Every time I've taught my Contemporary Film class, I've found at least one or two students who don't seem to grasp and/or enjoy the exploration of implicit meaning in films. The idea that symbolism and latent content percolates beneath the veneer of narrative (or, in some cases, is the narrative) just sits wrong to those folks for some reason; I can even remember a student from many years ago in a class I taught on Stanley Kubrick asking me why films had to mean anything. (He plagiarized a final project and failed the course.)
I was reminded of that student after reading about the upcoming film Room 237, a documentary covering some rather interesting interpretations of the meanings potentially contained within The Shining. In general, film criticism over the decades has shifted from a more modernistic and canonical approach -- one of objective content knowingly delivered by the filmmaker with full intent and purpose -- to the more recent postmodernist perspective, which contrasts the "objective" views with the notion that the motivations of the filmmaker can be disconnected from a multitude of subjective interpretations dependent on culture, gender, power, and myriad other factors. Needless to say, the postmodernist angle is a lot more rich and entertaining, with "truths" being open for debate and discussion and debate.
The postmodern approach works best in film when one has the oeuvre of an auteur, or one who controls most of what is seen and heard on screen, and Kubrick certainly fits the auteur bill. After releasing one instant cinematic classic after another -- Dr. Strangelove ['64] to 2001: A Space Odyssey ['68] to A Clockwork Orange ['71] -- Kubrick hit a commercial stumble in 1975 with Barry Lyndon. While the classical storytelling and painterly compositions (helped in no small part by his cinematographer John Alcott) were embraced by the more patient film audiences in Europe, Kubrick wanted his next film to be a box office success in the U.S., so he optioned the work of an up-and-coming horror writer named Stephen King for his next project.
While The Shining seemed to piss everyone off upon its 1980 release -- King bitched that Kubrick whiffed on the horror, Kubrick fanatics blanched at the perceived populist move -- it was the commercial success Kubrick wanted, and despite the general perception of opportunity missed at the time, it has seemingly increased in esteem and popularity in the intervening decades. But how to reconcile clear continuity errors in the work of such a control-oriented auteur has driven analysis of The Shining down more countless rabbit holes than any other Kubrick film, and it's these dark crevices that Room 237 begins to explore and examine. Some appear to hold more weight than others -- for one, the evidence that The Shining is Kubrick's coded apology for filming the faked 1969 moon landing footage is, shall we say, scant -- but ultimately, it's the joy of intellectual adventure that drives this hypervigilant hunt for clues buried inside of clues that may not even exist in the first place. And Room 237 delivers on that front with ease.
The thing about being a Kubrick (semi-)scholar is that I've heard most of the interpretations put forth in Room 237 -- the coded depictions of genocide (both Native American and Jewish), for example -- as well as other compelling possibilities not elaborated upon in the film, such as the the twinning of the creative impulse to more murderous ones, as well as the erosion of communication in modern relationships as represented by the use of language. (The latter interpretations depend upon Jack's profession as a writer as a starting point, a point shared by King in the book; however, Kubrick's main deletion from King's work -- the boiler room of the hotel metaphorically connected to Jack's alcoholism -- impacts those interpretations either a little or a lot.) But no matter the perspective, the fact that one artifact can refract so many attempts to probe and peruse is tremendously engaging to those who can tolerate ambiguity and the possibility of art to challenge and frustrate.
And it sure as hell makes me want to watch The Shining again.
(P.S. -- If my memory serves, I had early exposure to The Shining through my childhood love of Stephen King's books, but my first real connection was spending the night at my paternal grandparent's house one dark winter night in 1980 and seeing the commercial for the film on television. I was only a few years older than Danny -- our haircuts were even a bit similar -- and to hear the still-unsettling score combined with the visuals of Danny being chased through a snowy maze of vegetation by his ax-wielding father was more than a little disturbing. In fact, I was so frightened by the ad -- not the movie, mind you, but the single television commercial for the movie -- that instead of leaving my bed on the living room couch and winding through the dark maze of my grandparent's house to go to the bathroom, I peed in my grandmother's potted plants by the big picture window, never taking my eyes off the night-black woods on the other side of that too-thin window glass, as if Jack would pop up into my field of vision while I was in mid-stream and take a swing at me with his oh-so-sharp ax. Here's Johnny, indeed.)
