Synopsis:

The Shining has always been a mysterious film, with multiple conspiracy theories circulating about hidden messages within. One bizarre practice among the most zealous fans of Stanley Kubrick's horror masterpiece is to attempt to 'uncover' the deepest subconscious meaning of an already subversive film by playing it both forward and backward simultaneously, with the belief that Kubrick had designed the film itself in perfect symmetry, as he did with many of the shots. The result is best described as unsettling, hallucinatory and disturbing. While by no means was this film officially meant to be watched this way, the visual and thematic parallels of the beginning and end of the film are eerily resonant. The first scene for example has Jack telling his employers that "there's no way he's going to go insane" while we watch the shadowy reverse footage of him stalking his son through a maze, showing how structurally deep and complex the film really is. I did not invent this method of watching The Shining, but have put my own spin on it to make it a more satisfying experience.

Intentions:

There's really nothing I can say to promote this experiment, it is a bizarre, unsettling, unforgettable and enlightening visual experience of an extraordinarily deep film, best suited for fans of The Shining and Kubrick to experience, at least once.. if just once... It is a film which haunts itself. The Forward-Backward experiment involves playing the film both forward and in reverse at the same time, however only the forward audio is played to maintain spatial orientation. However I did make several creative changes to both improve the image quality (by adjusting the opacity of scenes that were too bright to keep both streams visible) and the narrative. The narrative changes were only made AFTER the midpoint (or convergence point) where both forward and backward streams meet. This was done to increase the disturbing nature of the experience and further mirror Jack's descent into madness. Of note, I used the European Cut of the Shining for this edit as it simply worked better in forward-backward form.

Change List:

1. Title cards added before first shot to indicate this is the "Redrum" edition 2. Film played forwards and backwards simultaneously. Opacity adjusted depending on shots to keep both streams in clear focus. 3. In the forward stream, a brief scene of Halloran calling the ranger station is cut (although this scene can be seen in the reverse stream)- approximately 1 min cut 4. During the airplane scene with Halloran, the forward and reverse stream switch positions for the remainder of the scene 5. "Danny's not here Mrs Torrance" scene from US Cut added back in - approximately 1 min restored 6. In the final maze chase, the reverse stream is largely abandoned in favor of a sole forward stream. The reason is because visually, the early scenes were too bright and blew out the visuals the night chase. Narratively, the impact of the chase is lessened by showing the interview scene in reverse stream again (this is a juxtaposition we already experienced at the start of the edit), so it was dropped. Overall, only around 3 minutes of these final scenes have no reverse stream.

Additional Notes:

Adobe Premiere CC.

Other Sources:

The Shining (U.S. Theatrical Cut).

Special Thanks:

Neglify, for his encouragement and constant support of this project.