Close Encounters of the Third KindClose encounters with the Th.docx

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close encounters
with the Third Reich
by Robert Entman and Francis Seymour
from Jump Cut, no. 18, August 1978, pp. 3-6
copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1978,
2005
"So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so
incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship …
This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of
every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning
of time … There are three powers, three powers alone, able to
conquer and hold [humanity] captive forever … those forces are
miracle, mystery, and authority."
— The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers
Karamazov(1)
We think Steven Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE
THIRD KIND deserves careful attention. This belief is not
based on its contributions to the art of film—we couldn't find
any. But we do think it has a lot to tell us about the relationship
of politics to the U.S. culture industry.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND reflects recent
economic and ideological trends in the United States better than
many "news" reports. A study of this movie shows how
capitalism produces propaganda that reinforces the system at
the same time it creates "entertainment." Specifically, we argue
that CLOSE ENCOUNTERS can be viewed as a fascist film.
We'll show that its theme, structure, and symbolism strongly
echo those of the films of pre-fascist and Nazi Germany. Then
we'll draw the political lessons. (2)
For those few who somehow missed the film or the news stories
about it, here is a brief outline. The plot revolves around the
visiting of middle America (Muncie, Indiana) by a number of
unidentified flying objects. Although the UFOs are sighted by

many reliable citizens and leave clear evidence of their
presence, news media and government officials (at least
publicly) dismiss reports of the visits. But the aliens do two
main things to make sure their visits will be acknowledged.
They broadcast numbers that correspond to the latitude and
longitude of Devil's Tower, Wyoming, where they plan to land.
And they implant, by telepathic suggestion, a picture of Devil's
Tower on a number of people, who then feel an overwhelming
urge to go there, a need they don't understand.
The plot works on two corresponding levels. The main plot
involves the struggle of two common citizens, Roy Neary
(Richard Dreyfuss) and Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) first to
understand the aliens' message and then to overcome the
attempts of authorities to prevent them from getting to Devil's
Tower for the alien landing. The subplot concerns the process
by which scientific and military officials, headed by Frenchman
Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut) decipher the aliens'
transmissions and get the meeting point up so the UFOs will
land.
These plots compose the first section of a two-part narrative.
The movie's real purpose is the climactic close encounter of the
third kind (physical contact) with extraterrestrial beings. This
forty-minute scene gained most of the lavish media attention
given the film. Reviewers hailed it by using such terms as
"thrilling … overpower[ing]" (Stanley Kauffman); "one of the
peerless moments of movie history—spiritually reassuring,
magical, and funny" (Pauline Keel); "historic … sublime" (Jack
Kroll).
In this section, Roy and Jillian reach the top of Devil's Tower
after narrowly escaping attempts by the authorities to stop them.
They find a brilliantly lit landing pad surrounded by elaborate
electronic instruments, full of scurrying technicians. After some
preliminary sweeps by smaller vessels, there is a crescendo of
music and the huge mother ship looms, dwarfing Devil's Tower.
It descends. Human scientists and the ship begin communicating
with musical tones and blinking lights. Then the ship door

opens and disgorges a host of humans long missing and
presumed dead—but who turned out to have been taken for long
journeys by the extraterrestrials. Finally, the aliens themselves
appear: white, delicate, non-threatening. They take on board
twelve erect-standing, tightlipped, close-cropped uniformed
explorers, apparently representing the U.S. government.
Along with the officials is a thirteenth person. It is Roy
Neary—who is somehow nominated by the very authorities who
(moments before) had been trying to keep him from reaching the
mountain at all! Unity and trust between the common citizen
Roy and the authorities replace conflict and suspicion. This is a
key point, as we'll see. At the end, Lacombe and an alien
exchange serene smiles, and the aliens return to the ship, which
then ascends while the earthlings stare in rapturous awe.
FASCISM AND FILMS
Themes we will identify as characteristically fascist are all
touched upon in the first or last part of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.
The narrative is structured as if to make a unified fascist
statement. The themes of the first part offer a fascist analysis of
U.S. problems and thus serve as a prelude to the themes of the
second, climactic part, which provides a fascist solution.
Just what marks a fascist film? Fascism as a concept is difficult
to pin down. Any description of it must be somewhat arbitrary.
Because Nazi example provides the best parallels for our
purposes, we'll base our description on Germany. Fascism
flowered there after World War I, when the public experienced
massive disillusionment with those in charge of most
institutions. Germany had suffered a humiliating military
defeat, followed by an economic and political crisis that
shattered the country's self-image as an unique, invulnerable
civilization. The situation was not unlike that of the post-
Vietnam, post-Watergate, recession-ridden United States of the
late 1970s.
There is no consensus among radical or mainstream historians
about what caused German fascism. Must agree, however, that
the support (or silence) of major German industrialists and other

elites was essential to the Nazi rise to power. Elements of what
we now call fascist ideology appeal to many capitalists under
conditions of economic unrest. Fascism does not arise as a self-
conscious conspiracy to delude the masses into submitting to
tyranny. But the kinds of appeals fascism makes are quite
logical choices for those who fail to see (or fear) the possibility
of curing economic crisis by socialism. Fascist ideology can
convince the masses that order, discipline, self-sacrifice and
elitism (required for economic recovery) are not only justified
but good. The goodness comes because fascism promises to cure
the economy and to fill the spiritual void or alienation of
individuals from each other and from the state, which
accompanies capitalism even in boom times.
Certain elements of Nazi ideology and rhetoric contributed to
this appeal. It contained attacks on ruling authorities for
corruption and unresponsiveness, nostalgia for past days of
triumph, national, sexual, and ethnic chauvinism;
authoritarianism, elitism; and elevation of instinct over reason
and established science.
Susan Sontag's essay, "Fascinating Fascism" conveniently
summarizes this ideology as reflected in German films,
particularly those of Leni Riefenstahl. (3) Sontag finds the most
important fascist ideal "the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic
feelings of community" (Sontag, p. 42). Riefenstahl's films
expressed these sorts of fascist longings through the films'
preoccupation with situations of control, submission, and
extravagant effort, pageantry involving the grouping of people
"around an all-powerful hypnotic leader or force;" and
repudiation of the intellect and glorification of surrender and
servitude (Sontag, pp. 40-42).
The specific expression of these traits in Riefenstahl's films,
according to Sontag, usually involved stories in which
mountains were the dominant symbol. Mountains were
"a visually irresistible metaphor of unlimited aspiration toward
the high mystic goal, both beautiful and terrifying, which was
later to become concrete in Führer-worship. The character that

Riefenstahl generally played was that of a wild girl who dares
to scale the peak that others … shrink from" (Sontag, p. 33).
HIDDEN PERSUASION
Those familiar with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS will by now see
clear parallels between it and the themes of Nazi rhetoric and
film elaborated by Sontag. We'll discuss them shortly. But we
do not mean to suggest the fascist messages of CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS will be clearly perceived and acted upon. We
know that the film can be interpreted in other ways. However,
as Adorno reminded us, in the analysis of the mass media, the
hidden as much as the obvious messages must be understood,
"The 'hidden meaning' emerges simply by the way the story
looks at human beings; thus the audience is invited to look at
the characters in the same way [as the story] without being
made aware that indoctrination is present … [The] message is
hidden only by a style which does not pretend to touch anything
serious and expects to be regarded as featherweight.
Nevertheless, even such amusement tends to set patterns for the
members of the audience without their being aware of it."(4)
A lot of recent Hollywood films, such as THE KILLER ELITE,
DIRTY HARRY, and WALKING TALL, haven't hidden their
fascism. Yet CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is more dangerous than
any of these just because its fascist messages are not
immediately apparent but rather woven into its view of human
beings and contemporary America. The violent law-and-order
machismo of DIRTY HARRY goes against the beliefs of most
of the audience, and people are unlikely to change their
opinions after seeing Clint Eastwood kick ass.
On the other hand, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS seems to be naive,
gentle, and optimistic. None of the reviewers or reporters who
made the film a media event found it politically questionable—
or political at all. Even the usually perceptive Andrew Earns
wrote that CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
"may be the most insistently innocent picture ever made,
without the slightest trace of evil or even trouble."
By treating the film as an apolitical film of innocent adventure,

the media helped to lower the critical guard of the public.
Cloaked in this media-made mantle, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
could sneak into the worldview of an audience whose defenses
are not raised as defenses are for films that trumpet their
fascism openly.
SPIELBERG'S FASCIST INDICTMENT
The picture of the United States that Spielberg paints,
especially in the portrayal of the main character, Roy Neary,
echoes prominent Nazi themes. Most important is the notion
that people in charge of things are corrupt and unresponsive,
and the proper response to them is suspicion. CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS shows political, military, scientific, and media
authorities conspiring to keep the truth about the UFOs'
existence from the people. Given the message of the climactic
scene, this conspiracy means that established authorities are
preventing the U.S. people from discovering the key to
deliverance from their alienating society. Hitler railed against
"lying Weimar officials," accusing them of treason in leading
Germany to defeat in World War I and preventing the salvation
of the German folk. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS decries U.S.
officialdom for hiding UFO salvation from us.
Because the film does attack the power elite, one might mistake
it for a left analysis. For example, the film has the ABC
Evening News telling lies, which aid the government in denying
any knowledge of the aliens. But Hitler attacked the media, too.
Fascism criticizes liberal democratic governments as does left-
wing radicalism. The difference is obviously in the solutions
Fascism and radicalism offer. Shot through with fascist values
and offering a quasi-fascist solution, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is
hardly leftist. (4) It isn't even New Deal liberal. (Spielberg's
political intentions are faintly visible in an interview in Rolling
Stone, January 26, 1978. Also check out the souvenir book sold
at the film's showings.) Just as Hitler was hardly endorsing
participatory democracy in his attacks on authority, neither is
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS anti-authoritarian. In fact, the film's
climax justifies elitism.

