"The Shone Report. 16 identical audio markers strategically placed in the first 48 minutes of the film. The sound of Stanley Kubrick calling out the word “Shone” – which is the past tense of the word Shine."
Seriously. . . I'm curious now. How many constant readers buy into all The Shining "deeper" stuff -- and how many think it's just a good movie?
In terms of “meaning” in the Shining, it’s not a matter of codes, and, like I said before and the time before that, it’s all about personal demons, alcoholism and anger chief among them.
ReplyDeleteIf it’s true in any way that Kubrick inserted these little codes and teasers, then the most logical explanation is that he was/is a filmmaker who liked/likes to toy with his audience. He wouldn’t exactly be the first one either; Alfred Hitchcock once said his greatest pleasure was to “Play the audience like a harp”.
I don’t know how much of a Hitchcock fan Kubrick was, but if he was any kind of fan, it’s possible he’s taken Hitch’s philosophy to the next level. In other words, all he’s doing with this visual hints and specialized camera angles is playing parlor tricks, all stories are accomplished with smoke and mirrors after all. I don’t see why Kubrick’s film shouldn’t be the same case of a director toying with his audience, especially the hyper-devoted set of his audience, his “Constant Viewers” if you will. Let’s not forget, John Lennon is said to have wrote “I am the Walrus” as satire on all the fans who kept looking for codes in the Beatles songs, and he did this by stringing all the nonsense he could think of into a surprisingly poetic, if meaningless, jumble of lyrics. Of the song, Lennon is said to have quipped, “Let them figure THAT one out!” In other words, “If you’ve studied it this far, you have way too much time on your hands,” and I’m afraid that goes for the two little girls, who, let it be noted, aren’t even shown in King’s original novel, they’re just mentioned and never seen.
ChrisC
P.S. "Here's another tip for you all, the Walrus was Paul." "Goo goo gajoob!"
I saw Room 237 last weekend and found 95 percent of it to be absolute rubbish!
ReplyDeleteI did like the guy who believed that Kubrick was going for a subtext of a labyrinth and minotaur. That was a serious examination of subtext in film. The rest of it was just absolute garbage uttered by people with too much time on their hands.