Room 237
(2012)
Stanley Kubrick’s meticulous, obsessive approach towards filmmaking
was renowned, so perhaps it should be no surprise to find comparable traits
reflected in a section of his worshippers. Legends about the director have
taken root (some of them with a factual basis, others bunkum), while the air of
secrecy that enshrouded his life and work has duly fostered a range of
conspiracy theories. A few of these are aired in Rodney Ascher’s documentary,
which indulges five variably coherent advocates of five variably tenuous
theories relating to just what The Shining is really all about. Beyond
Jack Nicholson turning the crazy up to 11, that is. Ascher has hit on a
fascinating subject, one that exposes our capacity to interpret any given information
wildly differently according to our disposition. But his execution, which both
underlines and undermines the theses of these devotees, leaves something to be
desired.
Part of the problem is simply one of production values. The audio
tracks of his (unseen) contributors (Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli
Kearns, John Fell Ryan and Jay Weidner) are of patchy quality, requiring the
viewer to strain to hear dialogue and occasional requiring judicial use of the
rewind button to attempt clarification. If that’s an irritation, more damaging
is Ascher’s decision to split Room 237
into nine parts, focusing on different elements of the film. In doing so he
splinters the testimony of his witnesses. It’s easy to see why he makes the
choice he does; the contrast between flatly contradictory viewpoints in
relation to a character or scene can be most effective in highlighting the subjective
eye of the beholder. But we should be able to reach this conclusion for
ourselves, without cajoling; we don’t need it daubed in fluorescent marker pen.
It does his “whacko” interviewees a disservice as they are continually ushered
off stage. While several of them clearly weren’t going to provide a joined-up
argument anyway, they should at least have been given a fair crack. Ascher
doesn’t need to wave a banner saying, “Look how nutty these guys are”; they are
more than capable of digging their own holes uninterrupted (if it’s holes they
are digging; Ryan, who appears to shut his door to cut out the sound of his
crying child, certainly comes across as having slightly skewed priorities).
Another issue is that Ascher may not have picked the best
five different theories or voices. Maybe he was limited by who wanted to go on
record, but theorising that the subtext of The
Shining concerns the Holocaust (Geoffrey Cocks) isn’t sufficiently distinct
from suggesting it is all about the genocide of Native Americans (Bill
Blakemore). As a result Ascher only fitfully commands our attention with a
truly arresting idea, one that is not only outlandish but has the energy of
discovery behind it. Too often the material verges on the rambling, while the
musical and visual accompaniment is curiously partial; Ascher overdoes the
creepy soundtrack yet enjoys mocking a viewpoint with a visual sight gag or
contradictory image (and trying to integrate Tom Cruise footage from Eyes Wide Shut is just plain cheesy).
Room 237 is, of
course, the number of the room in the Overlook Hotel where unspeakable horrors
occurred in the distant past. It’s a strong title, effectively evoking the
fascination of a film that refuses to fully reveal its secrets. Several Kubrick
pictures have this quality; top of the list is 2001: A Space Odyssey. Eyes
Wide Shut trails a distant third (theories about which somewhat make up for
the fact that, in Kubrick terms, it is slightly underwhelming).
The disposition that triggers intricate analyses of Kubrick
has much in common with the classic conspiracy theorist; a need to analyse the minutiae
of an event in obsessive detail, but often doing so in order to impress one’s
own agenda on the “facts” of the case. One of the more arresting Kubrick conspiracy
theories is that his films form an on-going exposé of the mind control and
ritualistic programmes of secret societies, as embodied by that damned mysterious
Illuminati organisation; going forward from Lolita
and culminating in the director’s premature death after he finally revealed all
with Eyes Wide Shut. No one in Room 237 alludes that The Shining is all about ritual abuse,
but it has been suggested.
The Shining
probably provokes the fascination it does in part because, in the absence of
such readings, it can easily be dismissed as an impressively mounted but
nonetheless empty-headed haunted house movie. And why on Earth would a director
with a 200+ IQ makes such a thing? It’s telling that several of the voices in
this doc preface their outpourings by admitting they didn’t really think that
much of the picture the first time they saw it (Spielberg is another fan who
only came to appreciate it slowly).
The biggest problem each proponent encounters is the attempt
to stretch vague or oblique evidence to encompass the entire film. There is
reason enough to think some of the visual references to Native American history
were intentional, and there’s the little detail that the Overlook is built on
an Indian burial ground. But, as with the Holocaust theory, anything wider
ranging feels like a big leap. And not really all that intriguing. Some half-visible
cans of Calumet baking power (with an Indian chief on the logo). Really? The
pleasure of a new theory is that it adds a whole layer to one’s appreciation of
a film, but most among this selection don’t have a grip. Citing the poster
tagline (“The wave of terror that swept
across America”) isn’t the most convincing place for Blakemore to kick off,
and he’s unable to add much substance as he goes on.
