Have you ever considered if there was a deeper meaning behind the song Imagine by John Lennon, the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, or even the many works of William Shakespeare? Theorists across the world have made claims and accusations about what exactly was Davinci thinking when he painted the Mona Lisa’s smile. Yet, what these works of art have in common are that they have multiple theories behind them, without one being absolute. Kubrick’s The Shinning exhibits a film that arouses many interpretations upon the basis of the film’s under the surface meaning. The Shinning is horror a film released in 1980, which follows a family where the father, Jack, tries to kill his wife, Wendy, and son Danny. …show more content…
The opening scene begins with the camera panning over the mountains with an eerie sound of a man howling with suspenseful music. Blakemore uses the evidence of this sound to warrant his claim that the man howling is an angered Native American, howling the genocide of his people. Supporting evidence for this claim lies with the fact that when Jack and his family arrive at the Overlook Hotel, the manager Stuart Ullman says, “Construction started in 1907. It was finished in 1909. The site is supposed to be located on an Indian burial ground, and I believe they actually had to repel a few Indian attacks as they were building it.” This lays the foundation for why The Shinning is more than a simple horror film. Some may argue that because it’s located on an Indian burial ground doesn’t prove enough for the film to be considered more than a horror movie. However, Blakemore argues Kubrick chooses his words carefully, often rewriting scripts to make the audience remember or connect to a scene more powerfully. Further, Blakemore notes how Kubrick adapts this dialogue into the film, as it wasn’t in Stephen King’s novel The