What THE SHINING Is Really About

[Music] the shining is often considered one of the greatest horror films ever made and its meaning has been debated endlessly for over 40 years like any stanley kubrick directed film watching it feels different from watching other movies you can sense a deeper meaning and that especially stands out in the horror genre where most films settle for the usual chills and thrills in this video we'll excavate that meaning including the enigmatic ending with the help from stanley kubrick himself and his co-writer on the movie diane johnson both have given interviews over the years where they've given small hints that we'll use as guideposts in our analysis [Music] so what did they want to communicate what is the shining really about i believe the answer can be found in one crucial choice kubrick made in adapting stephen king's book it is the reason king himself has such a distaste for the movie in the book jack torrance is a tragic figure he is truly a family man that is corrupted and controlled by the evil influence of the overlook hotel jack has a dark side and is struggling with his own sanity but it is clear that without the hotel's influence he was not going to harm his family in kubrick's adaptation this struggle seems to be gone jack nicholson plays the character with a sinister edge from the start when asked if his wife and child will be okay living in the isolated hotel he gives a they'll be fine sort of answer dismissing the concern when warned about cabin fever and the previous caretaker that murdered his own family jack is unfazed in his interactions with his wife and child we never detect any warmth only impatience or indifference and finally in case we had any shred of sympathy for the character we learned that shortly before the events of the film jack injured his son in a fit of rage the overlook hotel clearly influenced the jack torrance of kubrick's movie toward attacking his family but you get the feeling that even without the hotel's evil presence isolating jack with his family for an extended period of time probably isn't a good idea where king's book hints at the evil in man's nature kubrick's film lays it bare by making it clear jack is not a good man the overlook hotel did not possess him or drive him to act in conflict with his nature instead the haunted hotel acted as more of a pressure cooker taking the evil already in jack's heart and driving it rapidly to its natural conclusion in an interview shortly after the film's release kubrick said this in some ways the conventions of realistic fiction and drama may impose serious limitations on a story for one thing if you play by the rules and respect the preparation and pace required to establish realism it takes a lot longer to make a point than it does say in fantasy if you want to make a point about the evil in man's heart what it takes to unlock it and what happens when it's unleashed the realistic approach takes time in a realistic depiction of a person turning against their family we'd have to watch a lengthy subtle transformation but in a work of fantasy like the shining we get to the viscerally effective image of jack nicholson with an axe in the span of about two hours what is the shining about it's a meditation on the evil residing inside of us this story was an appropriate means of studying the idea because its supernatural horrors allowed kubrick to accelerate the theme and amplify it emotionally rather than wait for jack's psyche to collapse ghosts can push him into a violent rage quickly and it all comes with the appropriately unsettling emotions stirred by expertly crafted horror this is why kubrick left out stephen king's depictions of jack torrance as a good family man or any of the backstory that would explain his psychological degradation he wanted to make it unambiguous that in his words from the same interview jack comes to the hotel psychologically prepared to do its murderous bidding he doesn't have very much further to go for his anger and frustration to become completely uncontrollable he is bitter about his failure as a writer he is married to a woman for whom he has only contempt he hates his son in the hotel at the mercy of its powerful evil he is quickly ready to fulfill his dark role this may seem like a cop-out like kubrick is skipping the question of what drives us to evil by making jack pretty much evil already but that's because kubrick isn't saying we are driven to evil he is saying that we already have evil inside of us the question is do we succumb to it or not in his interview with gene siskel after full metal jacket kubrick said the following about that movie's ideas i would have to say that it has a lot to do with the jungian idea of the duality of man altruism and cooperation on one hand and aggression and xenophobia on the other i suppose the single improvement one might hope for in the world would be an appreciation and acceptance of this jungian view of man by those who see themselves as good and externalize all evil this quote clarifies kubrick's view that evil should not be externalized but accepted as something that comes from within and that it's an idea which he believes is important throughout the shining before jack turns entirely homicidal his evil manifests in ways that are likely relatable to just about anyone take the story of jack dislocating his son's shoulder as wendy tells it jack had been working late that day and came home to find that danny had messed up all his papers he'd also been