R.I.P., L.W.

Not too long ago, somewhat bored, watching The Shining (or, not watching, but, rather, trying to "see"), I happened to notice something rather surprising. Having spent the long winter months reading various theological texts in conjunction (and in their own right) with the philosophical writings of L. Wittgenstein, some of the philosopher's questions have stuck in my mind (like mold, or, no, more like a pleasant lichen). Needless to say, entering into the Kubrickian universe, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. To the contrary, Kubrick's films - The Shining in particular - deal heavily in the promulgation of powerful imagery. I only hope my findings are not ordinary and underwhelming.

Let's consider the encounter with Danny and Tony in the mirror. The dialogue happens thus:

Danny: Tony, why don't you want to go to the hotel?

Tony: I don't know.

Danny: You do to know, now, come on, tell me.

Tony: I don't want to.

Danny: Please? ...

Tony: No.

Danny: Now Tony, tell me.

This dialogue ends somewhat abruptly, followed by a montage that Danny "shines." Below is the sequence of shots (1. Danny transfixed; 2. Blood comes through elevator doors; 3. Shot of the Grady twins; 4. Blood floods room and covers camera; 5. fade to black; 6. Psychologist examining Danny's eyes [or mouth?] after he evidently passes out. 

The camera zooms in to Danny in the mirror's image speaking to "Tony," the imaginary friend who lives in Danny's mouth for the duration of the dialogue. We should draw attention to the detail that Tony lives in Danny's mouth if we want to make full use of any references to Wittgenstein. Danny's eyes grow wide with fear (or wonder) after the last line and the scene cuts to a slow-motion shot of the elevator doors being flooded with what is a blood-like substance (the script, I think, says "blood," but, whatever). It occurs to me the ingenuity of this cut when I seem to recall something Wittgenstein said about what can be shown or told. The actual line is this, from his early "logical positivist" work, Tractatus:

    4.1212 What can be shown cannot be said.

So, what? Tony shows Danny his reason for not wanting to go to the hotel. He doesn't tell Danny. Showing is not the same as telling. We can't really describe what happens when we see Danny's vision. There is far too much happening, and far too much developed in the story thus far to provide a frame of reference, besides. This is the power of what can be "shown." 

Literally, Tony disobeys Danny by showing him why he doesn't want to go to the hotel. Danny wants to be told an ostensibly simple answer, but instead, receives a complex and frightening vision. This in itself proves that "showing" and "telling" are not the same. Notably - and I love this, on more reflection - we do not see foreshadowing of later events via literal re-cutting of the same film. We don't see Jack chasing Danny, or killing Dick, etc. We see creative, abstract, symbolic imagery that never "occurs" outside of the context of Danny's mind. Arguably, we say the images are all "true," or at least, semblances of what is true. Blood is spilled, the daughters "were" killed (or, "are" killed in the context of the telling of The Shining story itself in real time), Danny is terrified, etc. Yet, we never see these images actually take place. Obviously, some of these events are past, which makes sense. This must mean that Tony is worried or upset about what has already happened. This is very interesting, and supports the theory that the Overlook is timeless, or outside of time. 

Again, consider L.W.'s observations when thinking about Danny's expression. "Danny is terrified," we might say, but, we can't be satisfied with this. It looks as if Danny has seen Satan himself, or pure evil - something he has never seen. The look is not merely "terror." At the same time, the fact that Danny's face mirrors the elevator doors is a detail too disturbing to put into words: is Danny going to be "sacrificed?" Is the blood Danny's? Is it a coincidence? Does Danny understand this? Is he still looking into the mirror? Etc. Furthermore, contrasted with the well-lit bathroom scene, in which Danny almost seems hypnotized or "seduced" (which is creepy enough), the following shot of Danny's shrieking face is worth far too many words. 

