14 March 2009

Inside Kubrick's cube (the river of blood)

Stanley Kubrick. Recently I read in the papers that this hero of mine died 10 years ago. Unfortunately there was no time to blog about him on the day itself but here is my tribute to him anyway. This post is useless if you have never seen a Kubrick film (shame on you..).

I was reminded to write about him because today I came across this video, it's an analysis on a particular part of his movie The Shining. I have never understood this particular scene. I am talking about the river of blood scene. Knowing Kubrick there has got to be some meaning behind that single shot. But what is it ? Apparently it took Kubrick DAYS/WEEKS to film this single shot to meet his exact specifications. Ludacris right ? That's Kubrick for ya, a real artist of cinema if you ask me. Stanley Kubrick was a master of subliminal encoding and, as always, he's crammed enough detail into this one shot to justify a video analysis in itself. If we want to understand the Shining to its fullest we need to get to grips with the meaning of this shot.


However, I'm still not convinced. But it definitely means something and its worth to give this shot some thought.

The guy who spends all of his time doing these analysis is Rob Ager (check out his website).
Very interesting analysis
2001: A space odyssee - part 1 - part 2
A clockwork orange - part 1 - part 2 - part 3
The Shining - part 1 - part 2 - part 3
Eyes wide shut - part 1 - part 2 - part 3

Rob Ager also analysed other movies, check out his youtube account or his website - http://www.collativelearning.com/ and unveil Kubrick's cube !

I guess it's clear, I'm a big fan