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REDRUM ROAD – ROUND TWO – SKIP TO A PAGE
COME TOGETHER ⎔ SOMETHING ⎔ MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER ⎔ OH! DARLING ⎔ OCTOPUS’S GARDEN ⎔ I WANT YOU ⎔ HERE COMES THE SUN ⎔ BECAUSE ⎔ YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY ⎔ SUN KING ⎔ MEAN MR. MUSTARD ⎔ POLYTHENE PAM ⎔ SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW ⎔ GOLDEN SLUMBERS ⎔ CARRY THAT WEIGHT ⎔ THE END
ROUND ONE START ⎔ ROUND THREE START ⎔ SPECIAL: STORY ROOM
- In fact, the first note in this song is just as the last lights go down.
- “You never give me your money” – According to Shining lore, Kubrick told Jack to act this scene like a muttering lunatic you see walking down the street in New York. So, this line would be apt in light of the homeless status of many such people.
- Also, this is a bit tortured, but forward Jack is beginning his theory that Danny self-inflicted his wounds, and Paul’s song here is his way of lashing out at the manager the other Beatles wanted to replace Brian Epstein with. So, while the tone will shift to self-criticism, the song starts with placing the blame squarely on Allen Klein.
- “And in the middle of negotiations, you break down” – Shocked backward Jack reacting to angry Wendy.
- Also, forward Wendy and Jack are discussing his investigation into 237. He’s suggesting Danny did it to himself. The same thing is going on in the line “And in the middle of investigation, I break down”.
- On “down” we cut to the zoom on shining face Danny. The word “down” has a kind of reverb/echo effect that plays well here.
- “See no future” – Danny sees the future.
- Also, what’s cool there is how the last time we heard this part (round 1) was right before backward Wendy brings the bat down on Jack at the top of the stairs, which takes place right behind Wendy, here. So, is REDRUM a comment on Wendy’s self-defence? Or is it more about how murder is what we turn to when we see no other future ahead?
- “Out of college, money spent/See no future, pay no rent/All the money’s gone, nowhere to go” – Going back a second, this line occurs all throughout the zoom on Danny’s face, and there’s a funny double-entendre effect, as if Danny was getting this bleak commentary on his future. But there’s also the neat effect of how this speaks to the stuck nature of the Torrances. Jack just had the moment of not being able to pay Lloyd, they don’t pay rent while looking after the Overlook, and the storm is keeping them from a hope of safe passage down to Boulder.
- Oh, also, in relation to “all the money’s gone”, there’s two rugs that disappear in this sequence, and this is the first shot we get of them both being gone. The two rugs are the one that should be in the middle of the room, and the one that should be under the chairs behind Wendy and Danny.
- “Any jobber got the sack/Monday morning, turn it back” – Wendy saying they should “get Danny out of here”, and that idea settling into Jack’s mind. He’s about to explode about the other jobs he could get if they left the hotel “…working at a car wash, shovelling out driveways…”
- The backward action of MONDAY morning is five minutes into the future from this point, but Jack and Danny will be sitting exactly where Wendy and Jack are sitting now (on opposite sides of each other).
- “But of that magic feeling/Nowhere to go” – And just like magic, the rug in the middle of the room is back! Also, this line starts while mirror Wendy is holding Danny tight.
- As for the “nowhere” that needs going, Jack is reacting to the idea of Wendy’s suggestion to leave. So it’s almost like Jack is getting a “magic feeling” from the hotel that’s saying he has “nowhere to go”. A feeling he’ll try to share with her next time they’re in the lounge together.
- “Oh, that magic feeling/Nowhere to go—NOWHERE TO GO!” Danny’s scream face (“Oh that”) into seeing the bloodfall consume the hallway (“magic feeling/Nowhere to go/NOWHERE TO GO”). Ends right as the blood washes up and over the camera, and on “GO” we get a little of frothing Jack. Cuz he’s got nowhere to go, cuz he’s dead already. Danny, whose mind was shielded from his ghost trauma, still has places to go. Like the moon, for instance.
- Seriously though, the idea of it being a magic feeling to have nowhere to go pairs heart-wrenchingly with the womb/tomb subtext of Danny’s 237 experience. He wants to get on the next Apollo 11 to avoid the next Great Flood, but he discovered that he was just as likely to encounter disaster in that new place as he was in the old place. The trick to existence is to balance our desire for advancement with the fact of our mortal inability to escape things like entropy and time. To embrace the serenity of having nothing to do.
- Also, Apollo was the god of (many things, but including) prophecy and the magic of healing. So the “magic feeling” isn’t all bad. Tony’s take over of Danny is a good thing. He’s preserving Danny’s innocence in a sense.
