The Shining & The American Condition

September 17th 2002
There are probably three typical reactions to Stanley Kubrick's 1980 fling with modern horror, The Shining. Variously, it's considered a cinematically interesting and suspenseful film or it's "cheesy" and "overdone;" those who dig a little deeper discern our bloody history as the subtext permeating almost the entire narrative. All have their partisans and two of the camps enjoy defensible ramparts.

The notion of this writer is that Kubrick was casting his tried and true "man's inhumanity to man" net a bit wider than previous critics have posited. As Bill Blakemore pointed out in a review for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1987, The Shining does obliquely as well as explicitly reference the extermination of Native Americans after the settlers arrived. Moreover, the character Halloran unambiguously figures as a metaphor for the horrors suffered by African-Americans.

However, Kubrick can also be construed as representing, however improbably at first glance, the protagonist Jack Torrance as something of a victim. Along this line of interpretation, Torrance represents the extremes to which the "little man," so brilliantly and derisively dissected by Wilhelm Reich in Listen, Little Man, will go, personally and historically. The "little man" is either incapable of or unwilling to comprehend that he is being manipulated by the "powers that be." He is also the one unable to resist their lures and entreaties, from pursuing ends clearly at variance with his own interests, all the way to committing atrocities against innocents. Invariably, the "little man" is doomed to pay the Piper for doing his manufactured "duty," while destroying that which should be most dear to him, the lives of those he loves as well as his own.

The costs of being a proxy for the designs of a morally bankrupt elite are, in the film as in life, steep. They include, in descending order of frequency, self-deception, self-abnegation, mental anguish, insanity, and ultimately, the inflicting or suffering of a meaningless death. This is the singularly brilliant aspect of the film: Kubrick was able to distill the abstraction of America's willfully forgotten atrocities into a modern familial setting and doing it all the while in the frequently vapid context of a "horror movie."

Let's look first at the extent to which Torrance is the very embodiment of the personality type sketched out by Herr Reich. A former high school teacher in his mid 40's Torrance is taking his last stab at the creative life. His desire to write is the only thing that will allow him to transcend his otherwise conventional and boring life. While he recognizes his own shortcomings, he very acutely senses their ambient reinforcement by his wife and, less so, his child. Together, Wendy and Danny are constant reminders that he is a shaky breadwinner, hardly a model husband as a recovering alcoholic, and what the child doctor at the start of the film would call a child abuser. Wendy reinforces this awareness by being an (understandably) extra possessive mother, always holding Danny close in a plainly protective stance. She also embodies his awareness of his own unremarkable life by her sometimes trite conversation.

So, from very near the beginning, we find that even without the supernatural context, Jack's insecurities regarding his economic status, as well as his tenuous relationship with his wife and son, have already laid the groundwork for standard and sometimes deep middle-aged resentments. And what better characterizes the "little man" than what Nietzsche liked to call ressentiment--an unwillingness to take any responsibility for his mediocrity and the corresponding willingness to denigrate others in both the personal and societal spheres as compensation?

Personal background aside, Torrance very explicitly embodies a final key feature of Reich's personality type, the eager willingness to follow dubious "leaders," all the way off the cliff. Once at the Overlook Hotel, he is hardly the prime mover in any of his actions, rather he is a conduit for the agenda of the hotel, as expressed ultimately by its historically sinister clientele and owners. This comes about through being intoxicated, as we all are to one degree or another, by the gradual exposure to and eventual integration into a milieu made up of "all the best people," as the officious manager Ullman specifies during the tour. In fact, he is so taken with the ambiance that he allows himself to be goaded and led by the nose by the likes of a spectral bartender and a butler.

Rather than responding with upper class disgust more appropriate to the occasion of Grady's plying his jacket with advocat, he engages in decidedly unsophisticated bonhomie with "Jeevsy old boy." Torrance is grateful at being able to attend the "fish and goose soirée" of his dreams, a yearning to belong that the ghosts play on to the hilt.

In the second ballroom scene, this class element comes to the fore as Torrance holds out a bill to pay for his precious bourbon.

Lloyd: No charge to you Mr. Torrance.

Jack: No charge? [A person at home in this environment would regard this as an entitlement; an acknowledgement at "having arrived," lower middle class Torrance considers it, for the moment, unseemly]

Lloyd: Your money's no good here. Orders from the house.

Jack: [Skeptically] Orders from the house, aye? [As he unconvincingly puts away his wallet] Lloyd, I'm the kinda man likes to know who's buying his drinks.

Lloyd: It's not a matter that concerns you. At least, not at this point. Drink up, Mr. Torrance.

Jack: [His objection summarily dismissed, he saves face with deflecting chumminess] Anything you say Lloyd, anything you say.

Torrance is now in the bathroom with Grady, having just brazenly and rightly accused him of being the double of the previous murderous caretaker. This scene well demonstrates the integration of historical atrocities and more recent injustices.

Grady: [After a long and incredulous pause] That's strange, sir. I don't have any recollection of that at all.

Jack: [Slightly deflated] Mr. Grady, you were the caretaker here.

Grady: I'm sorry to differ with you sir, but you are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. [Now disdainfully] Did you know that your son is attempting to bring an outside party into this situation? [With undisguised contempt] Did you know that?

Jack: Who?

Grady: A nigger.

Jack: [Taken aback at the effortless use of the slur] A nigger?

Grady: A nigger cook.

Jack: How?

Grady: Your son has a very great talent. I'm not sure you are aware how great it is. But he is attempting to use that very talent, against your will.

