The Shinings, Coincidence, or Just a Plate of Shrimp?

The Shining - What’s the Difference?
I recently, for the first time, read Stephen King's novel The Shining to see for myself the differences between the Kubrick movie of King's novel and the novel itself, having heard the rumours about King being really pissed off at Kubrick's movie version of his book.

I thought it might be interesting to write a post about the differences between the movie and the book, as we hear a lot about Kubrick's revelations from the movie, but is there synchromystic revelations to come out of King's book? 
SPOILER ALERT! 
There will be lots of spoilers to both the book and the movie from now on.

In the last chapter of the book Hallorann tells Wendy about a plate of shrimp. 
"The shrimp creole" he said, moving to the steps. "Don't forget."

Reading The Shining and seeing how Danny feared that either Jack, or himself might get taken away by the MEN IN WHITE COATS to the BIGHOUSE for losing their marbles, it's clear to me now why Kubrick insisted on Nicholson playing Jack.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a 1975 American comedy-drama film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, and starring Jack Nicholson and which I think had a big influence on Kubrick choosing Jack to play Jack in The Shining.

Jack has red sandy hair in the book, so it didn't make much sense to cast Nicholson as Jack, unless Kubrick didn't care about the book's character and wanted someone the movie going public could relate to as a psycho.
Not to mention Nicholson's resemblance to Kubrick either, if for some reason Kubrick was relating a semi-autobiographical subtext in the film version of King's book?-)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the second to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director, and Screenplay) following It Happened One Night in 1934, an accomplishment not repeated until 1991 by The Silence of the Lambs.

The Silence of the Lambs?

God is Pooh Bear
And before I get started here, I thought I would just give a shout out to my Synchead mates living in Winnipeg, Canada, who made the above Vimeo you see when you click on that red link.
I notice in the novel of The Shining that Danny has a well-worn Pooh bear and that his mum's name was Winnifred/Wendy (Winnie?).

This part of the book must have resonated with Kubrick when King describes the snow looking like a blank movie screen in the chapter titled 'Inside 217' - "The first-floor windows were covered, and the view from the dining room which Jack had so admired on the closing day was now no more exciting than a view of a blank movie screen".

I came across the second mention King makes in his novel about a movie screen. 
"It scared him that the road information signs were mostly masked with snow and you could flip a coin as to whether the road was going to break right or left up ahead in the white drive-in movie screen he seemed to be driving through."
Kubrick must have loved this as many theories, with some justification, say that Kubrick used the blank movie screen at the start and middle of '2001: A Space Odyssey' to represent the black monolith that is seen throughout the movie.

Kind of reminds me of the mention in our BACK TO THE FUTURE predicts 9/11 video of Marty and Doc driving through movie screens to get back to the future.

Also different are the carpet colours. 
King writes that the carpet on the second floor is blue with black vines running through the blue colour, not the iconic orange pattern in Kubrick's movie version.

It's funny that Kubrick didn't bother using the song 'Bad Moon Rising' in the movie, as King has it playing on a car radio in the book. 
A song that was released in 1969, the same year Apollo 11 landed on the moon, as well, so it's weird that Kubrick didn't keep that in as part of the storyline, if he was as some say, alluding to the Apollo missions, in The Shining, which it does appear that he was. 

The year 1969 reminds me also of a song that I was sure King got the idea for The Shining from. 
"So I called up the Captain,
Please bring me my wine"
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine"
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis". 
I was sure King got the idea for 'The Shining' from the 'Hotel California' song, because King refers to the Management being the Overlook itself, which would suggest to most people's imagination someone like a satanic figure, if not the figure itself running the place. 
It's stated in the ballroom "dream" part to Jack that the fire in the ballroom runs all year because all time is now, not only that, but the lady at the Denver Airport tells Hallorann that this is the worst snowstorm since 1969.
And that fact that Jack is battling the booze, which the hotel keeps trying to supply him with makes this verse from the song even more compelling to the above theory, 
"So I called up the Captain,
"Please bring me my wine"
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine"
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say..."
But no, that song and King's novel were released the same month of the same year together, on a synchromystic note, served with a plate of shrimp, no doubt?-)

Stovington Eagles?
Hotel California?
The Overlook Hotel?

Hotel California was released on the Asylum Record label, too, just to add a bit more wackiness to this post.
And the B side on that single is a song titled, "Pretty Maids All in a Row"?!
While the girls in the movie are played by twin sisters, the girls aren't meant to be twins in either the book, or the movie.

"Pretty Maids All in a Row"?!

