Author Topic: #419: The Shining / Top 5 Terrifying Characters / Room 237  (Read 6620 times)

jdc

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Re: #419: The Shining / Top 5 Terrifying Characters / Room 237
« Reply #30 on: November 04, 2012, 05:38:28 AM »
The Shining was the first horror movie I watched (after reading the book, which was the first horror book I read).

Same here  :)

For the most part I really enjoy the film but like most people who have issue with it mine lays with Nicholson. I enjoyed his over the top madness when it felt like he had finally succumbed to whatever it was that twisted him, mental instability or paranormal, whatever. However within the first five minutes of meeting Nicholson's character all I could think about was 'Oh, he's gonna murder everyone, murder them so hard'. It's been awhile but my recollection of the book is that while he is certainly broken and not even close to an ideal person, there was still an element of a man who wanted to succeed and we saw him slowly break down. In the film he's gone sideways before Kubrick even yelled action, much of that is probably just Jack being Jack, but the only way to really show how far he had descended was to put an axe in his hands and tell him to yell all his lines.
Exactly.
And? Kubrick should have followed King?

I think this was mainly Kings beef with Kubrick's movie.  I saw the movie first and never liked the book very much.  It seemed to go a bit silly at times with the plant/animal sculptures coming to like (am I remember this correctly, it has been almost 30 years since I read it).  I am glad they didn't try to follow the book too closely.
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Re: #419: The Shining / Top 5 Terrifying Characters / Room 237
« Reply #31 on: November 09, 2012, 04:44:44 PM »
I have three terrifying characters:

The Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs haunted me so much as a child. This scene in 101 Dalmatians has been burned in my memory as one of the most WTF insanely evil villain of all time:



Both of those were classic Disney childhood choices. The one character that has disturbed me most recently is Jake LaMotta from Raging Bull. I hate his character so much. He's a monster ticking time bomb that could go off at any second, obliterating any person whether it be friend, lover, or even family at any time. The "Did you CINECAST! my wife?" scene is possibly the most harrowing in all of cinema not because it is excessively violent, but because it is such a slow burner that I had to pause the movie and take a breather outside.

MikeGebert

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Re: #419: The Shining / Top 5 Terrifying Characters / Room 237
« Reply #32 on: December 01, 2012, 12:46:40 PM »
Re Room 237 and The Shining, here's something I posted somewhere else that I think answers why some of the things in the movie that baffled Josh and Adam are in it, and generally touches on the question of what the movies is "about" without, hopefully, going to Room 237 extremes.  For me, it's very much of a piece with Kubrick's other work, and as Frederic Raphael said, all of Kubrick's movies are about the Holocaust on some level:

Certainly one of the themes of Kubrick's entire life and career is informed by the Holocaust and the idea that, beneath a very thin veneer of civilization, we are apes with sticks beating each other and no better than that. For me the big Holocaust reference is the one hardly mentioned here: who is Jack Torrence but a failed artist turned apparatchik who finds his purpose in a murderous bigger cause than himself and can hardly be more eager to please it with whatever violence it asks of him? Hmm, failed artist... who does that remind us of?

Likewise I think the Native American allusions, though in no way the subject of the film, are there to remind us that 10 minutes before this fine, dignified hotel was built, people were killing each other with hatchets on the same spot. That's the universe according to Kubrick. You can't kill in here, this is the war room!

And finally, I think there are definite hints, per Rob Ager, that the story is "about" (I use that word cautiously) child abuse, possibly sexual. (I mean, a teddy bear is performing sex on a man, and there's a boy with a teddy bear, how much more do you want it spelled out?) Child abuse is often a generation after generation cycle, and though there's no way to reconcile all the timelines and say exactly when which Mr. Grady was there and so on, there is kind of a feeling that both Jack and Danny are caught in the same endless cycle, but Danny, who doesn't repress his shining the way his dad evidently has, is ultimately smart enough to find his way out of it. One of the things that the movie is "about" is that Danny is, in the end, better than his father. Jack seems a damaged person in part because he's repressed his own ability to shine. He denies to himself that he has the ability-- which makes him more susceptible to seduction by the hotel, I think. Danny on the other hand is comfortable in his and uses it when he needs to, and that's why he is able to escape the cycle his own (perhaps abused?) father is stuck in.

