Psychological horror is something else. The Overlook hotel manifesting sexual objects of deisre and an "old boys' club atmosphere" seems to me representative of the way that a male-dominated society can encourage & reinforce anti-social, aggressive male tendencies, creating a kind of feedback loop for male sexual frustration-- and if this is fed and allowed to fester, it eventually results in madness and violence. Stanley Kubrick's last film, "The Shining," is explicitly about the genocide of the American Indians. But he was on the wrong side of popular morality. I think this is blatantly obvious as a central theme in the movie. The depiction of Native Americans in the movies is notorious for its reductive stereotypes. This is according to his assistant on set, who also debunked many of the crazy theories surrounding the film, as well as the Calumet business. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. So of course Jack wishes he could mess around with more beautiful women. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/movies/aide-to-kubrick-on-shining-scoffs-at-room-237-theories.html, Calumet, original historic meaning as the French word for a Native American peace pipe, but the slogan for the product is "not made by the trust" (https://i.redd.it/cxstbuoelhp01.jpg) - crazy. We were sure that drugs could turn everyone who was institutionalized sane, and we could just turn them loose (and give all of the state institution money to drug companies, of course). And so in this way The Shining is, in its subtext, a Marxist parable that tells the story of a man with a bad, BAD case of writer's block. ", http://www.collativelearning.com/the%20shining.html, New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the StanleyKubrick community, The largest Stanley Kubrick Resource on the internet, Press J to jump to the feed. And when the public stopped caring about sensationalized insanity headlines because the economic crashes of the late 19th/early 20th century brought daily real-life horror to everyone, psychological horror slept until the mid 20th century ;), disregarding scifi-horror which I would argue is different. The central idea resonates: man feels pressured to fulfill his responsibilities, becomes reclusive and resentful - they just don't do a lot with it. Jeez, again? Actually, the movie provides no evidence that his family or feminine forces are blocking his creativity at all, only that Jack is convinced this is the case-- if anything, the big reveal of the movie is that he is totally empty inside, the novel he was supposedly working on the whole time simply a charade he uses to feel superior to his family and justify his neglect of them. To watch my previous video analysis of The Shining, based upon some of the concepts described in the text of the article, scroll to the bottom of this page. The scene is just as meaningful when divorced from the rest of the film, which isn't a good thing. While this is a fascinating interpretation, I just don't see it as matching the tone and intent of the movie. The film was never about that old King favorite the Indian Burial Ground, despite some baking powder. The benchmark legal case in the US (in which an inmate killed the Massachusetts State Prison warden and was acquitted due to an insanity defense) was presided over a judge that happened to be Melville's father in law. Ager's analysis of the Shining is incredibly detailed and well researched. As will be examined below, Frederic Jameson reads it as a lament for the clear political demarcation of the Cold War, whilst Geoffrey Wright argues it is a metaphorical study of the Holocaust. There are Native American … But while these accusations are valid, beneath the surface Kubrick is in fact simply using these abstract notions of 'male' and 'female' to express his fears for the future of art. It is because she is frankly a bit annoying and unattractive, and this is even exacerbated in the movie where she is made to look pale and makes obvious and boring comments. His social commentary is stuck at the Undergrad level with it's immature Collectivism and some ill-defined angst against The Man, when King himself hardly spent 5 years as Educated Middle Class in his adult life before striking it as fantastically rich as an author can ever expect to become. It's a fairly straightforward polemic against collective consumerism. The Shining, in either it's novel or film form, has very little to do with Poe. The Shining Is About The Genocide Of Native Americans. He's a very good one, good enough to be literary in my estimation. This is it. If you watch it and don't come away with this conclusion, you weren't paying attention at all. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit: [r/goodlongposts] /u/Y3808 responds to: What The Shining (1980) is really about. The symbolic connections are undoubtedly deliberate. Like Poe he was criticized as "not literary" because he wrote horror genre fiction. The 'criticism', actually denigration by the time the film is noticed, is more a reflection of the political views of Critics and Literary Culture in general than it is about the film. Stuart Ullman mentions the Overlook Hotel was built on an Indian burial ground, and that’s only the beginning of a full theory that says The Shining is about the genocide of Native Americans. Agree that Room 237 etc are good fun but Kubrick first and foremost a story-teller, and nothing scares the shit out of folks more than a scary story with pieces missing so you gotta fill them in yourself. Every frame, word and sound of it. King is criticized not so much as a horror writer, although he and his considerable marketing power have used that objection to criticism of him. But I think that criticism of him was always lacking as well. That is until we pay attention to how the sand painting is used in different scenes. He went to America to shoot footage of hotels for Kubrick so he could create a realistic hotel set for The Shining. No