Wherein Surell Makes Connections
 

Dear not so private journal

I like to theorize things, make connections, and analyze. When I read (rarely), watch movies, and listen to albums/artists, i am constantly trying to find the theme or concept or motivation behind why whatever is happening is happening. Sometimes this is useless, but often times there will be some motivation behind the artistic expression that is hidden beneath the surface.

In this particular not so private journal, i will share my tighter and more coherent theories behind an artist's motivation behind their album, actions, songs, etc. Now my theories may be sparse, but i hope to make them consistently intriguing or thought provoking. I will attempt to not repeat any popular theories behind the artistic expressions as well. If you fine readers disagree with any of my connections, i would love to hear your opinion to synthesize a new theory, especially if you have new factual information. But please, be respectful, or my journal will become stained with tears.

BTW: Some of my theories will be contained in reviews. And i might go back to certain theories. Anything goes, protect your God damned neck.

Now, onto my first proposal, one i've been mulling over for awhile:

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Why Odd Future and its Creator Chose Such a Title

Tyler, the Creator. It sounds godlike. How many rappers have called themselves God since, say, the 90's? I know at least three: Ghostface, Nas, Lil Wayne. Tyler is incredibly different though; his clique is similar to Ghostface's associates the Wu Tang Clan in the fact that their all extremely talented, diverse, and kind of outcasts. Wu Tang have become more and more legendary and the norm amongst hip hop heads (at least from my young observation), with their skill being often times matched with that of Tupac, Biggie, Rakim, Eminem, etc.

Odd Future's hype has exploded into extreme cult following because of their diverse projects and influences and outcast fanbase. Their talent is also a source of all the buzz as well: their rhymes stand out from the mainstream norm and even the underground standards, and their beats are lo-fi, yet still so dense with darkness and attractive to the ear, like the Sirens. The aforementioned projects include a slick, beautiful R&B album including samples from MGMT. and Coldplay, and a skit using "Optimistic" by Radiohead; a futuristic space-jazz producer; and a collaboration between two musicians that turned the most mainstream rapper in the group into a sinister being (whose forthcoming album has been described as "Black Sabbath rap" by the producer).

Obviously these guys aren’t run-of-the-mill Hip Hop; yet their name implies that they are the future, no matter how strange. The future, according to them, is dark, morbid, satanic, devilish, etc. It seems strange when you think about the current state of rap; the omnipresent clique on the radio is Young Money Cash Money, Lil Wayne’s troupe of protégés (as I see them, for their similar styles and content). Odd Future seems to me like the antithesis of Young Money’s character, or the antagonist; one cannot survive in popularity with the other, it just doesn’t match up. However, as I mentioned earlier, Odd Future are blowing up: TV show performances, interviews with huge music trendsetters/observers, even radio play. So this Odd Future seems to be hitting home in the near future.

Though, as I also mentioned earlier, Tyler’s name appears godlike, his character/persona is more Antichrist than Jesus Christ. He rapes, does cocaine, kills people, hates gays (no homo), and draws upside down crosses everywhere, constantly exclaiming “KILL PEOPLE BURN SHIT FUCK SCHOOL.” If Tyler is as divine as his name implies, he would most likely be prophetic. So his Odd Future seems a prediction of what Hip Hop will become- or is becoming.



Hip Hop has faced the accusation of satanic worship recently from the Illuminati conspiracy theories. According to the theory, top rappers such as Jay Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Rick Ross are in a top ranking of Free Mason society, in which you must renounce the Lord as your savior in exchange for fame and fortune, also taking part in a movement to install a New World Order of totalitarian political slavery for all those not in the mix. Or something like that. The rapper Prince Ea, an old favorite of mine, has taken the persona of a paranoid conspiracy theorist and often chooses the subject of Illuminati for his raps; his Adolescence mixtape consists of conspirator allusion, gangster rap punchlines, and murder. My ladyfriend has seen similarities in Tyler, the Creator and Prince Ea’s strange/unusual subject matter, and while I, too, see the similarity in that field, I also see the similarity in their belief that the future holds nothing good in Hip Hop; however, Tyler is channeling Prince Ea’s predictions into a character who acts them out: Hip Hop misogyny has been replaced with full on rape; murder in the name of not being fake has been taken to extreme levels outside of gangbanging or drug peddling; egos have been boosted to godlike levels due to drugs (and Hip Hop’s generally obnoxious atmosphere); homophobia has become a motive for murder; and, of course, the upside down crosses mark the coming of a terrible new leadership into a terrible new world.

This sick satire of Hip Hop can also be exemplified by the group’s obsession with “Swag.” Swag, or swagger, has been the latest mainstream Hip Hop obsession, period, beginning with songs such as “Swagger Like Us.” Apparently, without swagger, your raps are worth nothing. Prince Ea once claimed that he had swag “when swag was called character.” It seems as if every rapper wants to outdo one another while being an exact clone of one another; character has become a processed trait that everyone claims to have, leaving them without character, or uniqueness. While Tyler and his clique do stand out, they desire the same success as these other “swagged out” rappers.