I was reminded of that student after reading about the upcoming film Room 237, a documentary covering some rather interesting interpretations of the meanings potentially contained within The Shining. In general, film criticism over the decades has shifted from a more modernistic and canonical approach -- one of objective content knowingly delivered by the filmmaker with full intent and purpose -- to the more recent postmodernist perspective, which contrasts the "objective" views with the notion that the motivations of the filmmaker can be disconnected from a multitude of subjective interpretations dependent on culture, gender, power, and myriad other factors. Needless to say, the postmodernist angle is a lot more rich and entertaining, with "truths" being open for debate and discussion and debate.
The postmodern approach works best in film when one has the oeuvre of an auteur, or one who controls most of what is seen and heard on screen, and Kubrick certainly fits the auteur bill. After releasing one instant cinematic classic after another -- Dr. Strangelove ['64] to 2001: A Space Odyssey ['68] to A Clockwork Orange ['71] -- Kubrick hit a commercial stumble in 1975 with Barry Lyndon. While the classical storytelling and painterly compositions (helped in no small part by his cinematographer John Alcott) were embraced by the more patient film audiences in Europe, Kubrick wanted his next film to be a box office success in the U.S., so he optioned the work of an up-and-coming horror writer named Stephen King for his next project.
While The Shining seemed to piss everyone off upon its 1980 release -- King bitched that Kubrick whiffed on the horror, Kubrick fanatics blanched at the perceived populist move -- it was the commercial success Kubrick wanted, and despite the general perception of opportunity missed at the time, it has seemingly increased in esteem and popularity in the intervening decades. But how to reconcile clear continuity errors in the work of such a control-oriented auteur has driven analysis of The Shining down more countless rabbit holes than any other Kubrick film, and it's these dark crevices that Room 237 begins to explore and examine. Some appear to hold more weight than others -- for one, the evidence that The Shining is Kubrick's coded apology for filming the faked 1969 moon landing footage is, shall we say, scant -- but ultimately, it's the joy of intellectual adventure that drives this hypervigilant hunt for clues buried inside of clues that may not even exist in the first place. And Room 237 delivers on that front with ease.
The thing about being a Kubrick (semi-)scholar is that I've heard most of the interpretations put forth in Room 237 -- the coded depictions of genocide (both Native American and Jewish), for example -- as well as other compelling possibilities not elaborated upon in the film, such as the the twinning of the creative impulse to more murderous ones, as well as the erosion of communication in modern relationships as represented by the use of language. (The latter interpretations depend upon Jack's profession as a writer as a starting point, a point shared by King in the book; however, Kubrick's main deletion from King's work -- the boiler room of the hotel metaphorically connected to Jack's alcoholism -- impacts those interpretations either a little or a lot.) But no matter the perspective, the fact that one artifact can refract so many attempts to probe and peruse is tremendously engaging to those who can tolerate ambiguity and the possibility of art to challenge and frustrate.
And it sure as hell makes me want to watch The Shining again.
(P.S. -- If my memory serves, I had early exposure to The Shining through my childhood love of Stephen King's books, but my first real connection was spending the night at my paternal grandparent's house one dark winter night in 1980 and seeing the commercial for the film on television. I was only a few years older than Danny -- our haircuts were even a bit similar -- and to hear the still-unsettling score combined with the visuals of Danny being chased through a snowy maze of vegetation by his ax-wielding father was more than a little disturbing. In fact, I was so frightened by the ad -- not the movie, mind you, but the single television commercial for the movie -- that instead of leaving my bed on the living room couch and winding through the dark maze of my grandparent's house to go to the bathroom, I peed in my grandmother's potted plants by the big picture window, never taking my eyes off the night-black woods on the other side of that too-thin window glass, as if Jack would pop up into my field of vision while I was in mid-stream and take a swing at me with his oh-so-sharp ax. Here's Johnny, indeed.)
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