So Why The Hell Was Nicholson In The Hotel Picture In 1921?

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 1:17am

Not sure if I've ever asked this here but for the 10 years I worked at Blockbuster I would have a little thing on Friday nights that I worked where I would ask people to explain to me why he was there IN 1921 exactly and what that had to do with anything at all. If they could give me an explanation besides a "he's always been part of the hotel" which makes no sense at all, they would get 10 free rentals.

I never gave those rentals out.

I've read peoples thoughts online (none of which really sound like anything more than the "he's just part of the hotel") and I even wrote letters to Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall (none of who could take the time to get back to me) asking the question.

So c'mon film buffs - Tell me why he was in that hotel IN 1921.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 3:43am

I have no idea but I'll ask my film class buddies.

[thetinymagic2]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 4:57am

Well, this has been debated and discussed for over 30 yrs. I have my own ideas, and of course, Kubrick being Kubrick, there are hundreds of symbolic interpretations of this final scene. Which is WHY it's a great movie. I don't believe there's one "correct" interpretation.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 5:52am

Because he's "always been part of the hotel staff," or so says the waiter who spills the drink on him. They have that conversation in the bathroom where he tells him that he was once the off-season caretaker himself (until he "corrected" his wife and kids with an axe).

I see it this way ... they're trying to say the hotel is a place of evil, where evil souls are gathered together and housed forever.

Or Jack is just nuts.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 05:52 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 5:56am

For a better (clearer) answer, re-watch the scenes that take place in the bar, where Jack talks to the other ghosts (the bartender and waiter), and they all know him by name and know who he is already.

That's where the answer is. I do remember when I saw him in that photo on the wall at the end, it made sense, based on what they had said to him in those scenes.

(But I haven't watched it lately, so I can't remember exactly what they said now.)


EDIT: Also, the bartender and waiter ghosts and other party guests (wearing the masks in the rooms, etc.) are all dressed ala early 1920s. At the end, in the photo, so is Jack.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 05:56 AM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 6:33am

Ok, fine. But how was he there in 1921? He's not 80 years old when the movie takes place.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 6:48am

None of the evil ghosts in the hotel existed at the same time when they were alive.

But they all end up back at that same New Year's Eve party in Hell, I guess. A consolidation of evil.

I think there's some hotel history about the '20s mentioned by Barry Nelson's character at the beginning of the film when he's interviewing Jack for the job.

EDIT: They also don't do the same jobs they did while they were alive, otherwise they would all be the caretaker when they become ghosts. In this New Year's Eve scenario, one is a waiter, one is a bartender, some are guests at the party, in the rooms, etc. Even though the waiter who spills the drink on him confesses that he was also the caretaker (Grady or something--the one who axes his daughters), after denying it at first.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 06:48 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 7:07am

As for the photo hanging on the wall ... it's "always been there" we can assume.

At least it has since shortly after New Years Eve of 1921, when it was taken (or was it actually even taken?).

I'll bet if you saw the next caretaker for the hotel after Jack, or next person who is going to die there, you would find that they are already in that photo as well.

EDIT: Or if not that same photo, then another historical one.

Creeeeeepy.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 07:07 AM

[tazber]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 8:33am

I always thought a similar thing, besty. Once the hotel possesses someone and they die, their likeness ends up in that picture. Sort of like a ever growing list of victims whose souls end up trapped in the hotel for eternity.

The picture is actually timeless. At one point the bartender says something like "all the hotel's eras are as one now, and the 'Torrance Era' will be with us soon".

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 8:40am

It's almost like American Horror Story, but only those who the house has overtaken must stay with it. And maybe the curse/evil event that started it all was at that event in 1921.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 8:57am

Nicholson looked like he was about to blow from the very beginning. Having Duvall as his wife would have drove anybody over the side. Liked the remake better.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 9:06am

I also think the photo at the end helps solidify (for the audience at least) that this craziness didn't just happen in Jack's mind or Danny's "shining" telepathy.

It's the evidence hanging on the hotel wall that it was "real."

(In the book, you don't have that question, especially when the topiary trees come to life and start after them. Also, the hotel blows up, so there's no possibility of a continuing story or a legacy of evil enduring.)

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 9:10am

The picture is actually timeless. At one point the bartender says something like "all the hotel's eras are as one now, and the 'Torrance Era' will be with us soon".

There is some line like that, Taz. I think that's the confusion (which i actually love). You don't get one concise explanation about it. It's a line here, a short story there. Then you can piece together how it all works (for the most part). I don't think all questions are answered, but that's fine.

I get that the hotel is evil and timeless. That "damned souls" from all different time periods end up there ... yet they have always been there.

