I wrote this as soon as I finished watching Stanley Kurbicks movie adaptation of the book and all I can say is I disappointed that such talented director can misinterpret the meaning of the book after being given the script directly from Vladimir himself.

Moreover, this has further proven how Vladimir has succeeded in written such marvelous narrative and the impossibility of Lolita being adapted into a film.

(In the event of potential explicit contents, I would like to not dive further into the topic. I just want to say that I'm extremely dishearten to witness such a masterpiece being misinterpreted by media).

The Swampman gedankenexperiment plays a scenario where suppose a person, for instance, named Bob, goes on hiking in a swamp and killed by a lightning and the man is completely wipe out from the face of the Earth; at the same time, in a nearby swamp, a lightning strikes down and spontaneously causing a bunch of molecules, coincidently, rearranging and taking on the same form of Bob’s body at the time of his untimely. The thing is, what is special about this person is that he shares the exact same copy of Bob’s brain, memories and patterns of behavior. No one around him can tell the difference between Bob and his clones as he continues to go on in his days.

Therefore, this begs a question: “Is that person still Bob himself or he is a completely different individual? Is this being a person or does it have thoughts at all?”

The conjecture was announced in 1987, has raised many theories and explanations by both scientists and philosophers. This could have been an amazing debate but soon died out as Donald Davidson reject this speculation in one of his lecture at Oxford in the late 1900s, claiming the stupidity of the postulation.

Though in today’s technological innovation where people are contemplating about uploading their brain to Internet or entertaining the idea of teleporting, the idea now holds some weight.

Here are some outlook on the matter that seems appealing for me:

• Jorja Chow comment from Ignite, Tenby International School and Sekolah Tenby, Ipoh School Magazine:

  In this post, Jorja Chow voices her view on the subject by agreeing that the Swampman and Bob are the same entity. Thus, she defends: "they shared memories, behaviour, attitude and physical form, so there would be no logical reason for it to be anything otherwise". Regardless, their statement is based purely on what make sense to their undeveloped mind without any philosophical ideas and science concepts.

• A long passage of 16 pages that I've yet to read: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/70892/1/Accepted_Manuscript.pdf (I don't have time .__.)

• "Swampman, response-dependence, and meaning" by Nathaniel Goldberg, Professor of Philosophy, Washington and Lee University: I don't have money TT_TT)

• Finally, the man himself Donald Davidson had drawn a conclusion to his own speculation not so long after dropping it. He argued the exact opposite, as well as stated that the Swampman is incapable of cognitive thought because the Swampman has no causal history, and a being needs causal history of thoughts to have any cognizance in the first place. So, while the Swampman’s utterances may feel like they have meaning, according to Davidson, they actually don’t.

For further understanding what I'll be discussing in this essay, please consider to take some time and watch the movie before hand.

The first aspect I want to talk about in the subject of film-craft is the work of framing. In the infamous scene where Ullman and Jack first interaction occurred, Bill is  brought in upon Stuart Ullman's request, though he isn’t actually shown to us in the entire conversation like in any movies. Kubrick, the director of the movie, deliberately waits so that when Stuart told Jack about the horrific story of the Overlook hotel, he can cut to Bill to emphasize the  horror of the story and the reluctance to tell it, which fastens the pace 

 of the movie.

When mentioning  the prior winter’s incident, Kubrick chooses  to make Jack sit  silently instead of Stuart, since we, the viewers, don’t need to see Mr. Ullman tell  the story, what we do need to see and what Kubrick's intention is  to see through Jack’s indifference  to the brutal murder, his unflinching comfort with the subject matter.

Some of the earlier scenes also have the same foreshadowing  stories , but how else did  Kubrick achieve this goal through framing? Well, Kubrick was repeatedly framing his characters in line with the set to foreshadow the element of violence in the end. Take for example  the Danny and Dick’s scene which showcases the knives being pointed down  Danny’s head or the scene where Wendy playfully chases Danny through the maze.

These are all examples of how framing can reveal plot points or thematic.  What  about something more complex?

In the scene when Mr. Grady takes  Jack to the bathroom to clean his jacket, the screen shows both of the characters, Jack on the left and Grady on the right. But their position / their placement  continuously flips back and forth, with Jack on the right, Grady on the left and so on, implying  that these two are the same person, Mr. Grady is Jack and Jack is Mr. Grady. Kubrik’s choice of framing  showing  Jack’s descent into the role of the former caretaker is masterful.

The fact that  characters are placed opposed to each other are also  explored in other ways. For  instance, when Wendy and Jack are shown the hotel, they’re placed opposite to each other at the moment when Jack says  he’s stopped drinking. It feels like a battle instead of a compromise with Jack standing in front of the bar and Wendy standing defensively in front of it, almost preventing him from tasting the liquor. Kubrick develops the frame further by adding Danny into the mix. Entering from the left side of the frame, Danny finds himself siding  with his father, before being snatched by Wendy.

