The Shining: from the playful to the ominous [was 'bear suit]
Harry Bailey
MP wrote:
"2. The man in the "bear suit" is having playful, consensual sex.
If you isolate the scene it can be interpreted as being about
"playful
consensual sex". But to believe this we'd have to ignore the rest of
the film. The Shining is not about anything consensual and whenever
the film mentions "playing" it always hits us with corpses seconds
later."
Yes, something ominous follows every incident of, reference to, or
utterance of 'playing' in The Shining, and such sudden associations
and disturbing inversions are also characteristic of such other films
as FMJ (eg . the booby-trapped toy that kills Crazy Earl) and EWS (eg.
Bill's flirting with Sally immediately interrupted by the news that
Domino is HIV-positive).
1. In their Boulder apartment when Danny tries to rationalize moving
to the Overlook, despite his clear reluctance to doing so, when he
reasons "anyway, there's hardly anybody to play with around here" and
we're then first introduced to Danny's doppleganger 'friend', Tony.
2. Danny playing darts in the hotel: he removes two darts from
dartboard, then turns to see the two Grady girls.
3. Danny on his tricycle seeing the Grady girls again. Grady girls to
Danny: "Come and play with us, Danny ... for ever and ever and ever".
Followed by a shot of the two girls lying on floor covered in blood,
with bloodstained axe on floor and walls covered with bloodstains.
4. Danny asking Jack if he can get his fire-engine from his room,
followed by Jack telling the boy that "I wish we could stay here for
ever, and ever... ever" and "I'd never do anything to hurt you,
never."
5. Danny in hotel corridor playing with toy cars and trucks when
yellow tennis ball mysteriously rolls up to him.
6. Wendy to Danny, after Jack has his nightmare about killing Wendy
and Danny, "Danny! Everything's okay... Just go play in your room for
a while. Your Dad's just got a headache. Danny - mind what I say. Go
play in your room!" followed by "Oh my God! Danny, what happened to
your neck? Danny..." and then, addressing Jack, "You did this to him,
didn't you? ... How could you? How could you?"
And, of course, Wendy's discovery of Jack's manuscript, followed by
Jack's 'bash your brains in' threats.
kelpzoidzl
> [Was 'bear suit' related thread, now ruined by parasitic trolls]
>
> MP wrote:
>
> "2. The man in the "bear suit" is having playful, consensual sex.
>
> If you isolate the scene it can be interpreted as being about
> "playful
> consensual sex". But to believe this we'd have to ignore the rest of
> the film. The Shining is not about anything consensual and whenever
> the film mentions "playing" it always hits us with corpses seconds
> later."
The scene definately has a distinct malevolence to it. It has a "your
next" feel about it. Nothing playful about it the least--other then
in how SK is playing with it as a dark happening, visual absurdity
and another sign of the ever growing threat. So as a result of any
playing in the overlook, the rude awakening keep on coming.
And the maze scene has Wendy and Danny exploring playfully, followed
by Jack's overhead vision of the maze which was pure malevolence.
All very interesting.
dc
MP
Danny wants friends to play with. The twins want to play with Danny.
Danny is told to play with his toys because his father is feeling a
bit murderous. Wendy and Danny play in the maze. Jack plays with a
tennis ball. The tennis ball beats against a pair of twins on the
wall. The ball rolls to Danny whilst he plays. Danny enters room 237.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Jack and Danny play
murderous games in the maze.
Was Danny playing when he knocked Jack's papers on the floor? Weren't
Grady's daughters playing with matches before he killed them?
At first glance it seems as though Kubrick treats "play" and "playing"
as a euphemism for murder and violence. But that's not it at all. He
uses "duty", "job" and "caretaking" as a sort of civil way of hinting
at horror. What then is "playing"? Why is Jack dull if there's no
playing?
It's almost as though it is the duty of the caretaker to dispose of
all those who seek to play. And what is playing? Playing is burning
down the hotel with matches (can I get my fire engine?). Playing is
exploring and chartering the hedgemaze. Playing is mapping the Hotel
in a Big Wheel. Playing is the unbridled creative play of the Star
Child. It's the boundless freedom of Alex.
Notice that as soon as Danny arives at the Hotel, he's already "found
wondering alone". He's off in the games room, playing, solitary and
without duty or care.
Harry Bailey
Isn't it that there are two notions of play simultaneously 'in play'.