Odd Future are making waves in the Hip Hop and music world; they’re very unlike something we’ve seen before. Sure, the influences can all be traced back (such as punk rock and Eminem), but the culmination of all their elements, styles, and talents is practically unheard of. Their Twainian satire mixed with their deadly serious darkness is something that can surely revolutionize Hip Hop and Music as we know it – for as we know: “Swag is the midwife to revolution.”

very interesting read. looking forward to more

This is a mixtape of music my ladyfriend and I have been listening to most lately, and should provide a pretty good glimpse into junk. I may make/remake (since i already made a bad one) another one with music from my computer, which has a lot of my old favorites not as readily available as they used to be (which is why they are old like white dog poop). The reason the other mixtape failed is because it lacks the cohesion i feel i captured with this one, with its sonic/thematic cues and flow and whatnooot. I hope you agree dear reader. Holler if you like the mixtape or want the tracklist (it should include it) or any of the complete albums to go with the songs (except for a couple of the songs which lack albums).

A new entry shall come soon. I have a couple of ideas but they have to be executed properly.

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Derek and the Guilt of Neglect

Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective has become one of my new favorite albums, making the group among one of my favorite bands. It serves a perfect prelude into Merriwether and their newer material that can be heard in their shows: it retains the edge that their earlier, more experimental albums had while becoming clearer in musical aspects such as lyrics, vocalization, and idea. While Merriwether (as beautiful as it was) did serve as their pure pop album, their new material points to a return to the mystique that Strawberry Jam and earlier albums executed so well.

Much of Strawberry Jam is incredibly haunting to me: The ominous imagery of "Peacebone" which paints mental images of monsters, explosions, death, and, strangely enough, food, a consistent theme throughout the song (on an album titled after a common breakfast item); "Unsolved Mystery"'s allusion to Jack the Ripper; the tragic tale Avey Tare spins of his self-alienation from those he loves due to (my guess) mind altering drugs (but possibly from the constant stresses of his musical career) in "Cuckoo Cuckoo". Yet one of the most haunting songs to me is often perceived as a sweet ode to loving those you care for (which could make a good contrast as "Cuckoo" precedes it): "Derek."

I find Derek so haunting because of the chosen sonic atmosphere to accompany Panda Bear's vocals (which always reminded me of Scotland or Ireland), which begins with a consistent rattle and some psychedelic washy melody things (that's what i'll call them); the rattle is also slightly washy, possibly underwater. When the vocals kick in, there are these sounds that make me think of something rushing by, or dropping. As the song progresses, there is this urgent sound that comes into play, like the wind from a storm raging outside. It grows louder until the rattle accompanies a stomping bass rhythm, and the narrator inquires the child “What do you see when you see inside of me?” and promising safety with “You can count on me.”

Originally, my ladyfriend first proposed this theory by bringing up the regret at the core of the question for the child whom probably cannot speak, and also with the consistent rattle in the background. I expanded on this with the idea that the rattle and accompanying sounds have such a washed sound to symbolize drowning out the needs and presence of the child; the sound of raging wind could also symbolize the narrator’s inner shelter from the harsh weather outside (or cold reality he wishes to ignore/avoid).

The stomping of the second section could also liken to the subconscious knocking in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in the sense that it is a hallucinated sound spawned by his own guilt and anxiety, which would force the narrator to the door leading him to reality, and to reflect upon himself through his child’s eyes.

A final subtle detail that I find lyrically supports our thesis is that the narrator begins the song with a short reminiscence of a dog he had as a child:

We had a white and blackish sheltie had a name when we first got him
I wish I had taken better care of him but he had it ok

Now I’ll admit, I misinterpreted a few of the lyrics upon early listenings; in this certain section, I mistook “had a name” for “ran away”; but the greater idea holds up. The fact that the narrator brings up a dog, whose name he has since forgotten, whom he quite possibly mistreated (that seconds line ends in an apathetic tone to me) in a song about a child he is now raising raises intrigue as to what the finer print could entail or hidden meaning could be (such as comparing the child to a dog); especially when coupled with the sonic atmosphere previously explained.

Tl; Dr: Take Panda Bear’s children away from him.

I’d like to dedicate this passage to my aforementioned ladyfrand, Valerie, whom acts as the greatest inspiration in how I think and write. You can thank her for anything written here, she is my muse.

This is a review i wrote for my school's newspaper. It's been edited now, so this is the beginning product. It was written fairly quickly and ideas were bouncing all around so sorry if it seems unbalanced, rushed, or jumbled.

