The Shining’s Absolute Dumbest Theory

Rodney Ascher’s documentary Room 237 presents audiences with an exploration of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, highlighting the many analyses and conspiracy theories fans have about the psychological horror, some convincing, others less so.

Stanley Kubrick is one the most influential filmmakers in silver screen history. A meticulous, sometimes cruel director, he truly encapsulates the concept of “every frame a painting.” He released an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining in 1980. Room 237 came out in 2012, over three decades later, proof of both the director’s staying power and the complex texture of his movies. A man with clear vision, he took King’s novel into a completely new direction so far removed from the original content that the writer was unhappy with the final result and ended up writing his own on-screen version of the book in 1997.

Kubrick movies are a thick web of careful shots and multilayered frames, making him the William Shakespeare of cinema. The famous blood elevator scene in The Shining took the special effects crew a year to perfect, per the director’s meticulousness. Like with Shakespeare, there is as much, if not more, work analyzing the creator’s content as there is the content itself. Some theories are on the outlandish end of the spectrum, like the belief by some fans that Kubrick actually directed the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Room 237 collects all theories focused on The Shining, overlaying clips of the movie with the voices of a wide range of fans and conspiracy theorists.

Does Stanley Kubrick Make A Cameo In The Shining?

Among the many hard-to-believe theories espoused in Room 237, one of the most absurd is the implication that Stanley Kubrick’s face can be seen in the sky in one of the opening shots of The Shining. Even the original propagator of the theory admits it is a difficult spot and, while some fans claim to see the director’s pursed lips and elongated nose superimposed over the left-hand side of the clouds, most can’t see it. The reason most can’t see it is because it isn’t actually there. While there is plenty of interesting trivia surrounding The Shining, both book and movie, this just doesn’t make the cut.

Directors and writers often make cameos in their work. Stephanie Meyer can be seen in a coffee shop in Twilight. Alfred Hitchcock misses his bus in North By Northwest. Kubrick himself makes an uncredited appearance in Eyes Wide Shut, sitting in a booth in the Sonata Café. While the director’s face doesn’t make an appearance in The Shining, despite fan claims that he can be seen in a window’s reflection in one scene, that doesn’t mean every theory about the movie is nonsense. Kubrick did design an impossible layout for the Overlook Hotel; camera angles are deliberately disorienting. The Shining, like many of Kubrick’s films, is a piece of media with major potential for analysis, the kind of movie where every re-watch highlights something new and wonderful that might have gone unnoticed before.

About The Author

Shannon Lewis
(79 Articles Published)

See also  Super Smash Bros. 64: Ranking The 10 Best Characters

Shannon Lewis is a features and news writer on Screen Rant. She has experience in editorial working as the deputy editor for Specialty Food, an online and print magazine, curating its news section and social media. She has worked as a freelance writer since 2017, writing articles, features, and profiles in a wide range of topics, from business and tech to pop culture and media. Previously, she has also worked as a ghost writer for a fiction manuscript, and co-founded arts-and-literature magazine, Octarine.

Hailing from Queretaro, Mexico, she is a graduate of the University of East Anglia’s English Literature with Creative Writing program. An avid reader and fan of writing, she leverages her love of literature to dissect movies in her favorite genres, including horror, rom-coms, and superhero movies. Her focus is on the cross-section between story, cultural background, and character development. When she isn’t busy reading everything ever published under the mantle of Image Comics, you might find her writing fiction, rock climbing, or putting together a horror anthology with friends.

More From Shannon Lewis