It is interesting that Tony chooses to "reveal" to Danny why he does not want to come to the hotel. I admit I've never read King's novel, so I can't comment on the degree to which this scene is faithful to the events in the novel (if at all). Regardless, Kubrick's film is a creative work in its own right. And, we must consider that, at least in the filmic version of this encounter, Danny is speaking to Tony, who, mysteriously, lives in Danny's mouth. Tony lives in Danny's mouth. When Danny speaks to Tony, though, Danny also voices Tony. Again, I haven't read the novel, but from the film alone we can imagine notions like demonic possession - a demon overtaking Danny's speech and thought. Danny's voice is Tony speaking: Tony has taken control of Danny's body. Maybe. If this were the case, then Tony's home in Danny's mouth could be significant: Tony may be conscious of all of Danny's language. He may listen to Danny's words, and thoughts, for that matter. 

Another consideration: Tony lives in Danny's mouth, yes, just as speech lives in the body. We then must ask: who is speaking? Later in the movie, it is obvious that "Tony" overtakes Danny - most memorably in the "Redrum" scene. But, then this duality is one that we've already learned is problematic for Danny, Tony having been created only after the first time Jack abused him physically. Tony is an escape - a separate entity that eventually is given power over Danny's true identity - and this is evident in his speech. 

The twins (who are arguably the "true" victims in relation to the image of the bleeding elevator) flash for a second or near-second amid the bloody-elevator, followed by a shot of Danny in agony. The shot of Danny ties back pareidolically to the elevator, but also thematically, arguably, to Dave Bowman in the space-pod in 2001. This may be a bit of a coincidence, an intertextual similarity, or, it may be, as some have argued, a thematic similarity in the hypothetical seven-part series of 20th century life on earth that was Kubrick's last seven films. The theme would be: the modern, isolated individual. But more on this later.

It is especially funny given that these stills "randomly" inserted into the psychedelic star-gate sequence were not really "random," but were functional, serving the purpose of connecting the star-gate film strips. Yet, even if it was functional, the still shot obviously creates a break in the action, and offers a sort of hyper-meditative glimpse into Dave's cosmic exile. Clearly, Kubrick intentionally repeated this method with Danny's visions in The Shining, offering shots of the twins, or of the bleeding elevator, and more, to condense (or expand) the visual narrative. It seems these stills were not functional, but were/are indeed, powerful symbolic images advancing a narrative. Danny "shines" several times, and if I'm not mistaken, each time features the same still-shot "flashes" which fragment the montage. Not to go too deep down a rabbit-hole, but, these breaks in some ways are far more powerful at asserting a character's presence than by speech/dialogue alone. In other words, the fear or agony or terror Danny feels because of his ability to "shine" is best explained by showing us what he sees. This is an incredible and maybe banal tool in filmmaking that we could never hope to possess on earth - to actually see what/how someone else sees. 

Arguably, the images Danny sees aren't ordinary images, or scenes which we would readily imagine. Hence these images strengthen the idea of the individual, before they tell us about the supernatural, or other-worldly. In other words, the individual is whoever experiences the world as it is. It happens that, where words (and images) would often fail a character like Danny, a child, Kubrick sees this separation as an opportunity to show the actuality of Danny's seemingly childish fits and moods (it follows that there are images and scenes Danny witnesses which we, the audience, do not see, and we can only imagine what he might be seeing - not that we'd want to).

To the extent that we can say Danny's cut-screen and Dave's cut-screen are similar, we should also note the differences. One theory on the difference in positioning may be that Danny's horror is real/psychological whereas Dave's horror is cosmological/technological. There's also the sense that Danny's face is what the mirror sees, what "Tony" sees, and this is why he is seen full frontal. Dave Bowman's face is contorted due to the technological shortcomings of the pod on its mission to Jupiter, or at least, I think, this, in conjunction with travel in deep-space. I think it is said that Keir Dullea actually forced his body to shake under pressure when being filmed, with no outside-agitation present. And finally, there's something different here given the nature of the source of the horror: in The Shining, we know that the "former" caretaker murdered his family with an axe and shot himself. We might form an image of this if we thought about it.