It’s these small details of framing that portray the abusive relationship through the movie. As in the scene when Jack and Wendy’s first argument at the hotel, we can see that Wendy’s face is  covered in pure white light, while  darkness surrounds  her. As  for Jack, he is  seen leaning further into the red elevator behind, a thematic motif of evilness within the hotel. Jack is consistently linked to the hotel’s evilness through framing and notably to the mirrors. Whenever Jack faced the hotel’s evil, he was forced to face the mirrors by Kubrick, like in the bar or when he’s talking to Grady or the old lady in the bathroom, and in all of those mirrors, all he sees was not the hotel’s evil, but only him himself. A man who is so twisted in mind that he sees himself through ghostly figures. 

It’s all these clever ideas of framing that Kubrick makes that add details to the tone and mood of “The Shining”, and in many other movies can’t ever seem to be able to recreate the tension of this one in particular.

There's lots more I want to talk about the framing technique but it soon be too much to comprehend by now so let's move on to another facet.

In “The Shining”, the color Red plays  a significant role in creating a sense of anxiety and terror in the film.  The color red signifies  that something important and terrifying is about to take place  as it consistently appears throughout the movie. 

The most obvious use of red is the elevator in Danny’s visions.  The image we see is focused on the elevator door which is red and then a stream  of bloody red liquid enters  the scene seconds before  it fades to black. The Red colour in this scene  warns the viewers of the horror that will soon follow and the imminent threat that has yet to come. 

Another dominant use of red is in the scene where Jack had a conversation with the ghost of Delbert Grady in the bathroom. There is a vivid contrast in the bathroom created by the use of red and white. The red here acts as a symbol of temptation, for Grady is tempting Jack to ‘correct’ his son and wife as he himself has corrected his, by brutally murdering them. 

 In addition to the obvious ones mentioned before, there are also more subtle signs and uses of red during the film.

There is only one scene in the film in which Danny doesn’t wear red. That’s when he is playing with his toy cars in the corridor when a ball rolls towards him, and he ends up by the door of room 237.  But the key card of room 237 is red! Even when he does not have red on him, the hotel brings it to him. There is no escape from the red, the horror and fear inside of the Overlook Hotel.

Kubrick also uses colour to portray the character’s mental state. Jack wears green in every single scene in the first part of the film, signifying that he is still sane:

But after he has the dream where he chops Wendy and Danny into little pieces, he starts to wear the infamous red jacket for the rest of the film.

For excess information, I've visited a site that gathered all of the information surrounding the subject matter if you're interested: Kubrick's The Shining - Table of Contents (idyllopuspress.com)

Not only that but the movie also contains illusive elements and liminal space.

The film creates a sense of unease through geometric patterns. The two most obvious examples are the carpet of room 237 hallway and inside room 237 itself. This bizarre carpet pattern features arrow-like protrusions that point in both directions along the hall.

 In the shot where Jack enter room 237, the carpet seems to shift beneath so that he’s sitting on a narrow protrusion that points one way and then the other.

All of the symbols are seen to point to the bathroom. They could have made a bare step between the rooms, but the continuation of the carpet gives a sense of unstable or uneven floor.

Pink and green furniture matched with this carpet should give the apartment a cheerful vibe but instead, this odd combination creates an unpleasant feeling to the audience. The presence of black curtains gives us a strong impression of nighttime. These curtains have clashing diagonal lines and vertical strings just like the bedspreads, creating an unnerving sensation.

Stanley Kubrick was a master in creating liminal spaces, with “The Shining” being a prime example. In “The Shining”, the eerie atmosphere most likely comes from the use of this aesthetic. The hotel doesn’t feel right because a place that’s supposed to be bustling and full of life is now completely empty and silent, evoking a sense of anxiety and fear of the unknown. There are many other things about the hotel that just feel “off”: The hallways are too narrow, the colors of the rooms are either too bright or too muted, and certain passageways lead to nowhere… It almost seems as if the hotel wasn’t created by humans, or with humans in mind, and the lack of “humanness” is also a definitive characteristic of liminal spaces. This explains why despite having multiple parts of the hotel filled with warm, pleasant colors and welcoming color palettes, not even once has the Overlook Hotel actually felt that way.

(The liminal space is also an interesting theme so I'll have another passage dedicate to that)

Out of the many factors that contribute to the spine-chilling terror of “The Shining”, the eerie, unsettling, creepy music certainly plays a major role in establishing the general atmosphere of the movie. The Shining’s musical editor Gordon Stainforth said: “The music had to be ‘over the top’... anything less would not have been true to the movie’s underlying manic quality as the madness unfolds towards the end.” 

