I watched Room 237 the other night. It’s a documentary about hidden meanings and subtext in The Shining. Some theories sound plausible. Others sound like a case of people reading too much into the movie. I have no problem with the idea that Kubrick put hidden meaning in the film. When I write a story, I sometimes drop in little things like that. It’s not about making people figure them out. It’s a natural part of the process. Ideas kick in organically as one goes along. In the end, I find the theory making about The Shining to be a good thing, regardless of the validity or ridiculousness of the theories. If The Shining gets that many people thinking, that’s a plus.

I fall into the lukewarm crowd when it comes to The Shining. Objectively, it’s a classic film by a master that can reward repeated views. Subjectively, it’s not a film I crave to see repeatedly. Nevertheless, Room 237 inspired me to watch The Shining again. It’s been a decent amount of years since I’ve seen it. Perhaps my opinion changed. Plus, I was curious to see if I could decipher some of the subtext, if any, that Kubrick put into it. Some subtext has to exist. I don’t believe Kubrick would have thrown in random supernatural events. They should mean something. The game is to figure out what the supernatural events may represent within the movie we are shown.

First off, I established rules. I didn’t want to look for Native American genocide or Holocaust subtexts in The Shining. I didn’t want to look for those things because it introduces elements foreign to the film. My goal was to only work with what the movie gives a person to work with (although, to be fair, some dialogue does mention Native American burial grounds and attacks, and the hotel does contain Native American motifs). I also didn’t want to use stuff from the novel. I didn’t want to say “according to the book, the story of the woman in the bathtub is thus…” Again, that introduces elements foreign to the film. If the film doesn’t give us any information about the woman in the bathtub, then we can’t bring book information on the subject into the film. That’s cheap of a filmmaker to make a movie and then turn around and say if you want to find out what stuff meant, read the book.

On a surface level, The Shining is a haunted house movie. The Overlook seems to have a goal. It wants to tear the Torrance family apart and add them to its ghostly population. The Overlook does not appear to be able to hurt people directly (although it can do things like open doors, roll balls, etc.). The hotel seems to hurt people psychologically by preying on their issues. Once a person is driven bonkers, they do the Overlook’s dirty work for it.

I propose that Kubrick had a purpose behind the supernatural events he shows in The Shining. Each one was tailor-made to psychologically break down the character who witnessed it. It wasn’t a matter of him sitting around and saying to someone, “Hey, you know what would be really scary? What if Wendy goes into a room…and it has a bunch of skeletons in it! Ooh, spooky!”

Regarding the characters, Jack appears to be a big phony who initially plays the part of a decent guy. During the interview, his demeanor and answers seem like that of a person who is pretending to be congenial. He also is not shown doing any of the work he is hired to do at the hotel. Rather, Wendy is shown checking the boiler, caring for the family, etc. We also know Jack is an alcoholic, abusive, has a temper and fancies himself a writer. One also gets the impression that Jack has nothing but disdain for Wendy, and he treats Danny in a creepy manner.

Danny appears fairly wrecked. He is presented as lonely, morose and distrusting of adults. His only friend is an imaginary friend. He has a shining ability, whatever that’s worth.

Wendy is a nervous woman who appears to be holding herself and her family together by just her fingernails. One senses a lot of sadness behind the Wendy character, like she never had much and then Jack showed up in fairy-tale fashion. Unfortunately, he was no Prince Charming.

Let’s breakdown the manifestations each character experienced…

Danny: blood elevator, twins, a ball and an old-rotted woman in a bathtub.

Danny’s blood elevator vision is not manifested by the hotel. Danny sees the blood elevator before he goes to the hotel. The blood elevator is a premonition to him, not a manifestation. The blood elevator is actually a Wendy manifestation, so we will get to it later.

The twins are victims of their father, as Danny is a victim of his father. The twins also want to play. Earlier, Danny said he didn’t mind leaving home because he “had no one to play with.” The hotel is therefore using the twins to attack Danny’s issue of loneliness.

The ball is the same ball used by Jack earlier. The hotel uses the ball to lure Danny into room 237. Hence, it is as if Jack himself is luring Danny into an attack. This is the hotel using Danny’s father issues against him (father issues to be expounded on in a bit).

The old-rotted woman in the bathtub that Danny encounters also reveals herself to Jack, but first she is a beautiful woman. Why does Danny only see the old-rotted woman and not the beautiful woman? We’ll get to that shortly.

Jack: beautiful woman, old-rotted woman, bartender, ballroom full of people and Grady.

Thanks to the era of DVDs, viewers are allowed another clue into Jack’s psych that may not have been apparent to 1980 theatergoers. Jack is reading a Playgirl magazine while he is waiting for Ullman and Watson to give him a tour. That particular issue of Playgirl also happens to contain an article on incest. The theory that Jack did more than physically abuse Danny is floating around out there. Can a case be made for that with the manifestations that Jack encounters?

When Jack sees the beautiful woman, he ravages her. Yet, his lust seems forced, as if he doesn’t like women. With this realization, the beautiful woman turns into the old-rotted woman. She then laughs at Jack. The beautiful woman/old-rotted woman is the Overlook attacking Jack’s issues with sexuality. Jack’s choice of a wife in Wendy also shows his hang-ups. He married a mousy woman who will never demand much of him. Meanwhile, Danny never sees the beautiful woman because Jack has already damaged him due to the molestation.