But, in 2001 we have no reference for the horrors of space travel, let alone, to a planet as distant as Jupiter. These horrors are shown to us in the final segment, just as the horrors of the Outlook Hotel are revealed in real-time throughout the film. These horrors are imaginable, cognizable, not psychedelic; Kubrick leaves the horrors of space speculative. Light, color, form, stand in place for what is un-sayable, or, un-showable. And this is fine. What is showable, here, is equated with what is indescribable. Surely unsurprising to readers of his work, Wittgenstein made many remarks on color. Consider the excerpt from On Certainty:

    126. I am not more certain of the meaning of my words than I am of certain judgments. Can I doubt   that this colour is called "blue"? (My) doubts form a system.

[I think] what L.W. is saying is that I judge the perception of "blue" things by referring to them by their name, i.e., "blue." Now, this point is not really about color, but, we could say that there is no "explaining" a sensation like "blue" beyond the fact that whatever "blue" is, it is represented by the word-name "blue." This agrees with the sensation, unless someone has eyes that see more teal than blue, or more blue than green, and then we find it curious that someone says a blue t-shirt is teal. Since color-blindness is not color anarchy, we are surprised by these minor disagreements between judgment and word-meaning. But, assuming we are not color-blind, we do not ask a person what color their eyes are as we look into them. 

Dave Bowman's experience of horror reads as a horror which is interior and abstract. The problem is that we know it isn't - for he is likely the first and last person traveling through deep space alone. But, because we know this is an unknown, something about which we can only speculate, this creates an opportunity for the filmmaker and/or audience to "imagine" this horror. That this horror is "unimaginable" or "unconscionable" is arguably plausible: we lose sense of scale with the star-gate sequence - where are we? Who are we? The strange baroque room is our "saving grace" for human intelligibility. To be continued.

The horrors of The Shining, whether it be the axe-killings, or, the allusions to the Holocaust, Native American genocide, etc., are all "of this world." They are known, they are present, or past, but they are fleshy and "ordinary." The horrors of space remain abstract, matters for which we have no reference. It is quite interesting how we, the viewer, become a surrogate of Danny, the innocent viewer or passenger, whose clairvoyance affords us the vision of "things to come." This is clear, given that Danny is a child, that he cannot really choose to be somewhere else but with his parents, etc. In a similar way, Kubrick subordinates us to be the mere viewers or witnesses of a particular apocalyptic vision. But then again, what is film worth if not viewed, not critiqued, not discussed? An exegesis of Kubrick's work is an exegesis of our world - and that is what makes our task so difficult, yet so satisfying.

Snow and mirrors

 

Wendy and Danny both make their first appearance seated at the dining table at the Torrance apartment in Boulder, Colorado. Wendy is smoking a cigarette. Stacks of books are seen to the left of screen, and a few dozen also on the shelf in the upper background. Wendy is holding a copy of J.D. Salinger's classic coming-of-age novel The Catcher in the Rye. There are a few interesting things going on here. 

First, the particular copy of the novel Wendy is holding has almost identical front and back covers. 

This symmetry or "mirror" theme ties back to the introduction shot of the mountains and lake. Later, we will see Jack looking left into a bathroom mirror on two different occasions as the shot dissolves (shown below). Later still, the "Murder/Redrum" reversal Danny sees in a literal mirror, and, Jack being "assaulted" by his reflection in the three mirrors approaching the Gold Room reinforce the mirror theme, and speak to symmetry/asymmetry. There are countless other examples I won't mention which nonetheless render this small detail somewhat interesting. 

