The Shining
Lot's of fun but a little disappointing. Only my second viewing but I didn't spot much extra footage and the ending was exactly the same plot-wise, if not shot for shot. Still enjoyable on the big screen of course but I'm not mad about Kubrick myself. The set up is SOOOO corny - y'know you'll be out here all alone, just that murder to think about, oh and did we mention it's built on an old 'Indian graveyard'? Yeah sure it is. Isn't the whole of America built on an Indian graveyard? And then nothing really happens for the whole of act 2. The 'plot' really starts when they enter the maze, everything before that is set-up and build-up (i.e. weird shit that doesn't get tied to the plot).
Room 237 (documentary)
Six interviewees we never see give their rambling thoughts on The Shining from various angles: Indian holocaust, Jewish Holocaust, Fake moon landings and lots more.
Observations range from the banal to the deranged e.g. banal: constant mention and reference to Indians alludes to European guilt of massive genocide (see comment above). No way! I suppose in 1980 this issue was ongoing and much more repressed, compared to now. So MAYBE this obsevation would have been a 'discovery' to contemporary viewers. Anyway, on the deranged side: there's a picture of Kubrik's face animated into the clouds of the opening travel shot! Yikes! (There isn't).
I am but a novice Shining speculator and personally I would have liked a few more obvious questions answered. Like, what's Jack doing in that photo from 1922? Who let him out of the store cupboard? Who's Tony? Who's the girl in the bath? What's the connection between 1922 and the 1970 murders? Basically all the obvious stuff that you turn over in your head once you get past the shock of the immediate and visceral domestic abuse and foiled attempted murders. Sadly they don't address any of this. It's probably too trivial for these interpretive giants, so we leap frog straight to the underlying 'REAL' meanings, which are fun too, I'll just have to tap my mates in the pub if I want to understand the story.
On the way we learn that Kubrik's continuity people were pretty poor, but it didn't stop him using the footage, presumably good performances in the take were more important to him. Obviously the discrepancies kick off loads of speculation.
The journalism was a bit sloppy at times. Would have been nice for claims to have been checked and verified, for example, distance to moon was always thought to be 237 miles, before 'lasers gave a more accurate figure'. Was it? Really? When and by who? My partner makes documentaries for the BBC and she was pretty scathing about this aspect.
Without seeing the interviewees and with essentially no conclusions it felt a bit directionless. Staying with that barrage of information with no threads being pulled together took a lot of focus. About 20 mins before the end I was checking my watch.
The film does make brilliant usage of archive footage. Obviously Kubrik stuff but also Nazi propaganda, old war movies, and loads more. I particularly enjoyed Kubrik's researchers visting the real hotel that inspired the book represented as a WWI night raid into no-mans-land.
Other gems included footage of Nicholson psyching himself up with an axe (and freaking out the set dressers!), and my personal favourite: The coincidences arising from projecting The Shining fowards and backwards simultaneously onto a single screen. An absolute treat!
Video from : www.youtube.com
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