Category Archives: Carrcass Artists

Rereading KDK12’s post about his “The Shining: Forwards and Backwards” synchronicity, perhaps the most important audiovisual synching find since “Dark Side of the Rainbow” and its less known sidekick “2001-Echoes” from the 1990s.

http://kdk12.tumblr.com/post/4879566957/the-shining-forwards-and-backwards

It seems a new development, a “Dark Side of the Rainbow” for the 21st Century as I’ve seen it called in one source.

Here’s a 15 minute excerpt of its middle part again:

http://vimeo.com/53766925

I was going to select a handful of KDK12’s screen captures of the synch for further comments, but, heck, the whole thing looks fantastic. Next step: make my own god damn copy!

To add to this, KDK12 and others have been inspired by the incredible depth of The Shining to make more movie-movie overlaps, mini-synchs in and of themselves all, if shorter and giving more the appearance of “collage studies” than full blown works of art like “The Shining: Forwards and Backwards” (and the earlier “Dark Side of the Rainbow”).

I’ve seen versions of this one on several sites (overlap of end of The Shining with end of 2001: A Space Odyssey):

KDK12 himself has a number of others posted here:

http://vimeo.com/kdk12/videos

Ice dance.

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http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/shining_saturday.htm

Coincidentally, as Wendy crosses over the circle where Dick is to die, an oval flaw appears in the film stock on the wall to the left, white enclosing a tan field. I saw this because I paused the film to get a shot that showed the television was on but we’re unable to see what is playing, and for the brief period of time it is shown whatever is on the screen appears static and isn’t moving.

Juli Kearns is speaking of the 2nd still below, but in the frame before this we have a larger oval flaw appearing on the floor below and to the right of the strolling Wendy. Thought I’d include this here. I don’t have anything else to add to Kearns’ observations at this time except to reiterate that these flaws come just before the scene with the last “sha” sound of the movie (Wendy contacting the forest service via radio) and also, as Kearns noticed, right at the spot where Jack heard the *first* sha sound near the beginning of the movie, and also where he axed Halloran to death toward the end. I’m reminded of Halloran’s own words when talking to Danny about the shining gift:

Well, you know, Doc, when something happens, it can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. Well, maybe things that happen leave other kinds of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who “shine” can see. Just like they can see things that haven’t happened yet. Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago. I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years … and not all of ’em was good.

“Things that haven’t happened yet” — certainly prophetic words coming from Halloran here in combo with the burnt toast analogy. Actually I do have something to add about the larger and earlier of the 2 oval flaws in question. It seems to quite suspiciously align with a red and black band of the floor design, specifically 2 right angle triangles on either side. I think there’s a strong possibility that mad genius Kubrick purposely constructed this as one of those “burnt toast” spirits.

I looked through the whole movie for similar anomalies. Here are 2 of the more interesting ones, from the shot where Wendy first discovers that Jack has only been typing the sentence “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over and over again instead of actually writing something coherent for his book. I’ve already called into question whether these are actual pages or instead symbolic stand-ins for what is perhaps turning out to be a cheesy (and thus similarly worthless) horror story. What I like about the first anomaly, then, is that the white speck or flaw appears above a red triangle element of the ceiling design (to the left and above Wendy’s head), reminding me of the all illuminating Eye of Providence within or atop a triangle/pyramid, such as appears on the back of our dollar bill.

Certainly Wendy is being illuminated here as well, with the realization that her husband is truly, stark raving mad (!) In the same shot we have a more conspicuous *red* colored flaw on the bannisters to her right in the picture, about 6 seconds after the one described above flashing atop a *red* triangle.

*Interesting*. I’ve just learned through this wikipedia article on the subject that the Eye of Providence also appears on the Seal of Colorado. Kubrick obviously used the Colorado state flag as a leaping off point for some of his symbols, like Danny’s yellow ball mirroring the flag’s central yellow (solar) circle. Could he be doing similar things with the state’s seal here?

Note that the seal depicts a bound *axe* and wooden rods just below the all seeing eye, woven together with a red, white and blue ribbon in a design known as the Roman farces.

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In The Shining film, we have none of this discussed, although the scrapbook is seen open beside Jack several times while he’s writing. We have so much of the backstory explained in this deleted scene. And it’s probably for that very reason Kubrick decided to leave it out of the movie, to blur fact and fiction further and to heighten the mystery and intrigue. Jack the story writer and Jack the character in the story (and Jack the actor!) all get mashed together into a composite figure. And the only thing this composite character in the movie writes is that one sentence again and again. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Is Kubrick, for instance, saying that Jack’s story will turn out to be as worthless as this insane drivel? I believe we have to think about Stephen King’s source novel for the movie as well. Several researchers have laid out convincing arguments that Kubrick reversed much of King’s plot, or turned it on its head (much to the chagrin of King, they add). Let’s return to the horse’s mouth and see what Kubrick has to say about the source novel:

With “The Shining,” the problem was to extract the essential plot and to re-invent the sections of the story that were weak. The characters needed to be developed a bit differently than they were in the novel. It is in the pruning down phase that the undoing of great novels usually occurs because so much of what is good about them has to do with the fineness of the writing, the insight of the author and often the density of the story. But The Shining was a different matter. Its virtues lay almost entirely in the plot, and it didn’t prove to be very much of a problem to adapt it into the screenplay form.

