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Movies Explained

Toy Story 3 Explained

Toy Story 3 (2010), directed by Lee Unkrich, is the greatest American animated movie ever made. I know this pronouncement will inspire scorn, since, although the film is popular, it doesn’t get the same reverence as rightful classics like The Lion King (1994), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). But even against heavyweights such as these, Toy Story 3 is king. I’ll dedicate this essay to arguing this claim with a careful analysis of the movie’s themes and characters.

I.

I’ll start by noting that Toy Story 3 is in some ways a remake of an earlier, lesser-known animated feature: Disney’s The Brave Little Toaster (1987), a film about anthropomorphic gang of household appliances whose owner has seemingly left them behind. The gadgets, who only spring to life when humans leave the vicinity, depart the house in desperate search of their “master” and wrestle with the possibility that they’re simply no longer valuable to him.

The Brave Little Toaster is remarkably dark and in some scenes outright disturbing. The movie climaxes in a junkyard, where broken down cars are being chomped to their deaths in a compressor, all the while singing about their assorted regrets. Their laments are harrowing and severe. For instance, you may notice if you watch the clip (linked above), which I’ll continue to refer to throughout this essay, that the final car, who sings of his loving owners eventually having to abandon him when he became too old for use, doesn’t need to be craned to his death—instead, he voluntarily drives into the compressor. (It’s no wonder so many of the YouTube comments recall childhood nightmares stemming from this film.)

But for all TBLT’s embrace of dark situations, the final punch is pulled. That is to say, unlike the junkyard cars, Toaster and his buddies have an owner, Rob, who, inexplicably, actually does want to keep them—so badly, in fact, that when he finds them in the junkyard, he almost dies trying to pull them off the electromagnet. The whole thing was a misunderstanding: he never meant to leave them behind.

So the movie ends happily with a reunion. Still, the overall effect is unsettling: what would have happened to Toaster and his friends if their owner weren’t a fanatical junk enthusiast? What happens to every other toaster, lamp, radio, vacuum cleaner, and blanket in this universe? The Brave Little Toaster attempts to lift our spirits, but it only makes us thankful that Rob is a borderline insane individual.

We’ll give it a pass, though. TBLT confronts a thorny theme that probably doesn’t belong in a children’s movie to begin with: the dark prospect of abandonment. Who could blame it for a less than honest ending? Come to think of it, even for adults, is there any film in existence that takes that most shudder-inducing of real world facts—that our loved ones sometimes move on from us—and gives it authentic positivity? Would such a film even be possible?

 

II.

Eight years after TBLT’s release, one of its lead animators, John Lasseter, directed and co-wrote the first full-length CGI film ever made, Toy Story (1995). And it features a suspiciously familiar premise: household objects are secretly alive, and they pine for love and usefulness. For the second time, Lasseter uses this concept as a springboard for exploring themes of replacement and moving on: the story revolves around protagonist Sheriff Woody’s (Tom Hanks) coming to terms with losing his role as “Andy’s favorite toy.”

But despite the excellence of Toy Story, the viewers are again spared: Woody ultimately befriends newcomer Buzz and realizes that they can both be loved by Andy: the jealousy and competition were, it turns out, unnecessary. Woody’s line from early in the film proves correct: “No one is getting replaced.”

Lasseter returns to write and direct Toy Story 2 (1999), though, and this time he’s bold enough to suggest that, actually, one day, things might not be so rosy. One of the antagonists, Stinky Pete, repeatedly raises the uncomfortable truth that, one day, all toys are thrown away:

Stinky Pete: Idiots! Children destroy toys! You’ll all be ruined! Forgotten! Rotting for eternity in some landfill!

And a new character, Jessie, exemplifies this trajectory in the movie’s most emotional sequence. But in the end of this relatively weak installment, Woody and friends simply decide to return to Andy and triumphantly do so.

It’s plain to see what’s happening. The series is careening closer and closer to The Brave Little Toaster. It’s as if the evil electromagnet were pulling us (or, more accurately, Lasseter) back toward that creepy junkyard, where Toaster and his pals witnessed the truth about what eventually happens to anthropomorphic junk.

And in Toy Story 3 (2010), with Lasseter co-writing, we finally get there. This time, there’s no deus ex machina: Andy is a normal boy on his way to college, not a weird trash lover like Rob, and like every normal college-bound boy, he no longer plays with toys. Our beloved characters, whose existences were defined by Andy’s love in the first two movies, are put away for storage and accidentally thrown out.

 

III.

Why does this premise have such an emotional hold on us? We in the audience aren’t toys or toasters; we don’t need to be played with or used; we don’t have owners—and yet, this is a heartbreaking exposition. Why?

Consider that these characters, unlike any other characters in the history of cinema, are literally mass-produced. They’re made in a factory, painted, distributed. They have many identical replicas in the world. As Buzz painfully learns in the first movie, they’re not unique.

I think that our peculiar attachment to Woody and his pals is for precisely this reason. It allows these movies to tap into a feeling characteristic of contemporary life, a kind of dread, actually: the worry that we aren’t meaningfully unique, that we’re completely replaceable.

It affects all of us. On one hand, we know that we have personalities and experiences that make us unlike any other single person. But on the other hand, don’t our experiences sometimes bitterly suggest that even those who love us can find a person just as good, if not better, when the time is right?

These days, we move around a lot: home to home, employer to employer, relationship to relationship, group of friends to group of friends—and there’s always someone to fill our places. Plus, we live pretty long—long enough, in fact, for many of us to see the day (like the last car in the junkyard) when our caretakers simply leave us. Are we actually so unique and invaluable, then, in today’s world? Or can anyone be replaced on a whim?

 

IV.

Enter Lots-o’-Huggin Bear, the most terrifying animated villain in movie history. I assure you that the evil queen from Snow White cowers before him. Ursula’s tentacles quiver at the mention of his name. Scar whimpers like a kitten, I’ve heard, at a whiff of his strawberry scent. 

Like every Disney or Pixar villain, Lotso is a selfish fiend. Unlike the others, though, he’s not out to gain anything. He’s not trying to take over a kingdom or marry the protagonist. He already runs Sunnyside, and he’s content to continue doing so. His selfishness, rather, is the avoidance of his own emotional pain—at any cost.

This alone makes Lotso infinitely more relatable than the typical larger than life villains trotted out by animation studios. He’s especially relatable, in fact, to the heroes of Toy Story 3. After all, his story isn’t so different from theirs in the prior installments: after being separated from his beloved owner, he arduously treks home to rejoin her. But instead of slipping happily back into place, as they’re able to do, Lotso finds that he has already been replaced by an identical toy.

What if, during Woody’s absence in Toy Story, Andy’s mom had bought a new sheriff? Or a new Buzz in Toy Story 2? It isn’t farfetched at all: as I noted before, the toys are literally mass-produced objects.

So how can they refute Lotso when he preaches the doctrine that all toys are nothing more than interchangeable pieces of plastic? Not only could they have easily met his fate, but they are also at this very moment essentially meeting it anyway: with Andy on his way to college, his toys are obsolete. He has replaced them with a new life, his young adult life. Even Woody, who’s coming along for sentimental reasons, will never be played with again.

Lotso thus has the upper hand, and he exerts it calmly in their haunting confrontation atop a dumpster:

Lotso: What are y’all doing? Runnin’ back to your kid? He don’t want you no more!”

Woody: That’s a lie.

Lotso: Is it? Tell me this Sheriff: if your kid loves you so much, why is he leaving?

There it is, plainly put. This question from Lotso, although it may not be clear at first viewing, is what the trilogy has been working toward all along. It’s the question that The Brave Little Toaster was ultimately too timid to ask but which Lasseter has finally built himself up to pose with seriousness: If a loving bond ends in abandonment, how can it have been real love?

The toys must use all they’ve learned and experienced over the course of the series to respond to this frightening rhetoric. For example, when Lotso drawlingly suggests they come back and “join our family again,” Jessie bursts out, “This isn’t a family! You’re a liar and a bully! … I’d rather rot in this dumpster than join any ‘family’ of yours.” Consider how moving this is from Jessie, who early in Toy Story 2 was desperate to have Woody complete her “family” of Roundup characters so as to avoid being shoved aside as she was by her previous owner. Now, she’s willing to accept oblivion. She’s learned a new definition of family, and she won’t settle for anything less.

Next we get another inspiring moment, this one from an unlikely character. When I first viewed Toy Story 3, I wondered early on why Pixar opted to introduce Barbie and Ken to the mix; after all, they’re a bit overdone. But in the face of Lotso’s taunting, that very ubiquity enables this show-stopping exchange:

Ken: Don’t do this, Lotso!

Lotso: She’s a Barbie doll, Ken! There’s a hundred million just like her!”

Ken: Not to me, there’s not.

Ken has been wholly comic relief until this line, so there’s a temptation to laugh it off, but where in all of Pixar/Disney is there a more genuine romantic moment?

I’m serious. Sure, the studios have fed us memorable love stories for decades, but they’re fairy tales. They’re fated, mandated by destiny. The characters are so exceptional—being various blends of every admirable quality imaginable (and usually royalty, too)—that how could the pairings not work out? Meanwhile, Ken confronts the existence of an infinite number of exactly equivalent options, and, risking death, still chooses Barbie—because….she’s herself. You tell me which is more romantic.

These heroic stands by Ken and Jessie jab at Lotso’s bleak philosophy, but they don’t really faze him. His question still stands: If your kid loves you so much, why is he leaving? He hurls Ken over the dumpster and makes the point again:

Lotso: I didn’t throw you away, your kid did! Ain’t no kid ever loved a toy, really.

For me, this is brutal to watch. He’s hitting them where it hurts. How can the toys, who have sacrificed so much for Andy’s love only to be put away in the attic and left behind, disprove Lotso?

Luckily for the toys—and for us, since, as I’ve indicated, we’re invested in this philosophical clash too—there’s one toy equipped through experience to do rhetorical battle with Lotso. Only Sheriff Woody can save the day.

Woody alone in the series has felt the pain of being replaced. Recall that in the first movie, he’s overcome by jealousy when Buzz becomes Andy’s new favorite toy, and is driven to reprehensible acts. He knows what this feeling can do to a toy, so he steps up and diagnoses the problem:

Lotso: Then she threw us out.

Woody: No. She lost you!

Lotso: She replaced us!

Woody: She replaced you, and if you couldn’t have her, no one could!

Although he’s referring to Lotso’s treatment of Big Baby here, he’s more generally criticizing Lotso’s overall philosophy, essentially arguing: “If you couldn’t be loved, then you decided love was impossible for anyone!” He’s pointing out the disingenuousness of Lotso’s cynicism, speaking, as I’ve said, from experience.

The truly inspiring development, however, is that after Woody recognizes that Lotso was indeed replaced, he insists: “She loved you, Lotso. As much as any kid ever loved a toy.”

Think about this. Woody isn’t saying that Daisy still loves Lotso in any practical sense; he knows she doesn’t. He’s saying that she did love him, and that’s enough. Even though she found another to fill his place, it was love while it lasted, and it was worthwhile. Only someone who was replaced, got past it painfully, and adjusted to a new normal could have made this remarkable statement. Consider too that Woody is by extension admitting that Andy, too, may one day no longer love his toys—perhaps he already doesn’t—but at the same time is declaring that, really, it’s beside the point.

As proof, Woody throws over Daisy’s heart badge. It’s now plain for everyone to see: Woody’s right. Who could’ve made that adorable badge, besides a girl who loved her toy? So what if he was replaced?