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Shabazz Palaces “Black Up” Review

The past year or so has been an interesting time for Hip Hop. Odd Future has become a strange global entity, with Tyler, the Creator winning Best New Artist at the VMA’s; Lil B has put out more material than most artists release in a lifetime; and Prince Ea has stayed consistently bizarre yet brilliant with “The Brain”, a rap studying the mind’s functions and mystique, and “Backwards Rappers”, a forwards/backwards verse with two conflicting messages of street vs. book values. Right alongside these recent rap vanguards is Shabazz Palace’s terrific album, “Black Up”, which challenges rap conventions, new and old, while embracing them both.

Shabazz Palaces is a project of rapper Butterfly, who is a former member of the acclaimed alternative Hip Hop group Digable Planets. The project is shrouded with mystery, with Palaceer Lazaro (Butterfly’s alias in the group) giving few non-elusive interviews and no other names than his own. The group’s philosophy is that the music should speak for itself, yet they seem to communicate with the same mask of ambiguity.

The lyrical style, for example, is oftentimes abstract or so fast paced it whirs by, like if internet data could take physical form. While the album does contain more traditional song conventions – such as the boy-meets-girl tale of “A treatise dedicated to the Avian Airess from North East Nubis (1000 questions, 1 answer)” or the blatant, open ended dis “yeah you”—they often either have no chorus or are characterized with the consistent theme of futuristic/astrological, Sci-fi titles or language. He also satirizes rap’s focus and intent while embracing its hustle and spirit (“At a tender age/ We learn to turn the page/ To mind the screen and stage/… Find your spot in the shade/ And n***a, get paid” – (Felt), not to mention the paradoxical assertions of “free press and curl”).

The lyrical content itself, however, is usually down to earth and familiar, dealing with the ever-present topic in Hip Hop: Hip Hop; as in its present state, and where it’s headed. While I would usually find this subject a useless flaunting of unearned bragging rights, Shabazz do it in a fresh, creative manner, and are even positive about it: “It’s gonna be big movements from below/ the golden age lies ahead” (which contradicts the belief that the Golden Age of Hip Hop was the late 80’s into the early 90’s).

This is achieved in multiple, often subtle manners. Part of the lyrical contribution has been covered, with the other part being the aesthetic value. A philosophy rooted in the music of free jazz musician Sun Ra and funk lords Parliament Funkadelic, Afrofuturism is an artistic form which utilizes Sci-fi, historical fiction, and magical realism (with non-Western cosmologies) to represent the African American’s sense of isolation and skepticism in an intolerant world, utilized to critique the state of the aforementioned community and reexamine past events in their history; a constant factor with Lazaro’s content, style, and persona.

The beats also portray this complex representation of African American feelings, with their homages to past forms mastered with modern mindedness and gifts from the astral planes of the future. The rhythms are tribal at times, with haunting chanting and heavy percussion, reminiscent of African mysticism (“Konjo Konjo Konjo” - “free press and curl”). There are also some throwbacks to psychedelia, as in “(Felt)”, and even slinky, sleazy jazz makes in appearance in “Endeavors for Never (the last time we spoke you said you weren’t here. I saw you)”, one of the most experimental tracks on the album (that’s saying a lot). The beats can also make Lazaro’s already distorted voice seem to flow smoothly yet oddly offbeat, living within the music as if the protagonist of Invisible Man. Another notable consistency in the production is the constant progression the beats have. When the beats shift, they often never look back, constantly keeping the listener guessing (possibly acting as a symbolic exemplar for the ideal future of Hip Hop).

Palaceer Lazaro, I’ve concluded, is Hip Hop in all its aspects; he is not afraid to embrace its early African griot roots, its old school smoothness (much of his flow and rhyme scheme are simple and direct, right alongside the beats), and its modern ethos of hustle, individualistic pursuit, and ego. His distance from any one location, coupled with his obvious love and respect for the genre, has granted him a well-rounded approach for his persona. He and his palace, therefore, have constructed a pure Hip Hop album, one a lover of the genre will surely appreciate.

I was doing some Wiki-reading on There's A Riot Goin' On because ?uestlove said the new D'Angelo album was going to rank among that, as well as "Smile and Miles Davis' On the Corner" and that very much intrigued me, and out of the murk flooding my ears rises Neil Young's falsetto plea, with glowing feedback around him: "I'm driftin back."

It felt like an epiphany but with no real end, except to tell you that if you listen to Young's new record and attempt to appreciate his mediation on that track and the classic Ho'se-down on the rest, I'll be listening to and probably later reappraising that aforementioned album.

Since I - as well as the world - may be dead or zombified tomorrow, I feel like I should do at least a Top 5 of this momentous year, especially since I've probably only listened to 5 albums that were released this year. I will attempt as well to thematically link these albums to the apocalypse, the fear created from it, or reactions thereof.