So Kubrick’s opinion of the source novel is that it contains a solid plot but is not great fiction per se. And this plot provided the basis for the director’s re-invention, turning its weaknesses into strengths within the movie. Or that was the idea. So colors were re-invented and inverted, for example. In the movie we have Jack driving a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and playing with a yellow ball in the Colorado Lounge while attempting to think of ideas for his story. In King’s novel, both of these were red. Inversely, the novel’s yellow snowmobile (or sno-cat) becomes red in the film. As Danny and Wendy arrive at the Overlook in the yellow VW near the film’s beginning, they drive away from it at the end in this red snowmobile. Red and yellow have switched places as Alpha and Omega.

Jack waving goodbye.

And what of the crushed *red* Volkswagen in the film, seen by Halloran as he returns to the snow bound Overlook Hotel from hot, sunny Florida? Here’s what blogger Jonny53 has to say:

http://jonnys53.blogspot.com/2008/06/crushed-red-vw.html

Turned on its head indeed!

Jack Torrance: I like you, Lloyd. I always liked you. You were always the best of them. Best goddamned bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon, for that matter.

Been looking through this…

http://www.collativelearning.com/mybb_1401/Upload/showthread.php?tid=566

… and came across this.

http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/post/40960004135/a-deleted-scene-from-the-screenplay-for-the

Repetition.

If you know The Shining movie, you certainly remember when Wendy found what Jack had been merrily typing for days. Just one line over and over and over: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Turns out by that time the scrapbook hadn’t inspired Jack to writing significant fiction but might have instead driven him over the edge. But is this what it seems in the movie? There’s significant evidence that parts of the movie are actually externalized versions of the novel he is writing based on this scrapbook. A prime example is mentioned in Kearns’ page on the Tuesday section of the movie.

http://idyllopuspress.com/idyllopus/film/shining_tuesday.htm

What clued me in personally about a story within a story going on here is that Wendy, when approaching Jack finally hard at work on his story, typing madly away in the cavernous Colorado Lounge of the hotel, says hello to him *twice.* Here’s the dialog, culled from Kearns’ site (thanks once again Juli!):

WENDY: Hi, hon. How’s it going?

Jack rips his page out of the now gray typewriter.

JACK: Fine.

She leans in and gives him a kiss.

WENDY: Get a lot written today?

195 MCU Jack from Wendy’s side. (43:56)

JACK (stiffly): Yes.

196 CU Wendy. (44:00)

Now we view Wendy.

WENDY (stiffly): Hey. The weather forecast said it’s going to snow tonight.

After the second greeting, Jack’s demeanor changes. He becomes more sullen, and asks her not to disturb him again while he’s working. What’s more, a *chair* has obviously disappeared from the wall behind him, seen clearly in the shot of Jack just prior to this. Again, as with Danny’s tiger poster discussed in “strange? 02” (LINK) and many, many more examples throughout The Shining, this disappearance is *not* a continuity error, but purposely inserted into the film by Kubrick at this particular juncture for a specific purpose. There appears to be 2 Jacks here (and 2 Wendys), the real Jack typing the story in the Colorado Lounge, and the Jack *within the story*, also typing, and also more irritated by Wendy’s intrusion. I would venture that the Jack who typed “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over is the fictional one within the story. The real Jack is merely typing the story itself. But since the real Jack is also in a *fictional* movie… well, we’ve returned to the idea of nested dolls, and which reality is real.

And overlayed on top of this is the bizarre twist that actors named Jack (Nicholson) and Danny (Lloyd) play the Jack and Danny characters in the movie, with these fictional names originating in Stephen King’s source book and otherwise unconnected to the real names. Kubrick himself mentioned this coincidence (synchronicity, really) in an interview with Michel Ciment when speaking about the music of the film:

… most of the music in the film came from the Polish composer Krystof Penderecki. One work titled Jakob’s Dream was used in the scene when Jack wakes up from his nightmare, a strange coincidence. Actually there were a number of other coincidences, particularly with names. The character that Jack Nicholson plays is called Jack in the novel. His son is called Danny in the novel and is played by Danny Lloyd. The ghost bartender in the book is called Lloyd.

Here we return Lloyd the bartender, then.

“What will it be?”

I’ve seen several Shining researchers mention the additional coincidence that this bartender is serving Jack a *Jack Daniels* drink, comparing it to the union of father (Jack) and son (Danny, or Daniel). Here we might also be talking about an incestuous relationship between the two; there’s actually a considerable body of evidence for this, although the basic theory is rejected by Kearns at least. But there’s also such evidence as Jack talking about his relationship with Danny while drinking Jack Daniels in front of Lloyd, saying things like…

I never laid a hand on him, goddamn it. I didn’t. I wouldn’t touch one hair on his little goddamn little head. I love the little son of a bitch. I’d do anything for him, any fucking thing for him.

Back to the scrapbooks and The Shining’s deleted scene….