The bartender is how the Overlook attacks Jack’s issue with alcoholism. That one is fairly obvious, but alcohol is also the key to Jack throwing off his inhibitions.

The ballroom full of people is because Jack is a narcissist. As Grady said, Jack is “the important one.” Jack thinks he is an artist. Jack thinks he is better than his wife and child. Jack thinks he is better than the job he was contracted to do. It’s all about Jack with Jack — all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, but he actually doesn’t do any work beyond gratifying himself. The ballroom full of people is the hotel making Jack the center of attention, feeding his ego.

Jack blames his wife and child for holding him back in life. A wife and child are also roadblocks in coming to terms with his sexuality. The hotel uses Grady as a way for Jack to rid himself of these shackles.

Wendy: guy in bear costume with another man, guy with split scalp, roomful of skeleton people and blood elevator.

Earlier in the film, Danny and bears are linked at different points. Danny is lying on a bear blanket when the doctor examines him. Danny has a picture of bears on the wall of his hotel room. Winnie the Pooh is in the background as Danny watches TV. Hence, Wendy seeing the guy in a bear costume with another man is the Overlook preying on the fact that Wendy knows Jack did more than physically abuse Danny. She just doesn’t want to admit it. (In addition, Danny has a “42” on a sweater, and “The Summer of ’42” is playing on TV, which is a movie about an adult having an affair with a minor.)

Wendy then sees a man with a split skull who says, “Great party, isn’t it?” This is the hotel’s sarcastic response to Wendy’s denial. It also is an answer to earlier lines of hers where she says she is sure they will have a great time at the hotel and that they could really “party” in the Gold Room. She was trying to remain optimistic in those scenes despite reality. The man’s skull is split because Wendy’s denial has finally cracked. She can’t fool herself any longer.

Wendy next sees a roomful of skeleton people. Now that she has faced the truth about Jack, the hotel is mocking her loneliness. Where Jack got a ballroom of people, Wendy got a roomful of skeletons. She is alone in the world and no one is coming to help her. I suppose one could also work the old “skeletons in the closet” thing into it, as well.

Finally, Wendy sees the blood elevator. It is all of these horrible truths engulfing her. She also then fully shares in Danny’s horror, as well, since he saw the blood elevator earlier.

And there you go; I believe it’s possible that Kubrick had molestation in mind when he made The Shining, just like I believe it’s possible that he had Native American genocide in mind. I just have one question about such a thing…

Why would a person want to put such a rotten thing into the film? I suppose some purpose is served by portraying it as a rotten thing, but is the movie better for it? Does it make the movie more entertaining to an audience? Or was it just a trick, something to put in the movie that audiences would maybe pick up on subconsciously and be made to feel more unsettled?

Unknown, but here are some quotes by Kubrick related to such things:

“The feel of the experience is the important thing, not the ability to verbalize or analyze it.”

“The essence of dramatic form is to let an idea come over people without it being plainly stated. When you say something directly, it’s simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.”

All in all, I find The Shining to be a weird film. It doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be exactly. It might want to be an unconventional horror film, free of cobwebs and skeletons…except it has a scene that is exactly cobwebs and skeletons. All of Jack’s encounters with ghosts happen when mirrors are present, so maybe it’s all in his head…except when the pantry door is opened by a ghost. The movie wants to scare the viewer…except the camerawork strives to do the opposite at times, like when Wendy discovers what Jack has been writing (great moment, by the way), and instead of Jack popping up over her shoulder, the camera pulls back to allow him to leisurely step into frame.

And you know what really gets me — what is the point of the shining? Danny has a vision of the blood elevator, which Wendy sees later anyway. Danny also uses the shining to call Hallorann, so the movie can take time to watch Hallorann travel to the Overlook…only to die immediately. I guess Danny also writes ‘redrum” on the door. Overall, the shining ability really does nothing to add to the story. It just confuses it. I think the movie might have been better off without it. Seriously, try to think of a moment where the shining ability affects the outcome of anything or advances the plot.

And maybe that’s the answer to The Shining — that the movie got away from Kubrick. I don’t think he got it exactly nailed down the way he wanted. He departed far enough from the book that by retaining certain things, like the shining, he ended up muddying the waters. Maybe there is molestation subtext, or genocide subtext, or holocaust subtext, or the past impinging on the present, or reincarnation, or moon landings, or rug patterns or continuity errors that aren’t really continuity errors except when they are continuity errors…but it didn’t come together like it should (more stories probably don’t come together than stories that do come together). The Shining is a movie close to greatness, but it can’t quite close the deal. Intriguing try, though — even a Kubrick failure is interesting, which is a testament to his ability. One more quote by Kubrick to sum it all up (I’m not sure I agree with it, but for what it’s worth on showing his story-telling approach, he said it)…

“I don’t think that writers or painters or filmmakers function because they have something they particularly want to say. They have something that they feel. And they like the art form; they like words, or the smell of paint, or celluloid and photographic images and working with actors. I don’t think that any genuine artist has ever been oriented by some didactic point of view, even if he thought he was.”