THE SHINING's memory maze. Timeline Madness film analysis Rob Ager Collative Learning

Exploration of how The Shining's timeline messes with us, adding to the film's sense of unease.
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[collativelearning]

A few decent corrections and additions have come in folks, thanks. I like the one about the time stamp shifts going from long intervals down to short intervals (from months to hours) as being like a countdown to doom getting faster and faster.

Regarding the issue of seasonal change in the rockies, those of you who say I've never lived in the rockies ... not quite. When I was a kid I lived in Alberta, Canada for five years, so experienced five Canadian winters, and went to the rockies a lot. I do recall the shift to winter happening a lot quicker in Canada than in UK, but I don't recall THAT amount of snowfall occurring so quickly. Though we were out in the prairies. I didn't witness the seasonal change in the rockies directly.

[sammylong]

I never get tired of listening to you talk about this movie, Rob.

[donaldwilson]

Indeed - time slows down until all we're left with is a photograph ("frozen" time).

[HUMFREX]

As someone who lives in Colorado and about 45 minutes from the Stanley hotel, I can promise you that the weather and landscape can change that drastically in less than 9 days.

[Anthony-joup]

I like you Rob. You’re the best goddamn analyst from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine.

[Somethirdthing]

This channel has totally opened my eyes on how to interpret film... As a fellow artist (musician), I only know of a handful who dive this deep into their respective discipline... Kudos!

[werquantum]

I’ve concluded that these analyses are better than the film itself.

[clearcutter]

Perhaps the intent with the weekday captions was to make it feel like the days were bleeding together for Jack, with nothing different happening in his environment to distinguish one day from another.

[DarrenJSeeley]

Speaking of mazes...ever notice that the maze appears hidden and/or absent from the aerial footage of the hotel?

[julbro]

And Kubrik really compresses time when in the bathroom scene, Grady suddenly switches from polite, affable, deferential serving man to stern, domineering, intimidating bossy hard-ass. The effect is astounding.

[tourbillon]

Incontinuities like this is Kubrick's take on subliminal perception. Compared to his three earlier films, The Shining is seemingly a blunt instrument. So he took his time to puzzle the audience with irregularities of all sorts. An old chessplayer gets a kick of doing this. - Thanks for the example!

[shaggycan]

I'm a simple man: Rob posts a video on The Shining, I click.

[JB-fyzq]

Another piece of detail: the jazz song that plays when Jack enters the ballroom is called "Midnight, the Stars and You". In its lyrics, several lines begin with "Midnight...". Among all the light jazz songs from this era, Kubrick specifically chose the one that referenced a specific time.

[brockobamagh]

"I read somewhere that if you think you're going over the edge, the first thing you lose is your sense of time; with your eyes closed you can't tell five seconds from fifty."
- Frank Murphy, BlueThunder

[aalex]

I feel like the time between the cards start to become closer and closer together. Like the escalation of his madness becomes more rapid

[Robalini]

One important fact here: the day the hotel closes is October 30th, the day before Halloween, while in the "All work and no play" scene Jack declares he is obligated as caretaker until May 1, the day after Walpurgis Night AKA the Witches' Sabbath. These are probably the two most important days in the occult. I think these were chosen specifically for this by Kubrick, to symbolize the descent into horror and the supernatural...

[markalliksaar]

I love your stuff, , Rob, but just a friendly comment from a meteorologist: The weather just east of the Rocky mountains can change very quickly, and very dramatically. To go from a fine summer day to a winter snowstorm can occur in a day. It's called a chinook.

[yellowjackboots]

I've always thought the inter-titles were just there to indicate how rapidly things were going down hill. The unravelling starts very broadly, then gradually closes in... seasons, months, weeks, days, morning afternoon. I think its designed to ratchet up the tension, increasing immediacy of the danger.

[srevesaragusa]

It's amazing how a movie 42 years old is still one of the most talked about in history.

[harmonicresonanceproject]

Love these deep dives - it's curious, the more I watch your analyses of Kubrick's films I am starting to see many resonances that come later in David Lynch's work. There's a lot of Twin Peaks resonance in this one, for example, that I would never have connected, and that has really surprised me. Great stuff, thanks!