SHUGENDŌ AND THE SHINING: LIMINAL SPACE IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN THE WORK OF STANLEY KUBRICK
CATERINA FUGAZZOLA CHRISTOPHER M. MOREMAN UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, EAST BAY [email protected] [email protected] ______
The screen is a magic medium. point of view.4 For one, it is the first film in It has such power that it can retain interest which spirituality, however nondescript, is as it conveys emotions and moods that purposefully underlined, as Kubrick himself no other art form can hope to tackle. declared that “if the film stirs the emotions and Stanley Kubrick1 penetrates the subconscious of the viewer, if it
stimulates, however inchoately, his mytholog- tanley Kubrick inspires a deep-seated ical and religious yearnings and impulses, then feeling of being in front of a puzzle that S it has succeeded.”5 James Ford further includes needs to be assembled using the innumerable 2001 among those films which might provide clues and visual hints that he, as a director “the ideological content for a sacred form of famous for being a perfectionist with an behavior.”6 Secondly, Parrill points out that obsession for details, disseminates in every Kubrick’s films before 2001: A Space Odyssey scene and image. In puzzling viewers, and “circle gingerly and ironically”7 around ideas pushing them toward deep, inner reflection, it is such as rebirth while those following it focus no exaggeration to say that much of Kubrick’s squarely on the spiritual evolution of production can rightly be described as spiritual. humankind. In these latter, the “main thrust is This paper will develop on three fronts, the first toward transcendence, that is, toward the desire two providing the framework for the third. We to move away from the three dimensions in will begin by arguing that the spiritual evolution which we are trapped across space and time of characters in Kubrick’s films is conveyed through the use of liminal spaces—“inter- structural phase[s] in social dynamics,”2 areas of transformation, or transition, which lie between social realities while at once outside of 4 William Parrill, “Stanley Kubrick,” pp. 189-195 in them.3 Following William Parrill, we consider John R. May & Michael Bird, eds., Religion in Film (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1982). 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) as the milestone 5 of Kubrick’s career as a director from a spiritual Stanley Kubrick, interviewed in Joseph Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar (London: Secker & Warburg, 1971), 304. 6 James L. Ford, “Buddhism, Christianity, and the Matrix: The Dialectic of Myth-Making in 1 Stanley Kubrick, quoted in Jerome Agel, The Making Contemporary Cinema,” Journal of Religion and Film of Kubrick’s 2001 (NY: Signet, 1970), 6. 4.2 (2000): Online: 2 Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of
Symposia 6 (2014): 75-93 © The Author 2014. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved. 76 SYMPOSIA toward a higher form of existence.”8 The use of Kubrick encourages spiritual reflection through liminal space is evident in a number of his evocation of Rudolf Otto’s numinous—a Kubrick’s other films as well, with special “blank wonder, an astonishment that strikes us emphasis on how significant change in the dumb”12—through his use of unsettling characters always happens in such spaces. The episodes, scenes, dialogues, or characters second part of the paper will discuss the themselves. Indeed, Kubrick often seems to importance of liminal space in the Japanese want his viewers to experience some aspect of practice of Shugendō, a religious tradition that what Otto called the Wholly Other. takes the journey through the liminal world of The concept that plays a key role in the mountain as the pivotal aspect on the path achieving such an effect in Kubrick’s films is toward an enlightened rebirth. Finally, the that of liminality, what Victor Turner describes ultimate goal of this paper will be to as “the midpoint of transition in a status- demonstrate how liminality as a conduit through sequence between two positions.”13 Kubrick’s which one can achieve spiritual transformation characters are invariably portrayed as going can be seen in Kubrick’s work as exemplified through a complex process of evolution and by The Shining, the movie in which liminal personal growth, and the most significant space presents the strongest connection with the changes in their lives and attitudes tend to other-than-human. happen in a liminal space. In addition, the feeling of being in a liminal, unstable, in- Liminal Spaces and the Numinous in between space is often conveyed to the audience Kubrick by Kubrick’s use of photography and imagery Stanley Kubrick never fails to spark debate as well as by the liminality of the characters about the spiritual messages hidden in his themselves. films;9 this despite, or perhaps because of, his declared detachment from any religious Liminality as Transformation and Change affiliation.10 Not wanting to represent the values The connection between liminality and trans- of any particular religion, many of his films formation is presented explicitly in movies such nonetheless aim to stimulate in the audience as 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork deep reflection on the human condition,11 both Orange. In both cases, the male protagonist as psychologically complicated beings and as experiences a dramatic evolution presented as a infinitely small particles in the wide universe of transition between two states, from a familiar human—and other-than-human—experiences. dimension into something “other.” In 2001: A Space Odyssey, what one critic referred to as a “poem on the evolution of 14 8 Ibid., 189. mankind,” a physical object—the mysterious 9 See: Robert Castle, “The Dharma Blues,” Journal of monolith—serves to mediate the liminal, Religion and Film 6.1 (2002): Online: appearing as a constant in each of the four
18 Claudia Zimny, “2001 and the Motif of the Voyage,” 15 Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (NY: New The Kubrick Site (nd), Online:
Alex, in A Clockwork Orange, is likewise to be an especially suitable lens through which transformed as he forcibly undergoes the to understand his work. Ludovico Treatment, which deprives him of his free will, a characteristic often seen as central to Liminal Space in Shugendō differentiating humans from animals. In yet Examining the sacred space within a society another example, the ironic and all-too-human involves more than the simple definition of the character of Joker, in Full Metal Jacket (1987), places in which a relationship with the divine is becomes “a killing machine” in the liminal established. We agree with Massimo Raveri in environment of the war zone (where accepting that sacred space “is not a cultural conventional rules of society cease to apply). configuration detached from context […] sacred Though transformed by the army, Joker and profane space are part of the same cultural maintains a semblance of his humanity in logic,”21 and therefore an analysis of the spatial wearing a peace-sign pin on his helmet, next to component of spirituality necessarily has to take the scrawled words “Born To Kill.” Like the into consideration the whole social and cultural other examples above, Kubrick destabilizes the background that shapes, and at the same time is viewer by suggesting both evolution and shaped by, the ways in which spirituality is regression through the liminal; in Full Metal experienced. Jacket, the soldiers close the film singing “The We are presently interested in the particular Mickey Mouse March,” thereby underlining approach to the divine world that has evolved their liminal state in-between the horror of from the interaction of Shinto (or pre-Shinto death and the innocence of childhood. kami worship)22 and Esoteric Buddhism since All the above examples indicate how the beginning of the ninth century, when the Kubrick’s use of liminality makes it possible for latter was introduced into Japan. The syncretic him to achieve his stated goal of “stimulating spiritual tradition that evolved from such an thoughts about man’s destiny and role in the interaction “dominated popular religion during universe in the minds of people who in the the medieval period […and] laid the foundation normal course of their lives would never have for the acceptance of the later, official considered such matters.”20 Kubrick shows his syncretism,”23 in what would then become, in viewers that the life and experience they take Allan Grapard’s terms, “the substance of for granted might be no more than a shadow Japanese religiosity.”24 This particular play on the wall of Plato’s cave, and encourages spirituality is still recognizable in the present a path towards transformation that does not necessarily reflect traditional Western models of evolution but, rather, circles back to a child- 21 Massimo Raveri, Itinerari nel sacro. L'esperienza like innocence. religiosa giapponese (Venezia: Libreria Editrice Much of Kubrick’s work embraces the Cafoscarina, 2006), 11. All quotations from this source divine through transition, and finds in the have been translated from the Italian by Caterina Fugazzola. boundaries that separate the human realm from 22 sacred space the potential for significant Following Toshio Kuroda, “Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion,” Journal of Japanese Studies 7.1. spiritual change. Though Kubrick’s spirituality Translated by James C. Dobbins and Suzanne Gay. is professedly non-denominational, we find (1981): 1-21. See also John Breen and Mark J. Japanese Shugendō, which has made liminality Teeuwen, A New History of Shinto (Hoboken, NJ: the very pivot around which not only religious Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). 23 experience but also everyday life is organized, Kazuo Kasahara, ed., A History of Japanese Religion, translated by Paul McCarthy & Gaynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Kosei Publishing Co., 2001), 141. 24 Allan G. Grapard, “Flying Mountains and Walkers of Emptiness: Toward a Definition of Sacred Space in Japanese Religions,” History of Religions, 21.3 (1982): 20Gelmis, The Film Director as Superstar, 302-303. 195-221, 201. FUGAZZOLA AND MOREMAN / SHUGENDŌ AND THE SHINING 79 time even though the Shinto/Buddhist neatly translate into English, we must now syncretism officially came to an end in 1868, define these and other important concepts. when “the Meiji government demanded a classification of what was Shinto and what was 25 Buddhist.” . Omote面, Oku 奥 and Ma間 One of the most important effects of the As observed at the beginning of this section, an interaction between Shinto and Esoteric analysis of the organization of sacred space Buddhism is to be found in the transformation goes hand in hand with an analysis of the of the concept of “sacred space.” Specifically, cultural and social context that revolves around the Shinto definition of “sacred site” as “a that space. Massimo Raveri takes as a starting residence place for a divinity” is also seen as “a point the dichotomy of cultivated space as 26 site where Buddhahood could be realized.” opposed to the wild, uncultivated areas that lie The relevance of such an evolution lies in the outside of the cultural/social limits. It is on such fact that introducing the idea that Buddhahood a dichotomy that the notions of omote面 and can be achieved not only in this life, but also in ura come into being: “omote is the social this world, implies a connection between the 裏 面 human and the divine realm in which spatial face, the codified behavior […] the part that can limits are blurred suggesting that humans may be manifested. In an object, it is the surface; in a place, it is the part that faces the sun; in a house, themselves move between the two realms. One 28 may move in, and be part of, the liminal space it is the side that faces outward […].” of the Other world of spirits, gods, and ghosts. Omote面, then, is all that is known, evident, and It is important to note that the same liminal safely organized; it is the cultivated space that space, in Kubrick’s case, is the gate to personal man can control. Taken as a single entity, then, evolution, transformation and, in some sense, the village, with its social rules and codified rebirth. behaviour, is omote. The area outside the Relating to the interaction of Shinto and village, the “wilderness,” the mountain, is Buddhism, and their notions of sacred space, is instead connected with the concept of ura 裏, the Japanese ascetic practice of Shugendō. This “the hidden part of things and men, the inside, form of mountain asceticism has made what lies behind, in the shadow.” Ura is itself liminality and liminal space its driving forces, directly connected to the oku 奥, which founding its beliefs on the spatial opposition of indicates “the heart of something, the dark the two concepts of sato 里 (the village) and recess, the most intimate thoughts, the ultimate yama 山 (the mountain). Sato and yama are in limit […] the spiritual power becomes manifest turn concretizations of the broader notions of in the oku.”29 There is, as it were, an outer worlf omote面 (the face/the outside) and ura 裏 (the of form, and inner one of essence—but then inside), this last tightly connected to the concept there is an even deeper level of meaning beyond this as well. of oku 奥 (innermost).27 Being difficult to In between the two spatial concepts of outer and inner lies a void, called ma 間, “an
