I am a therapist and I have suffered abuse myself - that abuse theory is SPOT ON!! It makes people uncomfortable because it’s so on the money. Wendy is in total denial and typical person who is covering up the abuse. That moment was Wendy internally realizing what has been happening - her shaking her head is her not wanting to believe what she knows. There are lots of little things in their behavior too. Jack doesn’t want Wendy to take Danny to a doctor because he knows the doctor would see the injuries and know what happened. I have not suffered sexual abuse - but I have suffered physical abuse by my father - I have worked with victims of sexual abuse tho. The scene with the therapist and Danny with no pants and covering himself - that struck me as odd even as a kid. Why does he have no pants on and why is he covering himself like that. It’s a pose of shame and hiding yourself. Victims of abuse react with shame and guilt as well as fear. The “play girl” magazine sealed it - that was NOT an accident. That magazine doesn’t just lay around - and the title of “why do parents sleep with their children” - why would someone choose that? That’s not an accident. Good analysis. The movie always made me think it was more than a ghost story and I got this sixth sense - the parents arguing while Danny listens and it’s horrifying to listen as Jack is convincing Wendy that Danny injured himself - the fear of the abuser getting away with it and convincing people that YOU are really the issue not them. Great analysis.
When I saw this film at the theater in 1980, I came home after wards and my mom was listening to the music written and recorded before this film was made, and used in the film titled, "Polymorphia".. My mom was a jazz vocalist and listened to music that many other people had no knowledge or appreciation for. IT SCARED the HELL out of me. Also, "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (Movement III)" Kubrick used this music that had been made decades prior to the film being made. He was a great listener of music, and could feel what he saw in his ideas for this film.. I love it!!!
Rob, your analysis of Danny talking with the doctor is spot on. I didn’t pick up on it myself, but I had to stop this podcast and go back and watch it just now. And you are 100% correct. It also sheds a whole new light on what I think is the most perfectly written and performed scene in the whole film, Wendy’s conversation with the doctor. I had always picked up on her palpable fear of her husband, and her attempt to minimize the injury Danny had suffered. (Notice that Wendy is wearing a sleeveless dress with what looks like long underwear under it. She’s covering her arms and legs, possibly because of scars. If Danny is in the other room in briefs, it can’t be that cold in the apartment, right?) I always saw this scene as about her fear of what Jack would do if Wendy had slipped and someone found out about the physical abuse. But seeing it with the sexual abuse subtext, it makes the whole conversation that much more chilling. Wendy is walking a very fine line, trying to throw the doctor off the trail. She mistakenly mentioned the injury, so it will have to be explained, but she can’t let the sexual abuse be known. Jack may have convinced her that knowing about it makes her complicit, so if anyone finds out she could lose Danny. So she rolls her eyes as she describes how Jack can be a little rough when he drinks, but he hasn’t had a drink in __ months.. (note that Jack has a very different number when he tells his version to Lloyd later on) She seems to hang a lot on Jacks sobriety. It could be that Wendy thinks the sexual abuse is because of the alcohol, and as long as Jack doesn’t drink, everything is fine. Her acting in the scene is phenomenal. She plays it with such subtle realism, an unconvincing attempt at nonchalance overlaying her panicked fear of her husband, and her motherly instinct to protect her son, roped off with a smear of optimism that she clearly doesn’t even believe herself. Watch her face as she nervously smokes, covering her mouth after she accidentally mentions Danny’s injury. “Please don’t ask any follow up questions, please” she seems to be thinking. Also note how the story she tells seems contrived and rehearsed, but is still far from polished. Wendy has clearly practiced this with a mirror, but maybe it’s been a while. And at the end of her story, when she shays “And he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since.” the word alcohol gets stuck in her throat. And finally, the look on the doctor’s face. Mouth open, a mix of shock, horror. Speechless. I try to imagine the dialogue that might have followed, because no doctor would have accepted Wendy’s performance and simple left at that point. But the more I try to imagine it,, the more I understand why Kubrick cuts the scene there. Thanks for sharing this and your other film analyses. They’ve helped me find much deeper appreciation for film.
@@slimandnone__6545 , correct. We as a society "Overlook" past conflicts and tragedies etc, the film manages to address this on both micro and macro levels. In the 'Room 237' doc, outside of the Native American Genocide theory(Which is hardly a theory, its just a fact it was a major theme), I like the guy, whom i wish i could remember his name, who talks about the film being about "THE PAST." Not just any past but the past of all human beings etc. "History has many cunning passages" from T.S. Elliot rings so true. I dont buy alot of 'Room 237' but some of it is definitely there.
Superb analysis. I've always found this scene unsettling, and this clears much of it up. Folks, I saw this movie on opening night and again about a week later. I never forgot that doctor's reaction shot. That was more iconic for me at the time than "Here's Johnny" because the doctor's stunned look told me, in real time in the theater seat, that, at the very least, something far deeper is at play. It was a wonderful, only-in-Kubrick moment that, alas, only theaters provide.
Also, notice the cigarette ash that needs to be flicked. It could fall off and mess her clothing, of even cause a fire if it fell in the wrong place. Worse, rather than tending it, she takes another drag, making the situation WORSE. Wendy, she does not do the simple needful things that should be done, which can lead to a mess, or tragedy. As she fails in ash, she also fails to protect her child, the simplest and most needful thing a mother should do.
what i find staggering is- the film is SO clearly SO obviously about an abusive alcoholic husband / father committing domestic violence upon his wife and r upon his own child, the hotel is a family home, and yet apart from Ager here, somehow almost nobody else even gets it, they fall for all the red herrings / subterfuge nonsense, wtf? danny is playing with his toys, then the tennis rolls up, next thing hes traumatised, it happens in room 237, and wendy even literally says 'you did this to him' to jack, as jack is having a breakdown / episode and staring blankly, it could not be more clear.
As a child of the 80's, I gotta say Rob is completely right when he talks about kids watching really graphic or scary films at a young age. I saw Robocop when I was 8 or 9, I think, and to this day the scene of Weller getting tortured and torn apart with gunshots near the beginning are firmly lodged in my brain. I still even remember how it made me feel, utterly horrified and shocked by what I had just seen.
That was fucked-up and wasn't even the full edit (the bit they cut-out where his head is blown through). I saw it too as a kid and I think it was worse because Murphy seemed like such a nice guy before getting destroyed.
Me too also when the bald guy melts from the acid spill. That messed me up. Robocop and The Shining are the movies i remember from my childhood. At 9 years old the Shining is terrifying.
Goodfellas shocked me as a kid, you put in the tape and immediately it's Joe Pesci stabbing some poor man's face in. Nice way to start a film, bloody hell.
I watched Dawn of the dead when I was about 9 and the biker having his guts ripped out and eaten alive was seared into my mind, definitely did some scarring. Although now I look back and commend the fantastic practical effects, even if the zombies themselves look hilarious now
Thank goodness Kubrick read that essay by "the great master H.P. Lovecraft" where he said that you should never attempt to explain what happens, as long as what happens stimulates people’s imagination, their sense of the uncanny, their sense of anxiety and fear. "And as long as it doesn’t, within itself, have any obvious inner contradictions, it is just a matter of, as it were, building on the imagination (imaginary ideas, surprises, etc.), working in this area of feeling." Stephen King says H.P. Lovecraft "opened the way" for him, as Lovecraft had done for others before him.... "it is his shadow, so long and gaunt, and his eyes, so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since.” Arthur C Clarke, who called Lovecraft "one of the twentieth century's most original writers", would most likely have agreed. I agree with John Carpenter that Lovecraft's "vision of darkness, of evil, of cosmic horror, of elder beings from beyond is unparalleled”; and with Dan O'Bannon, who said H.P. Lovecraft was "the greatest horror writer who ever lived." It should be no wonder why Lovecraft aficionado H.R. Giger chose to call his 1977 art book his "Necronomicon"
For the Abuse Theory, i wonder if the Hag scene was really about the history of abuse of Jack as a child himself by the hands of a relative or possibly his own mother or grandmother. With Kubrick hinting at cycles of violence like with the native american genocide theme it seems like it could also be referencing the origins of most of these types of abusers. I've heard that people that harm or abuse others were once abused themselves in their formative years in the same manner & replicate the same actions as a way of reestablishing control over themselves, inflicting the abuse as a way of avoiding their fears of feeling like they are still the victims themselves. Would be interesting to ask Leon Vitali to confirm or deny.
Maybe the way Jack never mentions the Hag to Wendy is a way of him repressing his own trauma subconsciously. If the Hotel is haunted & not just the 'all in Jack's mind/ or novel' as one of the theories goes, it reveals all of the subconscious weaknesses of its victims & the scene might explain that abuse angle as clearly as it explains the exploitation by the Hotel of Jack's alcoholism with the ballroom scenes.
