04/10/15 - The Shining

This Tuesday we watched The shining, a popular horror film released in 1980 and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The film is about a man named Jack Torrance a writer who becomes the winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy and his son, Danny who has premonitions. As Jack's writing goes nowhere and Danny's visions become more disturbing, Jack discovers the hotel's dark secrets and begins to unravel into a homicidal maniac hell-bent on terrorizing his family. I've never seen The Shining previous to Tuesday so the end scene baffled me as well as many others but obviously I've never thought about it before. I had many ideas as to why Stanley Kubrick added that shot in but at the same time I wasn't sure if any of them actually made any sense as that end shot must have to sum up the whole film somehow. One of my suggestions is that Jack Torrance was Delbert Grady (The waiter) all along. The reason I say this is because at the very beginning of the film we hear that a man named Delbert Grady killed his wife and 2 daughters with a axe. As the film goes on we see the personality of Jack changing because he is stuck in the hotel for months with just his family. Not only do we think his personality changes but it is confirmed throughout the film due to the amount of mirrors they use when Jack is around and it's not only a few times. I also want to say that I think the mirrors are used to show the split in personality of Jack as well at the twins in the film (who could be Mr Grady's children). The further in the film we get, the more mirrors are used. When we meet Delbert Grady for the first time we follow them to the bathroom as Jack is to be wiped down after a drink is spilled on him. There are quite a lot of mirrors in the bathroom but not one time are they used to show Jack or Mr Grady. This could suggest that they do not need a mirror as they are the same person. Mr Grady and Jack then discuss how Jack needs to have a 'talk in to' to Wendy and Danny. This is Mr Grady telling him to kill them both. Again further on in the film Jack picks up an axe to use as the murder weapon (going back to the story, Mr Grady used an axe to kill his family) so this again comes in to sorts that Jack is Mr Grady. At one point in the film, Jack is locked in the storage room due to Wendy putting him in there. A little later on Mr Grady starts talking to him. At this point I thought it was because Jack was going crazy but I now think that Mr Grady is Jack's conscience hence why Mr Grady says in the bathroom scene 'You are the caretaker, you have always been the caretaker. I should know so, I have always been here'. Him saying been here meaning he's always been in Jacks head. I think Mr Grady is Jack but Delbert Grady is giving himself a different visual identity to himself and us as the audience being Jack as he doesn't want to think he is a different person or that he leads a different life, that he hasn't always being there because he lives 4 hours away. They are the same person, in the same time period which is 1970 as Mr Grady couldn't possibly still be alive if he put a gun in his mouth and killed himself. Thus I think Mr Grady is jack. The only things that don't match up to this are, Jack only has 1 child and is a son (this could also be part of the visual identity changing), that he failed to kill his wife and son and that he never killed himself with a gun, he froze to death. The end picture also says 1921 therefore this couldn't have taken place in 1970 as Jack/Mr Grady is on the front of that picture.