"The Shining" today is a classic that cannot be avoided as a horror film and a thriller, and even one of the originators of psychological fear movies. The influence and achievements of "The Shining" on today's horror movies can be written well. Thousands of words.
But did you know that the initial evaluation of "The Shining" was mixed, and even the worst director of Jin Suanmei was nominated that year. In 1980, it happened to be the first time of Jin Sumei. But then "The Shining" slowly fermented, and the audience would take out "The Shining" and reinterpret it every few years. To this day, the metaphors and philosophy in "The Shining" are constantly following the values and aesthetics of the times. Change, up to now, no one can shake the status of "The Shining" in the palace.
If anything can represent an iceberg movie, then "The Shining" should be the most representative work deservedly. In the world under the iceberg of "The Shining", everyone explores different angles and levels in each era, which makes the content of "The Shining" even more abundant. This reminds me of a sentence from Director Jiang Wen, saying that some masters’ films were not filmed for the audience at the time, but for the future.
"The Shining" is a genre of horror film. Unknown fear is the biggest source and motivation of horror films. "The Shining" not only has to achieve such a goal ambition, but also transcends the horror itself. It is not only the fear of watching movies. There is also a process of exploring fear in various aspects such as psychology, society, and history.
Only one "The Shining" can do everything in all aspects, but there is no lack of a complete and clear story. These credits are also attributed to the genius master Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick’s films are not many in his lifetime, and almost every genre is different, from science fiction to suspense, from classical to modern warfare, whatever subject matter is in his hands, all have become that genre. The work of the mountain gave posterity a variety of inspirations and experiences.
But in any case, Stanley Kubrick's work, the manipulating the entire human pattern from the outside to the inside, has reached a jaw-dropping level. His desperate tone of human nature has also made the audience get the most bottomed. think. The traditional mainstream horror films either have ghosts or schizophrenia. "The Shining" is a work that explores the dual impact of supernatural phenomena and the inner mental state of the characters, and achieves a perfection between the two. Balance allows people to have a lot of room for deconstruction.
At the beginning of the film, there are no characters and no dialogue, just a group of aerial mirrors shot from the sky followed by a car, accompanied by a low soundtrack.
But carefully observing the opening mirror, the first set of shots was a low-altitude flight shooting a reef in the lake alone, which indicates that the protagonist's solitary and strange mood in the film will be very different from ordinary people.
Then the camera follows the protagonist’s car, following the protagonist’s family like a devil, which implies that they will encounter a terrible, unknown and supernatural event afterwards.
The car is driving on the long winding mountain road. On the way to the destination, there are very few vehicles on this road. Even if there are one or two cars, they are running in the opposite direction of the protagonist’s car. This shows that the protagonist's family is heading to a mysterious and helpless place.
The final shot fell on a building at the foot of a snowy mountain. We will later learn that this is a resort hotel, far away from the city. This hotel is isolated and closed until winter, and the horrible and bizarre story of the protagonist’s family will be in this hotel. occur.
The film uses a diary narrative method, starting from the interview. The protagonist Jack is a teacher + writer. In order to get rid of the unsatisfactory work and find inspiration, he accepted a job as a hotel janitor who was maintained for 5 months in the winter.
During the interview, Jack and the audience also learned from the hotel manager that the hotel had a tragic murder in 1970. The janitor killed his wife and two daughters during the winter, and finally committed suicide by himself. At this time, on the side of Jack’s family, his son Danny seems to have the ability to predict + split personality. Danny can know a lot of unknown things from Tony in his mouth. . Of course, Tony is also aware of the more weird horror incident in the hotel. At this time, the hotel elevator spewed a lot of "red wine", and the classic scene of the sisters' flowers appeared for the first time. Danny must have been “drunk” seeing so many “red wines”. His mother called a children’s doctor but couldn’t find out the clues, but we learned that Jack hurt Danny when he was drunk last time and is currently abstaining from drinking. , This is also a precursor to Jack's hidden personality defect. It’s worth noting that when Danny was in the toilet, the director deliberately placed the cartoon image on the door of Danny’s room as the foreground. The most obvious one was the dumbest of the seven dwarfs, but when Danny fainted, the door The dwarf on top disappeared.
