April 23, 2024 • 70 mins
REDRUM! REDRUM!
On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily breaks down the horror masterpiece, The Shining. The sisters walk through the ways in which Shelley Duvall’s portrayal of Wendy Torrance is an unexpected feminist icon, how Kubrick created an intentionally incoherent film while abusing his actors (except for 6-year-old Danny Lloyd), and just what is up with the theory that the film is a critique of the genocide of Native Americans. Also: Emily shares her deeply held belief that moving hedge animals are NOT SCARY.
Jump on your big wheel, throw on your headphones and listen…if you dare!
CW: Discussions of domestic violence, child sexual assault, murder, and genocide
Mentioned in this episode:
"MAZES, MIRRORS, DECEPTION AND DENIAL" by Rob Ager
The September House by Carissa Orlando
https://www.salon.com/2013/10/04/stanley_kubrick_misogynist_partner/
Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theater
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-shining-1980
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I will bediscussing the 1980 film the
Shining with my sister, tracyGuy-Decker, and with you, so
let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture,what others might deem stupid
shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come over, think with us aswe delve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Trace, tell me, what do you know about this movie?
I know this is not likeanything from either of our
childhoods exactly, but it'sjust like a pillar of the
culture and I know you've seenit.
But that's about all.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I know about.
I have seen it.
Yeah, I have seen it.
I'm trying to remember, aswe're talking like, where I saw
it the first time.
It was sometime in the past 20years, so I was already an adult
, for sure, but a young adult, Ithink, and I think maybe.
Actually I think there was.
There was like a remake orsomething right like in the
(01:11):
early aughts, that was in like1997, I think.
Oh yeah, um okay so while I wasin college, I think I think I
saw some or all of the remake,possibly with, and then that
sent me to the original withJack Nicholson and Shelley
Duvall.
In fact I'm certain I saw itwith dad, because I remember
(01:33):
late in the movie when the Idon't remember his name, but the
black guy comes, dick Calloran,yeah.
(02:06):
So when Dick comes to try andsave the kid, because they have
that connection and I rememberdad saying something like wow,
for a man who shines this.
There's not a lot of gore and Ithink it's the gore and the
jump scares that really make ithard for me to watch horror and
this movie doesn't have a wholelot of that.
But you and I have spoken alittle bit about some of the
gendered roles, uh, gendered.
There's gendered violence that'sdifferent than ordinary
(02:26):
gendered violence, but stillvery much gendered and kind of
the characterization of wendy byshelly duvall and and and and
how she sort of comes off, andthat's the thing that like
sticks with me the most is herterror and also like the
(02:48):
trappedness of that is a part ofthat terror and the concern for
her kid.
Those are the things that likestick with me emotionally and of
course, some of the iconicmoments of you know the
delusions were like with thetwins and like the long hallway
and the big wheel, and you knowthat show up like people make
(03:10):
visual references to that allthe time, including in
ghostbusters.
There's a reference to that,like there's a big wheel at one
point when the ghost busters areshowing up after, after gozer
has come.
So I have some like surfacethoughts about it, but I'm
really I'm excited to to diginto it a little more deeply
(03:31):
with you.
So tell me what's at stake here.
Why, why did you want to bringthis one to the deep thoughts
treatment?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So the shining is not like a foundational text of my
you know literary DNA in the waythat like Neverending Story and
the Princess Bride, even Backto the Future, are, because,
like you, I did not reallyengage with it until I was an
adult.
I read the novel first and thensaw the movie.
(04:02):
I don't remember exactly howthat came about, but I kind of
got on a bit of a Stephen Kingkick in the early 2000s.
I loved the novel.
It is my favorite Stephen Kingnovel but only because it has a
really fucked up group sex scene.
Until we got to that point itwas my favorite Stephen King
(04:23):
novel and then I was like thatlike it just took me out of the
story because it's like, clearlyyou've never been an adolescent
girl and, like you, completelyovershot the mark.
And why did you not talk toTabitha, who is his wife, who is
also a gifted writer in her ownright, who would have been like
, do something different herehere?
(04:47):
Anyway, I think it'sinteresting that I read the book
first and then saw the movie,because I think it gave me a
much different view of how thisadaptation works than if I'd
done the opposite.
And not that I have any issuewith people having done the
opposite, but just there arethings that they were like
lovely surprises, that made itsomething where I was like, oh,
I really appreciate thisadaptation, rather than like
going like, oh, this is missingfrom the movie that I know of,
(05:09):
or this is different.
So I read it and loved it, sawthe movie, watched it multiple
times and really loved it anddidn't really think about it.
Um, and didn't really thinkabout it.
(05:33):
So sometime around 2016,.
Um, for some reason, I sawpeople talking about it again
and talking about what a weakcharacter Wendy Torrance is, and
some of that is from StephenKing.
Um, and I don't hold thisagainst Stephen King, because it
was an adaptation of not onlyhis work but a very personal
piece of his work because theShining was about Stephen King
(05:53):
working through his own demonsof alcoholism and so changes to
that story that are extremelypersonal, that story that are
extremely personal.
I can't even imagine how thatfeels.
So I don't hold it against himthat he said like Shelley
Duvall's acting is the mostmisogynistic portrayal he's ever
(06:15):
seen on film Relative much,yeah, and now some of it is
Shelley Duvall's Wendy Torranceis not Stephen King's Wendy
Torrance.
Stephen King's Wendy Torrancehad a lot more fight in her from
the very beginning.
She is much more of an equal inthe marriage from the very
beginning and you get morebackstory.
(06:36):
So some of that as well.
Like you learn that she'sestranged from her parents.
She is in a lot of ways trappedby circumstances in ways that
we just don't know in the filmand I, seeing people say that I
was like did we watch the samemovie?
And I went back and rewatched itand it was right around the
(06:58):
time when people startedself-identifying as nasty women.
People started self-identifyingas nasty women and I remember
thinking, like Shelley Duvall'sversion of Wendy Torrance is an
undercover nasty woman, becauseshe is all the things that I
think of when I proudly wear mynasty woman shirt.
(07:18):
She is strong, she isresourceful, she makes hard
decisions.
She puts the people who sheloves first in a way that is not
like there's some selflessnessto her, but it's a it's not a
martyrdom a sense of like I haveto be the one to take care of
this because there's no one elseand she, at every turn, makes
(07:51):
the best possible decision shecan with the resources she has
for the people she loves.
Now she seems to be kind of like, you see, that she's an avid
reader, but you don't get theimpression that she's like a
towering intellect.
But so what?
(08:11):
And that's, I know that'sanother part of why Stephen King
didn't particularly like thisportrayal is is his Wendy was
very smart, and I'm not sayingWendy Torrance, as played by
Shelley Duvall, is not verysmart.
It's just that you get theimpression that she's accepted
some things that you would notexpect a strong woman to accept,
and so there's an assumptionthat she must not be very smart
(08:35):
because of that.
I so I I rewatched it and Istarted.
I was like I really kind of wantto create a list of like
undercover nasty women, and Ihad trouble coming up with any
other examples.
But you know rewatching itabout, you know, eight years ago
, seven or eight years ago, andlooking at it from that point of
(08:55):
view, I was like this is anextremely feminist film, even
though it doesn't pass theBechdel test.
There is another womancharacter, but she is not named,
that they have a conversationabout, a conversation together
and they're talking about herson, they're talking about Danny
and they're talking about Jack.
So it's not exactly.
But, they're all.
She had a name, yeah, but theyare also.
(09:15):
They're talking about parenting.
So like I think it would countif the doctor had a name, but
she doesn't, okay, but it is.
In a lot of ways it is a veryfeminist movie in part for the
same reason that I feel like theHandmaid's Tale is a feminist
book about a woman who does notconsider herself to be strong.
Now I have my own issues withthe Handmaid's Tale.
(09:36):
I find Margaret Atwood to be socynical, and by cynical I mean
there's despair, which is whenyou give up for yourself, but
there's cynicism when you giveup for everyone else.
But she set out with the storyof Offred to tell the story of
(09:57):
someone who's not fiery, someonewho is just kind of an ordinary
woman, and her littlerebellions and little
resistances and the way that shewould survive.
And I actually reallyappreciate that there are so
many ways to resist, to bestrong, to be nasty, even if you
(10:19):
are not the one leading thefight or leading the charge,
even if you're not fiery yeah,you don't have to be general
whatever.
Yes, organa, yeah, whateverleia's name was in that, and in
order to to actually be a part,of the resistance, uh-huh, and
so I feel like stanley kubrickcreated an extremely feminist
(10:45):
horror film that is entirelyabout domestic violence, while
perpetrating emotional abuse onthe one main black character and
the one main actress.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Let's talk about that .
I don't know anything aboutthat.
Tell me so, stanley Kubrick.
Anything about that?
Tell me so.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Stanley Kubrick was known to be exacting.
So, for example, during Makingof the Shining, he would have
his actors, and all of them.
I mean Jack Nicholson as well,but Shelley Duvall, jack
Nicholson and Scatman Crothers,who played DeCalleran.
He would have them do the same.
Take 160 times, and I'm notmaking that number up 160?
(11:33):
.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yes, holy shit yes.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
There's interviews with Crothers saying like he got
to a point where he was justlike what is it you want from me
for this?
Take Cause I don't I don'talready done it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, I can remember writing like a piece of copy and
like when my boss was like Ikept track of the things and it
wasn't when it was number seven,I was like I got nothing left.
Yeah, yeah, I don't have it.
And that was seven.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, I don't have it.
And that was seven.
So Kubrick was very exacting.
That was true Always.
Didn't do some researchyesterday.
I found that that was alwaystrue.
But when making the Shining, hewas like, gave these emotional
and sarcastic outbursts, whereasnormally he was very calm
throughout.
He was like okay, we're justgoing to do it again, like for
all, 80 or 160 times or whatever.
(12:28):
No idea why this was different.
There's someone who has a, atheory that kubrick was trying
to, because they also did amaking of documentary while they
were making the film, which wasvery unusual for kub.
He was very like, tight lippedand like kept a closed set and
like.
That was unusual.
(12:48):
And so this person issuggesting that there's that
Kubrick was making himself intoJack Torrance, which like what?
I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know enough aboutKubrick as a, as a like.
I know he was eccentric, but Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I know he was eccentric, but I don't know.
So you're telling me that whilethey were filming the Shining,
not only was he making them doit dozens and dozens and
hundreds of times, he wasyelling and belittling them
while doing it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Just Shelley Duvall and Scatman Crothers.
Oh, jack didn't get theemotional, jack Nicholson did
not.
And I want to say, to beentirely fair to Kubrick, danny
Lloyd, who plays Danny Torrance,was six years old at the time
and he had no idea he was in ahorror movie.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And I can actually recall dad talking about this
when I was about six, saying howimpressed he was and Danny does
a great job.
I I mean, I don't know how theygot now some of it was kubrick
was a director who could get agreat performance out of any
actor, I think partially becausehe did so many takes, so many
takes, yeah, but he was, uh, hewas very protective of danny
(13:58):
lloyd, and so lloyd thought thatthe movie was about like a
family drama and so he thoughtthere was tension, you know,
like about parents fightingwhile living in this hotel, so
which was something that youknow a little boy can handle.
But he had no idea and was notthere for any of the most like
(14:19):
horrifying scenes that theyfilmed, so like, on the one hand
, that's fantastic.
On the other hand, he clearlyknew how to keep boundaries
around people.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and didn't for Shelley Duvall, didn't for
Shelley.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Duvall or Scatman Crothers.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Scatman.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
So I don't exactly know what to do with that.
Has duval talked about it?
Or crothers?
Um, crothers has he?
I know a little less about his,his experience.
I know he was interviewed forthat making of and there's a
point where he tears up in theinterview and the tearing up is
(15:05):
is like supposedly about howexcited or like feelings of joy
at being able to do this workwith this renowned director and
Jack Nicholson and stuff likethat.
But the the thing that I wasreading was saying like, but
he's also not long after talkingabout the 160 takes.
So there's emotion high at thesurface and Shelley Duvall, like
(15:30):
she left acting for a littlewhile after this.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It was, and she talks about.
She had to be crying for 12hours a day, five or six days a
week, for nine months.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Holy cow day, five or six days a week for nine months
.
Holy cow, oh, what'll that doto you, psychologically,
physiologically yeah,somatically, yeah, so it's this
like I have.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I grew up with shelly duvall, like in um, so she did
that.
That was it.
Not fractured fairy tales, butthat fairy tale um thing.
Do you remember that at allfrom the 80s?
No, I'll have to look it up andI'll put it in the show notes,
but there was.
There was a like a half hourfairy tale show that she, she
did in the 80s that I reallyliked.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
She was olive oil in the I remember that olive oil in
the pop boy movie.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
She was in Roxanne with Steve Martin.