But Lotso doesn’t break. Rather than concede defeat, he reveals himself as not merely a commentator on interchangeability, but a purveyor of full-blown nihilism, screaming this horrific line, which, re-watching the scene, gives me chills:

Lotso: We’re all just trash, waitin’ to be thrown away!

What doctrine could be sadder? The event of Lotso’s replacement has led him to this: a declaration of total meaninglessness. It’s no surprise, with this worldview, that at the crucial moment later on, he effectively attempts to murder the toys, departing with an absurd taunt that reinforces his ignorance of anything not beneficial to survival: “Where’s your kid now, Sheriff?” The character of Lotso thus demonstrates the particular route to evil that begins with loss.

 

V.

But as Woody later remarks, “He’s not worth it.” They’ve refuted him and his cynicism, so, unlike in The Brave Little Toaster, the junkyard becomes not bleak and harrowing, but merely the unfortunate end of a long road. Since they’ve experienced love and friendship along that road, they’re prepared to accept it. Out of good fortune they’re rescued by their alien friends (who, it seems, have completed their own arc, now controlling ‘The Claw’ for the good of others rather than accepting it as an agent of fate, perhaps inspired by Woody’s recent saving of one of their own), and so they’re free to start anew with Bonnie.

The ensuing scene is mostly tear-jerking that doesn’t need analysis, but there is one interesting moment. When Andy introduces his toys to Bonnie, he mostly describes their media personas—Buzz as a cool space ranger, Jessie as a spunky cowgirl—but summarizes Woody by saying, “He will never, ever, give up on you.” That’s a strange sendoff for Woody. What about his selflessness and leadership—far more defining traits throughout the series? What is Andy referring to?

He’s talking about Woody’s clash with Lotso. Woody alone was able to argue that Andy’s necessary departure and separation from his toys doesn’t make him unloving; it doesn’t take away all they went through together when Andy was younger. Woody alone never gave up on Andy’s love, temporary though it unfortunately had to be. Woody, chiefly, has enabled this moment, where Andy can give them a simple confirmation that, indeed, Lotso was wrong, and everything was real:

“Thanks guys.”

 

P.S.

You may believe me guilty of overthinking a heartwarming family film. Maybe I have. But when themes like these are concerned, it’s far better to overthink than to under-think. Remember Lotso’s raging line to the toys atop the dumpster: “This is what happens when you dummies try to think!”

This is a revealing insult, because Lotso’s original error is that he doesn’t think. When he sees Daisy with the replacement Lotso, he immediately lets his emotions get the better of him and never looks back. He never stops to consider that in order for Daisy’s parents to buy her an identical replacement, she must have been inconsolable when she realized he was gone.

He doesn’t think about the tantrums that must have occurred. He doesn’t think about the tears, the screaming, the devastation. Had he done so, his goodness could have been salvaged.

It’s a very relatable mistake. It’s hard to think clearly when things seem so terrible. But watching movies like Toy Story 3 helps us sort out these issues so that, perhaps, they won’t ruin us in real life. Woody dissuades us from believing our gut reactions that tell us, inaccurately, that we were fooled in thinking we were loved—that “we’re all just trash, waitin’ to be thrown away!”

And that’s why Toy Story 3 is an amazing movie.  But, I know, I know: that’s great, but you still like The Lion King more.

 

— Jim Andersen

For more analyses of popular movies, check out my explanation of Donnie Darko.

 

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Commentary and Essays

Donnie Darko Explained

This won’t be a lengthy piece covering the nuances of Donnie Darko‘s (2001) science fiction rules and minutiae—because in my opinion, that would be a waste of time. If you want that, you can go here and knock yourself out. I’m instead going to focus on why Donnie Darko, despite its famously bonkers plot, is in fact a great movie deserving of critical recognition that it doesn’t often receive.

When Donnie Darko is referenced in critical contexts, it’s usually as an example of a “cult classic.” I think that’s a veiled insult and a mischaracterization. While a cult classic would appeal strongly to a select group and be ignored or forgotten by everyone else, Donnie Darko has contrastingly enjoyed continued popularity and notoriety since its release. Some of its images (especially of Frank the giant bunny rabbit) are among the most recognized in 21st century American film.

The reason for the critical undersell is probably that the solution to the movie’s time travel puzzle 1) is impossible to extract from the original cut of the movie and 2) adds no thematic value whatsoever to the viewing experience. Hence my opting not to touch it in this piece. Apparently the entire plot rests on a made up set of scientific principles that only appear in Richard Kelly’s Director’s Cut. This means that anyone watching the theatrical cut (e.g., virtually everyone who sees the film) will finish the movie with no idea what has taken place. It’s understandable that critics wouldn’t be thrilled with this directorial strategy. 

Plus, even the principles laid out in the Director’s Cut don’t seem to solve the sci-fi puzzle. Apparently the entire movie is centered around a time loop in which every character must push Donnie Darko toward his destiny of saving the world from time fragmentation when a jet engine accidentally enters a wormhole. Yet the overwhelming majority of the movie has absolutely nothing to do with that. Multiple characters, for example, don’t seem to be pushing Donnie toward anything, preferring to stand awkwardly in random places.

But although the movie’s plot makes no sense, it has a unique effect on the movie’s mood, and that dynamic provides the artistic interest of the film. Essentially, Donnie Darko is a mashup of high school movie cliches that is made satirical and creepy by the fact that we have been told that the world is ending.

For instance, Donnie develops romantic feelings for classmate Gretchen, but is this really relevant when we’ve been told the end is so near? Donnie struggles against sappy, overwritten authority figures, but why is he wasting valuable time doing so? The coach of a young girls’ dance team loses perspective, but is this really a pressing matter right now? Mrs. Pomeranz admirably stands up against censorship in the classroom—but what does this have to do with the end of the world? Is any of this even real?

This kind of anxiety isn’t induced by any other film that I’ve seen. Cliches are supposed to make us comfortable; Donnie Darko’s make us panic.

Frank’s dire prediction also means that the tone of Donnie Darko’s comedy can’t be found anywhere else, because we can’t help but wonder what it’s doing in the movie in the first place. Donnie launches into a rant about The Smurfs that would fit neatly into a sitcom, “The Big Bang Theory” maybe, but here the humor is uniquely dark, because Donnie’s situation is inescapably dark. Any lighthearted jokes must exist on a foundation of dread.

Donnie Darko is innovative not because it discards standard cliches, but because it uses them in an environment in which they don’t belong. I wish more movies would do the same. I think artists get proud of themselves for transcending stock characters and scenes, but if they use the same old setting and mood, not much transcendence has really happened. This is a movie worth a rewatch; just don’t overthink it.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more trippy fun, check out my analysis of Mulholland Dr.

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Commentary and Essays

Does M. Night Shyamalan Believe His Own Premises?

It’s tough to find examples of filmmakers with serious intent who make bad movies, since those filmmakers are generally weeded out by a studio system that won’t allow anyone except a certified master to try anything interesting. Fortunately, we still have one bona fide hack to learn from: M. Night Shyamalan. Some have said that Split (2016) is his return to form, but that a) is not true and b) presumes he had good form at some point, which is also probably not true.

Shyamalan’s formula for writing a movie is as follows:
1) Come up with an interesting, supernatural premise.
2) Spend an entire movie trying to explain how that premise could actually be true in the real world.

It’s obvious where he goes wrong. Every good artist should ask “what if?” But instead of creating a world to fit the hypothetical, which a good artist would do, Shyamalan insists that the world be the real world exactly as he knows it: banal, Philly-suburban family life, with all its soccer mom bustle and banter, its casual pop culture, its intimidating schoolyards.

Only The Sixth Sense (1999) can even somewhat solve this compatibility issue, and it does so by creating a ridiculous mythos: dead people don’t know they’re dead, and they see whatever they want. Very convenient. But even with this catch-all structure, problems emerge. Is it really possible, for example, that all of the many ghosts who haunted, threatened, and injured Cole were merely trying to be friendly the whole time? If dead people are everywhere, how come everyone isn’t always cold?

It only gets more strained thereafter. In Unbreakable (2000), Shyamalan posits that superheroes exist, and then instead of creating a world in which this might be plausible, he devotes the film to inventing an absurd backstory that explains how a regular man could have superpowers for his entire life without becoming the greatest professional athlete in human history, or some kind of famous psychic.  Does Shyamalan expect us to believe, given this backstory, that it may, in fact, be possible that superheroes exist?  Apparently he does, because there would be no other reason to spend the entire film telling it.

In The Village (2004), we meet a medieval community that doesn’t know it’s 2004. It’s not too far off a modern road, but, as always, Shyamalan thinks he has his bases covered: as he himself explains in cameo, a no-fly zone was declared over the area.

A no-fly zone, you say?  Maybe such a village could exist!

You get the idea, but skip ahead to Split, where dissociative personality disorder confers unpredictable mutant abilities. It’s a fine premise, but why must a stock psychologist spend so much time explaining to us how, via the brain’s natural defensive mechanisms, this can be an actual phenomenon, when we know it can’t be? Even the psychologist herself seems to lose credulousness toward the end, reminding her patient, “there must be limits to what a human can become.” But apparently, there aren’t: she’s immediately killed off after this statement, and the patient later absorbs point blank shotgun blasts. So the psychologist was tasked with convincing us that this patient’s abilities were possible, but then could not believe the degree of those abilities. Is this the real world, or isn’t it?

Shyamalan spends his movies endlessly clarifying his own interesting ideas, because he can’t let go of the possibility that they are actually true. What a strange flaw. It’s almost enjoyable to watch him tie himself in knots, but in the end, it’s just tiring. Stick with X-Men.

-Jim Andersen

For more on overrated movies, check out my article on The Breakfast Club.

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Movies Explained

Eyes Wide Shut Explained: Part 2

This is Part 2 of my analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. For Part 1, go here.

I’m aware that my analysis in Part 1 only explained the movie’s symbolism and didn’t fill any of its frustrating plot holes. This is because only through an understanding of the symbolism can we piece together the disjointed plot.

First we’ll focus on the mystery of Mandy the prostitute, a.k.a. Amanda Curran, who has three appearances: first she overdoses in Ziegler’s bathroom; later, she “redeems” Bill at the orgy; finally, she turns up dead in the morgue. Ziegler denies foul play in her death, but he’s extremely unconvincing in doing so. He merely discredits her as a “hooker” and even exclaims at one point, “her door was locked from the inside, police are happy, end of story!” It’s pretty clear to Bill—and us—that Mandy was killed.

But the big, unresolved question is: Why would Mandy’s act of redemption at the orgy lead to her having been killed? What does “redeem” even mean?

The key is that this line of questioning is misguided, because it assumes that the events of the orgy scene are their own unique events. As we’ve established, however, the orgy is Bill’s dreamlike reflection of the party at Victor Ziegler’s house. Thus, what we should be asking is: what does Mandy do at the Ziegler party that would cause her to be murdered, and how is that projected by Bill into the orgy scene?

Once we ask this, we arrive at an almost too-simple answer: Mandy is killed to protect Ziegler’s reputation following the incident in his bathroom.

This is not a farfetched speculation. Although Kubrick films the bathroom scene in a low-key, casual tone, the situation is horrific. Ziegler, a married man of tremendous wealth, has a drugged, naked prostitute lying unconscious in his own bathroom while he throws a house party.

