The Shining is full of allegory and mystery, but none are as wild and potentially insidious as what could be lurking behind that strange man in a bear suit. Stanley Kubrick's epic, bizarre, somewhat controversial adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining was released 40 years ago this week. . She has either overlooked or deliberately ignored the abuse that has cause Dannys problems. Jack admits to having underestimated the task and promises to go to any length to finish it, and his door unseemingly gets unlocked. I dont go for number interpretations generally, but here Ill make an exception. Here's the meaning of The Shining Bear Man explained. He thought there might be something else that would be metaphorically and visually more interesting. The final outcome was, as we all are aware of, one of the finest horror movies of all time. But it is the mystery and strangeness of it all that makes it so terrifying. The Shining Explained . The main headlines of the 1978 issue involve two key sections, reading as follows: Incest: Why parents sleep with their children, and, How to avoid a dead end affair. I believe this prominently takes place in the scene where Jack makes Danny sit on his lap. Triggered by Dannys psychic abilities, the hotel releases some dangerous supernatural forces that mess with Jacks sanity and the safety of Wendy and Danny. Coming back to The Overlook, Jack then starts hacking through the main door of their quarters with an axe, while Wendy and Danny run into the bathroom. Further evidence includes the cases of Tang in the Overlooks pantry and the otherwise innocuous change from Room 217 in the novel to Room 237 in the film. contain their own pieces of unique information. Find out which other movies made it onto our list of the best horror soundtracks, up next. We identified in previous chapters that Jack strangled Danny in the fatherly love scene and with these new details it would seem that he also sexually abused his son during this event. The Shining's Overlook Hotel itself also has a history of cyclical violence: it was built over an Indian burial ground, and by its existence is a testament to the violence of colonization. Its now even more clear why Kubrick chose such a sombre piece of music for the fatherly love scene. Privacy Policy. Jack takes his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), with him, but little do they know, the Overlook has some dark secrets of its own. The scene seemed almost accidental but knowing Stanley Kubrick, every shot that made it to the final cut was necessary. The second half brings out the worst in Jack, his actions replicating that of Gradys and also notice the scrapbook placed beside the typewriter. He was an auteur with an exclusive vision and wouldnt settle for anything less. In the scene, Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) is roaming through the halls of The Overlook Hotel with a knife when she approaches a door at the end of. I think Kubricks version is more matured and tries to be realistic about itself, while keeping intact his use of underlying themes. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a textbook example of a storied film. Because of that, The Shining book and movie are very different entities, and details that are explained or at least easier to interpret in the novel are either not included or left very ambiguous in the film. Super Dark The Shining Theory Reveals The Story Is All In Wendy's Head. Like The Shining's Overlook Hotel, the Stanley Hotel also has a haunted history, even possessing a particularly haunted room (number 217) just like the Overlook's room 237. Learn More{{/message}}, {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}It appears your submission was successful. As for Jack, he does die but not in the snow: a malfunctioning boiler explodes and kills Jack while also destroying the hotel. Parents just don't understand. He might have had his anger under control for a while before taking the job, but he went back to it there. Next to the bed is a mirror above a sink and in front of the sink is a stool for the child to stand on, just as he was stood on a stool when brushing his teeth. Its eyes are similar in design to the floor dials of the gaping mouth elevator, which weve already identified as symbolic eyes, and the teddys mouth is bright red, which again is similar to the gaping mouth doors of the elevator. In the kitchen, Halloran takes Wendy and Danny through a twisting-turning path and then opens the freezer room, shot cuts, and we see him opening the door on the wrong side contradicting the previous shot. The Shining's Room 237 is known for having a female specter, as referenced when Jack encounters a woman in the bath. Introducing aspiring bodypainterCharrar.basPennywise the Dancing Clownfrom Stephen Kings It, the hit book, television adaptation, and film adaptation. The Shining is Stephen King's third published novel and the one that established his name in the horror genre. Yes, one involves the furries. Well explain each theory, why people believe it, and look at the corroborating evidence. Its Tuesday, and frankly speaking shits about to go down. He tells Kubricks daughter Vivian, You look cute in your red shirt, a soft porn calendar is seen on his bathroom door, he is seen unzipping his pants to pull out a tape recorder and he provocatively unbuttons his shirt to pull out the connecting wires. While Danny's barbs do eventually seem to wake up part of Jack's consciousness from inside his Lloyd identity, whatever good he had left in him was clearly erased once Jack was fully taken