A second theme CLOSE ENCOUNTERS shares with fascist
rhetoric is nostalgia for the country's past days of glory. The
UFO genre itself is a throwback to the 1950s. Those were the
days when U.S. civilization seemed indisputably tops. Social
conflict was minimal, economic expansion limitless, world
domination possible and desirable. The difference between
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS and earlier sci-fi epics reveals a
different historical moment. In the 1950s, the U.S. system was
considered the solution, something to be saved from the
aliens—who formed the problem. In CLOSE ENCOUNTERS,
the system seems problematic, the aliens the solution. We no
longer feel paranoid that aliens will take everything away from
us. Quite the opposite, we hope they'll restore what we've lost.
How sad is our fall from earlier times: no wonder we yearn to
return to them. A nostalgia for happy past days is pictured most
explicitly in the fate of Roy's home life. Roy has furnished his
suburban tract home with tacky, fake antique furniture. When
Roy's obsession with the aliens' message reaches its peak, he
nearly wrecks the house in order to provide material to build a
large model of the shape (Devil's Tower) he can't get out of his
mind. In the process, he drives his typically suburban housewife
and kids out of the house for good, as his generally overweight
neighbors passively look on. The scene graphically symbolizes
destruction of our current soft, characterless lifestyle in the
service of reaching the new order the aliens promise. The
destruction is justified in the final scenes, for Roy leaves with
aliens for new worlds with barely a thought for his wrecked
house or shattered family.
A third and particularly hideous fascist theme is criticism of the
current order for not following natural hierarchies of nation,
race, and sex. There are numerous examples of such chauvinism
in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS—and thus an implied criticism of the
equality and tolerance to which the U.S. system pays lip
service.
· National chauvinism: Why, as far as we know, do the UFOs
land only in the United States? Why, as far as we are told,

should U.S. astronauts most aptly represent the whole human
race to the aliens?
· Ethnic chauvinism: There are two scenes outside the United
States. One shows masses of people gathered in the countryside
in India waving and chanting a five-note tone the aliens sent
them telepathically. Unlike the American Roy, who at one point
talks about his obsession to the scientist Lacombe, the Indians
can't do anything but chant. Apparently, Indians don't know how
to use language. And Indian scientists, if there are any, seem
unable to reason intelligently, for the European Lacombe has to
be flown to Asia to figure out what all the shouting is about.
The one other scene outside the U.S. shows an old Mexican, He
can barely manage to find a few words vaguely to describe his
sighting of UFOs before lapsing into incoherence.
· Racism and sexism are rampant. No blacks or women occupy
any truly authoritative roles in the film. There is one black air
traffic controller and one menacing black M.P. who is hostile to
Roy. Indeed, images of blacks and women, except for the two
women in Roy's life, rarely occupy the screen for more than a
split second. It's as if a few blacks and women were thrown in
as tokens, but not enough to spoil the mood.
As Adorno suggested, we must look at the implicit messages
contained in the way a movie views people. CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS provides chauvinistic messages about (ways of
viewing) people who aren't white American males; negative
messages about ruling authorities (but not, we'll see,
authoritarian rule); and nostalgic messages about what the
United States has lost.
In this way, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS makes some of the major
points an American fascist might use to describe the ills of the
country today. Then the solution is offered. And this solution
too would please George Lincoln Rockwell's successor(s).
THE FASCIST SOLUTION: FORM
The last section involves precisely what Sontag ascribes to
many fascist films: a pageant where people group around a
hypnotic force, a repudiation of the intellect and a glorification

of surrender and servitude. Many reviewers mistook these
fascist elements of the film's climax for religion. Yet the scene
is religious in form, not content—just like fascism. Religions
have theologies, duties, parables, and worldly institutions, all of
which provide some rational reason to have faith and some
guidance in living in accordance with that faith. The aliens
provide none of this.
It is particularly important to distinguish here between form and
content, because the climax is so lacking in concrete content
that it can't make any kind of explicit philosophical statement.
Such an absence of content also characterizes fascism, which
relies on instinct and faith more than on rational argument to
win its converts.
The long ritualistic transaction in the last scene between the
aliens and humans parallels Nazi filmic rituals. There is an awe-
filled gathering around a force that transfixes with its beauty,
power, and mystery, a force that descends from the heavens,
just as Hitler does at the beginning of TRIUMPH OF THE
WILL. Spielberg conveys awe by alternating long shots of the
group standing silent and attentive with tight shots of faces lit
with reverence. Compare this to Sontag's description of
TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, which "uses overpopulated wide
shots of mass figures alternating with close ups that isolate a
single perfect submission…" (Sontag, p. 38). And the main
character, with whom we have been encouraged to identify,
submits eagerly. Roy goes aboard the ship of the aliens, even
though they had given him no reason to trust them—except for
their demonstration of miraculous powers.
Symbols similar to those that populate fascist film abound in
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. The central symbol of the film is
Devil's Tower. It was chosen for the film's climax (the CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS souvenir book says) because it was "so fittingly
majestic and visually and emotionally inspiring." It symbolizes
the miraculous promise of the coning of the aliens. Shots of the
mountain are often framed in the way that Riefenstahl framed
the gigantic swastika at the center of the outdoor Nuremberg

rally in TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. Spielberg's lighting and
soundtrack emphasize the mysterious majesty of the Tower, its
connection to the cosmos.
Many other symbols specifically recall Nazism, the near goose-
stepping cadence of the twelve astronauts; evacuation scenes
when the military removes all civilians from the Devil's Tower
area (Spielberg told Rolling Stone he deliberately intended
these scenes to recall Nazi brutality); teeming hordes of dark
primitives in India; a little blond boy (Jillian's son) representing
purity and youth—the only one to see the aliens before the
climax.
The file's method of exposition also reflects its fascist themes.
The narrative is full of gaps, reinforcing the message that we
don't need to have concrete data or think about them rationally:
all we need is faith (in the directorial authority of Spielberg).
Throughout the main plot, the camera takes the protagonists',
Roy and Jillian's, point of view, or that of a nearby observer.
The audience knows pretty much what the characters know and
is meant to identity with them. In the subplot, we mainly share
the protagonist Lacombe's point of view, but our identification
with him is limited. We don't know everything he knows; we
don't know exactly where he is from, who gives him orders, or
what those orders are. The expert maintains his distance and
authority.
We aren't told, then, what is going on in the rest of the world
outside the U.S. and one Indian village. Indeed, we aren't even
told what's happening outside Roy's and Jillian's narrow worlds.
Who is in charge of the rendezvous? What will the public be
told? What will be their reactions? The story would raise such
questions for most members of the audience. Yet the film
implies such logical puzzles do not require answers. The
important thing to this film is the emotional climax. The
audience is only told barely enough to have that last section
make sense; its plausibility rests on its intuitive appeal.
The film's production and marketing also reflect favorite fascist
themes. As the souvenir book says,

"The nature of the set itself and what transpired within it was,
from start to finish, veiled in top secrecy. Only those required
for the filming were permitted entrance after displaying proper
identification badges, checked by an around-the-clock security
force."
The publicity campaign that preceded and accompanied the film
actually brags about such security measures. Spielberg
explained in interviews that these authoritarian procedures were
necessary to maximize the film's impact. Again, Spielberg tells
the audience that he knows best what they should know and
when they should know it. Furthermore, the secrecy/authority
theme in production and marketing lends the film an air of
importance and authenticity, even of scientific prestige, that
decreases the likelihood that audiences will think of CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS as mere fantasy.
THE FASCIST SOLUTION: CONTENT
The solution to the alienation and yearning which the characters
in the film and the audience feel is to have faith in the aliens.
"We are not alone," the film tells us: If only we "watch the
skies," we'll find the answer. (There is a certain irony in the
fact that both of these promotional phrases are trademarked, so
that the film's owners only can use them.)
Only extraterrestrials can overcome the separation between
government, science, and the common people (represented by
Roy Neary). Only the aliens can unite these previously
separated groups in adoration of the mystery of their power, the
miracle of their landing. Until the aliens landed, Neary was
being manipulated, even oppressed, by government, military,
and scientific authorities. In the beatific glow of community,
which suffuses the authorities after the aliens land, Neary is not
only welcomed but he is permitted to be the one "ordinary"
person to go back with the aliens. A new community is born.
Notice carefully what all this means. First, since everything
turns out so nicely, the climax justifies the elitist process by
which the alien-human contact is planned. Governmental
manipulation of the truth; using the military to enforce secrecy;

apparently entrusting all arrangements for this most momentous
event in human history to a cabal of U.S. technocrats (military,
scientific, corporate) without ever consulting Congress (let
alone the U.N.)—the marvelous success of these procedures
justifies authoritarian rule. (5)
What if people had been told? Then petty bickering,
bureaucratic red tape, media curiosity, cowardly mass panic,
etc.—all of the inconveniences of democracy that fascists
attack—might have prevented the encounter. This at least is a
logical inference from what happens in the film.
The final encounter also condemns linear communications,
rational thought, and independent science, as fascists usually
do. The aliens and scientists communicate musically, by
instinct. They don't talk; they don't exchange ideas using any
system of signs; they don't give each other books or other
collections of information. Apparently, the scientists are so
overwhelmed by the cosmic glow, they don't think of
communicating intelligibly with the aliens. Indeed some
actually kneel as the ship lands.
A musical exchange as a form of communication might strike
some as reasonable under the circumstances. An alien race
probably would not share many concepts with earthlings. But
such a view would ignore what the film actually tells us.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS says the aliens know enough of our way
of thinking to understand latitude and longitude, to figure out
the coordinates of Devil's Tower, and to broadcast them on the
very frequencies monitored by U.S. radio telescopes. The aliens'
knowledge is not surprising. They have spent some thirty years
with the U.S. pilots and other people they took. They had plenty
of opportunity to decipher earthly forms of communication (if
they weren't curious to learn about humans, why bother
abducting them?). The decisive point is that the human
scientists didn't even try to communicate rationally. Such an
attempt was unthinkable given the quasi-religious mood that
Spielberg clearly intended his audience as well as his characters
to experience during the climax. (See Time, Nov. 7, 1977). You