On the one hand, the liberating one of being free from the dead hand
of symbolic authority with its crippling superegoic injunctions of
'doing one's duty', of an open exploration (whether Danny navigating
the Maze or the Overlook's corridors on his Big Wheel) of the Outside,
its beguiling joys as well as a distancing of oneself from its dreads
["It's only pictures in a book, Danny"], of productive, rhizomatic
desire. The form of play pursued by Danny. On the other hand, play as
the obscene underside of 'doing one's duty', the horrific violence and
truth of patriarchal authority and the Overlook's hegemony, where, in
Jack's case, superego and id come to coincide, that is to say, doing
his duty comes to coincide with killing his family, his 'obligations'
to his Overlook employers become synonymous with the realization of
his unconscious desires, his 'play'. It's no coincidence that he only
starts to 'shine', to encounter the Overlook's revenants and be
engulfed by them only after he has his nightmare about killing his
family, becoming increasingly a prisoner to his unconscious, to its
spectral enactment. (In the novel, Jack had also been abused as a
child by his father; now it's his turn to do the abusing, to do his
fatherly 'duty').
MP
> Isn't it that there are two notions of play simultaneously 'in play'.
> On the one hand, the liberating one of being free from the dead hand
> of symbolic authority with its crippling superegoic injunctions of
> 'doing one's duty', of an open exploration (whether Danny navigating
> the Maze or the Overlook's corridors on his Big Wheel) of the Outside,
> its beguiling joys as well as a distancing of oneself from its dreads
> ["It's only pictures in a book, Danny"], of productive, rhizomatic
> desire. The form of play pursued by Danny. On the other hand, play as
> the obscene underside of 'doing one's duty', the horrific violence and
> truth of patriarchal authority and the Overlook's hegemony, where, in
> Jack's case, superego and id come to coincide, that is to say, doing
> his duty comes to coincide with killing his family, his 'obligations'
> to his Overlook employers become synonymous with the realization of
> his unconscious desires, his 'play'. It's no coincidence that he only
> starts to 'shine', to encounter the Overlook's revenants and be
> engulfed by them only after he has his nightmare about killing his
> family, becoming increasingly a prisoner to his unconscious, to its
> spectral enactment. (In the novel, Jack had also been abused as a
> child by his father; now it's his turn to do the abusing, to do his
>
> - Show quoted text -
Yeah, you're right. Wrecking "playtime" is fun in itself.
The Hotel is tapping into Jack's unconscious, primal desires. It
unleashes him and sets him free to play. More importantly, it's Jack's
resentment and jealously of Danny (how dare you play, progressing and
exporing, whilst I remain here, stagnated and stuck in a rut) which
fuels him. The Hotel deliberately mismanges Jack's resentment. It
direct's Jack's anger away from itself and onto the nearest victims.
R. Spanditt
> [Was 'bear suit' related thread, now ruined by parasitic trolls]
>
ie. someone who contested your virtuous right to dismiss opinions that
clash with yours
> "2. The man in the "bear suit" is having playful, consensual sex.
>
> If you isolate the scene it can be interpreted as being about
> "playful
> consensual sex". But to believe this we'd have to ignore the rest of
> the film. The Shining is not about anything consensual and whenever
> the film mentions "playing" it always hits us with corpses seconds
> later."
You're exemplifying the 'deconstruct for the sake of it' clause, but
go for your life..
Harry Bailey
Oh, more Deleuzian schizoanalysis than Derridian deconstructionism ...
and it is your posts here that expose you as a specious prisoner of
postmodern vacuousness.
You are a manifestation of postmodernism at its purest: depthless,
wallowing in narcissistic contradiction, a succession of posts with
zero content, zero engagement with ideas (instead simply entailing the
banal repetition of that adolescent-existentialist mantra "that's just
your opinion") , obsessive solipsistic egoism; in short, you're a
seamless buffoon of contemporary pomo ideology.
kelpzoidzl
>
> - Show quoted text -
Where this takes my thoughts......
Innocent play of the child and diabolical play are two types of play
and there is another kind of play which is neither innocent nor truly
diabolical---the play of self absorbed stupidiy, This kind is the
most suceptible to the control by the diabolical influences.