I doubt anyone would argue that Ziegler is above ordering someone’s death, especially someone as low on the socioeconomic ladder as Mandy. Remember that later on he demonstrates ugly contempt for her: “She was a hooker. That’s what she was.”

Plus, by examining Bill’s dreamlike reimagining of Ziegler’s party—the orgy sequence—we can see that Bill feared for Mandy’s safety even before she was killed. The man in the red cloak, who, as we’ve determined, represents Ziegler, tells Bill, ominously, “Nothing can change her fate now.” This represents Bill at the end of the bathroom scene worrying that Ziegler will have Mandy killed to keep her from talking.

Thus, despite Bill’s composed demeanor in Ziegler’s bathroom, we know from the orgy scene that he was (justifiably) concerned and even pessimistic about Mandy’s safety.

It also seems, given the words of the man in the red cloak during the orgy, that after the bathroom scene Bill feared for his own safety, as well. At the end of the bathroom scene, Ziegler gently requests that Bill keep what he has seen “just between us.” But in the orgy sequence, this is translated as a fearsome threat from the red-cloaked man: “If you tell anyone about what you have seen, there will be the most dire consequences for you and your family!”

It’s interesting to note that, during Ziegler and Bill’s final conversation in Ziegler’s billiards room, they’re ostensibly discussing the events at the orgy, but most of their dialogue sounds more like they’re talking about Ziegler’s bathroom. Bill asks regarding the newspaper article, “Is this the woman at the party?”—but how does Ziegler know that Bill is talking about the orgy and not Ziegler’s own party, when it was the same woman at both events? Plus, a “party” isn’t quite what I’d call the ritual-like event at the mansion, yet Ziegler somehow doesn’t get confused.

Consider also Ziegler’s insistence: “When they took her home she was just fine.” He’s talking about the end of the orgy, but his words evoke Bill’s advice to Ziegler at his own party: “Then, I’d have someone take her home.” The conversation is written this way to indicate that, while the characters discuss the orgy as a literal event, we should really be focusing on what transpired at Ziegler’s house, viewing the orgy as its dreamlike double.

Mandy’s “redemption” at the orgy, therefore, is a representation of how Mandy justified and validated Bill’s presence at the Ziegler party by overdosing, requiring his assistance. Early in the Ziegler party Bill feels insecure and out of his league, but Mandy’s troubles allow him to prove his worth, hence the “redemption.” He projects her medical distress as a melodramatic, intentional intervention on her part. (Ziegler: “You saved my ass.” Bill: “Glad I was here.”)

This all fits neatly together, but I acknowledge that there are some things that still don’t. You may be wondering, for example, about the identity of the mysterious man on the balcony of the orgy mansion. He appears twice: firstly in the aforementioned zoom shot standing on the balcony, during which he and Bill appear to recognize one another; and secondly in a separate scene in which he silently escorts a woman to Bill’s side.

If we were to view the orgy as its own independent event, we would conclude that the man must be Ziegler, since Ziegler later claims to have been there and is the only person we know who could’ve recognized Bill. But even if we were to view the orgy this way, the man’s actions don’t fit Ziegler at all. We first see the man in the grey mask, as previously stated, nodding cordially to Bill; we next see him calmly escorting a woman over to Bill, apparently encouraging her to have sex with him. Contrastingly, Ziegler later reveals that he is furious with Bill for attending the event. The two characters are simply not compatible.

And we know by now that we shouldn’t be asking who the man in the grey mask is literally. It wouldn’t make sense anyway: how could a masked Bill recognize and single out another man in a mask, and the man recognize him in return? We should be asking whom the man represents from the Ziegler party. Ziegler is already represented by the man in the red cloak (flanked by two men in blue, symbolizing his wealth). It can’t be him.

There is, however, a character that Bill recognizes at the Ziegler party and exchanges cordial greetings with: the piano player, Nick Nightingale.

Now, Nick is technically already at the orgy, but don’t get hung up on that. It’s absolutely clear that the man on the balcony represents Nick at the Ziegler party. Consider that Bill sees the man in the grey mask elevated on the balcony, just as he sees Nick elevated onstage playing the piano. And the reciprocal nod between Bill and the man at the orgy is reminiscent of Bill’s catching up with Nick, not of any other exchange at the Ziegler party.

But now the plot hole: we also see the man in the mask escort a woman to Bill at the orgy, while Nick does no such thing at the party.

Or, to be more precise, we don’t see him do any such thing.

When Nick and Bill talk during the party, Nick makes a strange remark during their greetings. Bill says, “I see you’ve become a pianist,” and Nick replies, “Yes, well, my friends call me that.” It’s subtle, and Bill lets it pass, but it’s not clear what Nick is getting at. What do his non-friends call him?

Soon after this, an anonymous man appears and demands: “Nick, I need you a minute.” This is similar to how Bill is later summoned to Ziegler’s bathroom. But if Nick is only playing piano at the event, why would his presence be needed elsewhere? It’s never explained. Something’s off.

Fortunately, what Kubrick hides in the party sequence, he reveals in the orgy ritual. Nick is responsible for procuring the prostitutes at Ziegler’s party. This is made clear by the aforementioned scene in which the man in the grey mask leads the woman to Bill’s side. This woman, who flirtatiously suggests going “someplace quiet,” represents the two models that flirt with Bill at Ziegler’s and all but offer him sex. It’s implied in the orgy sequence, then, that it was Nick who encouraged these “models” to approach Bill at Ziegler’s party. Recall that we never see their introduction, even though we see Sandor Szavost introduce himself to Alice elsewhere in the mansion.

In addition to explaining the Nick’s suspicious comments and activity at the party, this explains another key discrepancy. If we’re assuming that the orgy ritual is only a dreamlike reimagining of earlier events, then it doesn’t make sense that Nick was forced back to Seattle only because he told Bill about the orgy. As with Mandy, we have to find the reason for his punishment within the Ziegler party, not the orgy. And this problem is solved immediately by realizing that it was Nick who hired Mandy, who in turn embarrassed Ziegler by overdosing and necessitating outside help.

Last section. I know it’s been a long read, but I saved the best for last. The only thing we haven’t covered is Alice’s representation at the orgy ritual—because, for some reason, she isn’t represented at all. Or…is she?

Taking a quick, related detour: it’s incongruous that the orgy sequence features appearances multiple appearances from Mandy, given that she only appears at the very end of the Ziegler party episode. Her early appearances at the orgy largely consist of cryptic warnings to Bill, such as, “Go while you still can,” no parallel of which is observed at the Ziegler party, since Mandy doesn’t interact with Bill during the party. If the two sequences are analogs, how to explain Mandy’s expanded role at the orgy?

Now recall that Alice’s bedroom confession causes Bill to worry whether his sexual relationship with Alice has been sustained only because of his income. This dynamic is disturbingly similar, Bill knows, to prostitution, which is why, as I detailed in Part 1 of this analysis, Bill’s subsequent encounters involve prostitution in various forms. We can fill in the last symbolic gap, therefore, by realizing that at the orgy, Mandy represents herself during the redemption scene—but Alice prior to that.

Bill has reimagined his wife as a prostitute. The fact that he projects Alice and Mandy as the same woman in the orgy shows that he perceives uncomfortable similarities between their lifestyles.

This claim works on all levels. When Bill arrives at the orgy, the red-cloaked man “pairs” him with Mandy, just as Ziegler greets Alice and Bill and sends them off with approval. Mandy’s remark, “I’m not sure what you think you’re doing,” is reminiscent of Alice’s “Do you know anyone here?” early in the party. Finally, when Bill asks Mandy at the orgy, “Who are you?” she responds mysteriously with, “You don’t want to know.” Of course he doesn’t: she’s his wife. Bill is reflecting on his own unwillingness to “unmask” the truths of his marriage.

Since this has been a long, heady analysis, I’ll leave its adjunct part up to you, as you watch Eyes Wide Shut again. We’ve talked only about Bill’s psychological experiences and how they manifest in an elaborate, dreamlike sequence. We haven’t talked about Alice’s experiences—but we could if we wanted to, because Alice also reports some dream sequences of her own. Using the manner of analysis that I’ve laid out here, try to connect Alice’s experience at the Ziegler party to her own dreams, which, although not visualized onscreen like Bill’s, are plenty weird and emotionally packed in their own right. 

Perhaps the image that best summarizes Eyes Wide Shut is Ziegler’s pool table. Since we’ve established that red is symbolically linked with sex, we can interpret this image as a commentary that Ziegler, the epitome of the invulnerable elite, uses sex as a game, like billiards, with those of lesser status as the symbolic billiard balls, all for the purpose of maintaining and abusing power. Even well-off people like Bill are mere billiard balls to true bigwigs like Ziegler. The masses act in their own sexual interests, oblivious to the control being exerted on them from the elite.

I suppose, then, that, in the end, my analysis is ultimately a conspiracy theory. Hopefully, it’s been an enjoyable and informative one. Happy re-watching!

 

–Jim Andersen

For more Kubrick masterpieces explained, check out my equally thorough piece on 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Movies Explained

Eyes Wide Shut Explained: Part 1

Eyes Wide Shut is Stanley Kubrick’s last film and one of his most difficult to understand. Viewers will likely finish the film with major questions about key events. Who was the woman at the ritual? Who was the man in the grey mask? What was the meaning of the film’s unusual narrative? What was real, and what was a dream?

This piece will definitively answer all of those questions, plus several more. While most analyses of Eyes Wide Shut that I’ve seen focus on connecting the film to dubious, real-world conspiracy theories, my essay below will use actual evidence in the film to draw well supported thematic conclusions. Let the analysis begin.

The action of Eyes Wide Shut begins when Bill Harford’s (Tom Cruise) wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), makes a confession that rattles him. She shares that, in the early years of their marriage, she found herself fantasizing uncontrollably about a naval officer. Since this precipitates such discomfort in Bill, many have concluded that the subject of the movie is sexual jealousy. Jealousy, however, doesn’t quite fit Bill’s behavior. A jealous husband, upon hearing Alice’s confession, would likely have increased his oversight of her out of suspicion. Bill, on the other hand, leaves the house for long periods to go on adventures of his own.

So the first question that will help us understand Eyes Wide Shut is: why does Bill’s bedroom conversation with Alice leave him so upset, and what is the nature of his emotional state following that conversation? The answer, which I’ll go on to support with evidence, is that Bill has become afraid that Alice married him for his money and that, by extension, she doesn’t desire him sexually. 

How this insecurity could arise from Alice’s confession is fairly clear. Her brief fantasy involved a striking officer of presumably lower economic status than Bill, a doctor. Therefore, the story, intentionally or not, casts Bill as the safe, steady choice—and the officer as the desirable but unviable suitor. Although she was “willing to give up… my whole fucking future” for the man, she ultimately remained with Bill, suggesting that she merely settled for him due to his affluence.

And we know that the interplay between money and sex is Bill’s primary concern post-confession because it dominates his subsequent encounters. Bill’s conversation with Marion Nathanson, for instance, replays Alice’s story of the naval officer with Bill in the role of the desirable stranger. Soon afterward, Bill nearly has sex with a prostitute, and after that, he witnesses costume store owner Mr. Millich discover his young daughter in a sexual situation, a discovery that Millich later profits on by prostituting her.

These minor episodes, however, are only thematic openers to the famous “orgy” sequence, in which Bill manages to gain admission to an event that features masked men and women having sex in bizarre, ritualistic fashion.