She was who was she?
She was her name.
The character's name was Dixie,I think, and and she was just a
friend of Steve Martin.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
She was a friend of Steve Martin.
Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, she like owned a cafe or something.
Yeah, yeah, something like that.
So she was always someone Ikind of.
She was on my radar as, like Iknow her.
Yeah, I always liked her eyesshe's a huge, gorgeous eyes and
I liked I couldn't havearticulated this I liked that
she was very pretty in a veryapproachable way, to the point
(17:15):
where, like she was abused.
I mean there's there's no otherway around it.
For this film.
I like I feel very protectiveof her.
There was a, an article abouther a few years ago, talking
(17:37):
about she.
She's dealing with some mentalhealth stuff in her retirement
and doesn't like and nobodycares about her anymore.
And so someone did this exposeand some of it was like pictures
of her, like look about heranymore.
And so someone did this exposeand some of it was pictures of
her like look at her now.
And I was just like, leave thepoor lady alone.
And she apparently so.
(17:59):
Roger Ebert has a review of theShining as part of the Great
Films series, so it's a reviewthat he wrote well after it came
out.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Okay, so it wasn't contemporaneous.
It wasn't a contemporaneous oneI could not find.
It was already the shining.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, yeah, I could not find a contemporaneous Ebert
review and he talks abouttalking to Shelley Duvall about
the experience and she just waslike it was brutal.
We'll get into like a bunch ofthis actually real quick, cause
(18:33):
we haven't done this.
Let me talk about what happensin the, in the story.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, yes, please do.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So the story is we've got this little family living
in Boulder there's Jack Torrance, who is a former school teacher
, he's a writer, his wifeWinifred, who goes by Wendy, and
their little son Danny, who'sabout five or six years old the
(19:06):
Overlook Hotel, which is in avery remote area of Colorado, to
become the winter caretaker.
The Overlook closes fromOctober 30th to May 15th every
year because it is in such aremote area and the only road to
get there is called theSidewinder and the cost of the
20 feet of snow removal for 25miles is too great to make it
worthwhile to keep the hotelopen.
So they need someone there overthe winter to heat it in
(19:30):
alternate rooms, so that pipesdon't freeze, to make sure the
boiler's okay.
So it's a very basic caretakerposition.
So they look for men withfamilies to be caretakers
because the isolation can bevery difficult.
While Jack is at the interviewhe is told about a previous
caretaker from 10 years beforenamed Charles Grady, who they
(19:53):
called it cabin fever.
Something happened, he snappedand he killed his two daughters
and his wife and then killedhimself.
So he used an ax on his familyand a double-barreled shotgun
for himself.
Jack says don't worry, we'regood.
They show up at the hotel onclosing day and we meet Dick
(20:16):
Halloran who is the head chef ofthe Overlook.
He immediately realizes thatDanny the little boy has what
Dick calls the shining, which ishe talks about.
When he was a little boy he canremember having a whole
conversations with hisgrandmother without either of
them ever opening their mouths.
There's never really in thefilm a clear explanation of what
(20:39):
shining is, although it's veryclearly explicated in the book,
but there's.
There's the sense that you kindof know things before they
happen.
You can see things from thepast and you can kind of
communicate with other peoplewithout talking, but only other
people who shine it's like ESP,only other shiners yes.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Danny has an imaginary friend called Tony,
who he describes as a little boywho lives in his mouth and he
uses his finger to talk as Tony,and Tony is clearly some
manifestation of his shining.
The hotel is scary.
(21:21):
Before going there and Dannyasks Dick, are you scared of the
hotel?
Are you scared of room 237?
Halloran says there's nothingin room 237.
And I'm not scared of that room, but it's none of your business
, you just stay out of there.
(21:42):
The family moves in.
It's a month later and it'sclear that Wendy is doing all of
the work of caretaking and sheis doing what she can to make
this a happy environment forDanny.
Whereas Jack says he's really,really happy there and he's
trying to write, but he's havingtrouble, strange things start
(22:04):
to happen.
Danny sees two little girls whoare dressed as twins and were
actually played by twins and whohe knows aren't actually there.
He is drawn to room 237 onmultiple occasions and Jack
(22:33):
becomes increasingly nasty andangry towards Wendy, telling her
never to interrupt him while heis in the Colorado room, which
is where he set up histypewriter.
So there is one day wherethere's a storm brewing.
So, like you know, they'rereally really stuck there and
Wendy hears Jack crying out inhis sleep.
She finds him asleep on hisdesk and he had this horrible
dream that he killed her andDanny.
And it was even worse, hedidn't just kill them, he
(22:54):
chopped them into little bits.
She's trying to calm him down.
When Danny, who had seen thatroom 237 was open and gone to
investigate, comes in suckinghis thumb and his his shirt is
torn.
So he comes in.
She at first is trying to getDanny away, cause she's trying
(23:14):
to calm Jack down.
And then she goes and sees thathis shirt is torn and he has
bruising all over his neck andshe's like, oh my God, you did
this to him and runs away with,uh, with Danny.
And she's like, oh my God, youdid this to him and runs away
with Danny.
Jack then goes into theballroom where he sees a
bartender who serves him alcohol, even though there's nobody
there.
(23:34):
He also ends up having aconversation with Delbert Grady.
So it's one of the manyinconsistencies in the story
that's not the name that we.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Charles Grady was the name of the.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, and it is one of the most chilling scenes
where Grady is telling him thatI needed to correct my children.
You should correct Danny.
He is attempting to bring anoutside influence in and then he
uses the N-word to describeScatman Crothers' character,
(24:09):
danny.
Because of all this, he hasreached out to Halloran who is
in Miami, and Halloran startstrying to call, can't get
through, calls the local forestservice and asks them to radio.
They can't get through throughand we see that jack has
disabled the radio.
So, uh, halloran flies todenver and then, like, rents a
(24:33):
car and then a snow cat to getup to the overlook to check on
them.
Things come to a head whereDanny finally is able to like
tell Wendy that it was a womanin room 237.
So she goes to Jack and tellshim that's what happened.
He's like, are you out of yourfucking mind?
(24:54):
And then next thing you know,you see he's going into room 237
.
There is a naked woman who isyoung and beautiful in the
bathtub who, like, steps outslowly and Jack starts like
leering at her and then she, shelike, invites him closer and
they kiss.
And then he looks in the mirrorand she is like this old,
(25:15):
bloated, rotting body.
And so he like backs away,wendy wants to get Danny out of
there.
She, she's terrified for him.
She and Jack get into anargument about it and he leaves
their little apartment in thehotel.
And then she ends up like, okay, I need to go talk to him.
(25:37):
And that's when she finds hismanuscript and finds that
instead of actually writingsomething, he has written all
work and no play, makes jack adoll boy.
Over and, over and, over andover again in different like
formatting and like yeah, yeah,and that, actually that was,
that was a kubrick inventionthat was really cool, oh my
(26:01):
goodness, like, like, because inthe book Jack also had writer's
block, because the book isabout writer's block basically,
yeah, but he had written likecurrent plays over and over and
over again.
So like, also kind of freaky,but not the same.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The way that Kubrick has it happen is just so
chilling because it's not justthat, it's and like back and
forth dialogue and like it justit reads so much more unhinged
than if it was just a solid wall.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yes, yeah starts threatening her.
He's like I'm no, I'm not gonnahurt you, I'm just gonna
fucking kill you.
And so she's backing up up thestairs and she, she is.
This is also like the scariestmoment, because she's holding
(27:07):
the bat.
She clearly doesn't want to useit against him.
She's terrified, she'sheartbroken and she's like, very
ineffectually, like kind ofswinging at him.
She ends up connecting with hishand and he's like ow, and he
kind of like pulls away.
And then she manages to likereally whack him on the head and
he falls backwards and shedrags him into the kitchen and
(27:31):
locks him in the pantry.
And that's when he tells herthat she should check the radio
and the snowcat because they'renot going anywhere.
And she finds that the snowcathas been disabled, something has
been taken out of it.
So they are stuck there.
Grady lets him out of thepantry.
The ghost, the ghost, the ghost.
(27:54):
Now that is the only portion ofthe film that could be, or that
is, somewhat unequivocal.
Um, because every time that yousee something, it could be
either hallucination or jack,like talking to himself.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I mean, except that Danny had was injured right Well
there's something to that too?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
okay, all right.
So anyway, kubrick, I think,did not want it to be that there
were ghosts.
I think it was for him.
He wanted it to be that therewas a like a rational
explanation for everything.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
In any, case definitely lets Jack out of the
pantry.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Well, Jack is talking through the door to the actor
who plays Grady and you hear theactor's very proper British
voice and the door opens, butyou don't actually see who opens
the door or how it's opened orif there's.
So I've seen some suggestions.
There are other ways.
There are other other ways hecould have gotten out, but okay.
(29:01):
So Jack is limping at thispoint but he gets an ax and he
breaks into the family apartmentwhere Wendy is sleeping and
Danny, in the Tony voice, isgoing red rum, red rum and
writes it on the bathroom door.
It finally wakes Wendy up andshe looks in the mirror and it's
(29:23):
murder.
That's what Red Rum is.
Backwards.
Jack starts breaking down thedoor.
She and Danny get into thebathroom.
She locks the bathroom door,she opens the window and lets
Danny out through that.
She can't get through thewindow and Jack breaks in with
that famous here's Johnny moment.
Then they hear the snowcat ofDick Halloran arriving, which is
(29:46):
what saves Wendy.
At that moment she was cornered.
Dick Halloran comes in and Ireally hate this Like he's
immediately killed by by Jack.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, that's the moment when Dick takes the ax.
That dad said the thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
And to be fair to the character, he didn't have any
reason to believe that there wasany danger other than psychic
danger maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I mean, he was in touch with danny though.
Right, yes, but danny, whatdanny?
Didn't realize his yeah, whatsent him was what happened in
room 237 uh-huh so but yeah,okay, I it still feels like if
you kind of can see the future,like wouldn't your shining like
warn you about imminent danger?
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And in the book, Halloran survives and becomes a
father figure to Dany.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Oh, I like that better.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, that was.
That was like Kubrick, likechanged that which for you
Kubrick, yeah, which, screw you,kubrick, yeah, and like
Halloran actually.
So Stephen King likes to dokind of like extended Stephen
King universe, so he'll have, inunrelated books, characters
will show up.
So Dick Halloran shows up, andI don't even remember which one
(31:07):
it was.
I think it might've been it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Okay, all right.
Well, that's very interesting.
So, so what happens next?
So so, so Dick gets killedimmediately.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, and Wendy has a knife.
She's running around trying tofind Danny.
Danny was hiding but then hehears Dick get killed and he
freaks out and he runs away.
Jack follows him.
He's limping, as I said,because he hurt his ankle.
They end up outside in thehedge maze.
Danny has played in the hedgemaze quite a bit and so he leads
(31:37):
his father on this chasethrough the hedge maze.
Danny has played in the hedgemaze quite a bit and so he leads
his father on this chasethrough the hedge maze and
finally at one point he's farenough ahead that he then walks
backward in his footprints.
So it hides because his fatheris following his footprints to
know where he is and he's ableto back up hide until his father
passes is.
(31:58):
And he's able to back up hideuntil his father passes, then
run out of the hedge maze wherehe finds his mother, right at
the snowcat that DeCalleran rodeup and they get in and they
leave and then last scene, wesee Jack frozen to death.
And then we have a closeup onan image from july 4th 1921 at
the hotel where jack is in thecenter.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Hey, yeah, so not so, like, so, like the same.
Well, nothing's clear.
I mean, you said that, but yeah, but some implication that this
same psychic energy personkeeps returning to perpetrate
(32:38):
violence in the Overlook, mm-hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
So I want to talk a little bit about like.
So there's that, there's the.
When Wendy's running around,there's a point where she
interrupts a man in like an aircostume, looking like he's going
down on a man in like a 1920sera tuxedo, and that is like I
(33:02):
remember.
When I watched it I was like,even though I had read the book,
I was like what the hell?
Because there's backstory to itin the book yeah, there's also
like oceans of blood.
Yes, yeah, is there a backstoryto that, or is it just that?
(33:24):
Kubrick invented that oh okay,all right, there's weird things
with time.
So, for instance, well, there'sinconsistencies.
So Charles Grady had a daughterwho was eight and one who was
10.
Is what they, what Ullman,who's the manager, says?
And I always was like, oh okay,well, people just don't realize
that the, the, the twins, asthey call them.
(33:44):
They look like twins becausethey're they're dressed exactly
the same.
No, they were actually twinactresses, actors.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
They're identical twins.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Identical twins.
And so there there are theseinconsisten.
And his name was Charles, notDelbert Grady, so it may be
(34:18):
unclear.
