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RANDOM ART FROM THE FILM
ARPEGGIO ⎔ BOMBO ⎔ COMMONERS CROWN ⎔ IRENE REID ⎔ MYSTERIES OF THE BOILER ROOM ⎔ MYSTERIES OF THE OVERLOOK ⎔ MYSTERY KITCHEN ART ⎔ SUPERNATURAL DREAM ⎔ TWO NIAGARA FALLS POSTCARDS ⎔ TONY THE TIGER
APPEARANCE
Everything in here appears at 58:44 and leaves at 59:05 (21 seconds), except for a photo of two infants, which first appears at 58:40 and leaves at 59:06.
IDENTITY
There’s a tonne of weird things in here I don’t think I’ll ever get. A B&W portrait photo of two infants (in the centre right of this image, touching the edge). About eight nudes/scantily dressed women (see below). A scene of a demonic hellscape-looking place. A creepy teddy bear drawing of some kind (possibly a connection to Wendy’s later vision of herself as a bear-like sexual predator–and the only thing obscured by Wendy in this moment). And a mug with a creepy face on it, that looks a bit like a drawing of a Beatle (below the hellscape).
JACOB’S LADDER
What seems especially interesting though is that the hellscape bears an incredible compositional similarity to William Blake’s painting Jacob’s Dream (the part I’ve outlined in red in the pic two jump back). It’s almost a Dante’s Inferno reversi of Blake’s painting. On the soundtrack in the film right here is Penderecki’s The Awakening of Jacob/The Dream of Jacob, which attempts to capture the feeling of this moment from the bible, but which is quite sinister-sounding to the oblivious ear. So perhaps the Blake-esque piece was a commission from Kubrick to help suggest this inversion of feeling and meaning (I haven’t ruled out the possibility of it being something else, but you’d think this would be one of the easier ones). Also, it’s pinned to two out of three red pipes here. Any bible scholars have a thought on that? Let me know here, if you do.
One of my most recent discoveries is that there are at least two and very likely three paintings in the film that include Mount Vesuvius in various states of unease. So I’ve also come to wonder if this is some obscure variation on that theme.
TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC
As for the creepy bear/teddy bear, it might be a reference to Teddy Bear’s Picnic (the image is half-obscured by other notes on the wall, but the bear seems to be set before a table of some kind), which was the other big hit of Henry Hall’s, whose music appears in the upcoming ghost ball. Actually, his song is called Home, and Danny has just vanished into 237, so if that is the connection, it would speak to my 237=returning home theory.
MIRRORFORM SIGNIFICANCE
Everything here appears during Jack’s stroll through the ghost ball, and during his approach up the path to the Gold Room. Al Bowlly’s Midnight, the Stars and You is playing in the room. The moment of Jack passing into the Gold Room makes a large darkness on the screen that lets the audience see Wendy on the other side hearing Jack’s screams for the first time, and makes all this art much easier to see, in the mirrorform sense. So I wonder if these items being particularly hard to trace has to do with the It’s All Forgotten Now theme of the ghost ball. If these are nudes, they probably suggest the nudeness of the 237 ghost, and how the clothes on these ghosts is an illusion.
Next art reference: Supernatural Dream
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 