anyway, rank this wherever you like amongst kubrick as long as it's above a clockwork orange.
― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Thursday, 15 March 2012 23:14 (twelve years ago) link
I said on some other thread that I think Duvall's amazing in the second half. She's even more impressive when I try to imagine what it must have been like to work with Kubrick on one side and Nicholson on the other--not a lot of oxygen in the room.
― clemenza, Thursday, 15 March 2012 23:29 (twelve years ago) link
booming post, dlh
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 15 March 2012 23:54 (twelve years ago) link
and is seduced on one level by an Evil Supernatural Power, in the form of a bunch of well-dressed whites having a perpetual power-drenched cocktail party in a luxury hotel built on a conquered graveyard
oh yes this is a great observation. and actually jibes pretty neatly with something I've been pondering about Eyes Wide Shut lately...there's this almost Pynchonian "them" at work in Kubrick's movies...
― ryan, Friday, 16 March 2012 01:05 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, this is reinforced when grady-the-waiter, in the washroom, drops the n bomb in front of jack and nicholson repeats it immediately w/out pause or distaste
also, looking at imdb quotes from the movie, this kinda leaps out in light of dlh's great post:
[Past guests at the Overlook Hotel] Stuart Ullman: Four presidents, movie stars... Wendy Torrance: Royalty? Stuart Ullman: All the best people.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 16 March 2012 09:00 (twelve years ago) link
haha yeah. roommate i was watching with this time (who like me had seen it a million times) said he doesn't trust stuart ullman: "he has to know what's up, right?" (also, as danny escaped from the hedge maze, a well-timed "this kid's gonna be fucked UP".)
― the "intenterface" (difficult listening hour), Friday, 16 March 2012 11:59 (twelve years ago) link
Playgirl signifier?
http://www.theoverlookhotel.com/post/21997760134/on-closing-day-in-the-shining-when-jack-is
when grady-the-waiter, in the washroom, drops the n bomb in front of jack and nicholson repeats it immediately w/out pause or distaste
You're mad. He repeats it with a sort of confusion and/or astonishment.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 11 May 2012 04:04 (eleven years ago) link
iirc the confusion is over the event/person mentioned by grady, rather than by the use of a racial slur (i mean, if jack is really astonished that someone would use the word, why would he repeat it?)
― pat rice memorial barbecue (Ward Fowler), Friday, 11 May 2012 07:44 (eleven years ago) link
thinking on this a little more, the whole visual strategy of the shining is based around symmetry and doubling, and grady-waiter and jack-torrance are similarly twinned, so it makes sense for them to be alike' - they are both the caretaker, after all. in his brilliant bfi book on eyes wide shut, michel chion pays a lot of attention to the way that the characters mirror each others' gestures, glances, actions, words etc, and some of that is also obv in play in this scene, too.
― pat rice memorial barbecue (Ward Fowler), Friday, 11 May 2012 09:28 (eleven years ago) link
My memory is that Jack says "A n****r?" as a QUESTION, is that accurate? In a 'who/what am I dealing with here' sense.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 11 May 2012 11:26 (eleven years ago) link
yes, it's phrased as a question. i guess the ambiguity lies in whether he's questioning who exactly that n***** is and what they're up to and how they can be 'removed' from the game (tho, i admit, he has met the scatman already), or whether he's questioning and expressing distaste at grady's use of the word itself: i don't think we can really resolve it beyond that (lol ambiguous text). In that scene, I'm sure that nicholson is playing someone eager to please grady, to be on the 'same side' as the ghosts and madmen (and, by implication, creative freedom/inspiration), rather than on the side of scatman crowthers and his own family (who of course represent conformity, and the stullifying restrictions of domesticated life).
― pat rice memorial barbecue (Ward Fowler), Friday, 11 May 2012 11:47 (eleven years ago) link
fyi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vulNlhUI6m0
― piscesx, Friday, 11 May 2012 11:48 (eleven years ago) link
is that a youtube link to the scene in question, pisces (unfortunately youtube is blocked here at work)?
― pat rice memorial barbecue (Ward Fowler), Friday, 11 May 2012 11:50 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/55443/stephen-kings-doctor-sleep-now-available-pre-order-full-synopsis-revealed
― remy bean, Friday, 11 May 2012 12:32 (eleven years ago) link
xpost aye
― piscesx, Friday, 11 May 2012 13:00 (eleven years ago) link
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2ej2bAgWj1qb86b1o1_1280.jpghttp://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2ej10C1uu1qb86b1o1_1280.jpg
― Black_vegeta (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 25 June 2012 13:29 (eleven years ago) link
Scatman!
― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 25 June 2012 15:18 (eleven years ago) link
is there a blog devoted to scatman's record collection in this scene? i bet there is.
― tylerw, Monday, 25 June 2012 15:40 (eleven years ago) link
There is a brief interview of the woman who posed for the pairings on the web somewhere. Probably theoverlookhotel.com
― calstars, Tuesday, 26 June 2012 02:03 (eleven years ago) link
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9c3zhMfqg1qzj6szo1_500.jpg
― Eric H., Saturday, 1 September 2012 00:11 (eleven years ago) link
is that someone famous?
― one dis leads to another (ian), Saturday, 1 September 2012 02:30 (eleven years ago) link
whoever he is I hope someone stopped to ask him where he got his tshirt
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 1 September 2012 02:44 (eleven years ago) link
Set design in those Scatman photos reminds me of Royal Tenanbaums. I think the Shining was super influential on that movie. 70s carpet and all.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 2 September 2012 05:33 (eleven years ago) link
Crazy old lady in the bathtub still freaks me the fuck out.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 2 September 2012 05:38 (eleven years ago) link
In his entry on The Shining in his book 'Have You Seen...?', David Thomson writes:
"There is a magnificent opening where the hotel manager (Barry Nelson} tells Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) how the place needs a caretaker in winter. It's a case of one bullshitter shitting another, and it's so cozy it gives you the creeps. And there you are listening to this guff about the magnificent, comprehensively appointed hotel which is useless, alas, in winter. Why? Because it snows! DID NO ONE EVER TELL THEM ABOUT SKIING?"
Thomson didn't listen to the guff hard enough, because in fact the manager does offer an explanation about the lack of winter sports - something to do with the location of the hotel, and the impossibility of clearing the snow from the approach road (although, as we see in the film, a number of people are able to reach the hotel in the depths of winter.)
But - in the same scene, the manager says that the Grady murders happened in 1970. Now assuming that this meeting is happening 'now' (eg round about 1978 or so), what happened in the intervening years - were there other caretakers, and why did they not go mad, too?
Also - the manager tells Torrance that his main duties will be heating different parts of the hotel and carrying out minor repairs (we never see Jack doing any of the latter, in the film.} So - why hire a former teacher to do this - surely there are more suitable handymen/caretakers out there? The manager makes vague reference to a prior meeting between Torrance and "our people in Denver" - are they recruiters, the corporate owners? And would they not check up on Jack at some point, see how he's performing, holding up?
Or - is this whole meeting a dream, a hallucination? A rationalisation of Jack's disordered mind after the fact?
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 14 September 2012 22:56 (eleven years ago) link
although, as we see in the film, a number of people are able to reach the hotel in the depths of winter.)
One person, and he has to abandon the roads and get a Sno-Cat to get there.
were there other caretakers, and why did they not go mad, too?
Because neither they nor their family members Shined.
― a shark with a rippling six pack (Phil D.), Friday, 14 September 2012 22:59 (eleven years ago) link
So - why hire a former teacher to do this - surely there are more suitable handymen/caretakers out there?
Because they aren't paying them much at all and they don't need anyone to actually do much other than make sure the place doesn't fall over?
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Friday, 14 September 2012 23:03 (eleven years ago) link
did thomson ever write anything longer on this movie?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 14 September 2012 23:04 (eleven years ago) link
maybe they did, who knows? the film, wisely, doesn't give us much information about the larger context in which jack's employment occurs.
tbh, i get annoyed by readings that attribute seemingly actual narrative events, on thin evidence, to the perceptions (or rationalizations) of a disordered mind. like there always has to be a secret story behind what we see on the surface. the shining certainly invites those sorts of questions, but it doesn't seem to reward them.
― i know your nuts hurt! who's laughing? (contenderizer), Friday, 14 September 2012 23:12 (eleven years ago) link
J.D. afaik the 'Have You Seen...' entry is his longest pass on it - it's the one Kubrick he seems to like (and he LIKES IT A LOT). I've been dipping into the book recently, and really enjoying it - I think a former ilxor with a marked antipathy towards Thomson put me off in the past, but many of the entries are entertaining and provocative (i like the one on Close Up, where he suggests that the film has been made by a Kiarostami imposter, or the Stalker entry, where he writes "It may be that the Room - if you ever get there - is an infinte, if dank, enclosure in which an uncertain number of strangers are watching the works of Andrei Tarkovsky.")