This is a great theory! And the way he looks at the woman almost seems like he recognizes her, maybe? I also think Jack has the ability to shine, too. Awesome comment.
If you ever read Rob's long written essay about The Shining, he sets down this theory. It isn't Jack in the bathroom of 237. We are looking at Danny, but Danny as Jack. They 'swap' places in the film from time to time. Jack is Danny and the old hag is not an old hag at all, it is Jack. That scene is Danny either thinking about or dreaming about the abuse that took place after what is called The Fatherly Love Scene ie the scene where Danny sits on the bed with Jack and asks him if he'd ever hurt himself and Wendy.
I think Kubrick has suffered abuse - I have suffered abuse (not sexual but physical and emotional) as a kid and I am a therapist now who works with kids for over 15 years. Anyone who knows what abuse and abusive families look like knows that this is spot on and is true. I felt this when I watched this movie as a kid but I couldn’t articulate what I was seeing and why it resonated so much with me. But your analysis here is so spot on.
I still think the most impactful 'hidden thing' in the film is that almost every character shown in the film has the Shining, the piece of dialogue that unlocked it for me is when Jack is meeting with Ullman and Jack tells him that Wendy is a huge fan of horror films. Later at the moment she is at peak terror, she sees the Overlook as a haunted hotel full of cobwebs and skeletons. She Shined it that way, because while she has the Shining, she can't easily access it and has to be terrified to use it at all. I assure you there is not a SINGLE line of dialogue in this film that doesn't have a part is the layering of hidden ideas.
I would say that Wendy had the ability to shine when she was younger and lost it later at life but in the presence of a powerful evil entity in combination with strong enough emotions (She only shines after her husband tried to kill her and after she lost Danny) it is forced upon her like hallucinations and thats probably what she also thinks it is. Could it also be that the house feeds on terror and fear and only shows itself when needed for those that can see?
The best theory I’ve heard is that what she sees at the end is Danny shining or projecting to her, to get her out of the hotel and to safety That’s why the bear is the same as in Danny’s room, the skeletons look so cheesy, and the elevator is the first time two people share the same vision
My younger sister and I used to watch the shining over and over on a vhs I'd taped off the telly (paused for the adverts) Even though she was about 10 she used to point out how creepy Jack looked in that scene, he gives off this nasty vibe in his facial expressions which doesn't match the reassuring words he's saying to Danny. The whole scene is just really off, but we were probably a bit young to really get why
I'm still amazed no one else (even the wacky writers and RUclipsrs) ever talked about a possible abuse subtext in The Exorcist. That alone makes you the beast of film analysis.
I've always been suspicious of the presence of a drunk Burke Dennings in Regan's room while they were left alone in the house. So that Rob's video was a blast for me. So well explained, he connected all the dots perfectly.
@@esyphillis101 I think Rob's original video was published in 2008, and if you type in Google "The Exorcist abuse" you find a number of discussions on Rob's original video.
Mr Ager has been stepping up the quality and variety of his content as of late! That’s by no means a slight; he usually has top notch content. So to see him go above and beyond is quite thrilling 👍
I'm not entirely convinced because of the way Dick Halloran spoke of room 237. He explained to Danny that when something happens at a specific place it can leave a trace, "like when someone burns toast". I think the woman's origin story was intended to be the same as in the book.
I don't think so. If the lady was always a hag, you'd be correct. The fact that she begins as a young, attractive woman, then turns into a hag, makes me think it can't be his mother.
@@Quikostdreggs Jack’s mother would have been young and beautiful when he was a little boy. Transforming into a hag with rotting flesh - his mother is older than Jack, who is now almost middle aged. She may well be dead and buried, thus the rotting flesh of the hag when she transforms during their kiss.
Hi Rob! The Shining has been my favorite movie since I was 4 years old. YES! I saw it for the first time at 4 years old. And as you could guess, it ruined me. I had trouble taking showers for years and I was afraid of the dark and hallways...until today(let’s be honest). The only way I could get over my fear was by becoming a King fan when I was 14 and to read The Shining, pus every other Stephen King novel in hopes that I would be released from his captive fears. I’ve watched every possible film analysis on The Shining , yet I have my own feelings. Thank you for everything you have created.
Honestly Rob’s work far outshines any of the theories on Room 237. He goes into a level of detail that is necessary to explain film theory in a convincing way. He deserves wayyy more credit in other videos. Credit Rob and add on to his ideas, that’s what RUclips Film Theorists should strive for. Don’t steal his ideas, but give him credit towards leading towards your own theories! He definitely deserves it. My theory aping off Rob’s ideas is maybe the ghosts brought booze so Jack would be wholly responsible (in accordance with non paranormal explanations) for his own actions. The criminal analysis of the scenario would determine Jack got drunk and tried to slaughter his family, but the only way he could have gotten drunk was from the ghosts. Maybe Loyd never was there the first time, but the booze were, now that’s subtle. Rock on Rob 🤘.
Room 237 was complete dogshit. I remember vividly taking a shit ton of edibles and dropping acid before my first viewing, laughing my ass off at how horrible the theories were, waking the next day thinking "it couldn't have been THAT bad, surely I just imagine or am mosremembering the part where the dudes kid was crying and making noise in the background, right?" Watched it again a week later and just fucking facepalmed the whole way through. If it were a youtube video it would have been in the bottom %10 of production quality for youtube content.
My parents took me to the shining at the drive in when I was 5. Maybe not the best movie choice for a kid to also see. It gave me nightmares for weeks. It's funny, I can still picture my nightmares,but they don't perfectly match up with what I see when I now watch the movie. I now find it an incredible movie.
I recently saw that theory laid out. I was shocked! I never saw it before, but OMG it is so plausible, it explains so much! I need to see the movie again now that I have this perspective. Another point - When Jack is walking to the Gold room past mirrors, and he acts out so badly conveniently missing how he looks - From Wendy's perspective, he is blind to how monstrous he is, and never sees it, even when it is right there in front of him.
@@lindseyswift3435 Right!? The Wendy theory WORKS! I tried to talk with someone about this and they could not even process it. They did not notice missing or moved items at all. This theory has weight for me.
I've always thought of The Shining as a horror "remake" of 2001 A Space Odissey. The Overlook Hotel as The Discovery One Spaceship and Jack Torrance as Hal 9000. In the final scene in the maze Jack howls like an animal and loses the ability to speech. That's because he "GAVE HIS WORD" to Delbert Grady about the mission to take care of his wife and kid. That's a perfect parallel with the "Daisy" scene in 2001.
Oh my god, that first segment where you talk about how parents weren't used to protecting their kids from scary movies.... I remember when I was a kid, probably like 8 or 9, watching the original 1976 "Carrie" late at night when my parents weren't home. It scared me shitless. Now it's one of my favorite horror movies.
Rob. Everyone loves your breakdown of the fake MJ doc and of 2001. Top draw. Great insight. Now please start your own show. You always ask the right questions, not always the right answers but always the right questions.
Cheers. Have you noticed the news media dropped Leaving Neverland like a hot potato? If my breakdowns contributed to the fight then I'm happy with that. Been planning to start own podcast for a couple of years, but I'm still in the process of pursuing a court case against someone (nothing to do with my channels on here) plus lockdown BS has interfered. Next year hopefully, Have got the finances to do it now too.
During the lockdown everybody has gotten the sense that they didn't know what day it is because every day is just the same. I think it would be the same way if you were alone in an isolated hotel in the dead of winter with no radio. I've been to Colorado on vacation, and there was literally one radio station in town. So I know the mountains interfere with radio reception all the time. Plus there's that scene where Danny is watching TV and as Rob pointed out in one of his videos the TV is not plugged into anything. Makes you wonder if that scene actually took place only in someone's mind.
My take is different. In my opinion Rob Ager has demonstrated (somewhat unwillingly) that in Shining Kubrick talk about moon landing being an hoax and explain the reason for it by introducing the gold room. The gold room is not in the novel and this theme establish a clear connection between apollo mission (the Shining) and gold (the gold room). what is that? apollo mission covered a very short period between 1969 and 1972 and in between one occurence has shaken the world, the nixon shock in 1971 in which the American empire was on brink of collapse. The Nixon shock is about the dollar which unilaterally exited the gold standard, an unequivocal sign of great weakness. The Shining is the masterpiece of Kubrick who was at his best. Kubrick was absolutely maniacal about the cure in details and the time taken for making the film, an effort at the edge of human capability. The result? A movie with tons of mistake and inconsistencies of all sort. Why ????? My take here is that Kubrick urge the viewer to watch with eyes wide open and start training the brain in not taking for granted anything in the “official” plot/narrative. This very same approach we are urged to take when analyzing the apollo mission which is also full of mistake and inconsistencies. Small example. When Torrence family arrives they download an amount of things impossible to be transported in one go with VW beetle. Similarly the amount of things allegedly transported in Apollo mission could not have been loaded in the space capsule. And the analogy goes on and on and on.