This means that Danny has retreated a layer of innocence and stupidity, and it also proves the power of Danny, the shining power, perhaps the shining super power, which can make objects move and disappear.
On the day Jack and his family went to the hotel, they had a conversation in the car about the Donner squad during the Western Development of the United States at the end of the 19th century. Being able to cannibalize each other has already ensured survival. This incident is defined as the worst tragedy in the development of the western United States. I believe that Stanley Kubrick will not add some boring dialogues in a movie to disrupt the rhythm of the work. This story of the Donner team implies that the Jack family will also encounter them in the future. Blizzard will also have a terrifying experience because of "survival".
More importantly, the westward movement of the United States accelerated the pace of the United States in the process of becoming a strong country, but it also caused the local native Indian population to sharply decrease and no room for survival. The curse of the Indians is also the most important thing in "The Shining". Metaphors, to emphasize the once indelible stain of the United States, there will be many such expressions after the film. After the Jacks arrived at the hotel, when the hotel manager introduced them to the hotel, they told them that the hotel used to be an Indian cemetery. There are also many Indian paintings and logo totems on the interior walls of the hotel. It implies that the hotel is cursed. During the introduction, Chef Dick took Wendy and Danny to introduce the kitchen. Dick directly communicated with Danny through spiritual dialogue. From this we also learned that the supernatural phenomenon of the shining not only exists on Danny, but also the shining. It is the super power of a certain group of people.
And the super power of the Shining can be branched into many functions. It can communicate with the heart, know the past, foresee the future, and even participate in people and things in the past. It is worth mentioning that when Dick took them to visit the freezer storage room, the background of opening and closing the door was completely changed, but they did not know it at all. I believe that for Stanley Kubrick, who pursues perfection to the paranoid, this is definitely not A piercing lens, which is more like a shining supernatural hint. In the dry food storage room, on the display shelf in the background when Dick introduced, the baking powder with the usual CALUMET Indian head was suddenly displayed, which also metaphors the curse of the Indians. One month later, Danny was walking back and forth in the hotel on a children’s bicycle. This kind of first-angle follow-up shot was a precedent at the time, making the audience full of immersion and full of opposition. The fear of a corner.
Perhaps everyone does not know that this is also the first use of Steadicam stabilizer photography technology, so it can present the audience with an immersive and terrifying atmosphere. At the same time, Danny’s cycling is also one of the classic sections of the film. It appeared three times in total. The first time was on the first floor, forming a circular circle, but the second and third times Danny’s cycling routes were always followed People discuss the route very strange, because no matter how you describe the route, it seems difficult to figure out and straighten out the internal structure of the entire hotel.
So many people would think that Danny’s second and third cycling routes were disturbed by shining or supernatural phenomena, thereby adding to the mystery of the whole movie. On the other hand, Jack seemed to change the environment and still couldn't find inspiration. The typewriter didn't have a word. Jack was venting the tennis madly. Finally Jack threw the tennis ball to the end of the corridor. This is a very important point of information, which will be explained later. After that, Jack looked at the model maze. Inside the maze, Wendy and Danny could be seen walking to the center of the maze. You can understand that this is the editing of the director’s montage, but is it really that simple? This can actually be understood as Jack in the film The first time the shining appeared in the movie, yes, Jack also has shining super powers.