The Eagles have landed?-)

What gets me with Kubrick being such a perfectionist is why he would leave in a helicopter shadow following Jack up to the Overlook.
Maybe Kubrick left it in on purpose to give the impression that MIBs, or the CIA were keeping tabs on Jack?
Just after The Shining came out in paperback form and before Kubrick's The Shining came out in movie form, there was a major cinema release of a film called, 'Capricorn One' in 1978 about a NASA Mars mission that won't work, and its funding is endangered, so they decide to fake it just this once. 

But then they have to keep the secret and it all goes pear shaped.

In the book Jack drinks Martinis and refers to them as Martians, in the movie Kubrick has Jack drinking whiskey.
Jack Daniels whiskey to be precise. 
So, why did Kubrick change the Martians to Jacks? 

Bit of a coincidence that the actor playing Danny in the movie is named Danny Lloyd in real life, his whole name made up of the character names of Danny Torrence and Lloyd the barman from the movie.

Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrence

While the King novel does make a few moon references, I think King was alluding to the Kennedy assassination throughout the novel, while Kubrick seemed to gut those out of the movie version. 

When I was reading 'The Shining' I thought it was funny how King wrote about the Presidential Suite (Room 300) on floor 3 of the Overlook Hotel and Danny sees blood and grey matter over the wall of Room 300 and Ullman then shows a room on the same floor that Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe stayed in when they were a married couple. 
Of course, Monroe and Kennedy were rumoured to have had an affair, as well.
Maybe King was just trying to throw in the Kennedy conspiracy theory here with a nod to mobsters and Monroe? 
The Presidential Suite is where a mobster and his bodyguard were murdered by rivals in the 60's. 
When Jack finds the backstory on the murders in the room, it seems like it would be the source of something really bad. 
It's not. 
In fact, the only haunting associated with the room is the bloodstain.

In the movie Wendy brings up an old story which is a bit of a taboo topic she probably shouldn't have mentioned to the younger generation, but Danny says he knows all about it because he's seen it on TV.
Jack sarcastically says, "See, it's okay. He saw it on the Television".
Which could allude to the TV being that last word on truth in modern society.
If you saw the moon walk, or Oswald shooting Kennedy on TV and the TV doesn't tell you otherwise, then of course it must be true ... right?-)

Kubrick also uses a shot of a flying saucer shaped cloud on top of the mountain overlooking the Overlook Hotel when the Torrence family reach the Hotel, which also gives the impression of an otherworldly dimension of something sinister hovering over the hotel and maybe watching and waiting.

Also, interesting as far as the Kennedy assassination, the space race and the Russians being involved is the line above about agreeing to look after the Overlook until May the 1st, which is MAY DAY, not only a distress call, but also International Workers' Day.
"Many Russians use this public holiday to relax. 
Some may go on a retreat to their country homes (called dachas) to work in the garden or spend time with their families. 
It is also common for people to have picnics or barbecues. 
Men may give spring flowers, especially tulips and lilacs, to women, and parents may buy balloons and ice-cream to give to their children to celebrate the end of the cold season in Russia.
Spring and Labor Day lost its socialist meaning after the Soviet Union’s collapse, but some political parties and labor unions may still organize demonstrations on this day. 
Party members and labor union activists may participate in such demonstrations."
Spring and Labor Day in Russia

When reading the book, I couldn't understand why Kubrick armed Wendy with a baseball bat instead of the knife, which she plunges into Jack's back instead of hitting him in the head with the bat. 
Now I know why, because Jack uttering his having to work until May the 1st for the owners is the Russian menace provoking Wendy, the baseball loving American into a fight (Space Race?) and the bashing your brains line by Jack may be a cloaked reference to Kennedy supposedly getting his brains bashed in by Oswarld's "Russian bullet".

Kubrick also makes Wendy look like Saint Lucy, patron saint of the blind in this shot.

Saint Lucia procession in Sweden

Saint Lucy

Eyes Wide Shut?-)

But Kubrick may be suggesting that it is the good old USA/CIA/Mobsters that inflict the head wound, not Russia?

Then the patron saint for the blind puts the whole sorry incident into a storage vault, much like the Zapruder Film was put into a vault away from anyone who might want some "food for thought";-)

And when Danny writes REDRUM on the door (in the book it is written on the medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom) there is a toy tank on top of a book that I can't make out.
Military involvement in a MURDER maybe? 

And maybe Kubrick thought he would go one better than King by killing off King's black hero of his novel by having Halloran MURDERed by Jack in an allusion to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr? 

A black hero is MURDERed right under a lit-up St. Lucy (patron saint of the blind) crown in the hotel reception area?