Cocks has good reason to think Kubrick had the Holocaust on his
mind when he made The Shining (the
director had been mulling over The Aryan
Papers) but the threads he draws together are even more tenuous than
Blakemore’s. The repeated number 42 (1942 was the year the Final Solution took
hold), the make of typewriter used by Jack Torrance (which changes colour), the
suitcases that dissolve into tourists, the dissolve that gives Jack’s photo a
Hitler moustache momentarily. There’s a fair sprinkling of number obsessions
here too, unsurprising since a lot of arcane theorising falls back on
numerological significance. 2x3x7=42, Cocks informs us (perhaps Kubrick was
just a big Douglas Adams fan?)
Ryan, recounting how The
Shining is about demons sexually preying on humans, might sound like his
ideas actually have something to do with, you know, an actual horror movie.
Except that, when it comes down to providing specific examples, they are perhaps
the most risible of all the observations. So the hotel manager clearly has an
erection when he welcomes Jack to his office… if you watch the scene in slow
motion and substitute his paper tray for a penis. And Kubrick had his face
airbrushed into the clouds during the opening sequence. For a split second.
Good luck finding that one.
Kearns proposes her Minotaur theory, in which the maze is
the labyrinth. Okay, I can go with that. But then she goes and spoils it by
telling us how Jack looks very bull-like. Worse still, a poster of a skier on
the wall in one room is actually an
image of the Minotaur.
Appropriately, the most extraordinary theory is the most
compelling since it grapples with one of the most popular Kubrick conspiracy
theories. Weidner relates how The Shining
is Kubrick’s confessional of his involvement in faking the Apollo 11 Moon
landing, for which 2001 was something
of a practice run. Why else would he have changed Room 217 in the novel to Room
237 (the Moon was often stated as being 237,000 miles from the Earth, you see)?
And, if you look hard, you can see that the patterns on the Overlook carpet
resemble launch pad 39a. This is also why Danny wears an Apollo 11 sweater. Not
because a friend of the costume designer happened to show up with it on set one
day, and it seemed perfect.
What I like about this one, more than just the “hidden
history” extrapolation, is that Weidner and Ascher allow a glimpse of how one
can actually re-read the entire movie. A guilt-racked Kubrick is cast as Jack
Torrance, driven mad by the deceit he has practised against his wife and the
pressures exerted on him by his (powers-that-be) bosses. Weidner rather lets
the side down by claiming “ROOM No.237”
on the keychain means “MOON ROOM”,
but this is the only theory where you’d like to hear more.
I mentioned the costume designer, and Leon Vitali, Kubrick’s
former assistant, has turned out to be something of a killjoy in the wake of Room 237’s release. He has unsportingly
debunked the farfetched theories as “total
balderdash”, claiming many of the seemingly specific references were spur
of the moment or off the cuff decisions (the sweater, the cans, the
typewriter). I don’t doubt that a fair
few examples are just as he says, and that some of the “purposeful” continuity
errors are nothing of the sort, since as he tells it Kubrick would favour the
shot over continuity concerns every time (I’m especially unconvinced by the meal
made over the disappearing Dopey door sticker). The idea of playing The Shining backwards and forwards
simultaneously and drawing conclusions from the overlapping images is something
one could do likely do with almost anything and find wild and far out meanings
within it. If one has a large bag of weed in one’s possession.
But at other times there’s the feeling that there is something to it all; the missing
cord on the television is so noticeable that, even if it was unintended, it takes on a clear and heightened meaning. All the
talk of the disturbed geography (the impossible window) within the Overlook has
a similar feeling of intentional disorientation. I’m not buying the subjective
notion that Kubrick was so bored making Barry
Lyndon, “a boring movie” that he
turned to the book Subliminal Seduction
by Wilson Brian Key for inspiration. But it does
seem like the sort of area that would fascinate the director, and that he would
take care to incorporate techniques from it (the book tells how advertisers
manipulate their audience).
My own feeling is that The
Shining is so compelling, in spite of its excesses, because of its very
intangibility. As with certain of David Lynch’s films, Kubrick adopts the logic
and language of the dreamscape; not everything makes sense, and it’s not
supposed to make sense. It’s this inability to pin it down, even though on paper
it isn’t such a complex beast, that encourages every subjective analysis under
the sun. Several of the theorists suggest similar ideas but it all gets rather
lost in the sprawl.
Ascher has made an interesting documentary but he has failed
to present it with necessary dexterity. Just the act of taking five wildly
different viewpoints makes it a discussion on obsessive interpretation, but
there are so many aspects Room 237
fails to broach; for example, when does unhealthy obsession end and academic
study begin (one of the contributors is a college professor, another is out of
work and identifies a little too strongly with Jack Torrance)? The cutting up
and filtering of the subjects’ views has the effect of insufficiently
delineating them; the quintet end up as something of a jumble. The biggest
problem however, is that the majority of these readings just aren’t strong enough
to engage. Ascher’s doc is a missed opportunity.
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