Earlier, Dick said that he could talk to his grandmother's soul, which has explained the inheritance of the super power of the shining, which also indirectly shows that Danny’s shining comes from his father Jack. After that, Danny stepped on a bicycle for the second time on the second floor. After passing the most mysterious room 237, there were many explanations for 237. The back slowly unfolded. The first time Danny came into contact with room 237, the door was closed and could not be opened. Let it go. In the evening, Jack finally got the inspiration to write a book quickly. At this time, Wendy came over to interrupt and talk about some of them at an untimely time. This caused Jack's inspiration to be interrupted and completely furious. Frankly speaking, sometimes you are writing in a good mood. If someone comes to interfere, it really makes people feel bad.
This is also the beginning of Jack's mental problems. Jack yelled at Wendy, and his behavior became weird and disturbing. It is worth noting that when Wendy was talking to Jack, there was a scene where the chair behind Jack had disappeared. As I said before, perfectionists like Stanley Kubrick cannot have a piercing lens, so this is definitely deliberate.
When the chair disappeared, Wendy mentioned Blizzard’s weather forecast. Because of this dispensable conversation, Jack’s "inspiration" was interrupted, so Jack became angry and angry from this moment, mentally troubled. Becomes uncontrollable, and the chair disappears, implying that Jack at this time is not the friendly Jack before. Later, when Wendy and Danny were playing in the snow, Jack looked out the window and put on a penetrating expression, which was a sign that Jack had started to fall into trouble. Danny stepped on the bicycle for the third time. This time I’m not kidding. He directly ran into the sisters holding hands. Danny even witnessed the tragic death of sisters. But through the dialogue between Danny and Tony, we learned about this flash. The spirit incident is an involuntary behavior. In our words, it is that the hotel's feng shui is too bad and resentment is too heavy, and it is inevitable to hit a ghost. The time came on Monday, and the blizzard continued. Danny and Wendy watched boring TV, so Danny went up to get the fire truck, only to find that Jack was sitting on the bed and looking out the window in a daze, his expression was no different from that of a mentally ill patient.
Jack asked Danny to accompany him. Here I have to praise the composition of the film. The realistic Jack sits on the bed and occupies most of the picture. Jack in the mirror sees the expression on the right. Danny in the middle is small and weak. This represents With the suppression and control of patriarchy and patriarchy, Danny walked to Jack's side more like a call he had to obey. In this conversation, Danny did not ask Jack a question. Jack’s "yes? to what!" from the beginning also showed Jack's impatience.
As night fell, Danny was playing on the second floor. A tennis ball rolled into the screen, but when he looked far away, the corridor was empty. This tennis ball was the one Jack vented before.
At this time, you might have doubts. The tennis ball that caught Danny's attention was pink, while the tennis ball that Jack played before was yellow. For this reason, I deliberately checked the original script. The script says yellow ball is yellow, so Danny's tennis ball appears pink at this time, probably because of the reflection of the carpet and the color palette. In other words, the tennis ball appeared in the film. It's all the same.
So who passed this ball? The film did not give a clear answer. It can be understood as the evil power of the hotel. So Danny found that Room 237 was open, and Danny, who was full of curiosity, walked in.
At the same time, Jack had a terrible nightmare in the lobby. He kept screaming. He dreamed of breaking Wendy and Danny into pieces. When Wendy was comforting Jack, Danny appeared disheveled and his neck There are also scratches.
Wendy's eyes widened at this time, killing Jack and torturing Danny, which undoubtedly pushed Jack even further into the abyss of insanity.
Jack began to vent his anger to himself. When Jack came to the Golden Bar, Jack, who had been abstaining from drinking for a long time, said that even if he betrayed his soul, he had to drink a glass of wine. This sentence can be regarded as the devil's bargain. At this time, the wine Paul Eid appeared, and Jack began to vomit with Lloyd. It is said that the filming of this scene was changed, and the filming was changed over and over again. Jack was sweating and miserable when filming this scene, but of course the effect came out even Jack admired his acting skills.
When Jack got the wine and drank it, the filming was so tempting. Everyone who saw it probably wanted to pour a glass of wine and drink it right away.