Now, I'm not a we mentionedbefore I started.
We started recording.
I'm not a huge like Kubrickaficionado.
I've only seen 2001,.
Dr Strangelove and this Allthree of those movies.
When I finished them I was likewhat, yeah, that was
(34:41):
intentional.
And part of what makes itdifficult is that this is based
on a book written by aconsummate storyteller who does
not do that right right soyou've got things that.
So I always just assumed like,oh okay, the little girls just
look too similar, like I assumedthat, even knowing how
(35:03):
meticulous that Kubrick was, sothis was an intentional choice.
He intentionally wanted it tobe like wait, that's not correct
, wait, what about that?
Wait, that's not correct, Wait,what about that?
So another thing they talkabout Jack.
We don't know the backstory ofhow he lost his job, but we know
that he was an alcoholic and weknow that he hurt Danny.
(35:25):
We hear the story from Wendythat he'd been drinking, he was
in a bad mood and Danny had donesomething to Jack's school
papers and he went to like kindof lift him away from it and he
pulled too hard and dislocatedhis shoulder and it had happened
five months before and Wendysaid so the good news is that he
(35:46):
said I'm never going to drink adrop again because.
So there was a good thing thatcame out of it.
Then, later on, when Jack istalking to the ghostly bartender
and saying like I would sell mysoul for a beer, and the
bartender is like here, havesome bourbon.
And he's like here's to fivemonths of sobriety, well,
(36:08):
they've been at the hotel for atleast a month and possibly
probably longer than that atthat point.
So five months, why five months?
Then there's also the fact thatthe injury happened when he
stopped drinking and he tellingLloyd the bartender, like okay,
(36:33):
I did hurt the kid once, but itwas three years ago, so all of
that is intentional, like youknow.
Like okay, I did hurt the kidonce, but it was three years ago
, so, like, all of that isintentional, it's intentional on
.
Kubrick's part, because none ofit makes sense.
So someone's unreliable, andwho?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
is it.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, I also think so .
The other problem that StephenKing has with the film is the
fact that Jack and Wendy havezero chemistry.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Like from the beginning, Jack seems kind of
not okay.
In a way where I'm like whywould Ullman give this man the
job?
And in a way where, like evenrecognizing that Wendy has few
choices, I don't know why shewould agree to going to the
(37:32):
hotel with him where they'regoing to be isolated over the
winter and that is all choice,Like some of the stuff I was
reading, like even JackNicholson got the you got to
have like 16, 20, 50 takes.
He wasn't immune to that, buthe was treated better than
Shelley Duvall and ScatmanCrothers, and Nicholson is a
very good actor.
(37:52):
Now he's got a little bit ofJack Nicholson to him.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, there's a little bit of like, no matter
what character he's playing.
There's a little bit of thatthere, yes.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
But there is there is no sense whatsoever that he is
a loving father and husband everat any point, which is another
because Jack Torrance is astand-in for Stephen King, so
Stephen King has isuncomfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
And I don't like it's .
I don't waiting for the momentto it's like a sleeper cell axe
murderer.
So, although I don't know, youknow you think I think about
like as the viewer, like we kindof have to believe that Wendy
would have I started to saychosen, and maybe that's not the
(38:58):
right word but accepted thispartner at some point, like what
was it for?
Speaker 1 (39:05):
her for her.
That's that's the part that Ilike.
That's where I feel like thismovie falls down, is like I
don't, I cannot imagine a worldwhere they met and flirted, and
like I can't imagine a worldwhere they met and flirted, and
(39:25):
like I can't imagine a worldwhere they were attracted to
each other like, let alone fellin love and got married.
Like I that, and that's why Ilike I find it very, very
confusing why Kubrick chose tobring that performance out of
Jack Nicholson.
Kubrick chose to bring thatperformance out of Jack
Nicholson Because I feel likeShelley Duvall's performance of
Wendy, who is kind of mousy.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And some of that has to do with the fashions they
have her wear I mean she's this?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
No, it's a choice.
I don't think Duvall has to bemousy no, no, no, it's a choice.
I don't think duval has to bemousy, no, no.
And I think that makes her morevulnerable too, which is part
of the horror of it, because wesee her like just so very
vulnerable and and so the thehorror of the danger that her
husband poses then is is greater, because we as viewers don't
(40:16):
believe that she can do anythingabout it yes so we have this,
this, you know, very vulnerablewoman who seems like a very
ordinary housewife.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
We don't see, like, what other options she has.
And the thing is like there'sno chemistry between jack
nicholson and shellyall, butthere is intense chemistry that
word sounds weird, but likebetween Shelley Duvall and Danny
Lloyd you believe that she'shis mother.
Yeah, like the kind offlirtatious older man that is
(40:57):
like sweet and gracious in a, inan old-fashioned way to a young
woman and she responds in kind,um, and she, she really does
like, she seems like she makesthe best of what she best of the
situation.
She, she, she can.
It's just that the jacknicholson is the odd man out in
this, because at no point doeshe seem like someone you'd want
(41:20):
to spend time with.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, which makes sense why Stephen King would
reject it if Jack was aself-insert of sorts.
Yes, so I'm watching the timeand there's like a whole
category of things that wehaven't gotten to yet, so I'm
going to maybe ask before westarted recording, you were
mentioning to me that there aresome sort of allegories that
(41:46):
maybe Kubrick was including onpurpose.
Do you want to share those withus?
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So yes, the one that I saw yesterday that was kind of
new to me was that this is anallegory.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Now I've seen that it's an allegory for domestic
violence before.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
That's not a surprise , I mean, it's not even an
allegory Like it is, it's astory about domestic violence,
yeah, yeah, but that Danny'sexperiences and even the man in
the bear suit are hints thatDanny has not just been
emotionally and physicallyabused, but also sexually abused
(42:28):
by his father.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
So there are like and I'll link to this in the show
notes there was a video that Iwatched that talked about there
are a lot of connections betweenDanny and bears.
So when he is in the apartmentin Boulder and lying on, uh, on
his bed and the doctor comes toto to check him out, he's lying
on a pillow that is shaped likea teddy bear and its eyes have
been like, altered from how itactually appeared on, you know,
(43:01):
when you bought it in 1978, tolook more like the eyes or the
dials above the elevator thatthe blood comes out of.
So that's creepy.
And there is a scene early onwhere it's on closing day.
(43:23):
Jack is sitting waiting for themanager to come take him on a
tour on closing day and he'shaving something to eat and he's
reading magazine.
It's Playgirl.
Oh yeah, and I knew that.
But this person like found thatit was like the january 1978
edition, I don't know, and oneof the cover stories was about
(43:44):
incest, parent and child, whichI think it was just one of those
like how does this happen?
Kind of stories.
But considering how exactingkubrick was, that was
intentional and the specificinjury done to danny
(44:06):
theoretically by the woman inroom 237 would be consistent
with someone like kind ofholding someone's neck and
forcing, forcing them down.
Yes, fuck yeah, it's, it's uglyum much darker than I realized
yeah, I, and I knew it was dark.
(44:28):
It's dark, and this theory talksabout how the scene of jack
embracing the the woman in thebathtub, woman in the bathtub is
like danny's way of dealingwith it, like he's kind of
dreaming and and and dealingwith his trauma, and so he's his
(44:50):
father is standing in for himin the in this, and just before
all of this happens, there's ascene where Danny goes into the
apartment, finds his fatherawake and his father says come
here and has him sit on his kneeand they chat and it is so
bizarre.
It is so bizarre and and andkind of ugly.
And so it's this idea of likegoing from something loving that
(45:11):
is wanted, like sitting on yourdad's knee and getting comfort
from him, or embracing abeautiful naked woman, to
something that is horrific,which is what Jack may have been
forcing Danny to do, and thatnaked woman turning into an old,
rotting ghost.
(45:33):
So it's, I don't think it's.
Wow, I think that's in there.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, I'm convinced.
I mean it's been a while sinceI saw the movie there.
Yeah, I'm convinced.
I mean it's been a while sinceI saw the movie, but yeah, I'm
convinced.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And here's the thing that I like one of the other
reasons, like we talked, Istarted talking about how this
is a very feminist movie.
People, including this guy.
I've read all like.
He has like 22 chapters ofinterpretation of the Shining
and it's really fascinating.
It's really good stuff.
I read all of it yesterdaybecause I was like this is
really good.
But this guy he referred toWendy as weak at one point.
(46:15):
I was like, well, you clearlydon't get that.
But the reason why people thinkthat is like, well, why didn't
she leave?
He is abusive and obviously shecan't when they're in the
overlook.
But it reminds me of like thebest book I've read this year.
It's called the September Houseby Carissa Orlando, which I am
sure was in part inspired bythis.
(46:36):
It's a woman who has beenmarried to a very abusive
alcoholic for like 30 years.
They never had enough money.
They finally have enough moneyto buy their own house and it
turns out to be extraordinarilyhaunted.
And he's like all right, wehave to leave.
And she's like no, I'm home,I'm not leaving.
(46:58):
And one of the things she talksabout is like in all these
situations there are rules.
So you just need to find outwhat the rules are and follow
them, which is exactly whatshe's been living with with this
abusive man her entire life,and so it's.
The house is haunted all thetime, but September is the worst
, and she never put her footdown to her husband until their
(47:20):
daughter was in danger of beingharmed.
Their daughter was in danger ofbeing harmed, and the same
thing happens with the housewhere, like she's just, she'll
let it.
You know, like you can alwaysfigure out the rules, there's
always ways to bend until herdaughter is threatened.
And then at that point, becauseshe's been kind to all the
(47:41):
ghosts other than the like thebig bad scary, they help her.
And what I loved about that,that book, and what it reminded
me of in this, is like what wesee as weakness is a kind of
core strength that you couldn'tlike, I'm thinking even just
like you know, you bend, youtwist you, you you always find
ways around it, and that's notalways necessarily strength, but
(48:06):
it can be.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Well, I think the thing is that we think about
strength in sort of we've beentaught to think about it in sort
of black and white terms, whenit's not, because life isn't
that way.
And so, ultimately, survivalstrategies are survivals.
If you survive, then theyworked right and there was
(48:29):
strength in survival.
And so if one is like, no, fuckyou, I'm going to fight you and
then you die, were you in factstrong?
Or what did your strength getyou, you know what?
So I think that's part of myreaction.
To get you, you know like.
So I think that's that's partof that's that's part of my
reaction to what you're talkingabout, and especially when we're
(48:52):
talking about anyone who is inan abusive relationship and has
a hard time leaving especiallywomen, but really anyone.
I think to say she's weakbecause she didn't leave the
abusive relationship iscompletely unfair and just a
fundamental misunderstanding ofwhat an abusive relationship is.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yes, yes, and the thing that.
So when Wendy hits him on thehead, they are this hotel is
huge.
They're in the Colorado room.
It's not like it's.
People have made maps of thehotel but it's a little unclear
how far away the kitchen is.
But Jack's got to outweigh herby 40, 50 pounds.
(49:37):
Yeah, and she drags him Becauseshe knows, because it would be
very easy for her to just leavehim and then go lock herself in
the apartment.
It would be very easy to do,but she knows we are not safe
and this is the best way.
And she locks him in a placewhere there's food and this is
(49:59):
the best way to make sure he'sokay and we're okay.
And that's amazing.
That is amazing and that likethat level of competence which
you don't see from like the theother thing.
So when he and Delbert Gradyare talking through the pantry
door, one of the things Gradysays is like your wife appears
(50:20):
to be stronger and moreresourceful than we thought to
be stronger and more resourcefulthan we thought.
And one of the things thatGrady says is like are you up to
this?
And so like Jack is incompetentin all the things he tries to
do.
Yeah, in this film, whereasWendy is competent in everything
(50:43):
that she does.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Right Right, mm-hmm, right Right, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
Like she's an excellent mother.
She's a good wife.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
She's an excellent caretaker.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
She's a good friend, she does what needs to be done
to protect the people she caresabout, and she gets her kid out
of there.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean she does have an assist on that
one, but she does have an assist.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
but actually, even with that, like Danny probably
would have survived.
Well, I don't know if he wouldhave survived, but survived long
enough.
Um, if Halloran hadn't arrivedat that moment, like it was just
if Halloran had arrivedeventually.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
So she got her kid out of there.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, okay, still watching.
The time Is there somethingelse.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
The one other interpretation that was not new
to me but is like blew your mindwhen I mentioned it is that
this film is an allegory for thegenocide of Native Americans.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah, walk me through it, because I'm not, I, I, I
don't.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
So this is based on a number of visual clues.
So there's calumet, baking sodaor baking powder, uh, in the
storeroom that has a a nativeamerican in in a feathered
headdress as yeah, like it's,like that's the logo of that
brand.
