Continuity mistake: When Jack finally dies and you see him lie down on the hedges, his back is flat on the hedge, but when you see him face front, his back is about five feet away from the hedge.
The Shining (1980)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Danny Lloyd
Jack Torrance meets the ghost of Delbert Grady, the caretaker who murdered his family ages ago; Grady tells Jack that he was not the caretaker - Jack was all the time, and now, when his family is about to leave, he has to "Fix" them, just as Grady did. Jack tries to attack Wendy, who strikes him on the head with a baseball bat and locks him in the storage room before going back into her room for Danny. While she's asleep, Danny gets possessed and writes "Redrum" on the bathroom door. Wendy wakes up and by looking at the mirror she realizes it's "MURDER" backwards. Meanwhile, Jack is released by Grady's ghost, and sets off to kill his family. Wendy and Danny lock themselves in the bathroom as Jack tries to burst in; Danny exits through the window and runs into the maze. Jack axes the door, screams: "HEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" before realizing Danny's not there; Hallorann, the hotel's cook, receives a warning from his force, "The Shining", and arrives there, only to be axed by Jack who goes into the outside Maze to find Danny. Danny loses him in the maze and leaves out, to find his mother outside, shocked by horrific visions. They leave in Hallorann's snow-plow as Jack remains in the maze and freezes to death. In the final shot, we see Jack Torrance as a guest in a picture taken at the hotel at 1921; this suggests Torrence was alive the previous life, and might be back one day.
More mistakes in The Shining
Wendy Torrance: Stay away from me.
Jack Torrance: Why?
Wendy Torrance: I just wanna go back to my room.
Jack Torrance: Why?
Wendy Torrance: Well, I'm very confused and I just need time to think things over.
Jack Torrance: You've had your whole fucking life to think things over.
What good's a few minutes more gonna do you now?
Trivia: The line "Here's Johnny" originated on the The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, where Ed McMahon always introduced him with that phrase. Nicholson improvised the line during the shooting; Kubrick liked it and left it in.
Question: Does Danny's ability to "shine" have any connection to Jack's insanity and the events that occur in the hotel?
Answer: The movie is really 2 parallel story-lines with history repeating itself. In 1920s Jack visited the same hotel with his wife and son, they got stuck there due to snow storm along with rest of hotel crew (which leaves early in a hurry in 1980s). The director has carefully changed background score on things which were not present in 1920s when Dick is showing the facilities to Danny and his mother (like food cold storage). In the 80's version, Danny, Jack and Dick are the ones who have the power to shine or see scenes from the past in the same place. But as Dick says, its like reading a book and has no physical presence in current world. Whenever Dick is talking to Danny, it happened exactly the same way in 1920s, except replace the secret of shining with the secret of cannibalism around the hotel. Jack's insanity is just a repeat of his past, in the 20's the job of being the butcher (of human flesh) got to his mind and he started behaving weird. In the hotel lobby, replace the sound of heavy typing on the long table with sharp knife falling on human flesh. Red carpet depicts the blood and body parts all around the floor in 20s.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Effectively, Danny's shining is what brings the hotel to life. Because he has such an incredibly powerful shine about him, all these weird ghost things in the hotel are able to materialize and reveal themselves. These weird ghost things are always present to some degree, and those people with a small degree of shine get glimpses of them - like Dick Hallorann. (It's not quite made clear in the movie, but Dick saw the woman in room 237 in the book). However, Danny's shine is so great that he gives these forces enough life to appear to those without any shine, people like his father and mother. As it's the hotel that's slowly driving Jack crazy, and the hotel gets its power from Danny's shining, then I'd say there's definitely a connection between Jack's insanity and Danny's abilities. In the movie, it's not as clear as it is in the book, but Jack is effectively possessed by the hotel. He's not a flawed drunk with an anger problem who loses his mind because of isolation. He's a flawed drunk with an anger problem who's doing the best he can, until the forces of the hotel get inside his head and make him lose it.
If Danny's shining is what brings the hotel back to life, does this mean that all the previous "Jacks" had a son or daughter with the shining too?