emptiness that separates and at the same time unifies [...] a reading between the lines.” There 25 Gaynor Sekimori, “Review: Shugendō: The State of The Field,” Monumenta Nipponica, 57.2 (2002): 207- is a barrier demarcating the distinction between 227, 210. the two, but the demarcation is fluid and itself 26 Grapard, “Flying Mountains and Walkers of Emptiness,” 196. 27 Raveri, Itinerari nel sacro, 30; see also Harruhiko Kindaichi, The Japanese Language, Trans. by Umeyo Hirano (North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing [1957] 28 Raveri, Itinerari nel sacro, 30. 2010), 153-155 29 Ibid., 30. 80 SYMPOSIA marks an important point of passage from one Shugendō to the other. The understudied (at least in the West) religious It is easy to see the connection between the tradition of Shugendō—“the way of gaining concept of ma and the liminal space that magical powers by ascetic practice”33—took separates the human world from the spiritual, shape as an organized religion in concomitance sacred realm, as a space of progression where with the interaction between Shinto and humans can achieve enlightenment. This Esoteric Buddhism around the ninth and tenth becomes particularly important when the centuries.34 According to many scholars, it can sacrality of mountains is taken into be considered a “blend of at least three different consideration: the “otherness” of yama as an religious streams:”35 the shamanistic practices entity separated and in some way opposed to the and deities of Shinto or pre-Shinto indigenous sato, the village, is not merely geographical. Irit tradition; the cosmological influences of Averbach describes how mountains are, in Esoteric Buddhism; and Taoist influences (in its Japan, “sacred ground, the other world, the use of magic, a binary philosophy, and in the abode of kami,”30 just as, according to Mircea shared vision of the mountain as a space of Eliade, “the cosmic mountain”31 is a common enlightenment and immortality). symbol for the axis mundi in cultures Shugendō takes as a starting point the idea worldwide. Allan Grapard goes even further in of the mountain as a liminal space between this his analysis of mountains in Japan as “areas of world and the otherworld.36 As Miyake Hitoshi nonactivity […]” where “[c]orpses were notes, “[t]he religious worldview that underlies abandoned or buried […]; hence the mountain Shugendō rituals assumes there are at least two was seen as a space whose nature was Other.”32 realms of existence, that of the daily lives of The peak of the mountain is the ultimate limit, human beings, and a separate, supernatural the place where spirits dwell, the sacred world spiritual realm behind (and controlling) that of of other-than-human creatures, and the the daily lives of human beings. The mountains connection between humanity and the divine. are seen as a sacred space that either is part of As one moves from the outer, profane reality of both of these worlds or is a part of the spiritual the village into the wilds of the mountain one is world.”37 moving within one’s self but also drawing By setting upon their journey to the top of closer to the sacred reality. The liminal space, the mountain, Shugendō practitioners aim to ma, that separates the village from the top of the gain supernatural powers and to be reborn as mountain lies in the spatial middle ground, Buddha in their human bodies; their goal, quite literally called satoyama, and is the realm of simply, is “to transform a profane man into a beings in transformation: it is upon this concept that the ascetic practice of Shugendō is built.
33 Averbuch, The Gods Come Dancing, 17. 34 Miyake Hitoshi, Shugendō: Essays on the Structure of Japanese Folk Religion, edited by H. Byron Earhart (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001); F. Kornicki & I. J. McMullen, eds., Religion in Japan: Arrows to Heaven and Earth (Cambridge, MA: 30 Irit Averbuch, The Gods Come Dancing: A Study of Cambridge University Press, 1996), 13. the Ritual Dance of Yamabushi Kagura (Ithaca, NY: 35 Paul Swanson, “Shugendō and the Yoshino-Kumano Cornell University Press, 1995), 17. Pilgrimage: An Example of Mountain Pilgrimage”, 31 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane: The Monumenta Nipponica, 36.1 (1981): 55-84, 55-56. Nature of Religion, translated by Willard R. Trask 36 Edmund Gilday, “Dancing with Spirit(s): Another (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1957), 38. View of the Other World in Japan,” History of 32 Grapard, “Flying Mountains and Walkers of Religions, 32.3 (1993): 273-300. Emptiness,” 200. 37 Hitoshi, Shugendō, 75-76. FUGAZZOLA AND MOREMAN / SHUGENDŌ AND THE SHINING 81 sacred man by mystic training.”38 To do so, they initiate actually becomes the axis mundi, an become liminal beings—they abandon society embodiment usually associated with shamanic and thus begin a progressive abandonment of power over the cosmos.44 their human side—in order to reach the spiritual Kubrick’s characters evolve, are actually world located at the mountain’s peak, the oku. “reborn,” in unstable areas of transformation in Carmen Blacker notes that though the practice those same liminal spaces that are the is “predominantly Buddhist in intentions, […it] foundational to much of Japanese religion. Of produced power rather than holiness.”39 all Kubrick’s films, one in particular stands out, Practitioners aim to gain the power to control though, for its shared symbolism with the the spirits, to prevail over kami and demons, Japanese mountain austerities described above. through their ascetic journey. In order to explore these connections further, The period of mountain austerities the following section will provide an analysis of traditionally lasts from fall until the beginning Kubrick’s The Shining through the lens of of spring and therefore includes the most Shugendō. difficult and challenging time of the year, the cold winter which the practitioner spent in the Aspects of Shugendō Asceticism in The caves.40 When the yamabushi (the term Shining referring to the mountain ascetics, meaning “to The Shining, based on a novel by Stephen lie down in the mountains […] to make one’s King,45 at the most immediate level, is a home in the mountains according to the ideal of perfectly fitting choice for a comparison with wandering asceticism […] to gain religious Shugendō due to the shared fact that the liminal power”41), begin their ascent, they have to be space in which the “Other” manifests is the prepared for a long winter of solitude, mountain and the protagonist’s journey to its austerities, and deprivation; they “enter a summit. A more thorough analysis, though, mental labyrinth, in a journey of internal reveals that a far greater number of shared suffering and knowledge, of obliteration of elements can be recognized throughout the film. oneself on a path to uncover the absolute.”42 In the next