over. {{#message}}{{{message}}}{{/message}}{{^message}}Your submission failed. Related:Are Charles & Delbert Grady The Same Person? This concept is further paralleled in our first view of Dannys bedroom in the Overlook. The dialogue of the scene is full of innuendos about abuse. Bullingdon bares a striking resemblance to Danny Torrance. The Shining Caretaker Explained, Every Shining Character Who Returns In Doctor Sleep. How did these pictures get there if Wendy does all the menial chores. Wendy Torrance, (played by Shelly Duvall) frantically roams the halls of the Overlook Hotel looking for her son Danny while her husband, Jack Torrence ( played by Jack Nicholson) goes on an axe rampage. You look up and wonder, how could anyone have climbed that high? Roger in his costume, jumping, running, barking, howling, and absolutely humiliating himself in front of an assortment of celebrators. After being freed from the kitchen pantry by Gradys ghost, Jack (whose sanity was already shattered by that point) goes after Wendy and Danny, axe in hand. Perhaps the most analyzed part of The Shining is the ending; the final shot in the Stephen King movie adaptation is a 1921 photograph showing Jack with other guests in the hotels ballroom. When Ullman and Bill Watson approach Jack in the lobby on Closing Day, Jack is reading a January 1978 issue of Playgirl Magazine. At the hedge maze, Danny manages to escape by laying a false trail to mislead Jack. It is used throughout the movie to symbolize the incest and sexual abuse between Jack and Danny. Copyright 2023 Metaflix Media LLC. Her gullible belief of Dannys room 237 story is plain silly. From the sinister musical scoring to the casts class acts, the film has all the components for a great horror movie. This imagery is reinforced by the man in the bear outfit performing oral sex on another man at the films climax. The Shining bear suit scene is one of the most confusing and mysterious in the movie. But there are also plenty of ludicrously far-fetched The Shining conspiracy theories that made the cut as well. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within. Well, a 102 minutes long documentary titled Room 237 was made focusing only on explaining the events that take place in the movie incorporating multiple perspectives, and yet I think it couldnt come to a totally justified conclusion. Danny who witnesses this screams from the cupboard he was hiding in, runs towards the maze when Jack starts getting closer. The young woman had inexplicably transformed into an old lady who walks after the frantic Jack laughing all the while. Lets take a look from the beginning. Also introduced is an invisible character Tony, who apparently lives inside Dannys mouth. Coming to Grady, who I think like Lloyd was a fragment of representation of the hotel that would explain his statement I have always been here and look how throughout the scene Jack looks right in the direction of the mirror, almost like envisioning himself. The dialogue of the scene is full of innuendos about abuse. This is one of the more compelling The Shining theories and there is a lot of ancillary evidence to support it. But also the sexual abuse is shown in a scene between Jack and his father in the bizarre scene with the man in the bear costume and older gentleman. Unable to pass through that same window, Wendy is trapped when Jack arrives and breaks through the door with the axe the famous Heres Johnny! scene. There are so many doors in the movie that lead nowhere, like our ideas of the movie that according to Kubrick offer no explanation and hence raises the question : What is the maze? Traces of his films can even be seen decades after their release; Interstellar and The Tree of Life (2001 : A Space Odyssey), Trainspotting (A Clockwork Orange), almost every heist movie pays tribute to The Killing, Alice in Wonderland (The Shining) or House of Cards (Eyes Wide Shut). (Rob Ager's work plagiarized) Collative Learning 214K subscribers Subscribe 4.1K 167K views 5 years ago Watch my new Shining analysis video. Another important detail is that Jack doesnt wear a wedding ring at all in the film, not even when he and his family are driving to the hotel, but Wendy always wears hers. This parallels the big brotherly relationship in Barry Lyndon between the adult Lord Bullingdon and his younger half brother, who is also a Danny Torrance look-alike. All of this corresponds to Wendy's horrified reaction to seeing The Shining bear man in the hallway, which Ager suggests may or may not imply that she has realized, at that moment, what's been happening to Danny in The Shining movie. The open patch on the bear mans behind in the film simply adds to the sexual emphasis. The Shining movie's brief moment of intimacy between the man in the bear costume and his partner has a different context behind it in King's book. What happens to Wendy and Danny after that is unknown (in the film, at least), although a deleted scene featured them in a hospital, recovering both physically and mentally from everything they went through. Charles Grady killed his family with an axe, and Jack was on track to replicate that. The aforementioned Room 237 doc covers this theory and the following video digs even deeper into this Native American genocide interpretation. As mentioned above, the film ends with Wendy and Danny escaping during a snowstorm thanks to the snowcat Hallorann arrived in. Roger the Dog Man is a fictional minor character featured in the 1977 horror novel The Shining by author Stephen King. Ultimately, it's all speculative, but Ager's cogent proof unravels the mystery of the bear man all the same. The