The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film by renowned American director Stanley Kubrick based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, and has been considered a classic in the history of horror films for many years.
"The Shining" follows Jack, an amateur writer, who accepts a job as a hotel keeper during the winter months. He lives with his wife and children in a hotel called The Lookout. The chronic claustrophobia and loneliness, as well as the lure of the hotel's so-called evil spirits, leads Jack down a path of insanity, eventually killing his wife and children and freezing to death outside the hotel.
The director's use and success of the soundtrack in the movie kept the horror in the movie until the end; in addition, the tracking shots used several times made the audience lose their normal perspective, making them unable to predict what would happen and the feeling of fear and uneasiness always haunted them.
However, when such a classic masterpiece of psychological horror was first seen, not all viewers were able to understand and appreciate some of the plot points in the movie.
But if we use Lacan's theory of "mirroring" to interpret "The Shining", in which Jack's ego is misaligned with the mirror image of the "other", resulting in his so-called extrasensory perception due to cognitive deficits, it's not difficult to understand most of the movie's plot and its classic meaning. classic.
Under the influence of the social mirror, the claustrophobic space constructed by Jack's own consciousness and the hotel's undead, the protagonist Jack activates his inner desires. As he rebuilds his self-identity, the inner desire projects another disordered mirror image on the rebuilt identity, leading to his death.
The effect of "social mirroring" on Jack's consciousness
Lacan's theory of mirroring is actually quite understandable and refers to the theory of mirrored experience, which confuses the situational awareness of all that lies between the real and the imagined.
This theory has been studied in infants aged 6-18 months, who are initially unaware of the image in the mirror, and who recognize themselves as themselves only after their mothers and others recognize them.
At this point, for the baby, although the mirror image is a mirror image of the baby, this mirror image is not the baby itself, but another person other than the baby itself.
When the two come into conflict, they can only merge if one submits to the other, otherwise there will be endless entanglement and suffering.
So let's go back to the movie. Jack, the main character in the movie, successfully applies for a job as a hotel administrator after losing his job, but he is dissatisfied with himself.
When asked what his profession is during the interview, Jack blinks, first explaining that he is a teacher, then adding that he is a writer, while mocking himself by saying that the salary of a teacher's profession can't sustain a family, which precisely reflects Jack's wavering mindset and self-denial.
So in guarding the hotel, he tries to find himself through writing, but still can't find the right place, so much so that he has nightmares in a trance and finally goes mad and freezes to death.
But watch out for the shockwaves of "social mirroring" on Jack's consciousness in the process.
Jack learns from a conversation with a hotel manager that in 1970, a hotel owner went insane during his winter shift, killed his wife and two daughters with an axe, and then shot himself.
The story paints such a heavy picture in Jack's extremely fragile consciousness that Jack frequently equates himself with the guard in the story in his self-search, even arranging for a male bartender to appear at the 1921 party. The bartender and the guard who killed his wife and daughter share the same last name but have different first names, but Jack still blames his wife's and daughter's murder on the nebulous male bartender, and imagines that the male bartender has convinced him to do so."
The various statements in the movie are simply meant to show the viewer that the "mirroring" had a profound influence on Jack's quest for self The movie's various statements are just to tell the audience that "Mirror Image" has a profound effect on Jack's quest for self.
Jack's own mirror image comes from his wife, Wendy.
Wendy is a kind, obedient woman. When the doctor asked Wendy why her son Danny had dislocated his arm, Wendy shook it, lit a cigarette, and told her about her son Danny's mischievous behavior, her husband Jack's efforts, and his drunken accidental slip. Finally, she smiled and consoled herself. She thought it was an unfortunate blessing that her husband hadn't had a drink in five months since then.
After staying at the Lookout Hotel, Wendy took on all the boiler checking and maintenance, cooking and putting up with the noise of her husband's MoMo and nonsense.
She just wanted to remind her husband not to write too hard, but was met with vitriol.
Jack doesn't appreciate what Wendy is doing. He and Lloyd, Jack's imaginary male bartender, repeatedly complain about Wendy and are full of slurs. Because in his wife's mirror image, Jack sees his own incompetence that hurt his son Danny, Jack disapproves of himself and feels guilty and frustrated in the reflection of Wendy's mirror image.