Next, with a quick analysis of characters or letters, we find that "The Catcher In The Rye" is spelled with 18 letters. 18, as a number, also divides (mirrors) into a set of two 9s. If we combine the two 18s we get 36, which then divides into two pairs of 9. If we take (9x9) + (9x9) we get 81+81=162. 162 can also be 1+6+2=9. Or, we can take 36 and say that 3+6=9, which is interesting, as is the fact that 3x6=18. 3x6, expressed in terms of addition, is 6+6+6, which is a portent of evil, i.e., the "number of the beast."  Supposedly, the number is a cypher for the Roman dictator Nero, and is alluded to in the Book of Revelations. To make things circular, 18 can be 1+8=9. Two 18s, then, could be two 9s, which would yield... 18, or, 9x9=81, the visual reversal of 18. 18 or 81, expressed as addition problems, could give us 9 once again. So we've arrived at a point of infinite circularity in examining these arbitrary (or not) numbers. 

Now, I will note that "J.D. Salinger" also appears on front and back covers of these vintage editions. "J.D. Salinger" is 10 letters. So, 10 on front and 10 on back - these "two tens" could tie us back to Jack's comment to Lloyd the bartender about the "two twenties and two tens" in his wallet. Jack says he's afraid they would be there until next April. During the interview Ullman says the hotel's season runs from May 15 to October 30th. That's about five months. Jack's position, taking care of the hotel during the winter, would run seven months, from November to May. Yet, Jack says "five months of peace is just what I want." It seems that Jack has misunderstood Ullman. Still, if we take Jack's misunderstood idea of a five-month job and Ullman's statement about the official five-month season, we have 5 and 5. Though the 7 is absent here, it will appear in Eyes Wide Shut. Instead, we have the notion, maybe, of a 10-month year. Written as dates, the hotel operates from 05/15 through 10/30. Written as 515 and 1030, it is clear that 515 is one half of 1030. These numbers don't imply a duodecimal (numeral 12) system. 

For some trivia, we can look to none other than Christopher Clavius. The German Jesuit astronomer sat on the Vatican commission that accepted a reformed Julian calendar that ultimately became the Gregorian calendar still used today in the US, Europe, Russia, China, and much of the world. "Clavius" is the name of a crater on the moon. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the monolith is buried within the Clavius Crater, which has become the Clavius Base. It is fitting that the mysterious monolith is buried in a mysterious crater named after a proponent of the "monolithic" modern calendar. We have to wonder whether the monolith pummeled into the moon, and if that was how the Clavius crater was formed. There are a few shots of floating monoliths in the latter part of the film which seems to suggest that that monolith, or other similar monoliths, were floating in space, like alien, or, man-made asteroids. 

Going back to the Salinger novel, we have 18/10 and 18/10. This could be written 9/5 and 9/5. 9/5 is also 9-5, as in the typical American Job, 9am-5pm, five days per week. Jack used to be a teacher, but that was more a way of "making ends meet." We also have the obvious insanity of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." We discover that Danny began talking to Tony some time after Jack injured him. In the story, Jack is out drinking one night and comes home three hours late. Angered by a mess of Danny's school papers, Jack grabs Danny and ends up dislocating his shoulder. Then we learn Jack has been sober for five months. In other words, we have a "___ months later" scenario; that is, five months after Jack's sobriety and Danny's injury, the Torrances will inhabit the Overlook Hotel. This, again, is a reference to 5 months, not to mention Jack's first monologue with Lloyd when he makes a toast: "here's to five miserable months on the wagon, and all the irreparable harm that its caused me." 

Five months is an unusual unit of time. Since 6 months is one half of a year, any 5 month period will always be an irregular period of time measured against the 12-month year. At best, these periods reduce back to 5/6. But, take a period of three 5-month spans, and we have 15 months. We measure this against the closest familiar unit - 18 months, or, 1 1/2 years. 15/18 does not reduce neatly. Measured against a two-year period, we have 15/24, which similarly, is ugly and irregular. Yet the "10-month year" possibly implied in Ullman and Jack's conversation, in fact, has roots in Ancient Rome. Those extra two months tie us back to "two tens." 