Without internet lock down would be worse, how about having a psychotic hunting you in your tall block during a lock down? That would be insanely feasome.
@@nicolagianaroli2024 But Rob also lays out why he thinks of all the sub texts people suggest The Shining contains, the one about a hoax moon landing is BS! So no, Rob does not point out, unwittingly or otherwise, anything about a fake moon landing! If people paid attention, they would see the 'fake movie' Kubrick refers to in 2001 is not a moon landing, it's 2001 itself! Go and have a look for Rob's video on 2001, behind the propaganda.
Spot on w/ his comment about Room 237: "I knew there were one or two people involved that were going to bring down the whole project." That's exactly how I felt as a viewer watching it & rolling my eyes.
~For those of us who are survivors of #ChildhoodAbuse in all of its varied forms, we see the subtle hints in movies, or literature. Most probably only notice it on a subconscious level. I love both Stephen King, & Stanley Kubrick.~ #TheShining
I think Tony is actually Danny's future self. I haven't read the whole book but someone told me this in a review . In the book it's meant to be his future self talking back through time
I was talking to mother about this today. For her the shining is just a great sinister ghost story, that is it and that is all she is interested in seeing, not even seeing the misplaces furniture. For me, I love the analysis, all the subtle cues, the themes, the possibilities! I love how each theory has some plausability, and the more you look the more you see.
Yes, I can see why Stephen King took major affront at the film. He wrote the book as a semi autobiographical analysis of his struggles with fatherhood and substance abuse and Kubrick, as he saw it, implied that he was a pedo
@Barry It's possible that Kubrick was abused as a child and recognized abuse around him. It wouldn't be a critique of "the elite" or anything like that, but how widespread certain issues truly are. I've struggled with clinical depression for a long time, and I see it all around me because I know what it looks like. If I were writing stories, there's no doubt it would be a recurring theme in the characters.
Why? I ask because I’m one of the people who started Rob down that path - and while I’ve well defended the examples of sexual abuse references - I haven’t been able to figure out why Kubrick used The Shining to explore Sexual Abuse. I’ve theorized that King was abused or maybe has demonstrated abusive tendencies - but I have no knowledge of King’s personal history. Here’s a few critical points that I’ve provided to Rob that he didn’t mention in the podcast: Ullman and the Doctor - both look like bears - they both have that brown swept hair - both are authority figures to Danny and Wendy. Also - the final scene - of Jack in the photo - has NOTHING to do with the Gold Standard (as Rob contends). Look at Nicholson’s face - his smile is different that any similar face he made in the film. He is smiling with relief. Because Danny has been successful to stop the cycle of sexual abuse (by killing his father). Jack is smiling is relief and joy - and notice the date on the photo - it’s July 4 (Independence Day) - not New Years - which would make more sense for how the crowd is dressed. I’ve passed these and other ideas in to Rob - I’m not saying he’s unethical - but he should be more honest that his videos are based on ideas that he’s gotten from his viewers. Rob’s theory was that the Shining was about The Gold Standard. Which is silly.
Regarding the conversation about the Room 237 scene, you've both ignored the fact that Wendy later acknowledged the "existence" of "the woman" and blamed her for the violence. And that Danny is the one who told her about the woman. This could mean, perhaps, that Jack told Danny the story to protect their secret.
Rob is so wonderful that he's literally changed the way I watch movies its insane. I appreicate movies I already loved even more and understand why and understand why I've never liked other movies too and I have so much fun watching a new movie and pretending to think like rob I love it ,it's awesome, thanks Rob!!
I first watched The Shining on the top floor (4th) of the library building at Uni, in a cubicle with a TV, VCR and headphones set. I started watching it at about 3:30pm one November afternoon. The Shining is quite a long film; I saw the cleaners come and go while there were still a couple of other students in there but I didn’t notice those students leave - or everyone else in the building... or that all the lights had been turned off! 😖
Part of the brilliance of Kubrick is that all of these theories are plausible with not much definitive proof that any of them are definitely accurate. He maximized the rewatch value of The Shining and it’s amazing to think that it is still being broken down after 40 years. It’s also ironic that King hated this version of his story and yet it’s the one that people still talk about today and will continue to discuss for many years to come.
The abuse that’s inferred to Danny is also potentially inferred to with Jack especially in the bathroom, sexually abused from an older woman, possibly also an aunt/grandmother that he’s fully coming to terms with let alone Wendy coming to the realization that Jack has been abusing Danny; the bears are no coincidence let alone Wendy dressed just like the goofy statue, how Jack really sees her. Was great foreshadowing seeing that fox painting on the wall in room 237 before the bathroom hinting how Danny tricks Jack with his hidden snow tracks in the maze
*Jack’s potential incestual abuse as a child himself since abuse is so widely passed down generationally; Jack just wants all the trappings of wealth(green n gold) and leisure without any of the sacrifices or work inputs to achieve em.
Ever since I saw Signs - not that long ago - I have been thinking how I would like to make a movie where something inexplicable happens and the rest of the movie is just people making small talk and saying what they think happened and what it means. Just realized The Shining video comment sections pretty much is the script for that movie.
Dr Sleep shows how beings might harvest humans and their energy. Jupiter Ascending does, too, just in a different manner. Both movies are okay, but for some reason, a huge amount of effort goes into creating films showing human harvesting...
Speaking of bears and the Shining .If you google just that "bear , the shining" you will find plenty of articles (and videos) mentioning an incident in 2018 where a black bear who apparently knew how to open doors walked in to THE Stanley hotel .A lot of parallels where drawn to the movie. He walked around for a while in the lobby , stood on a table and then fucked off .Weird coincident we might say and perhaps rightfully so but who knows , maybe the next day a snow owl or badger visited but no one wrote about it ?
It's awesome that William Friedkin found one of Rob's videos interesting. Now I wanna hear Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, John Landis, Oliver Stone, Ari Aster etc. comment on Rob's video analyses of their movies.
I was watching Trance, a Danny Boyle movie. There is a scene where a character is under hypnosis because he cannot remember where he left a stolen painting. The scene takes place in an empty night club, called Analog. The neon sign for the night club looks remarkably like the TDK neon in Blade Runner, which Rob has pointed out is a metaphor for recording memories, which is a theme in the film. A TDK/analog tape=memories metaphor in a film about a guy who has lost his..I don't think that is a coincidence. Now maybe Boyle is a smart guy and he figured that out for himself, but on the other hand, It would not surprise me if he had seen that in Rob's videos and thought, 'that's fascinating...I'm going to use that some day'.
Go to Collative Learning (the web site). Ager analyzes it to a very, very lengthy degree. You'll have to pay a few bucks, but Rob deserves it. And the work is always top-notch.
I think it was from Rob Ager that I first heard about how the Overlook hotel set, while a close copy of the Ahwahnee (?) Hotel in Yosemite NP, is "impossible," that is, there are windows where there could not have been, corridors that branch off in directions that they should not be, and so forth. None of this is explicit, but unconsciously the mind is aware of it and this really adds to the sense of the uncanny. Brilliant.
I remember seeing the Exorcist when I was around 11 or younger on TV. I never rewatched it yet but it was so terrifying, I still remember the backwards crab walking down the stairs.
One last thing about the shining specifically, I think alot of people missed the code because they were fans of the book and its a completely different work at this point.
Torrance could mean Taurus, the bull, the Minotaur, the monster in the Labyrinth, the labyrinth is the hotel in the way it is like a maze with doors going nowhere and windows that shouldn't be there. Danny, like Thesis in Greek mythology, must defeat the monster and end the sacrifice.
Great interview, and I think you're right on the analysis of the Jack Torrance character. He did indeed abuse Danny, even trying to strangle him. You say that the encounter with the hag in Room 237 might have been a nightmare Jack had to face his own guilt. That may be right, but I'm still puzzled why Danny himself says that it was the hag that tried to strangle him, when Wendy finds him in a catatonic state.
The hag encounter in 237 is probably not Jack's dream, but rather it is Danny's. The scene is his processing the ordeal he went through at the hands of his abusive father, when the love and affection turned ugly.
If you watch the scene where Jack is being escorted to the restrooms by Grady.. The table closest to the camera, as they turn toward the door, sits a lady staring at Jack.. Could this be the lady in room 237?
