The Shining is surely Stanley Kubrick’s most misunderstood masterpiece.

I use the word ‘masterpiece’ guardedly because I have never really thought that The Shining was a very good film.

At the time, in 1980 when I first saw it, I didn’t like it at all. The way that Kubrick threw out so much of Stephen King’s great source material and replaced it with a lot of things that just didn’t seem to make any sense, really bothered me.

Hopefully, before I am finished with this essay, the reader will see it is only when Kubrick dramatically alters the script from Stephen King’s novel that we can begin to understand what Stanley Kubrick is trying to tell us in his version of The Shining.

It should be understood from the beginning that The Shining is Stanley Kubrick’s most personal film (outside of, possibly, Eyes Wide Shut). Before we are done here it will be easy to see that Kubrick was only using Stephen King’s novel as a launching pad (excuse the pun) to be able to tell a completely different story under the guise of making a film based on a best-selling novel.

He did this for a very important reason – mainly to save his life. Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

In fact, let’s start at the beginning.

There are two main characters in the film, Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson) and his son Danny (played by Danny Lloyd).

It is important to understand here that Jack and Danny are two aspects of Stanley Kubrick himself. Jack is the practical, pragmatic guy who wants to be a great artist. And he is, apparently, willing to do anything to accomplish his goal of being an artist (writer). Jack, like Stanley has black hair, he is idiosyncratic and even smokes the same cigarettes as Stanley (Marlboro).

Danny is the other side of the great director. He is the child-like Kubrick. It is Danny who is actually the real artist.

The Danny side of Kubrick side is psychic, youthful and sees things that no one else sees. Danny also has a tendency to tell people things that should be kept quiet.

The first part of the The Shining is probably the longest, most boring, 58 minutes in Kubrick’s career. The opening of the film takes place with us witnessing Stanley’s pragmatic side, Jack, cutting a deal with the Manager of the Overlook Hotel.

The deal between Jack and the Manager of the Overlook is that Jack can write (that is – create) all that he wants as long as he “takes care” of The Overlook.

One other important point is that the Manager of The Overlook tells Jack that the previous caretaker went crazy from the stress of the job and killed his wife and two girls.

Jack says he is “intrigued” but takes the deal anyway.

The Manager of the Overlook Hotel is wearing red, white and blue. Jack’s wife Wendy (played by Shelly Duval) and his son Danny also wear red, white and blue for almost the entire first hour of the film.

In this symbolic interpretation the Overlook Hotel is AMERICA. It was built, just like the Manager says, on the graves of Indians. Even when walking on the floor of the Overlook Hotel, one finds oneself trampling over various Native American symbols.

The Overlook Hotel itself is America. Like America, the Overlook Hotel is new and shiny. It is ostentatious, corny and architecturally boring.

As the Manager tells Wendy,

“All of the best people stayed here”.

But there is something very deep happening. Kubrick brushed shoulders with the elite of the world. He knows what is going on.

We have to begin to understand Kubrick’s story from his use of symbols. As I like to say: if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a symbol is worth a thousand pictures. For it will be through the use of symbol that the real story of The Shining can be revealed.

The Manager of the Overlook, while interviewing Jack, has an American Eagle right behind his head.

It is as if “The Eagle” is the power behind the Manager.

Not only is the Eagle the symbol of America but it should be noted that the Lunar Lander of the Apollo 11 mission was called “The Eagle”.

To the Manager’s right on the desk is an American flag.

Symbolically the Manager (played by Barry Nelson) is the face of the government of the United States. Jack has cut this deal with the government to be the “caretaker” of the Hotel.

The Manager tells Jack that his main job is to prevent the Overlook Hotel (America) from appearing like it is decaying. The Manager reiterates that this is Jack’s primary responsibility.

On their first day in the Hotel, Danny has a vision of the previous caretaker’s daughters, and he sees that they are twins. The previous caretaker’s daughters were not twins in the Stephen King novel. This discrepancy between the book and the film will grow in importance as we continue.

Jack, Danny and Wendy also meet Dick Halorann who is the cook for the Overlook. He befriends Danny and it is through him that Danny discovers that he is not alone when it comes to psychic ability.

Dick warns Danny to stay away from Room 237.

Jack, Wendy and Danny have now fully moved into the Hotel. There is a long cold winter ahead of them. At first Jack loves the hotel but he is having problems with his writing. Also he cannot sleep. Meanwhile Wendy and Danny are having fun. Jack is not writing. Instead he is throwing a tennis ball at the wall in the room where his typewriter sits.

On the wall, which is being struck by the tennis ball, is a Native American artistic motif that looks suspiciously like a group of rockets about to be launched.

Finally the ball bounces away from Jack and disappears into the darkness of the hotel.

Jack walks over and looks down at the model of the maze. He sees Wendy and Danny caught in the middle of the maze, totally unaware of the nature of the deal that he has cut with the Overlook

Jack, his family, and the Overlook Hotel, are trapped in the Cold, just as America was trapped in the Cold War with Russia.

