WEBVTT - The Shining (Archive) 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:06.360 What kind of a show you guys putting on here today? 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:08.879 You're not interested in armed now? No, look, we're going 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:10.559 to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.680 Hey, film Spotters were digging deep into the archive, going 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.920 way back to episode four nineteen. Michael Phillips joined us 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.760 for a Sacred Cow conversation about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.319 which is forty five this year, and we thought it 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.440 was only fitting because we're talking about Zach Kraiger's weapons, 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.159 a huge influence on Craiger as a filmmaker. If you 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.519 google his name, Josh, you will find Kubrick in The 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.520 Shining mentioned almost in any conversation that this filmmaker has. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.120 And of course when you watch the film, you know 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:53.080 that that time two seventeen comes up again and again, 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.880 And I thought, well, is that the is that the 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.080 room and the Shining? There has to be some relevance, right, 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.160 And then I remember me, waight, no, maybe it's just 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:07.679 random because the room is two three seven. Well I 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.360 did a little bit more digging. Two one seven is 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.000 the book, the Stephen King book The Shining. Turns out 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:15.960 two one seven is the room. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:18.840 There Craiger trying to provey smarter than all of us. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:19.760 There you go with that one. 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.800 Yeah, we didn't play a ton of spot the reference 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.600 in our review of weapons, we name checked a movie 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:28.120 or two, but definitely the Shining is in that mix. 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:33.080 And yeah, never a bad time to talk about the Shining. 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:35.200 And you know, if you are a member the Film 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:39.160 Spotting Family, you have access to our archives, so you 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.360 could listen to an older show like this any time 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.360 you want, reviews, top fives, all that good stuff, going 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.440 all the way back to two thousand and five. So yeah, 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.640 archive access, it's just one of the benefits you get 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.440 as a member of the Film Spotting Family. If you're 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.480 not a member already, please do consider joining. It keeps 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.040 us doing this show and you can learn more at 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:05.600 Filmspotting Family dot com. From episode four nineteen, then here 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.240 is that Sacred Cow review of the Shining. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:15.280 Crab. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:28.279 Here's Johnny, I'm coming down, come and play with us. 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.720 How much does the Shining mess with our heads, Adam 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.640 and Michael? So much that some thirty years later, a 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.440 documentary has been made profiling the way fans of the 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:44.880 film have been haunted by it over the years. Room two, three, seven, 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.000 which was recently shown at the Chicago International Film Festival, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:52.520 digs into the various interpretations and conspiracy theories that obsessive 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.880 viewers have come up with in their attempts to explain 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.520 this deeply disturbing film. I wonder if these theories are 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.640 in some sense of defense mechan a way to process 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.320 the terror that the movie causes. After all, if it 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.800 can be reduced to a puzzle that's been solved, the 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.639 Shining is perhaps less troubling. 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:09.359 Michael. 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:10.959 The last time you were with us, we learned of 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.280 your love for Jaws, So I know that great white 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.120 sharks scare you. I'm not sure how you feel, however, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.880 about creepy twin girls decomposing bodies in bathtubs or elevators 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.680 bursting with blood. Did the Shining get to you then 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.239 in nineteen eighty and does it still have the power 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:27.280 to disturb you today? 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.200 This is the question. This is the question. It's the 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:32.000 essential question. 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.960 Say this is the great It's a film. I honestly, Josh, 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:41.280 I honestly don't have settled, fixed opinions on a lot 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.480 of the Kubrick work that post dates two thousand and one. 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.480 A space honesty, I know the films I absolutely adore 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.240 of his and seem to get so much out of 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.280 every new experience with them. They tend to be the 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.960 They tend to be the period from nineteen fifty six 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.280 the Killing up through and including two thousand and one. 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:02.960 And I'm much more. 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.040 Not ambivalent because he's too he's too distinctive a filmmaker 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.200 to provoke ambivalence in a viewer. 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.480 I think, but I'm much I tend to. 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.360 I tend to slip around and change my mind depending 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.839 on how many years have gone by on almost everything 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:21.239 he made since then, up until his UH and including 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.719 his final film, Eyes White Shot. I I did love 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.160 going back to the Shining for this show because it 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.640 had been years and years since I saw it, and 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.000 just to kind of see and remember what that incredible 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.400 elegance of those steady cam shots and and that really 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:38.760 that's not a minor issue in this film. It's it's 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.919 a major issue with so much of the film is 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:44.240 spent barreling behind Danny on that big Wheel, which takes 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.880 you just seeing the big wheel in action on all 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:52.200 all through those amazing maze like quarters of the Overloak Hotel. 