horror movie ever has been more analyzed and debated than The Shining. In the 2nd half of the film (arguably the whole movie), the audience's perspective is aligned much more with Danny and his mother, experiencing their trauma as the victims of and witnesses to Jack's disturbing, hyper-masculine, violent outburst. [+34], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(novel). Even early in the film, the character of Jack Torrance is shown to be fed up and frustrated by his family. Another Native American symbol that may have been deliberately referenced in the maze scenes of The Shining is the widely used Man in the Maze symbol, featured below. He was harshly critical of enlightenment individualism and popular protestant religious philosophers like Emerson (whose ideas turned into Thoreau). But in the 1960/1970s America decided that state mental hospitals needed to be closed. He read a lot about ESP, was fascinated by it, and he wanted simply to make the ultimate horror movie, similar to how 2001 was his go at the ultimate science-fiction movie. Poe was writing essays critical of the legal definition of humans as "reasonable" in 1840, he first published "The Tell-Tale Heart" in 1843 (three months before the Massachusetts murder/case mentioned above). The Shining is also explicitly about America's general inability to admit to the gravity of the genocide of the Indians - or, more exactly, its ability to "overlook" that genocide. By the time King was known to America, Poe was firmly alongside Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, and Twain in High School English classes. And we know this thanks to the regretfully out-of-print The Shining: Studies In The Horror Film. So he envisions his caretaking job at the Overlook as an opportunity to finally have time to write and then rationalizes his writer's block as being due to constant distractions from his wife and son. More than anything else, Jack is terrified of becoming dull, i.e. Simms … And thus you have One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, followed by the 80s genre horror films. Some Navajo sand paintings feature a set of twin figures symbolising Father sky and Mother Earth, which may also be related to the twin concept in The Shining. Kubric makes no pretense about it, he's a patrician in the first place and a well-established Rich Guy by the time of filming. There are many suggestions of Danny being sexually abused by Jack. The film also makes a statement about the recurring cycle of child abuse: violence from the micro level in the family unit to the macro in the form of racial violence & genocide (Native Americans, slavery & its continuing legacy). Hope you enjoy my latest video! Romantic as a literary term does not necessarily entail a love story, although Dracula obviously was one. Also, there is a reason Kubrick cast Shelly Duvall in the Wendy role (an opposition to Stephen King's description of the character). Hey everyone! But it also spends a lot of time on the oldest and best-developed theory about The Shining: it’s an indictment of Native American genocide. /u/Y3808 responds to: What The Shining (1980) is really about. Why? Environment can take on gender roles too. The congressman was acquitted after pleading temporary insanity. King's novel is very good, but it's commonly Horrific and not literary. Kubric attempted to be his own man, and I think he did. These are sensational autobiographies of King's struggles with addictions. Not only is the site called the Overlook Hotel with its Overlook Maze, but one of the key scenes takes place at the July 4th Ball. Horror deals with extrapolation of common anxieties: pregnancy; sociability; the dangers of sex; isolation; paranoia; misperception and so on. The main proponent of this thesis is Bill Blakemore, who proposed it in a 1987 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Unless a user has read his entire blog I'm not sure I can even begin to read "their idea" of what the film is about. Also scattered through out the film are references to violent conflict with Native American's, not only the stories of the actual attacks but visuals like Jack throwing a ball against Native American figures in the lounge similar to an axe swing. As with elsewhere in Kubrick, The Shining describes an epic conflict between these opposing gender roles, with the masculine fighting (and in the case of The Shining, losing) the battle for his very survival against the horrors of the terrifying female. In one scene Jack repeatedly throws the tennis ball at the figures featured in the sand painting. The novel is about individuals standing up to the Establishment, and everyone is held in the hospital, horrifyingly, forever. It comes from Poe through Freud and Jung and other psychological studies of the late 19th/20th centuries. I rewatch it every once in awhile to see if something changes, but I always come away with the same feelings; severely underwritten, often visually striking, inconsistent performances and a good score. So the house offers him alcohol to basically remind him of what he is missing out on. However, I definitely wouldn't say that the movie is about Genocide. Usually male characters are masculine and females feminine, although this is not always the case. Throughout the film the hotel is showing Jack how much better his life would be if his family wasn't around. Johnson even took books out of the library "about Native American iconography and burial grounds" for research. White man’s burden Lloyd...white man’s burden. I believe he intended The Shining to be somewhat abstract and puzzling (keep in mind he cited Eraserhead as being a huge influence on this film). That was a fantastic comment. Yep. In 1895, the Augusta, Ga. native was invited to race in England, where he became the first jockey to win a race on an American horse in that country. That genocide. Prior to that there were scifi-horror films sure, and scifi-horror films/literature as well, and