Speaker 1 (00:00): Coming up on Art Palace Speaker 2 (00:03): And then you have room 2, 3 7, which is very sixties, seventies, kind of mod. Amazing. Speaker 1 (00:22): Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host, Russell iig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today's cool people are Katie Parker and Guy Michael Davis from Future Retrieval. They've joined me again to discuss their film influences, specifically Stanley Kubrick's, the Shining from 1980. This conversation was originally a part of the art Histories and adaptations film and discussion series. And if you'd like to watch the video version of this conversation, visit Cincinnati art museum.org/adaptations. Speaker 3 (01:04): Hi, I'm guy Michael Davis. Speaker 2 (01:06): Hi, I'm Katie Parker, Speaker 3 (01:07): And we're the Artist's Future Retrieval. Speaker 1 (01:11): When we were last talking, we were talking about your film inspirations and how that has become something that influences your work a lot. So tell us a little bit about some of those inspirations and how you see them affecting you. Speaker 2 (01:25): One of the pieces in the exhibition image of Order is completely ripped off of 2001 a Space Odyssey. So we built the room at the end of the film where the old guys in the bed and the rooms lit from below. And so I think for us, these films and these scenes just put you into this kind of magical world, and that's what we're trying to do with our work and it's hard to get that other places, but the production value and the kind of visual opulence that can happen in a film I think is something we're always looking for and pulling from. Our joke before we moved here was we watched Raising Arizona, which has one of the most surreal houses I've ever seen is part of the background for the plot of the film, so we're always looking at that and plucking little bits. Cleopatra was another film we had mentioned using for this film series. It's so long and it's truly a horrible film. No one wants to watch that, but the visuals and the optics are mind blowing. Speaker 3 (02:37): There's this fantastic parade scene that's just like the biggest spectacle you can possibly imagine. But yeah, I think it's the feeling that you get out of these movies that really kind of strikes us and we try to encapsulate that and try to figure out ways to bring that back into your work and two, take this moving thing and bring it into this static object and I don't know how successful we are with it, but that becomes this kind of driving force. Speaker 1 (03:10): Tell me a little bit more about the house in raising Arizona because it's been a very long time since I've watched it and I don't really have a memory of it right now. Speaker 2 (03:20): Is it like PeeWee's play? You love PeeWee's Playhouse, Speaker 3 (03:23): But Speaker 2 (03:23): Where everything's loves it, but everything's big and small and I don't know if it's from the kids' view where they're supposed to be looking up, so everything's kind of strange and distorted and Speaker 1 (03:37): It's Speaker 2 (03:37): Like Speaker 3 (03:39): Scale shifts, perspective shifts, strange lighting, Speaker 2 (03:43): I think. Yeah, it's kind of Wild West wooden style, true West Western rather than but fifties western, Speaker 3 (03:54): Classically domestic, I think homey and has all the characteristics of something that you would expect out of someone who's anticipating raising a family. Speaker 1 (04:08): Now that you mention it, a lot of my memories of that movie are from that kid perspective, so I didn't ever think about it being sort of built into set that sort of distortion, but I'll have to rewatch it now. With that in mind, definitely something I can remember is that low, really low angles Speaker 2 (04:29): Looking Speaker 1 (04:30): Up, and Speaker 3 (04:30): So I think that's maybe it's some of those strategies for scenes and displays and things that we're really pulling quite a lot from. I think there's definitely some kind of narrative elements that we bring into the work from the films, but largely we're looking at the set, Speaker 1 (04:53): Something that you've already brought up, which is the idea of world building, but if there was any other angles of how you think that idea relates to your work. Speaker 2 (05:04): I think the world building would be when you go into, it's kind of back to the period rooms and the decorative arts side of museum installation as well, but where you go into a space and everything's been taken care of, there's a wallpaper, there's chandeliers, there's sconces, there's some kind of entry table and the thing sits on the table, but it's not the thing alone on a pedestal or the thing alone kind of in blank space. It's this thing in this world that kind of sucks you in. If you think about your peripheral vision, if you close that off, you're getting this whole scene in this whole world right there. And in films you're getting that as well. So I think that's what I want to do with our work. I want to overload our objects to the point where all you're seeing is kind of this world that we envision, the ideal world, ideal world we want them to be in, and Speaker 3 (06:01): That's what people do in their homes. You create this environment, this sensation or feeling. We have this poster from the Bauhaus and it says in German, I think it says Edgar the vase is part of our environment, and I stare at that thing all the time and it's so weird, but that's really about the effect and affect that objects have on us and how an object can change the mood or the sensation or the atmosphere of a space. And so I think that we can kind of distill all these things and maybe into smaller components. Sometimes to some degree we create these atmospheric environments, but also sometimes these things get