Mystical Maze

 

Dick Hallorann flies to Colorado once he senses or "shines" that bad things are beginning to happen at the Overlook Hotel. Dick calls his friend, Larry, who owns a gas station and auto-shop, asking to rent a Snow Cat. The telephone dialogue includes the following exchange. 

D: Hi Larry, this is Dick, Dick Hallorann.

L: Dick, how you doing? How's the weather down there?

D: I'm not in Florida, Larry, I'm calling from the Stapleton Airport.

L: What the hell you doing down there?

At first glance, there is little unusual going on here. But, maybe we notice that regardless of whether Dick is in Florida or at the Stapleton Airport in Denver, Larry refers to Dick's location as "down." "Down" is a vernacular term. It doesn't necessarily mean "south" or "below," but conveys familiarity. I seem to remember linguist John McWhorter speaking on a podcast about the word "down" as used in American Southern Black dialects, and how it denotes familiarity. But that's enough. We could also study the words "hell," and, "down." First, though Dick is in Denver, it's a long way to Durkin's garage. He says he is five hours away. Not to get sidetracked, but, we can note the number 5 which I took a bit of a deep dive into in the previous post. In the Book of Genesis, God creates animal life on the fifth day. Animal life is distinct from humanity, or, man, which is created on the 6th day. 5 is the letter "heh" or "e" in Hebrew: ה. And we can guess what follows: the association of Dick, a black man, with the idea of "animal." From a long view, we can see Africans as the more recent ethnic group afflicted by slavery. But even the Jews suffered centuries of slavery at the hands of Pharaoh (and, essentially all other ethnic groups on all continents at one time or another). 

We also have the suggestion that Dick is five hours from Durkin's garage, at which point he will be able to get the Snow Cat and ascend to the Overlook. 5, then, also symbolizes the Overlook, or, the Snow Cat, if the snow vehicle is thought of as an animal. The Overlook is Jack's lair, so, Jack-as-beast/bull becomes reinforced again by the number five. Dick's answer to Larry seems to be unconscious and natural; five is a number (like other odd numbers) used in design to stimulate the eye and to create interesting symmetries. It is also a number that is intuited naturally, supposedly because of human anatomy - the five fingers and five toes we have on each hand and foot. 

Dick has flown from Miami and is going to rent a car to get to Durkin's garage, from which point he will use the Snow Cat to drive up the snowbound road to the Overlook. This is a treacherous voyage - an odyssey of sorts - which could very well also insinuate the idea of wandering in a maze. It may be synchronistic or uncanny to suggest, as others have, that the car Dick drives is an AMC Matador. My primary source here is Idyllopus Press and IMDCb.org. I wouldn't have known, or suspected, this, had I not begun to read Kearns's (Idyllopus P.) review of Killer's Kiss (1955), Kubrick's first non-documentary feature film. Assuming the car pictured is in fact a Matador, then we have the association of Dick Hallorann with a matador, that is, one who fights and/or slays bulls. But, five hours isn't a mere estimate: it is fate itself, a sort of countdown for Dick. Now, it could also be argued that a sort of "metamorphosis" takes place after Dick arrives at Durkin's Garage. That is, Dick "becomes" an animal when he takes the Snow Cat. Also of interest is the fact that the Overlook is pictured as a mountain. Think of sacrifices, visions, and burnt offerings in the Bible - the Binding of Isaac by Abraham on Mount Moriah, Jesus Crucified on Golgotha (literally, Skull), Elijah on Mount Carmel, the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor, etc. Some of the most important events occurred on high places. Symbolically, the Overlook arguably borrows from the Judeo-Christian tradition. If Dick is transformed, then Jack also becomes a beast, or minotaur, that is, half man/half beast. 

I was compelled to read Kearns's review after observing some uncanny and unsettling symbols in the film which dovetail with nearly all of Kubrick's films. For my purposes here, I'll just note that the first title card in Killer's Kiss reads "A Minotaur Production." It almost seems too good to be true: a sort of dead giveaway to what the viewer is entering into - and I don't mean the world of Killer's Kiss, but, arguably the filmic fictional universe Kubrick spent his whole life creating. But, again, this topic is best suited for another post. Returning to the (definitely not Freudian) idea of Dick's odyssey, we can see from the shots of the runway, and from Durkin's Garage, that the weather resembles a frozen hell. 