horrific happenings, the fact that the Torrance family is trapped, and the suggestion that Jack has been in the hotel for decades support The Shining analysis that the Overlook represents hell. The fact that his films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining require detailed explanations says a lot about his craft. Yes! We see an overly terrified Wendy screaming in agony at the sight, but slashes Jacks hand when he tries to turn the knob open. Kevin is a sweet, frustrated kid. This is also one of the only theories to be supported in part by Stephen Kings novel alongside the figurative representation of hell. This imagery in itself is enough to unsettle some people. She also finds Hallorans body, while an injured and weak Jack is chasing Danny through the maze. In particular, we see Jack Nicholson and James Mason having a personal chat, while the rest of Masons family meet Kubrick himself. Inside, a man in a bear suit is performing fellatio on one of the Overlook's guests. Stanley Kubrick's iconic Stephen King adaptation is intentionally dense and even nonsensical at times. He also informs Jack about Danny involving an outside party (Halloran) in the situation and stresses on words like will, to upset Jack. For a detailed description of this subplot follow this link. Contents 1 Biography 2 Notes & Trivia 3 See also 4 External Links 5 Appearances 6 References Its not much of a marriage. The scene dissolves and we can feel the frustration dripping out of Jack, which is brilliantly conveyed through the thumping rebounds of the tennis ball. At first glance, the scene in which The Shining bear appears seems brief and, quite frankly, somewhat forgettable given all the other intense imagery in Kubrick's classic. Jack goes to check out the room and finds a naked lady who seduces and begins to kiss him and Jack gives in, only to be taken aback by seeing a decaying old lady with him in the mirror. Lets compare the two characters in more detail. Rumor has it Kubrick himself typed those words. She is an Audiovisual Communication graduate who wanted to be a filmmaker, but life had other plans (and it turned out great). Next: The Shining: The True Story & Real-Life Hotel Behind The Movie. The Overlooks cook, Dick Hallorann, arrives to help Wendy and Danny after the latter reaches out to him through the shining, but is ambushed and killed by Jack. Dwarfed by the towering presence of the building, however, Jack soon becomes engulfed by an evil, violent presence, influencing his temper toward his wife and psychic son. Coming to Room 237 again, it was Jack who physically assaulted Danny and not the old lady, who serves as a metaphor for the disgusting act carried out by Jack on Danny, and this is exactly why it is shown through a mirror. Parallely, Halloran borrows a snowcat to get to the Overlook in time. The poster in question depicts a skier, despite Jack being told there is no skiing in the area. First of all theres the obvious homosexual innuendo, but the story titles featured on this particular issue include the following: INTERVIEW: THE SELLING OF (STARSKY & HUTCHS) DAVID SOUL. There are emotional passages and images and spaces in his films that have an inexplicable power, with a magnetic force that draws you in slowly, mysteriously: the boys rides on his Big Wheel through the endless corridors of the hotel in The Shining; the monumental silence of outer space in 2001: A Space Odyssey; the inhuman pace of the first half of Full Metal Jacket, building up to its logical, murderous conclusion; the grandeur of the war room in Dr. Theres no doubt regarding his undisputed title of the greatest film maker in the history of cinema, and though people may point out Tarkovsky or Kurosawa or Bergman, none of them has influenced the art to such an extent. Coming back around to consciousness, Danny awakes to see that his trousers are around his ankles and he is laying on top of a large stuffed toy bear. With a booming siren in the background conveying the initiation of an emergency, we are in the yellow car and we come to know Danny watched something about cannibalism on T.V, and earlier Jack mentions his wife being a horror addict and shes also seen smoking with quivering fingers. And Kubrick all but disregarded the novel when making the film. The elevator blood scene first appears as a vision to Danny, and materializes near the end of the film when Wendy is looking for him. Despite all the changes Stanley Kubrick made to the ending, one of the director's visions remained in place throughout all of it: The Shining picture at the end. The hotel was built upon a Native American burial ground and is decorated with various works of Native American art. This is right before the fatherly love scene. Keen-eyed viewers have pointed out before that the issue of Playgirl magazine Jack Torrance is reading in one scene has an article titled "Incest: Why Parents Sleep With Their Children" featured on the cover. In Kubricks version Tony is never shown and communicates with Danny through an involuntary movement of Dannysindex finger, since Kubrick never intended on giving a ghostly theme to the movie. But, to be perfectly honest, every other piece of evidence in support of this theory is beyond far-fetched and not to be taken seriously. For all of the supernatural twists and turns in The Shining's story, knowing that it's based on a real location makes the film (and its ending) all the creepier, even though King reportedly hated many of the changes. But believers of this theory point to the word below the skier as proof: Monarch.. 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