So there's things like thatthey talk about and this was an
addition was not part of theStephen King's book that the
(52:12):
hotel was built on NativeAmerican burial ground.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Oh, so that's one of the possible explanations for
the ghosting thing too, huh.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yes, yes, there are the way that the hotel is
decorated.
There's a point where Wendysays like, oh, are these, you
know, real Indian designs?
And Ullman says, yeah, it'sNavajo and Apache motifs.
So there's quite a bit in there.
And so Kubrick was extremelycritical of America.
(52:46):
He was an American but he livedlike last few 30, I don't know
some years of his life in the UK, as far as I understand it.
So it makes sense that thiswould be like some subtext he
would put in that the.
The movie is about how Americansjust kind of come in and
(53:08):
destroy things and the hotel isa stand in for America.
Also, something else that I'veseen is the way that Danny gets
away from his father by steppingbackwards in his footprints is
reportedly was something thatsome Native American tribes
would do to hide their path.
(53:29):
There's quite a bit in there.
People get really deep in therabbit hole about this, and I
don't think it's incorrect,considering how exacting Kubrick
was.
What I find ironic is thatKubrick was apparently trying to
make this statement about likewhite colonial settlers in
(53:54):
America, and he did that byperpetrating abuse on the female
actor and the black actor.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Yeah, there's also something like that feels really
like a like a real tension forme.
And if this is a statement thatthis white dude is making about
his home country, that it thenappropriates about his home
(54:34):
country, that then appropriatesNative American culture and
features no Native Americancreatives or actors or stories,
I don't know, I don't know, itjust feels like there, just
feels like saviorist potentially, but also just, I don't know,
(54:55):
naive, immature, orally thoughtout, which I know everything
kubrick did he thought about.
So you know I feel a littleweird saying that, but I mean it
.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
It's like we were talking before we started
recording.
I was saying like he had verystrong opinions, political
opinions, but they weren'texactly coherent.
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind ofwhat this feels like.
It's like I want to make thisstatement, but not like
coherently think through what itmeans to make this statement,
what the what, the implicationsare, or the legacy conducting
(55:27):
myself on on set and the bloodis like.
The river of blood is alsoconsidered to be one of the
symbols.
That's, that's part of oh fromnative american yeah, from
various genocides and and I mean, I I think there's definitely
something to be said about the,the like appropriation of land
and appropriation of culture andimages, and and I like I think
(55:50):
that's very interesting andimportant.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
I just, yeah, yeah, it's just, it's such a weird
vehicle for it because it's likeyeah, who reads the Stephen
King novel and goes like, yeah,this is the way I'm going to
talk about genocide of NativeAmericans?
Yeah, kubrick does apparently.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
So it's possible because he was inspired by the
decorations of various hotels,so like that, some of the like.
There's one, I think, inCalifornia that had a lot of the
kind of Native American motifsand decorations, and so it may
have been like because of that,but it's, it's.
(56:29):
It's bizarre, it's reallyreally bizarre, which isn't you
know?
Speaker 2 (56:31):
that's on brand for Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
And like that's.
I feel like ultimately that'swhat he wanted, is he wanted
people to be talking about thismovie and being like what the
hell?
I don't understand.
And like, well, which is sodifferent from what Stephenhen
king wants to do.
When you read a story of hisand like, honestly, the the one
thing I just I will nevercomprehend why he had jack
(56:54):
nicholson.
Do full jack nicholson from thebeginning, like if you just
have a little bit of lovingfather yeah, yeah.
A scene or two of like hey,sweetie, you know, and because
even when he's at his sanest hestill seems like I don't know if
I want to leave you here in thehotel by yourself for the
(57:17):
duration.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
All right, any final important insights before I try
to synthesize back what you'veshared with me final important
insights, before I try tosynthesize back what you've
shared with me.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
No, I think just I really want to reiterate how
important it is to have storiesthat are about domestic violence
like this, that do show this,that do show different types of
(57:52):
strength and that do show like awoman who's not glamorous, who
is, you know, kind of simple,having this incredible character
arc and prevailing inhorrifying situation, like cause
people talk about, like they,they, they hate when she's
looking for Danny, and likeshe's so scared and holding the
knife and I'm like why that's arational response, like she is
(58:12):
responding rationally to what ishappening around her and she
does not stop.
Yeah, yeah, she keeps lookingfor Danny.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
So and like that's what bravery is yeah, so well, I
think that's where we startedtoo.
So so, if that's what braveryis, feminist, insofar as it's
(58:43):
not.
You didn't say this, but I'mgoing to.
I'm going to say it this waybecause we often on this show
talk about not like other girls,feminism.
That is not what this moviegives us.
Wendy Torres is just like othergirls, and that's kind of the
point.
And she is, you know, she'smousy and selfless and maybe not
(59:07):
so bright, unclear, and shedoes what she needs to to
survive and to help her kidssurvive.
And there is, there is realstrength in that.
Kubrick was a dick.
Kubrick was a dick and thatmanifested in many ways, but
(59:48):
notably in the exacting natureof his direction scene, so that
Duvall was forced to be cryingfor 12 hours a day, five days a
week, six days a week for ninemonths.
Oh, that sounds awful.
He also you noted it wasn'tjust exacting in what they were
forced to do, but also subjectto outbursts from him, which we
(01:00:08):
know he was capable ofcontaining because he protected
Danny Lloyd, the child actor, onthis film.
He protected Danny Lloyd fromthat and from being a child
actor in a horror film.
So we know he was capable oftreating his actors with care
and setting up boundaries forthem, and he chose not to do
that.
(01:00:28):
You talked a bit aboutadaptation as well and the ways
in which adaptation like.
It makes sense that StephenKing, the originator of this
story, hated this adaptationwhich actually is not a judgment
of the adaptation because Kinghad Jack as a self-insert, and
(01:00:50):
so when Kubrick made him evenmore horrific, even more
reprehensible, with theimplications of incest with his
son, with the implication thereis no loving father or husband
inside this tortured alcoholicwriter's block, failed writer,
(01:01:14):
of course King hated thatbecause he saw himself in Jack
Torres, and so that that I meanthat that's probably the horror
writer's biggest fear, right, isthat he is truly, ultimately, a
monster.
Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
And King had some pretty serious substance abuse
issues, and so this was in themidst of his substance abuse.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
I mean he wrote it or Kubrick made it in the midst of
his substance abuse.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
I think he didn't get clean until the mid-'80s.
Oh, wow, okay, I might be wrongon that.
The other aspect of it is I'msure that Wendy Torrance, as
King wrote her, was based onTabitha, his wife, who, as I
understand it, is like justSharp as a whip and all those
things.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Yeah, not mousy.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Not the Shelley Duvall version of Wendy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
So Tabitha does she use King?
Yes, yeah, tab, the ShelleyDuvall version of Wendy.
So Tabitha does she use King?
Yes, yeah.
So Tabitha King is a not likeother girls feminist.
So to put a like other girlscharacter in her, in her place
or in that slot is is alsoprobably uncomfortable for for
Steven.
So that's, that's aninteresting piece of this, like
(01:02:23):
thinking.
I mean, that piece of thisconversation actually really to
me puts interesting new layerson the question of the death of
the artist, you know, and sortof the nature of the art once it
has left the artist's hands andit iterates its way through,
right, like you don't, stephenKing doesn't get to decide what
(01:02:44):
happens to Jack Torrance oncethat book has been published,
and that's a really interestingpiece.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Well, and what's kind of fascinating to me about it
is, my realization yesterday, asI was rewatching and doing some
research, was that Kubrick didnot care that he deviated from
the novel.
Yeah, that wasn't his point.
(01:03:10):
It wasn't the novel anymore, itwas Kubrick's story that he
took inspiration from and a lotof plot points from, but
ultimately it didn't bother himin this life.
Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
It was fan fiction, it wasn't canon, exactly, yeah,
yeah.
And another piece of that toois that, even as a viewer who
had read the book first, yousaid to me I don't know if you
said it on tape, but you said itbefore we started recording
that there were some things thatKubrick did that were better
than what King did.
I think you did say it, becauseall work and no play makes Jack
a dull boy so much morepowerful and chilling than Jack.
(01:03:42):
Like re-keying recent plays andlike that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
And then the other another aspect that stephen king
had was, um, there was no hedgemaze but there were hedge
animals and they'd move and like, I'm sorry, that's just not
scary.
Now, some of it was like theCGI and special effects
available in 1979, 1980.
Couldn't have filmed it, but itwas also just like I just don't
(01:04:11):
find that scary.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So a couple of the other thingsthat we discussed was this film
as intentionally incoherent.
That's a piece of what Kubrickis delivering with intention.
So we get the inconsistency inthe name of the scary ass ghost
(01:04:38):
who's egging Jack on.
We get inconsistency in was ita 10-year-old and an
eight-year-old, was it twins?
Inconsistency in the timeline,that was Danny hurt five months
ago or was it three years ago?
Has Jack been sober for fivemonths or has it been longer?
Those sorts of inconsistenciesthat were clearly done very
(01:05:02):
intentionally to keep us, asviewers not knowing what's real.
I'm putting quotes around thatword, so that's something that's
really interesting that youtalked about.
And then, in the midst of thatincoherence, there are these
allegories that are baked in,also intentionally, of the
(01:05:22):
domestic abuse, which is notallegoryory, and of, like a
deeper potential sexual abuse ofthe child, which is, and of and
this one is still like I'm justshaking my head of white people
stealing land and murderingnative people on this continent.
(01:05:45):
I'm not saying I'm not in favorof calling that out, I'm just
saying like I didn't see it inthis film.
What did I forget him?
Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
The story of domestic abuse and how and this is one
of the like I think I can'tremember if you and I talked
about this recently about likefeminist horror as its own, as
its own genre, almost Genre.
Which is interesting that, likeI would consider this a part of
feminist horror, even though itwas written by a dude and
(01:06:21):
directed by a dude, based oninspiration written by a dude.
Yeah, dude, and directed by adude, and, um, based on
inspiration written by a dude.
Yeah, but the, uh, the.
What makes feminist horror whatit is is that it is examining
the horrors of living as a womanin our society, and so and you
can get any number of differenttypes of things from like
psychological suspense to bodyhorror, just in a woman's
(01:06:45):
experience of living as female,and so I feel like this is a
really good example of that.
In talking about, you know,1980 doesn't seem like it was.
I mean, it does to my kids, butit doesn't seem like it was
that long ago.
But the number of optionsavailable to Wendy Torrance even
in 1980, were so much morelimited that making the best of
(01:07:12):
the situation was kind of heronly choice.
Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Right, Right, I didn't know what I was in for
when we sat down today.
I mean, that's kind of alwaysthe case, yeah, so all right.
Well, next time it's my turnand I'm going to be bringing the
original Christopher ReevesSuperman movie to you, which we
(01:07:42):
watched when we were like whenit was new.
Yeah, little little, and Ihaven't seen it in a long time.
So I'm gonna be watching itbefore we, before we record
again so and and doing someresearch to to look back at at,
uh, at clark kent and lois laneand and all that.
So I'm looking forward to thatand in the meantime, do you have
(01:08:03):
some listener comments you wantto share with us?
Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
I do.
I changed up how we do things alittle bit.
I mentioned on social mediathat we're going to be talking
about the Shining and I askedpeople like, do you have any hot
takes?
So my friend Lori told me thatthe last time I watched it was
at the Garden City Hotel on LongIsland and I realized I was
staying in the same hotel roomnumber.
So she was in room 237.
(01:08:27):
Oh, freaky.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that wouldfreak me out.
My friend Teresa said I saw itin the theater when it first
came out and I hated it.
I've never watched it again.
I decided then that I didn'tlike horror movies.
So this one was so overdone itbordered on being funny.
(01:08:49):
Wow, there's something funny toJack Nicholson's.
Um, agreed delivery.
Yes, um, and humor and fear, orum, laughter, fear close
together.
So like people laughing atsomething terrifying is is is
not unusual, yeah, um.
(01:09:10):
My friend Jill says I love thebook and I've seen the movie a
million times.
I thought it was reallyinteresting that shining was
mentioned in the Barbie movie inthe car chase scene.
I didn't recall that it was.
So, she says.
My first thought was wouldSasha, which was the daughter in
the Barbie movie, know thatreference, but I loved that it
(01:09:31):
was included because it callsout a superpower between the two
women, like witchy in a goodway.
And then, finally, karen saysScatman Crothers' role seems
under-discussed.
He connects Danny to his giftand himself as a resource.
The Shining could also bediscussed as an abusive
relationship taken to theextreme, involving intelligence,
dominance and violence, takingsomeone deeper into darkness,
(01:09:52):
and how intuition, protectionand love can battle darkness
with light.
Nice, yeah, yeah, wow.
