I stand behind Christopher Hoile’s reading of the The Shining, with his read on the animistic nature of the characters and the idea of the mirror-self. In comparison, while K-Punk’s essay on Hauntology makes some good points, it also stretches a little too far, to the point of inaccuracy.
I believe K-Punk’s arguments are strongest when describing Jack’s reaction to living at the Overlook - “It’s very homey. Never been this happy, or comfortable, anywhere.” Drawing comparison to a Freudian analysis, that sort of supreme comfort, along with the feeling that one has “been there before,” can be interpreted as the maternal body. Jack feels this way, not only because there is an actual feeling of connection to the hotel (which we see at the end of the film, in the photograph); but because the hotel is actually shaping him, causing him to transform, and “birthing” him into a new being. There are hints throughout the film that Jack has been on the edge of a mental break - alcoholism, abuse, an obvious disdain for his family - but the comfort and warmth of the “homey” hotel allows that maniacal side of him to become manifest.
K-Punk’s description of the ballroom atmosphere is also spot-on - specifically his idea of music accentuating the idea of being a “winding down gramophone of memory.” The amount of reverb on the song is almost unrealistic - partially because of the size of the room, but also because it feels like the sound is just barely emanating from the past, so the sound is echo-y, ghostlike, like a remnant of what it once was. Or, as K-Punk puts it, the song indicates that “what is forgotten may also be preserved, through repression.” The song being played when Jack is being “debriefed” about what must happen (and what has already happened) is “It’s All Forgotten Now” - as K-Punk points out, that’s no coincidence.
Plus, the haunting of the hotel by the Gold Room’s party full of “a genuine American leisure class of an aggressive and ostentatious public existence” makes sense when coupled with the idea that the hotel was built on top of an Indian burial ground - so the ghosts of the past, in classic ghost story fashion, would remain to haunt the present, due to the travesties that took place on the sacred land.
My agreeable view of K-Punk’s article ends there. He extends this “party of prestigious people” idea to an intensely Freudian end that, while makes sense for this scene, would be a pretty weak central idea for the film. He states that Jack wishes to belong to this crowd so badly, that “the bartender” and “the waiter” become maternal and paternal superegos to him - to the point where Jack feels that he would “fail in his duty as a man and father if he didn’t kill his wife and child.” While I do see the connection K-Punk is making, the points made in the other articles - Holie’s, in particular - give the film a much more consistent reading, whose ideas can be attributed to the WHOLE film, and not just specific scenes (like this one).
While he does makes some points that definitely encourage further thought and analysis of The Shining, I don’t believe that the film was really made with these ideas in mind, consciously or unconsciously. Admittedly, I think this way after reading the other articles - Christopher Hoile’s being the most analytically accurate. But, I also see K-Punk’s analyses of Jack and Danny a little off.
The perfect example of this is when he states that Danny escapes Jack in the maze by “walking backwards in his father’s footsteps.” First off, that’s impossible, as Jack never ran past Danny until AFTER Danny did that - Danny retraced his own footsteps, thereby confusing his father. Even if K-Punk was talking metaphorically, as he believes that Danny will “psychically” not escape his father, the real psychic difference between the two is so great that there really is no reason to think that Danny actually will become his father someday.
K-Punk tries to back up this theory of Danny becoming his father through the argument of abuse begetting abuse, through family blood (Jack’s father passing on the “abuse genes” to Jack). This issue is explored in the book, but not so much (if at all) in Kubrick’s version - so, this argument simply can’t be made for the film.
However, K-Punk’s idea of the Overlook being a maternal force does come into play at one other point - when Danny is ejected, or “birthed,” from the hotel into the cold and harsh world of the outside, after they trap themselves in the bathroom. Shortly before this point, he had been mostly infantile and immobile, sucking his thumb and childishly yelling “redrum” over and over. Having been forced into the outside by his mother (through the tight opening of the bathroom window), he has to quickly grow up and figure out how to survive. Hoile’s article describes the scene like this, but it would also follow suit in the mind of K-Punk, based on his ideas about the Overlook.
This is where Hoile’s article gives a great example of what the film is about, and where K-Punk falls short - at this point in the film, when Jack pursues Danny in the maze, the idea of going forward perseveres over the idea of regressing. Danny is able to both live with his animistic side AND move out of his almost-infantile state (essentially, to grow up) to outwit Jack. Jack, on the other hand, is so keen on killing Danny, that he progressively becomes more and more animal-like as he trudges further into the maze. His screams of “I’m right behind you” become nothing more than growls and snarls; and when Danny’s footprints come to an end, Jack’s regressed mind doesn’t know what to do. In a way, it’s his obsession of fulfilling some sort of obligation from the “past” has regressed him.
The Shining is a film that can be read in multiple ways - Freudian, Hauntology, the idea of an animistic side to human nature, or just a complex ghost story - none of the ideas kill the debate of what it’s about. All have valid points, some more than others, reminding us of the brilliance of this film.
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