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:54.080 It's it's it's. 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:55.880 Why a lot of the lot of the film does 0:04:55.880 --> 0:05:00.000 feel hypnotic because it is visually casting a kind of trance. 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.479 But I also, Josh, do feel that I haven't changed 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.480 my opinion in one way in that the common complaint 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.960 about Nicholson's performance in The Shining that it goes bug 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.760 House too early, and that you see the documentaries and 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:18.720 you read a little more about you know, you know 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.640 the dozens and dozens of takes that Cubrick was taking, 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.320 and he tended to I believe, correct me if I'm wrong. 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:29.839 He tended to always select the nuttier, more outsized editions 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:31.960 of whatever Nicholson was coming up with, and sometimes he 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.240 would do align a scene or set a tone in 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.320 a more sympathetic, comforting way, and Kubrick would never. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.279 Choose that take. It was always the crazier one. Sam 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:42.719 at them. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.080 In the same time, he was always trying to get 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.760 Shelley Duvall to play it a little less nuts. And 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.080 the film has a very strange tension because really it's 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.400 not a horror film. I mean, I don't even know 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.280 what I think of it. Frankly, again, I. 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.360 Just saw it, but even after seeing it recently. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.240 Is not a horror film. It is just it's a 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:08.400 black comedy about an America, a particularly American kind of 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.839 family that deserves what's happening to them. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.800 Okay, I know Adam that it terrifies you, at least 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.480 in references that you've made on the show. We hadn't 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.359 really dug into it at any point. Is that something 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.800 that it did for you right away when you first 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:23.720 saw it? And when did you first see it? Because 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.320 nineteen eighty hopefully you were a little young to have 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.000 seen it then. But I'm assuming this is a tear 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:30.960 you've had sent your childhood at some point. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:32.960 Yeah, it is. My parents, I've said this before on 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.080 the show. They didn't really stop me from watching anything. 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:36.960 I had a TV in my bedroom pretty early. I 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.680 had HBO pretty early. I was lucky, and so they 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.640 didn't shield me from watching things like The Shining that 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:43.719 I shouldn't have been watching. And I saw some of 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:44.280 this stuff. 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:45.440 And how were you then? 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.359 I was probably eight or nine or ten when I 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.800 saw the Terrific Yeah, exactly explained everything it does. But 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.000 I probably never saw the entire film. I just saw 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.200 parts of it, partly because I was too terrified to 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.080 watch the entire film. I don't think I actually saw 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.440 the film in its entirety until I was in and 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.119 was going through a little bit of a Kubrick phase, 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.159 as I think we all went through at some point 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.479 in our cinematic lives. So this was fun for me 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.680 to go back and revisit. And in terms of whether 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.880 or not it still scares me, it didn't this time, thankfully, 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:15.920 because I had my wife sitting next to me, So 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:17.880 even though we were sitting bars a part in my 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.400 basement in the dark, and when those twins come on 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.360 screen and those strings, that eerie music leaps up on you, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.000 I didn't jump out of the couch because my wife 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.680 was there to protect me, so she kept everything on 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.240 an even keel, which is great. But I love what 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.560 you said about the cinematography. I think you can't help 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.880 but talk about the film without mentioning John alcott cinematography 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:38.920 and the steadycam used. They actually got the guy who 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.320 invented the steadycam to run the steadycam on this film. 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:44.640 And hypnotic is the right word. 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:46.440 But it's not just in terms of what the steadycam 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:48.440 is doing in the movement and how fluid it is. 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.520 It's also even in I think the dialogue scenes, how 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.240 he calms the camera down in scenes like the meeting 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.200 with Olman when he takes the job and has offered 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.760 the job early in the film, he doesn't do anything 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.000 really crazy with the camera at all. It settles into 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.760 this really simple back and forth shot reverse shot style, 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.520 the same shots every time that almost luwly you to 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.080 sleep a little bit, the same way the steady cam does. 