So yeah, got some smart friendsand, by the way, listener, we
would love to hear your smarttakes to find us on social find
us on social.
Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Send us an email, guy girls media at gmailcom, or
visit us at our website, guygirls mediacom.
Do you like stickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up
and share your address with us,we'll send you a sticker.
It really is that easy, butdon't wait, there's a limited
(01:10:34):
quantity.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I will bediscussing the 1980 film the
Shining with my sister, tracyGuy-Decker, and with you, so
let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture,what others might deem stupid
shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come over, think with us aswe delve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Trace, tell me, what do you know about this movie?
I know this is not likeanything from either of our
childhoods exactly, but it'sjust like a pillar of the
culture and I know you've seenit.
But that's about all.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I know about.
I have seen it.
Yeah, I have seen it.
I'm trying to remember, aswe're talking like, where I saw
it the first time.
It was sometime in the past 20years, so I was already an adult
, for sure, but a young adult, Ithink, and I think maybe.
Actually I think there was.
There was like a remake orsomething right like in the
(01:11):
early aughts, that was in like1997, I think.
Oh yeah, um okay so while I wasin college, I think I think I
saw some or all of the remake,possibly with, and then that
sent me to the original withJack Nicholson and Shelley
Duvall.
In fact I'm certain I saw itwith dad, because I remember
(01:33):
late in the movie when the Idon't remember his name, but the
black guy comes, dick Calloran,yeah.
(02:06):
So when Dick comes to try andsave the kid, because they have
that connection and I rememberdad saying something like wow,
for a man who shines this.
There's not a lot of gore and Ithink it's the gore and the
jump scares that really make ithard for me to watch horror and
this movie doesn't have a wholelot of that.
But you and I have spoken alittle bit about some of the
gendered roles, uh, gendered.
There's gendered violence that'sdifferent than ordinary
(02:26):
gendered violence, but stillvery much gendered and kind of
the characterization of wendy byshelly duvall and and and and
how she sort of comes off, andthat's the thing that like
sticks with me the most is herterror and also like the
(02:48):
trappedness of that is a part ofthat terror and the concern for
her kid.
Those are the things that likestick with me emotionally and of
course, some of the iconicmoments of you know the
delusions were like with thetwins and like the long hallway
and the big wheel, and you knowthat show up like people make
(03:10):
visual references to that allthe time, including in
ghostbusters.
There's a reference to that,like there's a big wheel at one
point when the ghost busters areshowing up after, after gozer
has come.
So I have some like surfacethoughts about it, but I'm
really I'm excited to to diginto it a little more deeply
(03:31):
with you.
So tell me what's at stake here.
Why, why did you want to bringthis one to the deep thoughts
treatment?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So the shining is not like a foundational text of my
you know literary DNA in the waythat like Neverending Story and
the Princess Bride, even Backto the Future, are, because,
like you, I did not reallyengage with it until I was an
adult.
I read the novel first and thensaw the movie.
(04:02):
I don't remember exactly howthat came about, but I kind of
got on a bit of a Stephen Kingkick in the early 2000s.
I loved the novel.
It is my favorite Stephen Kingnovel but only because it has a
really fucked up group sex scene.
Until we got to that point itwas my favorite Stephen King
(04:23):
novel and then I was like thatlike it just took me out of the
story because it's like, clearlyyou've never been an adolescent
girl and, like you, completelyovershot the mark.
And why did you not talk toTabitha, who is his wife, who is
also a gifted writer in her ownright, who would have been like
, do something different herehere?
(04:47):
Anyway, I think it'sinteresting that I read the book
first and then saw the movie,because I think it gave me a
much different view of how thisadaptation works than if I'd
done the opposite.
And not that I have any issuewith people having done the
opposite, but just there arethings that they were like
lovely surprises, that made itsomething where I was like, oh,
I really appreciate thisadaptation, rather than like
going like, oh, this is missingfrom the movie that I know of,
(05:09):
or this is different.
So I read it and loved it, sawthe movie, watched it multiple
times and really loved it anddidn't really think about it.
Um, and didn't really thinkabout it.
(05:33):
So sometime around 2016,.
Um, for some reason, I sawpeople talking about it again
and talking about what a weakcharacter Wendy Torrance is, and
some of that is from StephenKing.
Um, and I don't hold thisagainst Stephen King, because it
was an adaptation of not onlyhis work but a very personal
piece of his work because theShining was about Stephen King
(05:53):
working through his own demonsof alcoholism and so changes to
that story that are extremelypersonal, that story that are
extremely personal.
I can't even imagine how thatfeels.
So I don't hold it against himthat he said like Shelley
Duvall's acting is the mostmisogynistic portrayal he's ever
(06:15):
seen on film Relative much,yeah, and now some of it is
Shelley Duvall's Wendy Torranceis not Stephen King's Wendy
Torrance.
Stephen King's Wendy Torrancehad a lot more fight in her from
the very beginning.
She is much more of an equal inthe marriage from the very
beginning and you get morebackstory.
(06:36):
So some of that as well.
Like you learn that she'sestranged from her parents.
She is in a lot of ways trappedby circumstances in ways that
we just don't know in the filmand I, seeing people say that I
was like did we watch the samemovie?
And I went back and rewatched itand it was right around the
(06:58):
time when people startedself-identifying as nasty women.
People started self-identifyingas nasty women and I remember
thinking, like Shelley Duvall'sversion of Wendy Torrance is an
undercover nasty woman, becauseshe is all the things that I
think of when I proudly wear mynasty woman shirt.
(07:18):
She is strong, she isresourceful, she makes hard
decisions.
She puts the people who sheloves first in a way that is not
like there's some selflessnessto her, but it's a it's not a
martyrdom a sense of like I haveto be the one to take care of
this because there's no one elseand she, at every turn, makes
(07:51):
the best possible decision shecan with the resources she has
for the people she loves.
Now she seems to be kind of like, you see, that she's an avid
reader, but you don't get theimpression that she's like a
towering intellect.
But so what?
(08:11):
And that's, I know that'sanother part of why Stephen King
didn't particularly like thisportrayal is is his Wendy was
very smart, and I'm not sayingWendy Torrance, as played by
Shelley Duvall, is not verysmart.
It's just that you get theimpression that she's accepted
some things that you would notexpect a strong woman to accept,
and so there's an assumptionthat she must not be very smart
(08:35):
because of that.
I so I I rewatched it and Istarted.
I was like I really kind of wantto create a list of like
undercover nasty women, and Ihad trouble coming up with any
other examples.
But you know rewatching itabout, you know, eight years ago
, seven or eight years ago, andlooking at it from that point of
(08:55):
view, I was like this is anextremely feminist film, even
though it doesn't pass theBechdel test.
There is another womancharacter, but she is not named,
that they have a conversationabout, a conversation together
and they're talking about herson, they're talking about Danny
and they're talking about Jack.
So it's not exactly.
But, they're all.
She had a name, yeah, but theyare also.
(09:15):
They're talking about parenting.
So like I think it would countif the doctor had a name, but
she doesn't, okay, but it is.
In a lot of ways it is a veryfeminist movie in part for the
same reason that I feel like theHandmaid's Tale is a feminist
book about a woman who does notconsider herself to be strong.
Now I have my own issues withthe Handmaid's Tale.
(09:36):
I find Margaret Atwood to be socynical, and by cynical I mean
there's despair, which is whenyou give up for yourself, but
there's cynicism when you giveup for everyone else.
But she set out with the storyof Offred to tell the story of
(09:57):
someone who's not fiery, someonewho is just kind of an ordinary
woman, and her littlerebellions and little
resistances and the way that shewould survive.
And I actually reallyappreciate that there are so
many ways to resist, to bestrong, to be nasty, even if you
(10:19):
are not the one leading thefight or leading the charge,
even if you're not fiery yeah,you don't have to be general
whatever.
Yes, organa, yeah, whateverleia's name was in that, and in
order to to actually be a part,of the resistance, uh-huh, and
so I feel like stanley kubrickcreated an extremely feminist
(10:45):
horror film that is entirelyabout domestic violence, while
perpetrating emotional abuse onthe one main black character and
the one main actress.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Let's talk about that .
I don't know anything aboutthat.
Tell me so, stanley Kubrick.
Anything about that?
Tell me so.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Stanley Kubrick was known to be exacting.
So, for example, during Makingof the Shining, he would have
his actors, and all of them.
I mean Jack Nicholson as well,but Shelley Duvall, jack
Nicholson and Scatman Crothers,who played DeCalleran.
He would have them do the same.
Take 160 times, and I'm notmaking that number up 160?
(11:33):
.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yes, holy shit yes.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
There's interviews with Crothers saying like he got
to a point where he was justlike what is it you want from me
for this?
Take Cause I don't I don'talready done it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, I can remember writing like a piece of copy and
like when my boss was like Ikept track of the things and it
wasn't when it was number seven,I was like I got nothing left.
Yeah, yeah, I don't have it.
And that was seven.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, yeah, I don't have it.
And that was seven.
So Kubrick was very exacting.
That was true Always.
Didn't do some researchyesterday.
I found that that was alwaystrue.
But when making the Shining, hewas like, gave these emotional
and sarcastic outbursts, whereasnormally he was very calm
throughout.
He was like okay, we're justgoing to do it again, like for
all, 80 or 160 times or whatever.
(12:28):
No idea why this was different.
There's someone who has a, atheory that kubrick was trying
to, because they also did amaking of documentary while they
were making the film, which wasvery unusual for kub.
He was very like, tight lippedand like kept a closed set and
like.
That was unusual.
(12:48):
And so this person issuggesting that there's that
Kubrick was making himself intoJack Torrance, which like what?
I don't know, I don't know.
I don't know enough aboutKubrick as a, as a like.
I know he was eccentric, but Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
I know he was eccentric, but I don't know.
So you're telling me that whilethey were filming the Shining,
not only was he making them doit dozens and dozens and
hundreds of times, he wasyelling and belittling them
while doing it.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Just Shelley Duvall and Scatman Crothers.
Oh, jack didn't get theemotional, jack Nicholson did
not.
And I want to say, to beentirely fair to Kubrick, danny
Lloyd, who plays Danny Torrance,was six years old at the time
and he had no idea he was in ahorror movie.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And I can actually recall dad talking about this
when I was about six, saying howimpressed he was and Danny does
a great job.
I I mean, I don't know how theygot now some of it was kubrick
was a director who could get agreat performance out of any
actor, I think partially becausehe did so many takes, so many
takes, yeah, but he was, uh, hewas very protective of danny
(13:58):
lloyd, and so lloyd thought thatthe movie was about like a
family drama and so he thoughtthere was tension, you know,
like about parents fightingwhile living in this hotel, so
which was something that youknow a little boy can handle.
But he had no idea and was notthere for any of the most like
(14:19):
horrifying scenes that theyfilmed, so like, on the one hand
, that's fantastic.
On the other hand, he clearlyknew how to keep boundaries
around people.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, and didn't for Shelley Duvall, didn't for
Shelley.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Duvall or Scatman Crothers.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Scatman.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
So I don't exactly know what to do with that.
Has duval talked about it?
Or crothers?
Um, crothers has he?
I know a little less about his,his experience.
I know he was interviewed forthat making of and there's a
point where he tears up in theinterview and the tearing up is
(15:05):
is like supposedly about howexcited or like feelings of joy
at being able to do this workwith this renowned director and
Jack Nicholson and stuff likethat.
But the the thing that I wasreading was saying like, but
he's also not long after talkingabout the 160 takes.
So there's emotion high at thesurface and Shelley Duvall, like
(15:30):
she left acting for a littlewhile after this.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It was, and she talks about.
She had to be crying for 12hours a day, five or six days a
week, for nine months.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Holy cow day, five or six days a week for nine months
.
Holy cow, oh, what'll that doto you, psychologically,
physiologically yeah,somatically, yeah, so it's this
like I have.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I grew up with shelly duvall, like in um, so she did
that.
That was it.
Not fractured fairy tales, butthat fairy tale um thing.
Do you remember that at allfrom the 80s?
No, I'll have to look it up andI'll put it in the show notes,
but there was.
There was a like a half hourfairy tale show that she, she
did in the 80s that I reallyliked.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
She was olive oil in the I remember that olive oil in
the pop boy movie.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
She was in Roxanne with Steve Martin.
She was who was she?
She was her name.
The character's name was Dixie,I think, and and she was just a
friend of Steve Martin.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
She was a friend of Steve Martin.
Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, she like owned a cafe or something.
Yeah, yeah, something like that.
So she was always someone Ikind of.
She was on my radar as, like Iknow her.
Yeah, I always liked her eyesshe's a huge, gorgeous eyes and
I liked I couldn't havearticulated this I liked that
she was very pretty in a veryapproachable way, to the point
(17:15):
where, like she was abused.
