Exploring "The Shining"

Mathilde Fourgeot : Week 5

« The Shining is an allegory for the plight of Native Americans. No. Wait. It’s a prism through which Stanley Kubrick examines the Holocaust. Or maybe it’s his confession to helping the government fake the moon landing. It could be all of those things. Or none of them. »

Angela Wattercutter

Room 237 is a documentary film about the famous horror Kubrick’s movie The Shining. The director, Rodney Asher tries to examine a few theories about this movie by interviewing some Kubrick’s fans. He isn’t the first to try to decode Kubrick’s work. Indeed, more than 30 years after the release of one of Kubrick’s masterpiece, a lot a movie fans, historians, scientists, professors or artists try still today to decode this puzzle. With this documentary he tries to collect a few interesting theories.

Kubrick said that his movie speak for itself, that’s why there are a lot of comprehension theories and prisms to interpret this mysterious story.  This documentary isn’t the only comprehension key of this movie. On the contrary, Rodney Asher wants to open new ways of interpretation : « The mystery is almost always better than the solution. »

The more we see this movie, the more we decipher symbols and comprehension key. Fortunately. Jack Torrance and his family, the Overlook Hotel and its rooms stay until today a mystery.

 Sources :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/oct/26/room-237-stanley-kubrick-shining

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/movies/room-237-documentary-with-theories-about-the-shining.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1351940603-n+umLeUaNtfqMTqHD+Rwlw

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/01/documentary-room-237-sundance/