even the Vincent Price mystery-horror films that were Poe inspired, but there was a line to be crossed at some point. Vitali explained some of the use of Native American motifs in the film. Generally speaking, the film version of The Shining is considered superior to King's novel - a rarity with any page to screen adaptation.There are lots of key differences between the book and the film. 62. Of course the documentary Room 237 posed all kinds of crazy theories like the movie is really about Americans' cruel treatment of Native Americans or an apology for Kubrick filming a fake moon landing. I have to echo this. Which is fine, but shouldn't detract from the fact that the story was originally about a man struggling with his demons and they ended up destroying him and what he "loved". Perhaps that the real American horror story is our violent founding & history. I visited the ancient pueblos and danced with Native Americans … Stars: Joseph M. Marshall, Irene Bedard, Gil Birmingham, John Terry. It is actually almost the exact same theme as the movie Eraserhead, which is interesting because Kubrick was a huge fan of Ereaserhead and actually screened it for the cast and crew before starting production on The Shining. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Press J to jump to the feed. The Shining is so celebrated, but it has just never grabbed me. King famously disavowed the film for making Jack such an obvious "bad guy" from the beginning, and how it perhaps understated the alcohol/addiction aspect, but he was telling a different story from the get-go. In Jack Torrance's mind all of his hopes, dreams, and desires are crushed by having to take care of his wife and child. Clearly by 1980, the Common Morality in people likely to read literary elements in film is against the US and The Man. For instance, whether it is good for him or not, Jack clearly loves alcohol (the look on his face when he takes that first drink!). That puts a new light on Ahab and Claggart. The Overlook is powerfully feminised; basically an enormous female body, either providing maternal care or displaying regenerative functions (it either feeds or bleeds). (Info / ^Contact). Remember that Jack’s throwing of a tennis ball is used symbolically in the film as a metaphor for axe swinging. The Shining is a commentary on the genocide of the Native American people Bill Blakemore has been a reporter for ABC News for about half a century, but perhaps his biggest scoop — at least for Kubrick fans — was his theory that The Shining explored the genocide of Native Americans. It may be simplistic, but I always felt that like the book, the film at heart is about a man struggling with his addiction, and the family that it spawned before he realized or had come to grips with what had happened. In short, for the movie to be a Marxist parable about consumerism, you would have to take all of Jack's delusions about himself at face value, and this simply doesn't add up with the clear intent of the movie, which is for you to feel totally horrified and shocked by Jack's descent into senseless madness. Except those never 'hang', and simply contribute to the uneasiness and underlying darkness of the film. Simply put I think The Shining is about a man who deeply resents the responsibility of having a family. In that sense, the movie is simply a parable about a physically abusive father, and the traumatic effects this has on a family. And with the addition of the Nazi typewriter, Kubrick expands the Native American genocide to genocide in general. Socioeconomic Class. Jack sees himself as a talented writer who could be a huge success if he didn't have to spend his time taking menial jobs to support his family. Some of the best evidence for the theme condensed into 15 mins. Most importantly, the novel makes the Overlook Hotel the sole villain of the film, as Jack Torrance himself is written as a good man and a loving father until the hotel drives him mad. We could just pass this off as an aesthetic “it looks cool” choice on Kubrick’s part. Remember, King made a lot of money for Publishing, and brought about the final zenith of physical publishing. Well said. It was used for purely aesthetic reasons. However, the text version is a much more thorough breakdown of the film and includes video stills and other research sources. It's made quite clear in the movie that Jack was physically abusive long before the Overlook hotel, the hotel just magnifies this exponentially. By Michael Landau. One of the figures is dressed in the same shade of blue as the dead twins who Danny saw with an axe near their bodies. As examined above, Bill Blakemore reads The Shining as a protest against the genocide of Native Americans. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. All the theories regarding this subject essentially amount to a list of Native American symbols in the movie like this article, with no analysis of what these symbols might mean. Okay, as people have pointed out, Kubrick has a lot of native american symbolism in The Shining- the Americans slaughtering the American Indians. In the nineteenth century it was the 'insanity plea' in murder cases that was all over the newspapers that inspired Poe's psychological horror. ... Grandeur From Sea to Shining Sea. Telegram Facebook Tweet Email MeWe LinkedIn Reddit. The creative act is associated with 'play', the opposite (activity undertaken in the interest of commodity) with 'work', hence 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'. Native American baby names are unique, and they have powerful, sentimental, and beautiful meanings behind them. Anyone with an American Indian background can pay the ultimate homage to their heritage by giving their bundle of joy a classic Native American name.

Most Successful Zodiac Sign, Pork Stroganoff With Noodles, Liyah You Got Served, Alpaca Mating With Sheep, How To Remove Knockdown Texture, Can A Deacon Bless A Rosary, 1965 Ford F250 Parts, Kamala Harris Socialist,