An interesting film study of the Overlook Hotel in the Shining

A friend sent me this link earlier today, it's a really interesting film study of The Overlook hotel in the The Shining. I always loved the atmosphere of the movie, and the creepy vibe of the hotel. There was also something that always bugged me about the scene where Danny rides his bike around the hallways, even before he runs into the twins that I could never put my finger on. In this study I learned it was with reason. Kubrick intentionally designed and shot the hotel sets with TONS of spatial impossibilities to fuck with the viewer's head Check it out...

Kubrick you tricky bastard...

[youtubehd]0sUIxXCCFWw[/youtubehd]

edit: lol, shit... saw this was the same video as in the blog. This was posted on reddit a few days ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfJ8rK7eJeQ&feature=player_embedded

part 2

Looks immensely interesting but I actually have to watch The Shining again before I want to watch this

trimming my balls was more engaging than this video

really interesting. but in the back of my mind, i imagine any lesser director doing this would get tons of "EXCUSE ME, INCONSISTENCY ISSUES" complaints from film nerds instead.

I'm sure a lot of intentional trickery was involved, but probably not to the extent that this guy suggests.

I think a lot of the inconsistencies he points out could be cheats to maximize the use of the sets/locations.

Kubrick was definitely a genius, but he was also a filmmaker. Making movies is an art built on cheating peoples perceptions.

  On 7/27/2011 at 1:01 AM, hahathhat said:

trimming my balls was more engaging than this video

you must have quite some overgrowth built up...

  On 7/27/2011 at 1:22 AM, jefferoo said:

I'm sure a lot of intentional trickery was involved, but probably not to the extent that this guy suggests.

I think a lot of the inconsistencies he points out could be cheats to maximize the use of the sets/locations.

Kubrick was definitely a genius, but he was also a filmmaker. Making movies is an art built on cheating peoples perceptions.

i thought the same thing...although part of me thinks back to the kubrick's boxes documentary—he had what seemed like thousands of snapshots of something as simple as an exterior doorway. and after all that location scouting, it was shot on set. (let me know if i'm wrong, but i could have sworn that's what happened). so who knows how boundless kubrick's attention to set detail could be.

I'm still amazed that the entire movie was shot on a backlot.

in before overlook

Mirezzi will probably have several paragraphs to say about this.

  On 7/27/2011 at 1:35 AM, ghOsty said:

  On 7/27/2011 at 1:01 AM, hahathhat said:

trimming my balls was more engaging than this video

 

you must have quite some overgrowth built up...

that was just my charming way of saying i found this youtubes unamazing. it's exactly like jeffero said -- this isn't some amazing bit of cinema cleverness, it's just a cleverly-engineered set designed to keep it small and costs down. i suppose i could compare it to tri repeatae, which i had a similar sort of clever part-reduction going on. it's a drum noise and also a bassline, etc.

it's nice, but not terribly amazing, and the video is way too long for the level of content. i suppose this is why i arrived at the analogy of trimming my balls: it takes way too long to be worth it. this is also true of autechre.

  On 7/27/2011 at 1:22 AM, jefferoo said:

I'm sure a lot of intentional trickery was involved, but probably not to the extent that this guy suggests.

I think a lot of the inconsistencies he points out could be cheats to maximize the use of the sets/locations.

Kubrick was definitely a genius, but he was also a filmmaker. Making movies is an art built on cheating peoples perceptions.

I agree with this. interesting vid though. makes me want to watch the shining again.

  On 7/27/2011 at 4:45 AM, Fred McGriff said:

makes me want to watch the shining again.

max might want to sync it with us

I would not put this level of detail past Stanley Kubrick. I think that the documentary 'Stanley Kubrick's Boxes' was highly illuminating in that it showed the depths to which he research and plan his art. His thoroughness in realizing the world's he creates is unequaled by any other director I know of.

To suggest that each of the points Rob Ager highlights were continuity errors would require a great suspension of disbelief after acknowledging his meticulousness. Assuming they were just that - continuity errors - they are not only numerous and considerable in their mistake but as such qualifies them as knowingly lazy shortcuts on the part of the designers (of which Stanley also was) with little rationale for their existence. Why would the set designers create doors that could not exist with the Colorado Lounge on the other side of the wall? It would be just as plausible or logical for there to be no doors on the walls that are shared with the Colorado Lounge. As an audience we would have no problem accepting blank walls in that place because we can plainly see it's relation to the lounge.

Stanley is subtly playing with the dimensions of the hotel in the way that Rob suggests. To suggest otherwise would be insulting to Stanley's rigor in rendering the stories he is telling.

  On 7/27/2011 at 5:09 AM, Wall Bird said:

To suggest otherwise would be insulting to Stanley's rigor in rendering the stories he is telling.

I am suggesting otherwise.

Somewhat coincidentally, the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston announced today that they will show the film on August 22nd. Who's going with me?

  On 7/27/2011 at 5:09 AM, Wall Bird said:

I would not put this level of detail past Stanley Kubrick. I think that the documentary 'Stanley Kubrick's Boxes' was highly illuminating in that it showed the depths to which he research and plan his art. His thoroughness in realizing the world's he creates is unequaled by any other director I know of.

 

To suggest that each of the points Rob Ager highlights were continuity errors would require a great suspension of disbelief after acknowledging his meticulousness. Assuming they were just that - continuity errors - they are not only numerous and considerable in their mistake but as such qualifies them as knowingly lazy shortcuts on the part of the designers (of which Stanley also was) with little rationale for their existence. Why would the set designers create doors that could not exist with the Colorado Lounge on the other side of the wall? It would be just as plausible or logical for there to be no doors on the walls that are shared with the Colorado Lounge. As an audience we would have no problem accepting blank walls in that place because we can plainly see it's relation to the lounge.

 

Stanley is subtly playing with the dimensions of the hotel in the way that Rob suggests. To suggest otherwise would be insulting to Stanley's rigor in rendering the stories he is telling.

this!

genius syndrome, where byproducts of efficient project management become intentional strokes of brilliance.

yeah I'm with senor hat on this one. One of the comments under the video puts it best, but I can't be arsed to copy paste. Basically I think it makes most sense that the doors are there for interior design reasons, as they are black/dark and make things more interesting, as well as make Danny's speed more evident as he passes them on his bigwheel.

My main gripe with those videos is: what is the point? I don't see any reason why most of the things he highlights would make me feel more uneasy - for example scatman opening the door with one hand in one scene, then switching to the other for the reverse shot. That doesn't make me uneasy, it makes me think Kubrick was sloppy, which I feel pretty sure was the case. Making the best of a limited set, as someone else said.

I rewatched Full Metal Jacket again recently and it's the same way. You could have a field day analyzing how they re-used the buildings in that film from shot to shot. And I'm sure you could make an argument for how Kubrick was trying to convey the claustrophobic sense of the Vietnam war, but you'd probably be wrong. Dude just had only so many factory buildings to set on fire and punch holes in.

  On 7/27/2011 at 6:33 AM, lumpenprol said:

My main gripe with those videos is: what is the point? I don't see any reason why most of the things he highlights would make me feel more uneasy

we can just go ahead and condense it to this.

  On 7/27/2011 at 1:01 AM, hahathhat said:

trimming my balls was more engaging than this video

to be fair, the stakes are higher.

I stopped watching this shortly after the narrator couldn't come up with the concept of "AN ENTRANCE FROM THE EXTERIOR" to explain how a room could be connected to the exterior.

so yeah, they built a bunch of sets, then it turns out they're not geographically consistent, big deal.

Would be better if the video wss narrated by Ulillillia