distilled into objects. Speaker 1 (06:50): I cannot not ask you more about Peewee because this is very formational for me. I would not be the person I am today if I did not watch a lot of PeeWee's Playhouse and PeeWee's Big Adventure over and over again. What are the long-term effects for you? Speaker 3 (07:10): What are the long-term effects of memorizing every line from PeeWee's big adventure? Well, Speaker 1 (07:15): Yeah, Speaker 3 (07:16): I don't know. I think it's, of course it's Tim Burton too, but that's the joyful darkness. I think maybe something that we really respond to are always did even going way back and the airiness and the obscurity and the awkwardness that maybe we can relate to or something As far as PeeWee's Playhouse goes, that's a whole other thing as far as social awkwardness and darkness and creating this psych environment, this really kind of very specific environment for playfulness and learning in a weird way that was like Mark Mothers Ball I think did the music for that. John DeFazio was one of the designers for that, and he makes this weird, super weird stuff, Speaker 1 (08:07): But something there I can totally see a connection is PeeWee's world. Both his home in PeeWee's Big Adventure and the Playhouse are these spaces that have a lot of collisions of style and they're sort of different time periods butting up against each other. There's a lot of things from the past. Certainly PeeWee's pretty obsessed with I think things from the sixties and fifties a lot. So even in the eighties, he's looking back 30, 20 years. Speaker 3 (08:46): Yeah, it's so thematic and yeah, you're right because you had a cowboy and you had a pirate or a captain and every kind of generalized subculture or whatever all thrown into one basket. Speaker 1 (09:05): Yeah. There's also a lot of the house is alive too in this weird way where the floor has a face and comes up and talks to you and all of the fixtures. And when I think about how you guys use animals in decoration, there's this feeling of the furniture is alive in that same way of cherry for talking Speaker 2 (09:32): To you Speaker 1 (09:34): Also, it was making me think about the idea of taste and good taste and bad taste and how you see that fits into your work because I think there is a lot of collisions of these different styles, and I don't know if that's something you think about. Speaker 3 (09:54): Well, I think one thing that we've always kind of embraced is weirdness and maybe even misunderstanding to some degree. We always think we have this conversation a lot. If we make this thing and we don't understand it, we can't really wrap our heads around it. We can't really quite nail it down and it just seems sometimes even out of place. Then maybe we're actually going somewhere because if we have everything all packaged up and ready to go and we know what it is and it seems like already part of this continuum that everyone understands, then I don't know. It's just not as exciting or something for us anyway. So I think that kind of unknown or something Speaker 2 (10:40): That's kind of been the motto. If both of us can't understand if it's good, then maybe it's great, but if it's something that and you understand and it looks like it should be there, maybe that's a little too easy. And I think to your question, the taste, just thinking about what you live with or how you style or what clothes you put on, it's the thing you do that doesn't feel right and then in two weeks it looks like it was always meant to be that way. You just have to get over that initial, I don't know. Yeah, Speaker 3 (11:16): It's this discomfort of through a lack of understanding, and that comes in a lot of things. You get the new album from your favorite band and you're like, oh, this sucks. And then you listen to it five times. It's like this is their best Speaker 2 (11:29): Album. Speaker 3 (11:31): And so maybe it's kind of like Speaker 2 (11:33): That in a way, but when we build these scenes or worlds or displays, it's usually not right at first, and sometimes it's so not right. It could be wrong for a very long time. And then we just have to trust our intuition and gut and past experience, what we've put together that has worked to kind of give it a moment to do that thing that the album does to kind of flip on you, is this the best song I've ever heard? Yes. Why did I hate it at the beginning? Speaker 3 (12:07): We hope that there's quality, and I don't know if we know exactly how to nail down what quality is or if anyone actually can completely define what quality is, but we gave a talk once, and I've always also embraced this fellow came up afterwards and he was just like, I totally get it. I get your work. This totally makes sense. I'm a DJ and what you guys are doing is you're making a mixtape. And so I was like, oh, this totally makes sense because we're picking all these things that are often of other Speaker 2 (12:40): Makers, cultures times, Speaker 3 (12:42): Other people's creative work, and everyone's done this. Everyone's made a playlist of some sort, but then you own that because you curated that stuff and you selected it and you went through the labor of compiling all that together in an order that maybe you're trying to even tell some kind of emotional story that you don't understand, but it just feels right. And then you have this thing and it's your mixtape and you're like, oh, you can listen to my mixtape or I'll share it. You can listen to my, I'll share it with you. And so there's this also this certain authorship that comes through collecting and organizing things that already exist Speaker 1 (13:19): When you were talking about the sort of music or the thing that didn't click immediately, but then does, it was making me think about how that happens sometimes with movies and how you