237 Rooms

I like a good overthinking. Many deep analyses can reveal what's actually going on, usually revealing that I had no clue at all about it. But it can go too far...

Room 237 is analysing The Shining. Several people reveal their theories about what the The Shining actually means. Like how it reflects the native American Indian genocide. Or the Jewish holocaust. Or has a Minotaur in it. Or how it shows that Stanley Kubrick helped fabricate Apollo 11 moon footage (not that we didn't go to the moon, just that we have faked footage about it) - for example a room key tag has 'ROOM No' on it, and the only words you can make from the capitalised letters are MOON and ROOM. Moron.

And that's about when I officially gave up. Unofficially, I never really gave it much of a chance. These people, self-admittedly, watched this movie over and over and over... and then they started noticing things in the backgrounds, which resonated with their own knowledge of various pieces of history. Really... how convenient...

Not to say that Kubrick didn't put some imagery in there. He was a smart guy, knew what he was doing, so could have easily seeded all sorts of things into it. Except... and even they skirt acknowledging it, even some of the things they point out is due to they were making a film on a set. And had to edit footage from different takes, with slightly different continuity. And I'm sure not even Kubrick directly decided on every single item placement, he would have left some of that to set dressing then okayed it. There's only so much time in the day to implant suggestions of sexual symbols or other airbushed self-portraits that are only visible for one frame.

[I don't know how long this film took to make, but 90%+ is film footage from other movies, and the audio track is basically these interviews... there are certainly harder films to put together.]

Usually, after watching something like this, you'd want to watch the original movie again. I was never a big fan of The Shining... but you know what? I don't want to see it again, because I'd just remember this and it would be ruined.

[END]