The key to understanding the orgy is that it represents Bill reflecting on a previous event—the party at Victor Ziegler’s house—through a new lens that has only become available to him following Alice’s confession. As we’ve said, because of Alice’s story about the naval officer, Bill worries that she married him out of economic incentive. Because of that worry, he reflects on the earlier Ziegler party as a hub for the unsettling exchange of sex and money—a reflection brought onscreen in the dreamlike orgy sequence.

Consider that both scenes—the Ziegler party and the orgy—take place at extravagant mansions, and the prospect of sexual adventure, even outside of marriage, is prominent in both. At the Ziegler party, both Bill and Alice flirt with strangers. Ziegler himself, also married, gets in trouble after a prostitute overdoses in his bathroom, necessitating Bill’s medical intervention. Nearly every scene at Ziegler’s party highlights sex as a driving social force.

In addition, the two scenes feature a common dynamic between men and women, in which men are of higher status and women display sex appeal. At Ziegler’s, Bill banters with “a couple of models,” and Ziegler later admits that the woman in his bathroom was “a hooker.” Meanwhile, Alice’s suitor is a rich “friend of the Zieglers.”

It’s fairly obvious that the models who converse with Bill were paid by Ziegler to attend the party, given that even Bill and Alice feel out of their league at the event. Optimistically, the models may have been hired as eye candy; perhaps more realistically, they’ve been paid to be available for the male guests: they all but offer Bill sex, a rather unlikely development unless explained by professional obligation.

Is the Ziegler party, then, all that different from the orgy scene when it comes to the subject of sex? Recall that at the orgy, a red-cloaked man commands women to undress and sends them off with wealthy male guests. Metaphorically, this resembles what Ziegler has done by paying vulnerable young women to attend his party. A great YouTube video exists here detailing the interesting visual cues that link Ziegler to the “man in the red cloak” who leads the ritual at the orgy. It’s difficult to disagree, based on the evidence in the video, that Kubrick wants us to recognize that the two characters play essentially the same role at their respective events.

To understand the orgy sequence, think of it as a dream. Of course, it’s not a literal dream, since Bill does attend the event in reality, as evidenced by his costume rental and his later discussion with Ziegler, who references the orgy and claims to have been a guest. But it unfolds in the manner of a dream, with its events and characters based on real events. Eyes Wide Shut is loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler’s book, Traumnovelle, or “Dream Story,” so it makes sense that the story progresses (in parts) as a dream would.

Having definitively established this link between the movie’s two most crucial episodes, we can explore the symbolic cues they provide for the rest of the movie.

First, I’ll focus on Kubrick’s use of color in the two scenes. The Ziegler party is lit by Christmas lights, multicolored and decorative. The orgy scene, on the other hand, features darker lighting and emphasizes red and blue.

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We can infer that the multicolored lights represent the “façade” of the Ziegler party, with its formalities and splendor disguising an ugly interior. Indeed, most sets that Bill passes through during the rest of the movie feature Christmas trees with multicolored lights are present. These invoke the Ziegler party, indicating that Bill is still thinking idealistically, clinging to the façade, resisting his growing suspicion that money and sex are intertwined.

However, after Bill’s final talk with Ziegler, he returns home and turns off the Christmas tree lights, indicating that he’s given into that suspicion, acknowledging its truth. He opens the refrigerator and sits down at his table with a beer. This is truly “where the rainbow ends”—the rainbow revealed to mean the rainbow-colored lights that symbolize idealism, as first introduced at Ziegler’s party.

But what of the red and blue scheme featured in the orgy scene? That, too, recurs throughout Bill’s adventure, and those colors signify, respectively, sex and money. Red is always linked with sex, as it was in the orgy scene when the women undressed on the red carpet, and blue is always linked with money.

Consider firstly the costume store. When Bill first visits, the prominent color is red, as Mr. Millich discovers his daughter having sex with two men. But the second time Bill visits, Millich wears all blue. His daughter enters from a red-lit room with the two men seen earlier, and Millich hints that he has prostituted his daughter (“we have come to another arrangement”). Thus, Millich wears blue to represent his monetary gain, while his daughter still wears red, evoking her sexual participation.

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Secondly, consider the scene with Domino the prostitute. She wears purple, the only character in the film to do so. Purple is a mixture of red and blue; fitting, since Domino’s profession embodies the interplay between money and sex. Consider also the image below that features a red and a blue light behind her head.

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There are many other examples of red and blue being used with these connotations. To survey briefly, however, recall the Harfords’ bed (red), the lighting in the Harfords’ expensive apartment (blue), the bars of the orgy mansion doors (blue—only the rich may enter), and the toy store at the end of the movie (red—the couple agrees that the best solution is to “fuck”).

This framework enables a more telling interpretation of some scenes. Let’s return to Bill’s early cab ride, in which he pictures Alice having sex with the naval officer. The images of Alice and the officer are filtered in grey-blue. But why not red, if red is supposed to be associated with sex? It’s because Bill is only now wondering about the economic motivations of sex following Alice’s confession. Although he’s picturing his wife in a sexual act, he isn’t really thinking about sex; he’s thinking about money and its relationship to what he’s picturing.

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Now that we’ve covered colors, let’s move on to a different motif: masks. In the orgy sequence, everyone wears them. One might wonder why, if the orgy represents the “true” Ziegler party, the participants have been disguised. But this would be a misinterpretation of the relationship between the two scenes.

Think of it like this: since the the Ziegler party operates via facades and deceptions, its guests are represented in the orgy sequence as wearing literal masks. The orgy doesn’t uncover any secrets to Bill; rather, it represents Bill reflecting on the true nature of the event following Alice’s confession.

It’s significant, therefore, that Bill “loses” his mask at the orgy: following the reflection on money and sex that the orgy represents, he’s less able or willing to put on the same social façade as before. Shortly after he loses his mask, he turns off his Christmas tree lights, a similar symbolic event. This, as stated before, is “where the rainbow ends.” Not surprisingly, then, the costume store is called Rainbow Fashion.

But after returning to his apartment after his conversation with Ziegler, the mask is sitting on Bill’s pillow. Why is the mask there, and how did it get there? The answer is that the mask’s presence symbolizes Bill’s last chance to suppress what he has witnessed. The mask represents the social facade of Ziegler’s guests, a facade that Bill also formerly assumed. But Bill has now become aware of that facade after Alice’s confession: he has “lost” his mask. Kubrick signals to us by cutting to the mask that Bill has one more chance to assume the facade again. The mask isn’t literally there; it’s a symbolic visual.

Notice also that Kubrick cuts to the mask on the pillow long before Bill even enters the bedroom. Kubrick is communicating that Bill is considering this return to his blissful ignorance as soon as he enters the apartment. Bill probably thinks it over as he drinks his Budweiser. Ultimately, though, he decides against reclaiming the mask, instead breaking down in tears to Alice (“I’ll tell you everything!”). In a bizarre, Kubrickian way, it’s an uplifting ending, especially since the couple endures the ensuing difficult conversation and decides to remain together.

 

End of Part 1

Continue to Part 2, which explains the mysteries of Mandy the prostitute, the man on the balcony, and whether Alice was at the ritual.

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movie analysis movie review

Citizen Kane Explained

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Citizen Kane (1941), directed by and starring Orson Welles, is often regarded as the greatest American film ever made. It is ranked as #1 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years 100 Movies list, and has topped the Sight and Sound Critics’ Poll almost every time it has been eligible.

But more casual movie fans often question the movie’s premier standing.  Perhaps it’s because, unlike with more recent classics like The Godfather (1972), there’s little drama to Citizen Kane‘s plot, because it’s mostly told in retrospect.  It may also be due to a perceived lack of style, a flaw which no one could accuse Pulp Fiction (1994) or Schindler’s List (1993) of having.  Whatever the reason, Citizen Kane eludes some contemporary movie fans.

My goal, then, is to explore the themes of the movie, especially concerning the meaning of its famous ending, in an attempt to make Kane easier to appreciate for skeptics.

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The structure of Citizen Kane, for those in need of refreshing, and so that I can reference it in my analysis, consists roughly of six segments:

  1. Charles Foster Kane dies, and journalists subsequently compose a newsreel outlining the major events of his life. Dissatisfied, the editor sends a reporter, Jerry Thompson, to uncover the meaning of Kane’s last word.
  2. Thompson reads the diary of Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker who, at Mrs. Kane’s behest, took a young Charles away from his Colorado home to be educated.
  3. Thompson interviews Mr. Bernstein, Kane’s former manager. Bernstein describes Kane’s success in increasing circulation of the Inquirer.
  4. Thompson interviews Jedidiah Leyland, Kane’s former friend. Leyland describes Kane’s personal life, and how it affected his political and journalistic career.
  5. Thompson interviews Susan Alexander, Kane’s second wife. Alexander details Kane’s bizarre attempts to turn her into an opera star and describes how she later left him.
  6. Thompson leaves Xanadu, and a slow tracking camera shot reveals the secret of “Rosebud.”

Consider the elegance of the storytelling. The four main interviewees (#2-5) tell, in conjunction, a coherent story of Kane’s life. First, Thatcher’s diary describes Kane’s financial story. Then Bernstein, in perfect segue, tells of how Kane’s operation of his major financial venture—the Inquirer—was influenced by Kane’s own personal qualities, notably charisma and determination. Leyland then reveals how those same qualities eventually led to Kane’s political and marital ruin and a decline in the Inquirer’s journalistic standards. Alexander completes the portrait by expanding on Kane’s dark side, especially regarding his inflexible, controlling nature, and his perceived attempts to be loved without offering love of his own.

As I said: an elegant, enjoyable construction. But other movies have elegant constructions, maybe even equally elegant, and they don’t receive the same accolades. The intricate portrayal of Kane’s positive and negative qualities deserves high recognition as well, but, again, lesser known movies also feature complex character portrayals.

Citizen Kane only truly separates itself in its last sequence, beginning with Thompson being asked, “What did you find out about him, Jerry?” and he responding, “Not much, really.”

This might seem like a strange response, given the four well-told stories he’s heard. But he has a point: despite the elegant storytelling, what have we really learned about Kane?  The interviews illustrate various chronicles that were covered in the newsreel that the journalists had already put together: the rise and fall of Kane’s finances, the rise and fall of the Inquirer, and the rise and fall of Kane’s two marriages and political career. About the most interesting thing we see through the interviews is the recurring theme, emphasized by Leyland and Alexander, of Kane wanting love without giving any in return. As Thompson summarizes, however, that doesn’t amount to much.

Plus, every one of the living interviewees ends their contribution by passing Thompson on to another person, insisting that this new interviewee is instead the best candidate to shed light on Kane’s life. Even Alexander, who was married to Kane for years, believes that Raymond the butler, who subsequently offers essentially no information, can give more insight than she. The interviewees know that they could never gain access to Kane’s deepest self.

Tragically, this also means that no one, with the possible exception of Kane’s deceased mother, ever really knew him, since the four interviewees (five, counting Raymond) were supposedly those closest to him in life. Since Thompson can’t answer his boss’s question “Who was he?” even with all five stories put together, it seems that no one ever will.

But wait.

There is in fact one more interviewee. It isn’t a person, or any character at all. The final interviewee is Welles’ camera, which, unlike the characters in the film, solves for us the mystery of “Rosebud.”

Right before this dramatic reveal, Thompson contemplates what it would have meant to solve the mystery. He is dismissive:

Thompson: “Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn’t have explained anything… I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a… piece in a jigsaw puzzle… a missing piece.”

