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ROUND ONE: 1 ⎔ 2 ⎔ 3 ⎔ 4 ⎔ 5 ⎔ 6 ⎔ 7 ⎔ 8 ⎔ 9
ROUND TWO: 1 ⎔ 2 ⎔ 3 ⎔ 4 ⎔ 5 ⎔ 6 ⎔ 7 ⎔ 8 ⎔ 9
- This analysis is growing wildly out of control thanks to the Twice-Folded Shining, so I’m going to attempt to put the lid back on, FYI.
- Though I might still fail horribly in this effort, because I’m already seeing something too juicy to pass up. As backward Dead Jack is asking if Wendy was the one who put thoughts of murder into Danny’s head, forward Q Wendy is overlaying with the red doors (in the backwards Q-verse) behind which Danny is hiding in the steel pantry, while Jack stalks to kill Hallorann. Jack has passed these doors because he doesn’t realize Danny’s there (because Jack’s no shiner), but Wendy will pass through these doors to escape Grady ghost, which is what Danny knows his father is well on his way to becoming thanks to the events of this scene.
- Also, Horse and Train is passing over father and son here, which features a sort of nihilistic race of collision. A train race?
- Meanwhile Danny’s shirt is probably alluding to a Mickey Mouse short called Touchdown Mickey, which features a sprawling football game. But in the last scene (technically the next scene), he was wearing a sweater with the Apollo space mission. A rocket that achieved “touchdown” on the moon. And this conversation between father and son is happening on MONDAY in the film, a day whose name comes from “Moon Day” (dies lunae). So I doubt this connection to the space race was unintentional.
- Oh, also, it’s impossible to make out here, but the 237 ghost is seated at the ghost ball right behind where backward Dead Danny’s head is here. So it’s neat that Jack’s interrogating him about future abuses while Danny’s real abuser is right inside the boy.
- Twice-Folded: Here’s another incredible sequence, worthy of serious review. Backward Dead Jack has just finished saying “I wish we could stay here forever, and ever, and ever.” He’s paraphrasing the Grady twins without realizing it, and the mirror moment is Grady opening the door to the impossible bathroom, revealing the bloodrug hanging on the wall, which fills Danny’s head with this blood imagery, as if he’s both remembering the bloodiness of the twins, and envisioning Jack’s future kill crazy rampage. But what the Twice-Folded Shining reveals is that Danny’s overlaying with Ina Seidel’s The Wish Child. Jack has just said, “I wish” followed by the Grady quote. He’s quoting children. So is Jack The Wish Child? Seidel’s book became much more financially successful after Hitler seized power, and the two became distant friends. So perhaps Danny is seeing something of Seidel in Jack, going beyond her creative works.
- Meanwhile, growing out of Jack’s head is that clutch of books including Rumer Godden’s In This House of Brede, Winston Graham’s Angell, Pearl and Little God, and a book called Caesar (possibly by Christian Meier). Two of the books are impossible to make out, and the slim middle volume, with the white and black spine with red letters remains undeciphered (though its indecipherability only makes it seem more significant to me). Anyhow, that’s two “gods”, an “angel” and a “Caesar”. Jack would seem to have ultimate power and the ephemeral on the brain. Meanwhile, the books that overlay Danny–The Manipulator, Dr. Nyet, Tiger of the Snows, Charles Dickens, The Fourth Ghost Book, The Death Dealers, China Flight, Squaresville, King Oil, Orange Wednesday–speak to a very different frame of mind. One of favourites there is Dr. Nyet, since the majority of Doc’s dialogue here is “Yes, dad” and “No, dad”. But Danny also just left his own Orange Wednesday behind, and there’s a layer of this image that features Hallorann walking through the snows outside the Overlook (and he’s associated with tigers too), and Grady’s being a manipulator and he’s the fourth of the major ghosts we meet after the twins, Lloyd and the 237 ghost. And so on, you get the idea.
- Also, given that the bloodrug seems to exist in reference to the bloodfall, that makes a nice pairing for this Rain Race.
- On a similar note: Grady sets his drinks down right inside the Hitlerian Wish Child, while the flutes stick up into the Dickens, an author who wrote a lot about class divides and the struggles of the servant class, who Grady symbolizes in a way, here. Dickens also wrote a great deal about ghosts, including one story called The Lawyer and the Ghost, and the drinks that Grady spilled on Jack are called “advocaat” because lawyers (or “advocates”) would drink them to help sooth their throats before going to orate on the part of their employers.
- Dickens wrote another horror story called Captain Murderer, which was inspired by the folktale of Bluebeard, which is referenced several times throughout the novel The Shining, in connection with Danny’s thoughts about room 217. In that story, Captain Murderer murders his young bride after tricking her with a mirror. And here Wendy sees MURDER in a mirror…and Jack sees Grady in a mirror.
- Twice-Folded: I’ve always wondered why the doctor makes a point of starting this moment off by staring directly sideways across the room (presumably toward the spot where Danny would be laying in bed, through the several walls between them), when she starts to ask, “Did the appearance of Danny’s imaginary friend…?” to which Wendy provides the name “Tony.” And when Wendy does, the doctor rejoins her gaze to Wendy. Well, in the Twice-Folded Shining, this moment lines up (almost) perfectly with Jack’s gaze, as he inspects Grady in the mirror. I’m including the shot from the regular film (see below) so you can see what I mean about the doctor’s look. But you need to watch the film proper to see how long and oddly she holds this askance gaze.
- So, I guess Delbert is being compared to Tony here. Jack is reacting to hearing Grady describe himself as “Delbert Grady” and the doctor is searching for the name “Tony”. Jack can’t remember that this “Delbert” should be “Charles” and the doctor can’t remember the name of this alter ego she has no reason to think would actually be a unique individual inside this unremarkable little boy.
Click here to continue on to Round 2: Track Four: Tangerine Beach
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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 