It is worth noting that when the bartender pours Jack, Jack said, "The burden of the white man"! Some people associate this sentence with the westward movement at the beginning of the film, and also add the interpretation of the Indians, but I prefer the pattern to be not that big. First of all, this sentence comes from a poem in "The United States and the Philippine Islands" written by Rudyard Kipling. It is about the colonization and rule of the Philippine people by the United States. The United States is responsible for the so-called civilization of the Philippine people. Important task.
Later, when this sentence evolved, the man who became the head of the family had to take on the responsibility of protecting and stabilizing the family. Jack quoted this sentence here, combined with the plot, the meaning is actually very straightforward, that is, Jack was misunderstood by his wife, but as a man I don't want to explain too much, just bear these slanders and injustices silently.
Moreover, Jack gave up drinking for a long time. Alcohol is a kind of release for Jack. At this time, Jack can finally drink alcohol. It is very reasonable to use this sentence to lament his contribution to the family. The illusion of Jack's bar is a reaction to the strengthening of Jack's shining super power, and of course it can also be interpreted as a portrayal of Jack's schizophrenia. My interpretation is that there are both. This is also the purpose of the director who wants to make the film interpretable from multiple angles.
At this time Wendy ran over to disrupt the game and told Jack Daniels that the injury came from room 237, and there was a woman in the room. Jack walked in with curiosity, and he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. This is also a iconic shining image. Who this woman is has always been a mystery in the film.
However, the original novel gave a very detailed explanation. This woman was called Mrs. Messi. After she came to this hotel, she had an affair with a guy who stole her Porsche and left. Mrs. Messi was heartbroken. Never commit suicide in the bathtub. After seeing this beautiful woman, Jack stepped forward to kiss her, but at this time the young woman turned into a rotten old woman. This scene can also be said to be the most mysterious and mysterious classic segment in the film.
There are many interpretations about young women turning into rotten old women. Here I pay more attention to Jack’s kiss. Obviously young women are a symbol of temptation, representing the evil power of the hotel, just like the glass of wine in the bar. Selling Jack's soul.
When Jack kissed it, the young woman revealed her evil nature and was ugly. As for the number of room 237, there are more interpretations. Among them, the more discussed is that 237 represents the distance from the earth to the moon of 237,000 miles, and it happened that Danny was still wearing Apollo moon landing clothes.
Conspiracy theories in reality also point out that the moon landing plan is a complete lie, and the images related to the moon landing were directed by Stanley Kubrick, and Room 237 represents mystery and lies. Even 237 can even play digital games, such as 2X3X7=42, and the number 42 constantly appears in the film. Some Danny wore a number 42 dress at the beginning, and the TV in the film played the TV series of the summer of 1942. And Jack's typewriter made in Germany.
The combination of these elements implies that in 1942, the German Nazis decided to annihilate all Jewish people, and the film used this to imply the crimes committed by the German Nazis. This is currently the most discussed and most attractive interpretation, but I can only say that there may be no so-called truth in 237. Maybe this is just our wishful thinking. In the original novel, this room is 217, which was later changed by the director. 237.
The reason for changing the room number is very simple. Because the hotel that was filmed has a prototype, the director changed a room number that does not exist at all in order not to affect the business of the hotel's real 217 room. Moreover, there is no fixed value for the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The distance between the Moon and the Earth is long and short. The average value is about 238,856 miles, not 237,000 miles. As for the conspiracy of Stanley Kubrick and the moon landing plan In theory, it is estimated that no one knows the truth.
2X3X7 digital games are even more far-fetched, because only the numbers themselves, there are so many ways to play, and the director's personal fascination with certain numbers, only the director himself knows.
But in any case, the over-interpretation of so many people is in itself the charm of the "The Shining" movie. Let's return to the plot of the film. Danny uses the shining's ability to communicate with each other to convey the danger to Dick. Dick rushes back to the hotel from Miami to try to save their mother and son.