The tension between this quotation and the subsequent “Rosebud” reveal is the heart of the movie. Clearly, Welles’ sly camera thinks it’s found the key to Kane’s lock, a key that Thompson doesn’t believe exists. Does it? Can a word explain a man’s life?

Each time I watch Citizen Kane, I feel differently. Sometimes I side with Thompson: a man’s life is indeed so complex, I decide, that “Rosebud” by necessity leaves so much untouched.

But other times, incredibly, I believe the camera. And it is in these instances when I see clearly the case for Citizen Kane‘s eminence. “Rosebud” comes at us not as a trick, as with other surprising movie endings, but with an aesthetic majesty, a confidence—shared by all great works of art—that its image touches all of life, that it has somehow packaged the incomprehensible into something that its audience can experience.

In this case, the incomprehensible is the loneliness felt by a boy who was jarringly taken from home and was never able to form a true relationship again. He was not “a man who got everything he wanted and lost it,” as Thompson offers, but a man who never had anything, at least not in the way of proper companionship, since his childhood, and who spent an unsuccessful adult life trying to figure out how to get it.  Faced with impending death, he can only turn to the happiness he felt before money and fame.

The themes of loneliness and the search for companionship, however, are important to more than just the character of Charles Foster Kane. He may be the most extremely isolated character in the film, but he isn’t the only one who struggles with interpersonal connection. In fact, all of the characters are unimpressive in this regard. Thatcher has his items stodgily stored in a depressing, impersonal library. Bernstein is amiable, but there’s also a sadness to him, as if he wants nothing more than to have someone to chat with, and now that he does, he’s already resigned to the impending end of the conversation. Leyland is clearly a loner at the nursing home, unable even to connect with the nurses. And Alexander appears isolated to the point of clinical depression.

Forming human connections is perhaps the most difficult challenge of life.  There are so many obstacles to it—pride and fear prominent among them—and for some, like Charles Foster Kane, those obstacles prove too great.  But Welles isn’t deterred by this. The genius of Citizen Kane is to convincingly assert that despite the often-insurmountable difficulties of loving and knowing each other, there is for each of us an emotional, human story.

How many films, even well-made films, are ultimately only Kane before the Rosebud reveal—only empty character portraits, maybe interesting and coherent but still lacking life? How many of our own relationships in real life are Kane pre-Rosebud? Most of them? All of them?

Recall the fence sign that opens and closes the movie: “NO TRESPASSING”. This is an easy metaphor for Kane’s demeanor: he lets no one too close, shutting out those who would have been friends and lovers. But have we, by witnessing the secret of “Rosebud,” done the seemingly impossible—have we trespassed on Kane?  Depending on your opinion, the second and final shot of the sign is either frustrated and defeated, like Thompson leaving for the train, or ironic: the victorious camera mocking the naysayers.

Everyone has different reactions to great pieces of art, but after a well-timed viewing of Citizen Kane, I personally feel tremendous optimism, as if loneliness, although still very real, had been demonstrated to be unimportant.  Charles Foster Kane couldn’t share his story or his self with anyone—but he tried, didn’t he?  And that, Welles illustrates with the authority of a master, may be the most human thing that one can do.

 

–Jim Andersen

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Movies Explained

The Shining Explained: Part 2

This is the conclusion of my analysis of Kubrick’s The Shining. Part 1 untangled the movie’s reincarnation mysteries, explained the ending photograph, and examined the symbolic meaning of “shining.” This part will explain the mysterious Room 237 scene, the man in the bear costume, and Kubrick’s use of mirrors. 

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Contradiction #6: Jack, after encountering the lady in Room 237, calmly tells Wendy afterward that he saw nothing. This lady may be the mother of the murdered twin girls, but for half of the scene she appears as an elderly woman.

This is the most difficult segment of the movie to comprehend, because at first it doesn’t seem like a contradiction. Jack’s words to Wendy seem like an obvious cover up of what he has just experienced in Room 237.

Actually, though, Jack is telling the truth about finding nothing in Room 237, which explains A) his calm demeanor during the subsequent exchange with Wendy and B) his adamant refusal to leave the Overlook, which would be a strange position for someone to take after being chased by a naked, rotting ghost-woman.

My central insight here has already been argued elsewhere, by Rob Ager of collativelearning.com. I intend to clarify and add to that insight, which is this: immediately following the awkward scene in which Danny attempts to retrieve his fire truck from his room and winds up having an eerie conversation with Jack on his lap, Jack molests Danny off-screen. This incident results in Danny’s neck wounds and causes him to become almost catatonic for the remainder of the movie (“Danny’s gone away Mrs. Torrance…”).

Stay with me. This is a heavy claim, and might seem like a stretch. But the evidence is extensive. First, consider the eeriness of the fire truck scene itself.

Jack’s dialogue in this scene is noticeably strange, consisting largely of cryptic phrases like, “I can’t [sleep]. I’ve got too much to do.” Danny clearly notices that something is off and appears quite scared, even requesting reassurance that “you would never hurt mommy and me, would you?” The scene abruptly ends with an out-of-place “bump” in the instrumental score.

Keeping the strangeness of this conversation in mind, consider the infamous scene near the end of the movie in which Wendy comes across a man apparently receiving fellatio from another man in a bear costume (left). This scene is often cited for its apparent randomness, as the man’s identity and behavior are never explained. But recall the scene early in the movie in which Danny talks to the psychologist.

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During that talk, the above image of Danny’s face beside the face of his pillow recurs several times. The pillow, as you can see, depicts a bear. Thus, this image reveals the purpose of man in the bear costume: to tell us that Danny (who is the bear, as the pillow implies) has been sexually forced upon Jack.

This argument opens a gaping hole in the narrative, however. Why, then, did Danny say he was attacked by a “crazy lady” in Room 237? That’s easy. It’s reasonable—expected, even—that Danny would make up a story to avoid implicating his father. The “crazy lady” story sounds very much like what a child would invent to repress a trauma.

Therefore, the scene in which Jack explores Room 237 and finds a nude woman is not a literal event, but Danny’s repressed version of the molestation as he communicates it telepathically to Dick Hallorann. (Remember that during that scene, there are intermittent shots of a trembling Danny and a horrified Hallorann.) The Room 237 scene is the fire truck scene, viewed through Hallorann’s mind as he “shines” it from Danny, who has repressed the literal events. In this repressed version, Danny has been replaced with Jack, and Jack has been replaced by the “crazy lady.”

For evidence, consider the many parallels between the Room 237 scene and the fire truck retrieval scene. Both scenes take place in rooms with the same layout. Both scenes involve an entrant progressing through the layout and seeing someone unexpected—Danny sees Jack awake, Jack sees a woman in the bathtub. Next, this unexpected person makes the same exact motion: Jack’s “come here” gesture to Danny is exactly the same as the bathtub woman’s moving away the curtain. Then, the entrant approaches the unexpected person and the two interact: Danny sits on Jack’s lap, Jack embraces the nude woman.

The fire truck scene cuts here, but we can infer from the Room 237 scene what happens next. In that scene, Jack, after embracing the young woman, sees the woman rotting in the mirror, and he recoils in horror. Symbolically, this is what happens to Danny: he readily approaches his father and then, upon being assaulted, realizes the repulsive side to the initially appealing figure.

There’s a mirror at the foot of Jack’s bed that Kubrick emphasizes with fancy camerawork in multiple scenes. Danny would have seen his own molestation in this mirror, which is why in the Room 237 scene Jack first sees the ugliness of the woman in a mirror. There’s also an editing choice toward the end of the Room 237 scene that shows the old woman rising from the bathtub, which is odd given that our first sight of the woman was as a young woman, not old. This represents Danny’s realization that the figure he approached (his father) was evil all along—that his initially favorable impression of his father was incorrect.

The old woman rising from the bathtub therefore represents Jack waking up from his nap as an ugly, evil person. The shot only comes late in the scene because Danny only realizes too late that he was fooled by his father’s reassuring demeanor.

The brief scene in which an unseen presence rolls a ball toward Danny while he plays with cars is the initiation of Danny’s telepathic communication to Hallorann. Danny is noticeably missing his fire truck in this scene, an indication that his entering Room 237 represents his entering his apartment to retrieve the toy. The scene cuts as Danny enters Room 237 because at this point Danny begins to repress the events; when we next see Room 237, Danny, in his “shining” rendition of events, has replaced himself with his father, and has altered and repressed the sequence as previously described.

So Jack indeed inflicted the bruises on Danny’s neck during the off-screen molestation. Jack denies this to Lloyd, but he does so right before exclaiming that the last time he hurt his son was “three goddamn years ago,” demonstrating that at this time he is personifying his “past” 1920s-30s incarnation, and his recounting doesn’t apply.

Danny attempts to deal with the traumatic event in various ways, firstly by creating the childlike story that his aggressor was a “crazy lady in one of the rooms” and secondly by succumbing completely to Tony. As the psychologist had deduced earlier, Tony had helped Danny to cope with prior violence from his father. Now, as the harm from his father escalates, so does Danny’s reliance on Tony.

The final question to be answered about the Room 237 scene is: why, if it’s Danny’s psychological invention, does it feature such adult content? The answer is that Hallorann also influences what we see, since he receives the vision. He sees Danny’s “crazy lady” fabrication through his own personal lens. Note the two conspicuous pictures of naked women on Hallorann’s bedroom walls immediately before he “shines” the scene from Danny. It makes sense that the molestation as visualized by Hallorann would feature nudity, rather than fatherly love, as the initial “attractor.”

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The 237 scene can be watched, therefore, as a blend between 1) the actual event of Jack molesting Danny, 2) Danny’s childish coping story, and 3) Hallorann’s adult perspective. Truly an original, complex piece of filmmaking that demands even more analysis than I have room for here.

Contradiction #7: Although Danny is white and male, he’s still the victim of violence, which doesn’t fit the Overlook’s history of violence targeted toward women and minorities.

In every scene after the departure of Stuart Ullman, who wears red, white, and blue, Jack and Danny don these patriotic colors. By contrast, Wendy wears greens and browns and at one point a dress with Native American motifs. The message: Ullman, Jack, and Danny have entered the role of the white men who drove away and killed Native Americans, while Wendy has assumed the unfortunate role of the Native Americans.

And Chef Hallorann, too, bears visual association with Native Americans. In the first storeroom scene, directly behind his head is a Calumet baking powder can, adorned by its “chief” logo. Hallorann dies on top of a Native American floor design, as previously mentioned. (And “Chef” and “Chief” are very lexically similar.)

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Since, as we observed in Part 1, the Overlook’s power structure excludes women and minorities, it makes sense that Kubrick visually links women and minority characters to Native Americans, the first “outsiders”—and the first hunted people—in US history.

But Danny, who wears red, white, and blue, is victimized along with Wendy and Hallorann. Why?

Because Jack is a foolish and ineffective perpetuator of the violent tradition. Danny should be allied with Jack, but Jack’s repeated violence and abuse against Danny halts this potential alliance. Remember that Jack endows Danny with the ability to “shine” by drunkenly dislocating his shoulder. Recall also that Danny later uses this ability to call Hallorann, which saves both Wendy and himself. It’s Jack’s own fault, then, that he fails to kill his family and satisfy the Overlook elites.

Delbert Grady foresees the problem, warning Jack: “Your son has a very great talent. I don’t think you are aware how great it is. And he is attempting to use that very talent against your will.” Grady worries specifically that Danny “is attempting to bring an outside party into this situation.”

