Alex and Andrea take a tour of the Overlook Hotel examining Stanley Kubrick’s seminal film, the spectre of Stephen King’s book and the complexities of family life under the American dream.
REQUIRED READING
The Shining. Dir Stanley Kubrick, 1980
EXTRA CREDIT
Kubrick Goes Gothic. A preview piece from American Film anticipating the release and impact of The Shining.
The Overlook Hotel. This comprehensive Tumblr has all your Shining-related needs covered.
The Making of The Shining. Vivian Kubrick’s candid behind-the-scenes documentary should really be required reading!
Studies in the Horror Film: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, edited by Danel Olson. Essays, artwork and interviews that deliver the goods that other books might have, ahem… overlooked.
COURSE NOTES
Intro song: Nail Ballet from Nightmare Picture Theatre, courtesy of James Zirco Fisher.
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Another great episode!!! I was really looking forward to this episode and it didn’t disappoint. On Rodney Ascher: I have seen The Nightmare and I kinda liked it. It freaked me out a bit and it’s the first time i’ve seen someone do something artistic with reenactment scenes. I haven’t seen Room 237 fearing the things you guys mentioned in this episode. I did read an interesting essay on it though
http://offscreen.com/view/room-237-documentary-and-criticism
Anyway awesome work, Alex and Andrea! Until next year
I really enjoyed that Alex and Andrea.
I think I will watch the Shinning and have this pod cast qued up.
there were details about scenes that I just cant remember.
thanks.
Hey guys–I love your podcast. Not only are you women, who are thoroughly underrepresented in the horror field, but you talk about horror in an academic/literary/thematic/modern/intelligent BUT MOSTLY interesting way!
So thank you for all that you do. I am a great fan and will continue to be.
I’ve been looking forward to having you guys do THE SHINING for a long time and I am a bit disappointed. You guys barely scratched the surface on what’s happening in this film and spent way too much airspace on stuff that barely deems mentioning, like ROOM 237.
I’d love to see you guys really dig into this. I know you have thought about it a lot and I sure as hell know there’s more there to say.
Is a SHINING revisit episode a possibility in the future?
Hi Audra,
Thanks for your kind words about the show! I’m sorry to hear you were disappointed in our Shining ep – there are certainly many directions people can take their analyses of such a huge film! Part of our mandate is to try to avoid repeating what others have said about the film, and The Shining has an awful lot of great scholarship done on it. If you’d like more, I strongly recommend picking up the Danel Olson book we kept bringing up (there’s a link in the episode description above).
As for us, we feel as though we’ve said our peace on The Shining (and we got pretty darn personal to boot) so a revising episode is pretty unlikely. Thanks again for writing in!
Thanks for the reply! I hadn’t heard of the Olsen book and ordered it right away. Can’t wait to dig in.
Loved the recap episode!
Loved this episode. The shining is by far one of my favourite movies of all time. I first saw it at a very young age switching it on at exactly the moment the women gets out of the bath. As a pubescent male this made for an exciting few brief moments. Unfortunately I was left shaken by the proceeding moments as I’m sure we all remember. That moment stuck with me for years and is truly a terrifying sequence.
I loved room 237 and found that it has just made me love the movie more. I’m excited that people have looked so in depth to formulate their ideas on what the movie is about and with each idea I’m lead to believe that Kubrick must have been an alien. Following room 237 I tinkered round in the computer and created a version of the shining played forward and back like what was done in the movie. Now obviously it can only be coincidence that so many of the scenes mirror each other but If you can see it this way I cannot recommend enough just watching it once in this manner. I felt like I was shining myself. It really was a head trip and I following this feel more even more connected to the movie. It really is in my opinion a masterpiece. I have a copy of the movie this way if your interested in watching it
Hello! I just discovered this podcast and I am loving it so far. I am a huge horror fan and also a feminist so the themes of this show is right up my alley.
I just wanted to share that I really related with Andrea (hope I got the name right, sorry if not!) and her experience with The Shinning. This movie has also been really difficult for me to stomach due to having an alcoholic abusive father.
Growing up I vividly remember that the two movies my father would watch whenever they were on TV (which was a lot) was The Dentist and The Shinning. Although I love The Shinning for other reasons, I find that I have a hard time watching it to this day.
My father so greatly resembles Jack in that film in the way he speaks and interacts with both Wendy and Danny. I feel like my father loves that film so much because he does identify with Jack’s character. Which is terrifying obviously.
Anyway, it was just really great to hear that i’m not the only one who related to this movie due to their own familial issues.
Thank you for sharing that, Jen! This was a difficult episode for me to edit because I had many feelings about putting my personal family life out there like that. I decided to leave it in case of listeners like you! Xo
How great is art that people write, talk and podcast about it decades later.