That's enough of an explanation for me.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:06am

In addition to the photo mystery, I was always bothered by the fact that Grady seems to have two names. In the interview scene, Ullman calls him Charles Grady. Later the butler guy introduces himself to Jack as Delbert Grady.

Are there two Gradys? Did Ullman misremember the name? Seems unlikely, and it's not as though the two names are similar.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:17am

For what it's worth, the photo is not a New Year's Eve ball -- it is a 4th Of July party. The Overlook is closed during the Winter Months. Independence Day?

I always took it to mean, in addition to the idea that He's Always Been The Caretaker, that Jack is now part of the Overlook cast of characters. Future visitors to the Hedge Maze are guaranteed a hot time, I'd say.

Also, should we assume that Charles Grady, the waiter, is the same Grady who murdered his daughters with an axe? As noted, their first names are different. When Jack tells Grady "you chopped your wife and daughters into little pieces" there's that glorious long pause before Grady replies, "That's strange, sir. I don't have any recollection of that at all." Maybe this Grady is another Grady with a wife and daughters who needed, as Grady puts it so memorably, "correcting."

Of course, Jack does claim to recognize him from his pictures in the papers, but it could just be another bit of strange doubling -- would someone from 1921 recognize Jack from his picture on the wall?

"At one point the bartender says something like "all the hotel's eras are as one now, and the 'Torrance Era' will be with us soon"."

This is not in the Kubrick film.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 10:17 AM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:22am

I was going to say I didn't recall that, and I've seen it a dozen times.

Is it in the TV remake, possibly?

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:22am

I prefer the remake as well, since it stays truer to the book.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:31am

I thought the TV remake was a big disappointment.

I love the Kubrick film, mysteries, enigmas, and all. Like so many of his other films.

As for the Fourth of July, of course! That was a silly mistake on my part. The hotel would have been closed for the season for a New Year's Eve party, so it would have had to be a non-winter event.

As for the two Gradys, I must say, I never caught the first name discrepancy. I do remember him denying knowledge of the murders and that Jack recognized him anyway.

I have to watch the movie again. It's been too long.

EDIT: I just looked on IMDb.com, and the two girls we see in the hotel (occasionally chopped up) are billed as the "Grady daughters," although that still doesn't clear up the first name discrepancy of "Daddy."

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 10:31 AM

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:35am

Some interesting thoughts

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:36am

"The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's indelible take on both the horror genre and the popular fiction of Stephen King, is both a radical distillation of its source novel's densely stuffed ghosts-and-gore imagery as well as a conflation of its hidden central theme of the true-life horrors of domestic abuse. The result is a film that, though it ignores almost every major spook-show episode in the novel (nope, no teeming wasp's nest here), enhances everything that's legitimately unnerving about King's book: the sour grin of a desperate middle-aged man contemplating his overwhelming vocational failure, the inability for families to truly forgive even speculatively accidental physical violence, and the eerie juxtaposition of snowbound isolation within a vast architectural agora, a place where you can hide but you can't run."

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-shining/3264

[Roscoe]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:38am

I thought the TV version was really dreadful, despite some fine scary moments from Steven Weber. Where did they find that little troll who played Danny? I really shouldn't be rooting for Jack to chop the kid to pieces.

Yeah, the girls are definitely Grady daughters. But they're not necessarily the daughters of the Grady that Jack chats with in the men's room. Double double toil and trouble and all that.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 10:38 AM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:39am

I agree that the two Gradys aren't necessarily the same person. The butler seems more like, well, a butler than a caretaker, for example.

To me as a viewer it's always been a bit confusing, but I imagine having two family murderers with the same last name is not the oddest thing to have happened in the Overlook.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:40am

The year 1921 is never mentioned in either film or the novel.

[best12bars]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:42am

Wynbish---that was fascinating. One of the many reasons why I love Kubrick.

EDIT: Reg---but he (the butler) does confess to having been the caretaker later in the film. I remember that part.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 10:42 AM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 10:43am

Reginald, yes, the Butler Grady is a bit more polished than Caretaker Grady would probably be. And why is our Jack Torrance, a mere staff member of the Overlook (he's always been the caretaker, after all) wearing a tux and in such a prominent place at the 1921 4th of July Ball?

Best-- no, he doesn't confess to having been the caretaker. He very conspicuously corrects Jack on that point -- "I'm sorry to contradict you, sir, but YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker."

Love Phillip Stone's performance as Grady. His sinister subservience is one of the funniest and most disturbing performances I know of.

Updated On: 8/17/12 at 10:43 AM