I just thought about entering these one at a time day by day for dramatic effect but I guess that would kind of demerit the project, huh?

So let's start with number 1 because if we play these records backwards they'll tell us the real reason we're all dead tomorrow anyway.

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channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean

The biggest hype surrounding this album was that Frank was honest, that he laid all his cards on the table and let the chips fall where they would (or some other cliche). His gesture is not only honest to his fans and critics, though; that pales in comparison to the fact that he made his confession to be entirely honest with himself. Even though it may be too late to actually take the lesson to heart, we should; too often we lie to ourselves or repress our most meaningful feelings because we imagine it will keep things running smoothly, and too often we harm ourselves in the act, then go on to repeat the act.

If the world should end tomorrow, I doubt we'll have any acts of gods, wild scientific phenomena, or unforeseeable collisions with our beloved moon to blame - there will only be that thing we see in the mirror when we rise in the morning. It's been around seventy degrees here in my hometown for the past couple of days, and we are but a week from Christmas, a holiday mashed practically in the middle of the Winter season - I can't even enjoy a seasonal lager thanks to global warming. But so many businessmen in public servant's wool (as well as that of the scientist) have claimed that there is no need to worry, that it is a myth, and that we should go on with the natural (or anti-natural) order of things, like drilling, fracking, and spilling oil so we shouldn't lose jobs or rely on unreliable energy sources or whatever other shit they may tell us.

Or how about the whole class warfare issue that everyone wishes to ignore? I neglected it too so I won't get too in depth, but we ignored the excesses of a few individuals for so long that it affected everyone that said "hi" to the pricks. Now, we're at this boiling point where, at any second, all the water in the pot could spill out and evaporate, gone with little evidence that it was ever there - except for the fact that the spaghetti is dry.

Frank gets number 1 spot not only because he is such an exemplar of the art of blunt lyric, but because he is so poetic and lyrical in the craft as well. While Dark Fantasy was a fine Hip Hop album, not much of Kanye's lyrics can really be extended outside of its first meaning, or allow the listener to really delve into thought on the topics (unless that thought should be "Wow Kanye's cool" or "Wow Kanye's a douche"). Literal language is consistent in Hip Hop, and my primary attribution to this is that Hip Hop is based upon hustler credos, one of which being that cold, hard numbers and evidence must be available, or whatever being presented will never hold water. Frank, on the other hand, creates vivid scenes that constantly teeter on the line of reality and surreality, and surreality has always been a style fixated on symbols or double meanings.

There is, of course, "Thinkin Bout You," with its spewing of contradictions and boasts - the latter of which contradict the humble, sensitive artist himself. The greatest contradiction, of course, is that amidst the bald faced lies, he finally gives a pure, almost vague truth. Contradiction is another consistent theme in Hip Hop, seen in masters like Ghostface to brand new guys like A$AP Rocky, or, of course, the potential satire of the genre in "Yonkers," Tyler being a walking paradox and all. But these contradictions can be just as telling as unadulterated truth.

Then, of course, there is the album's centerpiece, "Pyramids." The song has been merely as "a stripper dying at a strip club" and Frank fucking her beforehand, which itself could be an existential statement now that I think about it, but that can't be all. Cleopatra is this grand figure; you don't put Liz Taylor in a movie, fuck her, and then she dies, nothing else, that's a waste of sweet Liz Taylor ass. The highlight of the track and it's depth, for me, is the scene with what appears to be a pimp, Cleopatra's to be precise, whose exploitations of her "keep his bills paid." Frank turns to a sort of singing-rap here, and the beat shifts to that famous cymbal tap that always reminds me of turning bicycle wheels in slow motion. It's a trademark of Three 6 Mafia, who are famous for their exploitations of women as well as their soaring "Mystic Styles." The first half of the song takes a very mystical approach to lyricism, but the beat is very rooted in club/dance music, which has euphorias strictly based in secular or earthly values; but the second half, though full of juicy, novel-like details (even the ones which reveal too much information (ride cowgirl!)), has a beat that gives a much more ethereal feel, as if it were an out of body experience or a dream.

The story itself is uncertain, but so am I, and i definitely had more to say about it until everyone started spouting that super-literal bullshit and I lost my train of thought months after having found it. I will update if it comes back to me and I'm not dead.

But just preceding that piece is "Crack Rock," so chock full of atrocities and grimace inducing self-destruction, with that fragile echo hovering over the song and that old school Hip Hop drum beat, Frank proves that the crack topic is still relevant to this day, a shamefully timeless look into not only the disease of drugs in the black community but addiction in the general sense, and how great a toll it can truly take. Frank was inspired for this song by NA and AA meetings he used to sit in on, as his grandfather was a participant in the programs, further showing just how far back addiction goes in American culture.

