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Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Steven King’s The Shining hit theaters 45 years go, but its story still feels eerily relevant to our modern day… The story uncovers how isolation and cruelty...
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00:00It's been 45 years since Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining hit
00:05theaters. But its story still feels eerily relevant to our modern day. The story uncovers
00:14how isolation and violence can bend and even pierce time itself, grabbing people by the darkest
00:20parts of themselves and pulling them down like quicksand. But if we look a little closer,
00:25we might just notice that this cycle the Overlook has pulled the Torrance family into
00:30isn't as unfamiliar to us as we might hope. So what is it that makes The Shining still resonate,
00:36even all these years later? And what can we take away from this story for our own lives?
00:42Let's dive in. The Shining deals with the idea of isolation across multiple planes. There's,
00:48of course, the literal isolation. The Torrance family travel to the Overlook Hotel, nestled far
00:54up away in the Rocky Mountains, for Jack's new job as the caretaker during the off-season.
00:59Though it's implied it's past its heyday…
01:01We had four presidents who stayed here. Lots of movie stars.
01:06Royalty?
01:08All the best people.
01:09It seems that the hotel is still in regular, normal use.
01:13But everyone that's there now seems to be in a hurry to get out. In the beginning,
01:18we assume this is just because they're contract workers who, of course,
01:21have no interest in continuing work when they're not getting paid. But as time goes on,
01:27we get the feeling that those who work at the hotel know that it's not the kind of place where
01:32you want to be the last one around.
01:34It's amazing how much activity is going on today.
01:37The last days are always very hectic. By five o'clock tonight,
01:41you'll never know anybody was ever here.
01:43While the hotel is beautiful and grand, the emptiness in a place that was clearly made to
01:48be filled with people is immediately off-putting, intensely highlighting the isolation of these
01:54characters. The hotel has a literal maze outside, but is also a labyrinth of a sort inside as well.
02:01Come play with us, Danny. Forever. And ever. And ever.
02:08This kind of winding and weaving works both to create separation and to entrap people within it.
02:15Even the fun of a hedge maze begins to wear off quickly when you begin to have the realization
02:20that you really don't know how to get out. There's also a rising fear as the deeper you go,
02:26the more difficult it becomes to find your way back out again.
02:30While we may not often find ourselves in these kinds of literal mazes,
02:34we can very easily find ourselves pulled into digital ones. In a similar way, we're lulled in
02:40by the beauty and fun at first, only to find ourselves feeling trapped.
02:45This kind of isolation can change us, alter the way we think about ourselves and behave.
02:51For some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself, become a problem.
02:59Being in the hotel pushes Jack into diving into the worst sides of his nature.
03:04Solitude can magnify so many issues, as one becomes disconnected from their own humanity
03:10and that of others. People come to no longer see the other people with them in the labyrinth as human
03:16beings, but instead obstacles and opponents. The film also contends with the matter of choice,
03:22or lack thereof, of getting pulled into this kind of situation. Danny has zero choice. He's just a
03:30small child going along with his parents, and his stated desire not to go is ignored.
03:35Wendy is just hoping for the opportunity to have some positive alone time with her family,
03:39where they can relax and hopefully bond. Jack, on the other hand, is not only the one that makes
03:45the choice for the family to go out to this hotel in the middle of nowhere, he also makes the choice
03:50to isolate them further. He takes the batteries out of the radio, the only connection they have
03:56left to the world outside of the hotel. Jack's disconnection from true humanity,
04:02and his desire to erase others, grows as he becomes more involved with the phantoms in the hotel.
04:09One big difference between the film and the book, on which it's based, is how Jack is portrayed. In the
04:15book, he's rather sympathetic. Most of the evil that happens is outside of him, truly the work of the
04:20hotel itself. But Kubrick was more interested in the human element driving the evil. Here,
04:26Jack isn't just being affected by something, he's actively participating in it. Kubrick was always
04:32interested in digging into this element across his films. What causes some people to be drawn deeper
04:38into the darkness, even when it's obviously dangerous? In The Shining, that's explored through
04:43the cycles we see play out. In this film, eras bleed together, and time is simultaneously
04:50frozen and co-existent. When I came up here for my interview, it was as though I'd been here before.