Maybe I commented on it before, Rob, or I'm sure others have posited this, but the old woman in the bathtub could be seen as Jack's own mother, grandmother, aunt, neighbor, sister, etc etc etc; Some female in his own life who abused him when he was a kid, and in his drunkenness, that's the memory that comes up. I don't have to tell you about the conventional wisdom of abuse being a generational thing, as well as substance abuse used as a coping mechanism against that kind of abuse, or any abuse for that matter. The hotel seems to feed on the fears and skeletons in the closets of those who stay in there for any length of time. I read the book when I was a kid, so I don't remember what the woman's deal was in the book, except that she ended up killing herself in the room, so now haunts it. Perhaps in Jack's guilt from abusing his own son, he is confronted later on with his own abuse at the hands of a family member. The theme of the hotel bringing stuff out of a person's subconscious to be confronted by that person can also be seen in Stephen King's book Room 1408. There's a video on a channel called Real Dimensional Pictures that suggests that the story is akin to Dante's descent into hell in The Divine Comedy, where he is confronted with his own sins, and has to do time in purgatory, as it were, while in the room 1408, only to be presented with the choice of killing himself to end the purgatory, or continue living and atoning for his sins. Seems somewhat related to what King was trying to suggest with The Overlook Hotel. All very intriguing stuff.
An explanation why props are missing or placed is because the movie IS us THE AUDIENCE viewing the novel jack is writting based on the story Ullman told him. His movie begans where he gets the idea (staring at the maze). There are points when the novel and reality take turns on screen. Another variation of this theory is that danny and wendy legit go crazy there because of isolation of wendy and danny shinning. Jack is aware of shinning powers from reading on the subject so he adds it to dannys character inspired by danny having toni imaginary friend. Jack changed carles to Grady in his novel to protect the privacy of the guy. The lsst deleted scene proves nothing was wrong with the hotel and that Wendy is now a single mother so Jack either killed himself at the end of writing his novel or they separated and Wendy and Danny are at the hospital because both of them had a type of nervous breakdown from seeing ghosts. Jack is in the ballroom photo because hes the author & main character of the novel you watched.
It doesn’t much matter if it’s a ”good” or ”bad” film, whether you ”like” it or not... an astounding amount of images just burns into your brain, never to leave.
I have heard this theory before but i saw a very fascinating one on the whole ordeal being Wendys psychosis, there is a great breakdown of that plot by a guy called Rob Navarro and one of these days im gonna watch the film again with that in mind. Anyway this is a great video. Cheers...
What is the significance of the reversal of positions in the scene in which Wendy brings Jack breakfast in bed? Initially, Wendy is seated on the right side of the bed and Jack is reclining on his right side, holding his plate and eating. In the middle of the discussion in just the space of one cut the positions, or image, are reversed. Wendy is then on the left side of the bed and reclining on his left while eating and Wendy is on the left side of the bed. This comes in the middle of a discussion about writing. Does it suggest that some of what we see is "actual" and the rest is something imagined by Jack, or what?
@@aridflesh3248 Maybe that is it. The way my TV displays the image I can't see a mirror frame. Still seems like the image reversal implies something though. ?
Yes, the reversed writing on Jacks t-shirt shows it's a mirror scene. This bedroom scene is there as a companion scene to the 'Danny and Jack' bedroom scene later, and shows the family dynamics, highlighting Jack's micro-aggressions to his family. The use of mirrors in both scenes could imply a certain duality in Jack, or simply put, that Jack is not altogether there, or not his usual self, especially in the Danny scene.. note the phallic design of the mirror, which is later echoed in the design of the 237 bathroom, where Jack, supposedly, meets the ghost sexy lady/hag. Kubrick's use of mirrors in this film are certainly of interest... tbh, everything is of interest in this film. I particularly like the wooden detail in the bed head-board... to me, it kind of looks like the face of a bear, or a naked torso in front of Danny's silhouetted head, and serves as a bit of subliminal foreshadowing.
The bartender in Doctor Sleep isn't supposed to be Jack Torrance. He looks a bit like him, but clearly isn't, as he insists. Danny is really confused at that moment. That's the point.
I saw the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at home, alone, in 1980 at the age of 10. We had just gotten a vcr - a top loading, Betamax behemoth - and this remains the scariest movie watching experience I've ever had. Waking up at the drive in theatre at maybe 1:00 a.m. to view the worst parts of "TheDeerHunter" in the late 1970s will always run a close second. Those russian roullette scenes with Christopher Walken made me prejudiced against Asians (East Asians) for several years after, since I knew the movie was based on real events.
Because of this man and his content, I was thoroughly inspired to look DEEPER into the films I had grown with. Now, I have the ability actually SEE the depths which almost no one out there is remarking about. Including my inspiration. Example. I watched Bruce Willis' 'Mercury Rising' and in less than 20 mins I knew 'the Sixth Sense' was a carbon copy of it. M. Night ShamaLamaDingDong is just one more "director" on my list of phonies.
Rob Ager talking about The Shining for almost an hour? Hell yeah.
Xmas came early! 👏👏👏👏
Yeah man.
Nobody does it better
I love listening to Rob talk about the Shining almost as much as I love watching The Shining
I am a therapist and I have suffered abuse myself - that abuse theory is SPOT ON!! It makes people uncomfortable because it’s so on the money.
Wendy is in total denial and typical person who is covering up the abuse. That moment was Wendy internally realizing what has been happening - her shaking her head is her not wanting to believe what she knows. There are lots of little things in their behavior too. Jack doesn’t want Wendy to take Danny to a doctor because he knows the doctor would see the injuries and know what happened.
I have not suffered sexual abuse - but I have suffered physical abuse by my father - I have worked with victims of sexual abuse tho. The scene with the therapist and Danny with no pants and covering himself - that struck me as odd even as a kid. Why does he have no pants on and why is he covering himself like that. It’s a pose of shame and hiding yourself. Victims of abuse react with shame and guilt as well as fear.
The “play girl” magazine sealed it - that was NOT an accident. That magazine doesn’t just lay around - and the title of “why do parents sleep with their children” - why would someone choose that? That’s not an accident. Good analysis.
The movie always made me think it was more than a ghost story and I got this sixth sense - the parents arguing while Danny listens and it’s horrifying to listen as Jack is convincing Wendy that Danny injured himself - the fear of the abuser getting away with it and convincing people that YOU are really the issue not them.
Great analysis.
Remember though, Kubrick didn’t believe in the paranormal.
When I saw this film at the theater in 1980, I came home after wards and my mom was listening to the music written and recorded before this film was made, and used in the film titled, "Polymorphia".. My mom was a jazz vocalist and listened to music that many other people had no knowledge or appreciation for. IT SCARED the HELL out of me. Also, "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (Movement III)" Kubrick used this music that had been made decades prior to the film being made. He was a great listener of music, and could feel what he saw in his ideas for this film.. I love it!!!
Béla Bartók
who composed "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta" was a master.
Rob, your analysis of Danny talking with the doctor is spot on. I didn’t pick up on it myself, but I had to stop this podcast and go back and watch it just now. And you are 100% correct.
It also sheds a whole new light on what I think is the most perfectly written and performed scene in the whole film, Wendy’s conversation with the doctor. I had always picked up on her palpable fear of her husband, and her attempt to minimize the injury Danny had suffered. (Notice that Wendy is wearing a sleeveless dress with what looks like long underwear under it. She’s covering her arms and legs, possibly because of scars. If Danny is in the other room in briefs, it can’t be that cold in the apartment, right?)
I always saw this scene as about her fear of what Jack would do if Wendy had slipped and someone found out about the physical abuse. But seeing it with the sexual abuse subtext, it makes the whole conversation that much more chilling.
Wendy is walking a very fine line, trying to throw the doctor off the trail. She mistakenly mentioned the injury, so it will have to be explained, but she can’t let the sexual abuse be known. Jack may have convinced her that knowing about it makes her complicit, so if anyone finds out she could lose Danny.
So she rolls her eyes as she describes how Jack can be a little rough when he drinks, but he hasn’t had a drink in __ months.. (note that Jack has a very different number when he tells his version to Lloyd later on)
She seems to hang a lot on Jacks sobriety. It could be that Wendy thinks the sexual abuse is because of the alcohol, and as long as Jack doesn’t drink, everything is fine.
Her acting in the scene is phenomenal. She plays it with such subtle realism, an unconvincing attempt at nonchalance overlaying her panicked fear of her husband, and her motherly instinct to protect her son, roped off with a smear of optimism that she clearly doesn’t even believe herself. Watch her face as she nervously smokes, covering her mouth after she accidentally mentions Danny’s injury. “Please don’t ask any follow up questions, please” she seems to be thinking. Also note how the story she tells seems contrived and rehearsed, but is still far from polished. Wendy has clearly practiced this with a mirror, but maybe it’s been a while.