I mean there's there's no otherway around it.
For this film.
I like I feel very protectiveof her.
There was a, an article abouther a few years ago, talking
(17:37):
about she.
She's dealing with some mentalhealth stuff in her retirement
and doesn't like and nobodycares about her anymore.
And so someone did this exposeand some of it was like pictures
of her, like look about heranymore.
And so someone did this exposeand some of it was pictures of
her like look at her now.
And I was just like, leave thepoor lady alone.
And she apparently so.
(17:59):
Roger Ebert has a review of theShining as part of the Great
Films series, so it's a reviewthat he wrote well after it came
out.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Okay, so it wasn't contemporaneous.
It wasn't a contemporaneous oneI could not find.
It was already the shining.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, yeah, I could not find a contemporaneous Ebert
review and he talks abouttalking to Shelley Duvall about
the experience and she just waslike it was brutal.
We'll get into like a bunch ofthis actually real quick, cause
(18:33):
we haven't done this.
Let me talk about what happensin the, in the story.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah, yes, please do.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So the story is we've got this little family living
in Boulder there's Jack Torrance, who is a former school teacher
, he's a writer, his wifeWinifred, who goes by Wendy, and
their little son Danny, who'sabout five or six years old the
(19:06):
Overlook Hotel, which is in avery remote area of Colorado, to
become the winter caretaker.
The Overlook closes fromOctober 30th to May 15th every
year because it is in such aremote area and the only road to
get there is called theSidewinder and the cost of the
20 feet of snow removal for 25miles is too great to make it
worthwhile to keep the hotelopen.
So they need someone there overthe winter to heat it in
(19:30):
alternate rooms, so that pipesdon't freeze, to make sure the
boiler's okay.
So it's a very basic caretakerposition.
So they look for men withfamilies to be caretakers
because the isolation can bevery difficult.
While Jack is at the interviewhe is told about a previous
caretaker from 10 years beforenamed Charles Grady, who they
(19:53):
called it cabin fever.
Something happened, he snappedand he killed his two daughters
and his wife and then killedhimself.
So he used an ax on his familyand a double-barreled shotgun
for himself.
Jack says don't worry, we'regood.
They show up at the hotel onclosing day and we meet Dick
(20:16):
Halloran who is the head chef ofthe Overlook.
He immediately realizes thatDanny the little boy has what
Dick calls the shining, which ishe talks about.
When he was a little boy he canremember having a whole
conversations with hisgrandmother without either of
them ever opening their mouths.
There's never really in thefilm a clear explanation of what
(20:39):
shining is, although it's veryclearly explicated in the book,
but there's.
There's the sense that you kindof know things before they
happen.
You can see things from thepast and you can kind of
communicate with other peoplewithout talking, but only other
people who shine it's like ESP,only other shiners yes.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Danny has an imaginary friend called Tony,
who he describes as a little boywho lives in his mouth and he
uses his finger to talk as Tony,and Tony is clearly some
manifestation of his shining.
The hotel is scary.
(21:21):
Before going there and Dannyasks Dick, are you scared of the
hotel?
Are you scared of room 237?
Halloran says there's nothingin room 237.
And I'm not scared of that room, but it's none of your business
, you just stay out of there.
(21:42):
The family moves in.
It's a month later and it'sclear that Wendy is doing all of
the work of caretaking and sheis doing what she can to make
this a happy environment forDanny.
Whereas Jack says he's really,really happy there and he's
trying to write, but he's havingtrouble, strange things start
(22:04):
to happen.
Danny sees two little girls whoare dressed as twins and were
actually played by twins and whohe knows aren't actually there.
He is drawn to room 237 onmultiple occasions and Jack
(22:33):
becomes increasingly nasty andangry towards Wendy, telling her
never to interrupt him while heis in the Colorado room, which
is where he set up histypewriter.
So there is one day wherethere's a storm brewing.
So, like you know, they'rereally really stuck there and
Wendy hears Jack crying out inhis sleep.
She finds him asleep on hisdesk and he had this horrible
dream that he killed her andDanny.
And it was even worse, hedidn't just kill them, he
(22:54):
chopped them into little bits.
She's trying to calm him down.
When Danny, who had seen thatroom 237 was open and gone to
investigate, comes in suckinghis thumb and his his shirt is
torn.
So he comes in.
She at first is trying to getDanny away, cause she's trying
(23:14):
to calm Jack down.
And then she goes and sees thathis shirt is torn and he has
bruising all over his neck andshe's like, oh my God, you did
this to him and runs away with,uh, with Danny.
And she's like, oh my God, youdid this to him and runs away
with Danny.
Jack then goes into theballroom where he sees a
bartender who serves him alcohol, even though there's nobody
there.
(23:34):
He also ends up having aconversation with Delbert Grady.
So it's one of the manyinconsistencies in the story
that's not the name that we.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Charles Grady was the name of the.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, and it is one of the most chilling scenes
where Grady is telling him thatI needed to correct my children.
You should correct Danny.
He is attempting to bring anoutside influence in and then he
uses the N-word to describeScatman Crothers' character,
(24:09):
danny.
Because of all this, he hasreached out to Halloran who is
in Miami, and Halloran startstrying to call, can't get
through, calls the local forestservice and asks them to radio.
They can't get through throughand we see that jack has
disabled the radio.
So, uh, halloran flies todenver and then, like, rents a
(24:33):
car and then a snow cat to getup to the overlook to check on
them.
Things come to a head whereDanny finally is able to like
tell Wendy that it was a womanin room 237.
So she goes to Jack and tellshim that's what happened.
He's like, are you out of yourfucking mind?
(24:54):
And then next thing you know,you see he's going into room 237
.
There is a naked woman who isyoung and beautiful in the
bathtub who, like, steps outslowly and Jack starts like
leering at her and then she, shelike, invites him closer and
they kiss.
And then he looks in the mirrorand she is like this old,
(25:15):
bloated, rotting body.
And so he like backs away,wendy wants to get Danny out of
there.
She, she's terrified for him.
She and Jack get into anargument about it and he leaves
their little apartment in thehotel.
And then she ends up like, okay, I need to go talk to him.
(25:37):
And that's when she finds hismanuscript and finds that
instead of actually writingsomething, he has written all
work and no play, makes jack adoll boy.
Over and, over and, over andover again in different like
formatting and like yeah, yeah,and that, actually that was,
that was a kubrick inventionthat was really cool, oh my
(26:01):
goodness, like, like, because inthe book Jack also had writer's
block, because the book isabout writer's block basically,
yeah, but he had written likecurrent plays over and over and
over again.
So like, also kind of freaky,but not the same.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The way that Kubrick has it happen is just so
chilling because it's not justthat, it's and like back and
forth dialogue and like it justit reads so much more unhinged
than if it was just a solid wall.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yes, yeah starts threatening her.
He's like I'm no, I'm not gonnahurt you, I'm just gonna
fucking kill you.
And so she's backing up up thestairs and she, she is.
This is also like the scariestmoment, because she's holding
(27:07):
the bat.
She clearly doesn't want to useit against him.
She's terrified, she'sheartbroken and she's like, very
ineffectually, like kind ofswinging at him.
She ends up connecting with hishand and he's like ow, and he
kind of like pulls away.
And then she manages to likereally whack him on the head and
he falls backwards and shedrags him into the kitchen and
(27:31):
locks him in the pantry.
And that's when he tells herthat she should check the radio
and the snowcat because they'renot going anywhere.
And she finds that the snowcathas been disabled, something has
been taken out of it.
So they are stuck there.
Grady lets him out of thepantry.
The ghost, the ghost, the ghost.
(27:54):
Now that is the only portion ofthe film that could be, or that
is, somewhat unequivocal.
Um, because every time that yousee something, it could be
either hallucination or jack,like talking to himself.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I mean, except that Danny had was injured right Well
there's something to that too?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
okay, all right.
So anyway, kubrick, I think,did not want it to be that there
were ghosts.
I think it was for him.
He wanted it to be that therewas a like a rational
explanation for everything.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
In any, case definitely lets Jack out of the
pantry.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Well, Jack is talking through the door to the actor
who plays Grady and you hear theactor's very proper British
voice and the door opens, butyou don't actually see who opens
the door or how it's opened orif there's.
So I've seen some suggestions.
There are other ways.
There are other other ways hecould have gotten out, but okay.
(29:01):
So Jack is limping at thispoint but he gets an ax and he
breaks into the family apartmentwhere Wendy is sleeping and
Danny, in the Tony voice, isgoing red rum, red rum and
writes it on the bathroom door.
It finally wakes Wendy up andshe looks in the mirror and it's
(29:23):
murder.
That's what Red Rum is.
Backwards.
Jack starts breaking down thedoor.
She and Danny get into thebathroom.
She locks the bathroom door,she opens the window and lets
Danny out through that.
She can't get through thewindow and Jack breaks in with
that famous here's Johnny moment.
Then they hear the snowcat ofDick Halloran arriving, which is
(29:46):
what saves Wendy.
At that moment she was cornered.
Dick Halloran comes in and Ireally hate this Like he's
immediately killed by by Jack.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, that's the moment when Dick takes the ax.
That dad said the thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
And to be fair to the character, he didn't have any
reason to believe that there wasany danger other than psychic
danger maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I mean, he was in touch with danny though.
Right, yes, but danny, whatdanny?
Didn't realize his yeah, whatsent him was what happened in
room 237 uh-huh so but yeah,okay, I it still feels like if
you kind of can see the future,like wouldn't your shining like
warn you about imminent danger?
Speaker 1 (30:40):
And in the book, Halloran survives and becomes a
father figure to Dany.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Oh, I like that better.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, that was.
That was like Kubrick, likechanged that which for you
Kubrick, yeah, which, screw you,kubrick, yeah, and like
Halloran actually.
So Stephen King likes to dokind of like extended Stephen
King universe, so he'll have, inunrelated books, characters
will show up.
So Dick Halloran shows up, andI don't even remember which one
(31:07):
it was.
I think it might've been it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Okay, all right.
Well, that's very interesting.
So, so what happens next?
So so, so Dick gets killedimmediately.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, and Wendy has a knife.
She's running around trying tofind Danny.
Danny was hiding but then hehears Dick get killed and he
freaks out and he runs away.
Jack follows him.
He's limping, as I said,because he hurt his ankle.
They end up outside in thehedge maze.
Danny has played in the hedgemaze quite a bit and so he leads
(31:37):
his father on this chasethrough the hedge maze.
Danny has played in the hedgemaze quite a bit and so he leads
his father on this chasethrough the hedge maze and
finally at one point he's farenough ahead that he then walks
backward in his footprints.
So it hides because his fatheris following his footprints to
know where he is and he's ableto back up hide until his father
passes is.
(31:58):
And he's able to back up hideuntil his father passes, then
run out of the hedge maze wherehe finds his mother, right at
the snowcat that DeCalleran rodeup and they get in and they
leave and then last scene, wesee Jack frozen to death.
And then we have a closeup onan image from july 4th 1921 at
the hotel where jack is in thecenter.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Hey, yeah, so not so, like, so, like the same.
Well, nothing's clear.
I mean, you said that, but yeah, but some implication that this
same psychic energy personkeeps returning to perpetrate
(32:38):
violence in the Overlook, mm-hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
So I want to talk a little bit about like.
So there's that, there's the.
When Wendy's running around,there's a point where she
interrupts a man in like an aircostume, looking like he's going
down on a man in like a 1920sera tuxedo, and that is like I
(33:02):
remember.
When I watched it I was like,even though I had read the book,
I was like what the hell?
Because there's backstory to itin the book yeah, there's also
like oceans of blood.
Yes, yeah, is there a backstoryto that, or is it just that?
(33:24):
Kubrick invented that oh okay,all right, there's weird things
with time.
So, for instance, well, there'sinconsistencies.
So Charles Grady had a daughterwho was eight and one who was
10.
Is what they, what Ullman,who's the manager, says?
And I always was like, oh okay,well, people just don't realize
that the, the, the twins, asthey call them.
(33:44):
They look like twins becausethey're they're dressed exactly
the same.
No, they were actually twinactresses, actors.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
They're identical twins.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Identical twins.
And so there there are theseinconsisten.
And his name was Charles, notDelbert Grady, so it may be
(34:18):
unclear.
Now, I'm not a we mentionedbefore I started.
We started recording.
I'm not a huge like Kubrickaficionado.
I've only seen 2001,.
Dr Strangelove and this Allthree of those movies.
When I finished them I was likewhat, yeah, that was
(34:41):
intentional.
And part of what makes itdifficult is that this is based
on a book written by aconsummate storyteller who does
not do that right right soyou've got things that.
So I always just assumed like,oh okay, the little girls just
look too similar, like I assumedthat, even knowing how
(35:03):
meticulous that Kubrick was, sothis was an intentional choice.