don't ask a god what he has for breakfast or does for kicks.
But no matter. Emotion, intuition, spirit work better than words.
Somehow, the scientists can sense the aliens' invitation to
humans to go for a visit. And they know intuitively, without
investigating, that the aliens are harmless (though UFOs
kidnapped World War II pilots and kept them from their loved
ones for 32 Earth years). Or if the film's scientists had
conducted such investigations, the audience isn't told about that.
The film leaves us with the conclusion that the scientific
method can't solve our problems. Science must serve under the
superior unifying force that can.
The Truffaut character continually represents the benefits of
elevating instinct over reason in science. For example, Lacombe
says at one point (in untranslated French), after being asked
about Roy's credibility, "I have confidence in my intuition."
Later, Lacombe refutes an Army major who insists the
simultaneous arrival of Roy and several others at Devil's Tower
is "a coincidence, not scientific" (the audience knows it isn't a
coincidence, that Lacombe's hunch is right). Just so there are no
doubts, when the aliens land, one of the other scientists says,
"It's the first day of school, fellas." In other words: science will
have to begin again, under the tutelage of the aliens.
These views are fascist because they say alienation can only be
dissolved by uniting in community under a mysterious,
miraculous force beyond any human powers of intellect. The
lesson is that we might as well give up on solving our alienating
problems ourselves; we humans can't do it alone. But we should
not worry because we are not alone. The higher force
represented by the aliens will bring us together again, teach us
new lessons, and solve our problems. This seems a particularly
unfortunate message to purvey in these times. We can dismiss
the climactic finale as a fantasy solution, but humankind's
current problems are no fantasies.
And Spielberg himself does not deny social reality. He caters to
the feelings of alienation and despair that real world problems
have caused in the U.S. public to which he is selling his

product. He does not intend CLOSE ENCOUNTERS to serve as
mere escapism. He told the Rolling Stone interviewer
"Movies for me are a heightened reality. Making reality fun to
live with, as opposed to something you run from and protect
yourself from."
And he has a didactic purpose: to convince people there are
UFOs. In the same interview he says,
"This film will only be successful if, when people see it, they
come out of the theatre looking up at the sky."
POLITICAL LESSONS
Actually we can measure CLOSE ENCOUNTERS' success by its
earnings, for it is a commodity produced by the U.S. movie
industry for profit. (6) As such, the film exhibits numerous
traces of U.S. economic and political trends in the late 1970s.
We look at them here.
There are clear similarities between the fascist rumblings of
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS and the most vigorous ideological
movement among U.S. elites: neoconservatism. This view is
rooted in concern about the surge of political cynicism that has
gripped the public in the last decade or so. To prevent this
alienation from deepening into revolt, neoconservatives say that
people must be taught to expect much less from the system.
That way, they won't get so angry when government is
unresponsive to real social needs.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS deals with the same failures of
democracy. Its solution, of course, is to look beyond earthly
politics altogether for a miraculous deliverance. But in the
absence of an alien landing, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS instructs
people pretty much as neoconservatism does. Don't expect much
from government—and don't worry about it because others will
arrange things for you. This parallel is not a coincidence.
Certain economic and political conditions have encouraged the
production of a blockbuster movie appealing to our sense of
alienation. The same conditions are at the root of
neoconservatism. (7)
The concentration of greater and greater productive resources in

several hundred multinational corporations has been the major
trend of U.S. capitalism since World War II. The general
monopolization of industrial production has strongly affected
the relationship of the government to the economy. Yet the
government's economic tools no longer work, its predictions no
longer make sense. Government can't manage unemployment,
inflation, uneven development, and other problems that
accompany monopoly and multinational capitalism. This in turn
means the State's inability to deliver on the American dream of
limitless growth in affluence and continued democratic input
into government. These failures of political democracy and
economic growth have led to an enormous upsurge in mass
distrust of corporate and government authorities and pessimism
about the future of the country.
Political elites needing continued legitimacy—and movie
producers seeking maximum profit—cultivate a sensitivity to
new attitudes. Politicians naturally call for austerity, self-
sacrifice, and unity. They inevitably seek to dampen mass
expectations of economic affluence and political representation.
But what about the entertainment industry? And in particular,
why did CLOSE ENCOUNTERS wind up being so compatible
with the call to neoconservatism?
The important starting point is not with screenwriter and
director Spielberg (though we suspect a psychohistory of this
wunderkind would be instructive), but with the decision to
produce the film. Thousands of ideas and screenplays never get
produced. What made Columbia back Spielberg? Certainly he
had a winning track record with JAWS. But what made them
back the specific idea for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS with a lavish
enough production and promotion budget to make it a
blockbuster?
Production decisions are made by human beings placed in
market situations that shape their choices. The very need to
manufacture blockbusters is rooted in the same economic trend
(industrial concentration) that brought forth neoconservatism.
Like many other industries, corporate movie production has

come increasingly to be dominated by a few large companies;
most major studios are owned by multinational conglomerates.
Those who manage studios owned by conglomerates apparently
must generate large and growing (8) profits in order to satisfy
conglomerate front offices and keep their jobs.
And even if they are not conglomerate-owned, studios are
forced by competition in a market dominated by rich
conglomerates to maintain their profitability and shares of the
movie audience market. If they don't, they may not have the
revenue to mount massive marketing campaigns to match those
of competing studios, and they may get outbid for the most
marketable stars and scripts. The danger independent studios
face, then, is a vicious downward spiral of inferior products
backed by inferior promotion, leading to lower profits (and less
ability to generate capital from the stock and bond market)
leading to still worse products, etc.
It was natural for a studio like Columbia, looking desperately to
improve its market share, to have seized on Spielberg's CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS. (9) The script promised to address alienation,
an attitude particularly prominent among the under-35 age
group that makes up the bulk of the movie audience. And it was
to be directed by a man with an obvious commercial flair. But
Hollywood is always constrained in capitalizing on such opinion
trends. A couple of daring flops backed by blockbuster-sized
production and marketing budgets can ruin an executive's
career, if not a studio. Caution is in order.
Most entertainment producers face the same basic situation as
political elites. To stay in business, they have to respond to new
trends in public attitudes. But any appeal to those trends must
be as compatible as possible with more stable, widespread,
deeper values.
In the elites' case, challenging dominant values could endanger
their own legitimacy. In the entertainers' case, any open
challenge of those values might reduce audience appeal and
profits. It is tricky but crucial for Hollywood films that aspire
to blockbusterdom to be superficially different, to appeal to the

latest trends, while remaining solidly conventional in ultimate
meaning, so no segment of the potential audience is lost. (10)
It's especially tricky when the trend refers to a political attitude
like alienation. Any serious attempt to deal with that problem,
as in BLUE COLLAR, is bound to be controversial, perhaps
questioning dominant values. That is not the way to make
blockbusters.
How can a studio capitalize on alienation, which is now popular
enough to furnish a blockbuster-sized market, without courting
controversy? By taking an apparently apolitical stance. CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS admits, even details, the alienation wrought by
government but claims the answer does not lie in politics. The
film's solution can offend no political, religious, or other bloc
of the audience (except paranoids like the authors of this piece)
because it can't be disproved or even debated rationally. Maybe
there are aliens out there ready to land here and save us.
Each in their own bailiwick, political elites and entertainment
moguls act pretty much the same. They are ideologically
cautious because caution advances their economic interest and
protects their personal position in government or corporate
hierarchies. It is the genius of the capitalist system (or the
devilry, as you like) that the behavior of these two sets of
leaders converges to offer just the sort of ideological messages
the system needs right now—and without a government
propaganda office orchestrating the duet. (11)
But there are ideological negations in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
too. For it does promise a solution: the aliens. Spielberg wants
the audience to walk out of the theater into real life watching
the skies, looking for that solution. If the UFOs don't land, the
audience is left with only the film's indictment of U.S.
democracy as fraudulent and incapable of solving the alienation
capitalism produces. Thus instructed, people may refuse to
lower their expectations and may tire of raising their eyes.
Perhaps then they could look straight into the fascist form and
content of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (and other entertainment) to
see the things to come if real solutions to the system's problems

are not sought.
Notes
We want to thank Clay Steinman, David Schlissel, Ernest
Callenbach, and John Hess for their ideas, suggestions, and
disagreements.
1. We quote the Grand Inquisitor because he has long been an
inspiration to cultural producers and politicians. The stress on
miracle, mystery, and authority has been especially popular in
pre-fascist or fascist societies. Those themes, for example, were
common in the fiction films that preceded Hitler's rise to
power—such as Wiene's THE CABINET OF DOCTOR
CALIGARI and the popular films starring or directed by Leni
Riefenstahl, like THE BLUE LIGHT and THE HOLY
MOUNTAIN. Fascist politicians gather support by using
symbols that are meant to show that the leader's goal is to unite
the people so they can be initiated into the mysteries of a
miraculous new order. The key to reaching that goal is faith in
the leader, submission to his godlike authority.
2. Our inspiration is Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947). But we don't
fully agree with his arguments, and we don't think they apply
completely to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS or America. We
deliberately leave specific predictions and parallels for readers
to draw themselves.
3. In Bill Nichols, ed. Movies and Methods (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1976).
4. T.W. Adorno, "Television and the Patterns of Mass Culture,"
in Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White, eds., Mass
Culture (Glencoe, IL.: The Free Press, 1957), p. 480.
5. At the landing pad, three flags are displayed: those of the
United States, Rockwell International Corporation, and France.
There are some vaguely foreign looking dignitaries hanging
around; they might be French or even Russian. But the first two
flags tell us who is in charge.
6. According to Variety, as of May 17, 1978, CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS had grossed $36 million, more than any other

film in the top 50 except STAR WARS.
7. On neoconservatism, see Robert Entman, "What the Neo-
Conservatives Prescribe for US," The Nation, Jan. 3-10, 1976.
Gallup polls galore document the rise of subjective feelings of
political alienation in the United States. Analysis of objective
conditions of alienation, which have existed all along, is, of
course, another matter.
8. John Lindsay, "The New Tycoons of Hollywood," New York
Times Sunday Magazine (August 7, 1977); Joseph Phillips,
"Film Conglomerate 'Blockbusters'," Journal of
Communications, 25 (September 1975).
9. See Chris Holdenfield, "The Sky is Full of Questions,"
Rolling Stone (January 26, 1978); also Jack Egan, "Press
Encounters," More, 8 (January 1978).
10. Max Horkeimer and T.W. Adorno, "The Culture Industry:
Enlightenment as Mass Deception," in Dialectic and
Enlightenment; original 1944; trans. John Cumming (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1972).
11. For a more detailed discussion of these relationships, see
the forth coming book by Entman and David Paletz, House of
Mirrors: Media Power in American Politics (New York: Free
Press, 1980).
Vocabulary for Close Encounters of the Third Kind:
1) Universe: the totality of existence, including planets, stars,
galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, and all matter and
energy.
2) Monolith: a geological feature consisting of a single massive
stone placed as, or within, a monument or building.
3) Extraterrestrial: life that does not originate from Earth.
4) Terrestrial: pertaining to, consisting of, or representing the
earth as distinct from other planets.
5) Evolution: the change in the inherited characteristics of
biological populations over successive generations.
6) Tool: a device for doing work.
7) Cold War: a sustained state of political and military tension

