Minotaurs, genocide and government conspiracies are but a few of the many interpretations of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece The Shining that were documented by Room 237. Matthew Wilson is here to unpack them for us.
There is perhaps no director other than Stanley Kubrick who can rile up an audience with theories and questions, with his noted perfectionism it’s difficult to tell if there’s any hidden meaning to his works or if he just wanted to make the best film he could. Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining is, on the surface, a strong horror film with elements of the supernatural, it is also however a tough nut to crack open and there’s very little explanation for what’s going on around The Torrence Family. In the years since the film was released there’s been a lot of theories and conspiracies about the true nature of The Shining and what it exactly all means, the 2012 documentary Room 237 took some of the more bizarre, interesting and downright insane theories and brought them out to an audience that hadn’t looked that deeply into the film passed a very strange horror film. Being one of those people I’ve decided to examine the theories brought up in Room 237 and see just how plausible they are.
The Holocaust
One of the most prevalent theories is that The Shining is actually an allegory for the Holocaust, or more aptly the modern reaction to the Holocaust due to people being unable to comprehend death on such a scale. Kubrick had reportedly been trying to make a Holocaust movie for years but couldn’t get one that he thought worked properly, eventually giving up when Schindler’s List was released and he saw no reason to try and better it.
The biggest hint towards the Holocaust theory is the number 42 which appears multiple times throughout the film, there’s 42 cars in the Overlook car park, Wendy takes 42 swings at Jack on the stairs, even the infamous number itself equates to 2X3X7=42. This is important since it was 1942 when the Nazis came up with their Final Solution to exterminate the Jews and with the amount of times it appears in the film it’s obviously not an accident, especially considering that the room number in the book was 217 and there was no apparent reason to change it, Kubrick’s attention to detail could mean that the change was to give further wait to the Holocaust theory.
The theory is strengthened by the use of music – though admittedly I don’t know enough to fully explain why – and by Jack’s typewriter which is, of all things, a German made machine under the Adler brand. Now Adler is the German word for Eagle and Kubrick has used the Eagle motif as a representation of Western Imperialism due to the icon of America being the Bald Eagle, however the Eagle was also adopted by the Nazi party during W.W.2. That in itself isn’t enough to jump to conclusions, Adler could simply be a brand name, but there’s moments in the film where the typewriter changes colour so Kubrick obviously wants us to pay attention to it, and combined with the multiple uses of 42 there is a good possibility that the Holocaust played a part in the heart of The Shining.
Indian Burial Ground
Similar to the Holocaust, another theory is that The Shining more directly references the genocide of the Native American Indians by the White Man and America’s inability to accept its violent history. This theory holds more weight because the Indian artefacts are a lot more prevalent, there’s a lot of Native American artwork throughout the Hotel which Kubrick tries to include in as many shots as he can. One such shot is that of a Calumet can in the freezer which appears twice, the first time we get a straight on look at the can which can be read perfectly while the second time there are multiple cans but none of them are given a straight on view, all are turned away to varying degrees. With Calumet meaning peace-pipe the use of both shots is easy to recognise, the straight-on shot during the beginning is when the Hotel is at peace whilst the multiple turned cans appear once Jack has started to go insane, suggesting that that peace is now broken.
While visually the film has more to offer than the book to suggest a running theme it Kubrick also manages to make a few changes in dialogue to better suit his purpose. For the Indian theme there’s a line that’s not in the book and to a casual viewer would almost be a throwaway when Stuart Ullman tells Jack and Wendy that the Hotel was built on an Indian burial ground, as clichéd a line as it is today it does tie in with the Native American decor around the Hotel. Plus it could finally explain the infamous river of blood in the elevators, with the sheer number of Indians slaughtered by White Men who built a luxury hotel on their gravesites – the name Overlook holding more sinister connotations now – a river of blood to stain their memory is quite an visual metaphor. Out of all the theories this holds the most weight, there’s enough visual clues to suggest it and the inclusion of the burial grounds line is enough to convince me.
Moon Landings
To understand this theory you need to know another set of theories that say that not only was the moon landing faked, but Kubrick played a part in filming the footage. It’s one of the more infamous theories, up there with the JFK Assassination and 9/11 but how it relates to The Shining is that some people believe that Kubrick is apologising for, or at the very least confirming, the faked moon landings. Again it’s mostly visual stuff, Danny has an Apollo 11 sweater at one point, the hexagonal carpet pattern matches the NASA launch site, most interestingly is that the distance between the Earth and the Moon is 237,000 Miles which would be another possible explanation for the change from 217 in the book.
I’m not fully invested in this theory, Danny’s jumper is a good clue but a lot of it is grasping at straws and difficult ones at that, if this really was an apology I’d think Kubrick would include some more overt clues, the NASA launch pads and the distance to the Moon aren’t common knowledge and would fly right over the heads of the average moviegoer. Not saying it’s impossible but there’s some doubt there.
The Labyrinth
This is one of the more interesting theories, there’s not a lot to it but it does fit a general theme, that being the predatory nature of Jack and the labyrinth that is the Overlook. The theory is that the film is a reimagining of the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur with Danny as Theseus and Jack as the Minotaur as evidenced by his bull-like expression during the Thursday scene when he watched Danny and Wendy play in the snow. The most obvious example of this would be the maze, a location that’s not in the original book but in the film is where Danny (Theseus) defeats Jack (The Minotaur) thus standing in for the Labyrinth of the Mythological story.
However this extends back inside the Hotel as well, there’s a few subtle reference points that will only be picked up subconsciously to add to the unease of the whole picture, but if you pay attention a lot of the layout of the Hotel is impossible from an architectural standpoint, most notable Stuart Ullman’s office window which looks towards the outside when in fact it should be looking inwards towards the hallways. While I don’t think the Minotaur was as intentional a reference as it’s made out to be with this theory I do think the use of the mythology is a good starting point when looking towards the more abstract and unexplainable portions of the film.
Obviously a film like The Shining has a lot of discussion worthy topics, most of which I haven’t touched upon – a recent one claims that The Shining and Disney’s Frozen are identical in narrative terms – but that’s the beauty of a film like this one, there’s no right answer, Kubrick’s die-hard professionalism adds a lot of weight to seemingly insignificant moments but at the same time those could be literally insignificant and the fun is trying to figure out which is which. For more money the Indian Genocide Conspiracy has the strongest basis but even that could just be absolutely nothing, some people might believe different and they have every right to because after 37 years, people are still picking this film apart and finding new evidence and theories to the why of it all.
