For those hording toilet paper

Room 237 (2012)

This isn’t a news flash, when I say I’m not a genius. I love horror movies, actors, and stories, so this innate desire to write about them has always existed, with the blogosphere a platform for me to do exactly that. When I say I was really excited to check out Room 237, it wasn’t an understatement. I love that really intelligent people can be so inspired by a film (and director) that several ideas (each person interviewed for the documentary talk as if what they believe is fact) about it are offered in detail. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has whole websites and blogs dedicated to it. Kubrick’s fans have analyzed every aspect of the film’s making and background behind even the smallest of details. I wrote about The Shining last year and had no plans on doing so this year, although I do plan to watch it on the 16^th. That was really one of the reasons—if not the reason—I chose to watch Room 237 Sunday night late. While I do believe Kubrick did study the location where the Overlook is set, the back history of Colorado, and detailed the massive hotel based on all the information he acquired about it, I wasn’t one of those who felt Kubrick was making statements about the genocide of Natives to take the land (although dialogue about the ancient burial ground I did feel was perhaps used for what was going on in the film); sure, he added designs and portraits and such associated with them, but I think that had a lot to do with the area of the Overlook more than anything. As far as the Holocaust, lots of luggage didn’t necessarily impress upon me any ties to the Nazis piling the properties of Jews in a hill after herding them up. Superimposing the film forwards and backwards didn’t exactly add a layer of mythos; if anything, it started to give me a headache. Deconstructing the travel path of the kid on his unicycle or showing how the layout of the Overlook seemed off when shown from blueprints compiled doesn’t add to or hinder the experience of The Shining when I watch it after Room 237. And Kubrick using The Shining as a template to vent about how damaging faking the Apollo Moon Landing was to him using calculations involving numbers found on various objects throughout the film (including the kid’s sweater) didn’t persuade me at all that the director ever had anything to do with that. We all have theories…most of us are curious and ponder what we see before us. We’re drawn to a painting, a person, and a film wanting to absorb their very essence like a sponge. I can’t say what intentions Kubrick had in The Shining, but I don’t believe Bill was anything more than Ullman’s assistant…that he is a type of mirror of Torrence never seemed all that interesting to me mainly because Bill is in it for minutes and leaves the film soon after. That a ski poster seems to indicate that the image on it is a Minotaur, the twins are “dual versions” of Wendy Torrence, or that can goods with the figure of a chief speak about something particularly profound in the relation between colonialists and the natives they killed, after a while this documentary kind of become a little exhausting because if anything opinions are scattered and focus intensely on the slightest details that draw eyes and thoughts with few of those interviewed finding common ground. And that was what stood out to me, ultimately; we all have a tendency to view a film through a particular mindset, so devoted to seeing beyond what the eyes show us that whole entire theories develop from a German typewriter or cloud in the shape of Kubrick’s face.

I did think the opening with Cruise from Eyes Wide Shut fixes his eyes on the movie poster for The Shining, with clips from the film, right next to this European theater, was a clever visual. He smiles while looking at the poster and those involved in the documentary are often including images and scenes from various movies in association with The Shining (also involving other Kubrick films to make a point about how he uses similar techniques and maybe intentionally ties them together on purpose) during talking points. I do think Room 237 is an interesting collaboration allowing voices enthusiastic and sincere about a film that is profound and important to them to speak about their passion. Admittedly, I checked out during the whole moon landing hoax, but basically this is a labor of love those involved in the documentary cared about deeply and it shows. Sadly, I believe that the missing cartoon character sticker on the kid's door and the missing chair near where Torrence was typing were nothing more than continuity errors.