between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United
States with NATO among its allies, and powers in the Eastern
Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union along with the Warsaw
Pact from 1947 to 1991.
8) Nuclear War: a military conflict or political strategy in which
nuclear weaponry is used to inflict damage on an opponent.
9) Bureaucracy: Structure and regulations in place to control
activity, usually in large organizations and government
operations.
10) Artificial Intelligence: the intelligence of machines or
software, and is also a branch of computer science that studies
and develops intelligent machines and software.
11) Colonization: whenever any one or more species populate
an area outside their point of origin.
12) Infinity: something that exists without limits.
13) Paradox: an argument that produces an inconsistency,
typically within logic or common sense.
14) Counterpoint: contrasting elements or systems put together
to produce unique and often ironic juxtapositions in content.
15) Metamorphosis: a biological process by which an animal
physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a
conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body
structure through cell growth and differentiation.
16) Trans-human: to exceed the biological evolution of the
species Homo sapiens.
17) Steganography: the art and science of writing hidden
messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and
intended recipient, suspects its existence.
18) Cryptography: the practice and study of techniques for
secure communication in the presence of third parties
19) Encoding: a rule for converting a piece of information into
another form or representation, not necessarily of the same type.
20) Decoding: the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-
sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to
correctly pronounce written words.

SPLICE
In April 2010, the Arizona Legislature passed a law, SB 1307,
making it a class 6 felony to knowingly or intentionally create a
human animal hybrid. What do they know that the rest of the
United States doesn’t? Does SB 1307 react to the actual genetic
engineering of such a hybrid, or does it simply anticipate the
design? In either event, SB 1307 literally suggests that the
boundaries beyond Science and Fiction are now very blurred,
and that Arizona is attempted to draw the proverbial line in the
sand.
The Science Fiction Horror film Splice (2009) was directed by
Vincenzo Natali, and stars Adrien Brody (Clive Nicoli), Sara
Polley (Elsa Kast) and Delphine Chaneac (Dren) and deals
directly with the subject of a human/animal genetic
hybridization. Clive and Elsa are thirty something genetic rock
stars leading the vanguard of scientifically designed hybrid
animals for commercial gain. Although it is entirely unclear
what exact market is being outlined by the film, the hybrid
animal organisms named Fred and Ginger appear to be valuable
because of their unique physiology, especially their enzymes;
towards what specific commercial end is ultimately left up to
the audience’s imagination. The film does state, however, that
the hybrid enzymes will not be directed towards human
consumption, medical treatment, or genetic modification,
because of an anticipated political and moral backlash as
alluded to in laws like Arizona’s SB 1307.
In short, Splice presents two conflicting motivations for

human/animal genetic hybridization: 1) to alleviate human
suffering, and 2) corporate profits. Of the two Scientists, Elsa
is the one most impassioned by the prospect of helping human
beings by ending diseases such as Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s,
and even some forms of Cancer. Unfortunately, Elsa and Klive
are employed by a blank-faced and multi-national, genomic
corporation presided over by a French CEO named Joan Chorot,
played by actress Simona Maicanescu; who does not share
Elsa’s humanitarian leanings and is more inclined to bolster
investor profits by monetizing their advanced biogenetic
engineering as is, ultimately shelving Elsa’s grandiose medical
ambitions for pragmatic revenue streams. In response, Elsa
recruits Klive into conducting a clandestine experiment
involving the genetic splicing of animal and human genomes, at
which point the story really begins.
The film is quite clear in depicting the fact that while Elsa and
Klive have access to advanced technology and banks of genetic
coda, human and animal, they are nevertheless working beyond
their actual cognitive limits. They appear to mix DNA
sequences at random, and then express surprise and confusion
when one their experiments actually begins to work, producing
a genuine chimera. Clearly, they have not given any larger
thought to the project than wanting to be the first biogenetic
scientists to cross the literal line and make history. Of course,
that’s precisely where horror enters the picture, as the two
bootlegging scientists seem as confused about the artificial
gestation of their hybrid organism as the audience. For
instance, at one telling point the developing chimera’s heart
stops beating in artificial utero, clearly startling Elsa’s overall
sense of confidence; who is then even more confused when it
suddenly turns back on. Is this “lifer-after-death” incident
supposed to be read as some kind a religious parable? Hard to
say, but it does underline the unnatural nature of the developing
hybrid, and alludes to its chameleon like character.

As outlined in Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection,
advantageous genetic mutations are propagated down through
the species eventually becoming dominant traits. The overall
success of the mutation is determined in great part by
environmental conditions that can favor certain mutations in
one generation, while others in the next. Sexual Selection
denotes inter-species preferences for physical traits that exist
outside the basic requirements of survival. A classic example
of Sexual Selection can be found in the elaborate plumage of
the male peacock that is more decorative than functional, in the
strictest sense of the words. Artificial Selection was a word
coined by Darwin to demarcate a process by which genetic traits
were chosen arbitrarily, as in the decisions human beings make
in breeding different sizes of dogs as pets.
Splice seems to mine deeply the antipathy often born of
contemporary biogenetic engineering, and hence the entire film
is dedicated to the artificial and hence unnatural quality of the
developing chimera. Human beings, for instance, have evolved
directly from Natural and Sexual Selection, and may be
Unconsciously prone to see organisms derived by Artificial
Selection as abnormal, even threatening. It might be interesting
to speculate that a genetically modified human being might not
object to the manner of Elsa’s and Klive’s genetic
experimentations because of Unconscious genetic parallels that
could engender empathy rather than antipathy. In any case,
Splice seems determined to mine and exploit current popular
fears regarding human genetic engineering, modification, and
cloning.
In many ways, Splice is contemporary update of the classic
story of Frankenstein: a “monster” that was put tighter
artificially from the illegally exhumed remains of dead humans

and than zapped back to life via the power of electricity.
Likewise, the monster in Splice, named Dren, is a hybrid
mishmash of human and animal DNA spliced together in a
haphazard manner and brought to life in an artificial womb. In
a rather crafty sleight of hand, however, the filmmakers of
Splice never disclose the identities of the animals used in the
genetic splicing. In Sam Raimi’s Spiderman (2002), for
instance, Peter Parker is clearly bitten by a genetically
engineered super-spider that functions as the definitive source
for his mutations. In David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly
(1986), Mad Scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum)
accidentally fuses his genetic DNA with that of a fly during a
test featuring teleportation, and mutates into a half-human/half-
fly monstrosity that has to be euthanized at the end of the film.
In Ang Lee’s The Hulk (2003), Bruce Banner’s Mad Scientist
Father administers him with a genetic cocktail derived in part
from the genetic blueprint of a starfish, with the anticipation
that his son will have the power to regenerate missing limbs or
rebuild damaged tissue.
In Splice, however, it is never precisely disclosed which animal
genes were used to form the basic physiological infrastructure
for Dren; she is the unknown accumulation of divergent
evolutionary streams in which dominant and recessive genes
battle for influence. For instance, in the embryonic stage of
Dren she has a tail equipped with a neurotoxin that nearly kills
Elsa in the “birthing” process. It is unclear from what animal
such a tail is derived, but it is tempting to list scorpion as the
obvious choice, but there is no further evidence to support this
conclusion. This goes back to the question of motivation, and
what specifics sets of animal DNA might the Mad Scientist
couple find appropriate or appealing under the circumstances of
such a highly unorthodox and illegal experiment.

For instance, Dren appears to go through several different
evolutionary stages from birth to full term adult. In her
childhood stage, Dren’s eyes are located on either side of her
head, suggesting that she does not initially have stereoscopic
vision; it is in this prepubescent form that she looks the most
alien, and acts the least human. It is unclear, for instance, how
this initial lack of stereoscopic vision might impact her
cognitive development, and unfortunately this issue is never
addressed at length in the film. However, as Dren ages, her
eyes move to the front of her skull, allowing her to perceive
space in three dimensions. Stereoscopic vision is a pre-
requisite for carnivores, and so it is implied that that dominant
component of her genetic makeup has taken charge, given
possible insights into her own interior psychical states,
including possible motives for her more aggressive behavior
towards Elsa after she reaches puberty.
Initially, Elsa and Clive perceive Dren only as an experiment,
but as she develops both physically and mentally their attitudes
turn parental, creating a rather tragic and farcical version of the
nuclear family. At the start, Elsa spends the most time with
Dren as she tests her developing cognitive abilities, including
the ability to form abstract associations between pictures and
objects. At this point Elsa is dressing Dren in child’s clothing
and making little distinction between Dren as a byproduct of
genetic engineering and Dren as a pseudo daughter. Clive
initially resists Elsa’s anthropomorphizing of Dren, but
gradually resigns his clinical detachment after they are forced to
leave the lab and take refuge at Elsa’s Mother’s farmhouse.
The transition to the farmhouse allows the film to explore
Elsa’s abusive upbringing, including the fact that her mother
probably suffered from a lifelong mental illness, a genetic trait
possibly passed on to Elsa.