drinking which likely contributed to his yanking a little too hard when he pulled danny up by his arm any one of us that finds our hard work defaced or disorganized after long hours is angry the question is whether or not and how we act on it in fact in a conversation about writing the shining stephen king said that much of his inspiration for the book came from his own aggression toward his children he specifically shared the following anecdote i came home one day and joe my oldest boy who was then three or four had done all these cartoon and crayon drawings on this manuscript that i had been working on and i was thinking of myself little son of a [ __ ] i could kill him i could kill him look at this stuff it's a very sorry thing to discover as a father that it is possible for bursts of time to literally hate your kids and feel that you could kill them take another instance in the film which is actually shown wendy checks in on jack after leaving him alone to work all day she asks how it's going and if he got a lot of writing done it's a very uncomfortable scene as wendy tries to put on a cheery face while jack is clearly frustrated clearly he's having writer's block he's mattered himself so when she interrupts his process all his inner rage turns toward her he yells at her and demands that she not enter the room again it's a large room too so we have to uncomfortably watch as she takes the long sad journey out of it again this is something we can all relate to have you ever been in the middle of a difficult school or work assignment you're thinking hard you can't quite find the answer and then it's all interrupted by cheerful how's it going they're being nice but it's frustrating most of us can take a deep breath and disconnect from the work for a moment to respond with similar politeness but jack is the cautionary tale who shows what happens when you give in to the evil impulses inherent within us so this scene leads to the vicious drawn out chastising of his nothing but supportive wife when jack finally snaps entirely and we enter the third act of the movie it's encapsulated in a single phrase all work and no play makes jack a dull boy the words are typed over and over on the papers that wendy finds in his study this is of course disturbing just imagine the mental dissociation required for a man to sit in place for the hours it would take to type that same thing over and over but it's also a struggle that many of us can relate to how often have you felt that when the school or work week begins you turn into a zombie you have no energy to do anything but drain your mind and body like a slave to the paycheck you need to live just so you can wake up the next day and do it all over again all work and no play turns you into the zombie you feel like it turns you into a dull boy the specific flavor of madness that jack suffers is perfect for the themes kubrick and johnson explore they wanted to explore the evil inside all of us and focused on something most contemporary viewers can relate to the pressure of work and the feeling that the needs of your family are at odds with it so although jack takes things further than hopefully any of us would we can at least identify with the impetus of his angry outbursts it's important to note that we are meant to identify with jack we do spend some scenes alone with other characters but we start with jack end with jack he gets most of the screen time in between and his needs drive the entire plot his need for isolation so he can write is what brought them to the overlook hotel in the first place seeing ourselves in jack means that kubrick wants us to learn something about our nature part of it is to acknowledge that we have impulses which if left unchecked fester into an evil force but there's also more to it than that in a 2013 interview kubrick's co-writer on the shining diane johnson said i thought of the screenplay as a fairy tale or a classic story with a very sound narrative tradition behind it kubrick also mentioned fairy tales when discussing the shining i believe fantasy stories at their best serve the same function for us that fairy tales and mythology formerly did both kubrick and johnson also studied the uses of enchantment as an influence on writing the film which is a book that explores the psychology of fairy tales thinking of the shining as a fairy tale seems bizarre at first consideration it's an r-rated horror film obviously geared toward adults but clearly it's something that both its creators did what does that mean well when reading a fairy tale we typically identify with the main character of a story who learns some important lesson for example the three little pigs three pigs each build houses one out of straw one out of sticks and one out of bricks when the big bad wolf arrives to blow their houses down only the third pig's house the one made of bricks remains standing the moral don't be lazy take your time and do the job right or you'll get eaten by a wolf if the shining is a fairy tale then it's one that subverts classic literature by making the wolf the main character rather than the pigs there's even this moment when jack is trying to break into the bathroom where wendy and danny are hiding little pigs little pigs let me come in and the movie ends with jack chasing danny through a corn maze like a minotaur chasing its prey through a labyrinth in classic fairy tales where you identify with the main character the story shows what you can achieve by taking the right path you can