Hmm ... probably just a coincidence, right?
Just because Martin Luther King Jr. was MURDERed in a hotel by the same dark forces rumoured to have been involved in the Kennedy MURDERs?

Then St. Lucy standing under her crown with her eyes wide open sees a ghost with a head wound standing under another lit crown.

And maybe by putting a maze in instead of those stupid hedge animals in the book, Kubrick is saying that in the Cold War maze of the last century, that it's not that hard to cover your tracks and blame a patsy.

In the book Jack gets killed when the boiler blows up and the Hotel burns down, but in the movie, Jack loses the Cold War and freezes to death:-)

July 2nd, 1921 – U.S. President Warren Harding signs a joint congressional resolution declaring an end to America's state of war with Germany, Austria and Hungary. 
1921 may have signaled the end of WWI, but it was the year Communism and Fascism started to rise in the world, as well. 
July 1st, 1921 the Communist Party of China (CPC) is founded. 
July 29, 1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party. 
Nov 9th, 1921 the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista or PNF) is founded in Italy.
1921 Russian famine: Roughly 5,000,000 people die.
1921

No wonder St. Lucy sees the blood bath flowing out of the elevator doors.

I noticed that if the elevator floor indicators were clock-faces that the first elevator is 11 o'clock, or five minutes to midnight and the second elevator is midnight.
Doomsday Clock?
The song sung over the end credits sings about midnight, as well.
King even had a clock in the novel that Danny wound up with a key, which was very much like a Doomsday Clock.

Kubrick's river of blood coming from the elevator in The Shining reminded me of Jung's river of blood dream he had right before WWI started, so I wondered if Kubrick by having Jack go into the black and white photo of 1921, July the 4th just after Wendy seeing the blood flowing from the elevator doors wasn't hinting that Jung's dream of a coming WWI didn't stop when WWI ended, if anything it was just the beginning and the clock is still ticking.

This account is from Jung's autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
"In October [1913], while I was alone on a journey, I was suddenly seized by an overpowering vision: I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. 
When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. 
I realized that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. 
I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of civilization, and the drowned bodies of uncounted thousands. 
Then the whole sea turned to blood. 
This vision last about one hour. 
I was perplexed and nauseated, and ashamed of my weakness.
Two weeks passed; then the vision recurred, under the same conditions, even more vividly than before, and the blood was more emphasized. An inner voice spoke. 
"Look at it well; it is wholly real and it will be so. 
You cannot doubt it." 
That winter someone asked me what I thought were the political prospects of the world in the near future. 
I replied that I had no thoughts on the matter, but that I saw rivers of blood.
I asked myself whether these visions pointed to a revolution, but could not really imagine anything of the sort. 
And so I drew the conclusion that they had to do with me myself, and decided that I was menaced by a psychosis. 
The idea of war did not occur to me at all.
Soon afterward, in the spring and early summer of 1914, I had a thrice-repeated dream that in the middle of summer an Arctic cold wave descended and froze the land to ice. 
I saw, for example, the whole of Lorraine and its canals frozen and the entire region totally deserted by human beings. 
All living green things were killed by frost. 
This dream came in April and May, and for the last time in June, 1914.
In the third dream frightful cold had again descended from out of the cosmos. 
This dream, however, had an unexpected end. 
There stood a leaf-bearing tree, but without fruit (my tree of life, I thought), whose leaves had been transformed by the effects of the frost into sweet grapes full of healing juices. 
I plucked the grapes and gave them to a large, waiting crowd...
On August 1 the world war broke out."

And King's first successful novel Carrie was all about blood, which ended with a big fire similar to the way King ended the hotel in the novel The Shining.
Kubrick on the other hand refused to burn down the hotel in the movie, but ironically the movie set of the hotel burned down and then rain melted all of the salt that Kubrick was using as snow on the set.
So, to note King's first dark heroine Carrie, it's best not to mess with King and piss him off by messing with his storylines, like Kubrick did.

To be honest, The Shining is one of my least favourite Kubrick movies and as a horror movie just doesn't work in my book and King's story is even lamer.
Why Kubrick really wanted to make The Shining and go to so much trouble to change the story around is anybody's guess, and everyone including me are having a guess, which is the only reason I've watched The Shining so many times and read King's book (once will be enough there, thanks).
So, next time you watch The Shining, or read King's book, ask yourself if King, or Kubrick weren't trying to tell you something extra through the subtext of their works, or if it was just Cosmic Coincidence, or just a plate of shrimp?

"A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. 
They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. 
They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. 
Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. 
Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. 
No point in lookin' for one, either. 
It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."
Repo Man