'Room 237'

Ok.... I’ve just been to see ‘Room 237’ a documentary about the underlying themes of ‘The Shining’. My first reaction was that this film along with all the underlying films is a major mind fu.... brain teaser.

It starts off by talking about how the Shining has the underlying theme of the Holocaust in 1942, fair enough in my eyes. The type writer is a German brand that shows the symbol of an eagle the symbol of the Nazis, then throughout the hotel there are pictures and statues of the eagle, on people’s clothes etc.  Then how the number 42 keeps appearing, again on people’s clothes, and 42 cars in the car park at the beginning, the blood in the elevator represents the blood of the Jews and the joke of how the family brought too much luggage to the hotel which represents the luggage the Jews gave up and that represents their identities... with me so far??

Then it goes on to say how the film is also Kubrick’s confession and story of how he faked the Apollo moon landing. Evidence includes: the little boy wearing am Apollo 11 jumper and the carpet is the exact same layout as the Apollo launch station. Also the film tells the story of Kubrick’s secrecy from his wife while he was filming the ‘Landing’. In the shining the father writes and his wife works the hotel she has no idea what he is writing as he is very secretive and evasive of the subject and then she is horrified when she finds out. This can be said for the relationship between Kubrick and his wife. Then it goes deeper, the distance from earth to the moon is 237,000 miles, (237) the room in the film was apparently changed from the book which was 217, coincidence? Another interesting twist 2 x 3 x 7 = 42

Then it goes on further to compare the film to the myth of the Minotaur in the labyrinth. Jack represents the Minotaur and his son is the man who had to retrace his steps with a rope in order to escape as the little boy does in the MAZE at the end of the film... I believe it was Persious in the myth. Also the hotel itself is laid out in a very odd way. During the scenes where the little boy is seen riding his bike around the hotel the physical layout of the hotel is continuality wrong. The boy takes turns right and left and the things in the hotel such as the lobby appear on the left when they should be on the right even though we can see where they should be in relation to the boy and his route and elevator placements.... this is where it gets confusing without visual aids it’s hard to explain, either way the point is that the hotel is deliberately made to be confusing as to represent the labyrinth. The whole point of this is to show that the best way to move forward and survive is to retrace our steps and look at the past mistakes so we know where to go, also this is made clearer by flash backs of past events throughout the film. Another thing is that the maze wasn’t in the book it was added specifically for the film.

Other smaller ones are to do with Kubrick giving King the finger metaphorically. There is a scene where we see a red beetle car crushed by a lorry. In the book jack drove a red beetle car but in the film it’s yellow. This imagery is apparently to say “F you Stephen King this is my version”. There are some references to sexual imagery, the obvious being the naked woman in the bath to the more obscure pattern of the carpets which could be seen as a penis entering a vagina... (Sorry i couldn’t think of a subtle way to put that).

Overall my main reaction is “OH MY GOD” it’s hard to imagine that all this was thought of by one man or whether it is all just coincidence. But it has made me ponder the idea that there could be or should be more to films than just the pretty images we see on screen, perhaps i should start trying to consider underlying themes rather than the obvious one given to the audience. For my idea i think I will most definitely attempt an under lying theme, perhaps a message that i feel very strongly about....

Watch this space and see what happens.