This new data begins to shape Elsa’s initial antipathy for
authority figures, rules, and regulations, and suggests that her
motivation to find radical cures for human ailments, especially
Schizophrenia, may spring both from her upbringing and her
own mental illness. Additionally, it begins to explain her
antipathy to having a child with Clive, especially considering
his desire to start a family. Initially, the film discloses that
Elsa and Clive used an anonymous female DNA sample in the
splice sequence that creates Dren, but only later does the film
reveal that it actually came from Elsa. In a telling and
disturbing scene at the farmhouse, Clive teaches Dren how to
dance and becomes uncomfortably aware that he is sexually
attracted to her. At this time he finally perceives that Elsa
submitted her own DNA into the chimera experiment, and that
he is attracted to Dren in the same genetic manner he is
attracted to her, suggesting that his attraction to Dren has been
passed down from mother to “daughter.”
Elsa’s abusive history with her mother is played out in her
domineering control over Dren. In the barn, for instance, Dren
befriends a cat as an antidote to her isolation, but when Elsa
discovers it she immediately takes it away, scolding her in the
process, “You can’t always get what you want.” There is little
doubt that Elsa is role playing her mother, and rationalizing her
desire to dominate Dren both physically and mentally. Later
on, after remorse sets in, Elsa returns the cat to Dren who
immediately kills it with her poison stinger. Elsa then strikes
Dren across the face, who responds by attacking Elsa and
clearly threatening her with death, but instead of stabbing her
Dren takes the barn door keys from a chain on her neck and
opens the door to escape. Elsa recovers and hits Dren on the
back of the head with a shovel, while unconscious Elsa ties
Dren down to a table and prepares to amputate the stinger. She
strips Dren of her clothing, and thus of her vestiges of
humanity, and stabs her viciously with a syringe filled with a

local anesthetic. All the while, Elsa is dictating her actions,
including her rationalizations for excessive violence, into a
hand-held taper-recorder, shutting down any compassion
towards the now hapless Dren who can only whimper in misery
and fear. The hypodermic needle stabbed into the naked Dren is
evocative of a rape scene, and shows how far Elsa has been
scarred by her relationship with her mother, and/or the extent of
her own mental deterioration. Paradoxically, when she cuts of
Elsa’s stinger it becomes suggestive of a castration scene,
possibly foreshadowing the end when Dren changes gender.
Clive arrives at the very end of the amputation scene and is
clearly shocked by Elsa’s action, but is also clearly impotent to
resolve the situation. Elsa thus literally dominates both Clive
and Dren, and shuts them completely off from her emotional
reality. This tension is both escalated and resolved the next day
when Clive enters the barn to comfort Dren, but finds her rather
fully recovered, naked, and committed to having a sexual
encounter with him. Initially, Clive rebukes her advance, but
ultimately succumbs to her solicitations and they consummate
their relationship. Elsa arrives in time to see their climax, and
leaves in shock and disgust, followed by a half-naked and
clearly mortified Clive. It is unclear if Clive’s intercourse with
Dren amounts to incest, but the inference is provocatively
suggested although never fully resolved.
It is difficult to fully comprehend the motivation for Dren’s
actions because her age is heavily accelerated, and the film does
not allow her access to verbal language so that she is not able to
articulate her own internal consciousness or sense of self; she
communicates, for instance, in a series of high pitched squeaks
and clicks that confer only the basic emotive construct of
happiness or unhappiness. The timeline of Splice suggests that
Dren moves from infancy, through puberty, and into adulthood

in roughly under a month. However, she is clearly far in
advance of a human counterpart in terms of her general
cognition, which suggests that she may be akin to a genius if
she were to continue to develop.
In the final act of the film, Dren undergoes a radical
metamorphosis from female to male, suggesting at least one
possible motive for wanting to acquire sperm from Clive.
The male version of Dren is far more hostile, and seems to
retain little, if any, of her initial humanity, of filial attachment
to either Elsa or Clive. Furthermore, Male Dren clearly has no
compunction about killing, and murders Clive’s younger brother
and a Lab Administrator in cold blood. Following this he
attacks and rapes Elsa, who asks for his motivation for these
extremely violent actions, and his response is chilling, “In you.”
Again, because the age of the Male Dren is so ambiguous
relative to human cognitive development, it is difficult to know
how much of his actions he is aware of on a conscious level.
Clearly, too, this later stage of Dren has the ability to verbalize
interior motivations, and so too seek a form of revenge on his
mother that Psychoanalysis would immediately diagnosis as an
enabled Oedipal Complex.
After Elsa’s rape, Clive shows up and plows a stake through the
back of the male Dren, mortally wounding him; however, before
his death he looks over at Elsa, and then stabs Clive to death
with his stinger to destroy any chance of posthumous happiness.
The uncertain nature of Dren is clearly the subject of Splice, as
is the ultimate biological nature of humanity itself rendered
through the frame of genetic engineering. Ultimately, the film
raises more questions answers. For instance, is Dren human

simply because she has some human DNA, or is she more
animal because her DNA is not completely human? If Dren is
understood as Elsa’s daughter, who, or what, would constitute
her father? Does Dren’s cognitive ability match her biological
growth? If so, at what point would she clearly be superior in
intellect to by Elsa and Clive? If Elsa and Clive are under
contract to the multi-national genomic company, does that mean
Dren is their property? If making a human animal hybrid
constitutes a class 6 felony in Arizona, what would be the status
of the chimera? Would a chimera like Dren possess any Civil
Rights under the constitution of the United States? Could a
genetic hybrid born in the United States be considered a U.S.
citizen? Dren is a powerful foil for the kinds of complicated
questions raised by genetic engineering, especially by the
prospect of splicing together human animal hybrids. Dren,
ultimately, does not speak for herself in the film, and it is in
precisely that vacuum that audiences can project their own
humanity. Only time will tell, however, whether the Science
Fiction outlined by the film Splice becomes actual headline
news for national debate regarding the nature of hour humanity,
and the role of genetic engineering in our future.
Splice Essay Prompts:
1) According to the film, how many different animals were
spliced together with Human DNA to make the Dren creature?
Can you locate a reason for the different choices?
2) How can you explain Dren’s incredible rate of biological
growth? Does it derive from the animal DNA, or might it be
totally inexplicable? Does Dren’s mind grow as fast as her
body, if so, what are the consequences in terms of her mental
abilities?
3) Why does Elsa secretly splice her own DNA into the Dren
creature? How might that relate to her relationship with her

mother? Why does Elsa dress Dren up like a female human?
4) What is Clive’s initial reaction regarding the Dren creature?
How and why does that change over the course of the film?
Why does he have sex with Dren? Given her “age,” and the fact
that she couldn’t possibly consent, what would be the legal
consequences for him in America’s judicial system? If you
were a lawyer, and were going to provide a defense for Clive’s
actions, how would you about defending him? Would you draw
Elsa as a witness? Would you argue that Dren initiated the
sexual encounter? Might you state that since she is not human,
no rape occurred?
5) What kind of company does Elsa and Clive work for, and
what exactly is their goal regarding biogenetic engineering?
How much do you think Elsa and Clive get paid for their work?
Why would they sacrifice everything and break with the
conditions of their employment?
6) In your own opinion, what happens to Elsa at the end of the
film? How much money do you think would be adequate
compensation for having the Male Dren’s child? What do you
think Elsa’s child will look like? Could her child ever go to
school with normal humans? Would Elsa’s child be the
property of the corporation that bought her? What do you think
that child’s life would be like?
Vocabulary:
1) genome: the full complement of genetic information that an
individual organism inherits from its parents, especially the sets
of chromosomes and the genes they will carry.
2) gene: the basic unit capable of transmitting characteristics
from one generation to the next.

3) DNA: a nucleic acid molecule in the form of a twisted double
helix that is the major component of chromosomes and carries
genetic information.
4) RNA: a nucleic acid that contains the sugar ribose, is found
in all living cells, and is essential for the manufacture of
proteins according to the instructions carried by genes.
5) chromosome: a rod-shaped structure in a cell nucleus
carrying the genes that determine sex and the characteristics and
organism inherits from its parents.
6) junk DNA: Any portion of the DNA sequence of a
chromosome or a genome for which no function has been
identified.
7) splice: to join together or insert pieces of genetic material
when altering the genetic structure of something or when
forming a new combination.
8) chimera: an organism, or part of one, with at least two
genetically different tissues resulting from mutation, the
grafting of plants, or the insertion of foreign cells into an
embryo.
9) hybrid: an animal that results from the mating of parents
from two distinct species or subspecies.
10) human: having the imperfections and weaknesses of a
human being rather than a machine or divine being.
11) humanity: the qualities or characteristics considered as a
whole to be typical of human beings.
12) civil rights: rights that all citizens of a society are supposed
to have, for example, the right to vote or to receive fair

treatment from the law.
13) intelligence: the ability to learn facts and skills and apply
them, especially when this ability is highly developed.
14) imagination: the ability to form images and ideas in the
mind, especially of things never seen or never experienced
directly.
15) enzyme: a complex protein produced by living cells that
promotes a specific biochemical reaction by acting as a catalyst.
16) commerce: the large-scale buying and selling of goods and
services.
17) international: extending beyond or across national
boundaries.
18) biochemistry: the scientific study of the chemical
substances, processes, and reactions that occur in living
organisms.
19) biocompatible: the ability of a material to perform with an
appropriate host response in a specific situation.
20) euthanasia: the act or practice of killing somebody who has
an incurable illness or injury, or allowing or assisting that
person to die.
21) clandestine: secret or furtive, and usually illegal.
22) experiment: a test, especially a scientific one, carried out in
order to discover whether a theory is correct or what the results
of a particular course of action would be.
23) conglomerate: a large business organization that consists of

a number of companies that deal with a variety of different
business, manufacturing, or commercial activities.
24) profit: the excess of income over expenditure during a
particular period of time.
25) science: the study of the physical world and its
manifestations, especially by using systematic observation and
experiment.
26) science fiction: a form of fiction, usually set in the future,
that deals with imaginary scientific and technological
developments and contact with other worlds.
27) mutation: a random change in a gene or chromosome
resulting in a new trait or characteristic that can be inherited.
28) metamorphosis: a complete or marked change in the form of
an animal as it develops into an adult, for example, the change
from tadpole to frog or from caterpillar to butterfly.
29) morality: standards of conduct that are accepted as right or
proper.
30) ethics: the study of moral standards and how they affect
conduct.
Splice Questions:
1) Who do they work for? What is their job goal? Why does
their employer not want to take the next step and use human
DNA?
2) Who is the French woman, and who does she work for? What
are her goals? Why are her goals different than Elsa and Clive?

3) Why name the two designer organisms Fred and Ginger?
Why make the designer organisms, what is their reason to exist?
4) Why is it against the law to clone human beings? Why don’t
Elsa and Clive obey the law? What higher goal do they think
they are serving?
5) What animals are spliced together in order to form Dren?
6) What is junk DNA, and how does it function in the film?
7) Why doesn’t Elsa want to have children?
8) How many times does the Dren organism die, and what is the
significance of her “rebirth?”
9) How would you describe Elsa’s relationship with her
Mother? Why is that important to her relationship with Clive
and Ultimately with Dren?
10) How quickly does Dren go from childhood to adolescence?
11) Why does Elsa take the cat away from Dren? Why does
Dren kill the cat when she tries to give it back?
12) If Dren can spell the word “tedious,” is she “human?” How
is humanity connected to intelligence and the ability to make
abstract associations?
13) Why does Elsa slap Dren? Why does Dren attack Elsa?
14) Why don’t the end the experiment by killing Dren?
15) If Dren was made public, what would be her legal status in
the United States?