There are many other noteworthy songs on the album (all the songs having their merit) but enough time has been spent here and I have four other albums to over analyze before I die tomorrow. The prominent theme of the album is Success v. Failure, and how the two can collaborate. In "Crack Rock," the junkies have the option to redeem themselves and fall back into good graces with the family who "won't let them hold the infant," or stay in their downward spiral until utterly drained of life. "Thinkin Bout You," in its failure to grasp what it wants, may find solace in the memories it once had. The entirely adorable and tearjerking "Forest Gump" shows that, though the subject has his disabilities or handicaps, he is also an inspiration and has his times to shine. Ultimately, the album is surreal narrative reminding you that there is always second chances and that rebirth is always an option: From the clean, oftentimes sparse production (much like a clean slate or canvas), to it's revitalization of Marvin Gaye politics and pouring of the heart, spiritually and with ones lover, to all the light revealed at the end of the darkest tunnel. Frank offers us hope and redemption, even when we may not deserve it, like a loving creator should, and this, of course, comes with a complete purge of past sin.

Haha, thanks for the nod! Nice review too. I haven't been able to get into Channel Orange at all since getting it many months ago, but it was very interesting reading such an in-depth description about what someone likes about it.

I've said before I have no interest in hip-hip but that does not exclude me from reading anyone's journal entry, no more than one about jazz, punk or big band would, even though I am not at all into those genres. I like to see how people write, and I must say Surell, you certainly write well. I don't know the album (though have heard others discussing it) but the fact that you could widen a simple premise about a stripper's death into something about Cleopatra is nothing short of amazing.

A great, insightful and overall enjoyable read. Please post more regularly: I'd like to read more of what you have to say, and I'm sure you have plenty.

PS Dateline: December 22 2012: Not dead! Yay! :tramp:

Well, Cleopatra is the stated subject of the song - her name is repeated multiple times and the first half is a story actually told in Egypt - so that part wasn't exactly any guesswork on my part. The idea is probably that she took that as her erotic name, as those in erotic industries are want to do, but I don't see the point in spending ten minutes on the broad if there isn't something deeper than her stripping and dying.

Thanks for the comments fellas! I don't feel right writing in here until I get the next entry(s) out, so I'll be sure to be hasty, and I'll keep in mind a little more work on Jazz and Big band.

The only reason i changed my avatar and possibly gender is because I thought i finally let the guilt of an unfinished list off my shoulders, but it turns out technology failed me, much like I imagined a "perfect" entity that can't even enjoy a day at the beach would, so now I'm going to present the last four albums with the brevity of a twitter post, which surely is a signal to declining times. More detail later perhaps.

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2. Shields - Grizzly Bear

An icy glimpse into a hero's journey, betrayal eke dissapointment wynd down to self empowerment, either preceding or succeeding apocalypse.

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3. Sorrow and Extinction - Pallbearer

Five songs represent the five grieving stages for the earth's imminent doom, placed on the grand stage of proggy trad sorrow metal for all.

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4. Centipede Hz - Animal Collective

Alien eyes observe daily human activity as they perform it, interrupting the everyday with the assembly and destruction of industrial parks.

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5. Psychedelic Pill - Neil Young

Nostalgia point revisits pains and joys of his own past to soberly find right and wrong over stormy, meditative jams straight from his mind.

HONORABLE MENTION:

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UNEVEN COMPROMISE - LIL UGLY MANE

Our protagonist realizes apocalyptics visions, is oppressed by masonic overlords; now jumpcut to the savage nature of man, our true downfall

Though it isn't talking about music, I think it fits with the idea of the journal, and it's interesting to me and something I wrote. It's a draft I just wrote for most of today, I hope it's not too bad. It was for a class where we analyze films based on a theme, here obsession, usually along with a great work of fiction (obsession had Heart of Darkness but it doesn't come up here because I suck).

When you watch the Oscars, one can tell right away the dedication it takes to be a filmmaker with the regard of an artist by the fact that the categories branch not into genre, but technical departments. Films are comprised of various components manned by countless workers, to whom a great director has to have great interest devoted. For a true visionary, every project is a concise statement: You see it in Francis Ford Coppola, who in his finest cinema explores the alienation of man from his environment and even himself; or with Martin Scorcese, in his quest to pose human reality at its most naked to the audience; or in Paul Thomas Anderson’s portrayal of families as the form, disintegrate, and reform themselves to evolve; even Christopher Nolan, a grandiose magician of the screen, with his truly metaphysical conceits, pushes the audience to question their understand of the reality of his films, how that pertains to them, and then how they have to question their own realities; and then in a more subversive light, there is David Lynch, narrating the most repressed, unexplored impressions of American culture with an eerie innocence like that of 1950s America. But the almost inarguable apex of filmmaking, a man leaping from idea to idea, synthesizing the most disparate elements of storytelling, boiling his communications down to the most essential symbols, and still maintaining one of the most distinct, inimitable styles in the field, is Stanley Kubrick.

