Sun King – Round 2

MAIN PAGE ⎔ SECTION PAGE ⎔ SITE MAP ⎔ GLOSSARY

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

There’s a tea tin on the right side of the screen, directly beneath the three red pipes that I’ve always wondered about. There’s a strange cartoon face on it, that, once I figured out Redrum Road, started to look a lot like a caricature of one of the Beatles, or possibly some obscure Yellow Submarine art. Well, I still haven’t identified it, but I did notice a tweet from Vivian Kubrick recently where she said George Harrison visited the set, along with a photo of herself in her ghost ball attire. Could this somehow be an obscure reference to this tea tin? I’m not expecting to be confirmed, and I’m very much expecting to be denied, but it is interesting nonetheless. As you can see in the second image below, the face on the tin most resembles (if vaguely) Harrison’s cartoon, and while this isn’t Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun playing now, there are obvious connections between the songs, lyrically.
Also, look right behind Wendy’s head, to the right, at the notice that reads “chOking”. The “O” in the centre has what appears to be a clock in it, but you could interpret that as a sun (the sun was how humans first learned to tell time). So, when her head obscures the “ch”, which is the majority of the shot, you get O KING. Or clock king, or time king…or sun king. I originally thought this moment was perhaps just a nod to [Stephen] King, and perhaps it’s both, but I think that’s neat, either way.
Oh, also, the song on the movie soundtrack is Midnight, the Stars, and You. So that’s both a funny juxtaposition to Sun King, and possibly a sly allusion to the sun-moon relationship between Here Come the Sun and Because.

Jack’s languid stroll through the ghost ball is much like the languid bloodfall vision that happens under the last version (round 1) of this song (in that moment, Wendy was bringing Jack his breakfast, while here she’s doing his job for him). Also, Wendy moves from spot to spot in the boiler room with a dreamy kind of synchronicity to the guitar riffs. The last trill plays us off into Danny’s view of 237.
Also, with regard to the last image, the possible Harrison face tea tin doesn’t overlay with the possible Harrison in the movie, who is seen at the bar. Wendy leaves the view of the tea tin a few seconds before the bar appears. I’m not saying that disproves the connection, but perhaps Harrison is somewhere else in the room, and I’ve misidentified the actor in the space.
Here’s a vague thought: the boilers keep the hotel warm, and in the novel they explode and take the hotel with them. Does that mean they’re the real sun king?

On the first “Aaaaaaahhhh” Lloyd (along with the possible Harrison) appears in the frame. This also happens to be while Jack is standing between two mirrorverse mirror-doors. Also, the Kubrick daughter(s?) scroll(s) by during the entire length of this sound.
One complicated thing to say here: the Colville painting inside 237 is called Dog, Boy, and St. John River. McCartney’s home in 1969 was in an area of London called St John’s Wood. This was where the “Apple scruffs” (superfans who hung out around Abbey Road Studios and the Beatles’ homes) broke into McCartney’s home, inspiring the song She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. Unfortunately, that song never plays over a shot of this painting, and that painting doesn’t hang near the Suite 3 bathroom window, where Wendy and Danny try to escape. So, is it a connection? I don’t know. But it is interesting.

There’s a four second moment where the 237 fob hangs in the same spot on screen, as Danny has paused to call out for mom again. For three of these four seconds, the fob overlays with the gentleman at the bar who I believe resembles Harrison (the longest it overlays anyone in the room–I don’t think it even touches the 237 ghost where she sits in the crowd). Harrison wrote the second song on the album (Something) and the seventh (Here Comes the Sun), but not the third. In fact, he doesn’t have another solo credit on Abbey Road.
Is this part of how room 217 became 237? Because “1 and 1 and 1 is 3”?

“Here comes the sun king” – Happens right as Jack says “Hi Lloyd! Been away, but now I’m back.” Then Lloyd: “It’s good to see you, Mr. Torrance.” Then Jack: “It’s good to be back, Lloyd!” In the interpretation where “sun king” means a returning, resurrected deity, this “good to be back” business is rather apt. Jack wants to be one of the immortal superbuddies. As we’ll see in a minute, Jack will stand in Christ pose while Grady cleans him in the washroom.

On “sun” Lloyd puts out two dishes with olives and nuts. Olives grow best under direct sunlight, with minimal shade.

On another round of the titular refrain, on “king” we cut to mirror Danny with his Apollo sweater. Apollo, among many things, was the god of the sun and light.
And of course, the Apollo 11 rocket headed off to the moon, in the direction of the sun.
Fun fact: King Louis XIV of France, also known as the “Sun King” was sometimes portraitured in the style of Apollo, and was sometimes moved to take part in ballet, where he performed the part of Apollo (and Neptune) in Les amants magnifiques.

“Everybody’s laughing/Everybody’s happy” – Jack bounces around in his seat as he prepares to pay Lloyd. Also, this is one of our best views of one of Dorothy Oxborough’s paintings of Nakoda children. And the word Nakoda means “friend” or “ally”. And what do you do with your friends but laugh and be happy?
Another fun fact, though not so fun past a point: there is a band of Nakoda’s called the Paul Band or Paul’s Band. This band was cultured ravaged by the introduction of alcohol in 1966, almost in perfect step with the undoing of the Beatles, leading to Paul McCartney’s alcoholism. Oxborough was painting through the 50s/60s/70s, so she may have witnessed this devastation first hand.

During the entire length of the nonsense Romance (nonmance? Romsense?) passage, Jack goes through three phases of reaction to Lloyd.
In the first image below, where he’s reacting poorly to the news that his drinks are free, and while mirror Danny is being disturbingly interrupted by the…ghost ball…the phrase here is “happy heart”. Although, technically the ball is rolling away from Danny here, so perhaps he does have a happier heart for it.
The second image shows Jack saying he likes to know who’s paying for his drink, and the nonsense at this point is “for the sun”. As in, you can have this free drink…for the son. Also, the last time we saw Danny’s SWAT van and yellow/pink lorry was sitting under the TV in the kitchen where Wendy heard a newscaster say, “I know. I wanna go outside and lie in the sun. Yet to our north, and to our west, it is snowing and cold, and it’s moving (tongue pop) right here toward Colorado. Right as we speak. It’s incredible.”
The third image is Jack saying, “Anything you say, Lloyd. Anything you say.” And the nonsense is that quasi-English phrase “que canite”, meaning “cake and eat it”. You could argue that this is Jack giving in to his free drink, he’s having his cake and eating it.
It’s possible that the last words in this line (occurring over WEDNESDAY) are “carousel” or “cara sol”. If the latter, that means “dearest sun” or “face [the] sun”. Odin (for whom Wednesday is named) is not the god of the sun in Norse mythology. But Odin is the father god, and Jack is the father of Danny. He will face his son (so to speak) when they have their battle of wits in the labyrinth.