- Jack’s whole forward rant takes place over the bridge in the music, and last time we heard this part, in round 1, backward Jack was going on his “Has it ever occurred to you?!?!?” rant in the lounge.
- “One sweet dream” – Wendy buries her face in her hands, in the spot where she’ll have her one sweet dream while Tony/Danny does the REDRUM sequence.
- “Pack up the bags/Get in the limousine” – Jack is throwing the things around in the back hallway. Generally seems apt given the song’s subtext.
- “One sweet dream/Came true/Today” – This phrase starts and repeats over the start of backward Jack’s confession to Wendy about his nightmare about murdering her and Danny, and over Jack’s entire walk from the lobby back halls to hearing the ghost ball, to seeing evidence of the ghost ball. In the image below, mirror Jack is saying “I must be losing my mind” just as Jack is starting to hear the music from the ghost ball.
- This is a cool hat trick moment of (round 1) Hallorann saying there ain’t nuthin in room 237, (round 2) Jack hearing the ghostball, and (round 3) Hallorann marching to his death in the direction that round 2 Jack is about to stare down.
- “Yes it did, now!” – This was kind of a lucky screen grab, but right on this line both Jacks are looking down the hall at the spot where his photo self will hang at the end of the movie. Round 3 Hallorann is a few steps away from taking the axe to the chest here, so it’s cool that nightmare Jack would seem to look upon this at the same time as ghostball Jack. Also, not far from this part in the song is the part in round 1 where trike Danny will cross the path of his fighting parents in the lounge. Also, round 3 Hallorann’s death march will take the same path through the lobby during the same part of the same song as round 1 Wendy pushing the breakfast cart. So there’s a lot of intersectioning pathways going on right here. And if this “one sweet dream” refers to the greatness of the Beatles, Kubrick might be using it a bit indulgently (let’s let him) to imply his own genius for mapping all this out.
- “1234567/All good children go to heaven” – Backward Jack is about to confess his murderous thoughts, and Jack is about to pass the spot where he murders Hallorann, and, again, the letterboard here has the words “INDIAN” and “LADIES OF THE” [WORLD? EVENING?]. Hallorann will obscure this letterboard when Jack goes in for the kill in a moment.
- Also, Jack is now heading toward Overlook Heaven (which is probably more like its hell). And sure enough, the camera pushes straight toward the wall where his photo will hang; and recall that the song playing during the final shot is the same as the one playing when Jack enters the ghost ball. The one here, Jack Hylton’s Masquerade, might end as Jack hits the spot where the final shot begins.
- Also, the painting he’s about to pass here, Maligne Lake, strongly resembles the mountains from the beginning of the film, and remember that one of those was called Heaven’s Peak.
- The “All good children” refrain carries on into Hallorann’s first successful attempt at reaching someone. This sequence has, again, Hallorann’s light filling Jack’s head with the clarity that his nightmare provided, and this was Jack’s one shot at being good again, and maybe taking a suggestion to leave this accursed place.
- Also, I’ve heard that in Dutch art, and possibly all kinds of art, fish are representative of Jesus. So, the fish art behind Hallorann here (that yellow box to the left of the lamplight) could be a partial religious reference. As I discuss in my Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are cross-comparison, it seems that these fish boxes are from that as well, but I don’t think it can’t be both.
- Also, this is right about the moment that Hallorann gets whacked in round 3, and that breakfast cart Wendy enters the lobby.
- The “All good children” refrains are still going on at this point, with mirror Wendy running to Jack’s rescue, and the last time we heard this song, Danny was triking a large square around this room. His path was counterclockwise, and Wendy’s here is clockwise.
- Spoiler alert: the opposite is also true: the song that was playing when forward Wendy was making this jog, Oh! Darling, will be playing when backward Danny is doing the later square around the lounge.
- As we’re zooming out on Jack’s nightmare screams, we’re hearing the outro with all the windchime and churring noises, which were also being heard as round 1 forward Danny trikes through the part of the lounge where his backward parents are fighting, which just so happens to be the spot right behind nightmare Jack’s head, here.
Click here to continue on to Redrum Road: You Never Give Me Your Money – Round 2
MAIN PAGE ⎔ SECTION PAGE ⎔ SITE MAP ⎔ GLOSSARY
OTHER MAIN PAGES FOR SHINING ANALYSIS
THE MIRRORFORM ⎔ THE BEATLES ⎔ THE RUM AND THE RED
BACKGROUND ART ⎔ OVERLOOK PHOTOGRAPHS ⎔ GOLDEN SPIRALS
PHI GRIDS ⎔ PATTERNS ⎔ VIOLENCE AND INDIGENA ⎔ ABSURDITIES
THE STORY ROOM ⎔ ANIMAL SYMBOLS ⎔ THE ANNOTATED SHINING
EYE SCREAM 