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.640 And the deep focus, of course, here is another fascinating 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:15.920 part of the film, and they're using these wide lenses 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.600 to make the characters look so dwarfed inside the overlook. 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.000 But then you realize what he's doing in the close 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.720 ups where he deliberately tries to get rid of all 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:27.880 the deep focus he can, which is pretty normal with 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.160 a close up anyway, but there's no focus at all, 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.400 So all you can see in these moments is the face. 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.240 Those shots that you've see in a lot of Kubrick 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.439 films are that close up straight on of the face. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.520 I love how we get that jexposition of all that 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:41.800 deep focus and then no deep focus at all, and 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:43.880 you just look at the face there. So right from 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.720 that opening helicopter sequence, you know you're in for something 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.199 really interesting with this film and what the camera is 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:50.600 going to do, And I just want to mention that, 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.520 going back to Nicholson's performance, we could probably spend the 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.400 whole show just talking about that performance and what we 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.000 make of it. There's no doubt he goes a little 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.320 crazy and he's big right away in this film. But 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.600 watching it again this time, it occurred to me that 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.959 there's actually a sense from the very beginning that everything 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.599 here is preordained, which makes sense when you get to 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.320 the end of the film. But you think about some 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.280 of the references that are made early in this film. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.880 There's the Donner party conversation as the family's driving to 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.640 the overlook, the music that is eerie right from the 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.920 beginning of the film, with the helicopter sequence, the fact 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.200 that we learned that the hotel's built on a burial ground, 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.120 an Indian burial ground, and you even get things like 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.080 Shelley Duval being shown the freezer and the storage room 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.320 down in the kitchen as if it's foreshadowing that she's 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.200 gonna end up using this room later. So there's a 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.800 sense that this family's doomed from the very beginning. It's 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.760 not really about any kind of suspense building on whether 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.439 or not Jack Nicholson is going to lose his mind. 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.000 It's just a matter of when and how many casualties 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:46.560 they're going to be. 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.080 That's funny that you say you watch it in bits 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.240 and pieces. First, I think I probably did the same thing, 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.640 catching it on TV maybe or something like that, or 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:56.880 turning it off as a kid when I couldn't take it, 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:58.840 And I think that probably fed the power of it 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.240 because this is a very sub liminal movie. You get 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.440 quick shots of horrifying things, and that's how it works 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.840 when you sit down and watch it from start to finish, 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.520 So even watching it in bits, you get a sense 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.280 of that before you're ready for the whole thing. My 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.040 recent watching experience, believe it or not, was in an 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:19.640 off season hotel. We were recently in northern Wisconsin on 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:21.720 vacation and we put it on in a hotel that 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.120 thankfully had other guests, but I did think it was 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.080 a little too close to home for the subject matter. 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:31.000 Still terrifying stuff. I mean, this is a really frightening movie, 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.160 and watching it again, I realized one of the things 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.280 that's most impressive about it is that it doesn't really 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.200 need suspense to terrify you. That's a little bit what 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.680 you were getting at, Adam, in that it's clear from 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.199 the beginning this guy's gonna go off his rocker. The 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.960 family is gonna get it in some way. I guess 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.120 there is that suspense that, okay, are the mom and 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.640 kid gonna make it out alive? But Kubrick doesn't really 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:56.560 seem to be all that interested in whether or not 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.040 they really make it out alive. He feels the need 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.520 to serve that story, I guess, and I'm sure the 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.840 studio demanded it, but you get a sense that it's 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:06.880 all gonna go really badly here. 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:08.439 Well, and that's part of the joke. I mean, I mean, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.480 he's got a pitiless sense of humor. He always has. 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.560 And and you know, it's not about creating this any 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.280 kind of conventional suspense speeds. It's all about, as Adam said, 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.240 you know what you get visually out of a film 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.480 like that that has all this sort of wide lens 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.319 dread in every frame and you don't really know what 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.200 these details are even adding up to, But you know 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.360 that heavy, as you say, that sort of heavy methodical 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.200 back and forth and sort of the simple dialogue scenes 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.840 There's always been a lot of deliberate sort of a 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.640 half second or second of dead air around every piece 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.080 of dialogue in almost every Kubrick film that just makes 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:54.560 you feel like something is amiss, something, And no one 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.120 was more amused in the most heartless way by banal 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:00.560 small talk than Kubrick. You know, when you think of 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:02.679 some of the conversations in two thousand and one early on, 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.720 or that meeting with Barry Nelson as the hotel owner 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.320 where it just or even just shots of Shelley Duvall 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.280 and the boy I'm forgetting the bloody like Danny Lloyd. 