The conversation between Jack and Grady. What else can be said?
Again, it's great how we're never quite sure if it's really happening, if Jack is imagining all of this, or somewhere in between. Someone else making this scene today would blow it at the end, and show that Jack was standing there in the bathroom by himself the whole time.
This seems to be the crux of the entire movie. It's very unsettling and uncomfortable, but so intriguing at the same time. Funny how it almost mirrors the first conversation between Jack and Lloyd at the bar: it starts out affable, with aimless chit-chat, then it takes a more serious tone once Jack downs a couple of shots, then it begins to border on violence, and becomes a blood-letting.
Almost literally here. As soon as Grady begins telling Jack about Danny's "talents", he becomes a lot more authoritative in tone. As Grady tells Jack how he dealt with the problems he was having, he goes from that to a cold-blooded murderer.
If HAL-9000 had a perfect human equivalent, it would be Delbert Grady.
"And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty", he tells Jack, "I...corrected her!". And with a little forward tip of the head, it's as if he were saying, "And you damn well know what I mean by that!". Jack chortles nervously again. Grady responds with a satisfied but chilling grin, as if to say, "And it appears you do, sir!".
If Stanley Kubrick had put an INTERMISSION title card right then and there, it wouldn't have been out of place, but that practice was unfortunately all but dead by then. (On a side note, funny enough, when The Shining was on Laserdisc format, it was cut into three sections, and this is where the second section ended).
One thing has since popped up in my mind during that scene: why did the Grady girls try to burn it down? Did they have the "shine" themselves and found out about the evils of the hotel (like Danny), and then try to destroy it? Is that why they appear to Danny, to warn him?
But as soon as the bathroom scene ends, it cuts to Jack walking across the lobby, over to Ullman's office, while the park ranger monotonously calls out over the two-way radio. Jack looks at it drunkenly, manages to get the lid off, tosses it aside, plucks one of the transmitters out of it...
And as soon as he's done that, it cuts to Hallorann sitting on a plane, going...somewhere.
And just as soon as the lady on the side turns the page of the magazine she's reading, it cuts right away to Hallorann in a car, driving in some very dark early-morning snow and ice, passing by a terrible-looking accident on the side of the road.
The place is empty. But what's this in Jack's typewriter?
Not good. Not good at all. But what's in the ream box next to the typewriter?
Pages and pages upon pages of the same sentence, over and over. Very interesting how it's in separate lines, paragraphs, stanzas, even written in inverted pyramids. What's unnerving is that it's damn near an entire ream of paper, and a ream is 500 sheets. Was Jack aware of what he was writing out, or did his mind make him think he was writing something other than what he was actually typing?
And there he is, coming in right behind Wendy, menacingly. This may not end well.
Jack begins confronting Wendy about what she's doing down there, why she's down there, becoming more enraged at her, mocking her, and generally letting loose some rather pent-up frustrations at her. Sort of like the night before, in the apartment, only worse, and much more dangerous. As he's walking toward her, she's walking backward, away from him, the whole time.
But wait! We were shorted a few scenes!
A while back, after the conversation with Grady, Wendy is spelling out plans to leave the hotel with Danny, but he's sitting up in bed, yelling out "Redrum!", and when Wendy tries to reach him and see what's wrong, Danny only answers back in Tony's voice. He seems to be in some sort of deep, traumatized state of mind, and letting Tony answer for him.
Another scene that was cut was Hallorann on the plane, asking the stewardess what time they'll be arriving in Denver (so that's where he was going!), Jack typing away in the Lounge, and then a call that Hallorann makes to Larry Durkin's garage, which seems to be the last-chance stop before the Overlook Hotel.
An interesting part of the phone-call scene is that there was a slightly different edit to it in the middle. Larry asks why Hallorann is going to the Overlook in such conditions; "Larry, just between you and me, we got a very serious problem with the people takin' care of of the place", he says on the airport's phone, "They turned out to be completely unreliable assholes. Ullman phoned me last night, and I'm supposed to go up there and find out if they have to be replaced".
Larry checks his watch and asks, "How long is it going to take you to get up here?".
In the TV edit, after Hallorann says that there are problems with the caretakers, it cuts to Larry on the phone, and we can hear Hallorann: "They turned out to be completely unreliable, and I'm supposed to go up there and find out if they have to be replaced".
Larry says, "Sorry to hear about that, Dick", and glances at his watch, "How long is it going to take you to get up here?".
On a related note, during the part where Hallorann is driving his car in the snow, f you listen to the deejays on the radio, you hear that Hallorann had just narrowly missed getting there, as the Stapleton airport was just about to close down.
Another scene taken out is where Wendy is sitting with Danny in the apartment, with Danny staring blankly at the TV while Looney Tunes blares away. When Wendy says that she's going downstairs to talk with Jack, he answers via Tony, "Yes, Missus Torrance", showing that Danny still hadn't snapped out of whatever had a hold of him the night before. Not much happens here, admittedly, but it's simply showing that things were still not well with Danny.
Some people would say that those scenes were superfluous anyway, but to me, they highlight some growing tension and anxiety in other areas, not to mention that the hotel is increasingly hard to get to.
No comments:
Post a Comment