Room 237 Page #10

The Aryan Papers,

but that he got mom and mom

and more depressed

and was relieved

when he had an excuse

not to do it.

He used Schindler's List

as saying,

"Ah, it's already been done."

I mean,

that struck a bell with me.

And I've done a lot

of stories as a journalist

about people who study...

either talked to people

who are victims of horrors

or study it.

And there's... Freud talked

about it as the contagion.

The depression seeps into you.

It's... you know what...

Kubrick had a wonderful comment

about this

when somebody asked him.

"Isn't it true that

your movies are showing us

"just the horrendous side

of humanity.

You know, that's awful bleak."

And Kubrick said,

"Ah, but there's something

very positive about it as well.

"And that is,

it shows at the very least

that we can get our minds

around what that horror is."

And Danny,

from the beginning,

has his mind

all over the problem.

He's looking at it.

In a way, Danny's

big wheeling back and forth,

up and down the hallways...

Danny is learning that hotel.

He's learning all the horrors.

He's seeing them.

But they're just in the past,

and Hallorann

gave him the secret.

He said, "Remember, Danny."

Remember what Tony tells him.

Remember

what Mr. Hallorann said:

"They're just like

pictures in a book.

They're not real."

Now, that's

a really important lesson.

People who shine,

who see through history,

understand that the past

simply does not exist

except in one place.

And that's the present tense

instant of the mind,

remembering.

That is, exactly... that is

a place you can go to somehow

and yet it doesn't exist.

And so Hallorann tells Danny,

"You're gonna see

some horrible things."

Apparently, he told him.

"You're gonna see

some horrible things,

"but remember,

they're not real.

"They're like

pictures in a book.

They no longer exist."

That's a key to not

getting depressed about it.

And that's...

You see, this is a movie

about what the past...

how the past impinges,

any past,

and about

how to get over that

and how not to be

a victim of history.

You know, if you doubt

what I've written about it,

just go see the movie.

I've figured all this out

from just seeing the movie.

It's there.

It's obvious, and most people

who went and saw the movie said,

"Oh, my goodness.

It is there."

- Okay.

Yeah, I was, I mean, obsessed

with The Shining

and reading all

the online analyses of it

and was particularly

a big fan

of the MSTRMND's lengthy

analysis of it.

And he had one phrase

that kind of stuck in my mind,

that The Shining was a film

meant to be seen

forwards and backwards.

And, I mean,

he didn't mean at the same time.

He meant that in,

with the mirror form metaphor

that's central to the film

that things, you know...

that things

forwards and backwards

happen throughout the film.

That... people walk backwards

in the film, you know,

people talk backwards.

- Redrum.

Redrum.

- You know,

if you reverse the film,

it has a format similar to 2001.

All these kind of things happen.

At the end of The Shining,

he's reduced to a screaming ape,

just like in the beginning

of 2001,

there are screaming apes.

But I was talking to my pals

at the Spectacle Theater,

riffing about experimental ways

of showing films.

And they were like,

"Well, do you think

"you could

come up with something,

you know, to show here?"

I was like, "Sure, what we

should do is we should show

The Shining forwards

and backwards at the same time.

"You know not...

let's not be creative.

"Let's just actually

reverse the film

and show it exactly mirrored,

superimposed."

The first image

is of the reflective lake.

And the last image

is of the inscription

on the photograph,

in which Jack is frozen

for all time...

The "Overlook Hotel,

July 4th Ball, 1921."

So those superimposed make it...

kind of make it seem like

a postcard, like an invitation.

Like...

"Come to the July 4th Ball

here in Crater Lake."

There's a really cool part

where, like, you know,

the helicopters

are following his car

and his name scrolls up

in the credits

and, like, meets the car,

right...

right in the same position

where the grid of photographs,

right in that photograph

that he's trapped in.

So his car,

his name and his photograph

all line up for one second.

Pretty cool.

The interview has a, like...

it's great.

While they're talking about...

you know, very dryly about

all the murders that happened,

like, you know,

in the superimposition,

Jack's running around with an

axe going bananas, you know.

There's a lot of just great,

great, great superimpositions

of people's faces lining up,

like Jack's...

Jack's, like,

got the death look,

and he's staring

through Danny's face

as Danny's eating a sandwich.

Then there's a lot of things...

there's a lot of, like...

there's a... you know,

there's some fun jokes,

but then there's

serious stuff where,

like, you...

where the hallucination...

the visions that Danny has,

where you'll see them,

like, overlaid

on top of other situations.

Like the twin girls

are overlaid on top of Wendy,

which, if you study the film,

you see that the twins

are associated with Wendy.

They're like her,

like, visionary counterpart.

All the symbols

in the movie start...

overlap

in the superimposition,

backwards/forwards

superimposition.

The murdered twins

are overlaid across Jack's face,

and he looks like a clown.

It makes like a clown mask,

and there's blood everywhere

and, like, blood on his lips.

And blood

coming out of his eyes.

And, like, you know,

Danny takes it...

you know, like, Danny

has his hands over his face,

and it's... Jack is looking out

from his head,

and then he open... he, like,

peeks out and he sees Grady.

And then Grady and Jack

continue their conversation

into the next scene,

which is where

he's watching television.

And it's like they have this...

their lips

are, like, in the TV.

Jack and Grady's lips

are in the TV.

And these masks

are formed by the windows.

And ifs like

Danny's envisioning this.

Danny's envisioning...

you know, envisioning the pact

between Grady and jack.

Like, he goes into...

he sneaks into the bedroom,

like, right through

Jack's head,

right in between them.

And just like that scene is...

that's the scene

where Danny is testing

his father, like,

"Do you really, you know!"...

"Do you like this place?

You're not gonna hurt us,

are you?"

Like, Danny kind of knows

that his dad has lost it.

The last shot is 1921,

and the first shot

is of the road.

Ullman mentions

that it was finished in 1921.

So it's, again, it's a way

of returning the narrative

back to the beginning.

- Mr. Hallorann,

what is in room 237?

- Nothing.

There ain't nothing in room 237.

But you ain't got no business

going in there anyway,

so stay out.

- In the sex room, 237,

where we see this beautiful,

sexual temptress,

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