watch something and it doesn't maybe work for you immediately, but then it doesn't leave your brain and you keep thinking about it. And so I'm kind of curious if you've ever had that experience with something. Speaker 2 (13:48): That's the thing that happens with a good exhibition is it's that NIDA June show that we saw at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I think Speaker 3 (13:59): So, yeah. Speaker 2 (14:00): So in the kind of parallel show that we have the for future retrieval, the objects, we have this piece by NIDA June, I don't know if we talked about this, but he's this Japanese ceramic artist who made these pieces that had so much clay and so much glaze. They were basically just glaze that they wouldn't really fire all the way through. So each one, when they came out of the kiln, he'd have to basically destroy the kiln to chip 'em out, and then the inside was never cured. So every time they get moved and shown bits of them fall off, you're always losing some the more you show it because they're never really fully fired objects. But then he died maybe at 28 in a kiln explosion. They were kind of everything ceramics should never be, but everything it could be. And we just saw this show and we're floored by it and talked about it for years. I don't know, it definitely Speaker 3 (14:55): Stuck with us soaked in. I think there's also that maybe along these lines is that, and to go along with this idea of weirdness and misunderstanding and acceptance and all this stuff is wonder. It's these things that you don't really get that make you want to do more research resonates with you to think about it later, maybe ask you to spend a little bit more time with it because it is bringing up these questions, but is maybe kind of visually intriguing enough to kind of pull you in. Speaker 1 (15:34): The film that you've selected for this program is The Shining. So I want to talk about The Shining a little bit. So in case you don't know, the Shining is a 1980 movie directed by Stanley Kubrick and is adapted from a novel by Stephen King. The plot follows a writer, ex-teacher, Jack Torrance, who has taken a job as a caretaker at a hotel in the West and Colorado, right? Yeah. Speaker 3 (16:06): Do they specifically say they do? Speaker 2 (16:07): Yeah. Colorado The Overlook. Speaker 1 (16:09): Yes, the Overlook Hotel. And while he is there, his family is alone in this hotel. This is the other thing about this movie, watching it during a pandemic is a movie about Kevin Fever hits a little differently now, doesn't Speaker 2 (16:25): It? Yeah. It's trying to work with your kids at home and you're trapped inside and you can't go anywhere. You don't know what day it is. So the movie says it's Monday, boom, Tuesday a month later. Speaker 1 (16:38): Yes. This might have been the only time in history. I've watched the scene where Jack freaks out at Wendy when she interrupts him working, and I was a little bit on his side because it was like the experience of working at home was like, I kind of get this now any other time you're like, wow, he's being terrible, but this time I was like, no, he's got a point. Speaker 2 (17:03): And they're like, you can have any food in the world, our kitchen. You could live here for a year and never eat the same thing twice. And I thought, yeah, but she's got to cook it, and it's just not the same when it's on you no matter where you are. Speaker 1 (17:19): I should also mention his son Danny has psychic abilities, which is what the Shining refers to. Dick Halloran. The Cook also has psychic abilities, and he tells him a story about how his grandmother called that ability The Shining. And so through Danny's perceptions and Jack's experiences, he sort of is, I guess, overtaken spirits at the hotel trying to describe The Shining is not as easy as you would think, is it? He Speaker 2 (17:55): Basically gets slowly sucked into this world that becomes more and more clear that it's a trap that he'll never escape from. Speaker 3 (18:08): He Speaker 2 (18:08): Was never meant to Speaker 3 (18:09): Leave. You become the hotel. Speaker 2 (18:10): Yeah, it's a labyrinth Speaker 3 (18:11): Which appears in the carpet and it of course appears in the Speaker 2 (18:16): Maze, the Speaker 3 (18:16): Hedge maze. It's a, Speaker 2 (18:18): But the whole thing would set up from the beginning to where it was a job he could take that would last a series of months, and then he'd go back to his normal life. And then once he's in the hotel, you realize the hotel is its own self-fulfilling prophecy. He'll never get out, and he slowly becomes more and more overtaken by these spirits. And our guest is when he goes into the gold room and he sits down at the bar and he wants to have a drink, and he says, I'd sell my soul for a drink. And then Lloyd, the bartender appears and says, well, what will it be? Your money's no good here. That's where the tides turn, and there's no going back. And he in fact does sell his soul and we'll never be able to leave, but has to kind of do the hotel's bidding. Speaker 1 (19:07): That's a really good observation. I was noticing this time too, while watching it, how cool that shot is of Jack. You don't see Lloyd Speaker 2 (19:18): At Speaker 1 (19:18): First. I feel like again, any other director would. Have you seen Lloyd cut to Lloyd as Jack sees him and instead you just hang on Jack for a really long time. Speaker 3 (19:31): He kind of conjuress him in a way. Speaker 1 (19:33): Yeah, Speaker 3 (19:33): He initiates the conversation. Then the conversation is very superficial, kind of small talk. Speaker 2 (19:40): It's Speaker 3 (19:40): The kind of banter or language that you would expect from just talking to a stranger. Speaker 1 (19:47): Well, I don't want to spoil any endings of The Shining