04:59This is because the hotel itself, and everyone in it, seems to be trapped in a cycle of existence.
05:06The film's name, The Shining, is taken from the power that Dick realizes that Danny also shares.
05:12People who shine can see. Just like they can see things that haven't happened yet,
05:19sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago.
05:22The Shining allows people like Dick and Danny to experience the past, present, and future,
05:27and also to form connections across time and space.
05:31How'd you like some ice cream, Doc?
05:33My grandmother and I could hold conversations entirely without ever opening our mouths.
05:39Danny's hyperconnection is in direct contrast to his father's extreme disconnection,
05:44and their different responses to this are key, as we'll discuss in a moment.
05:49The time cycle of the hotel sees people becoming trapped within its walls eternally,
05:53either living out their existence as ghosts,
05:56or being reincarnated into beings that will come back to feed the hotel again and again.
06:01You are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker.
06:08I should know, sir. I've always been here.
06:11We come to find that even Jack's supposed writing work is part of an endless cycle.
06:16While it seems like he's been working away this whole time,
06:19eventually we come to find out that he's just been repeating the same line,
06:23all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, over and over again.
06:28While this has the obvious, more relatable connotation of becoming dull due to being overworked,
06:33Jack hasn't been writing his book at all.
06:36But he has become dulled to any sensations outside of the
06:40work that the hotel calls on him to do.
06:43That brings us to the cycle of violence and ever-present memories of dark histories.
06:48The hotel was built on a Native American burial ground on stolen land,
06:52and that violence has continued to reverberate through its walls.
06:56In Jack, Wendy, and Danny, we see three different angles of violence,
07:00the pull of power, and the choices one must make.
07:04Already a quietly negative force?
07:07Jack is ready and willing to completely give himself over to this mysterious hotel,
07:11and its wishes to bring out the worst version of himself.
07:15As the father figure of the family, he represents power and force,
07:19and how it can be used for evil.
07:22While he's certainly pushed to a new level by the isolation in the hotel itself,
07:25harming his family isn't new for Jack.
07:28We learn that he's already hurt Danny quite badly previously in a drunken rage.
07:32And given how scared she is of him when he's angry,
07:35we can imagine that Wendy has been on the receiving end as well.
07:39What sort of injury did he have?
07:40On this particular occasion, my husband just used too much strength and he injured Danny's arm.
07:47But Jack refuses to take any responsibility for any of his actions.
07:52And not only that, he accuses everyone else of being the real problem.
07:56I did hurt him once, okay?
07:58It was an accident.
08:00A little f***er had thrown all my papers all over the floor.
08:02All I tried to do was pull him up!
08:04Jack is a perfect on-screen example of DARVO in action,
08:08the manipulation tactic used by narcissists and psychological abusers to evade accountability.
08:14DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim, and Offender.
08:18And we can see Jack pull this into play multiple times.
08:21He is constantly denying any wrongdoing,
08:24attacking Wendy for even bringing it up,
08:26and then flipping the situation to make it seem like she's the one in the wrong.
08:30Wendy, I have let you f*** up my life so far,
08:34but I am not gonna let you f*** this up.
08:37While the hotel might be pushing Jack towards evil actions,
08:40I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed.
08:47That threat of violence was always present.
08:50We can also see this in Grady, who is also noted to have seemed normal
08:54before butchering his entire family at the hotel.
08:57But I corrected them, sir.
09:00And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I corrected her.
09:06The hotel didn't make Jack dangerous.
09:09It just gave him a venue in which to fully unleash his inner evil.
09:13Through his continual refusal to accept responsibility for his own actions and choices,
09:17and their consequences, he's already trapped himself in a cycle of failure and anger
09:22well before the family made their way up to the hotel.
09:25It gave my goddamn soul.
09:29Just a glass of beer.
09:31Wendy, having been trapped under Jack's thumb,
09:33has become adept at ignoring danger and pushing down her own feelings in the hopes of avoiding
09:38retribution.
09:39Even as she comes to accept that something really is wrong,
09:43and that Jack is very much not going to help, and in fact is a major part of the problem,
09:48she has a difficult time deciding what she should do.
