Room 237Have you ever seen a movie that just won't leave you? For one reason or another, it stays, and it keeps lurking in the shadows of your thoughts, leaving a trace of itself behind. I can say that I have seen a fair share of movies; and like the five people who narrate Room 237 by means of their commentary, it is safe to say that Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's horror novel, The Shining, has also remained in the subconscious long after the credits have rolled to the tune of "Midnight With the Stars and You" for more than just myself. And like the ghosts of the past which haunt the Overlook Hotel, it persists and, frankly, leaves one haunted by the experience.
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Room 237 is a documentary in form; but like The Shining, there is more to it than meets the eye. The testimonies and incredibly close attention to details and minutiae in their accounts and arguments for the buried themes feel not unlike a collection of conspiracy theories and other apocryphal analyses of the film. But it is also revealing, because after you absorb the myriad possibilities argued in Room 237, your perception of The Shining is never quite the same; the doors have been opened, and you have been enlightened, in a manner of speaking. Almost all of the narrators describe their first experience with The Shining; some recall that they didn't like the movie at first, but that it took root in their psyche. There is talk of subliminal messaging--among many other assertions for the enduring appeal of The Shining--that it is designed to reach into your mind by various subversive means. And like the kind of "conspiracy theory" accounts and "documentaries" out there, there are moments when you are inclined to find humor in the kind of bold declarations Room 237 and its advocates make about the transcendent meaning and hidden messages--it is a kind of uncomfortable humor, one which yet leaves you with unanswered questions. Was the rumor true that following 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick colluded with NASA to fabricate the moon landing? Or that Jack's typewriter being a German brand, combined with the ubiquitousness of the number "42", mean that The Shining is a metaphor for the Holocaust? Possibly...maybe...perhaps...no stable, definitive answers are allowed, and that unsettles people, just as The Shining unsettles.
As I mentioned a while back when I wrote about The Shining, I took a course in college about the films of Stanley Kubrick, and had a professor who observed some of the content discussed in Room 237, notably the presence of Native American motifs as a metaphor for the genocide committed during the expansion of the United States, as well as the metaphor of Danny and Jack being like that of Theseus and the Minotaur. He also described that what is interesting about The Shining as far as a horror movie is concerned, is that it doesn't readily subscribe to the tenets of horror movies; it is unquestionably creepy, but only rarely scary. I believe this is the true nature of fear, however, that one is afraid not of the unexpected, but of what is known at a deep, psychological level to be impossible, to be fantasy, suddenly made manifest. Critics and astute viewers versed in observing continuity errors have cited The Shining as being not just a repeat offender of multiple presumed infractions, but of defying logic with regards to scene composition; but since when has a nightmare ever been logical? The narrators of Room 237 assess and dissect these elements, but it remains charged and exciting throughout, at least for film aficionados like myself, and more so for those who have found themselves caught in the snares of the mysteries of The Shining. Graphics of floor plans of the artificial Overlook Hotel confer unmistakable parallels with the JFK assassination and the frame-by-frame analyses of The Shining echo the Zapruder film. My own final paper in college for the aforementioned class was on the use of music in The Shining, which also gets attention in Room 237. I recall my own experiences becoming obsessed with this film; I watched The Shining seven times within the span of four days to observe this detail, until my mind was carried into a fascinating, seemingly infinite space as a result of--as Jack puts it--"my work". And even now, I consider that detail, and my mind is set to the numerology of that frequency--seven and four...July 4th, 1921 at the Overlook...the last shot of the film--and one can see how quick one can be sucked down the rabbit hole. Room 237 is fundamentally a love letter to the films of Stanley Kubrick, as the movie is intercut with sequences and matte shots of his other works, though it is primarily concerned with this horror masterpiece. It challenges viewers to see The Shining with a new set of eyes, and broaden one's horizons about not just this film, but to also apply that concept to others. And if you had only given The Shining a passing thought before, Room 237 dares you to return and, as the narrators frequently describe the film, get drawn into the labyrinth, the closed loop, and become trapped within its clutches. Such wonderful quicksand drags one into the abyss.
Recommended for: Fans of The Shining, no doubt, but also fans of movies looking to see just how deep one can go in a stylized analysis of a cinematic masterpiece. It is a call for those familiar with the film to revisit it with fresh eyes, and for those who never gave it much thought to reassess it in a new light.
As I mentioned a while back when I wrote about The Shining, I took a course in college about the films of Stanley Kubrick, and had a professor who observed some of the content discussed in Room 237, notably the presence of Native American motifs as a metaphor for the genocide committed during the expansion of the United States, as well as the metaphor of Danny and Jack being like that of Theseus and the Minotaur. He also described that what is interesting about The Shining as far as a horror movie is concerned, is that it doesn't readily subscribe to the tenets of horror movies; it is unquestionably creepy, but only rarely scary. I believe this is the true nature of fear, however, that one is afraid not of the unexpected, but of what is known at a deep, psychological level to be impossible, to be fantasy, suddenly made manifest. Critics and astute viewers versed in observing continuity errors have cited The Shining as being not just a repeat offender of multiple presumed infractions, but of defying logic with regards to scene composition; but since when has a nightmare ever been logical? The narrators of Room 237 assess and dissect these elements, but it remains charged and exciting throughout, at least for film aficionados like myself, and more so for those who have found themselves caught in the snares of the mysteries of The Shining. Graphics of floor plans of the artificial Overlook Hotel confer unmistakable parallels with the JFK assassination and the frame-by-frame analyses of The Shining echo the Zapruder film. My own final paper in college for the aforementioned class was on the use of music in The Shining, which also gets attention in Room 237. I recall my own experiences becoming obsessed with this film; I watched The Shining seven times within the span of four days to observe this detail, until my mind was carried into a fascinating, seemingly infinite space as a result of--as Jack puts it--"my work". And even now, I consider that detail, and my mind is set to the numerology of that frequency--seven and four...July 4th, 1921 at the Overlook...the last shot of the film--and one can see how quick one can be sucked down the rabbit hole. Room 237 is fundamentally a love letter to the films of Stanley Kubrick, as the movie is intercut with sequences and matte shots of his other works, though it is primarily concerned with this horror masterpiece. It challenges viewers to see The Shining with a new set of eyes, and broaden one's horizons about not just this film, but to also apply that concept to others. And if you had only given The Shining a passing thought before, Room 237 dares you to return and, as the narrators frequently describe the film, get drawn into the labyrinth, the closed loop, and become trapped within its clutches. Such wonderful quicksand drags one into the abyss.
Recommended for: Fans of The Shining, no doubt, but also fans of movies looking to see just how deep one can go in a stylized analysis of a cinematic masterpiece. It is a call for those familiar with the film to revisit it with fresh eyes, and for those who never gave it much thought to reassess it in a new light.