Do you love Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining? I mean, do you really obsess over Kubrick’s maddening adaptation of Stephen King’s haunted-hotel bestseller? There’s still a very good chance that you can learn something fresh and new by watching Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, a patchwork documentary of behind-the-scenes Shining theories that tries to shine a light (no pun intended) on the director’s 32-year-old experiment. A trailer for the film has been posted online. We have it below.
The clip shows very little beyond some positive quotes and that carpet … whose pattern plays into one of the bizarre theories floated in the film. The trailer’s a bit misleading, however, as it claims to hold the answers to some of the Shining’s deepest mysteries. And Room 237 does not have answers. But it does raise PLENTY of extremely interesting questions about Kubrick’s motivations, and the reasons he decided to include most of the imagery that makes it into the finished film.
What Room 237 really captures, though, is our need – as a film community – to overanalyze and discuss the films that contain multiple meanings and deeper threads. Granted, not every film gives up such an opportunity. We won’t see a documentary dissecting Here Comes the Boom 32 years from now. But when a director like Kubrick tantalizes audiences with a textured masterpiece like The Shining, people with time enough on their hands to pick apart every scene (and run a film in reverse to look or clues) will be able to contribute to docs like Room 237.
Ascher’s film isn’t just a love letter to The Shining. It’s a tribute to those who dissect film beyond the surface value of simply watching and enjoying a story. And if you are one of those people, seek this unique doc out. But try to watch The Shining first, to familiarize yourself with Kubrick’s thriller. It can only help.