section, we will outline some of the After reaching the top of the mountain “a fusion specific symbolic connections. [occurs] between man and the sacred environment, with the practitioner becoming an The Mountain and The Hotel ‘eternal human being’ dwelling in the divine.”43 The mountain is the most obvious element of Effectively, through ritual meditation, the connection between The Shining and Shugendō: the Overlook Hotel is the liminal space in which Jack (the protagonist, played by Jack Nicholson and filling the role of yamabushi in our 38 Ibid., 78; See also Averbuch, The Gods Come analysis), moves on his path toward the Dancing, 19. . acquisition of shaman-like abilities and an 39 Carmen Blacker, “Initiation in the Shugendō: the enlightened rebirth in the divine realm. The Passage through Ten States of Existence,” 96-111 in C. Hotel itself, even more than the actual Colorado J. Bleeker, ed., Initiation: Contributions to the Theme Rockies where it is located, can be considered of the Study-Conference of the International 46 Association for the History of Religions Held at yama: it is an Other World that, just as Strasburg, September 17th to 22nd 1964 (Leiden: Brill, Blacker describes the mountain top in Shugendō 1965), 105-106. See also Averbuch (1995), 22. 40 Hitoshi, Shugendō, 81-85. 41 Byron Earhart, “Four Ritual Periods of Haguro Shugendō in Northeastern Japan,” History of Religions, 44 Hitoshi, Shugendō, 96. 5.1 (1965): 95. 45 Stephen King, The Shining (NY: Doubleday, 1977). 42 Raveri, Itinerari nel sacro, 81. 46 Ichiro Hori, “Mountains and Their Importance for 43 Grapard, “Flying Mountains and Walkers of the Idea of the Other World in Japanese Folk Emptiness,” 207. Religion,” History of Religions, 6.1 (1966): 1-23. 82 SYMPOSIA practice, “may either be inhabited by the dead, mountain spaces in Shugendō, “time […] is not or by gods or fairies, but always it is ‘other,’ human time. It moves either much more quickly removed from the ordinary human world, or much more slowly.”50 For instance, after the mysterious and strange.”47 first superimposed timeline message—“a month Just like Shugendō practitioners at the year’s later”—moves the scene to the next month in a end, or winter peak (misoka),48 the Torrance matter of seconds of screen-time, later onscreen family retires to the Hotel to face isolation from texts slow down and dilate time, as they move the rest of the world for the long winter months. from indicating days of the week to hours of the Aside from his family, Jack will be left alone in day. Time is manipulated for the viewer in a place where, we soon discover during the much the same way. initial interview, a horrible murder has taken place; this fact establishes a relationship with Mirrors and Reflections the realm of the dead that mirrors the Mirror-image doubling effects are often connection reserved to yama in Shugendō employed by Kubrick in order to induce an beliefs. In fact, once Jack enters the Hotel, he uncanny, disorienting impression of being in a does not leave it throughout the film until his liminal space and to reinforce underlying death at the very end. themes through repetition. In The Shining, The fact that the Hotel is no ordinary place doubling appears as a strong point of is remarked upon through the words of the connection with Shugendō, especially in those hotel’s in-season cook, Halloran, who, during a practices most influenced by Taoist beliefs. The conversation with Jack’s son Danny, explains Yin-Yang juxtaposition is reflected in that “some places are like people, some shine traditional yamabushi attire, “every item of and some don’t. I guess you could say the which is laden with double meaning.”51 For Overlook Hotel here has something about it example, among the clothing worn by the that’s like shining.”49 This “shining” takes the yamabushi are an upper garment and trousers form of various visions allowed to characters which symbolize the diamond and womb throughout the film. Halloran himself appears to mandalas respectively. The symbolic have this psychic ability, but he has been spared combination of these images illustrate one’s the trials, and connected visions, of a long, hard fully realized Buddha-nature (diamond) and the winter at the Overlook. Other than Halloran, fact of its being ever-present within one from Danny is, at first, the main recipient of these birth (womb). In addition, a portable box (oi) visions, followed closely by his father, Jack. containing ritual equipment symbolizing the Wendy is the one character who remains womb mandala, and a companion (or “mate”) oblivious to the visions until they are violently box (katabako), which symbolizes the diamond forced upon her towards the film’s conclusion. mandala or father, are worn on the back. The On a more subtle level, Kubrick also juxtaposition of the diamond and womb, with underlines the “otherness” of the Overlook by male and female associations, indicate, as showing it as a place where, again following expressed by Hitoshi, “intercourse between Blacker’s description of the otherness of father and mother.”52 It is worth noting that Freud explained the effect of the double in his famous essay on “The
47 Blacker (1965), 97-98. 48 For more on practice at this time of year, see Hitoshi, Shugendō, 61; also Earhart, “Four Ritual Periods of Haguro Shugendō in Northeastern Japan.” 49 All quotes from The Shining can be found at: “The 50 Blacker, “Initiation in the Shugendō: the Passage Shining post-production script,” The Daily Script, through Ten States of Existence,” 98. Online:
Uncanny.”53 For Freud, the uneasy sense of the the emphasis on play in the film, open the door uncanny reflects an experience which causes the for the film to be seen as much closer to satire adult to return to a narcissistic and childish and dark comedy (along the lines of both Dr. place in one’s psyche associated with the desire Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange),57 an for personal immortality. Christopher Hoile idea which will be explored more fully below. argues that Freud’s delineation of the uncanny In this light, the uncanny doubling effects aligns closely with The Shining.54 Most observed can be seen along the lines of the Zen interestingly for our present purposes, while koan—as riddles encouraging reflection and doubling effects may be experienced as direct experience of the sacred rather than as uncanny to the adult, Hoile argues, fairy tales horror causing fear. are replete with the same kinds of phenomena to The Shining is replete with doubling effects, much different effect—“[t]hus, the doubling, often suggested through Kubrick’s particular uncanny to the adult who has surmounted the use of mirrors in the film. The most significant animistic stage is natural and therapeutic for the “doubles” in the film are without