In “strange? 01”, we examined a good number of film effects in Shot 61 of “The Shining”, some of which clearly seem to be beyond the norm. Here is a composite picture of the anomalies I created at the time.
In studying the shot further, I saw additional lighting effects, but I think we may have hit the major ones in “strange? 01”. I believe the light shooting out of the psychiatrist’s head as the background tiger’s eyes realign with the top of her coat is obviously the first major effect of the shot, about 6 seconds in. The 2 spots around the dr.’s head near the end of the shot, appearing right at its last spoken word (“strange”) would be the final major effect. These form the frame to understand all else within.
Still don’t believe I’m on to something here, and these are mere film discolorations? Shots 61, 63 and 65 all have the same camera angle, and involve the psychiatrist asking Danny various questions about the vision of blood pouring out the Overlook Hotel’s elevators he experienced while brushing his teeth that day. Shots 62 and 64 switch to the same closeup of Danny, as he fields her various questions. In shot 65, which is continuous with 61-64 before it, the psychiatrist asks Danny what happened just before he started brushing his teeth. In shot 66, Danny replies that he was talking to Tony. Here’s what we see when we return to the psychiatrist, in a close up in shot 67. The blackboard in the background has moved, and now covers both tiger’s eyes!
In shots 63 and 65 the tiger appears as it does in the first photo of this post from shot 61, with the blackboard askew and only covering part of the tiger’s right eye. So it’s obvious that Danny’s spirit accomplice Tony and this poster tiger are suppose to be equated with each other here, with the link being well-known cereal character Tony the Tiger. The psychiatrist then asks who Tony is, and Danny’s mother Wendy rather nervously explains that it is Danny’s imaginary friend. We only see the blackboard cover both tiger’s eyes during the several closeups of the psychiatrist during this sequence, and at the end of the movie chapter taking place within this room, when we return to the same camera angle as shot 61, the blackboard likewise returns to a state of askewness.
Why did Kubrick set all this up? In looking at the whole scene in Danny’s room further, Wendy’s eyes also don’t appear right at times, like one has been “artificially” enlarged, almost a popeye effect.
I’m reminded here — and perhaps you the reader are as well when reading this observation of mine — that Shelly Duval played Olive Oyl in the movie Popeye, which was being conceived at the same time as the filming of The Shining.
![on a box of cereal in the stor[age] room.](http://www.collativelearning.com/PICS%20FOR%20WEBSITE/SHINING%20EXPANDED%2013/frosties%201.png){kind=link}