And at the end of her story, when she shays “And he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since.” the word alcohol gets stuck in her throat. And finally, the look on the doctor’s face. Mouth open, a mix of shock, horror. Speechless. I try to imagine the dialogue that might have followed, because no doctor would have accepted Wendy’s performance and simple left at that point. But the more I try to imagine it,, the more I understand why Kubrick cuts the scene there.
Thanks for sharing this and your other film analyses. They’ve helped me find much deeper appreciation for film.
It's almost like Wendy "overlooks" the abuse of Danny
@@slimandnone__6545 , correct. We as a society "Overlook" past conflicts and tragedies etc, the film manages to address this on both micro and macro levels. In the 'Room 237' doc, outside of the Native American Genocide theory(Which is hardly a theory, its just a fact it was a major theme), I like the guy, whom i wish i could remember his name, who talks about the film being about "THE PAST." Not just any past but the past of all human beings etc. "History has many cunning passages" from T.S. Elliot rings so true. I dont buy alot of 'Room 237' but some of it is definitely there.
Rob is a very astute analyst. He's helped me enjoy my favorite films even more than I already did.
Superb analysis. I've always found this scene unsettling, and this clears much of it up.
Folks, I saw this movie on opening night and again about a week later. I never forgot that doctor's reaction shot. That was more iconic for me at the time than "Here's Johnny" because the doctor's stunned look told me, in real time in the theater seat, that, at the very least, something far deeper is at play. It was a wonderful, only-in-Kubrick moment that, alas, only theaters provide.
Also, notice the cigarette ash that needs to be flicked. It could fall off and mess her clothing, of even cause a fire if it fell in the wrong place. Worse, rather than tending it, she takes another drag, making the situation WORSE. Wendy, she does not do the simple needful things that should be done, which can lead to a mess, or tragedy. As she fails in ash, she also fails to protect her child, the simplest and most needful thing a mother should do.
what i find staggering is- the film is SO clearly SO obviously about an abusive alcoholic husband / father committing domestic violence upon his wife and r upon his own child, the hotel is a family home, and yet apart from Ager here, somehow almost nobody else even gets it, they fall for all the red herrings / subterfuge nonsense, wtf? danny is playing with his toys, then the tennis rolls up, next thing hes traumatised, it happens in room 237, and wendy even literally says 'you did this to him' to jack, as jack is having a breakdown / episode and staring blankly, it could not be more clear.
As a child of the 80's, I gotta say Rob is completely right when he talks about kids watching really graphic or scary films at a young age. I saw Robocop when I was 8 or 9, I think, and to this day the scene of Weller getting tortured and torn apart with gunshots near the beginning are firmly lodged in my brain. I still even remember how it made me feel, utterly horrified and shocked by what I had just seen.
Same here; the scene upset me as a kid and also made me root for his character all the more later in the film.
That was fucked-up and wasn't even the full edit (the bit they cut-out where his head is blown through). I saw it too as a kid and I think it was worse because Murphy seemed like such a nice guy before getting destroyed.
Me too also when the bald guy melts from the acid spill. That messed me up. Robocop and The Shining are the movies i remember from my childhood. At 9 years old the Shining is terrifying.
Goodfellas shocked me as a kid, you put in the tape and immediately it's Joe Pesci stabbing some poor man's face in. Nice way to start a film, bloody hell.
I watched Dawn of the dead when I was about 9 and the biker having his guts ripped out and eaten alive was seared into my mind, definitely did some scarring. Although now I look back and commend the fantastic practical effects, even if the zombies themselves look hilarious now
Thank goodness Kubrick read that essay by "the great master H.P. Lovecraft" where he said that you should never attempt to explain what happens, as long as what happens stimulates people’s imagination, their sense of the uncanny, their sense of anxiety and fear. "And as long as it doesn’t, within itself, have any obvious inner contradictions, it is just a matter of, as it were, building on the imagination (imaginary ideas, surprises, etc.), working in this area of feeling."
Stephen King says H.P. Lovecraft "opened the way" for him, as Lovecraft had done for others before him.... "it is his shadow, so long and gaunt, and his eyes, so dark and puritanical, which overlie almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since.” Arthur C Clarke, who called Lovecraft "one of the twentieth century's most original writers", would most likely have agreed.
I agree with John Carpenter that Lovecraft's "vision of darkness, of evil, of cosmic horror, of elder beings from beyond is unparalleled”; and with Dan O'Bannon, who said H.P. Lovecraft was "the greatest horror writer who ever lived."
It should be no wonder why Lovecraft aficionado H.R. Giger chose to call his 1977 art book his "Necronomicon"
He sees you..You want some too buddy?!
Ager is a boss. If you haven't purchased any of his material on his website, I promise you, it's worth it.
Agreed. I’ve purchased a couple dozen over the years and I never regretted any of them.
Yes! 100%
Props and shoutout to the Patrons for letting this get released for free.
Edit: Wrote this before realizing it was a podcast.
For the Abuse Theory, i wonder if the Hag scene was really about the history of abuse of Jack as a child himself by the hands of a relative or possibly his own mother or grandmother. With Kubrick hinting at cycles of violence like with the native american genocide theme it seems like it could also be referencing the origins of most of these types of abusers. I've heard that people that harm or abuse others were once abused themselves in their formative years in the same manner & replicate the same actions as a way of reestablishing control over themselves, inflicting the abuse as a way of avoiding their fears of feeling like they are still the victims themselves. Would be interesting to ask Leon Vitali to confirm or deny.
Maybe the way Jack never mentions the Hag to Wendy is a way of him repressing his own trauma subconsciously. If the Hotel is haunted & not just the 'all in Jack's mind/ or novel' as one of the theories goes, it reveals all of the subconscious weaknesses of its victims & the scene might explain that abuse angle as clearly as it explains the exploitation by the Hotel of Jack's alcoholism with the ballroom scenes.
This is a great theory! And the way he looks at the woman almost seems like he recognizes her, maybe? I also think Jack has the ability to shine, too. Awesome comment.
@@slimandnone__6545 I hope Collative Learning sees these tweets. Brilliant!
@@Pseudobadger pretty sure he checks them. He's responded to a few of my emails of praise over the years, too. Rob is the man!
If you ever read Rob's long written essay about The Shining, he sets down this theory. It isn't Jack in the bathroom of 237. We are looking at Danny, but Danny as Jack. They 'swap' places in the film from time to time. Jack is Danny and the old hag is not an old hag at all, it is Jack. That scene is Danny either thinking about or dreaming about the abuse that took place after what is called The Fatherly Love Scene ie the scene where Danny sits on the bed with Jack and asks him if he'd ever hurt himself and Wendy.
I think Kubrick has suffered abuse - I have suffered abuse (not sexual but physical and emotional) as a kid and I am a therapist now who works with kids for over 15 years.
Anyone who knows what abuse and abusive families look like knows that this is spot on and is true. I felt this when I watched this movie as a kid but I couldn’t articulate what I was seeing and why it resonated so much with me. But your analysis here is so spot on.
Rob's thoughts on Film are always an interesting and compelling listen..
Good stuff !!
I still think the most impactful 'hidden thing' in the film is that almost every character shown in the film has the Shining, the piece of dialogue that unlocked it for me is when Jack is meeting with Ullman and Jack tells him that Wendy is a huge fan of horror films. Later at the moment she is at peak terror, she sees the Overlook as a haunted hotel full of cobwebs and skeletons. She Shined it that way, because while she has the Shining, she can't easily access it and has to be terrified to use it at all. I assure you there is not a SINGLE line of dialogue in this film that doesn't have a part is the layering of hidden ideas.
We all shine on
I would say that Wendy had the ability to shine when she was younger and lost it later at life but in the presence of a powerful evil entity in combination with strong enough emotions (She only shines after her husband tried to kill her and after she lost Danny) it is forced upon her like hallucinations and thats probably what she also thinks it is. Could it also be that the house feeds on terror and fear and only shows itself when needed for those that can see?
The best theory I’ve heard is that what she sees at the end is Danny shining or projecting to her, to get her out of the hotel and to
safety
That’s why the bear is the same as in Danny’s room, the skeletons look so cheesy, and the elevator is the first time two people share the same vision
Ohh, what a treat. The Shining's one of those films that never loses its lustre. It is *always* scary!
Rob you have produced some of the best analysis videos on The Shining. I would love it if you ever expanded on these into a book.
My younger sister and I used to watch the shining over and over on a vhs I'd taped off the telly (paused for the adverts) Even though she was about 10 she used to point out how creepy Jack looked in that scene, he gives off this nasty vibe in his facial expressions which doesn't match the reassuring words he's saying to Danny. The whole scene is just really off, but we were probably a bit young to really get why
Kids sense evil sooner than adults do.
Is anyone old enough to remember Jimmy Saville on children’s tv in Britain? He was so creepy, despite the corny comical antics. Alarm bells!
