Can somebody explain the end of 'The Shining' to me?

R

|R|u|s|t|y|

Veteran XX
What's the deal with him being in that picture from 1921 and being the same age? What is it trying to say? What's going on there? Thanks!
 
To quote someone else


"This film is so oddly fascinating and part of that comes from the open interpretations of how all the pieces fall together correctly. In order to fully understand the film, in the way that I have, at least, I did a lot of thinking about it. Honestly, it drove me nuts to the point where I couldn't STOP thinking about it. I went to sleep that night and I dreamed about how it all fit together. No doubt that scared me beyond belief, but it fully opened my eyes.

So here goes:

First off, to anyone thinking that the two Grady names is a mistake (I'm talking to you, deputydave, haha), I assure you, it is NOT a mistake. They're two different men. Re-incarnations of the same spirit in two different men, however. Honestly. One was a butler in 1921 at the time of the July 4th Ball; and one was Caretaker in 1970. Surely if they were the same man, he'd be between 70 and 100 years of age (given he were not a pile of bones) by 1970. And in that regard, the little girls that Danny continuously sees (and that were hacked to bits in 1970) would not be little in 1970, and surely not as young as the ones that we see.

Jack Torrance (poor soul ... bad pun, sorry) is a re-incarnation as well. He is a re-incarnation of a man who may or may not have also been named Jack Torrance, or at least Jack; who was the Caretaker of the Overlook in 1921, and likely had been the Caretaker since the Overlook opened in 1909 (hence Delbert Grady telling him he'd always been the caretaker). However ... is he bound to the fate of murder and insanity looming over him? NO. He had a choice. A choice to turn his life around or succumb to the madness threatening to take him over.

Sadly, he makes the wrong choice. He literally "gives his soul" to the hotel. He did say he'd give his soul for a beer, which is then offered to him and he drinks it. By taking it, he seemingly effectively gives himself to the hotel and therefore "gains access" to the Hotel's haunted past. Notice he hadn't had anything out of the ordinary happen to him until this moment. However, the hotel gave him a second chance. The woman in the bathroom was a second chance. It's as though the hotel is asking him, 'do you really want this?'. By kissing the woman, he effectively seals his fate as part of the hotel. Honestly, he was given a second chance. Just like Grady later gives him a second chance to 'correct' his family, by letting him out of the pantry.

In that sense, Jack talking to the ghosts and seeing them has endless possibilities. This may simply be part of him joining the hotel. It could be him talking to himself and seeing the ghosts in his mind. Notice anytime he talks with the paranormal, there is a mirror present. Also, we only see him in the deep conversations and never the paranormal.

But obviously, the most interesting theory is that Jack SHINES.

Of course he does, for everything to fall together right. Think about it for a second. The title of the novel in the first place came from the central theme of shining. And in the novel, Danny is a more central force and the hotel seeks to claim him before going after Jack. In the film, with Jack being a re-incarnation, Jack HAS to shine as well for the central theme to remain around the shining ability. In that sense, Wendy also shines. It's passed on through generations. Simply put, Jack and Wendy shine to a lesser extent to that of Danny. Henceforth, Danny can see spirits right away, but Jack and Wendy have to 'commit' to the hotel before they can interact with it. Which leaves the inevitable ... the hotel. Halloran himself says that the Overlook has 'something like' the shining. He hit the nail on the head. The hotel shines its past to anyone who has the shining ability.

Back to Jack being able to shine. It's been pointed out but I'll re-emphasize. It's evident when he looks down at the model of the maze and can see Danny and Wendy, and can tell exactly where they are in the maze. Wendy can obviously shine, which is noted in the novel. It's also very obvious when she can see all the apparitions at the end. But neither of them KNOW they can shine, nor are their abilities to the extent of Danny's. However, Jack seems to have a good control on his ability since he's able to hold extended conversations. There isn't just one thing the shining is limited to. Like Halloran said, it's a lot of things. Communication, vision, the whole package.

As far as Jack talking to the spirits, he's committed to the hotel when Wendy interrupts his conversation. She hasn't, so she can't see the spirits and therefore had she been around for the conversation, it would have appeared to her that Jack was talking to himself through the mirror. Later, when Wendy and Danny have a chance to get out after locking Jack in the pantry, (even without the snowcat), she instead goes and lays down in the bed and sleeps. The hotel could easily take this as a commitment, and hence, she is now able to see the spirits. However, she never got to the second commitment like Jack did, and the one room appears to her as they would in their present form.

At least, that's what I get out of it, and it makes sense to me, so I'm not changing my tune. Hope someone finds this all useful, it sure is a fascinating film and I now enjoy thinking about the endless possibilities and even what more could be added to my already present opinion."
 