After Jack returned to the room, he didn't mention a word about the weird incident in Room 237, but Wendy couldn't wait any longer and wanted to leave. This sentence completely angered Jack, and the couple began to break apart. At this time Jack returned to the Golden Bar again, and Jack traveled back to the celebration banquet in 1921, wanting to get drunk.
As a result, a waiter knocked over the plate, and the two went to the very design toilet. Through dialogue, Jack learned that the waiter was the hotel manager who killed his wife and daughter, and the manager instigated Jack to take a more radical approach. , Even want to beat Danny hard. It is worth noting here that the previous hotel manager told Jack that the hotel manager who killed the family suicide was named Charles Grady, but it was Delbert Grady that Jack met.
Obviously this is definitely not a bug, but a hint of reincarnation.
First of all, judging from the costumes of the people at the prom that Jack crossed, it was the celebration banquet in 1921 that was correct, so Delbert Grady was also from that period, and the predecessor of the hotel manager was Charles Grady in 1970. Obviously these two people are not the same person, but Grady's last name is a word game played by the director.
And Jack said, I have seen your photo in the newspaper. This is what Jack knew when he was reading the hotel’s historical news. This information point is very obscure. Next to Jack’s typewriter, there is a very thick collection of newspaper clippings. It should be an important event that happened in the hotel, and Jack should have learned about Delbert Grady there. In other words, when the first hotel opened, Delbert Grady, as the hotel manager, was already cursed, and he has been reincarnating since then, and now it’s on Jack's head, so Delbert Grady will finally say, "I You have always been the manager here, and you have always been Jack."
This sentence just shows that no matter which Grady or Jack it is, they are all cursed people. At the same time, Danny also sensed the transformation of his father, Jack, and repeated the word "redrum". Wendy stepped forward and asked, only to find that Danny had disappeared. At this time, Danny's personality was Tony. Wendy went to find Jack, but found that Jack’s manuscript from the beginning to the end only wrote one sentence: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." (Everything is work and no play, which will make Jack a dull boy. Stupid boy).
What does this sentence mean, like Room 237, has multiple interpretation methods. My understanding is that this sentence itself is an American proverb, which means that people will become boring and boring without working hours. The frustration of Jack's career and family makes Jack a man who can do nothing, and the complete release of his spirit will make Jack a free man.
Many people think that this is what Jack was cursed to write, but I think that leaving aside the content of the movie's shining and supernatural phenomena, this is actually a manifestation of Jack's pure mental illness, which represents Jack's own mental breakdown.
In other words, Jack actually lives in another Jack, just like Danny has always had Tony in him, but the other Jack in Jack is a more manic, angry, and more abnormal devil. After he came to this hotel, It was completely released by a strong evil force. If you look closely, the color of the typewriter has also changed. It used to be white, but now it has become dark blue. Still that sentence, this is definitely not a gangbang. The director wants to use these replacement details to increase the abnormal tone of the hotel. Sex also enhances the mystery of each object.
When Wendy found out that Jack was completely crazy, she was even more hysterical and on the edge of despair. This scene was also called the most NG scene in film and television, and it was NG 127 times! The actress who played Wendy went straight to the point of collapse. Afterwards, Stanley Kubrick said that so many NGs are for the real feeling of actor madness. It seems that the director was deliberate.
However, in this scene, the two actors also contributed the most exciting rivalry in the whole film. After that, Wendy took a baseball bat and knocked out Jack and locked Jack in the storage room. After Jack was sober, Delbot Grady was outside the door, and on the shelf behind Jack, the one in front also appeared eye-catchingly. The baking powder of the Indian head shows that the curse is happening. At this time, Danny (Tony) took a knife and lipstick and wrote REDRUM on the door. This is a mirror game played by the director. When Wendy was frightened awake, he saw it in the mirror for the first time. It was Murder's murder. After Jack opened the door with Grady's help, the most classic fragment of slashing the door with an axe was the climax of the film. This scene was also tributed and imitated by various movies afterwards.