It is of some interest that the number 18 also ties back to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The second part of the film is indicated by a title card that reads "Jupiter Mission: Eighteen Months Later." This comes just after we see Heywood Floyd and the other astronauts taking a look at the buried monolith. Just before the third sequence, "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite," Dave Bowman dismantles HAL's memory, only to "trigger" a pre-recorded video. It almost seems intended for Bowman's viewing alone. The speaker says that eighteen months ago the first evidence of intelligent life beyond earth was discovered. Put simply, we have another reference to a pair of 18s. 

Interestingly too, though this is better suited for a discussion of 2001, is that this pair of 18s form the beginning and end of a sequence. So, this pair of 18s is also symmetrical. Also symmetrical is the introductory "Dawn of Man" sequence. The monolith is discovered first by the hominids, then later discovered or rediscovered by Homo sapiens, or people, ostensibly tens of millions of years later, in what appears to be our near future (or recent past). The irony and tragedy is that this dual discovery occurs in the same "Dawn of Man" sequence, and forms a mirror: the monolith appears near the beginning, and again at the end. While this sequence or chapter spans maybe a hundred million years, the middle chapter runs about 63 minutes (1 hour), much of the action happening in "real time." 

There are at least two more examples of 18 in 2001, just to reiterate the strange appearance of the number. The space-ship the five astronauts occupy has a rear structure with three hexagonal booster-type pads. Also, in the space station, the lobby desk features a check-in area with 18 clearly-numbered computer-based "documentation" booths. 

Moonwatchers

 

Bill pretends to examine Milich's balding head. The pale, bluish spot may suggest to us the idea of the moon, pale and circular in the night. Bill seems to be gazing at this spot, even divining it, like a palm-reader, or a reader of crystal balls, attempting to see into the future. It could be implied that Bill is asking himself "what would be the consequences of helping Milich?" After all, Kubrick obsessives have noted that very early on, Ziegler mentions the osteopath Bill referred him to, thanking him. I think Bill says "the best in New York." So, we know Bill probably knows a trichologist, or hair specialist, but is concealing this information because of skepticism, or arrogance - both stemming from class differences. The question remains: is Bill a "moon watcher?" Moonwatcher, of course, is the name of one of the hominid leaders in "The Dawn of Man" sequence of 2001. Moonwatcher, we're led to believe, "discovers" the power of violence and destruction. 

Bill is not outwardly violent. He smacks his hands together angrily while passing by the sleazy shops. That's about it. He doesn't literally destroy anything. He's angry, but his actions do not align with true violence. But it seems Bill understands the power of money. Bill understands the power of the "bill." This is a tautology, and yet it isn't quite true: Bill arguably begins to realize his strength is little more than hubris. His weakness is what makes him moral: married, a father, a doctor, a social outsider. 

Some read Bill's decision not to help Milich as Bill condescending, or, guarding himself from the lower class. Both are basically true, which makes it incredibly ambiguous. After all, Bill has used a "foot-in-the-door" technique in order to gain entrance to the Rainbow rental shop. He creates a facade of seeking an old patient he probably knows is dead or moved away. He offers something personal in order to do something impersonal: rent a costume. Milich grants the impersonal wish, yet, when asks a personal favor of Bill, is denied. Bill wins, 2/2. Milich wins 1/2. 22 vs 12. 

Also, concerning signs, check out this goofy "Clean up after your dog" sign that appears outside Gillespie's. The human figure is crouched, appearing more like a hominid, aka, "Moonwatcher," than a real person. The hominids are like "knuckle-draggers," and the sign seems to imply that the average people of New York are basically apes who have to be told to clean up after their pets. The sign also appears above Bill's head, implying that Bill might be a little dumb, aloof, and slow. The newspaper headline "LUCKY TO BE ALIVE" might even remind us of a common phrase: "dumb luck."