My son Danny is also a mirror image of Jack himself.
After Jack lashes out at Wendy for the first time, Wendy also reminds her son Danny not to run into Jack.
On one occasion, Danny snuck back into his room to get a toy car, but he was afraid of waking Jack, who was resting. But instead of sleeping, Jack just sat on the edge of the bed, unable to speak. When Jack hugged Danny and spoke, Danny asked his father if he would never hurt himself or his mother, Wendy. The question hits Jack where it hurts, because his guilt has kept him extremely sensitive. He immediately asked Danny if this was a statement from Wendy. After receiving a negative answer from Danny, his emotions return
At this point, Jack's mood is at a critical juncture before he succumbs to hating his wife's "mirror image".
The chronic dissociation of the self from the "social mirror" has left Jack in a trance, and he is beginning to look torn and distressed. What should I do? With no hope for self-improvement, it seems that all his problems can only be solved by turning himself into his old "mirror image" - the hotel guard who went crazy and killed the family - but he still blames himself and is still at a loss for what to do. All he can do is type the same sentence on a piece of paper over and over again:
"All work and no play makes even the smartest child stupid."
Jack's own dislocation from his mirror image
Lacan's theory of mirroring focuses on the fact that The ego and the mirror image are the Other. After experiencing a series of social "mirroring" influences on his consciousness, Jack's perception of his own "mirror image" is also biased.
As a member of society, as a father and as a husband, Jack's own "mirror image" is misaligned to varying degrees, to the point that he subjugates his own "mirror image" to the evil mirrors of other influences.
At the beginning of the movie, the viewer is told that there are many photographs of different ages hanging on the walls of the Lookout Hotel, but it is not until the end that a significant photograph is revealed in close-up. The photo was taken on July 4, 1921, at a grand ball, and in the middle of the photo stands the exact same Jack look-alike, wearing a tuxedo and holding a glass of wine.
It is conceivable that Jack must have seen the photo during his months on winter guard. Suggested by this mirror image, Jack's subconscious immerses itself in the 1921 party, thus visualizing these nonexistent characters in his own life.
Jack meets Lloyd, the bartender in the hotel's Golden Hall, for the first time, and says the classic words from the movie: "I'd give my soul for a beer";
With Jack's self-identity dislocated, at last, when he goes to the Golden Hall for the second time, he finds that it is filled with the costumed characters from the 1921 photo. Jack sees himself as one of the people in the photo, a dislocation of Jack's own mirror image of the Other.
The movie begins with Jack driving his wife and children to the Hope Hotel. Danny asks what the Donner expedition is for, and Jack tells his son that the men kill each other and eat human flesh to survive.
His wife, Wendy, quickly stopped the father-son conversation. At this point, Jack has completely forgotten that he is a mirror image of his fatherhood, and looks a little self-conscious as he talks about cannibalizing his child's kind. His fatherhood seems to be moving away from himself. At this point, Jack is already having problems with identity construction and perception.
Later, as a husband, Jack is so cold to his wife that his wife, Wendy, can only speak to the outside world over the radio, except to play with her son, Danny, and take care of the hotel.
Jack himself is skeptical about his social identity. He doesn't identify with his "mirror image" and doesn't want to be bound by ethics and morality to his wife and children, which leads to self-repression. Therefore, when Jack walks into room 237, he sees a beautiful, tall, naked woman, and he abandons his "mirror image" - the lover, the openness, the imaginary woman kissing and embracing, which is the third dislocation of Jack's identity self-construction.
Jack's ego and his "mirror image" in fact, from the constant transcendence to transcendence, and finally to complete the split.
The role of mirrors in the expression of cinematic "mirroring"
The basic tool of the theory of "mirroring" is the mirror, which is the only way to see the image in the mirror.
Mirrors appear several times in the movie "The Shining" to remind the audience.
After Jack's family checks into the Observation Hotel, director Kubrick arranges a series of images in the mirrors to set off Jack's fractured ego and his "mirror image".
