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INTRO ⎔ ROOM TOTALS ⎔ F21S ⎔ CLOCK HANDS ⎔ NUMBER COMBOS
GOLD ROOM ⎔ ULLMAN’S EYES ⎔ PILLARS ⎔ OTHER ⎔ CAMERA WALK
REDRUM ROAD CROSS ANALYSIS
So there’s at least one other major set of photos that give us a pretty cool effect throughout the film. These are the two that hang behind Ullman’s head throughout the interview, and I call them “Ullman’s Eyes”.
I’m not sure if there’s meant to be a specific meaning behind the up one and the down one, but they are, so far as I can tell, the most frequent flying of any repeating photo. Each one appears 28 times throughout the film (18 times in Ullman’s office, and 10 times each in other areas). When we apply the F21 philosophy to any surface they appear on, the grand total of every appearance they make is 237.
So in the below example, the Lower Eye is the 8th photo on that pillar, and the Upper Eye is in the 14th position. So each appearance of this pillar would count for 22 points.
And noticing this has made me wonder if we’re meant to imbue these appearances with their relative F21 values. Like, since these are in the 8 and 14 positions, are we meant to think they come with “the real Gradys” and “room 237” baggage?
I think the thing these photos primarily confirm is Ullman’s desire for Jack to kill Hallorann. Like, we didn’t need the extra push, but this helps.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, my original count for these values was 246, 9 points over 237. And I’d been counting the appearances of the Eyes behind Ullman as a 1-value and a 2-value for each shot they’re in. So, since 9 points would be the same as extracting three of the Ullman’s office shots, I rewatched the interview, and I found this:
There’s three shots exactly where Kubrick either cropped the image in the editing process, or reframed the camera for the shot during filming, to crop the Eyes out. Not entirely, as you can see, but more than in any other shot. To the point where the dining tables can’t be seen.
These are the sections that begin at “Physically, it’s not a very demanding job” and end with “How about your wife and son? How do you think they’ll take to it?” So these are the sections where Ullman warns Jack about the inherent isolation of the job, and how this isolation might affect Jack and his family. Other than the Grady story, these are Ullman’s only warnings to Jack. He does say earlier that the “winters can be fantastically cruel” but this is his set-up to talking about actual functions of the job, which entail making repairs and running the boilers, intrinsic things that any caretaker would need to do. You know, I’ve wondered a lot about how typical the Jack Torrance/Charles Grady job is, and I imagine it’s not very. Not to say that there aren’t many remote jobs in the world, but looking after a massive estate like the Overlook alone with few supplies for an entire winter seems like it would be a rarity, globally. And I wonder if this is the explanation for the way Ullman’s Eyes hide during these lines. As if he’s trying to hide the fact that this kind of job is actually slightly absurd. Even during the Gold Rush, when there was a secluded outpost that grew up around a digging site, whole cities could grow around the spot, which would later be abandoned when the resources dried up. So perhaps we’re meant to subtract these Eyes in order to get our 237. I don’t think that’s so far-fetched.
If that’s the case, then the last time we see one of Ullman’s Eyes is right here, at 1:43:50, and the second it’s last seen on screen is the 6237th second of the film. Coincidence?
Click here to continue on to The Mystery of the Western Pillars
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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 