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.559 Of course, mister Danny is sitting in front of the TV, 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.640 which is always on at the worst moments, while she's 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.240 smoking like it's nineteen eighty, which it is, and smoking 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:23.400 two inches away from him. 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:25.560 My wife commented on that too, It said, hey, it 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:26.319 was nineteen eighty. 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.000 It is like coffee tea or me with the cigarettes there. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.640 I mean, it is very smoking, and Danny is eating 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.280 the whitest bread whites. It's like a shade of wonderbread 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.200 that's beyond white, right, it's and this is I think, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.920 not to make too much of what's encoded in this film. 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.000 At least we will talk about that with the documentary. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.480 But it's that's what's kind of Yankee Kubrick's chain with 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:51.120 this material. 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:52.319 It's that it's a way of. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:57.680 Getting at this family that's already corroded from the inside. 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:01.600 We hear that Nichols, and you know, Jack Torrance's character 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:06.079 in a drunken rage yanked his son's dislocated. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.480 His sons momentary laps, the momentary. 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.560 Lapse of extreme violence which we don't see what we 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.520 do hear about and in a sort of a weirdly casual. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.120 Way, there isn't really that much violence. I mean, that's 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.640 another traditional horror tool that he sets aside. He doesn't 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.960 rely on the suspense, he doesn't rely on that much violence. 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.840 And yet I count this for me personally as probably 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:29.440 the most frightening movie I've seen. It's all about those 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.640 little It's all about those little subliminal shots of things 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:37.200 that don't necessarily even matter for the main narrative at hand. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.560 Like the elements the elevator and also I do elevator. 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:42.600 Things that are just when you look at them in 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.840 the larger span of the story, they're not really necessary. 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.480 Yet they are the things that haunt me. And maybe 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.920 it's because they aren't necessary, you know, they aren't these 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.120 obvious tools that I'm used to when I'm watching horror films. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:58.199 Instead, I get these. 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.280 Odd images, the twin even just standing there, that I 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.880 can't quite process or fit into the normal horror trajectory, 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:08.880 and so it sets me off a little bit. I 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.040 don't quite know what to do with them. 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:11.600 Let me say two things. First of all, I've stayed 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.000 at much worse hotels. Secondly, do you guys both love 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:15.680 this film? 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:16.440 I do not. 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:17.440 I'd say I'm pretty close. 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.160 Mom is a hard word to use for it. I 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.320 feel manipulated by it in a way. I admire. Let 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:22.960 me put it that way. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:24.280 Yeah, I kind of love it. 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.720 Yeah, I was more intrigued than I remember, because it's 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.720 not a film I saw more than once or maybe twice, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.640 back when I was in college. But it does strike 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.520 me as awfully minor Kubrick, it does. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:37.160 It does. I don't know why. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.880 I think it's minor in terms that is, what is 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.400 he really after here? And maybe that's part of what 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.880 you're getting at, in the sense that here's someone who's 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.080 just playing with a horror story that maybe he's not 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.680 all that interested in I do get a sense of that. 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.640 Yet at the same time, that doesn't mean he set 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.960 his craftsmanship aside. And so all the intricate care that 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.360 is going into those tracking shots with a big wheel 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:01.800 or even the who are at the beginning, it's all 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.800 to set up the geography of this hotel, and just 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:07.560 to admire the amount of care and attention and how 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.640 it pays off later when we are running through that 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.560 hotel too, now this time for our lives, and it's 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.240 very insidious because he's given us so many tours of 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.960 it with his camera that we think, Okay, we should 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.960 know where to go, we know where is a safe place. 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.240 But then they start running and it happens early on 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.560 which room two three seven nods too, where Danny is 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.480 on his big wheel downstairs and without explanation, suddenly he's upstairs. Yeah, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:36.040 And suddenly we become disoriented and we're thrown off because 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.800 we should know this place but we don't. He's screwing 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.920 with us again, and that's just impossible not to admire. 