Word: overlook
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...prepare for what comes next, as Jack falls under the hotel's dangerous spell. The Overlook, it seems, shines as brightly as Danny. It draws Jack back to the roaring 20's and then unleashes him on his family...
...this vein, The Shining draws from 2001, where man was overcome by man-made constructions. The Overlook's power to shine and torment its guests recalls the malignant power of HAL, the computer in Kubrick's space odyssey. the walls of the Overlook breathe; in one scene, mention of the hotel creates a physical space between Jack and Danny. "I love it," whispers Jack, leering...
...Overlook represents our monstrous, ghostly past, a life-giving-and-taking force similar to the black slab in 2001. "You've always been the caretaker," the ghost of Delbert Grady informs Jack, and indeed, man has always been here. When Jack tells Danny that he never, ever, wants to leave the hotel, he is striving for a painful immortality that cannot be reached outside the hotel...
...CAMERA NEVER RESTS, sliding past the pillars and walls of this magnificent hotel, keeping us confused. Like the Torrances, we get lost in this maze of doors and rooms and carpeted hallways. Several times the camera dances to floor-level and we view Danny, Wendy and Jack from the Overlook's perspective: Danny through the bars of his tricycle; Wendy a prisoner of Jack's typewriter; and Jack a desperate, slovenly, impotent creature...
Stanley Kubrick is America's finest film craftsman. The Shining may not be a masterpiece but it is the only film in months that deserves a second look. The horrors of the Torrances' battle against Overlook obscure Kubrick's careful hand the first time around. Only a second journey through the padded hallways and inviting doors of the mysterious Room 237 reveals the brilliance of a director whose razor-sharp art draws both from precise science and glassy-eyed witchcraft...