From the midcentury, a renaissance in filmmaking, until the turn of the millennium, Kubrick consistently release jaw-dropping, paradigm shifting films, influencing contemporaries and successors alike. He was a man of genius IQ, an obsessive chess player, and likewise an obsessive artist. His films are so deeply contemplated, so painstakingly developed, that it has left some with the conclusion that his films have no mistakes, no room for any shot containing misinformation or error. And this may especially pertain to symbolism, since among his many great qualities, the most distinct might be his cinematography, the composition of his shots and how they’re captured by the camera. This is so prominent, in fact, that for his longtime misunderstood horror The Shining, a movie has been dedicated to the many theories of fans on what Kubrick’s intent was for making the film, called Room 237.

For these critics, it is not possible that he would create this film without some greater theme or purpose for it to allegorically fit: with Dr. Strangelove, he tackled the self-destructive paranoia surrounding the Cold War and technology; Full Metal Jacket looked at the nonnegotiable brutality of war in general; and 2001: A Space Odyssey explored man’s relation to his destiny, his progress, and the surrounding universe. This consistent stream of lucid, meaningful work wouldn’t likely be interrupted by some one-off horror flick so very separated by conventional horror. Another factor that seems to give it some distinction as carrying some vital message is that it is based on a book, but so consciously deviates and even destroys the source material and builds anew on top of it. One commentator claims that the biggest clue to Kubrick’s very conscious deviation is how he swaps the book’s red VW Beetle for a yellow one, and then later shows Dick Holloran driving by a wreck on his way to the Torrance’s, a wreck involving a diesel truck flipped atop a red VW Beetle – the commentator makes a point to say that Kubrick’s “vehicle” is much more essential than King’s, in this implication. Acknowledging this break from the source seems to imply that he is using the book’s characters and set only as vehicles for Kubrick’s own tenor, trading out King’s story of his own struggle with alcoholism, writer’s block, and familial failings, for something personal to Kubrick. Many interesting propositions are thrown in, some with more expertise than others: It is a possible WWII/Holocaust portrayal, Jack being the bureaucratic overseer of the prisoners, and the spirits being past or present victims, seen in the imagery of eagles (a Nazi mascot), German typewriters, the number 42, and Kubrick’s own preoccupation with the Holocaust (he was Jewish and long wished but equally dreaded to make a movie on the event until Schindler’s List was produced); then there’s America’s own genocide, that of the Native Americans, possibly hinted at in dialogue (built on an Indian burial ground), the elevator’s blood flood (possibly brought up from the basement where Native bones are buried), Colorado’s longstanding strained relationship with Native Americans, and consistent Native imagery in the hotel (decoration, portraiture, and canned food); there is also the infamous accusation that it is Kubrick’s confession of helping fake the lunar landing footage, of how he slowly went mad keeping the secret, losing a friend and nearly losing his family, this being evidenced primarily in the number 237 (237000 miles from earth to moon) and Danny’s ascension in the Apollo 11 shirt, among other things. Some don’t entirely affirm a theory as much as attest to his master of subliming information. One man claims he was reading a book on subliminal messaging, and even went to meet with advertisers to learn their secrets in the art. Another cites a Freudian book on fairytales, which accounts for the mention of breadcrumbs and imagery of deceitful witches and Danny hiding in a kitchen. Dissolves are also noted for how they actually seem to be synchronized, lining up the exterior of the hotel with, say, a ladder, creating a sort of pyramid imagery, or a group of people being place right where a pile of suitcases were in the previous shot, seemingly alluding to the Holocaust’s dismantlement of humans and humanity.

Overall, one can ascertain even without these obsessive readings that Kubrick was very intentionally planting clues and signifiers around his film. As one woman notes, when the girls appear to Danny in the rec room, the girls are left at the bottom of the screen, surrounded by posters, above and to the side. When Jack is in the Golden Room, there is a remarkable bit equally subtle motif of deep red, from drapes on the wall to couches the people sit on to Jack’s very own coat. He leaves from this room into a shockingly red bathroom. This is where he is enticed. We see him wearing a coat of this violent hue but eased into the color externally, clueing us into the idea that he really was always a part of the hotel. The director, in his own explorations and referencing a mysterious conspirator called MSTERMIND or something of the like, claims the movie is meant to be seen “forwards and backwards,” and cross-fading the two shows a few scenes that are so eerily congruent it seems like they could have been choreographed to be so viewed. Kubrick’s blocking and plotting of action does seem almost blatant in the film, much like with the dissolves. When they first reach the hotel, and Jack is sitting in the lobby (reading a Playgirl magazine, as some have noticed), people seem to march in behind him, equally spaced in time and distance between each entering figure. The cameras, in their very Kubrickian way, also track along in very even measures. The way the hotel’s manager speaks and interacts with the family seems fairly artificial, as well as Jack’s interactions before his descent into madness. There’s just so much air in the dialogue when it’s delivered, but in the film’s tight corridors and maze-like tours with the camera you find a claustrophobic atmosphere. In this maze we might be able to get to the heart of how this film relates to the others and its own possible implications.