Thanks for the correction, Phil - I thought possibly the cops got there in the end, too, and discover Jack's frozen body, but obviously not.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 14 September 2012 23:17 (eleven years ago) link
i've gone back and forth a lot on DT. i love his style but find his critical reasoning flawed a lot of the time -- the biographical dictionary in particular includes several entries (chaplin, capra, satyajit ray) that are as appallingly badly argued as any film writing i've ever read. but he's never boring and, as far as i can tell, almost never repeats himself -- which is astonishing considering how much he writes.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 15 September 2012 02:00 (eleven years ago) link
linked to from a klosterman article about 'Room 237' doc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMEq6IjgR04&feature=player_embedded
holy shit i believe
― Mordy, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 23:02 (eleven years ago) link
going to see this doc on saturday!
― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 October 2012 23:12 (eleven years ago) link
i think i really want to see it now plz tell me how it is
― Mordy, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 23:19 (eleven years ago) link
Aww...faked Apollo moon landing? GTFO. Wish I'd read the actual description before I wasted several minutes on that.
But the real doc sounds intersting! I just finished reading the book for the first time and I was struck by how vastly different it was from the film.
― Burgled Hams (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 17 October 2012 23:34 (eleven years ago) link
no way faked apollo moon landing makes it so much better. the scene w/ danny + the sweater is amazing
― Mordy, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 23:37 (eleven years ago) link
speaking srsly, whatever it really "means," the scene where danny stands up with the rocket on his sweater is really tremendous and the narrator is clearly a very clever reader + watcher of films (even if he also lol believes the moon landing was faked)
― Mordy, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 23:44 (eleven years ago) link
i dont really know why, but The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut really seem closely linked to me. perhaps the claustrophobia, "all the best people" (such an amazing and evocative phrase used to such chilling effect), the hallways and doors and people just saying banal things loaded with such import--"this is totally meaningful and important and you need to pay attention but nah it's just what it's pretending to be..."
Two of my favorite movies.
― ryan, Thursday, 18 October 2012 00:09 (eleven years ago) link
totally cosign re "all the best people"
― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Thursday, 18 October 2012 00:35 (eleven years ago) link
Room 237 showing in Brooklyn Friday night.
http://www.bam.org/film/2012/room-237
― crazy uncle in the attic (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:13 (eleven years ago) link
Oh! Did I forget to say that I saw this? I saw this. It was entertaining. Footage was fun, interviews were enlightening, will never look at baking soda the same way.
― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:15 (eleven years ago) link
Oh man I really want to see this but I'm not going to travel up to NY for a showing. Maybe they'll bring it to Philly?
― Mordy, Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:18 (eleven years ago) link
IFC Films is releasing (next year?), I'm sure it will play all the big cities.
― crazy uncle in the attic (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:23 (eleven years ago) link
So, not Cleveland.
Here's hoping for a future Netflix availability, unless one of y'all wants to cameraphone it for me.
― C-3PO Sharkey (Phil D.), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:24 (eleven years ago) link
I expect this to win plurality of crix awards' doc citations this year.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:28 (eleven years ago) link
i still can't understand why they don't rush broad release of small films like this. i get something like Avatar, which benefits from being scene in 3D in an IMAX screen and is expected to make a fortune on screens, you don't want to rush to release on DVD/online. but a tiny doc w/ very limited niche appeal like this they should just sell on their website ASAP. not 2 years later.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
Usually 'social significance' trumps cinemania, so I have my doubts. And the IFC page sez 2013. xp
Guessing they're avoiding the awards-bait crush and you'll see this around March.
― crazy uncle in the attic (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:35 (eleven years ago) link
Maybe not a good idea to sell what is basically a re-edited version of The Shining with narration on top of it. I imagine web critics get lots of copyright notices for things like 1-second long Back to the Future clips, let alone 30-45 full minutes of movie footage.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:36 (eleven years ago) link
The superimposed image part was probably my favorite now that I think about it.
― these albatrosses have no fear of man (La Lechera), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:41 (eleven years ago) link
Don't NY crix use NYFF showings for eligibility? A lot of other groups just follow in lockstep after that.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:46 (eleven years ago) link