He intentionally wanted it tobe like wait, that's not correct
, wait, what about that?
Wait, that's not correct, Wait,what about that?
So another thing they talkabout Jack.
We don't know the backstory ofhow he lost his job, but we know
that he was an alcoholic and weknow that he hurt Danny.
(35:25):
We hear the story from Wendythat he'd been drinking, he was
in a bad mood and Danny had donesomething to Jack's school
papers and he went to like kindof lift him away from it and he
pulled too hard and dislocatedhis shoulder and it had happened
five months before and Wendysaid so the good news is that he
(35:46):
said I'm never going to drink adrop again because.
So there was a good thing thatcame out of it.
Then, later on, when Jack istalking to the ghostly bartender
and saying like I would sell mysoul for a beer, and the
bartender is like here, havesome bourbon.
And he's like here's to fivemonths of sobriety, well,
(36:08):
they've been at the hotel for atleast a month and possibly
probably longer than that atthat point.
So five months, why five months?
Then there's also the fact thatthe injury happened when he
stopped drinking and he tellingLloyd the bartender, like okay,
(36:33):
I did hurt the kid once, but itwas three years ago, so all of
that is intentional, like youknow.
Like okay, I did hurt the kidonce, but it was three years ago
, so, like, all of that isintentional, it's intentional on
.
Kubrick's part, because none ofit makes sense.
So someone's unreliable, andwho?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
is it.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, I also think so .
The other problem that StephenKing has with the film is the
fact that Jack and Wendy havezero chemistry.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Like from the beginning, Jack seems kind of
not okay.
In a way where I'm like whywould Ullman give this man the
job?
And in a way where, like evenrecognizing that Wendy has few
choices, I don't know why shewould agree to going to the
(37:32):
hotel with him where they'regoing to be isolated over the
winter and that is all choice,Like some of the stuff I was
reading, like even JackNicholson got the you got to
have like 16, 20, 50 takes.
He wasn't immune to that, buthe was treated better than
Shelley Duvall and ScatmanCrothers, and Nicholson is a
very good actor.
(37:52):
Now he's got a little bit ofJack Nicholson to him.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, there's a little bit of like, no matter
what character he's playing.
There's a little bit of thatthere, yes.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
But there is there is no sense whatsoever that he is
a loving father and husband everat any point, which is another
because Jack Torrance is astand-in for Stephen King, so
Stephen King has isuncomfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
And I don't like it's .
I don't waiting for the momentto it's like a sleeper cell axe
murderer.
So, although I don't know, youknow you think I think about
like as the viewer, like we kindof have to believe that Wendy
would have I started to saychosen, and maybe that's not the
(38:58):
right word but accepted thispartner at some point, like what
was it for?
Speaker 1 (39:05):
her for her.
That's that's the part that Ilike.
That's where I feel like thismovie falls down, is like I
don't, I cannot imagine a worldwhere they met and flirted, and
like I can't imagine a worldwhere they met and flirted, and
(39:25):
like I can't imagine a worldwhere they were attracted to
each other like, let alone fellin love and got married.
Like I that, and that's why Ilike I find it very, very
confusing why Kubrick chose tobring that performance out of
Jack Nicholson.
Kubrick chose to bring thatperformance out of Jack
Nicholson Because I feel likeShelley Duvall's performance of
Wendy, who is kind of mousy.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And some of that has to do with the fashions they
have her wear I mean she's this?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
No, it's a choice.
I don't think Duvall has to bemousy no, no, no, it's a choice.
I don't think duval has to bemousy, no, no.
And I think that makes her morevulnerable too, which is part
of the horror of it, because wesee her like just so very
vulnerable and and so the thehorror of the danger that her
husband poses then is is greater, because we as viewers don't
(40:16):
believe that she can do anythingabout it yes so we have this,
this, you know, very vulnerablewoman who seems like a very
ordinary housewife.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
We don't see, like, what other options she has.
And the thing is like there'sno chemistry between jack
nicholson and shellyall, butthere is intense chemistry that
word sounds weird, but likebetween Shelley Duvall and Danny
Lloyd you believe that she'shis mother.
Yeah, like the kind offlirtatious older man that is
(40:57):
like sweet and gracious in a, inan old-fashioned way to a young
woman and she responds in kind,um, and she, she really does
like, she seems like she makesthe best of what she best of the
situation.
She, she, she can.
It's just that the jacknicholson is the odd man out in
this, because at no point doeshe seem like someone you'd want
(41:20):
to spend time with.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, which makes sense why Stephen King would
reject it if Jack was aself-insert of sorts.
Yes, so I'm watching the timeand there's like a whole
category of things that wehaven't gotten to yet, so I'm
going to maybe ask before westarted recording, you were
mentioning to me that there aresome sort of allegories that
(41:46):
maybe Kubrick was including onpurpose.
Do you want to share those withus?
Speaker 1 (41:51):
So yes, the one that I saw yesterday that was kind of
new to me was that this is anallegory.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Now I've seen that it's an allegory for domestic
violence before.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
That's not a surprise , I mean, it's not even an
allegory Like it is, it's astory about domestic violence,
yeah, yeah, but that Danny'sexperiences and even the man in
the bear suit are hints thatDanny has not just been
emotionally and physicallyabused, but also sexually abused
(42:28):
by his father.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
So there are like and I'll link to this in the show
notes there was a video that Iwatched that talked about there
are a lot of connections betweenDanny and bears.
So when he is in the apartmentin Boulder and lying on, uh, on
his bed and the doctor comes toto to check him out, he's lying
on a pillow that is shaped likea teddy bear and its eyes have
been like, altered from how itactually appeared on, you know,
(43:01):
when you bought it in 1978, tolook more like the eyes or the
dials above the elevator thatthe blood comes out of.
So that's creepy.
And there is a scene early onwhere it's on closing day.
(43:23):
Jack is sitting waiting for themanager to come take him on a
tour on closing day and he'shaving something to eat and he's
reading magazine.
It's Playgirl.
Oh yeah, and I knew that.
But this person like found thatit was like the january 1978
edition, I don't know, and oneof the cover stories was about
(43:44):
incest, parent and child, whichI think it was just one of those
like how does this happen?
Kind of stories.
But considering how exactingkubrick was, that was
intentional and the specificinjury done to danny
(44:06):
theoretically by the woman inroom 237 would be consistent
with someone like kind ofholding someone's neck and
forcing, forcing them down.
Yes, fuck yeah, it's, it's uglyum much darker than I realized
yeah, I, and I knew it was dark.
(44:28):
It's dark, and this theory talksabout how the scene of jack
embracing the the woman in thebathtub, woman in the bathtub is
like danny's way of dealingwith it, like he's kind of
dreaming and and and dealingwith his trauma, and so he's his
(44:50):
father is standing in for himin the in this, and just before
all of this happens, there's ascene where Danny goes into the
apartment, finds his fatherawake and his father says come
here and has him sit on his kneeand they chat and it is so
bizarre.
It is so bizarre and and andkind of ugly.
And so it's this idea of likegoing from something loving that
(45:11):
is wanted, like sitting on yourdad's knee and getting comfort
from him, or embracing abeautiful naked woman, to
something that is horrific,which is what Jack may have been
forcing Danny to do, and thatnaked woman turning into an old,
rotting ghost.
(45:33):
So it's, I don't think it's.
Wow, I think that's in there.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Yeah, I'm convinced.
I mean it's been a while sinceI saw the movie there.
Yeah, I'm convinced.
I mean it's been a while sinceI saw the movie, but yeah, I'm
convinced.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And here's the thing that I like one of the other
reasons, like we talked, Istarted talking about how this
is a very feminist movie.
People, including this guy.
I've read all like.
He has like 22 chapters ofinterpretation of the Shining
and it's really fascinating.
It's really good stuff.
I read all of it yesterdaybecause I was like this is
really good.
But this guy he referred toWendy as weak at one point.
(46:15):
I was like, well, you clearlydon't get that.
But the reason why people thinkthat is like, well, why didn't
she leave?
He is abusive and obviously shecan't when they're in the
overlook.
But it reminds me of like thebest book I've read this year.
It's called the September Houseby Carissa Orlando, which I am
sure was in part inspired bythis.
(46:36):
It's a woman who has beenmarried to a very abusive
alcoholic for like 30 years.
They never had enough money.
They finally have enough moneyto buy their own house and it
turns out to be extraordinarilyhaunted.
And he's like all right, wehave to leave.
And she's like no, I'm home,I'm not leaving.
(46:58):
And one of the things she talksabout is like in all these
situations there are rules.
So you just need to find outwhat the rules are and follow
them, which is exactly whatshe's been living with with this
abusive man her entire life,and so it's.
The house is haunted all thetime, but September is the worst
, and she never put her footdown to her husband until their
(47:20):
daughter was in danger of beingharmed.
Their daughter was in danger ofbeing harmed, and the same
thing happens with the housewhere, like she's just, she'll
let it.
You know, like you can alwaysfigure out the rules, there's
always ways to bend until herdaughter is threatened.
And then at that point, becauseshe's been kind to all the
(47:41):
ghosts other than the like thebig bad scary, they help her.
And what I loved about that,that book, and what it reminded
me of in this, is like what wesee as weakness is a kind of
core strength that you couldn'tlike, I'm thinking even just
like you know, you bend, youtwist you, you you always find
ways around it, and that's notalways necessarily strength, but
(48:06):
it can be.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Well, I think the thing is that we think about
strength in sort of we've beentaught to think about it in sort
of black and white terms, whenit's not, because life isn't
that way.
And so, ultimately, survivalstrategies are survivals.
If you survive, then theyworked right and there was
(48:29):
strength in survival.
And so if one is like, no, fuckyou, I'm going to fight you and
then you die, were you in factstrong?
Or what did your strength getyou, you know what?
So I think that's part of myreaction.
To get you, you know like.
So I think that's that's partof that's that's part of my
reaction to what you're talkingabout, and especially when we're
(48:52):
talking about anyone who is inan abusive relationship and has
a hard time leaving especiallywomen, but really anyone.
I think to say she's weakbecause she didn't leave the
abusive relationship iscompletely unfair and just a
fundamental misunderstanding ofwhat an abusive relationship is.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yes, yes, and the thing that.
So when Wendy hits him on thehead, they are this hotel is
huge.
They're in the Colorado room.
It's not like it's.
People have made maps of thehotel but it's a little unclear
how far away the kitchen is.
But Jack's got to outweigh herby 40, 50 pounds.
(49:37):
Yeah, and she drags him Becauseshe knows, because it would be
very easy for her to just leavehim and then go lock herself in
the apartment.
It would be very easy to do,but she knows we are not safe
and this is the best way.
And she locks him in a placewhere there's food and this is
(49:59):
the best way to make sure he'sokay and we're okay.
And that's amazing.
That is amazing and that likethat level of competence which
you don't see from like the theother thing.
So when he and Delbert Gradyare talking through the pantry
door, one of the things Gradysays is like your wife appears
(50:20):
to be stronger and moreresourceful than we thought to
be stronger and more resourcefulthan we thought.
And one of the things thatGrady says is like are you up to
this?
And so like Jack is incompetentin all the things he tries to
do.
Yeah, in this film, whereasWendy is competent in everything
(50:43):
that she does.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
Right Right, mm-hmm, right Right, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
Like she's an excellent mother.
She's a good wife.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
She's an excellent caretaker.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
She's a good friend, she does what needs to be done
to protect the people she caresabout, and she gets her kid out
of there.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean she does have an assist on that
one, but she does have an assist.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
but actually, even with that, like Danny probably
would have survived.
Well, I don't know if he wouldhave survived, but survived long
enough.
Um, if Halloran hadn't arrivedat that moment, like it was just
if Halloran had arrivedeventually.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
So she got her kid out of there.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, okay, still watching.
The time Is there somethingelse.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
The one other interpretation that was not new
to me but is like blew your mindwhen I mentioned it is that
this film is an allegory for thegenocide of Native Americans.
Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah, walk me through it, because I'm not, I, I, I
don't.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
So this is based on a number of visual clues.
So there's calumet, baking sodaor baking powder, uh, in the
storeroom that has a a nativeamerican in in a feathered
headdress as yeah, like it's,like that's the logo of that
brand.
So there's things like thatthey talk about and this was an
addition was not part of theStephen King's book that the
(52:12):
hotel was built on NativeAmerican burial ground.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Oh, so that's one of the possible explanations for
the ghosting thing too, huh.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
Yes, yes, there are the way that the hotel is
decorated.
There's a point where Wendysays like, oh, are these, you
know, real Indian designs?
And Ullman says, yeah, it'sNavajo and Apache motifs.
So there's quite a bit in there.
And so Kubrick was extremelycritical of America.
