The Ultimate Guide to Call Sheets (with FREE Call Sheet Template), How to Break Down a Script (with FREE Script Breakdown Sheet), The Only Shot List Template You Need with Free Download, Managing Your Film Budget Cashflow & PO Log (Free Template), A Better Film Crew List Template Booking Sheet, Best Storyboard Softwares (with free Storyboard Templates), What is an Antagonist in a Story Definition & Examples, What is Telos: The Ultimate Guide to Understand Telos for Video Marketing, What is an Anecdote Definition, Examples, and Functions, What is a Memoir Definition, Examples in Literature & Film. And what is the meaning? The film is very different from the novel so much so that Stephen King has said he hates The Shining many times. The Shining bear is no different, and, if Rob Ager's theory is correct, could explain a much darker nature to the relationship between Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd) and his father, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson). The three remain close, and Hallorann comforts Danny over the loss of his father and teaches him to fish. I believe this prominently takes place in the scene where Jack makes Danny sit on his lap. On the way he sees the corridors filled with balloons and ribbons and discovers a huge party going on in the Gold Room. However, skeptics would say these could easily be a result of simple continuity errors. Ager cites Jack's experience in Room 237 as evidence that he's abusing his son. Supporting this theory are the way Danny/Theseus overcomes Jack/the minotaur which parallel each other to a certain degree but not explicitly. Some believe this suggests Lloyd the bartender was never a real person, and instead just a role the Overlook assigns to one of the souls it owns. With a booming siren in the background conveying the initiation of an emergency, we are in the yellow car and we come to know Danny watched something about cannibalism on T.V, and earlier Jack mentions his wife being a horror addict and shes also seen smoking with quivering fingers. Her relationship with Jack seems to be totally lacking in intimacy. We see Halloran contacting the rangers to get in touch with the hotel. In 2019, famed horror director Mike Flanagan brought the story to the big screen, starring Ewan McGregor in the titular role. Here's The Shining bear scene explained. Danny cleverly retraces back his footsteps and makes a false trail to confuse an already transfixed Jack and audience (the high pitched score literally tears you apart with anxiety and the fact that Kubrick changed the whole story in favor of a more pessimistic theme leaves you wondering about the outcome), who follows the footprints to get nowhere. Flanagan purposefully decided to leave the ghost out, despite Doctor Sleep containing many ghosts from The Shining. This is right before the fatherly love scene. When the psychiatrist asks Danny Who's Tony Wendy, stood defensively with her arms folded, quickly interjects, Tonys his imaginary friend, as if trying to gloss over the issue. One of the most memorable scenes from The Shining is the blood coming out from the elevator. The movie doesn't expressly explain the identity of the man, but in the book, Stephen King provides the answer. The Shiningmoon landing connection is the one theory that extends film and into the life and work of Stanley Kubrick in general. Talking about The Overlook, the epicenter, Ullmans room is very strange. Another important detail is that Jack doesnt wear a wedding ring at all in the film, not even when he and his family are driving to the hotel, but Wendy always wears hers. In Barry Lyndon a commoner, who marries his way into high society, systematically beats his stepson, Lord Bullingdon. The server responded with {{status_text}} (code {{status_code}}). Next: Every Shining Character Who Returns In Doctor Sleep, The Shining's Bear Man Is The Film's Biggest Mystery: Here's What It Means, Are Charles & Delbert Grady The Same Person? Its a new day, and Jack shows an increasing sense of depersonalization in a chilling conversation if you notice the details. As is explained here, there are . The dialogue of the scene is full of innuendos about abuse. Its rumbling overcome by Jacks maddening bellows, who eventually freezes to death. The ball itself is featured in another scene with Jack throwing it against a wall in the hotel lobby. There are actually several other references in the film to bears. Jack had a history of anger issues and violence, mainly against his family. The poster in question depicts a skier, despite Jack being told there is no skiing in the area. Is this implying that Jack forced his son to perform felatio in the fatherly love scene? Stanley Kubrick's iconic Stephen King adaptation is intentionally dense and even nonsensical at times. Ultimately, it's all speculative, but Ager's cogent proof unravels the mystery of the bear man all the same. comments sorted by Best Top New Controversial Q&A Add a Comment [deleted] Played with quiet confidence and wounded reservation by "Charm City Kings" star Winston, Kevin starts "We Have a Ghost . Theres no doubt that amongst Stanley Kubricks influential body of work, his 1980 horror The Shining remains his most disturbing film, with eerie atmospheric film suggesting something deeper to be running through the haunted floorboards of the Overlook hotel. Parallely, Halloran borrows a snowcat to get to the Overlook in time. Coming to Room 237 again, it was Jack who physically assaulted Danny and not the old lady, who serves as a metaphor for the disgusting act carried out by Jack on Danny, and this is exactly why it is shown through a mirror. The famously paused bear suit scene in The Shining, a horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick and released in 1980, has become one of the most iconic and memorable moments in cinematic history in . Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. Beyond being one of the most incredible and beloved horror movies ever made, it's also a project . Jack admits to having underestimated the task and promises to go to any length to finish it, and his door unseemingly gets unlocked. Were in a golden age of TV writing and development. Jack embraced Danny on the bed in the fatherly love scene, from which Danny would have also been able to see his own predicament in a mirror. Its Tuesday, and frankly speaking shits about to go down. Please contact the developer of this form processor to improve this message. Whilst a framed picture of two bears can be seen hanging above Dannys bed at the start of the film, the most obvious reference to the terrifying animals can be seen when the boy is speaking to the psychiatrist after he faints in the bathroom. Move forward, we see Wendy talking to the radio operator about the failed telephone connectivity because of the snow storm. Some details supporting the latter is that Jack leers at other women several times in the film. Here is a piece of evidence which on its own acts as virtual confirmation of this theme. It's no secret that Kubrick's take on The Shining deviated largely from Stephen King's novel in fact, Stephen King hates The Shining, somewhat notoriously but film scholar Rob Ager delved deep into what Kubrick may have been implying with The Shining bear man, that the novelization didn't clear up. Also notice his two hands placed on his crotch, almost like protecting it from something. Kubrick was responsible for such awkward structuring, mainly because he wanted to instill horror through ambience. Coming back to The Overlook, Jack then starts hacking through the main door of their quarters with an axe, while Wendy and Danny run into the bathroom. There is also Jack and Danny's conversation in the apartment suite with Danny on Jack's lap. Back in Boulder, we meet Jacks wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and his son Danny. A popular theory, and one that has gone very deep into the symbolism of The Shining, says that the film also addresses sexual abuse. In the kitchen, Halloran takes Wendy and Danny through a twisting-turning path and then opens the freezer room, shot cuts, and we see him opening the door on the wrong side contradicting the previous shot. Scene cut and we see Wendy running after hearing Jack screaming and finds him sweating out of trepidation due to a nightmare which involved him hacking his son and wife into pieces. The ghost is Delbert Grady, and the past caretaker was Charles Grady. The puzzled look on Jacks face can be interpreted as an effort to get his mind straight, and notice him using slurs every time he talks to Wendy. Wendy runs around the hotel searching for Danny, and encounters ghosts, the flooding red liquid, skeletons in a completely changed section of the hotel covered with cobwebs and torn hangings and probably the most disturbing instance in the movie, the bear man performing fellatio on a man with blazing tribal music in the background. Danny writes REDRUM with a red crayon on the door of the bathroom while Wendys sleeping and starts repeating it to wake her up. He chose each clip for thematic reasons. Before we get into The Shining fan theories, its important to acknowledge the source material. At the time, the film made modest profits and was met with lukewarm reviews ("Even the film's most startling images seem overbearing and perhaps even irrelevant," shrugged . The bear also appears when a doctor visits Danny and his mother at. She has either overlooked or deliberately ignored the abuse that has cause Dannys problems. The Shining novel, however, has a very different ending, and one that even made way for a sequel: Doctor Sleep. Jack hadnt slida single drop of liquor for the past 5 months, a vow out of guilt. The Shining is full of allegory and mystery, but none are as wild and potentially insidious as what could be lurking behind that strange man in a bear suit. Jack comes back and lies to Wendy about finding anyone there and leaves enraged when she asks him to get Danny out of here, blaming her for f*cking up his life. This is one of the film's unique scenes (along with the Grady twins) and it has received a number of interpretations. She knocks him unconscious in an act of self defense and locks him in the pantry. Decoding this puzzling moment, superfans of The Shining have long pointed to the relevance of bears throughout the film, with several references being made throughout the movie that each build to one likely explanation. The similarities are intentional. The Overlook or the hedge structure. Spiked with sexual innuendo, this conversation holds several clues to the truth behind the relationship between Danny, his father and the imagery of the bear, with many suggesting that the animal is symbolic of Jacks predatory control over his family and sexual abuse of his son. This is thought to reference the estimated 237,000 miles between the Earth and the moon, even though this number is inaccurate. The Overlooks construction in the early 1900s and the photograph of Jack in the 1920s both pose interesting clues. If you love The Shining, then theres a good chance that youre a fan of the horror genre. The bank that won't pass on rate rises unless you ring and ask: Just one of the ruses greedy lenders use to squeeze savers and pump up profits The hotel was built upon a Native American burial ground and is decorated with various works of Native American art. Even though the server responded OK, it is possible the submission was not processed. Related: IT Chapter Two's Shining Reference Hints At Stephen King's Shared Universe. Parents just don't understand. Funnily enough, director Stanley Kubrick had a couple different endings in mind for The Shining, each of them very different. The final outcome was, as we all are aware of, one of the finest horror movies of all time. Kubrick decided to direct a comparatively crowd appealing film, maybe as a result of the financially poor performance of Barry Lyndon, which by many revered critics and filmmakers is considered to be his best film. Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. What makes The Shining so special? We are given a tour of The Overlook, and in these long takes Kubrick covers every detail and clue that is crucial to the story, a prime example of his unparalleled intelligence, something that left me shell-shocked on a second watch. The Shining's Overlook Hotel itself also has a history of cyclical violence: it was built over an Indian burial ground, and by its existence is a testament to the violence of colonization. Interestingly, in the 1997 Shining miniseries, which King himself wrote, there's a brief epilogue in which a graduating Danny is visited by the ghost of Jack, beaming with pride, suggesting that Jack's spirit was fully freed when the Overlook blew up. Theres an evil side to it. Bullingdon bares a striking resemblance to Danny Torrance. Another connection is that both of these bear motifs are featured in relation to beds or bedrooms. When Jack walks from the reception to the room, the camera travels in a perpendicular fashion highlighting the angle of the room and the apparent absence of a wall behind Ullmans room. Find out which other movies made it onto our list of the best horror soundtracks, up next. Jacks manifestation as a rotten, naked old woman in the room 237 dream sequence parallels the horrific physical disgust Danny would have felt during his nightmarish ordeal. The particular scene from Summer of 42 that we see on the lobby television shows the older woman telling the young man to sit down while she makes lunch for him. Because of that, The Shining book and movie are very different entities, and details that are explained or at least easier to interpret in the novel are either not included or left very ambiguous in the film. The meaning and topics addressed in the novel are very different than those in The Shining movie Stephen King hates so much, given Kubricks many changes to the story in order to fit his vision. This truly sums up the enigmatic genius of the great Stanley Kubrick. Elsewhere in the documentary there is an emphasis on sexual behaviour from Jack. Jack takes his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), with him, but little do they know, the Overlook has some dark secrets of its own. How did these pictures get there if Wendy does all the menial chores. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. But The Shining bear man does have a disturbing and specific implication. Kubrick used a yellow car instead of a red one and used a red snowcar contrary to yellow in the novel. And another strange aspect is that there are lots of pornographic pictures of women on the billboard in the basement (see HD version of the film). The open patch on the bear mans behind in the film simply adds to the sexual emphasis. And both of them have sexual relations with a minor within their own family unit. Although King didnt oppose to that at the time, he wasnt expecting Kubrick to go as far as to change the essence of the book. Both the usage of pre-existing music and the original score composed for The Shining are standouts of the genre. One might expect that explaining The Shining could be done by reading the original novel written by Stephen King. Wendy keeps swinging the bat to keep him away, and begs him to take Danny to a doctor. However, in Kubricks adaptation, this context was missing which left many viewers questioning what they were looking at and why at that moment. There are so many doors in the movie that lead nowhere, like our ideas of the movie that according to Kubrick offer no explanation and hence raises the question : What is the maze? Watch the scene below and let us know what you think the scariest scene in The Shining is. Both Jack and Humbert are writers. The infamous bear costume scene and the quick view of Jack reading a Playgirl magazine are pointed to as evidence that Dannys abuse goes beyond physical into sexual. In an interview (via Huffington Post), Doctor Sleep director Mike Flanagan discussed why he didn't include this particular character, and his reasoning makes sense. Danny's experience in Room 237 occurs when a ball rolls into the room, and Wendy then comes to his rescue after she hears him screaming punctuated with the claim that a "crazy woman" strangled him. Those who believe in this theory point to a particular poster visible on the wall in the background as proof. 'The Shining:' Who is the Man in the Bear Costume? He doesnt want to spend any time with her, he refuses to take her for a walk after breakfast, he bars her from entering the Colorado Lounge where he hangs out and he stays up all night while she's in bed and sleeps alone in the day. The novel ends with Danny and Wendy spending the summer at a resort in Maine where Hallorann works as head chef. He was creating a parallel between Jack Torrance and the main character of Kubricks earlier film Lolita. 13 minutes into the movie when Danny wakes up in his bedroom, his head rests on a bear pillow and very surprisingly 13 minutes from the end we encounter the bear man. The Shining movie's brief moment of intimacy between the man in the bear costume and his partner has a different context behind it in King's book. This is one of the great Stanley Kubrick 's iconic Stephen King has said he hates the:. On the wall in the Shining fan theories, its important to acknowledge the material... 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