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:44.720 I think, though, there is this larger question that we 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:46.720 have to ask, which is what is this film about? 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.200 What do we take away from this film beyond maybe 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:52.560 just being scared by it or reflecting on and really 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.040 admiring the craftsmanship. But one of the things that struck 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.120 me this time that I certainly didn't notice when I 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.160 saw it originally back in college for the first time 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:01.440 in its entirety, was that this really is a film 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.200 about repression. There is this psychological terror I think Kubrick 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.080 is exploring that can come from someone repressing themselves, from 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.800 stifling their natural urges and desires. It actually made me 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.000 think recently of our discussion of The Master, the Paul 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.000 Thomas Anderson film. I see a little bit of that 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:18.800 same kind of broken quality to Jack Torrance as I 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.560 do in Freddie Quell. Someone who's kind of haunted by 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.960 his inability to be the man slash husband slash father 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.280 he wants to be, or thinks he should be, or 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.640 think society expects him to be. And so you think 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.400 about the ways Jack Torrance is repressing himself. We know 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.760 he can't drink anymore, and later he can't wait to 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:36.360 get a drink. He says, I think he'd give his 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.760 soul to have one drink. He's a writer, but he's blocked. 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.440 He can't say what he wants to say, he can't 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.240 get that out there. And his relationship with his wife, 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.760 of course, is interesting too, because they don't seem to 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.720 be that affectionate, they don't seem to be physical in 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.280 any way with each other. And when Ulman is showing 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.360 them around early on, when they're getting the tour originally, 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.520 I love this little throwaway moment where two block blond women, 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:02.720 attractive blonde women are checking out and they go by 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.560 and they say goodbye to him, and of course Jack's 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.880 the last guy to go, and he has to look 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.520 back at it to watch him go. I mean, he 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:11.480 notices the blonde women, and of course he notices the 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.320 naked blonde woman in room two three seven, which seems 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.639 to be this room where maybe you get to explore 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.120 those desires, you get to finally let it all out, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.560 whatever you're feeling. And I think that the key part 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:24.919 for me is that conversation with Grady, who is the 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.160 waiter I think in the gold room and the actor 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:29.760 I had to write his name down, Philip Stone. I 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.520 think he's so good, he is so fun to watch, 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.800 just really relishing every single line. But when he talks 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.840 to him later in the film, when Jack is trapped. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.160 The phrases he uses are really telling. He talks about 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.600 how Jack is failing to take care of the problem, failing. 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.119 She seems to have gotten the better of you. She 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.119 needs a good talking to. It's this constant suggestion that 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.400 he has to assert himself over her, and he even 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:55.400 says at one point, you don't have to rub it in. 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.119 So I feel like Jack is this character who feels stifled. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.480 He feels like she's largely holding him back, and that's 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.840 why he really can't abide her then holding his one 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.800 his one mistake, his one eruption of violence against him, 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.959 the way he perceives that she does, and that misunderstanding. 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.000 Remember when she says you did this to him, she 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.680 thinks that he put his hands on him and choked him. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.840 That's really what starts the slide where all the violence 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:21.840 in this film comes from. 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.119 I think that's all there, and maybe this is what 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.960 you're getting at, Michael. I think it's there on the surface, 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.679 but for whatever reason, I don't really feel that the 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.560 movie cares that much about it or is that invested 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.359 in it. It's there narratively and to add a little 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.359 bit of context, but I don't know that we can 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:40.080 truly say that's what the movie is about. To me, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.240 the movie is about its own technique, and I don't 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.720 know if you're looking for doesn't I think it might 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:48.480 be a pretty shallow movie. 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.560 I didn't feel that way done movie. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.479 But possibly a shallow one. And I'm not saying that 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.560 makes it bad, but that's maybe part of my distance 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.000 from it. And I don't know if that's where your 0:18:58.280 --> 0:18:58.639 level of. 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:04.640 Engagement this time through. I thought, okay, what would make this? 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.600 And I do I was kind of semi entranced by 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.480 a lot of the thing visually, and that's nothing new 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:15.120 for Kubrick, but there's something about the match of that 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:22.720