for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I think that's a good setup for anyone who say, Speaker 2 (19:56): Jack's not writing a book, folks, Speaker 1 (20:02): The novel does not get finished. That would be an interesting ending of the movie of Jack Writes a successful novel and goes on. Speaker 2 (20:15): It's very celebrated and gets the life he's always wanted. Yeah. Speaker 1 (20:20): Yeah. I mean, to talk about the ending a little bit though, I mean, we see, again, it's this merging of all time, which is I think one of the most fascinating aspects of this movie is to see this strange representation of time is a person can be in the past and hear and everything, and it's like, what? Speaker 2 (20:46): Yeah, it flattens and it all exists at once and then at the very well. Yeah, I guess we won't spoil it, but at the end it loops back on itself. Speaker 1 (20:58): One thing just to start us off is the very idea of The Shining as an adaptation, and I kind of was curious if you think of what you're doing as an adaptation ever with your work? Speaker 3 (21:12): Well, yeah, it is. Speaker 2 (21:14): I mean, Speaker 3 (21:15): I'll agree to that. I think so. I don't know about The Shining a little bit. It's such a great film. We can just watch it over and over and over again forever and ever and ever really. And it's like Speaker 3 (21:29): It is an adaptation. I don't think we were talking earlier that we're probably not Stephen King fans by any means, and it's what Kubrick did to that that really kind of, I've listened to The Shining and the second one that they made doctors Sleep, sleep or something like that. And that stuff is a little too fantastical. And I think that what Kubrick did was kind of brought it into a reality a little bit more. And so there's an airiness to the closeness that we have with it and the fact that maybe that could kind of happen, and I think that's what makes it such a great horror film. Speaker 2 (22:07): But do you think that we're adapting the pieces? I think so a little bit, because we are adapting, taking them in, tweaking them for our own personal use a little bit. We are kind of the author of the new narrative of pulling some of those pieces out. I think Russell, you're dead on with Speaker 3 (22:27): This, but what does it mean to adapt you've, you Speaker 2 (22:30): Take it and do what Speaker 3 (22:32): You will Speaker 2 (22:33): With it with the basic idea. Speaker 3 (22:35): You modify it to be useful to you, right? Speaker 2 (22:38): Yeah. So I feel like we've done that because those pieces that we've then brought out from the decorative arts storage, we've then immediately put onto them our notion of what we think, how they should function and how they should function for us. And that's very different than how they did function or do function. Speaker 1 (23:02): Yeah, Speaker 3 (23:03): It's tricky because it is an adaptation. It's also being part of a continuum Speaker 2 (23:13): In Speaker 3 (23:13): A way. And I see that in the film that even, so there's the idea of the Shining being, the film being an adaptation of the book, but also is Grady adapting to Jack Torrance or something like that. I'm trying to figure out, I think this stuff, it keeps going deeper into the movie a little bit. Speaker 1 (23:41): Yeah, I can definitely see some differences. You're probably trying to make something new. Say when something from you take a piece of furniture from the museum collection and then put a new piece of ceramic on top of it, I think that is something different. But then I can see what you've done with the Centine is sort of an adaptation of that original in a kind of kubrickian way, but then the sort of way it's presented feels like a totally new piece also. So I think you've got all these kind of nested layers to it that make it a little bit trickier to maybe talk about it in exactly that way as like yes or no. Speaker 2 (24:27): But if someone from my Sin Factory came and saw our new version or adaptation, they probably hate it. We've destroyed this thing that they've so carefully sculpted and valued, and we've just undone all of that for the sake of being playful and being weird and embracing fast technology while slowing it down. Speaker 1 (24:53): They'd probably feel about the same way that Stephen King felt about Speaker 2 (24:56): Kubrick movie, Speaker 1 (24:57): Which is not favorable. Speaker 2 (25:01): He was like, now you get all the credit for this. Damnit. Speaker 1 (25:06): Well, it's funny. I read the book when I was in high school, so it's been a very long time. I had already seen the movie before I read it, and it was definitely one of the only times I feel like I read a book and was like, I like the movie better. And actually what's funny is the other time that happened is 2001, both Kubrick movies, I mean 2001 is a strange book because it was written concurrently with the screenplay. Arthur C. Clark was working on the screenplay and the book simultaneously. So it's not really as much an adapt. It's like a weird adaptation novelization. It's really strange. But in both instances, my problems with the book, it was that they said too much, and Kubrick takes things from the book that were really specific things. He's calling out from the plot I remember of the book, but just doesn't explain them at all. That makes them so much more effective. Speaker 3 (26:10): Well, I think that's part of the strength of these movies is that it does leave so much up to interpretation, and whenever you have so much interpretation involved, then it becomes so much more personal because you're making the connections and you're fulfilling the story, and then so all of a sudden you're a participant in it. Speaker 1 (26:29): The other thing I was thinking about when I just watched it again, it was funny, I