Room 237 Page #11

who then becomes

a rotting body...

realistically depicted

as a rotting body...

the design on the rug shows

basically the most...

in geometric form

with round curves...

the act of intercourse itself,

one after another

after another after another,

sort of like a picture

of down through the generations

of what produces life.

You go back out in the hallway,

in the larger society,

and the round curves

of that very same design

have become hexagons,

not so nice and round,

and a little bit more

like the beehive hexagon

but down the whole corridors

of history.

I think he's got

an image of it there,

so he's talking about

the family of man,

both in

an individual nuclear family

and in the whole course

of our genetic history.

- Once Denny enters room 237,

like, that's...

that kind of is, like,

the activation

of the rest of the movie.

Like, that's what causes Jack

to go insane finally.

That's what brings Hallorann

to the hotel.

Like, the room 237 is, like,

is sort of this...

I mean, I compare it

to the mysterious hotel room

at the end of 2001,

where there's...

It's this strange,

strange place

that somehow, like, transforms

the rest of the narrative.

The Shining takes place

on the top of a mountain

in kind of like a, you know,

magical shape-shifting

environment.

And, like, travel is...

traveling out of it is...

You know, instead of 2001, where

you're traveling to something,

the point of The Shining

is to escape, is to travel out.

And room 237 is, like...

it's kind of like

the escape pod of...

of the hotel.

- If you multiply the numbers 2,

3 and 7, you get 42.

Now, I admit, perhaps

I'm grasping at straws there,

but it is consistent

with the pattern of reference

in the film.

- Another thing which

my film Kubrick's Odyssey

really reveals

is the carpeting on the floor

during the famous Danny scene,

where he stands up

with his Apollo 11 shirt.

The patterns in the carpeting

exactly match launch pad 39-A.

You know, even the driveway

and everything.

And if you notice in that shot,

the pattern on the rug changes

when Danny stands up.

- The carpet's reversed,

and there's

no pathway there anymore.

The pathway that the ball took

rolling down towards Danny

is gone now.

It's no longer there

'cause it's reversed.

And you get

a sense of a closure.

Now the hexagon is closed.

It's almost like

he's been closed in.

- Seven years after

The Shining had come out,

to my surprise,

nobody had written,

as far as I could tell,

about what the major themes

of the movie were,

beyond the delightfully scary

immediate story

of the family

and the hotel itself.

And I was actually doing a story

somewhere over in Europe,

and I was told over the phone

that the posters were out

for Full Metal Jacket.

I asked about the description,

and I was told it had a peace

sign right next to the words

"Born to kill."

And I said,

"Oh, my goodness.

His next movie's gonna be

about some of the same themes."

Anyway,

I thought, "My goodness."

I had presumed that

it would have become obvious,

so I thought,

"What the heck?

"I'll just see if I can write

an article about it

to give people more fun

when they see Full Metal Jacket,

to know what

his last movie was about,

in larger senses.

- I've gotten a lot of flak

from people who work for NASA.

And, you know, I want to tell

them, that I, you know,

I'm not saying

that we didn't go to the moon.

And I'm not saying

that their technology

that they helped build

isn't great and awesome

and everything.

I'm just saying

that what we saw was faked.

And I know I have it proved

with the front-screen

projection process.

As far as what

the government has done,

I fully expect my taxes

to be audited next year,

to be honest with you.

And, you know,

I've had visitations, you know.

And they're definitely

watching me for sure,

and they're not too happy

with what's going on here.

And I think

they're probably very worried

about the next film.

And that one will be

the really explosive film.

- We were walking

along the beach on vacation

with some people

in Costa Rica.

I had

this delightful experience.

We were walking along

with a young couple

who were from San Francisco.

And it was a long walk.

We'd gone through

this big, beautiful jungle.

And were coming

back on the beach

to walk back

to where the tent camp was.

And the guy started...

we started chatting

about Kubrick.

I said, "Oh, Kubrick's great,"

And the guy said, "You know,

The Shining, it's actually

about the American Indians. "

I said, "Really?"

And he went on talking,

and I said, "Really?"

And I just couldn't resist

just playing dumb for while

while he told me

the whole thing.

I was delighted!

Dies irae, dies illa

- Kubrick just sets up

synchronous space.

His movies are...

they create synchronous

situations in themselves.

There's this man who says,

you know,

"Quite a party, isn't it?"

Why did Kubrick put him there,

with the split down his head?

Why did he put him there?

And I was contemplating that.

And in comes my son.

And he was nine years old

at the time.

And he didn't know

what I was working on.

And he came in,

and he began to tell me a story.

And he said,

"I've just thought this up."

And his characters head was

split open with a chaos bolt.

And the character says, "Talk

about a splitting headache."

And out of the contents

of his head

leaps a small person

who is his real self.

And it goes running off,

saying in a high, squeaky voice,

"Forget this.

I'm going home."

And, yeah, I thought that was

really stunning synchronicity,

I mean, 'cause you've got

all the elements there.

You've got the ax.

You've got the whole idea

of the lightning bolt,

the chaos bolt,

striking the person's head,

the splitting headache.

You've got Tony...

Tony's squeaky voice, yeah.

I thought that was

quite a synchronicity.

- One can always argue

that Kubrick

had only some or even none

of these in mind.

But we all know

from postmodern film criticism

that author intent

is only part of the story

of any work of art.

And those meanings

are there regardless

of whether the creator

of the work

was conscious of them.

- I think... if you want

to know what I think,

I think the hotel

is so whacked out

that I don't have any clue

what's going on

from the beginning.

When you really sit

and think about it, I mean...

because the whole thing

is so whacked out,

and it's so not put together...

it's so... everything

is so wildly out of place

that when you...

the more... the closer you get

into looking at things,

the more you look at them.

It's kind of like, you know,

the scene in Eyes Wide Shut

where Bill goes... you know,

he returns.

He retraces his footsteps,

and he goes back

to the mansion where he was.

And he's told, you know,

to stop your inquiries.

They will serve you no purpose.

It's almost like it gets to that

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