Great Podcast. I would love to hear Rob expressing his views more like this in a podcast format.
I'm still amazed no one else (even the wacky writers and RUclipsrs) ever talked about a possible abuse subtext in The Exorcist. That alone makes you the beast of film analysis.
I've always been suspicious of the presence of a drunk Burke Dennings in Regan's room while they were left alone in the house. So that Rob's video was a blast for me. So well explained, he connected all the dots perfectly.
Years ago when IMDB allowed discussion forums there were several that went into this theory quite thoroughly.
@@esyphillis101 I think Rob's original video was published in 2008, and if you type in Google "The Exorcist abuse" you find a number of discussions on Rob's original video.
It's because the movie is about the Vatican, and you're not allowed to criticise pedophilia around Catholics.
@@DistractedGlobeGuyespecially at that time. This was waaayy before the spotlight article and all that.
Rob Ager is a brilliant and talented man when It comes to movie knowledge and analysis. 💯
Yes. Very few people would have his level of insight
Nice try, better luck next time.
@@SPFLDAngler ?
@@SPFLDAngler go believe in luck somewhere else
@@SPFLDAngler what are we not having good luck at?
Mr Ager has been stepping up the quality and variety of his content as of late! That’s by no means a slight; he usually has top notch content. So to see him go above and beyond is quite thrilling 👍
I dig the Wendy theory too.
Jack roars like a bear when he's in his manic moments
you're right, and when he chases him he lumbers like a bear
Could link to the 2 bears pic over Danny - the big bear and little bear
The old lady in the bathroom is jack's mom. Abusers usually have been abused themselves. Jack is remembering or dreaming about his mom abusing him.
That's actually a good take worth considering.
I'm not entirely convinced because of the way Dick Halloran spoke of room 237. He explained to Danny that when something happens at a specific place it can leave a trace, "like when someone burns toast". I think the woman's origin story was intended to be the same as in the book.
I don't think so. If the lady was always a hag, you'd be correct. The fact that she begins as a young, attractive woman, then turns into a hag, makes me think it can't be his mother.
@@Quikostdreggs Jack’s mother would have been young and beautiful when he was a little boy. Transforming into a hag with rotting flesh - his mother is older than Jack, who is now almost middle aged. She may well be dead and buried, thus the rotting flesh of the hag when she transforms during their kiss.
@@cynthia6407 I see where you're coming from, but I doubt Jack as a child would see his own mother as a sexual escape, in this case.
This is amazing! Rob Ager in a podcast! Listening to this throughout now!
Hi Rob! The Shining has been my favorite movie since I was 4 years old. YES! I saw it for the first time at 4 years old. And as you could guess, it ruined me. I had trouble taking showers for years and I was afraid of the dark and hallways...until today(let’s be honest). The only way I could get over my fear was by becoming a King fan when I was 14 and to read The Shining, pus every other Stephen King novel in hopes that I would be released from his captive fears.
I’ve watched every possible film analysis on The Shining , yet I have my own feelings. Thank you for everything you have created.
Jmo, but showing a film like The Shining to a toddler qualifies as child abuse!
Honestly Rob’s work far outshines any of the theories on Room 237. He goes into a level of detail that is necessary to explain film theory in a convincing way. He deserves wayyy more credit in other videos. Credit Rob and add on to his ideas, that’s what RUclips Film Theorists should strive for. Don’t steal his ideas, but give him credit towards leading towards your own theories! He definitely deserves it. My theory aping off Rob’s ideas is maybe the ghosts brought booze so Jack would be wholly responsible (in accordance with non paranormal explanations) for his own actions. The criminal analysis of the scenario would determine Jack got drunk and tried to slaughter his family, but the only way he could have gotten drunk was from the ghosts. Maybe Loyd never was there the first time, but the booze were, now that’s subtle. Rock on Rob 🤘.
Agreed. Rob’s film insight is quite remarkable.
Room 237 was complete dogshit.
I remember vividly taking a shit ton of edibles and dropping acid before my first viewing, laughing my ass off at how horrible the theories were, waking the next day thinking "it couldn't have been THAT bad, surely I just imagine or am mosremembering the part where the dudes kid was crying and making noise in the background, right?"
Watched it again a week later and just fucking facepalmed the whole way through.
If it were a youtube video it would have been in the bottom %10 of production quality for youtube content.
My parents took me to the shining at the drive in when I was 5. Maybe not the best movie choice for a kid to also see. It gave me nightmares for weeks. It's funny, I can still picture my nightmares,but they don't perfectly match up with what I see when I now watch the movie. I now find it an incredible movie.
I think the hag represents Jack's own childhood abuse
Great listen. More interviews please Rob
The whole movie is Wendys' psychoses.
She hears Tony, hits with bat, stabs, hallucinates room 237, and more.
I recently saw that theory laid out. I was shocked! I never saw it before, but OMG it is so plausible, it explains so much! I need to see the movie again now that I have this perspective. Another point - When Jack is walking to the Gold room past mirrors, and he acts out so badly conveniently missing how he looks - From Wendy's perspective, he is blind to how monstrous he is, and never sees it, even when it is right there in front of him.
100 agree.... the Wendy theory was amazing and totally changed my mind and it answered so many questions that made no sense!!!!
@@lindseyswift3435 Right!? The Wendy theory WORKS! I tried to talk with someone about this and they could not even process it. They did not notice missing or moved items at all. This theory has weight for me.
There are much more to find out about Wendy. The more you know her, the more you agree with the Wendy Theory.
Have you ever touched yourself watching Wendy swing the bat forty two times? Its just me isn't it? Ill get my coat.
I've always thought of The Shining as a horror "remake" of 2001 A Space Odissey. The Overlook Hotel as The Discovery One Spaceship and Jack Torrance as Hal 9000. In the final scene in the maze Jack howls like an animal and loses the ability to speech. That's because he "GAVE HIS WORD" to Delbert Grady about the mission to take care of his wife and kid. That's a perfect parallel with the "Daisy" scene in 2001.
I'd laugh if Jack, while howling like an ape, came face to face with a monolith in that maze. And then froze into a yeti.
@@Emulous79 haha
Oh my god, that first segment where you talk about how parents weren't used to protecting their kids from scary movies....
I remember when I was a kid, probably like 8 or 9, watching the original 1976 "Carrie" late at night when my parents weren't home. It scared me shitless. Now it's one of my favorite horror movies.
Rob. Everyone loves your breakdown of the fake MJ doc and of 2001. Top draw. Great insight.
Now please start your own show. You always ask the right questions, not always the right answers but always the right questions.
I would think Rob would make a great teacher of film studies and analysis.
Cheers. Have you noticed the news media dropped Leaving Neverland like a hot potato? If my breakdowns contributed to the fight then I'm happy with that. Been planning to start own podcast for a couple of years, but I'm still in the process of pursuing a court case against someone (nothing to do with my channels on here) plus lockdown BS has interfered. Next year hopefully, Have got the finances to do it now too.
During the lockdown everybody has gotten the sense that they didn't know what day it is because every day is just the same. I think it would be the same way if you were alone in an isolated hotel in the dead of winter with no radio. I've been to Colorado on vacation, and there was literally one radio station in town. So I know the mountains interfere with radio reception all the time. Plus there's that scene where Danny is watching TV and as Rob pointed out in one of his videos the TV is not plugged into anything. Makes you wonder if that scene actually took place only in someone's mind.
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My take is different. In my opinion Rob Ager has demonstrated (somewhat unwillingly) that in Shining Kubrick talk about moon landing being an hoax and explain the reason for it by introducing the gold room. The gold room is not in the novel and this theme establish a clear connection between apollo mission (the Shining) and gold (the gold room). what is that? apollo mission covered a very short period between 1969 and 1972 and in between one occurence has shaken the world, the nixon shock in 1971 in which the American empire was on brink of collapse. The Nixon shock is about the dollar which unilaterally exited the gold standard, an unequivocal sign of great weakness. The Shining is the masterpiece of Kubrick who was at his best. Kubrick was absolutely maniacal about the cure in details and the time taken for making the film, an effort at the edge of human capability. The result? A movie with tons of mistake and inconsistencies of all sort. Why ????? My take here is that Kubrick urge the viewer to watch with eyes wide open and start training the brain in not taking for granted anything in the “official” plot/narrative. This very same approach we are urged to take when analyzing the apollo mission which is also full of mistake and inconsistencies. Small example. When Torrence family arrives they download an amount of things impossible to be transported in one go with VW beetle. Similarly the amount of things allegedly transported in Apollo mission could not have been loaded in the space capsule. And the analogy goes on and on and on.
@@nicolagianaroli2024 Clown cars have done the same thing since long before the Space Race. Do you think they're in on it?