was watching it with your work in mind, so it was a really strange way to watch a movie, I think. But there were a lot of things I kept thinking about, and one was like the Overlook Hotel being a place where history, the boundaries of history are fuzzy, and you have all this bleed of time periods, and that's also kind of represented in the look of the place I was noticing. Oh, you can clearly see where there's older sections of the hotel and then there's new additions. You can see the hallway where the famous hallway where you see the girls appear, that hallway looks so much older, maybe the original part of the building or something. And then versus the sort of seventies carpeting, that famous carpeting also. So I don't know, it was just something that came to me. Speaker 3 (27:38): I think a definite correlation there is the eclecticism that is made up of so many parts. The architecture itself, it's very Nordic, but also western. But then the interior, the exterior and the interior and the concept of that building are all different places all put together into one little package. And then you have the thematic periods that are happening on the inside and the continuum of these ghosts or whatever, living in all times, in all periods in one single moment. Speaker 2 (28:15): But you have the gold room, which is very twenties flapper party, and then you have the kind of grand living room area that's modeled off the Ani with the fireplaces and the chandeliers and the Navajo rugs and tapestries. And then you have room 2, 3, 7, which is very sixties, seventies kind of mod. Amazing. And then the bathroom where he is talking's incredible to Grady where it's just white and red and that, I guess that's like sixties, seventies, but super clean. There's nothing in that room. Speaker 1 (28:56): Yeah, that room, I always, it's so seared in my mind that bathroom, and I think it is so weird, they go from that art deco ballroom and then they go into that bathroom, which looks like it's something out of 2001. It could be that sort of view of the future from the sixties. So that is disorienting. And it's also weird because it's in that room where we see that character switch too of Grady where he becomes like, it's Speaker 3 (29:27): Incredible, Speaker 1 (29:29): Not friendly anymore. Speaker 3 (29:33): But also then Jack realizes that he's also Grady. And Grady is this omnipotent thing that is like, Speaker 1 (29:41): Right, Speaker 3 (29:42): That's like pushing barreling through time and space and possessing and dancing its way through these people's lives. It's scary. That's the craziest scene right there. And when Jack, he's, he realizes something, he thinks he's on top of things and he thinks he's really going to nail Grady down, and then all of a sudden he realizes that he's been there just as long. Speaker 1 (30:10): It was interesting, you just said it's scary, and I love horror movies. I watch so many horror movies and I'm almost never afraid of them. They just don't scare me. And this, I remember when I was probably at the height of my horror watching as a teenager, I remember thinking, this movie actually kind of scares me, and it was sort of interesting. Why is this movie scarier than all the rest? Speaker 2 (30:39): Part of it's the music, Speaker 3 (30:41): The music, the chanting that kind of echoes through the whole thing. Yeah, that Speaker 2 (30:46): Starts at the beginning. There's this theory that's going on through the whole film because, so we've watched it a couple times recently just preparing for this, and last night I was doing some Photoshop and I was like, I'll put it on in the background. And even in the background with my photo, I wasn't even watching it. I was like, this is horrifying. Just hearing the sound is scary. And so I moved it to where I could see some of the picture and that kind of dampened the, I don't know, it freaked me out and I was like, are the kids hearing this? This seems true evil. So I hate horror films. I never can sit through 'em. I still can't watch the lady in the bathtub where she rots as he's making out with her. But I was thinking the best part about horror films for me is in the beginning where they're not scary yet and life's going great. So I always like the first 15 minutes, Speaker 3 (31:47): But this one's different. It starts out out. Speaker 2 (31:49): It never Speaker 3 (31:51): Is scary as it can be. Speaker 2 (31:52): It never lets up and gets you that. Speaker 3 (31:55): It moves very fast, Speaker 2 (31:56): Happy time in the beginning Speaker 3 (31:57): Before it up to the overlook with that DFL or whatever, automatically just sets the tone as this is going to get really, really bad. And we've watched some kind of comedy thing. I think it was, was it Eddie Murphy talked about how Mike Tyson, when he'd come out to fight, everyone comes out with their music. He'd come out with this D flat tone just to horrify the opponent with the sensation of sound. Speaker 2 (32:36): But also the more I watch it, the more so in the beginning as they're driving up to the hotel, you're trying to think at what point did Jack kind of turn, he's never been a good guy. He's never been a family man. Speaker 3 (32:50): He's Speaker 2 (32:50): Never been kind to the wife or kids. They always have felt like this extra burden. I don't know. So the more from the beginning you realize he's an evil guy from the start. Speaker 3 (33:01): Yeah, he's a trouble, not the most pleasant character, but I think that there's a moment where, and I think it's like here's something that relates to our current experiences, of course, being in isolation, moving to a new place for a new job, working on a creative project after this massive shift in lifestyle. But I think that moment where Jack, where we realize that we enter more