Jack: Well, he is a very willful boy. [Possessing "very great talent" at that, according to his "better"]

Grady: A very willful boy. A very naughty boy, if, you don't mind my saying so sir.

Jack: It's his mother, she, uh, interferes.

One thing comes to mind immediately in Grady's transformation from obsequious to imperious. First, it is precipitated by Torrance breaking a cardinal rule of elite "polite company," very much in operation today. Namely, he has artlessly acknowledged "unpleasantness;" that is to say, he's pointed out a crime that they've committed. Grady's response is even, although he is seething at having to deflect the charge, which he ultimately acknowledges as true even if his "civility" does not permit him to admit it explicitly.

Another common thread emerges in both dialogues (in fact, whenever the denizens of The Overlook speak). Not only do the ghouls address Torrance with aristocratic ease and precision, but they almost always rely on euphemism to egg him on. Grady didn't hack his family up; he "corrected" them. He suggests that Wendy and Danny, not only need "a good talking to," but "perhaps, a bit more," having just discoursed on "correcting."

Finally, once Torrance has been dispatched to the supply room by Wendy's bat, Grady starts right in with "I see you can hardly have taken care of the business [emphasis in original] we discussed." This line is significant as it is not only a watchword for murder, but also the principal reason for both settlers of yore to go West and leaders and states of all eras to force all their "little people" off to war. In summing up, Grady is as explicit as he can get with the faux lament, "I fear you will have to deal with this matter in the harshest possible way. I fear that is the only thing to do."

With respect to the importance of the exigencies of "business" as a background actor in Torrance's degeneration, one need look no further than the stunning diatribe that Wendy must endure as she retreats towards the stairs with the bat. What is so fascinating about this segment is that most any utterly exasperated man could deliver almost all of it, dealing as it does with the typical problems of how to raise a child and the pressures of work.

What's more, the interpersonal, presumably more emotionally charged familial issues are not what outrage Jack the most. Rather, it is Wendy's allegedly jeopardizing his job, and thereby the respect of The Overlook hierarchy, which brings his rage to its murderous crescendo. Simply read the dialogue divorced from the context and the imagery, if possible, to see if you agree.

Jack: What are you doing down here?

Wendy: I just wanted to talk to you.

Jack: Ok, let's talk. What do you want to talk about? [Here we have the famous sarcastic male aversion to talking out perceived trivialities as well as the nuisance of having prerogatives questioned]

Wendy: I can't really remember.

Jack: You can't remember? Maybe it was about Danny? Maybe it was about him? I think we should discuss Danny. I think we should discuss what should be done with him. What should be done with him?

Wendy: I don't know.

Jack: I don't think that's true. I think you have some very definite ideas of what should be done with Danny and I'd like to know what they are.

Wendy: I think that maybe he should be taken to a doctor.

Jack: You think maybe he should be taken to a doctor? And when do you think maybe he should be taken to a doctor? [Male frustration at the female tendency to ask for something in an elliptical way]

Wendy: As soon as possible.

Jack: [mockingly] As soon as possible.

Wendy: Jack, please.

Jack: You think his health might be at stake?

Wendy: Yes

Jack: And you are concerned about him?

Wendy: Yes.

Jack: And are you concerned about me? [Manipulative self pity and competition with the child for the wife's attention]

Wendy: Of course I am.

Jack: [mocking more forcefully] Of course you are.

From here on out, Jack's ravings all demonstrate his fealty to his employers. These are the vicious ramblings of a devoted company man.

Jack: Have you ever thought about my responsibilities?

Wendy: Jack, what are you talking about?

Jack: 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 1st? 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?

[Here one is reminded of the implantation of the elite's "moral arguments" to justify their atrocities--recall that Bush advisor Grover Norquist compared the imposition of the estate tax on a "minority" of tax payers to the murder of the Jewish minority in the Holocaust.]

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?

This motif is underscored in a sequence just preceding the above, after Jack has affirmed the betrayal of his wife, not only by frenching the shapely nude cum rotting corpse in Room 237, but also his son by then claiming that he found "not a god damned thing" in said room. He attempts to placate and then belittle his wife's concerns regarding the health of their son, finally losing it when she suggests using the SnowCat to go down the Sidewinder.

Jack: [incredulously] Get him out of here?

Wendy: Yes.

Jack: It's so fucking typical of you to create a problem just when I'm ready to accomplish something. When I'm really into my work. [Here the shame of what his treasured "work" actually consists mixes with the frequent suspicion that "work" and "family" may be zero sum games.] I could really write my own ticket if we went back to Boulder now, couldn't I? Work in a car wash, shoveling out driveways, would that appeal to you? Wendy, I have let you fuck up my life to this point, but I'm not going to let you fuck this up." [Again, what dysfunction more frequently characterizes human relationships than displaced humiliation and rage at one's own perceived and real inadequacies?]

Was Kubrick trying to illustrate the historical and contemporary role of the business and hence political elites in deluding, manipulating and in some instances destroying their "little men," along with innocents, as explicitly as I've depicted it here? I haven't the slightest idea. I would simply point out the following. The final tracking shot in which we find that Torrance was photographed at the 4th of July ball in 1921 touches on an enduring theme, one clearly embraced by Kubrick in any number of his films. Namely, he forces us to confront the horrifying and enduring willingness of most people to do anything from overlooking to helping commit atrocities against one another, as always at the behest of "all the best people." And so, I'll make this claim: The Shining is by far the most artfully and ambitiously intelligent yet accessible "horror" film ever made.