A note on the name, "Hallorann." This nine-letter name (with the unusual double "n") is a rendition of "O'Halloran," an Irish/Gaelic surname (also with nine letters; Hallorann and O'Halloran would combine to be 9+9=18). The roots of this surname trace back to County Galway as well as County Clare in Ireland. A Wiki entry suggests the name means "stranger," or, "from across the sea," as this ancient family worked importing goods. This is an interesting choice for Dick's surname for several reasons. The prefix "Hallo-" recalls "hallow," as in the word "hallow," meaning saint, or, "hallowed," meaning something that is sacred. "Halloween" is a way of saying "All Hallows Eve," which is a Pagan-adapted Christian celebration of departed saints, martyrs, and all of the dead. From this, we have the association of Dick Hallorann with something sacred or saintly. He is, after all, murdered, or martyred (interesting that these two words are near-homophones) by Jack, or, the Overlook. And, this is a minor problem: who is the killer - Jack, or, the Overlook? Grady, I think, will shed some wisdom on this matter, which I will come back to shortly.

Another note on Dick's name as it relates to Kubrick's catalog: Redmond Barry, the grifter of "low birth," as his step-son, Lord Bullingdon, notes (again, the idea of "down"), later known as Barry Lyndon, hails from Ireland. Redmond is an outsider or "stranger" who also crosses the Irish Sea and the English Channel in his journey - O'Halloran/Hallorann would fit Redmond just as well. Philip Stone, who plays Grady, the caretaker, in The Shining, also plays Graham, who manages Barry's debts in Barry Lyndon. Graham/Grady are somewhat familiar names beginning with "G," and, Graham is something of a "caretaker" for Barry's failing estate/peerage. It may be a stretch, but it could probably be suggested that, just as Grady appears in Jack's imagination, only to become "real" once Jack looks in a mirror in the red bathroom, Graham appears in the film only when Barry seems desperate to escape from reality. The narrator tells us: 

Barry was now bound up in an inextricable toil of bills and debts, of mortgages and insurances, and all of the evils attendant upon them, and Lady Lyndon's income was hampered almost irretrievably to satisfy these claims. 

After these lines the camera cuts to a frontal shot of Graham which is emotionally neutral. From this introduction of Graham, the camera cuts to a shot of Barry, son Bryan, and a Labrador retriever fishing from a small rowboat in a pastoral river - a very English take on escapism. Like countless other shots in the film, the stillness of the scene mimics that of a painting. The scene looks dreamlike, as if taken from a Constable painting. The camera slowly zooms out to capture a complete landscape. The shot is about thirty seconds long. Most impressive probably is that the dog remains mostly still for the entirety of it, and, that there's a swan in the river in the background. Lastly, its possible that the river is the "mirror" in this scene, as a reflection of the boat can be seen in the water. This ties back somewhat to Jack (in red coat) looking into the mirror in the (red) bathroom after being confronted by Grady, the double of Graham.

In The Shining, the confusion of identities, reinforced by the presence of mirrors in the red bathroom, approaches its zenith when Grady states that Jack has "always been the caretaker." Grady says "I should know sir, I've always been here." Jack is clearly looking to the right of Grady, into the mirrors. The word "here" is problematic coming from Grady (or, more accurately, Jack's concept of Grady). It could refer to the mirror in which Jack is looking. I think, at first glance, we take it that he is referring to the Overlook. And this is fine, but, we arrive at some disturbing and complex ideas when we consider that Grady is confronting Jack. If Grady has always been "here" in the mirror image of Jack, then this is a final call to violence. Grady clearly addresses Hallorann and Danny, while Jack blames Wendy. In a sense, Grady is an image projected out from the mirror. At Jack's left, this could very well suggest the idea of an immoral, evil influence. What becomes disturbing is that this confrontation only arises when Jack looks into a mirror. In this way, Jack is his own worst enemy; his greatest evils are accomplished only when he first considers himself. This is disturbing: that the mirror arouses or reignites a homicidal persecution complex in the looker - at least, when it is Jack. Note that Wendy and Danny "see murder" in mirrors, but do not will it. 