To understand what Stainforth meant by “over the top”, let’s have a quick listen to De Natura Sonoris No.1 by Krzysztof Penderecki (DNS 0:45 - 1:15) . The piece begins with sforzando chords of indeterminate pitch that are produced by playing the highest possible notes on the instruments; creating an eerie, off-putting, nightmarish sound; perfectly complimenting the ambiguous horrors of the Overlook Hotel . Stanley Kubrick knew Penderecki’s extreme and unique instrumentation was perfect for “The Shining”, hence his music being used in many iconic scenes of the movie. (the scene where Jack destroyed the room's door where Wendy is hiding or the scene with the hallway twin)

You'll realize the moment you watch it ;)

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDpipB4yehk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMbI7DmLCNI

It is also crucial to mention Stainforth’s masterful use of parallel scoring. Parallel scoring is a common film technique that syncs the accompanying music with the actions on screen. This technique was greatly utilized in “The Shining”, take for example the famous “Come play with us” scene - where Danny sees the Grady twins for the second time whilst riding around the hotel. Various specific parts of this scene have been significantly altered to line up with the music, which in this case is the piece mentioned before: De Natura Sonoris No.1 by  Krzysztof Penderecki. Now let’s take a glance  at the scene. (link) According to Stainforth, his intention for this scene was to “create something more visceral and rhythmic, trying to make this feel more like a direct experience…”. And needless to say, he had certainly succeeded, as the music lining up with the action had accentuated the anxiety and terror as well as greatly heightened the immersiveness of this scene. 

To further grasp the “over the top” feel that Kubrick was looking for, let’s have a look at the climax of the film, the scene where Danny is being chased by Jack through the maze. In this scene, Stainforth used a technique called “overlap” to achieve that overwhelming sensation Kubrick wanted. “Overlap” essentially means overlapping multiple recordings. For this scene in particular, not only do we have multiple pieces played on top of each other, we also have multiple copies of the same piece. Stainforth had 3 different copies of Fenderecki’s Kanon stacked together, combined with De Natura Sonoris No.2, also by Fenderecki. This resulted in a completely chaotic, nerve-wracking, anxiety-inducing scene; as “over the top” as possible, just what Kubrick had wanted. 

Within the Overlook Hotel’s labyrinthine corridors, the echoes of its haunting melodies continue to reverberate, a testament to the enduring power of genius unleashed. Truly, without the guiding hand of its musical maestros, this cinematic classic would have been but a shadow of its true self, lost amidst the snows of time. 

Overall, though the movie didn't perfectly adapt the integral of "The Shining" novel by Stephen King but the cinematic is the main key for it to be much more popular than the book itself and became the most paradigmatic masterpiece when mentioned about the most well-made audiovisual movies of all time.

(This took me 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS!)

Oh and here's an interview with Kurbick regarding "The Shining": http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/interview.ts.html

- "The Truman Show": (the overall analysis: character, cinematography, implication)

- "Cannibalism and the definition of humaneness": delves in the history of anthropophagy, question the act of cannibalism (whether it's righteous deed or not), and what defines a humane action. (I may separate this into 2 parts just like the Shining).

- "Francisco Goya": A brief biography of Francisco Goya (his life, his accomplishment, and his influence on France's art movement), but mostly about his "black painting" which I'll analyze alongside with how they reflect on his disturbing view of life: "Saturn devouring is son", "The Dog", "Two Old Men Eating Soup",...

- "How come we've never met extraterrestrials?": Not a analytic passage but rather a summary of a video by Kurzgesagt: "Why we've never met aliens." on Youtube.

- "It's okay NOT to be special": A meaningful message I learned from an anime called "Mob Psycho 100" that changed my perspective on life forever.

- "What'll happen when humanity reach the state of paradise?": Have you ever wonder what'll will happen to human when we have all of our wishes fulfilled? No more hunger, no more suffering, no more climate change, no more problems,... I do and I won't spoil anything to you till I finish the essay. (mainly inspired by the "Mouse Utopia Experiment".

- "Van Gogh": how Van Gogh descents into madness.

- "The Persistence of Memory": basically the meaning behind the painting

- "The Son of Man": yeah... same with the above

- "The Scream": same with the above

- "Do animals deserve rights?": yep! the title explains everything. I'll be using lots of Réne Descartes' philosophemes so prepare your brain for this one.

- "Liminal space": I love the idea of liminal space and how uncanny it feels

- "Multiverse": Since the concept of multiverses has been confirmed by Nasa, I want to expand more on the topic

- "The Dyson Sphere": Have been a fan of it since it was theorized so there's no surprised that I'll be talking about it.

Pls someone stops my brain from thinking :"))