The stuffed bears, seen through out the film, are the Soviet Empire’s symbol.

Symbolically the Bears seen through the film are also the representation of the pressure that the Russians put on the USA to get to the Moon. They had to fake the moon landings and cover up the real truth behind the flying saucer craft and machinery that the US government actually has created and employed since World War Two.

Danny is riding his bike through the halls of The Overlook when he comes upon the twin daughters of the previous caretaker.

They stare at Danny and together they say:

“Come play with us Danny. Forever and ever.”

Danny turns and wheels it out of there.

At this point in the film we graphically discover the nature of the deal that Jack really cut with the Manager of the Overlook:

It is the most crucial scene in the film. Danny is in a hallway playing with his trucks. Suddenly, out of nowhere, The Project, the Overlook Hotel, rolls the tennis ball, from nowhere, at him.

It is a gesture that says:

“Wanna play?”

It is here that we discover what happened to Jack’s tennis ball that was previously swallowed up by the darkness of the Overlook.

We also discover what game it is that the twin daughters of the previous caretaker were inviting Danny to play.

Mystified by where the ball came from, Danny stands up, and the audience finally sees what the nature of the Project really is about:

As Danny stands up, the answer is revealed in an instant. Danny is wearing a sweater with a crudely sewn rocket pictured on the front. On the rocket clearly seen on Danny’s sweater are the words: APOLLO 11.

The audience watching the film literally sees the launch of Apollo 11, right before their eyes, as Danny rises from the floor. It isn’t the real launch of Apollo 11, it is, of course, the symbolic launching of Apollo 11. In other words – it isn’t real.

What happens next is crucial to understanding everything else that happens in the film.

Danny, bewildered, walks down the hallway. He sees that Room 237 – the room that Halorann warned him about – has a key in the lock and the door is wide open.

It is important to note that the room in question was numbered 217 in the Stephen King version of The Shining. For unknown reason’s Kubrick changed it to 237.

Those unknown reasons are about to be come known.

Danny is literally carrying a symbolic Apollo 11, on his body, via the sweater, to the Moon as he walks over to room 237.

Why do I think this? Because the average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 237,000 miles.

The real truth is that this movie is really about the deal that Stanley Kubrick made with the Manager of the Overlook Hotel (America). This deal was to get Kubrick to re-create, in other words, to fake, the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Danny represents the artistic side of Kubrick. Because of the complexity of the artistic realization of the manner in which the lunar landings needed to appear, Kubrick needed to trust his artistic side.

Room 237 represents the fake lunar set that Stanley had to create to make the lunar landings appear factual. But really, on this set, and in this room, nothing is real.

As the film will soon reveal, Room 237 has to be lied about. It cannot be understood at all… ever. Nothing real ever happens in room 237. For a moment, in the film, it looks like Danny is actually going to enter Room 237. But we are never sure.

In the next scene Jack has a bad dream while he is working. He tells Wendy that in his dream he has killed Wendy and Danny. Meanwhile Danny enters the scene and it is obvious that some mysterious force has physically hurt Danny.

This mysterious force has also torn his Apollo 11 sweater.

Despite his disheveled appearance Jack has started writing again.

Wendy, (who is really supposed to be Kubrick’s wife Christina), wants to read the book that Jack is working so furiously on. She asks to see what he is writing. Jack is surprised by her entrance into the room where he does his writing. Angrily he rejects her. He tells her to stay out of the room where he is writing.

It is clear that Wendy, Kubrick’s wife, is not allowed to know anything about the Project.

But what is this book that Jack is writing?

Wendy soon finds out what is in the book that Jack is writing. It is then that we get the clincher that proves that this essay is the correct interpretation of Kubrick’s The Shining.

Wendy sneaks into Jack’s writing room. Slowly she begins to read the book that Jack has been working on.

This scene is totally original to the movie. It is not in the King novel. Although it is mildly terrifying, it is not that horrific. Yet it is the centerpiece of the film and arguably the scariest scene in the movie.

Why?

Because every single one of the hundreds of pages that Jack has been furiously writing is a variation of only one sentence:

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.

Incredibly every page has this exact sentence.

And it is written over and over.

Truly it is scary enough to think that Jack has just been sitting there, day after day, writing the same sentence, over and over. Wendy face reveals her fear over the discovery.

What does it all mean?

May I humbly suggest that the word “All” in this repeated sentence actually stands for “A11” that is: “A-One-One”, or Apollo 11?

“A11 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

May I suggest that the nickname, or the code name, for the faking of the Apollo Moon Missions was A11?

Accepting that this is true we can see what Stanley is really telling us:

‘“Apollo 11 work and no play makes Jack (Kubrick) a dull boy.”

If you think that I am stretching things here I would like to point out the patch that NASA had created to symbolize the Apollo program:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/luna/luna_apollomissions10.htm

for the full story

too long Johnny,
Johnny that’s just way too long..