Without internet lock down would be worse, how about having a psychotic hunting you in your tall block during a lock down? That would be insanely feasome.
@@nicolagianaroli2024 But Rob also lays out why he thinks of all the sub texts people suggest The Shining contains, the one about a hoax moon landing is BS! So no, Rob does not point out, unwittingly or otherwise, anything about a fake moon landing! If people paid attention, they would see the 'fake movie' Kubrick refers to in 2001 is not a moon landing, it's 2001 itself! Go and have a look for Rob's video on 2001, behind the propaganda.
Spot on w/ his comment about Room 237: "I knew there were one or two people involved that were going to bring down the whole project." That's exactly how I felt as a viewer watching it & rolling my eyes.
blessed day, thank you
~For those of us who are survivors of #ChildhoodAbuse in all of its varied forms, we see the subtle hints in movies, or literature. Most probably only notice it on a subconscious level. I love both Stephen King, & Stanley Kubrick.~
#TheShining
Then how come nobody ever mentioned it before, until Rob did?
You don't know scheiss💯
just saw "under the silver lake" (2018). would be happy to hear Rob Ager talk about it :) keep up the great work @Rob
Distributed by A24, they tend to do pretty good modern films. And trailer shows David Kahn's Codebreakers book too, hmm...
I think Tony is actually Danny's future self. I haven't read the whole book but someone told me this in a review . In the book it's meant to be his future self talking back through time
Yes, and Tony is Danny’s middle name as well: Daniel Anthony Torrance.
I was talking to mother about this today. For her the shining is just a great sinister ghost story, that is it and that is all she is interested in seeing, not even seeing the misplaces furniture. For me, I love the analysis, all the subtle cues, the themes, the possibilities! I love how each theory has some plausability, and the more you look the more you see.
It's very interesting that the overring theme in Kubrick's "The Shining" is child abuse.
Child abuse seems a common ground around most Kubrick Lolita A Clockwork Orange hell put Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket.
Yes check Rob full cicle on the shining he gives a deep explanation of this
Yes, I can see why Stephen King took major affront at the film. He wrote the book as a semi autobiographical analysis of his struggles with fatherhood and substance abuse and Kubrick, as he saw it, implied that he was a pedo
@Barry It's possible that Kubrick was abused as a child and recognized abuse around him. It wouldn't be a critique of "the elite" or anything like that, but how widespread certain issues truly are.
I've struggled with clinical depression for a long time, and I see it all around me because I know what it looks like. If I were writing stories, there's no doubt it would be a recurring theme in the characters.
Why? I ask because I’m one of the people who started Rob down that path - and while I’ve well defended the examples of sexual abuse references - I haven’t been able to figure out why Kubrick used The Shining to explore Sexual Abuse. I’ve theorized that King was abused or maybe has demonstrated abusive tendencies - but I have no knowledge of King’s personal history.
Here’s a few critical points that I’ve provided to Rob that he didn’t mention in the podcast: Ullman and the Doctor - both look like bears - they both have that brown swept hair - both are authority figures to Danny and Wendy. Also - the final scene - of Jack in the photo - has NOTHING to do with the Gold Standard (as Rob contends). Look at Nicholson’s face - his smile is different that any similar face he made in the film. He is smiling with relief. Because Danny has been successful to stop the cycle of sexual abuse (by killing his father). Jack is smiling is relief and joy - and notice the date on the photo - it’s July 4 (Independence Day) - not New Years - which would make more sense for how the crowd is dressed. I’ve passed these and other ideas in to Rob - I’m not saying he’s unethical - but he should be more honest that his videos are based on ideas that he’s gotten from his viewers. Rob’s theory was that the Shining was about The Gold Standard. Which is silly.
Regarding the conversation about the Room 237 scene, you've both ignored the fact that Wendy later acknowledged the "existence" of "the woman" and blamed her for the violence. And that Danny is the one who told her about the woman. This could mean, perhaps, that Jack told Danny the story to protect their secret.
The sexual abuse theory is the only theory that 100% checks out to me. All signs point to it, and once you know it becomes painfully obvious.
It also makes the movie 100x more dark and scary imho 😢
There are several.
It’s good to hear you in this forum. It provides a bit of informal insight which is great listening.
Jack’s bed rest also has what looks like a bear head etched on the wood
Rob is so wonderful that he's literally changed the way I watch movies its insane. I appreicate movies I already loved even more and understand why and understand why I've never liked other movies too and I have so much fun watching a new movie and pretending to think like rob I love it ,it's awesome, thanks Rob!!
I first watched The Shining on the top floor (4th) of the library building at Uni, in a cubicle with a TV, VCR and headphones set. I started watching it at about 3:30pm one November afternoon. The Shining is quite a long film; I saw the cleaners come and go while there were still a couple of other students in there but I didn’t notice those students leave - or everyone else in the building... or that all the lights had been turned off! 😖
Sir, your content absolutely uplifts me exponentially. I thank you for sharing your insight and passion.
Part of the brilliance of Kubrick is that all of these theories are plausible with not much definitive proof that any of them are definitely accurate. He maximized the rewatch value of The Shining and it’s amazing to think that it is still being broken down after 40 years. It’s also ironic that King hated this version of his story and yet it’s the one that people still talk about today and will continue to discuss for many years to come.
The abuse that’s inferred to Danny is also potentially inferred to with Jack especially in the bathroom, sexually abused from an older woman, possibly also an aunt/grandmother that he’s fully coming to terms with let alone Wendy coming to the realization that Jack has been abusing Danny; the bears are no coincidence let alone Wendy dressed just like the goofy statue, how Jack really sees her. Was great foreshadowing seeing that fox painting on the wall in room 237 before the bathroom hinting how Danny tricks Jack with his hidden snow tracks in the maze
*Jack’s potential incestual abuse as a child himself since abuse is so widely passed down generationally; Jack just wants all the trappings of wealth(green n gold) and leisure without any of the sacrifices or work inputs to achieve em.
It's a man.
Yo Rob, Have you seen Magnolia??? If then, plz make a video on it.
Now I wanna see Rob on the Joe Rogan podcast, preferably a 3 or 5-hour long episode.
I just noticed that breadcrumb sounds a bit like redrum.
Can't wait to listen to this over the weekend...
Ever since I saw Signs - not that long ago - I have been thinking how I would like to make a movie where something inexplicable happens and the rest of the movie is just people making small talk and saying what they think happened and what it means. Just realized The Shining video comment sections pretty much is the script for that movie.
That was very enjoyable, thank you.
Dr Sleep shows how beings might harvest humans and their energy. Jupiter Ascending does, too, just in a different manner. Both movies are okay, but for some reason, a huge amount of effort goes into creating films showing human harvesting...
Pretty much also what happened in Matrix; Humans being harvested for energy...
Maybe because it undeed does happen? Whether for organs or even maybe for adrenochrome for rejuvenation of very rich and famous people.
Time might be related to the “unwinding hours” that are on the board outside the Gold Room
please keep producing videos about the shining
they're inspiring
my favorite film ever
Perfect content for my divorced, drunk and sorry ass. God bless you, prodigious professors
Speaking of bears and the Shining .If you google just that "bear , the shining" you will find plenty of articles (and videos) mentioning an incident in 2018 where a black bear who apparently knew how to open doors walked in to THE Stanley hotel .A lot of parallels where drawn to the movie. He walked around for a while in the lobby , stood on a table and then fucked off .Weird coincident we might say and perhaps rightfully so but who knows , maybe the next day a snow owl or badger visited but no one wrote about it ?
Crazy comparison they didn't mention Stanley Kubrick was offered to direct The Exorcist before doing the Shining.
William Friedkin or Stanley Kubrick, choose your torture ;)
It's awesome that William Friedkin found one of Rob's videos interesting.
Now I wanna hear Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, John Landis, Oliver Stone, Ari Aster etc. comment on Rob's video analyses of their movies.
I was watching Trance, a Danny Boyle movie. There is a scene where a character is under hypnosis because he cannot remember where he left a stolen painting. The scene takes place in an empty night club, called Analog. The neon sign for the night club looks remarkably like the TDK neon in Blade Runner, which Rob has pointed out is a metaphor for recording memories, which is a theme in the film. A TDK/analog tape=memories metaphor in a film about a guy who has lost his..I don't think that is a coincidence. Now maybe Boyle is a smart guy and he figured that out for himself, but on the other hand, It would not surprise me if he had seen that in Rob's videos and thought, 'that's fascinating...I'm going to use that some day'.
I'm starting to think that room 237 was the secret room where Jack could abuse Danny. This would explain the tennis ball and open door luring him in.