After a month in the hotel, the wife prepares breakfast for her husband and sits on the edge of the bed talking to him. The fact that the two are still in a mirror at this point suggests that the couple is in the process of establishing their identity at this point. There is no separation of self from their respective "mirrors";
As time passes, Jack himself and his real image in the mirror begin to appear in the director's camera at the same time.
Finally, whether he is talking to Lloyd in front of the bar, to Grady in the bathroom, or to Danny's mother and son in the bedroom, he seems to be staring at his image in the mirror (or even the door to the pantry) and talking to himself. Jack is trapped in his own world.
The role of the mirror in him is to reflect on the illusion of materialized reality, a deep loss that seems awake in a circuitous path of light.
The true metaphorical significance of The Shining
The movie has long been regarded as a classic not only because of Kubrick's use of "mirroring" to give audiences a horrific tale of a schizophrenic, but also because of its deeper meaning.
The movie has a strange and complex atmosphere from the very beginning.
A long shot at the beginning takes in the natural beauty. A calm iceberg lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains, everything conveys a natural, peaceful and pristine state.
Then, in contrast to this quiet and long distance, there is a low and depressing soundtrack that follows an endless path through the follower's camera and continues endlessly.
In the subsequent development of the story, every time the main character's family drives to the Lookout Hotel, it is always accompanied by a calm and distant scene and a suppressed and mysterious soundtrack, which makes a tense and unknown atmosphere, thus making the fate and situation of the main character mysterious and dangerous.
With this musical background, the end of the road that stretches all the way is the Lookout Hotel.
In the movie, the Lookout Hotel shows a state of modern civilization fighting against nature and primitive beauty.
With the development of the plot, the Lookout Hotel gradually presents an anti-modern atmosphere -- the unknowable indifference and the unfathomable isolation and segregation under the gorgeous appearance.
As the hotel's custodians, the protagonist's family also suffers from this atmosphere, developing burnout and negative fatigue, and gradually losing control over themselves and their surroundings, which is precisely what civilization and order give.
In the film, Jack gradually falls into the chaos between himself and his "mirror image" and loses his true consciousness, which is the process by which order and civilization are replaced by the confinement of modern thought.
The Lookout Hotel is no longer a symbol of modernity and order in the wilderness, but reveals its desolate and dark side.
In this extremely depressing atmosphere, the Lookout Hotel gradually turns into a prison-like cage, and the protagonist's family members are like prisoners. Although the exit is right in front of them, they are suppressed by an invisible force and cannot escape.
The constant flashbacks in the hotel, the wandering of the former occupants of Jack's "mirror image" of consciousness, and the lack of a way out of the hotel are all indicative of the flow of time, the disruption of spatial order, and the alternation of reality and imagination.
But while human alienation and oppression play out inside the hotel like a haunted house, there is still an orderly scene outside.
Rare and intermittent contact with the outside world continues to torment and torment those deep inside, eventually pushing them to the brink of psychological collapse.
The entire story revolves around an isolated cage, of which the so-called Lookout Hotel is a disguise.
Just as montage transcends the simple superimposition of shots, the repression and loneliness that accumulate in the film continue to sublimate the themes embedded in the film --
The distorted side of modern civilization imprisons the individuals and groups trapped within it like a cage, showing the repression and restraint under order.
This theme is still of great relevance in today's time. Today, people are second only to 40 years ago in their obsession with modern civilization and technology. Without electronic payments and cars, it seems that even ordinary life is unsustainable;
Under the heavy pressure of survival and work, everyone seems to cry out for loneliness and isolation, but it is rare to find that the limited spare time is not spent communicating with friends and relatives, but diving headlong into cell phones, browsing cheap fast-food text messages alone, indulging in imagination, and once again alienating people from each other.
As depicted in the movie "The Shining", people are dependent on and powerless against modern technology.
The neat-looking modern lookout hotel is in fact a mockery of the increasing dependence and loss of communication skills caused by modern development.
The protagonist's family, like contemporary people, enjoys all the conveniences offered by modernization on the one hand, while on the other hand the inertia and alienation brought about by such conveniences are growing.
That's what The Shining is to the classics, thoughtful and enduring.