There is, of course, a maze exterior to the hotel, but the building’s own structure and treatment by the spirits is very much like a labyrinth, meant to horrify and madden and sentence its occupants to death or entrapment. It is curious that he would keep two mazes in the film, and what implications it could have; more on that towards the end. It is said in Room 237 that Kubrick moved toward The Shining as a reaction against his previous work, the highly acclaimed Barry Lyndon – apparently, this film bored him. Looking to find new ground after a complete set of classics under his belt, he went to horror, which at the point of The Shining’s creation, would have been predominately filled with slasher’s and other grindhouse-style affair. In a sense, we see Kubrick escaping two labyrinths of his own design, with the mastership of a prestigious chess player: He escapes the past glories weighing down his creative future, and creates a more cerebral horror film as opposed to the basic gore of that era. Kubrick not only creates a new path for himself, but revitalizes the intelligent horror film at the same time. What’s equally interesting is that his lack of experience with the field of horror doesn’t confine his success in that field, though he does succeed with a fairly unconventional style. He understands that fundamentally what strikes horror in the audience is the pacing of the action, especially building up to a moment, combining that with a sense of inescapability and portraying this slow dread with still, striking visuals. Much like with Nosferatu, what the audience fears isn’t the Count sucking the blood, but him standing completely erect, like something inhuman; or his shadow slowly climbing the stairs, knotting the audience’s stomach with how he savors that ascent; and before that, how the protagonist hides desperately under a blanket as a fearful Danny would, while the Count lets the door creep open and appears from a massive, barely torch lit hall. All the shadows, the negative space for something to crawl out of, and the inhumanity of the antagonist, coupled with how very patient his actions are, give the audience that sense of dread, that idea that what they face is inescapable. Kubrick’s negative space becomes a maze, with countless corners for boogeymen to jump out from, and the coffin-like tightness that tells the audience that there are no moves out, there is no escape. Kubrick may have turned to horror because this was his horror, never having another creative move to play again, winding up in a personal stalemate. To expand the idea momentarily, Radiohead, facing their fate as the new Pink Floyd, something nice but still not entirely theirs, made a complete about face creatively, turning from progressive hard/alternative rock to progressive electronic/hip hop/dada inspired pop/rock, and haven’t turned back since.

There’s an extremely interesting and entirely logical point made about the hotel’s structure that stirs the audience even more and expounds on the idea of it as some horrible, supernatural labyrinth, in the fact that it has very little logical sense. The most striking evidence in this, one commentator reports, is that when you go to the office of the building, where Jack goes for the interview, you see on his way that the hallway just beside the office holds elevators and doors to a room probably behind that office; but, as she points out, when you look in the office there is a window, glaring with light and littered with sharp, leafy branches. It is impossible for that office to have an outside view. In the Wendy, Danny, and Dick’s tour of the freezer, they enter in one side, exit through the same door, but by the camera’s POV have come out at a different exit. Even before this, when they’re walking between the maze and hotel, one shot shows a different entrance side than the one succeeding it; even before they’ve entered, we can see (though that isn’t a promise that we will see) a huge though subtle deviation from physics, from the very logic of nature, that goes entirely unnoticed except to the trained eye.

With this twisting and turning of our path through the house he may be purposefully distorting our reality pertaining to the house. He’s interrupting the natural flow of events, and it is likely neither we nor the characters will even notice how off existence in that house really is. This is similar to Nolan’s frequent questionable reality, wherein due to some underlying condition we cannot truly grasp if what we’re being shown is the truth. Like with Memento, where we suffered through Leonard’s lack of memory, every now and then being presented with something new, something that may be drastically different than it was before, due to our fundamental ignorance of that very prior state. He also derails our passage through the film by his distortion of chronology, building through the middle by jumping back and forth through past and present, much like Kubrick’s distorted presentation of the setting. Then in The Prestige, we are continually jerked between betrayals by each main character, having figurative rugs pulled from under us, trap doors dropping us into some new shocking turn in one rival’s fortune, building to one final betrayal and a lingering curiosity as to if this contention might ever cease or, especially, if the inciting death was even intentional or not. Everything is obscured, as a magician would have it, and we are ultimately kept in the dark. Inception equally relies on an unstable perception, hinting throughout that perhaps our POV through Cobb, the entirety of the narrative in fact, might be some horrible construction making a flailing attempt at ejecting himself from an inescapable dream, so deep that he can’t know when he’s finally reached reality. Sharing with these films that inescapability, twisted passage through the narrative, and the consistent betrayals between characters and surroundings (that aforementioned distance in the dialogue and artificiality in presentation) may present the film as a question of reality.

