The Shining

we gotta get our Sunshine Boys revival on the boards!

More like the menopause episode of All in the Family.

First half of Barry Lyndon is kind of triumphant for Redmond Barry, in that he's at his peak, but he got there by being a delusional nut with no self-awareness. He'd really have been most triumphant if he'd never gone to war and was just back home screwing his cousin.

How is there even a question of 'most-quoted' when you have the film that gave us "Heeere's Johnny!"

Calling the first half of Barry Lyndon "triumphant" is just weird.

The narrator does note that Barry has finally found himself "at the pitch of prosperity"...

because all the other quotes are also part of the culture in similar ways xpost

this one always seemed pretty big too:

Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in.

also this line has a lot of resonance with dlh's reading above: "Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is? Do you?"

Um...

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbn7vkqJSU1rv24bmo1_400.jpg

haha this entire rant is great:

"Have you ever had a SINGLE MOMENT'S THOUGHT about my responsibilities? Have you ever thought, for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities to my employers? Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the OVERLOOK Hotel until May the FIRST. Does it MATTER TO YOU AT ALL that the OWNERS have placed their COMPLETE CONFIDENCE and TRUST in me, and that I have signed a letter of agreement, a CONTRACT, in which I have accepted that RESPONSIBILITY? Do you have the SLIGHTEST IDEA, what a MORAL AND ETHICAL PRINCIPLE IS, DO YOU? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future, if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities? Has it ever occurred to you? HAS IT?"

A CON-TRACT!

psychosis of salaryman

How is there even a question of 'most-quoted' when you have the film that gave us "Heeere's Johnny!"

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, November 1, 2012 11:09 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kind of think "Heeeere's Johnny!" existed before The Shining, can't put my finger on it

im actually curious though, was it a "thing" to use it as a joke like that before The Shining?

heh but does anybody say it since the shining who is not being jack nicholson xp

yeah if "singing in the rain" was cited for ACW that one pretty clearly belongs to nicholson.

ACO i mean.

"a CON-tract!" was one of the lines i could not resist saying along w the movie last night (along w "when i am really IN to my work!!!" and the head-slap on "you're disTRACting me"). fortunately for everyone else they were asleep by then. i'm gonna have to rethink my social circle.

still never been sure if i like this movie. it sort of flips between ridiculous and alienating without ever being cathartic, which is a fine thing to aim for, i guess, but i don't know if i like the ways it got there

similar dynamic to lovecraft maybe

May a homicidal husband hack a hole in your home with a hatchet.

hmm i find it a bit cathartic because (and this may be idiosyncratic) I think we are meant to empathize (not necessarily sympathize) with Jack's situation; his anxieties, what dlh called "his capacity for violence" and grappling with guilt. I mean, he's evil (or possessed by evil) but i dont think that's actually intended to distance or de-humanize him. I think that's why people kinda get a kick out of his toying with poor Wendy, that power and bullying. and then of course he's utterly inept (as an artist and even a murdered) and incapable of really following thru on his most dastardly plans. there's some pathos there, especially in that final shot of him (a sort of literal repeat of the end of BL).

though may that doesn't speak well of me if i dont find it alienating! what's that questionable chris rock bit? "I don't agree, but i understand."

How is there even a question of 'most-quoted' when you have the film that gave us "Heeere's Johnny!"

Hans & Franz from mid-period boring SNL were widely quoted too

pales before several dozen Strangelove lines

Kubrick shoulda left Duvall alone and blamed himself for the casting. Between her personal style/iconography and the way the character's written, Wendy comes off as kind of an idiot.

well um yeah! jack's smarter than her by just enough to hate her for it. but she swings the bat true when it counts.

Morbius: I'm sure you've expanded on this elsewhere, but I gather your beef is principally with the casting?

+ he hates horror

and yeah like i said upthread i find jack super relatable, especially when he's trying to write and wendy keeps asking kind but infuriating questions. actually think one of the themes of the movie, kind of, is the danger/self-deception of not finding jack relatable.

and the moon landing obv.

of course by "trying to write" i guess i mean "trying to think of new typographic configurations for a single sentence", so

either way tho she's not helping.

right Jack's not really the "Other" in this scenario--or to be all grad-schooly his "othering" from himself sorta joins him to us.

I don't "hate" horror, but it's gotta be real good to engage me. Plus this film works best for me if you throw horror out the window.

I can't imagine re-casting would've solved all the problems I have with Kubrick's approach, ie "the first pompous haunted-house movie" as La Kael wrote.

But I had never heard the theory about Ghost Grady unlocking Jack from the storeroom that JFR floats in Room 237!

So have no stills survived from the Wendy-in-the-hospital penultimate scene that I saw 32 years ago, then was cut after opening weekend and never seen again?

Eric, you will like the Creepshow clip in Room 237.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WzkaisOKcbo/TnMFFni9PsI/AAAAAAAACWM/lWP97Fg64ho/s1600/the+shining+alternate+ending.jpg

relatable. huh. jack's an asshole whose wife and child are scared of him iirc?

morbs what happens in that scene i am curious

Hardly the first pompous haunted house movie.

Also, Kael lost interest in Kubrick one movie after he became "Kubrick," so whatev to her.

relatable. huh. jack's an asshole whose wife and child are scared of him iirc?

haha yes. look, he's unambiguously evil. but then, to quote another movie: nobody's perfect.

calling the movie 'the shining' / the whole presence of 'the shining' in the movie is sort of hilariously arbitrary, isn't it

relatable. huh. jack's an asshole whose wife and child are scared of him iirc?

you rc!

It's not hard to relate to someone who hates other people. Here of all places.

i think king is right to hate the movie, by which i don't mean i think it's a bad movie -- but it makes all the changes it makes to his text in the service of total reader/viewer hostility

as dlh put it so nicely, not finding him relatable it in its own way a sort of turn away from the provocation that the movie offers.

anyway, i've gone on about this here and on the EWS thread but i dont think Kubrick is hostile to viewers so much as doing something very formally interesting wrt the symbolic "interpretation" of his films. They lead in but dont lead out.

Adulthood is coming to the realization that other people use you, even depend on you, and don't like you, and resisting the urge to kill them over that.

Just kidding big love this movie sucks et al.

one of the Meaningless Shining Theories i find compelling even if i have no idea and no way of ever finding out if it's accurate is that that one long lingering shot of the car wreck as halloran is driving up the mountain is there as a hostile gesture to king because the wrecked car matches the description of the torrance family car in the book. if that's true then sure i don't blame king for hating this.

apart from, i mean, like in the book jack is an asshole who broke his son's arm but it's okay because man he had kind of a difficult childhood himself and if you'd just try and understand, plus i mean he's a writer -- and in the movie he's just an asshole who enjoys being an asshole -- the levels on which king was bothered by that are pretty transparent

anyway, i've gone on about this here and on the EWS thread but i dont think Kubrick is hostile to viewers so much as doing something very formally interesting wrt the symbolic "interpretation" of his films. They lead in but dont lead out.

― ryan, Thursday, 1 November 2012 21:09 (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as a narrative it leads in but doesn't lead out!! symbols, enh

ive never really related to jack. i think i always used to be lukewarm on the movie because i didn't get much of or any emotional charge out of it - no fear for wendy or the kid, no thrill @ watching jack. they felt like puppets, not people

It's not hard to relate to someone who hates other people. Here of all places.

― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Thursday, November 1, 2012 5:06 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark

i think it might be easier for me than for most people even

'relatability' isnt something i typically get out of kubrick films i guess

Your ab-STRACT-ing me, Wendy!