I Need To Know : The Shining

The Shining

The photo of Jack at the end , does it imply that he is a ghost?

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Re: The Shining

Good question. The ending is muddled. It's left to the viewer but for sure some entity caused repeated massacres at the Overlook which was built, if I recall rightly, on a native burial ground. In Steven King's personal re-make of The Shining, which was a tremendous piece of crap, malevolent spirits possessed Jack and made him murderous. Happy Halloween.

Re: The Shining

I always took it that he was a reincarnation of the guy in the photo from 1921...though what the point of that was escapes me. It seems to serve no purpose except to add a touch of eeriness to the end, but actually it makes no sense unless it's got something to do with his being drawn back to the hotel in a later life -- but so what?

He certainly wasn't a ghost, since he'd obviously been alive for years and had a wife and child...plus the fact that he's seen frozen to death at the end. Ghosts don't get married, have kids or freeze to death. And they can't bleed, hurt or be knocked unconscious, as Jack is at various times. No, he's real.

Re: The Shining

You're right, as I said above the ending is muddled. It's probably the worst film Stanley Kubric ever made.

Re: The Shining

The book is very good, you should check it out if you haven't. It's the only Stephen King book I have read. If I remember right, in the book, Jack finds old records and newspaper cuttings about the dark past of the hotel and becomes obsessed with it. So much that the spirits of the hotel possess him. In the film with the photo at the end, it's almost as if the hotel has absorbed his soul or spirit. That's how I read it anyway.


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Re: The Shining

star-core, I would agree and also interpreted it the same way after reading the original novel. Jack has become absorbed into the living evil entity that possesses the hotel, and has now become part of its timeless history. Once he was sucked in, it's like he always existed there.

It's been years since I read the book, but I seem to recall King's description of the party Jack attends. There was a part that mentioned the guests, from all different eras in the hotel's history, appearing to coexist as a room full of superimposed images. That's what convinced me of the "absorption" theory. I wish I still had my copy of the book so I could cite the description.

To the OP: for further discussion go to the comments board for this movie. There are a lot of theories and interpretations there that make for interesting reading.

Re: The Shining

I always took it that Jack had been to the hotel before, mainly because of some of his dialogue when talking to Wendy. He says he had sensed being here before, as if knowing what was around every corner, etc. He talks about Deja vu in being there. I always took this as a past life and being spiritually connected to the hotel and him being in the photo is the final nail to prove that was true. just my opinion

Re: The Shining

I've read three of King's books including "The Shining." He's a popular writer but not a good one; his best is mediocre except for "Carrie" which was truly written in a unique style. He himself said that his book "It" was "crap", his word, not mine, and he was right. There's no good looking for logic in them, there is none. Part of the problem is the way the books are adapted to film but you know the old saying, "garbage in, garbage out."

Re: The Shining

I've read more than most. The point in many of his books is that there are 'soft places' in our world which can allow people to travel to parallel worlds or things to come through the other way. He often describes these as areas which are neglected for no obvious reason. The Overlook was built on one of these soft places, it is not the building but the location. 'The shining' is hereditary, the ghost are people who also had the shining that the Overlook 'took', when Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is taken he becomes a 'ghost' because he has 'the shining', hence remains in the hotel and his body is never found.

The film is often said to be different from the book, because in the film Jack Torrance is portrayed as a mad man, whereas in the novel he is described as a nice man driven mad and fighting the influence of the Overlook (i.e. gains control of himself only long enough for Danny to run away). Similarly in the film Wendy Torrance is portrayed as weak rather than fighting to protect her family from the Overlook. Dick Hallorann (also fighting the Overlook for self-control) doesn't die in the novel but guides the Wendy and Danny out of the house. Danny Torrance returns to the location where the Overlook was as an adult in the later novel 'Doctor Sleep'.

There was a prologue titled "Before the Play" that chronicled earlier events in the Overlook's history, as well as an epilogue titled "After the Play", due to be published later this year.
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