16) Why does Elsa resent authority figures?
17) Why wouldn’t Elsa’s Mother let her wear makeup? What
does that tell you indirectly about her Mother’s values? What
happened to her Father, and why is that important?
18) Why doesn’t Dren have hair?
19) Why does Dren draw pictures of Clive and Elsa? Why does
she conceal the drawings from Elsa?
20) Why can’t Dren speak?
21) Shouldn’t Dren go to school with other kids?
22) What is the Elektra Complex, and how does it function in
the film Splice?
23) Why does Elsa secretly insert her DNA into the Dren
experiment? Why doesn’t she tell Clive before she does it? How
many secrets does Elsa keep from Clive?
24) Why does Clive have sex with Dren? Is this “incest,” or
something else?
25) Is Elsa Dren’s “Mother?”
26) Is anyone prosecuted for murder at the end of the film?
What are the consequences of the Clive’s death, that of his
brother, and the senior administrator? Shouldn’t someone go to
jail for their deaths?
27) What on Earth does Elsa give birth to? Did she actually sell
her baby to the corporation?
28) Who might actually want an organism like Dren?

March 29, 2013
Come Play with “The Shining”
Posted by Bill Wyman
·
“The Shining,” released in May, 1980, has always been seen as
Stanley Kubrick’s pulpiest and most commercial venture. It’s
not just that it’s a horror film. (All of Kubrick’s works, really,
are horror films.) But the source material was an early Stephen
King novel; this was back in the days when the Times would
still matter-of-factly describe King’s work as “preposterous
claptrap.” And the thrills in “The Shining”—the jump cuts, the
shock images—are more conventional, less arch, and somehow
less mordant than those in the rest of Kubrick’s filmography. It
was also one of his few films set in a recognizable
contemporary reality, and “The Shining” was, until “Eyes Wide
Shut,” the only one that included an un-perverted family unit,
though, of course, that’s not saying much, given the murderous
father at the heart of the story.
A new film, which has been called a documentary but is really
some other species of work, goes to great lengths to convince us
that this perception of “The Shining” is mistaken. “Room 237,”
directed by a Kubrick obsessive named Rodney Ascher, argues
that the movie’s scenes of created reality, far more than its
Grand Guignol horror scenes, hide important and, in some
cases, truly dark meanings. Our guides in this analysis are a
troupe of brothers and sisters in arms who, via voice-over, take
us through a mental maze no less ominous than the deadly one
that sits outside the mountain resort in the film.
If you recall, “The Shining” was released in 1980, following
“Barry Lyndon” and preceding “Full Metal Jacket.” Kubrick did
his customary years of research beforehand, and put his cast and
crew though a typically gruelling eleven-month shoot in a U.K.
studio. The actors were forced through scores of takes of

demanding emotional and physical scenes. The movie is
centered on a boy named Danny, who has an imaginary friend
named Tony and, we later learn, a capacity for telepathic
communication called “shining.” His parents are played by Jack
Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. The family is hired as winter
caretakers of a hotel, the Overlook, a juggernaut of a construct
high in the Rockies. Once the family has been sealed off from
society, strange things begin to happen. Egged on by phantoms
of the hotel, Nicholson’s mental condition deteriorates. In the
second half of the movie, his demons and those in the hotel run
free, with horrific results.
“The Shining” opened to negative reviews but good business;
since then, an influential demographic of mesmerized fans has
helped the film, over the years, be appreciated as a nonpareil
horror show. Today, we can see that “The Shining” ’s slow but
inexorable pacing, crisp editing, sumptuous production design,
over-the-top lead performances, technical innovations (notably,
the most extravagant work to date with the then new Steadicam
camera), and a handful of indelible scenes (Danny’s Big Wheel
rides, a Steadicam tracking shot that leads Duvall up several
flights of stairs, that elevator car full of blood) all combine to
leave viewers shaken and unmistakably drained.
But “Room 237” isn’t about any of those things. It is a
cinematic digest of the work of a corps of people who claim to
have found semi-hidden meanings in the film. For just about
anyone who has seen “The Shining” and who has a slightly
higher than average interest in cinematic studies, “Room 237”
will be an engrossing and at times hallucinatory viewing
experience. And even for those who care not a whit about
Kubrick or “The Shining” but who have a taste for a different
type of horror—the postmortem and postmodern horrors of the
sort the poet John Shade endured in the novel “Pale Fire” at the
hands of one who searched for elusive meanings in Shade’s
work—will find much to delight here.
The bravura conceit of “Room 237” is to take what might have
been a dry and tedious collection of expository film theories

and transform them into a deeply immersive cinematic
experience in its own right. Ascher does this by running his
commentaries over a mind-blowing collection of clips, from the
entire Kubrick oeuvre and then a slew of other filmmakers’, and
cleverly stitching them together, using a variety of music cues
and intense editing beats to drive the movie forward. The effect
is both powerful and mischievous. For example, “Room 237”
begins with someone talking about having seen “The Shining”
poster for the first time; on-screen, we see, instead, a scene
from “Eyes Wide Shut” in which Tom Cruise looks at some
posters outside a jazz club featuring his friend Nick
Nightingale. Audaciously, Ascher swaps out the jazz photos and
swaps in a “Shining” poster and publicity stills from the films. I
went back to “Eyes Wide Shut” to see the original scene;
interestingly, the poster advertising the Club Sonata is the same
burst of yellow that marked the original, and now iconic,
“Shining” poster. Point Ascher.
Ascher identifies his analysts on-screen only briefly, a
provocative and dislocating gambit. The five—four men and a
woman—become distinct personalities over time. Vying for our
intellectual allegiance, spewing out observations, analysis, free
associations, and more, they succeed to varying degrees. Some
display a charming self-deprecation, chuckling in embarrassed
amazement at the secrets they’ve unearthed. It’s also clear that
one of the contributors is quite mad. “I fully expect my taxes
will be audited next year,” he says at one point. In that
deathless line I hear echoes of a famous aside from Professor
Kinbote in “Pale Fire”: “There is a very loud amusement park
right in front of my present lodgings.” Ascher buttresses their
voices and the clips with some animated sequences, notably an
eerie abstract three-dimensional floating map of the hotel that
follows the characters’ movements around to make this or that
point about the spatial world Kubrick is working in. “Room
237” ’s narrative thrust is persuasive. By creating a provocative
filmic world in its own right, it gives itself a great deal of
intellectual credibility to discuss Kubrick’s.

The first interviewee makes the case that there is a pattern of
American Indian iconography through the film. The eeriness
begins immediately, as he fixates on a single out-of-place can of
Calumet Baking Soda, strategically placed above a character’s
head in a storeroom. Calumet uses an Indian head for a logo.
Any amateur student of Kubrick’s work knows that there is
little in any frame of his that he did not intend to be there. The
can is made eerily meaningful. Then, guided by our
interlocutor, we see a half-dozen examples of Indian-related
imagery, some of it plain, some of it fanciful. (A quick clip of
Duvall saying “Keep America clean” is followed by a quick cut
of the famous anti-littering commercial featuring an Indian with
a tear running down his cheek.)
The analysis becomes dizzying quickly. Every movie has what
are called continuity errors, those little inconsistencies
obsessive film viewers collect, like a character’s hair parted one
way and then, a cut later, parted the other. Here they become
ominous. A chair disappears. In Danny’s room, a cartoon sticker
on a door—the Disney dwarf Dopey—vanishes as well. The
carpet pattern under Danny’s feet suddenly shifts.
The theories—involving the Holocaust (stemming from
Nicholson’s German typewriter), the Apollo Space project, fairy
tales, and more and more and more—continue, until the viewer
is about to concede all of them. (To discuss them further would
spoil some of the film’s surprises.) “Room 237” falls apart a bit
at the end, however. Art will always produce obsessives who
pick nits, who see specters and goblins, and insist, Kinbote-like,
on their visions within it. And the Internet is not the wellspring
of such activity; it has always been with us. (To cite a mundane
example: the idea of “The Annotated Sherlock Holmes” is
divine—until you start reading the inconsistent and often
tangential exegeses.) One of the film’s points, that a bathroom
off the hotel’s main dining room is placed in a spatially
nonsensical way, isn’t really made convincingly. Others are
tedious. One analyst is allowed to drone on about a coincidental
thing that one of her dreary children said. And a too long

sequence in which the film is run simultaneously forward and
backward goes nowhere. These elements show the strains
underneath the conception.
So obsessed is “Room 237” with the minutest elements of “The
Shining“ that larger issues (for any normal viewer) get barely
mentioned, or not mentioned at all. Some of the difficulties
critics had with the film on its release may have been owing to
disrupted viewer expectations. Supernatural films are generally
“about” one supernatural issue. Here, Danny has “the shining.”
But the other supernatural manifestations are myriad and
confused. Danny’s hallucinations may have been brought on by
abuse. Nicholson, however, hallucinates as well, but the source
of this—male rage, or insecurity, or isolation, or demons at
loose in the hotel—remains unclear. There’s one key, jarring
plot point: Nicholson is locked in a kitchen storage unit by
Duvall. The door is ultimately opened for him by one of the
hotel ghosts he talks to—a supernatural intrusion into the
physical world that is unique in the film, and not explained.
These are all discrete psychic conceptions, and they don’t really
jibe. We see now that they are each part of the unease Kubrick
intended in the film. (He took what he wanted from King’s
book, and added various layers of his own.)
What “The Shining” is really about will remain opaque. Beyond
child abuse, writer’s block, and insanity is the history of the
hotel, which seems to weigh Nicholson down more than
anything. One commenter in “Room 237” makes this point:
“This is a movie about the past. Not just our past, but
‘pastness’.” This, interestingly, parallels something Pauline
Kael wrote in The New Yorker in her original, appreciative but
skeptical review: “I hate to say it, but I think the central
character of this movie is time itself, or, rather, timelessness.”
Instead, nothing is too small for these obsessives to obsess
about. The documentary’s title is a reference to the scariest,
bloodiest room in the hotel. In the book, it was apparently room
217. One of our detectives here takes issue even with the story
given out about why the number was changed. It’s another of

the unanswered questions left by “The Shining.” Here, the
obsessive could have gone deeper. What would seem to be an
utterly trivial issue was important enough to be mentioned in
the original Timet’s pretty clear that Janet Maslin was in on the
cover-up, too.
The Kubrick Corner
PART 11: Imperfect Symmetries
Home
Biography
PART 1: More than meets the eye
Introduction to themes
The Kuleshov effect
Kubrick as cold rationalist
PART 2: Opening Shots
The Kubrick Aesthetic & Spectatorship Theory
Concept Art and Storyboards
Kubrick's bathrooms
Dinner with Stanley
PART 3: The Killing
Simultaneity and Overlap
The Unknown Kubrick
The Early Films
PART 4: Paths of Glory
Creation and Destruction
PART 5: Spartacus
I Viddied Spartacus
PART 6: Lolita
Michael Ciment on Lolita
1962 Kubrick interview