than one reality is the scene where Wendy brings in breakfast to Jack in bed and the conversation happens in a mirror, and I think it's that moment whenever you can start to realize that we're living in two places at one time, that there's a parallel thing that's happening and that we've kind of entered into it at that point, and he changes then and then he starts riding and then it really escalates quite quickly. Speaker 1 (34:00): I was noticing that shot when I last watched it. I feel like there's always just that little edge of the mirror that you can see, and it's so great because it just, even though you're mostly just seeing the characters, you're aware I'm seeing a reflection. I'm not seeing the real thing Speaker 3 (34:15): You are, but you also have to come to that awareness. I think it could also be possible that you watch that whole scene and think that the whole thing's happening and it's not in a mirror. I think there's one moment when they walk out of that little frame or something where it becomes like, okay, there's two things happening at the same time here, and he's having a conversation to her through the mirror. It's weird, Speaker 2 (34:37): But then later Danny goes in to go get a truck or something and Jack's supposed to be sleeping, but instead he's sitting up in bed looking in the mirror, and so then that scene also happens that way. Speaker 1 (34:51): We've already talked about in our last conversation, your affinity for mirroring and mirrors. I noticed in this too, that's sort of the opening shot is the landscape mirrored in the water. It opens with that helicopter shot, but it's like we're seeing a reflection immediately from the get-go. Speaker 2 (35:15): Yeah, we've totally made that scene. Cut that out of paper. Speaker 1 (35:22): Also, you mentioned Katie, the room 2 37, and I feel like I really paid attention to it this time. I was really looking at it. I was like, wow, this room is crazy. Speaker 3 (35:34): This kind of purple peacock floor or something. Speaker 2 (35:38): The animals on the wall and Walter, there's weird step ups. It looks like the Madonna Inn. Speaker 1 (35:47): It looks like a what? Speaker 2 (35:47): The Madonna Inn. It's a hotel in California where every room's like a grotto where the Flintstones. Speaker 1 (35:54): Okay. Yeah. Just Speaker 2 (35:56): Very absurd. Speaker 3 (35:58): Thematic. Speaker 2 (35:58): Yeah, Speaker 1 (35:59): And I was thinking about that bathroom. There's so many bathrooms in this movie. There's probably more bathrooms in this movie than any other movie I can think of. It's Speaker 2 (36:10): Totally true. Speaker 1 (36:12): There's just so many scenes, important scenes that take place in bathrooms, and they're also distinct that bathroom, Speaker 3 (36:19): There's a lot of mirrors in the bathrooms. Speaker 1 (36:21): Yeah, yeah. Then of course, the white bathroom with the act scene, which Speaker 2 (36:28): Is Speaker 1 (36:29): The most just kind of plain Jane boring bathroom in the movie. But yeah, that gold and green in two 30 seven's bathroom is in the way that I thought the other bathroom had a certain 2001 kind of aesthetic of the future. That bathroom always makes me think of the end of 2001 in some ways too. Maybe it's just that color. I don't know if there's just some pale green in the end of 2001 that I'm thinking of, but there's just something about it that the symmetry probably a lot of it is that too. Speaker 2 (37:05): And then Dick Hallen's room is really symmetrical, and Speaker 3 (37:10): That's Speaker 2 (37:11): The coolest, the lamp on either side and the painting in the middle, and Speaker 3 (37:15): That really reminded of our high-rise farrago piece, just the way it's laid out there. Even the woman in the print with the Afro kind of represents this. There's this spherical thing, and Speaker 1 (37:29): The walls are not terribly decorated apart from the picture, but the light from the lamps Speaker 2 (37:37): Makes Speaker 1 (37:38): The shot. You just have the light coming from those lamps, and it's like, so it makes the scene feel so full. I was thinking about that. I was almost waiting for the moment. I was like, oh, I can't wait to see his room. I remember it being great, and I was like, oh, there's a lot less stuff in this room than I remembered. It's just filled with light in such an interesting way. Speaker 3 (37:59): Where else is there really symmetrical, the elevator scenes or so symmetrical? The two little girls, the grand hall where he is typing in the staircase, the Gold Room. Of course, the art deco stuff is super Speaker 1 (38:13): Symmetrical. Yeah, it's insane to think that those are all sets. That's the other thing that I remember when I learned that it kind of blew my mind. It feels so real, and maybe it's the scale. They're so vast, but it's just kind of unbelievable. You're like, this isn't a real place. They all feel like they're shot on location. Speaker 2 (38:34): We went to the Ani in Yosemite and had breakfast there, maybe like 2003 or four, and you're there and you're like, oh, yeah, this is where the Shining was shot. I think Speaker 3 (38:48): It's got all the stuff. Speaker 2 (38:50): Yeah, Speaker 3 (38:50): It's got all the stuff, but it, Speaker 2 (38:52): It's all built on a set in England, but mimicking the interior of that hotel, which is really simple. Speaker 1 (38:58): Yeah, there's a shot early on when he's there for the interview and he's walking and he goes through so many different spaces before he gets to that office, and that was the moment I was like, this is a set. This is crazy. I just don't think you would see that in most movies where you see a character move through so many different spaces, and whenever I get to that scene, I just look at that window in the back because I'm like, that's