build a house of bricks you can be proactive responsible and resourceful to live a better life the shining by telling its story from the point of view of a villain teaches its lessons in the form of a cautionary tale it's not a road map for perseverance but a light that reveals the dark corners inside us that we need to be aware of lest we go the way of jack torrance and succumb to them to expose the shining's lessons we need to identify where jack went wrong it might seem like this isn't present in the film because we've made the point over and over that he was already off from the start but if we look closely we can see that an important shift happens just before the halfway mark of the movie prior to that shift jack is not physically violent toward his family at least not intentionally when dany sneaks into his room jack assures the child that he loves him and would never hurt him it is said in jack nicholson's uniquely unsettling way but it at least shows jack is attempting to live the father role just a few scenes later wendy finds jack deeply upset and unsettled after waking from nightmares where he killed her and dany at this point in the movie jack still finds the idea of actually hurting his family physically disturbing then the shift happens in fairy tales there is often the trope of the poison apple the thing which is tempting but taking it has severe consequences like the literal poison apple eaten by snow white which renders her comatose in the shining after jack's nightmare he heads to the gold room and tastes of his poison apple bourbon while talking to the bartender lloyd he still defends his actions with dany saying how it was an accident and how she'll never let him forget it indicating that he wants to forget it meaning he feels guilt over injuring his son but all of that changes after the drink his bonding with lloyd is interrupted by wendy's arrival telling jack that a crazy woman tried to strangle danny jack shows no concern but only annoyance at his wife's outburst he investigates room 237 where danny supposedly had his encounter and finds a woman in the bathtub after hearing what happened to danny and earlier seeing the wounds himself jack has all the evidence to know that this woman hurt his child but his only thought is to give in to temptation and accept her apparent seduction he betrays the loyalty of his wife and completely tosses aside any concern for his child then she shows her true form and laughs at jack while he runs in shame and terror in the next scene jack lies to wendy saying he didn't find anything in the room he theorizes that dany must have choked himself it's the only explanation it is as though jack is covering for the hotel keeping the malevolent force a secret as a thank you for the drink it so kindly offered the next time we see jack he's heading back to the ballroom and has his run-in with delbert grady perhaps the ghostly reincarnation of charles grady who slaughtered his wife and two daughters the ghost tells jack how he corrected his wife and children then suggests jack do the same and clearly he takes grady's advice to heart because after this scene he becomes outwardly menacing to his family saying things like i'm not gonna hurt you i'm just gonna bash your brains i'm gonna bash him right the [ __ ] in then he finally devolves into axe murdering rage if the shining is a fairy tale bourbon is the poison apple that leads to jack's downfall so is the lesson of this tale to avoid alcohol not exactly it's a little broader than that jack is actually fairly self-aware when it comes to the darkness within him early in the film wendy explains to danny's doctor that jack hurt the boy after having too much to drink as a result he gave up alcohol entirely jack knew there was a villain inside him and knew that drinking lets it out that may not be true for everyone so the lesson is to know what that thing is for you if there is evil inside all of us it might seem easy to just choose not to embrace it if harmful impulses arise from those dark corners of your mind just don't give in to them but the shining tells us not only to be aware of the dark corners and impulses but to also be aware of the things that make us vulnerable to them in jack's case it's a combination of work pressure sleep deprivation and perhaps most of all drinking if you don't take care of yourself the evil inside grows beyond your control and the impulses become impossible to stifle for most of the shining's run time you can write off the ghosts as hallucinations of an insane man or the overactive imagination of a child however after wendy locks jack in the food store room he is only let out when grady's ghost unlocks the door [Music] at this point it cannot be argued that the ghosts are real and can interact with jack's world but they only interfere after jack's drink after he chooses to cooperate with them the ghosts the externalization of jack's evil finally have real corporeal power if you let down your defenses with vice or lack of self-care your ghosts become powerful you lose control and your impulses take over in the real world that could mean hurting the ones you love with emotional distance or possibly much worse in fantasy like the shining it means turning into an axe murderer overnight it means your impulses are amplified by ghosts that pressure you into murder i fear you will have to deal with this matter in the harshest possible way mr thomas and those ghosts become so powerful it's no longer just you that sees them but