We also have a delicate layering of facts and symbols that relate to the Jack/Overlook duality I mentioned earlier. If Jack has always been the Caretaker, is this role exclusive to the Overlook? This would mean that Jack, too, has always been here, like Grady says. And, again, if Grady in this scene is a projection (or reflection?) of Jack's imagination/will, then perhaps Jack wishes to believe that he has always been at the Overlook. Interesting also is that Grady is called Charles and Delbert in the film. Are there two Gradys? This confusion may point to the idea of family and offspring, or father/son. This parallels the Jack/Danny dynamic as well, except that Danny appears to want to escape the cycle of violence. Grady-as-Jack's-worst-self positions Jack as a sort of "captain" or "director" at the helm of the Overlook. And yet, we know Jack has had a violent past - his abstaining from alcohol while at the Overlook seems to induce psychosis, whereas, his abuse of alcohol led to a rash outburst of violence against Danny. So, Jack is violent regardless of his location. Whether or not the Overlook causes violence per se is unclear.  

Yet we have another connection: Clare Quilty, the shapeshifting villain played by Peter Sellers in Kubrick's Lolita, is a third link back to Ireland, County Clare, and the idea of a "stranger." Although Clare gives the impression of being an insider, he has multiple disguises, rendering his true identity a mystery. Also, "Quilty" is the name of a fishing village in County Clare. The word "Quilty" is taken from a Gaelic word "coillte" that means "forest" or "woods." "Quilty," of course, is related to "guilty" when it comes to Lolita. The next question is the relationship between "guilt" and "woods." I think if we look at Hallorann's first name, and remember the teddy bears of The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut, we can make some Freudian connections. 

Hallorann and Clare Quilty are two very different characters, of course. The contextual information ties the different films together, suggesting that these works all share a common language. Begin listening to dialogue in Kubrick's films, and it becomes clear that many, many times, words are chosen for their symbolic and connotative power. It is difficult to imagine researching the connections in a time before the internet - researching the films, the cast, and various contextual clues would be a task far more difficult than it is today. The ease of access to information from times near and distant may distort our reading, maybe, but, it could be said that Barry Lyndon is a very modern, relatable story equal parts coming-of-age, and family drama/tragedy. Likewise, The Shining, in a less direct way, uses contemporary familiarity to frame history, particularly, American history, but also world history. 2001 features similar universal themes - imagining the future, imagining interplanetary travel, etc., but also imagining the past, and the very distant past. 

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At first, Larry thinks Dick is calling from Miami, indicating that he thinks Dick is somewhere hot. Again, we have the word "hell," which will tie back to Miami. I mean, their NBA team is the Heat. But, Dick is in Colorado. Simply put, we have the idea of "hell freezing over" when Larry learns Dick is at the Stapleton Airport. Larry seems somewhat shocked by this information. Is Colorado the symbolic frozen hell Dick has unknowingly escaped into? I tend to think so. And, is hell a maze? It could be - it doesn't hurt that Dante's vision of hell is highly complex, gruesome, and labyrinthine. 

The Overlook itself is a "maze" inside of which Dick becomes trapped. Unlike Danny who re-traces his steps and hides from Jack within the hedge maze outside, Dick is not so lucky. Dick, then, has found the "beast" within the real maze, while Danny has evaded the beast in a symbolic maze. The best clue I have to support the idea of the hedge maze's unreality is the cut from Jack looking at the model maze in his Great Hall/writing room to an aerial shot showing Wendy and Danny walking in the middle of the maze. The camera zooms slowly, convincing us that Jack has a sort of omniscient eye (or third eye - like some kind of... beast). Also, interestingly, is that a zoom shot from an aerial view leaves a considerable amount of directional ambiguity: are we going downward, or are we going into, or through? Like the "stargate sequence" in 2001, the camera is zooming toward a fixed center point, creating a one-point perspective. It's almost a cliche except that it isn't.  

This directional or spatial ambiguity brings me back to the words "hell" and "down" which Larry uses when talking to Dick. Is hell a place we descend into, or, that we move through? Hell as imagined by Dante is somewhat labyrinthine, not unlike the strange labyrinths in the works of Kafka and Borges, whose stories Kubrick had been reading during the production of The Shining. The genius of the Overlook is that it becomes a maze, or labyrinth, almost from the instant we see it. After the Gold Room and Room 237, do we really want to know what's lurking in all of the hotel's many other rooms? 

The first image below is a fade from Wendy and Danny in the maze to Jack walking in the "Great Room" of the Overlook. There's a lot more going on in this shot I won't get to here. If Danny's three-wheel journeys aren't convincing enough, this fade surely suggests symbolic continuity between the literal maze and the Overlook. 

Jack walks over to the model maze and begins to look at it.