PART 7: Dr Strangelove
War and Sex
PART 8: 2001: A Space Odyssey
A Cold Descent
SF Capital
Three Metamorphoses
PART 9: A Clockwork Orange
Alex as artist
Crime and Punishment
The Decor Of Tomorrow's Hell
Spectacle and Violence
PART 10: Barry Lyndon Reconsidered
The Vanity of Existence
Narrative and Discourse
Kubrick's Narrator and "The higher aesthetic"
PART 11: Imperfect Symmetries
Animal friends
Historicism and Hauntology
4 Articles
The Uncanny
PART 12: Deconstructing Masculinity
The Jungian Thing
Kubrick's Ulterior War
AMK Essays
Who am I?
Anybody's Son Will Do
PART 13: Eyes Wide Shut
3 Articles
Contemporary Sexuality and its Discontents
Squalid Infidelities
Crazy cults and Grotesque Caricatures
Was Eyes Wide Shut completed?
PART 14: A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Kubrick's A.I. by Ian Watson
New AI Page
PART 15: Kubrick's Psychopaths

Kubrick's office and grave
A Collection of Letters
The Quote Page
Scorsese on Kubrick
Kubrick Interviews
Useful weblinks, books and Guestbook
"All you can do is either pose questions or make truthful
observations about human behaviour. The only morality is not
to be dishonest.” - Stanley Kubrick
INTRODUCTION
Decades after its release, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”
continues to baffle, enrage and entrance audiences. Books have
been written, ink has been spilt, websites formed and videos
made, all in the hope of untangling the film’s intricate
narrative. Other labyrinthal films – Resnais’ “Last Year In
Marienbad”, Erice’s “Spirit of the Beehive”, Lynch’s
“Mulholland Drive” come to mind – have been praised by critics
and embraced by film buffs, but few seem to generate the sheer
level of conversation, writing and academic interest as
Kubrick’s. Indeed, over the past few years countless blogs have
arisen, ascribing mystical, mathematical, supernatural and
conspiratorial “meanings” to the film. These theories range
from the probable to the bizarre to the downright insane, but in
a way they’re all valid readings for a film which, in some ways,

invites one to investigate, get lost and possibly lose one’s mind
within its vast network of corridors.
If on the one hand the internet generation has embraced “The
Shining” as a film which can be mapped by careful analysis, its
ambiguities conquered by DVD replays, high-definition
screenshots, youtube videos and forum conversation, then on the
other hand, a revived interest in the film has resulted in an
abundance of what semiotician Umberto Eco calls “junk
meaning”. This is excess chatter in which viewers ascribe to the
film everything from Moon landing hoaxes to
Mayan Apocalypses in the year 2012.
On the other end of the spectrum we have those who don’t
venture into the maze at all, shrugging in boredom or
disinterest. Of course this is another quite valid response, as in
many ways “The Shining” is about the act of either “watching”
or “overlooking” “The Shining”. Kubrick invites his audience to
“shine”, to navigate his labyrinth, picking, discarding and
drawing conclusions as they sees fit. The entrance and exist
to his maze are right there on the screen, how far one gets is not
his concern.
The first stumbling block for most audience members seems to
be the question of whether or not the film’s ghosts are “real”.
These are the same folk who view the monoliths in “2001: A
Space Odyssey” as being literal alien teaching devices, and
Dave Bowman’s transcendence at the end of that film to be the
result of extra terrestrial intervention. Which is not to say that
ET’s are not present in “2001”, but that one must look beyond
the film’s genre tropes and tune into the more abstract,
symbolic themes which Kubrick weaves.
As David Cook argues in American Horror: The Shining
(Literature/Film Quarterly, 12.1, 1984:2-4), “The Shining is less
about ghosts and demonic possession than it is about the

murderous system of economic exploitation which has sustained
this country since, like the Overlook Hotel, it was built upon an
Indian burial ground that stretched quite literally from ‘sea to
shining sea’. This is a secret that most Americans choose to
overlook; the true horror of the shining is the horror of living in
a society which is predicated upon murder and must constantly
deny the fact to itself.”
Writer Padraig Henry echoes these sentiments: “The violence
used to construct the hotel is wiped clean away by the hotel’s
role as sanitised manifestation of American success. And this is
one of the functions of Kubrick’s use of the hotel’s title
(another being the rampant self-denial of its occupants).
Kubrick is revealing how white male Americans deny the
demons of their past by hiding them in assorted closets whilst
all the time aggressively pursuing success at the expense of
others, usually marginalized groups.”
Flo Liebowitz and Lynn Jeffress, in “The Shining” (Film
Quarterly, 34, 1980-81:45-51), conclude that “Torrance makes
his devil’s bargain…and women, children and blacks suffer.”
In other words, the film is less about ghosts than it is about a
character who regresses into a monster partly as a result of the
huge pressures to strive for some notion of “success”, a success
which is itself dependent on exploitation and domination. The
power of the shining, as Leibowitz and Jeffress maintain, serves
as “a kind of survival skill that helps the oppressed to defend
themselves, the relationships between the child, the black and
the woman being the only ones free of the self-serving motives
that govern those in which Jack participates."
In being at once horror movie, socio-historic critique and
psycho-domestic melodrama, “The Shining” thus thoroughly
subverts conventional horror genre expectations. As Harry
Bailey writes, “It is “The Shining’s” subversion of genre, its

meta-generic complexity, which allows one to view it as nothing
less than an elaborate political and cultural critique of the
stereotypical American nuclear family, as symbolised by the
psycho-historical maze of the Overlook. One is, of course,
“permitted” to view “The Shining” as just a horror film, but
where, per-chance, is the supernatural intervention? Only in the
viewer’s imagination, a result of his/her pre-empting and pre-
attribution of genre."
The rest of this article will consist of a "scene by scene"
breakdown of the film, as well as several seperate essays at the
end which will attempt to touch upon the various readings of the
film which have been floating around since the 80s. Though
primarily interested in "The Shining" as a work of historical and
political critique, this webpage will also use Freud's "Uncanny"
and Jung's writings on "The Shadow" to analyse the film as
psychodrama, and Frederic Jameson's "Postmodernism: The
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" in an attempt to show that
"The Shining" explorers the most characteristic problem of
postmodernism - the dead-endness of postmodern nostalgia - the
aesthetic, artistic and cultural moment under whose spell
Kubrick began to fall as cinema moved beyond modernism.
Imperfect Symmetries
A Guide to The Shining
by Jason Francois
The Opening Shot
Kubrick’s films begin with what I call "primer scenes". These
are self contained sequences designed to brief the audience on
the themes and ideas that will be explored in the film that
follows. The introductory sequence of "The Shining" briefs us
on 4 important themes:
1. Mirrors
2. Mazes

3. Temporal motion
4. A return to the past (or rather, an attempt to reassert a
particular brand of Colonialism)
The first shot of "The Shining" features the largest and oldest
mirror in the film (water). We see an expansive lake with a near
symmetrical reflection of an island and mountain range. This
imperfect symmetry will feature heavily throughout the film, as
Kubrick subjects us to an orgy of visual and aural duality,
flawed mirror images, echoes, repetition and parallels, in which
characters and objects have doubles, twins, doppelgangers and
alter-egos. Even dialogue is persistently repeated, both person-
to-person and scene-to-scene.
After the first shot, the camera immediately swoops overhead as
it pulls in on Jack’s yellow Volkswagen. These overhead
tracking shots convey the impression of a maze, Kubrick
implying that Jack is already trapped ("You’ve always been the
caretaker"), drawn inexorably toward the Hotel.
Note- The color yellow (Volkswagen/ball) denotes objects used
by the hotel to tempt or lure others. Recent HD releases of the
film contains color errors which render the ball and car pink
(amongst other bizzare color changes). Note also that during
this primer scene, Jack passes 2 moving cars and 2 motionless
cars, Kubrick introducing us to the theme of twins or doubles.
Once the Volkswagen comes into view, Kubrick begins his first
and only use of scrolling credits. The credits come from below
as the car moves forward, creating a symmetry of motion.
Essentially, Jack is trapped in a current, being pulled toward the
Hotel. This dual motion applies later on, as the film’s narrative
simultaneously “shines” both "forward" into the future and
"backward" into the past. This forward/backward double motion
is itself necessary when trying to negotiate one’s way out of a
maze, a process in which one must not only search for the
centre, but remember past routes if one intends to get out.

Significantly, the labyrinthal road that the car travels down is
called the "Going to the Sun" road, and construction of it began
in 1921. Later we will notice that the film itself ends with a
photograph taken in 1921.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going-to-the-Sun_Road
Legend has it that the Going to the Sun Mountain, and later its
main road, were named after a mystical Indian who ascended
the 9,642-foot peak to join the sun in eternity. The choice of
road is no coincidence, as the film begins and ends with both
credits and references to the year 1921. What's more, Kubrick's
name is nowhere in the final credits, and the film begins with a
cast scroll that is typically located where most films end. So
what we have here is a film which folds in on itself like an
ouroboros snake, the past and the present, beginning and end,
merging indefinitely, one big cyclical repetition of history.
The Volkswagen's journey further and further into the
wilderness also highlights the theme of moral regression.
Modern man Jack will eventually regress into a more primal
state, adopting a savagery akin to the ape men in "2001: A
Space Odyssey".
The music throughout this primer sequence also has an
interesting shift in tone. It goes from plodding and ominous
(beating thumps) to the squeals of what sounds like native
Indian women. Audio rhythms like this take place throughout
the film. For example, Danny’s bicycle mimics the sound played
during the chase through the maze, and the beating of Jack's
tennis ball on the wall echoes the crashing of an axe through a
bathroom door.
Throughout the film, Kubrick uses these themes to suggest that
the present is merely an imperfect reflection of the past. Man
(Jack) is trapped in a maze and is doomed to REPEAT his past
horrors. Kubrick applies this theme to both a microcosm
(family) and macrocosm (America) as I will later explain.