Probably the single most frequently asked question in relation to this film is what does the final shot mean; how and why is Jack in a photograph from 1921? In a film with so much irreconcilable ambiguity, this one shot has generated more puzzlement than the entire rest of the movie, yet it is one part of the film on which Stanley Kubrick has been extremely clear about his intentions. As he told Michel Ciment, "The ballroom photograph at the end suggests the reincarnation of Jack" (quoted here).

So, Jack is reincarnated. But what exactly does that mean? Perhaps the simplest explanation for this is that Jack is the reincarnation of a prior hotel guest; the person in the photo is not Jack, but a guest who was present in 1921. Jack is the reincarnation of this guest. This would seem to support Gordon Dahlquist's argument that Delbert Grady and Charles Grady are different people (mentioned above); if we follow the argument through, it would suggest that Charles Grady (the caretaker who killed his family) was the reincarnation of Delbert Grady (the butler in the 1920s). Similarly, Jack (the caretaker who attempts to kill his family) is the reincarnation of the unnamed man in the photograph (the caretaker in the 1920s). This argument would also seem to support Grady's claim to Jack that he has "always" been the caretaker; if Jack is the reincarnation of the caretaker from the 1920s, it would suggest that the hotel continuously 'reanimates' its 1921 guests, bringing them back in different guises; hence, just as Delbert was brought back as Charles, so too is the man in the photo brought back as Jack, in a process which, it would seem, is ongoing. As such, when Grady comments that both he and Jack have always been at the hotel, he is correct; they will forever be brought back to the hotel as reincarnations, hence they are 'always' there.

However, despite the fact that this argument does seem to take into consideration many of the variables in the film, and does seem to provide a reasonably logical rational for the photograph, it is not the most popular theory about the final shot. Instead, most fans subscribe to the notion that after he dies, Jack is 'absorbed' back through time into the past of the hotel, becoming, for all intents and purposes, a 'part' of the hotel. This explains why he is present in a photograph from 1921; when he dies, the hotel takes hold of his spirit or soul, and traps him within its own history (this argument would seem to suggest that Jack was not in the photo prior to his death). As with the above argument regarding reincarnation, the 'absorption theory' would also account for Grady's "always" comment. Presumably, the same thing happened to Grady as we see happening to Jack, he too dies in the Overlook Hotel, and he too is absorbed back into its past. As such, Grady has always been the butler, just has Jack has always been the caretaker insofar as they were both imprisoned in the future by the hotel, and their spirits became anachronistically part of history.

A reasonably detailed analysis of the mysterious photo was published in the September 1999 edition of Sight and Sound magazine; an article by Jonathan Romney entitled "Stanley Kubrick, 1928-1999: Resident Phantoms," in which he looks at, amongst other things, the meaning of the film's final shot.

Initially, Romney supports the absorption theory, writing "The closing inscription appears to explain what has happened to Jack [...] after his ordeal in the haunted palace, Jack had been absorbed into the hotel, another sacrificial victim earning his place at the Overlook's eternal thé dansant of the damned. At the Overlook, it's always 4 July 1921."

However, Romney is quick to point out that it may not in fact be this simple; "Or you can look at it another way. Perhaps Jack hasn't been absorbed - perhaps he has really been in the Overlook all along. As the ghostly butler Grady tells him during their chilling con frontation in the men's toilet, "You're the caretaker, sir. You've always been the caretaker." Perhaps in some earlier incarnation Jack really was around in 1921, and it's his present-day self that is the shadow, the phantom photographic copy."

In this sense then, Romney is acknowledging that the reincarnation theory is just as plausible as the absorption theory. Whatever the case however, whether Jack is a reincarnation of a previous guest or whether he has been absorbed into the history of the hotel, Romney reaches one inescapable conclusion about the final shot; "Jack's reward, after his defeat [is] a central place among who knows how many other doomed variety acts on the Overlook's wall of fame. He's added to the bill on the Overlook's everlasting big night back in 1921."

So, irrespective of whether it is reincarnation or whether it is absorption, it would seem that the one thing about the final shot that is certain is that Jack has somehow, in some sense, become part of the hotel, and will remain a part of it forever.
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book is worth reading, too. shouldn't come as much of a surprise that kubrick didn't exactly follow the book word for word
 
Book is worth reading, doesn't explain shit about the ending. So much stuff is changed, but it does explain the lady in room 237, and the guy in the bear suit giving head.

I personally subscribe to the reincarnation theory, because it makes the most sense. It has a few holes in it, but until I read a better alternative I'm sticking to it.
 
the remake was shit. how you can remake a kubrick film, i'll never understand.

can i just say that i fucking hate shelly duvall. i so wanted jack to stab her fucking face in she was so fucking annoying. it was easy to root for him because shes such a horrible actor.

and if you watch the making of on the dvd, you can really see what a whiny bitch she was on set. she was actually pissed that jack was treated like the star he is and she was an afterthought. was so glad to see that kubrick berated her all the time and made her do scenes over and over and over again.
 
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