In my own thought on the film, its opaque nature seems to invite questions on the film’s reality, and how that fits with Kubrick’s consistency of thematic work. He really kind of constructs the whole thing as a sort of black hole; as mentioned, the film defies physics or logic, defies its source material, steps cautiously away from its precedence to create new ground. Like Descartes, he believes his reality must be judged entirely on his own rationale, dismissing any external material for his vision to stand on. Perhaps he even meant for the audience to misunderstand him in the time of the film’s making – Bob Dylan purposefully drew hatred to himself to escape the spotlight and focus on his personal affairs, allegedly. So, knowing that he had to disintegrate all these things to gain the distance he needed to progress, he made this horror film, completely out of step with himself and the movie market of the time, with unexplainable happenings, cliché horror effects mixed with completely innovative techniques, paired with a book that sold well and was acclaimed only to trash most of that and horrify the audience in a brand new way. But Kubrick was a perfectionist, which means not that he’d make the perfect turd, but a perfectly idiosyncratic effort, so unheard of and standoffish in its presence that it intimidates to tackle. It is a black hole, as going into it means coming either to uncertain conclusions or utter nothingness (a viewer’s hatred). Room 237 tells its story entirely through stock footage, a great majority from Kubrick’s own films, indulging Kubrick’s seeming omnipotence in film and somewhat dwelling on how few new ways there are to commit a story to film (as Paul Thomas Anderson put it, “We’re all children of Kubrick… is there anything you can do that he hasn’t?”); excusing the digression, as each initial viewing experience is recounted, the same footage of people in this 70s theatre, the projector flicking on, and the movie appearing on the screen is shown; it’s like these voyagers, out in their seats, are all entering the exact same abyss, but, being metaphysically contorted by this absolutely unknowable limbo, come out to entirely different conclusions, explore entirely different implications, almost watching entirely different films. Kubrick may have planned this, in fact; he faced an uncertainty that struck him as terrifying and hellish, and the greatest horror he could commit to screen is one where the audience comes out with that same eternal uncertainty, escaping the black hole as they left the theatre but never actually leaving it behind. He may have felt the sting of writer’s block, like King, but he had his own ghosts and demons to appease, and so he had to completely substitute that other constructed reality for his own, to finally escape that maze.

As I mentioned earlier, there are curiously two mazes in the Shining, and it is curious because Danny attempts to escape Jack by entering another possibly inescapable construction. What logic is there in that, escaping one inescapability through another? Perhaps he is here showing the two sides of himself in Danny and Jack, as mentioned in the lunar landing conspiracy, wherein Danny is Kubrick as explorative, naïve child before the fraud and Jack is the bitter, maddened man after the secret is committed. Here, however, he is just a man stuck in a place it seems like he’ll never escape, one that he was fated for and will always see as Jack was portrayed in his alleged everlasting caretaking position there, and Danny is opportunity, a reinvigorated youth that will lead Kubrick out of this sentence. When Danny covers his tracks, he is extinguishing those past glories, those affirmative criticisms, those committed fans, so that he can create a new path for himself, escaping that tormented self to begin anew. As we know, Jack dies, a babbling ape of a man, frozen in the labyrinth as well as in time, as Danny escapes back to the world; Kubrick is possibly encapsulating that past self, telling us that that man is merely a photograph, a moment in time, and that he is moving on. For the audience as well, though, he is telling us that some things are not worth dwelling on. Though he has constructed something so multifaceted and elusive, and it may present some very interesting insights, it is not necessarily the be-all end-all for his life’s project; The Shining is only a moment in time, it is with the past, and it needn’t necessarily dictate our present interpretations. Essentially, he’s asking us to progress, as he did.

Unknown Soldier paid me one of the highest compliments I ever received a while back, which was to say that my review of "Downfall" was not only the best he had seen in my journal, but the best he had read on the forum. I didn't think that was the case at all, but in reading yours I have to admit my review compared to yours is like a stickman cartoon coloured in crayon as opposed to a Caravaggio.

The depth of understanding you have of this man, and his movies, and your eloquent delivery of your points, your conclusions and examples, your explanations and your observations, all make me hope that one day I will be able to review a film as well as you do here.

This week's post of the week, without any question.
Great job!
:thumb: :bowdown:

Thank you very much Trollheart! You're not only the king of journals but a truly great writer yourself, so it's really great to hear such kind words from you, always. :)

I have to admit, though, I would never have had any of this insight without Room 237. Even though sometimes the commentators could be pretty out there, they were all very fascinating, and opened up my mind to how the film could be interpreted; without seeing that film, The Shining would still be extremely obscure to me, though not in a bad way, since it is one of my favorites. But without a doubt, I'd still be in the dark in how to go about analyzing it.