Throughout the film, Kubrick will also show us the horrors of at
least three generations of history. The film's three caretakers -
Delbert, Charles and Jack - are all interchangeable. They’ve
each attempted to murder their families and all represent man at
three specific points in time.
Furthermore, the current father and son roles of Jack Torrance
and Danny Torrance are assumed by another Jack and Danny
(Jack Nicholson and Danny Lloyd) thereby perpetuating the
cycle of horror outside the film.
Danny Lloyd's name is itself further fragmented in the Gold
Room scenes which all involve Lloyd the bartenter and a large
bottle of Jack Daniels. Note also that a deleted scene - cut by
Kubrick after the film's premiere - featured Danny being given
a tennis ball by Mr Ullman. This act, which occured at the end
of the film after Jack's death, hints that Danny will later head
back to the hotel and assume Jack’s role.
So what we have here are various generations extending in all
possible directions: the past (Delbert and Charles), the future
(Danny), the present (Jack) and outside the film (the real life
actors).
Kubrick shows that these generations of men live in a maze, a
cycle whereby they repeat the same horrific actions in much the
same way humanity is trapped in a loop, constantly repeating
the same mistakes. Danny, however, unlike his forefathers,
retraces his steps and takes a different path. By refusing to
make the same mistakes, Danny escapes and survives, while his
father is left frozen in time.
But the irony, of course, is that Jack was not trapped at all. In
exactly the same way that we the audience are literally looking
right at our answer, so to is Jack literally holding the solution to

his predicament in his own hands. Trapped in a maze and
carrying an axe, he doesn’t think of cutting his way out.
"This sort of thing has happened before, and it has always been
due to human error."- HAL, 2001 A Space Odyssey.
SCENE BY SCENE BREAKDOWN
1. Jack arrives at the Overlook Hotel. In the background, behind
a door signposted “The Gold Room”, two mysterious figures in
1920’s dress stand observing him.
2. Jack walks up to the front desk and receives instructions from
the secretary on how to get to Mr Ullman’s office (take a left
turn). Already Kubrick is playing with the notions of the Hotel
being a maze, as characters constantly make use of the words
“right” and “left” as if laying out map plans.
Note: The camera motion which tracks Jack during his first visit
to the Hotel Lounge will be reversed during his second visit to
the Lounge. Furthermore, whilst the first visit entailed Jack
walking to the secretary and then to Ullman seated in his office,
the second visit will be a reverse shot which tracks Ullman's
walk to a seated Jack. Every scene in the film is mirrored like
this, the camera and characters shifting positions appropriately.
3. Jack approaches Mr Ullman's office. To the left of the office
door is an abstract painting, the head of a Native American
Indian Chief buried within blocks of colors.
4. Mr Ullman (himself dressed in American reds, whites and
blues, his head ALWAYS blocking an American Eagle behind
him) asks Jack if he had trouble finding the place. Jack replies
that he had no trouble at all. As the film progresses we will see
that Jack’s problems arise only when he tries to LEAVE his
maze.
5. Jack tells Mr Ullman that the journey took him 3 and a half
hours (210 minutes). The number 21 will appear at regular
intervals throughout the film.
6. Kubrick introduces Jack as a writer and a schoolteacher (“to

make ends meet" - another maze reference). Jack reads The New
York Book Review (apartment) and PlayGirl magazine (hotel).
He’s a man of contrasts, educated and articulate at the start of
the film, but increasingly primitive and incoherent as the film
progresses. There are traces of past Colonial generations in him
as well. He’s sexist, misogynistic and racist, referring to his
wife as a “sperm bank” and being repulsed by the notion of
"niggers".
7. Wendy is likewise a woman of contrasts. Kubrick introduces
her as a modern American woman and goes to lengths to quickly
depict her as educated and liberated. Her introductory scene is
awash with reds, whites and blues and she smokes cigarettes
and reads The Catcher in the Rye (note the "mirrored" or
"doubled" covers of her book and the fact that objects
behind Wendy and Danny are always paired off in twos - cans,
books, tins, bottles etc). But of course she’s nothing of the sort.
She’s a simple housewife (always doing housework), bullied
and terrorized by a husband who has a history of alcoholism and
child abuse- yet she doesn’t leave him for fear of being
independent.
Note - during this scene, Danny moves his "Tony finger" 11
times and is introduced drinking milk like Alexander De Large
in "A Clockwork Orange".
8. Mr Ullman says the Hotel season closes on October 30th.
This means that the Torrance's move into the Overlook on
Halloween Day.
Cowboys (TV) and Indians (Wendy).
9. Jack calls home. Wendy answers the phone. A Cowboy film
is showing to the left of the frame, whilst Wendy occupies the
right of the frame. This is a subliminal reference to Cowboys

and Indians, Kubrick implying that Wendy will assume the role
of the tormented native.
10. Danny stands before a bathroom mirror. Kubrick, who with
"The Shining" began developing a semiotic language far beyond
that which he utilized in "2001: A Space Odyssey", carefully
places several important signifiers here. Consider these for the
time being: a tub of Vaseline beside Danny, the number 42 and
a green shower curtain.
11. Whilst speaking in the mirror, Danny moves "Tony" (his
finger) up and down six times. The result is that Tony moves a
total of 12 times; six in the mirror and six in real life. The next
time Danny moves Tony, he will do so 21 times.
12. During this bathroom sequence, Danny experiences the
film’s first shining. Here the audience is subjected to two short
flash-back/flash-forwards. The first is of an elevator spilling
blood, the second of the dead Grady daughters. Both images
will be repeated throughout the film. Both show the aftermath
of the film’s two horrors. The first horror is that of the Grady
family murders, the other is of an apparent bloodbath. The
elevators themselves hint as to when this bloodbath occurred.
The left elevator is always portrayed as having stopped on floor
1 whilst the elevator on the right is always portrayed as being
stuck on floor 2.
Aside from the frequent doubling of objects, the numbers 1 and
2 feature prominently in the film. Some examples:
1921 (Date on picture)
1921 (Date the "Road to Overlook" began construction)
12 (mirror image of 21)
Room 237 (2+3+7 = 12)
“KDK1 calling KDK12” (past calling present)
K is the 11th letter of the alphabet
Twins, elevators, doors etc look like the number 11
Jack thinks he has “two 20’s and two 10’s”
Film on TV- “Summer of 42” (21 doubled)

Number on Danny’s shirt- “42” (21 doubled)
So the hotel seems stuck in a time warp. It's reliving a cycle of
man's historic horrors. In addition to the Grady murders,
something horrific seems to have happened in the years 1921
and 1942 (or perhaps 1821 and 1842?). The torrents of blood
squeezing through the shut elevator doors hint at some past
mass killing. But what mass killing? Kubrick provides hints, but
intentionally never spells it out. The lines “we had to fend off
Indian attacks” and “built on Indian burial ground” suggest
native Indian genocide, yet the date 1921 suggests the end of
World War I (actually referred to at the time as "the war to end
all wars"). Two decades later, and the date 1942 suggests Word
War 2- man essentially repeating his mistakes with a second,
more destructive world war.
Authors like Professor Geoffry Cocks, in his book "The Wolf At
The Door: Stanley Kubrick, History and the Holocaust", argue
that the film is about the Holocaust, pointing to references like
the name of a famous Jew on Jack's baseball bat and Jack's
typewriter being the same brand as used by the Nazis to type up
their extermination lists. He also cites images, like the twin
boilers, as being references to "gas chambers".
At any rate, Kubrick’s use of a moving timeline suggests that
humanity has not learned its lessons. Man keeps murdering his
family, denying it, and then doing it again. Kubrick suggests
that it is this denial ("I have no recollection of that, sir")
coupled with a refusal to confront history (pictures in a book)
that keeps man trapped in this maze.
13. Danny blacks out and a doctor is called. Whilst the doctor
examines Danny, Danny rests on a giant BEAR pillow and
covers his crotch protectively. The doctor asks Danny if
Tony ever tells him "to do things", at which point Danny says "I
don't want to talk about Tony anymore".
Note: Wendy is in the background whilst the bear pillow is in
the foreground. This angle will be reversed during the famous

"bear suit blow job" scene.
14. To the right of the doctor is the Disney figure, Goofy.
Goofy is hanging from a string and is dressed exactly as Wendy
is (even down to the oversized brown shoes) on the left of the
screen.
15. The doctor says that Danny is fine. She says that he was in a
"self induced trance" and that his "black out" was caused by a
form of "auto-hypnosis". On the table before the doctor is a
copy of Susan Sontag's "Illness As Metaphor". "Illness As
Metaphor" challenged the "blame the victim" mentality behind
the language society often uses to describe diseases and those
who suffer from them. Sontag says that diseases are
often perceived to be "expressions" of the victim and that the
victim itself is often perceived to have directly caused its own
disease.
In other words, Kubrick is telling us not to trust the film's
"surface explantions". Danny's "traumas" throughout the film,
are caused by something or someone external to Danny.
16. Behind the doctor are two books, "The Wish Child" and
"The Manipulator". "The Wish Child" is perhaps symbollic of
Danny, "The Manipulator" of Jack and the Hotel. As Wendy
smokes, her cigarette resembles an Indian peace pipe.
Note: "The Wish Child" was written by Ina Seidel, author of
"Das Labyrinth". "The Wish Child" is about 2 young children
during the Napoleonic Era.
17. During her conversation with the doctor, Wendy says that
Jack hurt Danny’s shoulder “5 months ago, and hasn’t had a
drink since”. Later on, Jack will tell Lloyd that the incident
occurred “3 years ago.” Which one is it? It doesn’t matter.
Throughout the film time will be blurred. Violence is timeless.
Ullman speaks of Charles Grady’s 1970 family murder, yet the
audience always sees the dead daughters of 1920’s Delbert
Grady.

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