doubt the ones child.”55 Freud, of course, privileged a secular that involve the main characters themselves. Judaeo-Christian perspective as that aligned Tony, “the little boy that lives in Danny’s with the sophisticated adult, depicting non- mouth,” is the “shining” double of Danny. The Western and pre-modern religious approaches first time Tony tells Danny about the Overlook as primitive, aligning instead with a naïve, Hotel, we see Danny talking to Tony through a child-like mind. Of course, Shugendō is an mirror, and toward the end of the movie Danny, animistic religion, thereby aligned more closely now completely possessed by his double with the enchantment felt by the child in the (“Danny’s not here, Mrs. Torrance […] above instance. This is not to agree with Danny’s gone away, Mrs. Torrance”) talks to Freud’s evolutionary view of religion, which Wendy through mirror writing—Danny/Tony’s would insist that the animistic represents a more creepy cries of “RedRum” being the mirror primitive and less sophisticated form of spiritual image of Murder. Danny’s physical body expression. It is our perspective, in fact, that contrasts with the immaterial Tony that inhabits what Western thinkers have often seen as the him, suggesting the contrast of profane and child-like awe of the innocent is actually a sacred. relationship between sacred and profane that The other character to embody the most allows for a much more personal experience of striking doubling characteristics is, of course, the numinous. Jack, who finds not one but two mirror images While the vast majority of viewers and in two other father figures. The first, and most critics have taken The Shining as horror, and obvious, mirror-image for Jack is the previous often as among the greatest horror films ever caretaker, Mr. Grady, whose tale of familial made, these all approach the film from the view murder underlies Jack’s own fate from the of the adult who has supposedly “surmounted”56 outset. Jack is also doubled by Halloran, the the animistic stage. From a different angle, cook who establishes a close personal Larry Caldwell and Samuel Umland, in noting relationship with Danny through his “shining,” thereby taking on a parental role for the boy. The father-son relationship between Jack and Danny, in fact, is underlined in the film as cold 53 Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny,” translated by James and distanced: Jack does not respond to his Strachey, 339-376 in A. Richards, ed., Pelican Freud Library, vol. 14 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985). 54 Christopher Hoile, “The Uncanny and the Fairy Tale in Kubrick’s The Shining,” Literature Film Quarterly 57 Larry W. Caldwell and Samuel J. Umland, “‘Come 12.1 (1984): 6. and Play with Us’: The Play Metaphor in Kubrick’s 55 Ibid., 6-7. Shining,” Literature Film Quarterly 14.2 (1986): 106- 56 Ibid., 6. 111. 84 SYMPOSIA child’s needs (“Dad, I’m hungry” “Well, you different perspectives, both of which are should have eaten your breakfast”) and Danny emphasized in the film: “maze-treaders, whose is scared and doubtful of his father (“You vision ahead and behind is severely constricted wouldn’t ever hurt mummy and me, would and fragmented, suffer confusion, whereas you?”). Halloran has instead a pure, psychic maze-viewers who see the pattern whole, from connection with Danny, representing the above or in a diagram, are dazzled by its paternal side that the boy needs, and Halloran complex artistry.”59 Religiously, labyrinths and travels to Colorado from Florida through mazes have traditionally served the dual terrible weather and deep snow once Danny purpose of providing pilgrimage space while “calls” to him for help. also acting as protection from demons and evil spirits. In Japanese temples, the garden lies at The Hedge Maze the centre between the sacred and the profane The maze located in front of the Overlook is space, and its purposefully intricate pattern one of the most important places in the film: it emphasizes the idea of progression through is in the maze that the final scene takes place, effort. Through the lens of Shugendō, the maze and it is in its centre that Jack’s journey comes becomes in the eyes of the yamabushi a micro- to an end. The symbolic importance of the universe, a representation of the mountain itself, maze, sometimes called the “Mandala of the a universal mandala.60 A progression toward the West,”58 is made clear by Kubrick throughout centre of the maze mirrors the ascent to the top the film. First of all, the maze itself takes on of the mountain, a parallelism that will become different forms, especially evident in the scene of the utmost importance in the last part of the when Jack gazes down on a model of the hedge film, as we will explore momentarily. maze as Wendy and Danny run through the actual maze outside. In addition, the Overlook Danny itself is intentionally presented as an intricate First, however, it is impossible to proceed in an sequence of corridors, corners, and rooms. This analysis of The Shining without acknowledging is most apparent when the camera follows the importance of the character of Danny. Danny on his tricycle as he meanders Though it is well-known that Kubrick was throughout the hotel, often over carpeted halls inspired by his reading of Freud, Hoile reminds decorated in a maze-like honeycomb pattern. us that Kubrick had also studied Bruno Danny is also shown playing with toy cars as he Bettelheim’s book, The Uses of Enchantment61 navigates them along the lines of the pattern as as he created his version of The Shining.62 Hoile if traversing roads. The Hotel as maze is also argues convincingly that the use of these two made explicit through Wendy’s words during sources as inspiration must include not only the her initial tour of the kitchen: “This whole place importance of the father figure (per Freud) but is such an enormous maze, I feel I’ll have to also the child (per Bettelheim). Freud argues leave a trail of breadcrumbs every time I come that for fiction to induce the feeling of the in.” uncanny, there must be an anchoring figure who Penelope Reed Doob asserts that all labyrinths and mazes “are characteristically double. They are full of ambiguity, their circuitous design prescribes a constant doubling 59 Penelope Reed Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth from back.” Further, the maze inspires two distinctly Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990),1. 60 Hitoshi, Shugendō, 79. 