The Shining Light of the Future. Bringing together Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (original) (raw)

The ending of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has chilled and intrigued movie-goers for years. In the closing scene of the film the camera moves from Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance sitting upright, dead in the snow to a gallery of pictures in the ballroom of the Overlook Hotel. On one of the pictures is Jack in a black Tuxedo. The date and location of the picture are written in script at the bottom: Overlook Hotel, July 4th Ball, 1921. What did Kubrick mean? Is it a simple case of reincarnation or are there hidden dimensions that throw light on American history and the troubling dark-side of the American Dream? Issues explored include the background and history of Boulder and Estes Park, Colorado and the Los Seis de Boulder of 1974, The American Dream, American Isolationism, the impact of John Lennon's Instant Karma on King’s title for the book, the Fourth of July Day celebrations and President Harding’s 1921 Emergency Quota act.