Then Jack chased Danny and ran into the maze garden, lost in the maze, frozen to death under the ice and snow.
While Wendy was escaping from the hotel, various horror scenes continued to appear. Some people here interpreted Wendy as having the shining, but I don’t agree with this view because the film involves personality schizophrenia, shining superpowers, and Supernatural phenomena are also haunted, so Wendy probably hit a ghost in the back.
After Dick came to the hotel, he was hacked to death by Jack. Dick's appearance only brought a snowmobile to bring mother and son down the mountain.
At the end of the film, the beginning and end of a cycle of reincarnation was fixed at a celebration banquet on July 4, 1921. It was Jack himself who hosted the guests.
First of all, July 4th is the Independence Day of the United States. Are they celebrating American Independence Day? I don’t know, but this date is actually full of irony. It represents the glorious Independence Day of the United States, but something terrifying happened in the hotel. In fact, this also implies the destruction of Indian civilization by colonial shocks. As for why Jack himself appeared in the photo, there are many interpretations. Here I will quote Stanley Kubrick’s own interview explanation. He said that this is a kind of reincarnation. Jack returned to 1921 and became the hotel manager at the time. Maybe someone will be the gatekeeper next time, so the next time the cursed person will appear in the center of this photo. In addition, "The Shining" actually has an ending. This ending was only released on the day of its European premiere at that time, and was later cut off by Stanley Kubrick. It is said that very few people have seen this ending.
The ending of "The Shining" was deleted by the director, Wendy and Danny finally went down the mountain and was admitted to the hospital. The current hotel manager went to visit and sympathize. Until the end, the hotel manager took out the tennis ball and said it was returned to Danny. This move can be said to be extremely scary, because so far we don’t know who owns the tennis, Jack’s or Danny’s, or the hotel’s own, and the tennis leads Danny to room 237, which also makes people. shudder.
The movie "The Shining" is still talked about by us today, because the film can be interpreted in many ways. On the surface, we can see it as the process of a frustrated writer's mental breakdown, or as a haunted hotel incident.
Looking deeper, we see more metaphors and satires about the United States and history, as well as Stanley Kubrick’s more detailed and terrifying personal style philosophy, so "The Shining" has such a high status in film history. , Because the film is not just a simple horror film, but a multi-faceted fear film. The fear that "The Shining" really conveys has tremendous energy and warning effect. Of course, this also has to praise Stanley Kubrick's talent again. Although Stephen King's novels are very famous and popular, the adaptation of Stephen King's novels into film and television works does not have such a high evaluation for every one.
The plot of the movie "The Shining" has actually been adapted a lot, and even Stephen King did not like Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the "The Shining" novel at the time.
The novel "The Shining" was originally a purely supernatural phenomenon and full of ghosts. The male protagonist is completely cursed and has no mental illness. However, in the film, the director enriched the male protagonist's personality, added schizophrenia, and weakened ghosts and supernatural phenomena, and balanced all the strange events of the work, making it more mysterious and real. And the place that highlights Stanley Kubrick's talents is the adaptations of the film "The Shining", which have become the most classic signs of future films.
For example, the sisters’ flowers, the “red wine” sprayed from the elevator, the labyrinth garden, Jack keeps typing repeated sentences with a typewriter, Jack is hacking with an axe (the novel is with a baseball bat), etc. Classic moments, all are Stan Adapted later by Li Kubrick, the original novel does not contain these fragments. Perhaps, if Stanley Kubrick hadn't directed the novel, "The Shining" might have been drowned in the torrent of movie history early on and became an ordinary horror film.
In my review and interpretation of "The Shining" above, the source of the original ideas is based on some of the arguments in the documentary "Room 237", but the interpretations are all my own superficial views, if you have any discussion from different perspectives.
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