61 Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The 58 Kelly Murphy Mason, “Labyrinth,” 507-509 in Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (NY: Knopf, David A. Leming, Kathryn Madden, and Stanton 1976). Marlan, eds., Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion 62 Hoile, “The Uncanny and the Fairy Tale in Kubrick’s (NY: Springer, 2010), 508. The Shining,” 5-12. FUGAZZOLA AND MOREMAN / SHUGENDŌ AND THE SHINING 85 acts as protagonist and through whose eyes the cars and trucks; the hotel corridors are action is viewed—in The Shining, viewers ideal for Danny’s endless tricycle riding. alternate between Jack and Danny as anchors, TV reception at the Hotel is never further contributing to the doubling effect that interrupted, even by the worst of storms, might make viewers uneasy, but also and outdoor play is also available: reinforcing the need to recognize enchantment Danny explores the Hotel’s huge hedge in contrast to the uncanny. While a number of maze, plays tag, and engages in characters (Jack, Halloran, and even Wendy in snowball fights with his mother.65 the very end) can be said to “shine,” Danny’s As Iijima notes, “[f]rom the child’s point of connection to the Overlook is significantly more view, games are not simply part of life; rather, pronounced. It is through Danny’s visions that all life is a game.”66 As activity existing the audience visually experiences the horrifying between reality and fantasy, play is itself past of the Overlook Hotel. Danny, like liminal; child’s play, and Danny’s in particular Halloran, recognizes his “shining,” but unlike here, acts as a means by which one might move Halloran, Danny remains at the hotel through between this world and the Other. In the film, a the harsh winter, encounters a number of pair of murdered twins appear to Danny more horrifying visions, and survives at the end. than once and ask him to play with them. Play, The privileged connection that Danny we must remember, is central to Japanese shares with the Overlook finds a logical spiritual thought as witnessed in many of the explanation when the peculiarity of this paradoxes of Zen and the like. Further, as Lee character is analyzed through the lens of Gilmore reminds us, play and ritual are closely Japanese tradition. Regarded in Japanese bound together, especially in the context of folklore as beings in transition, as “incomplete pilgrimage,67 in what Victor Turner referred to persons,” Yoshiharu Iijima found that children as communitas.68 The playfulness of the hedge are considered “closer to the gods and the Other maze and Danny’s unique ability to navigate World, [and] also play the role of intermediary this and other mazes during his play indicate between man and the gods.”63 The transitional that he, in particular, is especially suited for the phase is generally accepted to end at the age of accomplishment of the spiritual tasks at hand. seven years, but “up to that time children, being Danny’s playing as he mediates liminality in a not completely of this world and close to the number of ways must be central to our gods, were not bound by ordinary rules and understanding of The Shining. could behave more or less as they liked.”64 The It must be noted that Danny is not the only character played by Danny Lloyd, who was character engaged in play in The Shining.69 Play about 6 years old when The Shining was filmed, is also central to Jack’s evolution in the indeed experiences the Overlook outside of the Overlook. Jack’s work is book-ended with play realm of ordinary rules. as we find Jack early on tossing a ball against a An important aspect of Danny’s interaction with wall in his over-sized study and taking breaks to the Overlook is the typically childlike behaviour of play. Caldwell and Umland point out: the Overlook’s opportunities for play are 65 Caldwell and Umland, “‘Come and Play with Us’,” enormous: it has a complete Games 106. Room; its abstract geometric carpet 66 Iijima, “Folk Culture and the Liminality of patterns are well-suited as roadways and Children,” S45. 67 parking-spaces for the boy’s miniature Lee Gilmore, Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 82. 68 Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and 63 Yoshiharu Iijima, “Folk Culture and the Liminality Anti-Structure (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969). of Children,” Current Anthropology 28.4 (1987): S41. 69 See Caldwell and Umland, “‘Come and Play with 64 Ibid., S42. Us’,” for a full discussion. 86 SYMPOSIA fantasize over a model of the massive hedge into a rotting hag in his arms. Danny is thus maze that is outside. When Jack’s “madness” is portrayed as far more than a liminal being revealed, it is through the discovery that all of moving between realms, as he plays the role of his efforts at the typewriter have resulted in gohô-dôji, or Divine Boy, a guide for the reams of the single sentence: “All work and no yamabushi, a “wayshower [sic] of holy men,” play makes Jack a dull boy.” It is clear that Jack and “guardian spirit personally attached to must also engage in play as he travels between priests and hermits who have acquired power this world and the Other. and holiness through the practice of Finally, an attitude of play appears austerities.”71 Much like the monolith in 2001, throughout the film in the image of the Danny mediates the liminal space, allowing Roadrunner: Danny is shown watching the access to the Other world. cartoon twice in the film, and an episode airs in Because of his liminal characteristics, the background as Halloran rents the Snowcat Danny is not only able to push his father toward on his way to “save” Danny.70 Obviously, the establishing a connection between the human iconic battle between Wile E. Coyote and the and the other-than-human, but he also succeeds Roadrunner can relate to Jack’s pursuit of his in “awakening” his mother toward the end of wife and son at the film’s end. Importantly, the film. Acting as a medium for Tony, an however, as a cartoon, the violence cannot be entity which be read as a “goryō,” a kind of taken seriously, which further suggests spirit whose taming is normally the purview of Kubrick’s satiric tastes. Further, one must the yamabushi,72 he manages to shake Wendy remember that the Roadrunner always escapes, from her stupor and makes her “see” the world while Coyote dies countless deaths in his hidden behind the Overlook Hotel. eternal, and fruitless, pursuit to satisfy his own appetite—an analogue for a Buddhist view of Wendy samsara, trapping those who continually chase Jack’s wife is the only (living) female presence after ephemeral satisfactions in a perpetual in the film, and her behaviour and relationship cycle of death and rebirth. with space is of a completely different nature to Danny “has a very great talent” as that of the male components of the family. Grady, the previous (and murderous) caretaker, Wendy is the only character that does not puts it. Such a talent allows him to respond to the “shining” of the Overlook, at communicate with the spirit world and to least until the very end of the film. She is the function as an intermediary on two levels: on a only one whose interaction with the Hotel is “real world” level, he mediates for the viewers, primarily functional (she prepares the meals, who experience the Overlook and its wonders uses the radio, checks the boilers, etc.), as through his eyes; within the film, he is also opposed to Jack’s and Danny’s psychic and shown as the primary cause for Jack’s psychological ones. Wendy’s form of “play” is interaction with the spirit world. It is only after simply to adopt the role of housewife, thereby Danny’s accident in room 237 that Jack sees “playing house” for her male counterparts.73 It Lloyd, the barman in the Golden Room. And it is because of Danny, once again, that Jack enters the same room. Danny tells Wendy of a 71 Carmen Blacker, “The Divine Boy in Japanese “crazy woman” who tried to strangle him in the Buddhism,” Asian Folklore Studies 22 (1963): 77-88, room, and when Jack goes there to check, he is 87. 