at this point in the film wendy confronts them for the first time as well the supernatural allowed kubrick to press fast forward on the theme of evil in human nature and amplify its effect the supernatural also allows for metaphors which can take complex ideas and summarize them in powerful memorable images the overlook hotel itself becomes a metaphor for the violent evil embedded in human nature early in the film ullman tells jack and wendy that the hotel was built on an indian burial ground while fighting off attacks from local tribes the place was born of human-committed atrocities and the repeated image of the hall flooding with blood reminds us of it the overlook hotel is not some external evil invading our world it was built by humans and cursed by the blood if they spilled as halloran explains sometimes when things happen they can leave a trace behind like the smell of burnt toast but toast doesn't burn itself and a hotel doesn't become evil on its own it's done by people ullman also tells the torrences that presidents and movie stars have stayed at the hotel and when jack visits the gold room for the second time it's full of well-dressed representatives of high society even the most successful of us dressed in the artifice of royalty are only burying their evil grady casually uses the n-word in his conversation with jack native american decorations are used throughout the hotel a thumb in the eye of those they slaughtered and the men talk of correcting their family members a polite way of saying slaughtering them with an axe like the men and women of the gold room the ultimate sin of homicide is dressed in a nice suit or dress and called correcting the overlook is the evil of humankind that gets buried until we let it out like jack torrance does understanding this metaphor also clarifies the ending of this movie at the bar lloyd casually talks to jack as though he knows him and jack tells lloyd that he's always liked him in the bathroom grady tells jack that he has always been the caretaker here and finally the idea that jack has always been at the overlook is captured in a single image the film ends with a close-up of a photo showing jack at a party there in 1921 in that photo jack becomes part of an evil reincarnation cycle which is actually the phrase kubrick used when describing this in a phone interview well it was supposed to suggest a kind of evil reincarnation cycle if the overlook acts as the metaphorical nexus of humanity's evil and we identify with jack as the protagonist of a fairy tale this photo becomes a symbol for our eternal place in the cycle of violence it is a memorable image that reminds us we all have a place at the overlook hotel we all have something inside us which if left unchecked if fed with vice and if allowed out will destroy us and possibly those around us by the end of the movie jack dies pitifully alone and moaning like an animal he also takes an innocent victim with him dick halloran this is the endpoint of that evil others may be hurt in the process but ultimately like in any fairy tale the villain loses like a beast outwitted by a clever child jack is lured into the labyrinth and left there to die lost and alone there are other ideas on display in the shining and like any great story what you take from it will depend on how you personally relate to it for example you may identify more with danny than jack perhaps you recall times as a child where your parents fought and they didn't realize how aware of it you were we often think we can hide anger conflict or tension from our children but like dany's shining ability we do not realize that in many ways they are more sensitive to these things than we are or perhaps you relate more to wendy she ultimately outwits and defeats jack even the ghosts of the overlook tell jack they underestimated her your wife appears to be stronger than we imagined mr torres but there is also a cautionary tale here in her conversation with a doctor there is an undercurrent of denial jack is an abusive man he hurts danny but she relates a series of justifications jack was working late danny messed up his papers he didn't mean to hurt him it could have happened to anyone and there was a silver lining jack stopped drinking there may be a cautionary tale here that when you see the evil festering in someone it may be time to leave rather than continue to give them love and support until it becomes a fight for survival and beyond these there are still more discussions that can be had and endless possibilities for the personal meaning you can take from the journey but as the protagonist jack is our window into the world of the shining and the themes present in his transformation are the main thrust of the film if i had to briefly summarize what the shining is about i'd say it's a cautionary tale of making oneself vulnerable to the dark impulses where evil resides thank you for joining me on my annual retreat to the overlook and i hope this video helped to clarify some of the themes of this incredible film if it did please like this video subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon so you're notified of our next release thank you for watching and see you on the next one take

Channel: OneTake

Views: 371,978

Keywords: The shining, shining, the shining explained, the shining analysis, the shining ending explained, the shining video essay, stanley kubrick, diane johnson

Id: HuX38oEZxsI

Length: 23min 58sec (1438 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021