The subsequent shots build tension with the last shot ending with a slow zoom inward, towards the center. There are many mazes at play. First is the actual hedge maze. Second, there is a map of the maze just outside the maze. Third, there is a model of the maze - noticeably different from the map - in Jack's writing room. Fourth, there is the maze in which Jack sees Wendy and Danny walking. Clearly, the maze Jack sees is not the model maze. It also does not resemble the map of the hedge maze. But it does look realistic. Assuming it is the real maze, then obviously, Jack's vision isn't possible. Yet, there it is. The paradox of Jack's omniscience endures. 

There are some minor or major problems I will also address now, to get them out of the way. 

1. If Jack can see the maze, does Jack know where Danny is hiding when he is searching for him? It might be suggested Jack only sees the real maze when he looks at the model. But the initial cut from Jack to the aerial shot of the maze suggests Jack has omniscient abilities. 

2. Does the aerial shot represent Jack's imagination? If so, what kind of imagination does Jack have? There is nothing "imaginative" about the vision. It's impersonal and robotic - as if it were actually HAL who was looking. Films often use flashbacks or stylistically embellished cuts to suggest a character is imagining something personal. This makes it easy for the audience. Kubrick doesn't do this. The steady zoom is sort of like a crosshair - not a good sign. Wendy's red coat, some critics and viewers have noted, might resemble a drop of blood while the center of the maze appears to be the top of a pyramid - indicating sacrifice. So much is going on here it can be difficult to order the layers of symbols. 

3. If Jack knows where Danny is hiding, is Jack intent on self-destruction? If Jack won't be loved by Danny, then Jack will be feared by Danny. As Machiavellian as it sounds, we see Jack offer very polarized behaviors, either deep suspicion or deep love towards Danny. If Jack knows where Danny is hiding, then his searching is just a show, or "charade" to make sure Danny remains afraid. We can recall too that Jack's conversation with Grady hints at the idea that Jack is receiving secret and important information or intelligence about a conspiracy against him. Jack does seem guilt-ridden after his dream he confesses to Wendy about killing her and Danny and cutting them up. Or, is this a play to win himself some more time? But, maybe the guilt of killing Dick drives Jack to purge himself. I'm not convinced by this, because Jack seems unconsciously blood-drunk - he isn't speaking or thinking, but groaning and howling like a beast. 

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In other news, I was recently reading up on the former Stapleton International Airport. One of the last times I watched The Shining, I realized that Dick says "Stapleton" and not, "Denver Airport," or "Denver International," etc. This cued me in to consider the history - were there two airports, or, was Stapleton older? Both are correct. The Stapleton International Airport operated from 1929-1995, and before 1944 was called the Denver Municipal Airport. Like the current Denver International Airport, Stapleton was near the top of the list for busiest airports in the world. Due to space constraints caused by suburbanization and the growth of the flight industry, the Denver International Airport was planned in the 1980s, though the history of DIA is spotty at best. The DIA is about 17 miles northeast of Stapleton, which is about 7 miles east from Downtown Denver. DIA is about 25 miles from Downtown, which means it can be a bit of a drive to and from the city. At 52 square miles, DIA is the biggest US airport, at almost twice the size of the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport, which is a very large compound. 

Stapleton was named after Benjamin Stapleton, a man who held multiple government positions including two periods (five terms) as mayor of Denver (1923-1931, and, 1935-1947), as well as State Auditor. He helped establish the VFW after the Spanish-American War, in which he fought, and later had a hand in the creation of Red Rocks Amphitheater, Denver Civic Center, Denver Mountain Parks, and of course, the municipal airport. Stapleton was also to become a member of the Denver Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s. As the Klan helped raise funds for his mayoral campaign, Stapleton made overtures to the organization. But this unity wouldn't last: in the nineteen-teens until about 1925, the Klan had considerable influence in Colorado civics, only to dissolve after legal troubles involving local Klan elites. The western state of Colorado was overwhelmingly white and protestant, and the message of the Klan took root, specifically targeting Jews and Catholics, as traditional southern blacks were seldom found in that arid mountain state (though there are stories of "freedmen" who came to Colorado and the mountain West). The degree to which Stapleton was involved in the group is not so clear, but, it is clear that he "renounced" the group's influence after 1925. The Klan in Denver was already experiencing a decline, so it seems that Stapleton was merely playing politics. 

