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OVERLOOK LITERATURE – SKIP TO A PAGE
BURDA MODEN ⎔ GLAMOUR ⎔ HAMLET ⎔ HOTEL & MOTEL RED BOOK ⎔ JEEVES ⎔ THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH ⎔ PETER PAN ⎔ PHONEBOOKS ⎔ PLAYGIRL ⎔ SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ⎔ TRAVEL ⎔ TRAVEL HOLIDAY MAGAZINE ⎔ WHITE MAN’S BURDEN ⎔ WINNIE-THE-POOH
APPEARANCE
47:10-47:35
IDENTITY
Behind Wendy are phonebooks for Greater Dallas, Buenos Aires, Greater Kansas City, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Greater Miami, Las Vegas, Chicago, Seattle, and possibly Atlantic City. There’s also many more too small to make out, as well as something called a Buying Guide.
SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE
I really don’t mean to give any credence to the conspiracy theories surrounding Hitler’s supposed escape from Germany before war’s end, but it seems odd, given that the film is awash in WWII-inspired artworks, that the one phonebook outside the U.S. is for Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Hitler is thought to have escaped to by U-boat. The large U-shaped horseshoe nailed to the wall would seem to advance that theory, though I see that as more in keeping with the various bullhorn imagery throughout.
In my analysis on phi grids, I noticed how the paintings behind the radio–one of which I believe to be the works of Alois Arnegger, who attended the art academy that famously rejected Hitler’s application in 1907 and 1908 (the years of the Overlook’s construction)–are at the start of the upper right spiral, which curves around and slices right through the Buenos Aires phonebook. Coincidence?
Note too how that spiral curls right underneath that partly-opened envelope on the pin board, and how, in the final moments of the film, as the transition between shots gives the giant face Jack (red box) the illusion of having a Hitler moustache (black box), there’s a man with his hand on the arm of a man in the front with a little paper message tucked into part of his hand (white box), as if trying to suppress a message from getting out.
Still, if the phonebook is not a reference to that, then what? Does someone who works at the Overlook overwinter in Argentina?
I think it’s likely that this was the intended reference given that two of The Shining‘s producers also produced The Boys from Brazil, a film about escaped nazis making Hitler clones in South America. I simply wouldn’t say it was Kubrick’s intention to make The Shining all about this little bit of since-debunked postwar paranoia.
Next literary reference: White Man’s Burden
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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 