Minorities are not to meddle in the affairs of the Overlook, Grady implies with this warning, and Danny, who, by virtue of his race and gender, should be a conspirator, is instead helping the outsiders. Grady suggests based on this that Danny and his supportive mother “need a good talking to….perhaps, a bit more.”

This evokes political attempts to curtail others’ rights and opportunities. For outsiders to gain entry into structures that have long excluded them, they need some help from the inside, from those already part of those structures. Someone highly invested in the status quo would indeed be alarmed upon seeing this take place. They would advocate dealing with it “in the harshest possible way.”

Danny, then, ruins everything from the Overlook’s perspective. He doesn’t follow in in his father’s footsteps; instead, he helps the intended victim—Wendy—escape her fate. Recall that in Jack’s final moments in the maze he acts like a drunkard. Fitting, because it’s his own drunken injuring of Danny that, in the end, fatally foils his attack (“Hair of the dog that bit me!”).

Contradiction #8: All of the “ghosts” that Jack converses with appear in front of mirrors. However, there’s no mirror in the scene where Jack speaks to Grady in the store room.

Many believe, incorrectly, that the mirrors demonstrate that Jack is talking to himself rather than Grady, Lloyd, and the woman in Room 237—that they’re the mere inventions of an insane man. This theory loses steam in several places. Firstly, Danny and Wendy also encounter ghosts, and these ghosts don’t have mirrors behind them. Secondly, Grady physically lets Jack out of the store room (where there isn’t even a mirror), definitively disproving all arch-theories of the “None of it was real” variety.

The ghosts are all too real. And as previously discussed, the tangible intervening of Delbert Grady demonstrates the tangible influence of old power structures.

What of the mirrors, then?

The mirrors are simply another reinforcement of the connection between past and present, which we’ve already seen in the inclusion of a Charles and Delbert Grady and with two separate Mr. Torrances. Put succinctly: When Jack talks to Lloyd and Grady, he is talking to people just like himself, hence the mirrors. (The Room 237 scene is not a literal occurrence, as we’ve seen, so the lady’s appearance in the mirror is not relevant here.) Grady, Jack, and Lloyd are all part of the Overlook’s “boys club,” so Jack can see a lot of himself in those two companions. This is the meaning of the mirrors in these two sets.

But there’s even more to the mirrors. Watch again the scene after Wendy accuses Jack of harming Danny’s neck—a correct accusation, as we’ve seen. Jack walks down the hallway in front of the Gold Room, passing mirrors on his right (our left). Each time he passes a mirror, he makes a gesture of frustration, accompanied by a jolt in the musical score. This is Jack feeling guilty: he can’t stand the sight of himself after what he has done.

The important question, though, is, can we, the viewers, stand our own reflections? This is the underlying premise of another famous scene, in which Danny uses Wendy’s lipstick to write on the bathroom door, “REDRUM.” When Wendy wakes up, she sees in the mirror what Danny has written, which now appears as “MURDER.” The takeaway: if we as a nation were to look honestly in the mirror, we would see murder: the murder of Native Americans, the spirit of which continues to inform the everyday reality of the United States. 

The Shining, then, is a damning criticism of the United States from Kubrick, but he does more than criticize: he offers a solution. Remember how Danny escapes Jack in the maze. He retraces his steps. This heroic act is what Kubrick wants us to do, figuratively.

To have knowledge of history, to act based on this knowledge, to “shine”—this is how we escape the maze and save our society from violence and corruption. By film’s end, Kubrick wants us to shine with Danny and Wendy, to have awareness of the sinister undercurrent of our nation’s history and to prepare to retrace our steps and correct the problem.

An honest appraisal of our history would be a major change. As Kubrick shows us, the tendency heretofore has been to simply “Overlook.”

 

—-Jim Andersen          

For more Kubrickian analyses, check out my piece on Eyes Wide Shut.

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Movies Explained

The Shining Explained: Part 1

This is Part 1 of my analysis of Kubrick’s The Shining. For Part 2, go here. 

Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining contains some of the most memorable images in the genre, but it continues to baffle viewers with several strange and mysterious moments. How is Jack in the ending photograph? Are the ghosts real? What, really, is “shining”? How does Jack flash through time at the Overlook? Why are there so many inconsistencies? What happens in Room 237? Who’s that guy in the bear costume?

These questions strongly suggest hidden or symbolic meanings, so it’s no surprise that many critics and fans have admirably tried to piece together Kubrick’s intentions. But I still think the existing material falls short. So in this piece, I’ll explain the mysteries of The Shining, arriving at an in depth, comprehensive interpretation of the film. My method will be to tackle one by one each specific “contradiction” or oddity in the movie, so that no mysteries are left unsolved.

So without further ado, here are The Shining‘s contradictions explained:

Contradiction #1: At the Overlook, Jack appears to be neglecting his duties; however, he laments, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” 

During Jack’s interview for the winter caretaker position, Stuart Ullman lists the job’s responsibilities as “running the boiler” and “repairing damage as it occurs.” But Jack never makes any repairs despite a major storm, and we see Wendy, not Jack, running the boiler. In addition, several scenes emphasize Jack’s laziness. For example, he wakes up past 11AM and refuses to take Wendy for a walk because he has to “work,” and when Danny wants to retrieve his fire truck, Wendy cautions him against waking Jack, even though it’s the middle of the day.

If Jack isn’t doing any of his work, why does he complain, over and over, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”?

We’ll answer this, but first we need to build a foundational framework for our analysis.

Let’s start by observing that the Overlook Hotel appears to have a sort of hierarchy of ghosts. Lloyd the bartender alludes to this when he refuses Jack’s money in the Gold Room, implying that he is under orders from powerful people to treat Jack favorably: “Orders from the house.” 

One member of the Overlook’s power circle appears to be Delbert Grady. He often talks with an air of authority and conveys an interest in what goes on in the hotel as if he were in charge. But Grady isn’t acting alone: he tells Jack in the store room, “I and others have come to believe that your heart is not in this.”

Although we don’t meet these “others,” we have good reason to suspect that they, like Grady and Lloyd, are white men. Grady uses racist language when referencing Dick Hallorann, and he boasts of having “corrected” his wife and daughters after they defied him. Lloyd, for his part, encourages obvious misogyny with Jack, sympathizing as Jack refers to Wendy as “the old sperm bank upstairs.” Both of these conversations indicate that at the Overlook, women and minorities are conferred lesser status.

With this in mind, we must view the Overlook (as many other critics have done) as a microcosm of the United States.

The story of the Overlook’s founding supports this connection. Consider that, according to Stuart Ullman, the Overlook, like the United States, was built on a Native American burial ground. Builders had to repel “Indian attacks” during the Overlook’s construction.

And various lines of dialogue throughout The Shining reference westward settlers of the eighteenth century. The Torrances, for instance, converse about the Donner party. Jack makes strange, non-sequitur mentions to Lloyd of “Portland, Oregon” and “White Man’s Burden.” Native American chants are audible during the movie’s climax. Hallorann is killed on a Native American floor design.

These allusions have no bearing on the plot, nor are they present in Stephen King’s original novel, so we can only conclude that they’re important to unlocking the hidden meanings of the film. It seems clear that Kubrick wants to link the Overlook with the United States. But to what thematic purpose?

Some have concluded based on the aforementioned evidence that The Shining allegorizes the genocide of Native Americans. But this interpretation falls short. After all, Jack only kills one person (Hallorann), and he only does so because that person interferes with his attempts to kill his wife and son. If Kubrick merely wanted to allegorize a genocide, the story of Jack suddenly murdering a supporting character was a strange way to do so.

What I’ll go on to show is that Kubrick doesn’t merely retell a historical event, but uses it as a point of reference to highlight the structural problems of our present day. Specifically, The Shining is a portrayal of how the United States’ elite has perpetuated its ability to abuse power, such that the modern American family retains the discriminatory violence that characterized the nation’s founding act: a brutal genocide.

One way elites have perpetuated their power, according to Kubrick: literature. Jack is a writer by trade, and after being welcomed into the Overlook’s “old boys’ club,” his work consists only of the argument that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” In other words, the man of the house has better things to do than work, hence the need for women (Wendy) and minorities (Hallorann) to do it instead. The endless repetition of the sentence from Jack suggests that American writers use their platforms to justify the white man’s privileged lifestyle.  

Note that minor alterations in letters and format appear throughout Jack’s stack of papers. This is Kubrick’s way of saying, “the differences in literature don’t really mean anything—it’s all saying essentially the same thing.”

Contradiction #2: Ullman tells Jack that the former caretaker who killed his family was “Charles” Grady, but the man Jack meets at the Overlook identifies himself as “Delbert” Grady. Additionally, Ullman notes that the two daughters killed were “about 8 and 10” years old, but the girls Danny encounters are identical twins.

Many have written these off as insignificant script errors, in disharmony with Kubrick’s legendary attention to detail. But even ignoring Kubrick’s reputation, there’s indisputable evidence that there are in fact two separate Gradys.

In the Gold Room, Jack meets Delbert Grady, a butler at the Overlook in the 1930s (the song in the background, a 30s tune, confirms this), while Charles Grady, according to Ullman, was a new hire who killed his family in 1970. They cannot be the same person. We can assume, then, that the twins are Delbert’s daughters and that Charles’ daughters, whom we don’t see, were indeed “eight and ten.” The dresses worn by the creepy twins, after all, look dated enough for the 30s.

But it appears that the twins were murdered as well, as Danny “shines” this when he encounters them in the hallway. This may prompt confusion. Why would Kubrick indicate that there were two similar murders committed by two men with the same last name, decades apart?

Recall our thesis that The Shining demonstrates the perpetuation of violence in the United States. To Kubrick, then, this repetition of similar events reflects the nature of history. Delbert Grady, the butler, killed his family some time in the 1930s after the Gold Ball scene that Jack briefly inhabits, and Charles Grady, the caretaker, continued the tradition of violence in 1970, killing his own wife and two daughters. These Gradys, then, may be separate people, but they are essentially the same based on their deeds; in fact, they could be said to be two incarnations of the same person.

Recall the bathroom scene with Delbert Grady and Jack. It’s one of the strangest and most confusing scenes in the movie, but now we can understand what’s going on. Delbert Grady, the butler in the 1930’s who has not yet murdered his family, is jolly, subservient, and unaware of any murderous business. But when Jack questions him, he suddenly becomes sinister and composed, chillingly recounting how he murdered his family when they “didn’t care for the Overlook at first.”

It appears that he has somehow instantaneously switched in time from the 1930s “Delbert” Grady to the 1970s “Charles” Grady, who indeed brought his family to the hotel for the winter and whose family may not have “cared for the Overlook” upon being brought there. Grady has transitioned between two different incarnations of himself.

And if men can transition between different incarnations of themselves, we can infer that Charles Grady’s murder of his family in 1970 was no coincidence. It had already occurred in virtually the same manner in the 1930s, and once Charles came to the Overlook, he fell under the influence of his murderous predecessor, Delbert. (“He must have suffered a complete mental breakdown…”)

Contradiction #3: Wendy tells the psychologist that Jack hurt Danny’s arm five months ago, but Jack tells Lloyd that it was “three goddam years ago!” Also, Jack personally knows Lloyd, even though Lloyd bartended back in the 1930s.

These two versions of the arm injury story are obviously incompatible. We know that Wendy’s version is the accurate one, since she provides context for the event and links it with Danny taking a recent absence from school. Jack’s version, on the other hand, is so off that it can’t even be attributed to an honest mistake: Danny is only five years old.