Likewise some of the visual clues that Rob Ager points to are unmistakable-- Shelley Duvall DOES dress like Goofy and the elevator signs do match the Teddy Bear and so on. Maybe even the copy of Playgirl... I mean, Kubrick didn't do anything randomly, but some of them may be no more than jokes on the set.

But let's stop there. Is there an entire deep subtext that took 30 years to unwind? No, I think most of these things were sensed by people, if not exactly articulated, early on, and are found in other Kubrick movies all along. Jack with a hatchet is scarcely different from Alex with a cane or an ape with a bone or Barry Lyndon suddenly snapping and attacking Lord Bullingdon in public. Kubrick's themes are not mysterious; they're merely subtly developed.

A few other notes:

1) There were a number of adult horror movies in the 60s in which you were left to wonder if it was all in the head (i.e. The Innocents) The Shining plays to our expectations with that; there's nothing that is supernatural and requires the help of ghosts to happen-- until there is.

2) Saying Kubrick didn't really care about the material or suspense misses how beautifully he sets up all the pieces of the puzzle. As a pure suspense film everything (like Danny and Halloran's ability to communicate when there's no other form of communication) is put in place very neatly. He wasn't slacking in that regard, it's as meticulous as anything else in the film.

Brent Chastain

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# 419 The Shining and Room 237 and Lay Film Critics
« Reply #33 on: February 22, 2013, 03:23:48 PM »
Without having seen Room 237 yet having seen The Shining a few times I felt some comments in your podcast # 419 were missing the mark in regards to the documentary Room 237 and The Shining.

One critic agreed with a statement that Room 237 goes too far in leveling the playing field between film critics and lay critics (those interviewed in Room 237).  This comment lacks understanding of the current relevance of public opinion expressed in blogs, websites, IMBD customer reviews, Amazon customer reviews, which do have influence, especially commercially.  Also it would seem that the lay critics in Room 237 invented or at least are bringing exposure to immersion theory with the film Room 237, which by itself is quite significant.

Another comment mentioned that the analysis in the film Room 237 leads to dead ends because the theories are ridiculous and disprovable, such as the slaughter of the American Indians theory.   Yet in your own podcast there were at least two very specific and uncanny references to American Indians and their misfortune which makes the reference undeniable and important.

A final point was that these immersion theories, even if you accept their presence in the film, do not add any additional meaning to the film The Shining.  Would it not be a natural challenge for a film critic who acknowledges the references to tie the immersion theories to the film?  The challenge for the for the lay critics in the film Room 227 is to show evidence of the various hidden meanings and puzzles that Kubrick certainly added throughout The Shining.  Kubrick was extremely methodical - a director who, as just one example, insisted that all sets for the Shining were built prior to production to ensure he could control every aspect of the film – which easily implies that nearly everything in the film was put there for a reason.  Immersion theory is a natural outcome of studying a director who made almost all his films with similar exacting specificity – A theory brought to public recognition by lay critics.

On my film website I have referenced a web site that is extraordinarily detailed in demonstrating a lot of the immersion theories in The Shining (a long time before Room 237) and also makes the ties that add meaning to The Shining.  If interested you can view it at  www.Top3films.com / Horror Modern / Select ‘Next Film in This Category’ / Then Select (1) in the first sentence.  I find it fascinating and interesting to revisit now and again.

Brent Chastain

Adam

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Re: # 419 The Shining and Room 237 and Lay Film Critics
« Reply #34 on: February 22, 2013, 03:57:55 PM »
One critic agreed with a statement that Room 237 goes too far in leveling the playing field between film critics and lay critics (those interviewed in Room 237).
Not quite what I was trying to suggest... I disagree with Rosenbaum's position, but I do personally also have an issue with criticism that is so immersive it starts to become about something other than the film itself -- not about understanding the narrative and its style and what it might be saying, but more about seeing it as a puzzle to be decoded. I mean, at least with a reading of the film like 'it's a comment on a dysfunctional American family unit and the debilitating nature of compromising your dreams and values', those elements are undeniable in the 'text' of the film.

In terms of the 'commercial influence' of public opinion and the various forms it's expressed in, just not something I spend much time thinking about.
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