Stapleton was a Democrat, but this doesn't mean the Klan didn't hold sway for Republicans - Republican Senator Lawrence Phipps from Colorado benefitted from the long arm of the Klan during the same time period. There are plenty of other examples - political party was of little importance when it concerned the interests of the Klan. Which, I guess, brings us to today: Stapleton's grandson, Walker Stapleton, has been sort of pre-cancelled for trying to scrub from the records his grandfather's maybe dubious moral character. This was in 2018, when he ran unsuccessfully on the Republican bill for Governor of Colorado. Walker has also served as State Treasurer, and is a second cousin of George W. Bush. Ironically, Walker might be one of the least threatening figures on the political right.

Most politicians with known ties to the KKK, it must be noted, were southern Democrats. And, of course, Lincoln, a Midwesterner and a Republican, who is credited with enacting the Emancipation Proclamation, virtually ending (or phasing out) slavery, was rewarded with a mortal gunshot wound. The ironies remain fascinating: these liberal and progressive ideas were coming from the then "right," while restraint and caution was being exercised from the "left." Of course, then, the "right" would have been the true "left," and vice versa. At least, until we expand the notion of "white supremacy" to mean segregation, hierarchy, economic and cultural separation, "one drop" laws, etc. The South at that time, in this way, starts to appear like a vestigial remnant of the British Empire, clinging to its old hegemony. It is only ironic that places like Colorado, Washington, and Oregon are current strongholds for liberalism and progressive policy, given their historic and current high concentration of white caucasian people, exclusionary laws, and white nationalist groups. 

After the Stapleton Airport was demolished, the area was developed into the eponymously named neighborhood. After the George Floyd riots of 2020, the year of absolute, perfect hindsight, residents voted to change the name from "Stapleton" to "Central Park." A small victory, I suppose.

Progress of Flight mural

I remember hearing about the Denver International Airport conspiracy theories shortly before flying there several years ago. Numerous facts highlight the unusual nature of the airport. The footprint of the airport is vast (as stated above, 52 square miles, which, coincidentally, is the reverse of the number of miles to the city center of Denver - 25). Supposedly, five buildings were constructed - and subsequently buried - for reasons unknown, meaning there are several navigable stories underground. There is a rail system beneath the airport, as well as a light-rail connection to downtown. There are surreal, apocalyptic, revelatory paintings by Leo Tanguma, a Mayan painter, inside the airport. There are "white peaks" on the airport roof - a Masonic connection - not to mention a dedication stone which mentions Freemasonry. There is a sculpture of a blue horse with red eyes called "Blucifer" (that supposedly killed the sculptor, Luis Jimenez, while it was being constructed) visible from Pena Boulevard. Driving on 470 through an introduction to the arid plains of the Denver Basin, the white peaks - and strange horse - appear as if out of nothing. From an aerial view, there are clearly four runways that form a compass - north, south, east, and west. It also resembles a swastika, which, long before the Third Reich claimed it, was a traditional symbol of peace and harmony in myriad ancient cultures across all major continents. 

Still, after having researched the stories of DIA, Stapleton, and the Klan, I only feel a mistrust towards any speculation. I should probably also mention the story of Alan Berg, the Jewish atheist talk radio host who was murdered in cold blood in 1984 by members of David Lane's white supremacist group The Order. Berg was working at KOA, an AM talk radio station in Denver, at the time of his murder. Upon arriving home and exiting his black Volkswagen Beetle, the gunmen approached and shot him twelve times. The motivation is disturbingly simple: his killers and their leader believed that Jews were evil and needed to be eliminated. The gunmen and co-conspirators were convicted, but, surprisingly, not for homicide - much less, murder. I begin to wonder about the concepts of law, liberty, and justice, in theory and in practice. 

This incident was several years after The Shining played in theaters. The VW beetle in Stephen King's novel, and the two beetles (yellow and red) in the film, become unlikely and unintended portents of hate-driven violence. It has long been noted that Kubrick changed the color of the Torrance's VW beetle from red - as it is in the novel - to yellow. He then stages a red beetle smashed by a semi-truck on the side of the interstate during Dick's long ascent to the Overlook - possibly a subtle way of shrugging off King's authorial control. These details only frame the Berg assassination more ominously. Berg's beetle was neither red, nor yellow, but black - seemingly, the color of void, finality, death. 

All of this in mind, I would like to know whether Kubrick researched much into Colorado state history, Denver history, and the status of the Klan in America during his lifetime while working on films like The Shining.