We just covered the existence of two separate Gradys. Now we can see that, in addition, there are clearly two separate Mr. Torrances, both of whom injured their sons after drinking too much. Wendy and Jack are referencing two different events—just as the Charles Grady and Delbert Grady murders were two different events.

Consider that not only do Jack and Wendy’s timelines of the injury clash, but their respective descriptions of the event fail to match. Wendy says that Danny had scattered his own drawings on the floor before the incident, but Jack tells Lloyd that Danny had messed up Jack’s work papers. Again, two incompatible reports.

Remember Grady’s instantaneous shift through time in the bathroom scene—from 30s butler to 70s murderer. Applying the same concept, we can understand how Jack is able to inhabit a Gold Room party in the 1930s, meet Delbert Grady, and talk to Lloyd. Clearly, the Overlook causes Jack to incidentally shift between his present self and a previous incarnation. The two incarnations of Jack are explicitly proven in the ending scene of the movie: a man identical to Jack in an Overlook photograph taken in 1921.

So when Grady tells Jack, “You’ve always been the caretaker here,” he’s telling the truth. “Past Jack” was indeed the caretaker at the Overlook’s inception, as shown in the ending photograph.

And just like Grady, Jack sometimes transitions between incarnations. This explains how he personally knows Lloyd even before meeting him for the first time in the movie. It also explains his behavior in the Gold Room scene with Delbert Grady, during which he appears to know the dinner courses that will soon be served. It explains why Jack pines for a “glass of beer” but when Lloyd appears unexpectedly orders “bourbon on the rocks.” Finally, it explains Jack’s confusion about the amount of money in his wallet: in the first scene at the bar, he attempts to pay but realizes that he’s “temporarily light;” the next time he visits Lloyd, he has somehow acquired the money.

These discrepancies have no other conceivable explanation. In addition, they all feel oddly emphasized in the movie, as though Kubrick intended them as clues to something important.

If you need even more proof, none other than Kubrick himself, who rarely commented on his own movies, said, “The ballroom photograph at the very end suggests the reincarnation of Jack.”

We’ve definitively established that there are two Torrances, both heavy drinkers who resent their wives and harm their children. Consider Jack’s drunken behavior in the maze, howling and moaning (singing?) deliriously. How has he become intoxicated when the hotel has no alcohol on the premises? Answer: by again reverting to “past Jack,” the one shown in the ending photograph, who knew Lloyd the bartender and often drank “bourbon on the rocks.”

Contradiction #4: Hallorann implies to Danny that “shining” is a very rare gift, but by the end of the movie, most of the major characters exhibit it.

The notion that the ability to “shine” is hereditary is refuted by Wendy’s conversation with the psychologist. In this talk, the psychologist deftly exposes the truth: that, in fact, Danny’s communication with Tony began when Jack drunkenly dislocated his son’s shoulder.

What is the significance of this?

Consider each character who shines and the initial appearance of their abilities. Hallorann and his grandmother shine, but the initial appearance is unknown. Wendy shines only after Hallorann’s timely arrival in the Snowcat prevents her from being murdered by Jack. Danny, as just mentioned, began shining after Jack dislocated his arm. (Jack communicates with ghosts but does not really “shine,” as he does not perceive terrible things that happened or will happen, like Danny, Wendy, and Hallorann do.)

It’s clear from these sequences, particularly Wendy’s and Danny’s, that the ability to shine appears after being the target of violence. Danny’s shining appears after his injury. Wendy’s appears after Jack axes his way into her bedroom. Hallorann and his grandmother, it can be inferred, experienced racial hatred and hardship throughout their lives. Thus, “shining” symbolically represents the awareness that violence perpetrated primarily by white men has persisted in the United States since its founding. Only those who have experienced that violence have this awareness.

It makes sense, given this explanation, that those who shine can see into the past: experiencing violence in the present awakens them to historical horrors. Wendy for most of the movie expresses denial about Jack’s alarming tendencies (“It was just one of those things…”), but when she barely escapes her murderous husband, she finally comes to realize the brutality of powerful people in the United States—now and throughout its history.

Suddenly possessing the ability to shine, she can now see the country’s former elites (“All the best people”) in skeleton form, a stuffy-looking man who seems to be enjoying the violence (“Great party, isn’t it?”), and the famous elevator of blood: the representation of bloodshed through the history of the United States. Danny and Hallorann, having already experienced violence at the hands of white men, could already see these images.

Contradiction #5: Tony tells Danny to “remember what Mr. Hallorann said: it’s just like pictures in a book, Danny, it isn’t real.” But in Hallorann’s conversation with Danny, he never says this. Also, Jack tells Grady, “I saw your picture in the newspaper,” although Ullman told him about the Grady murders in person.

These two contradictions seem unrelated but are in fact referring to the same thing. Jack’s comment to Grady can be explained by noting the repeated appearances of a book of newspaper clippings on Jack’s desk with his typewriter. Apparently, Jack has been doing research on the Grady murders. theshining5

It seems silly that Jack would need to do extensive research to write one sentence over and over again. Recall, however, that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” represents the promotion of a classist structure that places white males in a position of relative privilege. The Grady murders actually would be important research for such an undertaking, since the case concerns a white father killing his family after they defied him.

More difficult to understand is Tony’s attempt to comfort Danny after seeing the twins. But again, the comment refers to the same thing. The “pictures in a book” are the newspaper pictures in Jack’s book of clippings. Thus, Tony is telling Danny, essentially, that the images of the dead twins are not “real” because they are from the past—“pictures in a book” of old newspapers. This actually does correspond with “what Mr. Hallorann said,” since Hallorann compared the disturbing images haunting Danny to “if someone burns toast,” dismissing the images as only a “trace” of what happened in the hotel’s past.

Tony and Hallorann therefore reassure Danny by dismissing the influence of the past on the present. This reassurance, however, is proven to be misguided by subsequent events. When Jack is trapped in the store room, he is physically released by Delbert Grady, not something that a mere “trace” or “picture in a book” would be capable of. The store room scene therefore emphasizes that the past can be very “real” indeed—contrary to the advice of Tony and Hallorann.

This message is important and relevant to modern society: don’t those at the top have reliable means of maintaining their power? Aren’t they bailed out by their old family friendships and connections and even by other unseen, unknown elites who wish to preserve the status quo? The store room scene, which many have cited as a disappointing example of deus ex machina, is actually a reminder of this tangible power of the past to perpetuate itself—a power that Tony doesn’t recognize, and that Hallorann tries to downplay.

 

End of Part 1

Continue to Part 2, where I conclude the analysis by solving the mystery of Room 237 and examining Kubrick’s careful use of mirrors.

Categories
movie analysis movie review

Mulholland Dr. Explained

David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001), a surrealist film involving an amnesiac, a Hollywood conspiracy, and a blossoming lesbian relationship, is one of the strangest and best movies I’ve ever seen. If you’ve seen it too, you may be looking for an explanation, which I will provide. After doing so, I will go on to admire a few of the movie’s best scenes.

As has been surmised by others, Mulholland Dr. is actually the story of the descent into depression and suicide of Diane Selwyn, a failed young actress. Selwyn is one of two characters in the movie played by Naomi Watts; the other is the perky Betty Elms, who has much more screen time. Selwyn, the movie’s true protagonist, only appears without explanation about three quarters of the way through the movie, waking up in a house where Betty and the amnesiac Rita had previously found only a rotting corpse. Adding to the strangeness is that Diane is shown to somehow know Rita, but instead calls her Camilla Rhodes, the name of a different character who appeared earlier.

The missing piece to this wacky puzzle, and to the many others that will leave viewers howling after the final “Silencio,” is that the first three quarters of the movie—the portion featuring Betty and Rita—is dreamt, likely drug-assisted, by Diane.  Rita’s car crash and the subsequent detective work, Adam Kesher’s series of misfortunes, the love between Rita and Betty, and the various tangential subplots that go essentially nowhere are all part of this dream, and they can all be traced back to major events that occur in Diane’s real life, which are revealed in a series of flashbacks during the last quarter of the movie.

If you re-watch the film with this structure in mind, it will be fairly easy to follow. The opening scene after the jitterbug dance sequence, for example, consists of a first person viewpoint shot in which an unseen character, breathing heavily, falls on a pillow.

The film’s real, non-dream narrative, told quickly in the movie’s final act, is as follows: Diane Selwyn (played by Naomi Watts), winner of a recent jitterbug competition in Deep River, Ontario, moves to Hollywood as an aspiring actress. She meets Camilla Rhodes (played by Laura Herring) on the movie set of The Sylvia North Story and the two become lovers. Camilla, however, soon enters a relationship with director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), and her career continues to ascend while Diane’s flounders. Camilla ends their relationship, but attempts to remain friends and invites Diane to a party at Adam’s house, where Adam appears ready to propose to Camilla. Furious and depressed, Diane then seeks out a hitman (Mark Pelligrino) to kill Camilla, which he succeeds in doing, as indicated by the agreed-upon placement of a blue key in Diane’s apartment. Diane is haunted by guilt and loss, and when detectives knock on her door, presumably to question her about Camilla, she commits suicide.

But how to explain the events and characters of the earlier scenes that constitute Diane’s dream? This is the real interest of the movie. Firstly, Betty Elms (also Watts) is Diane’s projection of her idealized self before moving to Hollywood: optimistic, gutsy, and determined. “Rita” is simply a new name for Camilla, but instead of having been killed in the arranged hit, this new Camilla is miraculously saved by a freak car accident, left with no memory, and found by Betty, on whom she becomes wholly dependent—a 180 degree reversal of their real relationship, in which Camilla is the dominant one.

A separate plot unfolds in which Adam Kesher is forced to cast in his upcoming movie the mysterious “Camilla Rhodes.” In a stroke of genius on Lynch’s part, the “Camilla Rhodes” who benefits from the powerbrokers’ influence in the dream is not the real Camilla Rhodes—it can’t be, since the real Camilla has already been recast in the dream as “Rita”—but rather an unknown girl that kissed Camilla at Adam’s party. This plot involving Adam allows Diane to imagine that she, not Camilla, deserved movie stardom. In her dream, Diane (“Betty”) impresses at her audition, and it is heavily implied that Adam, upon seeing Betty at casting, wanted her and not “Camilla” for his big role, and that had he not been forced to do otherwise, he would have cast her.

The convolution of inventing a new “Camilla” allows Diane while dreaming to simultaneously bask in her romance with the real Camilla—now “Rita”—while still delegitimizing Camilla’s Hollywood success. Diane creates her dream to untangle her mixed feelings for Camilla: her jealousy and bitterness over Camilla’s career ascendancy is tackled in the Adam Kesher storyline, in which Camilla’s success is revealed as a fraud; while her lust (love?) for Camilla is captured in the “detective” storyline, in which Betty becomes indispensable and impressive to Rita.

(Interestingly, setting the dream up this way leaves Adam in an ambiguous role from Diane’s perspective. She is imagining, remember, that Adam was forced by outside parties to cast Camilla; therefore, he should be absolved of blame, a sympathetic character. But Adam was also responsible in the real world for stealing away Diane’s lover, and Diane’s dream has no fantastical plot to absolve him of that—the dream simply leaves out that storyline. Most of Adam’s scenes are therefore characterized by a vacillating effect, casting him first as sympathetic, then unsavory, then back to sympathetic. For example, he finds his wife cheating on him, then gains the upper hand by punishing her, then is knocked bloody by his wife’s lover for his actions; later, both wife and lover are knocked unconscious by an anonymous, menacing man.)