09:50It's only when she comes to understand how much danger Danny is really in that she decides
10:05that she's going to do whatever it takes to save him.
10:08Even if that means having to go up against Jack.
10:11Danny sits at a crossroads between his parents' natures.
10:15He has Jack's penchant for outbursts, likely due to being on the receiving end of them,
10:21but he also has his mother's caring side.
10:24It's his mother.
10:28She interferes.
10:31While Jack immediately gives in to the whispers and wills of the hotel,
10:35young Danny has been fighting against letting himself be taken over since before they even
10:40arrived. We learn early on that Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony.
10:45Is Tony one of your animals?
10:47No, he's a little but it lives in my mouth.
10:49Does Tony ever tell you to do things?
10:52I don't want to talk about Tony anymore.
10:55While he says he's a young boy, when Danny speaks as Tony,
10:58it's with the voice of a creepy old person.
11:01Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance.
11:04Because of Danny's shining ability, it's possible that he's connecting with a ghost that exists across
11:10multiple ages, as we see happen with others. Danny is slowly pulled in by Tony in the hotel.
11:16But, unlike Jack, it isn't straightforward. Danny fights back, and this causes things to become
11:22jumbled. Even the threat they compel out of Danny is backwards.
11:26And unlike Jack, Danny's good side is able to hold on and fight its way back to the surface
11:38just in time. When we're dealing with horror from all sides, even from people in places that
11:43should be safe, it can begin to feel like it's impossible to even imagine a way out. But where
11:49there's a will, there's a way. As terrifying as it is, Wendy fights back and begins to make
11:54her escape with Danny. It's not an effortless kick-ass battle, but instead a very real feeling
12:01fight against the man she thought she knew and loved, devolved into even more of a monster than
12:07she had thought possible. She realizes that she can't save or stop him, so she must save herself
12:13and her son from him.
12:15Your wife appears to be stronger than we imagine, Mr. Torrance.
12:19Somewhat more... resourceful. She seems to have got the better of you.
12:24At the beginning of the film, the family briefly talks about the Donner Party.
12:28They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
12:35This is a setup for the hotel cannibalizing its guests in order to survive, pulling in intermediaries
12:40like Jack to create blood sacrifices to keep all of whatever this is going. But really,
12:46it's Wendy whose options most closely align with the actual horror of cannibalism. The Donner Party
12:52didn't eat each other for funsies or because it made them feel powerful. They were trapped in a
12:58horrifying situation where they had to do whatever they could to at least keep some of them alive.
13:03Wendy has to make this choice that is incredibly difficult for her, especially given the psychological
13:15torment that Jack has put her through to make her think that she needs him. But she finds her strength,
13:20chooses to fight for herself and her son, and is able to escape the Overlook and Jack.
13:26Jack, on the other hand, fully succumbs to his most violent, evil nature, and does get his wish
13:33to stay in the hotel forever, frozen in time, literally and within the photograph from 1921, suggesting
13:41either that he's a reincarnation of that 1921 guest, or has just been absorbed into the hotel's
13:47world like the others. As we discussed in our video explaining The Shining's ending, the ending of the
13:53film differs quite a lot from the end of the book. In the book, the hotel itself is destroyed as it
13:58burns down after a boiler explosion. There's a reference to the hotel almost being burned down
14:03in the film. Grady tells Jack that one of his daughters almost burned the place down, and he
14:09corrected her behavior. One of them actually stole a pack of matches and tried to burn it down.
14:17In the film, however, the hotel, like Jack, only freezes, which means this cycle is only,
14:24at most, paused until it thaws out and begins again. Even nearly a half a century later,
14:31The Shining still works as a terrifying warning to not get trapped in the cycles of our own worst nature,
14:37and what has come before, but to instead find ways to nurture and empower the better sides of ourselves.
14:44Just because violence and hate have been parts of our past doesn't mean that we have to carry it into
14:48the future. Holding onto the good within ourselves, and helping others do the same,
14:53is the only way we can keep ourselves from becoming trapped in our own personal overlooks forever.
15:00That's the take! Click here to watch the video we think you'll love, or here to check out a whole
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