(52:46):
He was an American but he livedlike last few 30, I don't know
some years of his life in the UK, as far as I understand it.
So it makes sense that thiswould be like some subtext he
would put in that the.
The movie is about how Americansjust kind of come in and
(53:08):
destroy things and the hotel isa stand in for America.
Also, something else that I'veseen is the way that Danny gets
away from his father by steppingbackwards in his footprints is
reportedly was something thatsome Native American tribes
would do to hide their path.
(53:29):
There's quite a bit in there.
People get really deep in therabbit hole about this, and I
don't think it's incorrect,considering how exacting Kubrick
was.
What I find ironic is thatKubrick was apparently trying to
make this statement about likewhite colonial settlers in
(53:54):
America, and he did that byperpetrating abuse on the female
actor and the black actor.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Yeah, there's also something like that feels really
like a like a real tension forme.
And if this is a statement thatthis white dude is making about
his home country, that it thenappropriates about his home
(54:34):
country, that then appropriatesNative American culture and
features no Native Americancreatives or actors or stories,
I don't know, I don't know, itjust feels like there, just
feels like saviorist potentially, but also just, I don't know,
(54:55):
naive, immature, orally thoughtout, which I know everything
kubrick did he thought about.
So you know I feel a littleweird saying that, but I mean it
.
Speaker 1 (55:06):
It's like we were talking before we started
recording.
I was saying like he had verystrong opinions, political
opinions, but they weren'texactly coherent.
Yeah, yeah, and that's kind ofwhat this feels like.
It's like I want to make thisstatement, but not like
coherently think through what itmeans to make this statement,
what the what, the implicationsare, or the legacy conducting
(55:27):
myself on on set and the bloodis like.
The river of blood is alsoconsidered to be one of the
symbols.
That's, that's part of oh fromnative american yeah, from
various genocides and and I mean, I I think there's definitely
something to be said about the,the like appropriation of land
and appropriation of culture andimages, and and I like I think
(55:50):
that's very interesting andimportant.
Speaker 2 (55:52):
I just, yeah, yeah, it's just, it's such a weird
vehicle for it because it's likeyeah, who reads the Stephen
King novel and goes like, yeah,this is the way I'm going to
talk about genocide of NativeAmericans?
Yeah, kubrick does apparently.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
So it's possible because he was inspired by the
decorations of various hotels,so like that, some of the like.
There's one, I think, inCalifornia that had a lot of the
kind of Native American motifsand decorations, and so it may
have been like because of that,but it's, it's.
(56:29):
It's bizarre, it's reallyreally bizarre, which isn't you
know?
Speaker 2 (56:31):
that's on brand for Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
And like that's.
I feel like ultimately that'swhat he wanted, is he wanted
people to be talking about thismovie and being like what the
hell?
I don't understand.
And like, well, which is sodifferent from what Stephenhen
king wants to do.
When you read a story of hisand like, honestly, the the one
thing I just I will nevercomprehend why he had jack
(56:54):
nicholson.
Do full jack nicholson from thebeginning, like if you just
have a little bit of lovingfather yeah, yeah.
A scene or two of like hey,sweetie, you know, and because
even when he's at his sanest hestill seems like I don't know if
I want to leave you here in thehotel by yourself for the
(57:17):
duration.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
All right, any final important insights before I try
to synthesize back what you'veshared with me final important
insights, before I try tosynthesize back what you've
shared with me.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
No, I think just I really want to reiterate how
important it is to have storiesthat are about domestic violence
like this, that do show this,that do show different types of
(57:52):
strength and that do show like awoman who's not glamorous, who
is, you know, kind of simple,having this incredible character
arc and prevailing inhorrifying situation, like cause
people talk about, like they,they, they hate when she's
looking for Danny, and likeshe's so scared and holding the
knife and I'm like why that's arational response, like she is
(58:12):
responding rationally to what ishappening around her and she
does not stop.
Yeah, yeah, she keeps lookingfor Danny.
Speaker 2 (58:21):
So and like that's what bravery is yeah, so well, I
think that's where we startedtoo.
So so, if that's what braveryis, feminist, insofar as it's
(58:43):
not.
You didn't say this, but I'mgoing to.
I'm going to say it this waybecause we often on this show
talk about not like other girls,feminism.
That is not what this moviegives us.
Wendy Torres is just like othergirls, and that's kind of the
point.
And she is, you know, she'smousy and selfless and maybe not
(59:07):
so bright, unclear, and shedoes what she needs to to
survive and to help her kidssurvive.
And there is, there is realstrength in that.
Kubrick was a dick.
Kubrick was a dick and thatmanifested in many ways, but
(59:48):
notably in the exacting natureof his direction scene, so that
Duvall was forced to be cryingfor 12 hours a day, five days a
week, six days a week for ninemonths.
Oh, that sounds awful.
He also you noted it wasn'tjust exacting in what they were
forced to do, but also subjectto outbursts from him, which we
(01:00:08):
know he was capable ofcontaining because he protected
Danny Lloyd, the child actor, onthis film.
He protected Danny Lloyd fromthat and from being a child
actor in a horror film.
So we know he was capable oftreating his actors with care
and setting up boundaries forthem, and he chose not to do
that.
(01:00:28):
You talked a bit aboutadaptation as well and the ways
in which adaptation like.
It makes sense that StephenKing, the originator of this
story, hated this adaptationwhich actually is not a judgment
of the adaptation because Kinghad Jack as a self-insert, and
(01:00:50):
so when Kubrick made him evenmore horrific, even more
reprehensible, with theimplications of incest with his
son, with the implication thereis no loving father or husband
inside this tortured alcoholicwriter's block, failed writer,
(01:01:14):
of course King hated thatbecause he saw himself in Jack
Torres, and so that that I meanthat that's probably the horror
writer's biggest fear, right, isthat he is truly, ultimately, a
monster.
Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
And King had some pretty serious substance abuse
issues, and so this was in themidst of his substance abuse.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
I mean he wrote it or Kubrick made it in the midst of
his substance abuse.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
I think he didn't get clean until the mid-'80s.
Oh, wow, okay, I might be wrongon that.
The other aspect of it is I'msure that Wendy Torrance, as
King wrote her, was based onTabitha, his wife, who, as I
understand it, is like justSharp as a whip and all those
things.
Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Yeah, not mousy.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Not the Shelley Duvall version of Wendy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
So Tabitha does she use King?
Yes, yeah, tab, the ShelleyDuvall version of Wendy.
So Tabitha does she use King?
Yes, yeah.
So Tabitha King is a not likeother girls feminist.
So to put a like other girlscharacter in her, in her place
or in that slot is is alsoprobably uncomfortable for for
Steven.
So that's, that's aninteresting piece of this, like
(01:02:23):
thinking.
I mean, that piece of thisconversation actually really to
me puts interesting new layerson the question of the death of
the artist, you know, and sortof the nature of the art once it
has left the artist's hands andit iterates its way through,
right, like you don't, stephenKing doesn't get to decide what
(01:02:44):
happens to Jack Torrance oncethat book has been published,
and that's a really interestingpiece.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Well, and what's kind of fascinating to me about it
is, my realization yesterday, asI was rewatching and doing some
research, was that Kubrick didnot care that he deviated from
the novel.
Yeah, that wasn't his point.
(01:03:10):
It wasn't the novel anymore, itwas Kubrick's story that he
took inspiration from and a lotof plot points from, but
ultimately it didn't bother himin this life.
Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
It was fan fiction, it wasn't canon, exactly, yeah,
yeah.
And another piece of that toois that, even as a viewer who
had read the book first, yousaid to me I don't know if you
said it on tape, but you said itbefore we started recording
that there were some things thatKubrick did that were better
than what King did.
I think you did say it, becauseall work and no play makes Jack
a dull boy so much morepowerful and chilling than Jack.
(01:03:42):
Like re-keying recent plays andlike that.
Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
And then the other another aspect that stephen king
had was, um, there was no hedgemaze but there were hedge
animals and they'd move and like, I'm sorry, that's just not
scary.
Now, some of it was like theCGI and special effects
available in 1979, 1980.
Couldn't have filmed it, but itwas also just like I just don't
(01:04:11):
find that scary.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So a couple of the other thingsthat we discussed was this film
as intentionally incoherent.
That's a piece of what Kubrickis delivering with intention.
So we get the inconsistency inthe name of the scary ass ghost
(01:04:38):
who's egging Jack on.
We get inconsistency in was ita 10-year-old and an
eight-year-old, was it twins?
Inconsistency in the timeline,that was Danny hurt five months
ago or was it three years ago?
Has Jack been sober for fivemonths or has it been longer?
Those sorts of inconsistenciesthat were clearly done very
(01:05:02):
intentionally to keep us, asviewers not knowing what's real.
I'm putting quotes around thatword, so that's something that's
really interesting that youtalked about.
And then, in the midst of thatincoherence, there are these
allegories that are baked in,also intentionally, of the
(01:05:22):
domestic abuse, which is notallegoryory, and of, like a
deeper potential sexual abuse ofthe child, which is, and of and
this one is still like I'm justshaking my head of white people
stealing land and murderingnative people on this continent.
(01:05:45):
I'm not saying I'm not in favorof calling that out, I'm just
saying like I didn't see it inthis film.
What did I forget him?
Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
The story of domestic abuse and how and this is one
of the like I think I can'tremember if you and I talked
about this recently about likefeminist horror as its own, as
its own genre, almost Genre.
Which is interesting that, likeI would consider this a part of
feminist horror, even though itwas written by a dude and
(01:06:21):
directed by a dude, based oninspiration written by a dude.
Yeah, dude, and directed by adude, and, um, based on
inspiration written by a dude.
Yeah, but the, uh, the.
What makes feminist horror whatit is is that it is examining
the horrors of living as a womanin our society, and so and you
can get any number of differenttypes of things from like
psychological suspense to bodyhorror, just in a woman's
(01:06:45):
experience of living as female,and so I feel like this is a
really good example of that.
In talking about, you know,1980 doesn't seem like it was.
I mean, it does to my kids, butit doesn't seem like it was
that long ago.
But the number of optionsavailable to Wendy Torrance even
in 1980, were so much morelimited that making the best of
(01:07:12):
the situation was kind of heronly choice.
Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Right, Right, I didn't know what I was in for
when we sat down today.
I mean, that's kind of alwaysthe case, yeah, so all right.
Well, next time it's my turnand I'm going to be bringing the
original Christopher ReevesSuperman movie to you, which we
(01:07:42):
watched when we were like whenit was new.
Yeah, little little, and Ihaven't seen it in a long time.
So I'm gonna be watching itbefore we, before we record
again so and and doing someresearch to to look back at at,
uh, at clark kent and lois laneand and all that.
So I'm looking forward to thatand in the meantime, do you have
(01:08:03):
some listener comments you wantto share with us?
Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
I do.
I changed up how we do things alittle bit.
I mentioned on social mediathat we're going to be talking
about the Shining and I askedpeople like, do you have any hot
takes?
So my friend Lori told me thatthe last time I watched it was
at the Garden City Hotel on LongIsland and I realized I was
staying in the same hotel roomnumber.
So she was in room 237.
(01:08:27):
Oh, freaky.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that wouldfreak me out.
My friend Teresa said I saw itin the theater when it first
came out and I hated it.
I've never watched it again.
I decided then that I didn'tlike horror movies.
So this one was so overdone itbordered on being funny.
(01:08:49):
Wow, there's something funny toJack Nicholson's.
Um, agreed delivery.
Yes, um, and humor and fear, orum, laughter, fear close
together.
So like people laughing atsomething terrifying is is is
not unusual, yeah, um.
(01:09:10):
My friend Jill says I love thebook and I've seen the movie a
million times.
I thought it was reallyinteresting that shining was
mentioned in the Barbie movie inthe car chase scene.
I didn't recall that it was.
So, she says.
My first thought was wouldSasha, which was the daughter in
the Barbie movie, know thatreference, but I loved that it
(01:09:31):
was included because it callsout a superpower between the two
women, like witchy in a goodway.
And then, finally, karen saysScatman Crothers' role seems
under-discussed.
He connects Danny to his giftand himself as a resource.
The Shining could also bediscussed as an abusive
relationship taken to theextreme, involving intelligence,
dominance and violence, takingsomeone deeper into darkness,
(01:09:52):
and how intuition, protectionand love can battle darkness
with light.
Nice, yeah, yeah, wow.
So yeah, got some smart friendsand, by the way, listener, we
would love to hear your smarttakes to find us on social find
us on social.
Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Send us an email, guy girls media at gmailcom, or
visit us at our website, guygirls mediacom.
Do you like stickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up
and share your address with us,we'll send you a sticker.
It really is that easy, butdon't wait, there's a limited
(01:10:34):
quantity.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.