not outside. There's just a big piece of paper there probably with a light on it. That's it. Yeah, I was Speaker 2 (39:27): Looking for some kind of tell in the office. That's not real. Speaker 3 (39:31): The office is pretty symmetrical too. For some reason. They've dropped the ceiling and added two elements, and then the window that also has some fluorescent lighting that kind of creates that mood. Stuart Ulman, which I love that guy's name. Speaker 1 (39:46): Yeah, I think his office also is another pink walled space, or orange. There's a lot of pink walls. It's like orangey. Yeah, his is kind of more orange. Righty. But I was thinking there's a lot of pink walls in this movie, and I actually, I rewatched a Clockwork Orange too, and I was noticing a lot of pink walls and a Clockwork Orange too, and just like that's a whole nother interesting decor to get into in that space as well. Speaker 3 (40:20): Milk fountains. Speaker 1 (40:20): The milk fountains. Well, that's probably, yeah, that's one of the great, that set is amazing of the milk bar, but then just looking at all the interiors of the houses, the cat lady's house, she's got this crazy, crazy suggestive art all over the place, but she also has antique furniture too, so again, it's like multiple time periods at once. Yeah. There's so many images in The Shining that you remember, and that was another thing that I noticed when I read the book as a kid was like, wait, this isn't in here. There's no maze. That was the first thing. I was like, wait, there's no maze in this hotel in the book. The girls aren't Twins. Things like that that you're just like, oh, this is the thing you remember about this movie is it's just not even there. And I think that's another way that he understood the language of what he was making. I'm making a movie. It's something different, and I think he understood that the importance of those strong visuals, it's way better have two twins than it is to have just a girl who's like eight Speaker 3 (41:37): And 10, eight and 10 by two years. It's weird how things are kind of introduced like that, but then are visually changed. They're introduced two girls of different ages, but they visually appear as pretty much the same. Another thing that kind of shifts that I'm very curious about is Grady's introduced by Stuart Alman as Charles Grady, but when Grady introduces himself in the bathroom, he's Delbert Grady. Speaker 1 (42:00): Yeah, I noticed that too, and I think that is again, a movie difference, book difference, but it's weird that the movie has both. I think the book is consistent with just one name. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't feel like a mistake just because there's so much weirdness with time and the idea of identity at that moment. Also, he's also like, you are this Grady and he's refuting it, so it kind of makes sense that there's a name change Speaker 3 (42:28): And Grady's the continuous and maybe Grady's bouncing between these people and you just take him on. Speaker 2 (42:36): But you're right, these things you remember throughout the whole film, the stack of the typed, the Speaker 3 (42:45): Book Speaker 2 (42:46): That Jack's writing and how all the different paragraph structures change, but it's the same words over those things. I'm like, oh, right, but every time that gets me, I'm like, this is so good. Speaker 1 (42:59): When I was watching it this last time, I just kept thinking about the person who had to type those out and how many sheets were there because there was probably a stack that was actually hundreds of pages and some sucker had to sit there and type it all out, some Speaker 2 (43:18): Intern. Speaker 3 (43:20): So I love that, that there's a thoroughness or potentially a thoroughness in the creation of the film. I would say I would be confident that Kubrick made someone write the entire book stack of papers, even though we've only flipped through 15, but that sets a tone. But there's also, with our work, there's probably things that we don't talk about, but there's this laborer that goes into it that doesn't reveal itself in the work. Part of our reason for making is this pride in time and labor investment that we put into it, and then sometimes it comes off just polished. You could just knock it out and it's like, oh, look at this perfect thing. Great, but for instance, to get these terrains, we had to make 10 to get two, and then just the process to get to making those 10 is like there's projects within projects within projects, Speaker 3 (44:25): And then you end up with this polished thing and you go, here, you go and you set it on a table. But I think through that labor and investment that there's a power to it and there's a strength that resonates out of it. At least I hope so, and I always think about, maybe I even talk to students about this or something, but in oceanic cultures like Polynesia and even in Japan and stuff, there's this value that's put on things that remain constant, that are handed down from generation to generation that are broken and repaired and labored over and handled and used, and that things objects soak up the energy that you put into them, and that is retained in some kind of energy. Speaker 1 (45:15): When you're talking about the work ethic. It definitely reminded me of a sort of Kubrickian work ethos who is notorious about doing as many takes as he deems necessary to get the perfect one, but then at the same time, I think he's an interesting character because he says that, but then I think he's also pretty famously as quoted as saying, being a film director is having a vision and then compromising it 100%, so it's like he understands what he wants, but he also kind of, I think has a playfulness of knowing, well, we're in it now, so what's going to happen, Speaker 3 (45:58): And that's adapting in another way. You have this, yeah, and this happens in the studio. You go in or you make this rendering or something, but then you walk into the physical realm of it and you realize that even though you drew Bugs Bunny floating in space, you can't just make that as an object. There's physics and there's all these things in the way, and that's the point where you have to start negotiating with the reality of stuff, and so he's negotiating working with Shelly Deval and who didn't want to, and all these other things that kind of come into play that then ultimately yields this result that you never fully knew that you could get to. It's collaboration in a different way. It's collaboration with material and time and space. Speaker 1 (46:51): Speaking of Shelly, just have to give her insane amount of props, because that was the other thing when I was watching this time, I thought, she's another big reason this movie is scary. Her fear on screen is so palpable. It is, I think one of the most real terrors I have witnessed on screen, and I think it's why the movie works. You can have Jack Nicholson just being way over the top and crazy, and it still works because of her. I think if it was somebody else not as gifted, Jack Nicholson would have kind of bombed it, but I think it works with her and it actually becomes more interesting, the two sides of that Speaker 2 (47:42): Where she's on the stairs, which I guess was the most takes ever in a film, I think that's in the Guinness Book of World Records. I was reading somewhere, but where she's just like, no, go it. She's out of breath and can barely, barely, barely, can barely Speaker 3 (47:56): Open the band anymore, but it's also because they did a hundred takes and she's broken down. She's acting like she's broken down, but she's actually mentally and physically broken down Speaker 2 (48:07): From work stop, and you're just like, oh my God, this woman, she's got to make it out of here. Speaker 1 (48:16): I don't know if you read that article about her recently. Speaker 2 (48:18): Yes, I totally did. Speaker 1 (48:20): It was fascinating because it was really interesting. She was obviously talking about the way it really affected her, the experience of working on this Speaker 2 (48:30): Mentally. It was never the same, Speaker 1 (48:34): But it was also interesting. She also, she didn't quite blame Kubrick as much as I would've expected her to in it. She seemed to have this interesting outlook on it, which was like, no, he's doing his job. And even though she felt totally terrorized by him at the same time, it was like, okay. I mean, I guess we contain multitudes and she can sort of see it that way, but she was literally living horror, and I think it was because of the type of actress she is and just she's really experiencing it Speaker 2 (49:08): In Speaker 1 (49:08): A really real way, and I think there's a lot of other actors who can make that separation, and it doesn't get to them in that same way, but I think for her, it was psychically taking a toll in a very real way, Speaker 2 (49:22): And she was also right, pulled out to where she lives, was alone in an apartment, didn't have any resource. She was literally living the shining covid life alone, and then her only peer group was to go back to work every day and be like, oh, here we go. Speaker 1 (49:42): Yeah. It's not a fun work environment I'm sure to have to return to every day. The other thing I wanted to ask you guys, this is more selfish that I don't know if it'll make it in, but have you ever watched Barry Lindon? Speaker 2 (49:57): No. Speaker 3 (49:58): I watched part of it. It's hard to watch, but it was for me, Speaker 1 (50:02): Give it another shot. I did the same thing, and I have never watched Barry Lindon because of that, that I would start and I would be like, okay. I watched it recently and for some reason, maybe it was just like the day I was like so sucked in. It's full of these really slow shots of you're looking at one scene. By the time you're fully zoomed out, you're looking at a Gainsborough painting, you end up in these, they look just like that sort of British painting that you see in our museum or any other museum. Speaker 2 (50:38): I Speaker 1 (50:38): Remember Speaker 2 (50:39): When we went to the Kubrick retrospective, they had cabinets of books that he would buy for research for every film, but Barry Linden had a whole cabinet and then there were three cabinets for a film on Napoleon he never made. Speaker 1 (50:56): Oh yeah, Speaker 2 (50:57): But the research a library. Yeah, just libraries on libraries of research to even start these films. It's just like this guy is not playing around. Speaker 1 (51:08): Yeah, it shows up. Speaker 2 (51:10): Yeah, Speaker 1 (51:10): I think you can see it on screen. Well, thank you guys so much for chatting with me today. Thanks, and have a good rest of your day. Speaker 2 (51:18): Thanks. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, this were always so nice. Cool to think about. Speaker 1 (51:28): Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have conversations about the art yourself. The museum is currently open, but please visit our website for the most up-to-date information about operating hours, and also to reserve your advanced online registration, which is required to visit the museum. Current special exhibitions are American painting, the eighties revisited future retrieval, close parallel, and Aum aga. All the flowers are for me. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and we also have an Art Palace Facebook group. Our theme song is FRA Music by and as always, please rate and review us to help others find the show. I'm Russell, and this has been Art Palace, produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.