bottom in   one place with only the occasional line breaking  across it all the pages have double spaced stripes   running vertically between every word creating  a crosshatch patterns of the whole text some   pages are even formatted as one would format a  film script as in there are paragraphs that are   indented on both sides with white space above and  below that's how dialogue is written into movie   scripts well hey that's another theme entirely  the basic point for our theme here is that there   are surrealist disorientating geometric patterns  built into both the sets and in the layouts of   this manuscript now I do have lots more notes  on all this weird geometric pattern confusion   because there's plenty more of it in the movie a  lot of it is very sought although I've mostly just   outlined the consciously noticeable examples so  I'm planning to make a considerably extended video   on this subject at some point probably within the  next month or so my longer film analysis videos   are usually sale items on my website because of  the amount of work that they take to do so if   you want the extended version of this video to be  a Youtube upload instead of a sale item then head   over to my patreon page and sign up for a small  monthly contribution to my way at the moment the   majority of my contributors just buy my downloads  but if I could hit say 500 patrons then I'll make   the full version of this video available on  YouTube if not then the full version will be a   digital download sale on the item until I have  500 patrons last thing before I go at the time   of this uploading I have a batch of 10 Christmas  holiday discount sets available on my websites   ranging from 50 to 80 percent off be sure to  check those out either now or very soon as the   offers will end around about new year 2020 links  to my download page and my patreon page are in the   video description below I'm taking time out to do  all the things over the holiday but I hope you all   have a very fabulous Christmas and New Year you've  been listening to Rebecca take it easy folks

Channel: Collative Learning

Views: 131,720

Keywords: the shining, stanley kubrick, psychedelic, geometry, patterns, optical, illusion, film analysis, rob ager

Id: 1QVto3EZ1Fc

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 24 2019