by Alex Colville
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ART OF BOULDER
BOY AND GIRL KNITTING ⎔ HORSE AND TRAIN ⎔ MYSTERIES ⎔ NAPOLITANO POSTCARD ⎔ NEIL THE FROG ⎔ OLD RALPH POSTCARD ⎔ WOMAN AND TERRIER
APPEARANCE
Inspired by a poem, we see this once (and fleetingly) as Wendy guides the doctor through the very literary living room of the Torrance apartment.
SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE
The piece seems to be about impending, inevitable doom. But it’s also about choices. The choice the horse has, and the choice the train hasn’t. It’s about the rivalry between what’s determined and what’s free (almost every main character is in such a relationship to something else in their story). In the poem, the thinker sets the dark horse against the train, but it’s not meant as physical battle necessarily. It might simply be that the dark horse outpaces the train. Colville imagined it as a David and Goliath ode, and really, when you think about what Danny is, a five-year-old boy, would you bet on him over an entire haunted, malevolent purgatory? Over a father’s alcoholism, even?
The painting was also used as the cover art for Bruce Cockburn’s 1973 album Night Vision. Danny has just had a day vision of the future. The album has a few tracks with names that feel applicable to moments from the film, but especially track 8, Déjà Vu. And while we hadn’t seen this painting, or this angle of the apartment before, Colville experts might’ve had a moment of déjà vu seeing two of his works exactly 200 seconds apart, in what will turn out to be opposite walls from each other. Or perhaps our déjà vu was in seeing the little children knitting 150 seconds after seeing the Grady twins. Or, you know, the dozens of other dualities in this beast.
Norval Morrisseau, whose work appears twice in the film, did the cover for a different Bruce Cockburn album that came out during production. Only Wendy is seen together with Horse and Train, while Jack, Wendy, Watson and Ullman (the Abbey Road Tour takers) are seen in conjunction with Morrisseau.
Also, there’s something about this image that reminds me of the first shot of the film, racing upon Wild Goose Island. But would the horse have seized its free will and steered away? The train does not seem to be sitting idly on those tracks. Their collision was probably less than a second or two away.
And in case you came here before checking out the previous analysis of the Boy and Girl knitting, you should check that out for more Horse and Train relevance.
MIRRORFORM SIGNIFICANCE
I think I’ve already suggested what this has to do with what Jack’s heading to do to Hallorann. But it is interesting that the direction of the horse is pointing the same way as Jack’s stalking (even if the mirrorform has him moving in the same direction as the train, technically). I also wonder if this speaks to why Jack didn’t know to go up this hall, charge through the red doors and kill Danny in his hidey hole there. The horse energy, with its connection to Hallorann, was blocking him somehow.
But consider too that Wendy’s four horsemen portals are about to commence 202 seconds from Horse and Train (one of the most easily visible horses, and certainly the first easily visible horse in the film) vanishing off-screen.
Next art reference: The Grady Twin Paintings
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 