Despite the ingenuity of its setup, however, the dream is plagued by sinister elements. For example, immediately after the car crash and Rita’s escape, we see a nightmarish scene, one of the movie’s best, involving a character named Dan who converses with Herb, the manager of Winkie’s, about a dream he has had.

This is the same Winkie’s, remember, where Diane ordered the hit on Camilla (seen late in the movie), and thus the central location of Diane’s guilt. Dan is Diane’s surrogate in this scene (the name similarity is no accident), so that she can confront this guilt indirectly through Dan’s discussion of his recurring nightmare. Lynch’s character shuffling, with Dan recast in the role of Diane, is similar to the “Camilla Rhodes” gyration just analyzed: just as the dream world “Camilla” was only a passing character who happened to kiss the real Camilla at Adam’s party, “Dan” was standing at the Winkie’s counter while Diane was ordering the hit in real life. Continuing the shuffling effect, Dan glances to the counter in the dream scene, just as Diane glanced there in real life and saw Dan; but since Dan cannot see himself, Herb fills Dan’s slot and becomes the new “man at the counter.”

The content of Dan’s nightmare, as told to Herb, is that there is a man “in back of this place,” and that this man is “the one who’s doing it.” Herb, with an unlikely agreeableness, accompanies Dan to the back of the restaurant to see whether this man is in fact there. He is, and ugly and scary to boot. Dan passes out (dies?), and the scene is over. Neither Dan nor Herb is revisited in the dream, although Winkie’s returns multiple times.

Evidently, the previously discussed fantasies in Diane’s dream coexist uncomfortably with the presence of her guilt, represented by the ugly man behind Winkie’s, where she ordered the hit. The camera in the Winkie’s scene is wobbly and sometimes seems on the verge of leaving its characters completely, creating a nightmarish feel and reflecting Diane’s unwillingness to explore this particular area of her subconscious. The camera even meanders at one point to focus specifically on the “Winkie’s” sign on the building, emphasizing again the place of the crucial encounter with the hitman.  (The next scene portrays the hitman as bumbling and incapable of covering his tracks, surely representing Diane’s worst fears.)  And the numerous returns to Winkie’s demonstrate that Diane can’t free herself of the guilt associated with this location (Dan emphasizes to Herb: “This Winkie’s”).

Also present to oppress Diane’s fantasies with guilt is the hitman’s blue key, modified in the dream world to look veritably space-agey and fantastical. The key has no impact in the dream, though, until Rita brings Betty to the climactic “Club Silencio,” where a scary man and some assorted musicians demonstrate that sound and source are not fused as they should be—cause and effect do not work in harmony here.  Betty is sent into convulsions at this revelation; the dream has been exposed (“It is all… an illusion!”).  At this point, appropriately, the blue box appears in Rita’s purse, which, when opened by the hitman’s key, ends the dream. The key, a reminder of Diane’s guilt, thus grimly serves as the ruby slippers that bring her out of fantasy and back to reality.

So guilt and truth win over fantasy in Mulholland Dr., as Diane is unable to create a universe that reflects her desires while withstanding the tremendous weight of her guilty conscience. Arguably, the moment in which her fantasies ultimately fail is when Rita does not reciprocate Betty’s “I love you” pronouncement in bed. The whole dream has been working toward this moment, characterizing Betty as Rita’s savior and Rita as Betty’s appreciative, awestruck companion, but Rita’s silence in this moment demonstrates that Diane has failed to convincingly reinvent Camilla as her loyal lover. There are simply too many machinations, too many suspensions of belief, too much guilt weighing down the fantasy. Despite Diane’s best efforts, Rita’s love for Betty can’t be arranged plausibly.

So there it is, the story of Mulholland Dr. But before ending this piece, I’ll pick apart two more exceptional scenes worthy of revisits.

The first is the very brief scene involving “Mr. Roque,” the odd-looking man to whom the Castigliani brothers apparently report. In this scene, another man, Robert Smith, enters to speak with Mr. Roque following the unsuccessful attempt by the Castigliani brothers to convince Adam to cast “Camilla Rhodes” in his upcoming film. It may be the most accurately dreamlike scene I’ve ever viewed, with its eerie lighting, the bizarre visual of Mr. Roque, the absurd spacing of the character in the middle of a large room, the anonymous attendant in the background, and of course, the gorgeous conversation—here it is, word for word:

Smith: Good afternoon, Mr. Roque. Her name is Camilla Rhodes. The director doesn’t want her. Do you want him replaced? I know they said…

Mr. Roque: Then…

Smith: Then? That means we should…

Mr. Roque: Yes?

Smith: Shut everything down… Is that something that… You want us to shut everything down? Then we’ll…shut everything down.

Absolutely nothing of substance is said by Mr. Roque in answer to Smith’s inquiry; the dialogue proceeds as if by its own volition, without influence by its participants. One might say that the insidious visuals of the scene foreshadow the insidious conclusion (shutting down the film), but that wouldn’t be going far enough. The conclusion of the dialogue only catches up the characters to the conclusion already reached by the visuals. As in a dream, the mood is the conclusion; the actions and words are extraneous and expendable, their purposes predetermined by the atmosphere in which they operate. Lynch, with his visuals and sound editing, has successfully created an aura so palpable that he is comfortable placing his characters in service to it, rather than the other way around. He thus exemplifies in this scene his legendary knack for achieving the feel of a nightmare.

The other scene I’ll revisit is the scene in which Betty and Rita visit the condo of “Diane Selwyn,” a name that Rita has remembered from before her car accident. Of course, the introduction of Diane’s name into the dream world is an inauspicious sign of its stability. Diane is not supposed to be in this dream—it appears her subconscious is starting to falter.

Before finding Diane’s apartment, the two amateur sleuths unexpectedly encounter a woman, Diane’s neighbor, who informs them that she has switched apartments with Diane. This neighbor expresses interest in accompanying them to Diane’s new apartment in the hope of recovering some of her things. As we see later after Diane wakes up, this neighbor is a real person, and her frustration over Diane’s unreliability is real too.

Once the three women set out for Diane’s condo, things get interesting, as they must. Diane must not be found in the dream, because Diane and Betty are the same person.  They cannot coexist in the same world.  Furthermore, Diane’s neighbor cannot enter Diane’s condo, because she alone in the dream demonstrates familiarity with Diane, and her knowledgeable presence might be too enlightening for Betty and Rita’s misguided quest. Therefore, just as the three of them begin walking, an intervention occurs: the neighbor’s phone rings, and she doubles back. Betty and Rita then enter the condo, and enter Diane’s bedroom, only to find … a rotting, disfigured corpse.  Without the neighbor present, their charade can continue, and they recoil in horror at Diane’s apparent demise.  As they are doing so, the neighbor returns, but finding the door locked, heads back to her own condo.

The tension and drama in this scene are excellent. It retains its tension even in repeat viewings, since we can feel the alarm in Diane’s subconscious as she works out a way to exclude her real self from her dream. Even though she succeeds—keeping the neighbor at bay while avoiding any revelation about the true Diane Selwyn—guilt looms large: she represents herself as a hideous rotting monster. No wonder, then, that the solution doesn’t maintain the dream structure for long: the two sleuths pay a visit to Club Silencio soon thereafter.

David Lynch also had major artistic success earlier in his career with Eraserhead (1977) and Blue Velvet (1986), but Mulholland Dr. tops them both as his masterpiece. While popular movies like Inception (2010) rely on coy nods to pseudoscientific characteristics of dreams, Mulholland Dr. is the genuine article, diving into the themes of real dreams—love, lust, guilt, paranoia, family—with the touch of a master.

More thoughts:

  • The elderly couple that accompanies Betty early in the movie and was present for Diane’s jitterbug victory clearly had a major role in encouraging Diane to pursue a career as an actress.  Diane is now bitter about their support, as evidenced by the scene in her dream in which the two cackle to each other in a limo after leaving Diane at the airport—presumably relishing the doom they have laid out for her. It seems that they are associated in Diane’s mind with the crushing mistake of moving to Hollywood. Appropriately, then, they constitute Diane’s final hallucination, driving her to suicide.
  • Luigi Castigliani, a powerbroker in the dream who hilariously spits out “one of the finest espressos in the world,” is based on a man seen by Diane at Adam’s party drinking coffee; hence his maniacal choosiness regarding the beverage.
  • A burly man, seen only from behind, appears early in the film and makes two phone calls. In the first, he tells his listener only that “The girl is still missing,” and in the next, he merely says, “The same,” as if the second listener knows what he said to the first—a logic characteristic only of a dream.
  • The negative reaction of director Bob Brenner to Betty’s audition in the dream was likely his reaction to Diane’s real life audition for The Sylvia North Story (Diane: “He didn’t think so much of me”).  In the fantasy world of the dream, though, the other characters in the room think him a fool, rolling their eyes at his every comment.
  • “The Cowboy” (another random man Diane saw at Adam’s party) appears twice in succession while Diane is waking up, indicating that she “did bad,” yet another indicator of her guilty conscience that destroys the dream world.
  • The mantra “This is the girl” is the phrase Diane uses when speaking to the hitman. Its abundant use in the dream demonstrates the importance of that moment to Diane’s subconscious.
  • Diane takes the name “Betty” from the nametag of the waitress who serves her at Winkie’s during her crucial encounter with the hitman. Even the invention of the naïve Betty, therefore, is rooted in Diane’s guilty conscience.
  • The predetermined nature of some dream scenes can be inferred during repeat viewings; for example, during the Castigliani brothers scene Adam inexplicably has a golf club on the table in front of him, which he soon uses to smash the brothers’ limo after the meeting goes awry.
  • Sexual tension between Betty and Rita is present in their relationship from the beginning, as Betty first finds Rita naked in the shower.
  • Seemingly the only element of the dream world that resists collapse is Diane’s dead Aunt Ruth, who enters Betty’s bedroom after both Betty and Rita have disappeared. I interpret this as a touching indication of Diane’s loving relationship with her aunt: as her absurd fantasies evaporate, the good and true Aunt Ruth remains, even though she is no longer among the living. Perhaps a dream is an appropriate place for the dead, a realm where they can live on.
  • Does Diane love Camilla, or does she only love herself? By the end of the dream, Rita’s identity is almost subsumed into Betty’s, the result of an unnecessary makeover. And when Rita wakes up intoning “Silencio,” the camera angle presents Rita and Betty as two halves of the same face. Diane seems to be struggling with loving Camilla while tolerating her as a separate individual.
  • After Diane commits suicide, we are presented with a series of images that convey Lynch’s rendition of the “dying moment” cliché. First, we see the scary man behind Winkie’s, a nod to Diane’s overwhelming guilt as she passes away. But this image quickly fades and we see Diane’s dream world fantasy: her bright-eyed “Betty” persona smiling and laughing with the blonde iteration of Rita/Camilla. Perhaps the dream does triumph in the end, engulfing her as she dies.
  • I have not unintentionally used the words “cast” and “recast” to describe the process in which Diane places people from her real life into her dream. Perhaps Lynch wants to demonstrate that films are made in the same way that dreams are dreamt—each attempts and ultimately fails at pure invention, relying instead on real-world experiences—and that the best film is therefore the most dreamlike. This angle is what opens the film up for me, allowing for endless rewatchings, each as enjoyable as the last.

—Jim Andersen