I'd like to see him do a podcast on John carpenter's The thing
That would be great. Also one podcast for 2001: A Space Odyssey, and one for Eyes Wide Shut
Go to Collative Learning (the web site). Ager analyzes it to a very, very lengthy degree. You'll have to pay a few bucks, but Rob deserves it. And the work is always top-notch.
The deep dive Ager did on the Exorcist was nothing short of amazing!
I think it was from Rob Ager that I first heard about how the Overlook hotel set, while a close copy of the Ahwahnee (?) Hotel in Yosemite NP, is "impossible," that is, there are windows where there could not have been, corridors that branch off in directions that they should not be, and so forth. None of this is explicit, but unconsciously the mind is aware of it and this really adds to the sense of the uncanny. Brilliant.
I remember seeing the Exorcist when I was around 11 or younger on TV. I never rewatched it yet but it was so terrifying, I still remember the backwards crab walking down the stairs.
One last thing about the shining specifically, I think alot of people missed the code because they were fans of the book and its a completely different work at this point.
Torrance could mean Taurus, the bull, the Minotaur, the monster in the Labyrinth, the labyrinth is the hotel in the way it is like a maze with doors going nowhere and windows that shouldn't be there. Danny, like Thesis in Greek mythology, must defeat the monster and end the sacrifice.
Another awesome video...really makes you look at film on another level...not just the Shining but film in general! Big fan Rob! Keep up the good work
Great analysis. I'm a huge Kubrick fan and have watched all your videos on his movies. Keep up the good work.👍
Friday the 13th..... 🤔
I was expecting a Jason 6 breakdown.
Great conversation! I hope you guys get together again soon.
I saw the Exorcist in 1976 at 9. Back then, horror films never took it to that level. It had a huge effect on me.
Needed more Kubrick talk!! Thank you!!!
I’d be really interested in your thoughts on Netflix’s Hill House or Bly Manor.
Great interview, and I think you're right on the analysis of the Jack Torrance character. He did indeed abuse Danny, even trying to strangle him. You say that the encounter with the hag in Room 237 might have been a nightmare Jack had to face his own guilt. That may be right, but I'm still puzzled why Danny himself says that it was the hag that tried to strangle him, when Wendy finds him in a catatonic state.
The hag encounter in 237 is probably not Jack's dream, but rather it is Danny's. The scene is his processing the ordeal he went through at the hands of his abusive father, when the love and affection turned ugly.
the same reason he came up with tony
Another great deep dive and analysis which I find highly interesting as well as put together like tight piece of well-oiled machinery!! Well done!
If you watch the scene where Jack is being escorted to the restrooms by Grady.. The table closest to the camera, as they turn toward the door, sits a lady staring at Jack.. Could this be the lady in room 237?
Probably
Let me know when the 20 hr version is uploaded ^_^
Maybe I commented on it before, Rob, or I'm sure others have posited this, but the old woman in the bathtub could be seen as Jack's own mother, grandmother, aunt, neighbor, sister, etc etc etc; Some female in his own life who abused him when he was a kid, and in his drunkenness, that's the memory that comes up. I don't have to tell you about the conventional wisdom of abuse being a generational thing, as well as substance abuse used as a coping mechanism against that kind of abuse, or any abuse for that matter. The hotel seems to feed on the fears and skeletons in the closets of those who stay in there for any length of time. I read the book when I was a kid, so I don't remember what the woman's deal was in the book, except that she ended up killing herself in the room, so now haunts it. Perhaps in Jack's guilt from abusing his own son, he is confronted later on with his own abuse at the hands of a family member.
The theme of the hotel bringing stuff out of a person's subconscious to be confronted by that person can also be seen in Stephen King's book Room 1408. There's a video on a channel called Real Dimensional Pictures that suggests that the story is akin to Dante's descent into hell in The Divine Comedy, where he is confronted with his own sins, and has to do time in purgatory, as it were, while in the room 1408, only to be presented with the choice of killing himself to end the purgatory, or continue living and atoning for his sins. Seems somewhat related to what King was trying to suggest with The Overlook Hotel. All very intriguing stuff.
We watched all this as kids, it was no big deal.
I saw the Exorcist at 9 in the drive thru with my parents. Back then no one was aware of that level of gore or shock.
Can you address the Wendy theory plz????????????????????????
I’ve been studying the Shining for so long now that the power of the “eye scream” has weakened.
An explanation why props are missing or placed is because the movie IS us THE AUDIENCE viewing the novel jack is writting based on the story Ullman told him. His movie begans where he gets the idea (staring at the maze). There are points when the novel and reality take turns on screen. Another variation of this theory is that danny and wendy legit go crazy there because of isolation of wendy and danny shinning. Jack is aware of shinning powers from reading on the subject so he adds it to dannys character inspired by danny having toni imaginary friend. Jack changed carles to Grady in his novel to protect the privacy of the guy. The lsst deleted scene proves nothing was wrong with the hotel and that Wendy is now a single mother so Jack either killed himself at the end of writing his novel or they separated and Wendy and Danny are at the hospital because both of them had a type of nervous breakdown from seeing ghosts. Jack is in the ballroom photo because hes the author & main character of the novel you watched.
Why are you copy pasting
@@SenatorDoom44sharing my thoughts to the fans
No Mention of the moon landing theory ? Rob has done a video totally debunking it by the way
Nice video Rob ager loves the Shining alot.Ive been a fan of his for a long time.
It doesn’t much matter if it’s a ”good” or ”bad” film, whether you ”like” it or not... an astounding amount of images just burns into your brain, never to leave.
Excellent guest choice. Classes up an already classy podcast
I have heard this theory before but i saw a very fascinating one on the whole ordeal being Wendys psychosis, there is a great breakdown of that plot by a guy called Rob Navarro and one of these days im gonna watch the film again with that in mind. Anyway this is a great video. Cheers...
The "Wendy Theory" is awesome. Such a unique perspective... 🤔
Very nice, Rob. Can we ever expect a long form interview with Bog Rear?
I'd love to see what Bog thinks about Flash Gordon. "It's just a cheesy 80's movie where half of the extras are dressed with chocolate wrappers!"
What is the significance of the reversal of positions in the scene in which Wendy brings Jack breakfast in bed? Initially, Wendy is seated on the right side of the bed and Jack is reclining on his right side, holding his plate and eating. In the middle of the discussion in just the space of one cut the positions, or image, are reversed. Wendy is then on the left side of the bed and reclining on his left while eating and Wendy is on the left side of the bed. This comes in the middle of a discussion about writing. Does it suggest that some of what we see is "actual" and the rest is something imagined by Jack, or what?
Aren't they looking in the bedroom mirror at this point?
@@aridflesh3248 Maybe that is it. The way my TV displays the image I can't see a mirror frame. Still seems like the image reversal implies something though. ?
@@drjohnson98 Yeah, I think it switches to a mirror part way through the conversation. Great eye, though.
Yes, the reversed writing on Jacks t-shirt shows it's a mirror scene. This bedroom scene is there as a companion scene to the 'Danny and Jack' bedroom scene later, and shows the family dynamics, highlighting Jack's micro-aggressions to his family. The use of mirrors in both scenes could imply a certain duality in Jack, or simply put, that Jack is not altogether there, or not his usual self, especially in the Danny scene.. note the phallic design of the mirror, which is later echoed in the design of the 237 bathroom, where Jack, supposedly, meets the ghost sexy lady/hag. Kubrick's use of mirrors in this film are certainly of interest... tbh, everything is of interest in this film. I particularly like the wooden detail in the bed head-board... to me, it kind of looks like the face of a bear, or a naked torso in front of Danny's silhouetted head, and serves as a bit of subliminal foreshadowing.
The bartender in Doctor Sleep isn't supposed to be Jack Torrance. He looks a bit like him, but clearly isn't, as he insists. Danny is really confused at that moment. That's the point.
I saw the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at home, alone, in 1980 at the age of 10. We had just gotten a vcr - a top loading, Betamax behemoth - and this remains the scariest movie watching experience I've ever had. Waking up at the drive in theatre at maybe 1:00 a.m. to view the worst parts of "TheDeerHunter" in the late 1970s will always run a close second. Those russian roullette scenes with Christopher Walken made me prejudiced against Asians (East Asians) for several years after, since I knew the movie was based on real events.
Norman Bates has DIDisorder and everyone knows about his relationship with his mother, perhaps this could make an interesting video
Because of this man and his content, I was thoroughly inspired to look DEEPER into the films I had grown with.
Now, I have the ability actually SEE the depths which almost no one out there is remarking about.
Including my inspiration.
Example.
I watched Bruce Willis' 'Mercury Rising' and in less than 20 mins I knew 'the Sixth Sense' was a carbon copy of it.
M. Night ShamaLamaDingDong is just one more "director" on my list of phonies.
21:04 I am a therapist and that’s EXACTLY how it goes. I have been in that situation.