Nero fiddling while Rome burns. "To occupy oneself with unimportant
matters and neglect priorities during a crisis." Jacks' anger at the
fiddlers, Wendy and Danny, who do not realize the importance of his
"duty" has warped into the diabolical and have become obstacles to
fulfilling his duty. His duty has turned from the caretaker duties,
to destroying his family, who are apparently subverting his job.
Social, philosophical or religious movements beginning as
compassionate attempts to stem the obvious evil, becomes the evil
itself, as it's anger over other's lack of understanding and inaction
in dealing with the spotlighted crisis, takes possession of the
revolutionary or visionary.
Anger over the self-absorbed stupidity is a stepping stone to fully
turning into the unrestrained, diabolical. Compassion and idealism,
vanishes, like Pasha Antipov turning into Strelnikov.
Anger itself is warpped up in stupidity, naivate and grudges, to
begin with, even as it expresses it's disdain for stupidity.
The Kiljoy at first seeking to convince other's to take action and
stop playing, becomes frustrated with the other's not taking their
remonstrations seriously.
"... Have you ever thought, for a single solitary moment about my
responsibilities.......!!"
If we are to extrapolate this to real world, the failure is a failure
of composure---and being unable to devise an appropriate expedient
means--thus leading to "The Turning."
The Burning House"
"The Buddha, wishing to state his meaning once more, spoke in verse
form, saying:
'Suppose there was a rich man
who had a large house.
This house was very old,
and decayed and dilapidated as well.
The halls, though lofty, were in dangerous condition
beams and rafters were slating and askew,
foundations and steps were crumbling.
Walls were cracked and gaping
and the plaster had fallen off of them.
The roof thatch was in disrepair or missing,
the tips of the eaves had dropped off.
The fences surrounding it were crooked or collapsed
and heaped rubbish was piled all around.
Some Five Hundred persons
lived in the house.
Kites, owls, hawks, eagles,
crows, magpies, doves, pigeons,
lizards, snakes, vipers, scorpions,
centipedes and millipedes,
newts and ground beetles,
weasels, raccoon dogs, mice, rats,
hordes of evil creatures
scurried this way and that.
Places that stank of excrement
overflowed in streams of filth
where dung beetles and other creatures gathered......'
'......Kumbhanda demons
crouched on clumps of earth
or leaped one or two feet
off the ground,
idling, wandering here and there,
amusing themselves according to their whims......'
'..........Their hair like tangled weeds,
cruel, baleful, ferocious,
driven by hunger and thirst,
they dashed about shrieking and howling.
The yakshas and starving spirits
and the various evil birds and beasts
hungrily pressed forward in all directions,
peering out at the windows.
Such were the perils of this house,
threats and terrors beyond measure.
This house, old and rotting,
belonged to a certain man
and that man had gone nearby
and he had not been out for long
when a fire suddenly broke out in the house.
In one moment from all four sides
the flames rose up in a mass.
Ridgepoles, beams, rafters, pillars
exploded with a roar, quivering, splitting,
broke in two and came rumbling down
as walls and partitions collapsed.......'
'.............At this time the owner of the house
was standing outside the gate
when he heard someone say,
"A while ago your various sons,
in order to play their games,
went inside the house.
They are very young and lack understanding
and will be wrapped up in their amusements."
When the rich man heard this,
he rushed in alarm into the burning house,
determined to rescue his sons
and keep them from being burned by the flames.
He urged his sons to heed him,
explaining the many dangers and perils,
the evil spirits and poisonous creatures,
the flames spreading all around,
the multitude of sufferings
that would follow one another without end,
the poisonous snakes, lizards and vipers,
as well as the many yakshas
and kumbhanda demons,
the jackals, foxes and dogs,
hawks, eagles, kites, owls,
ground beetles and similar creatures
driven and tormented by hunger and thirst,
truly things to be feared......'
At that time the rich man
thought to himself:
My sons may behave in this manner,
adding to my grief and anguish.
'In this house at present
there is not a single joy,
and yet my sons,
wrapped up in their games,
refuse to heed my instructions
and will be destroyed by the fire!'
'...........Then it occurred to him
to devise some expedient means,
and he said to his sons,
"I have many kinds
of rare and marvelous toys,
wonderful jeweled carriages,
goat-carts, deer-carts,
carts drawn by big oxen.
They are outside the gate right now
you must come out and see them!..........'
dc
R. Spanditt
>
> - Show quoted text -
blah blah i'm smart blah blah no one else is blah
get over yourself