Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Danny Lloyd
Trivia: At various points in the film, Jack Nicholson flicks his eyes to the camera, often only for a few frames, frequently hard to catch. It's deliberate - in one clip of behind the scenes footage Kubrick lies under him while setting up a scene, and specifically tells him to look down to the camera when filming. But there's no specific answer as to why - genre-defying, or to make the audience feel more threatened, or to make the viewers feel like the ghosts he sees. Hard to unsee though.
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.
Jack Torrance: Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand?
Wendy Torrance: Yeah.
Jack Torrance: Now, we're going to make a new rule. When you come in here and you hear me typing [types], or whether you DON'T hear me typing, or whatever the FUCK you hear me doing, when I'm in here, it means that I am working. THAT means don't come in. Now, do you think you can handle that?
Wendy Torrance: Yeah.
Jack Torrance: Good. Now why don't you start right now and get the fuck out of here?
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.
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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?