72 seduced by a young woman who transforms Iijima, “Folk Culture and the Liminality of Children,” S42. See also Michiko Iwasaka and Barre Toelken, Ghosts and the Japanese: Cultural Experiences in Japanese Death Legends (Utah State 70 Tony Macklin, “Understanding Kubrick: The University Press, 1994). Shining (1980),” Journal of Popular Film and 73 Caldwell and Umland, “‘Come and Play with Us’,” Television 9.2 (1981): 93-95. 107. FUGAZZOLA AND MOREMAN / SHUGENDŌ AND THE SHINING 87 is only toward the end, in the fast-paced ominous music in the background as the long moments when Jack is chasing their son in the opening shot shows Jack’s car making its way maze that she establishes a connection with the up a tortuous road in the mountains, an Other world, a world she fails to understand and infinitely small particle moving through the accept and to which she responds with a immensity of the surrounding nature. Kubrick’s hysterical crisis. disorienting intentions are made clear from the That Wendy’s play is, in fact, not play at all outset: the first shot opens with, in the words of but rather perfectly pragmatic may be seen to one reviewer, “an island, apparently in the limit her from liminal encounters. It is middle of a lake or a river, [that] seems to be interesting to note that, in the tradition of moving towards us, floating on the surface [...] Shugendō, women are usually forbidden to It is an optical effect. In fact the lake is so still access the sacred mountains, as “it is often that the camera moving towards the island asserted that women who have come under the makes it look as if the island itself is moving. extraordinary and mysterious influence of the This unsettling image sets the tone of the mountain develop quite unstable psychological film.”76 The reflected scenery in the perfectly and physical conditions.”74 Robert Kilker still lake also sets the stage for the recurring argues that the feminine is seen to be repressed double effects to come. at every angle in The Shining: Jack is blatantly In accepting the job at the Overlook Hotel, misogynistic, as are the spiritual entities with Jack begins his ascension—he chooses to leave whom he speaks; explicit scenes of horror society behind, to live in complete isolation for involve the only other female characters in the the long winter months in a space outside the film (a lascivious nude who transforms into a realm of order and control, where normal rules rotting hag; the bloodied twin girls); even the cease to exist. When Jack is told of one of the womb-like hedge maze might represent Overlook’s deepest and most horrifying secrets, “feminine nature disciplined by phallic the murderous fate of a previous caretaker and trimmers.”75 Women, in a misogynistic turn his family, he begins his initiation into the typical in many religions, are believed better liminal world of the Hotel. suited to this world than the Other. After the Torrance family has settled into the Hotel, a quick cut fast-forwards a whole Jack’s Journey through The Shining month—everything seems to be going well in With an understanding of the symbolic roles of the Overlook as Wendy is preparing breakfast people and place as related to Shugendō, we can and Danny races around on his tricycle. Soon now move to a chronological analysis of the enough, though, Kubrick shows the audience film that sees Jack not as a monster descending that the situation is evolving into something into madness, but rather as an ascetic on a well beyond the ordinary. In what may often be journey through liminal space into contact with seen as the first sign of Jack’s madness, he is the sacred Other and the severing of all shown repeatedly throwing a tennis ball against attachments to the profane. the wall in the complete silence of the room where he is trying to write his book. Taken from The Beginning the perspective of mountain asceticism, though, The beginning of the movie gives a clear the meaning of this scene is far more important. indication of the underlying ascetic motif with At the beginning of the yamabushi training process described by Miyake Hitoshi, the
74 Hitoshi, Shugendō, 155. 75 Robert Kilker, “All Roads Lead to the Abject: The 76 Paul Mayersberg, “The Overlook Hotel,” Sight & Monstrous Feminine and Gender Boundaries in Stanley Sound (1980-1981): Online:
77 Hitoshi, Shugendō, 89. 78 Ibid., 85. 79 Averbuch, The Gods Come Dancing, 20. FUGAZZOLA AND MOREMAN / SHUGENDŌ AND THE SHINING 89 recognizing his weakness and confessing his to confront mortality and desire in one shocking sins is he allowed to proceed on his journey.80 moment, the initiate might be thrust into Jack’s transformation mirrors this evolution: in understanding. a situation in which the Overlook’s isolation After his experience in Room 237, Jack is becomes virtually total, the snow has blocked now certain of his path. He understands the the road and the phone lines are down, his powers of the Hotel, and knows that in order to concentration is intense, and no one is allowed achieve his goal he has to obtain the ability to to break it for any reason (when Wendy control the spirits and the ghosts that reside suggests she could enter to bring him food, he therein. It is in this situation that Wendy reacts violently). In his figurative wandering intervenes, as an opposing force that threatens though the realms of Hell, Hungry Ghosts, and to render the yamabushi’s effort vain: she does Beasts,81 Jack stops shaving, sleeping, and not understand the liminal world in which they talking to his family. It is not until Danny opens are living, is scared of it, and wants to convince the gate to the Other World that is Room 237, Jack to leave the Hotel, to abandon his quest, though, that his purification process can be and, in a sense, to return to familial village. Jack completed. Jack’s first encounter with Lloyd is is outraged, and