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The Economist April 25th 2020
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“The Shining” at 40
Here’s Johnny!
At least you’re not locked down in the
Overlook Hotel
n stanley kubrick’s horror classic,
I“The Shining”, Jack Torrance (Jack Nich-
olson) is hired as the winter caretaker of
the cavernous Overlook Hotel, miles from
anywhere in the Colorado Rockies. “Physi-
cally it’s not a very demanding job,” the
manager tells him before the start of what
is supposed to be a five-month
stint. “The only thing that can
get a bit trying up here during
the winter is a tremendous
sense of isolation.” Adapted
from Stephen King’s bestseller,
“The Shining” was released 40
years ago in May, but it is
spookily relevant to the world’s
predicament today.
Jack dismisses the manag-
er’s warning. When he is left
alone in the Overlook with his
wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall),
and their son, Danny (Danny
Lloyd), he is elated: he plans to
knock out a novel in the peace
and quiet. But like so many
people who imagine that they
will tick off a long-postponed project or
two during the lockdown, Jack is mistaken.
As far removed as “The Shining” is from
Kubrick’s philosophical science-fiction
masterpiece, “2001: A Space Odyssey”, the
message of both films is that if three people
are stuck in a confined space in the middle
of nowhere, one of them will go mad and
try to murder the others.
In 1980 “The Shining” was not as well re-
ceived as “2001” had been in 1968; Mr King
himself was unimpressed. But the film’s
reputation improved with age. You need
not have seen it to be aware of its brightly
nightmarish images: the phantom sisters
in blue dresses; the tidal wave of blood
gushing from the lifts. The carpet pattern
of red, orange and brown hexagons was re-
produced in the foyer of the Design Muse-
um in London for its Kubrick retrospective
last year. No other floor covering in cinema
history is so recognisable.
Famous imagery aside, the film is re-
vered now for the same reason it was ini-
tially criticised: it refuses to spell out its terials themselves. The brush, of sable,
themes or explain its plot twists. Is Danny
summoning ghosts with his psychic pow-
ers? Is Jack insane before he comes to the
Overlook? Is he the reincarnation of some-
one who was there 60 years earlier? And
how come the vast hotel stays so gleam-
ingly clean when nobody ever dusts?
Kubrick is known as an obsessive per-
fectionist, and so some fans believe that he
answers all those questions and more in
the movie—it is just that they can’t agree on pleted,the unloved cadmium red only a lit-
what the answers are. A documentary re-
leased in 2012, “Room 237”, compiles some
of the more imaginative interpretations,
from the plausible (it’s about the slaughter
of Native Americans) to the eyebrow-rais-
ing (it’s a cryptic confession that Kubrick
faked the Apollo Moon landings).
That is why “The Shining” is ideal view-
ing now. Not only is the Torrances’ tremen-
dous sense of isolation a gothic caricature
of the lockdown, but you can watch the
film again and again without ever working
out what it all means. 7
The thrill of watercolours
Different strokes
To see the world as it is, try painting it
o those who spend their days working
Twithpensandkeyboards,awatercolour
paintbrush can induce a faint anxiety. Its
very lightness and delicacy suggests that
great skill is needed to deploy it. Names of
the master watercolourists rise troublingly
to mind: Cotman for his wooded hills, Ra-
vilious for his cliffscapes, Audubon for his
birds. The amateur who merely wants to
while away long hours can easily feel inad-
equate to the task. No matter, for even the
attempt to paint in watercolour brings
Books & arts 77
many rewards.
They begin with the pleasure of the ma-
which immediately conjures up some
semi-mythical creature of the Russian for-
ests. The cartridge paper, snowy, heavy and
veryslightly rough, better to hold the paint.
A glass jar of water, quietly attendant. And
then the paintbox. Possibly this is new,
withthestout little colour-blocks lining up
untouched, full of possibility. Or it may be
old, full of histories of past outings: the vi-
ridian and cobalt blue deep-worn and de-
tle dimpled, the inside lid a riot of try-outs
for this exact shade, or that.
Watercolour often seems the poor cous-
in of more imposing oils. It can appear too
fleeting and insubstantial or, alternatively,
too flat and bright. But to paint in waterco-
lour,even clumsily, is to find that it has two
great virtues. On the one hand, being so
quick to apply, it can catch the briefest
passing effects of light, or water, or leaves.
It has a transparency that glows even when
dabbed on by not-very-expert hands. A
small pad of cartridge paper can act as a
notebook or a camera; a few
strokes can record, with real
force, one particular morning
or the play of sunshine in one
particular tree. And though it is
above all a technique for the
open air, it can be done just as
well from a window.
In a state of social isolation,
however, it is watercolour
painting’s second virtue that
comes into its own. When ap-
plied to a subject that is still,
rather than constantly shift-
ing—an apple, a cup, a stone—it
becomes a deeply meditative
practice. To describe a flower or
a shell in words often fails,
merely skating the surface. To
try to paint it is to engage on an altogether
different level: to look at structure and tex-
ture,tonote the subtleties of colour and the
effects of passing time, to feel its weight or
weightlessness; to understand it. Gerard
Manley Hopkins, a would-be painter as
well as a poet, wrote of finding the inscape,
the thisness of things. To focus on that is to
begin to touch the heart of creation.
In this meditation the brush slows, and
becomes careful. Colours and mixtures si-
lently suggest themselves. Surplus paint
curls down beautifully through the water.
You do not need to be painstakingly accu-
rate; too much care can kill the life and mo-
tion that dwell even in inanimate things.
What matters is to look as a painter does,
contemplatively, fully. You may well still
feel you are no good at it, and you might
tear up your effort afterwards, but almost
certainly you will find that even failure is
not a waste of time. 7