leaves her, finding comfort in paired with his confession of sins—he admits the Other World of the Golden Room where he the incident in which he dislocated Danny’s seeks answers from a spirit-bartender. The shoulder when the boy was little—after which ascetic is still not ready, though, and his he is granted access to Room 237. The room is questions are not going to be answered yet: “It’s without doubt a pivotal point to the not a matter that concerns you, Mr. Torrance— development of the story: Jack encounters death at least not at this point.” On his path to the and experiences the horrors of Hell linked to his conquest of shamanic powers, Jack is still own weakness and craving when the young girl unable to control the spirits—instead they are he is kissing in the bathroom suddenly becomes the ones who control him, telling him what he a rotting corpse in his arms. It may be said that needs to do in order to succeed. the horror of this scene resonates with a nearly During the red bathroom scene, Grady universal fear of aging and death, and both Jack points out the weakness that is still holding Jack and the viewer is forced to bear witness to the back from an enlightened rebirth—his family. process just as do those practicing the Buddhist In order to complete his quest, Jack must get rid meditation on a corpse.82 The shock he feels of all the remaining attachments that bind him when he sees the hag’s reflection in the mirror to the human realm. He has to go through the represents, in Shugendō, “the complete purging realm of Titans and through that of men and of the neophyte from his ordinary mode of wrestle his way out of them, as only a victorious consciousness which must precede the fight will allow him to leave those two worlds realization of his Buddha nature [...] this behind and to enter the realm of Heaven. Of process […] can be facilitated by a sudden course, it is at this point that most viewers shock. The neophyte is deliberately put in become convinced that the film is a horror, positions of danger or terror.”83 Thereby forced clinging to notions of family that must be overcome by the yamabushi.
The Ending 80 For more details, see Raveri, Itinerari nel sacro, 81. The ending scenes of the film represent the final 81 Blacker, “Initiation in the Shugendō: the Passage success of the yamabushi in his quest. The first through Ten States of Existence,” 100. confrontation with Wendy seems to suggest 82 George D. Bond, “Theravada Buddhism’s Jack’s failure in his quest—she knocks him Meditations on Death and the Symbolism of Initiatory Death,” History of Religions 19.3 (1980): 237-258. unconscious with a baseball bat—but this (only 83 Blacker, “Initiation in the Shugendō: the Passage apparent) defeat assumes a new light when read through Ten States of Existence,” 103. through the eyes of Shugendō tradition. Jack 90 SYMPOSIA fails because he is still blinded by his desires This is the most dangerous part of the and he does not realize he is just a puppet acting yamabushi path: he could indulge in thinking on behalf of the spirit, Grady. It is only through that he has succeeded in his ultimate task, that a realization of his own fallibility that he can be these powers are the true goal of the religious shaken out of his illusion of omnipotence. experience. To think that he has become a god After his “failure,” Jack is locked in the because of his newly acquired powers can be cellar. Halloran (summoned by Danny) is on his the ruin of the practitioner—he has to go further way to the Hotel to rescue Wendy and Danny in his path, as, in the words of Eliade, “only a with the Snowcat—everything seems to suggest new renunciation and a victorious struggle an ending in which Jack is defeated, abandoned against the temptation of magic bring the in the loneliness of the mountain, alone with his ascetic a new spiritual enrichment.”86 In the madness. It is at this point that the most film, this is the moment in which Jack once important event, as far as the interconnection again decides—this time by his own will—to between the human and the spiritual world is break free of the last attachments that tie him to concerned, takes place. Grady talks to Jack his human life. He collects an axe, one of the from the other side of the door, showing “magically potent tools, used to purify people or disappointment and even mocking Jack for his spaces and provide magical protection” in failure—and then Jack convinces the spirit to Japanese tradition,87 and sets off to complete his open the door. This event has been underlined quest. as one of the most important ones by Kubrick Danny once again functions as a spiritual himself, who explains: “It’s not until Grady […] guide for the yamabushi as he invokes the slides open the bolt of the larder door, allowing divine element that Jack will (successfully) Jack to escape, that you are left with no other combat, the “outsider” that is attracted back to explanation but the supernatural.”84 The the hotel by Danny’s shining. Halloran’s death yamabushi has accessed the Realm of marks the final victory for the ascetic since by Divinities, and has realized he has acquired killing him, Jack successfully “kills” his powers that common men do not possess: he attachments to everything that is still human in can now control the spirits, invoke them, and him. As noted previously, Halloran doubles ask for their help. Of course, it is not a common Jack in his parental relationship with Danny: by spirit that Jack chooses to ask for help: Grady, killing him, Jack kills the human/father part of as the previous caretaker, is Jack’s double, and his own self—that parental attachment that Jack’s acquired power of controlling him is would convince a man to brave the elements symbolic of “the identification of the shugenja and travel across the continent to save his son. [another name for the yamabushi] with the deity This final act completes the cycle of “the in order to realize a certain purpose [...] the three elements of identification, manipulation shugenja achieves identification with the deity and exorcism [that] are the three central motifs and manipulates the power thus obtained in of the Shugendō ritual system.”88 Jack has order to gain certain benefits.”85 Jack finally ultimately overcome the spirits controlling him assumes control of his self in terms of its spirit- in the form of Grady, and defeated his earthly nature, a nature removed from the profane role in the form of Halloran, and can therefore realities of village and family. proceed towards the final steps of his journey. Following Danny’s footprint in the snow, Jack
84 Michael Ciment, “Interview: Stanley Kubrick on The Shining,” The Kubrick Site (nd): Online: 86 Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 2nd
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