THE SHiNiNG extremely rare original ending FOUND

[Pubrick]

for those who don't know, the original ending to the shining contained an extra scene between Jack's frozen corpse and the long zoom to the photo. it was screened only a few times EVER and then kubrick removed it before the film went into wide release. extensive info about the missing minutes can be found here, it consisted of a brief perplexing exchange between ullman and wendy/danny at a hospital.


*these stills are from the kubrick archives and probably don't represent what the actual scene looked like or the condition of the found print

Well anyway the footage will be screening at the Dryden Theatre, located at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York on October 22, 2011, @ 8:00 pm. so one of you freaks better get over there and report back.  the site describes the screening as "complete with a chilling coda cut from the original release."

this amazing event was brought to my attention by this discussion in the imdb boards, and while there is some nitpicking about the running time, it seems legit as one dude explains:

The Dryden Theatre, which is screening the original uncut print, is part of the George Eastman House complex, which contains one of the largest and oldest film and photography museums and archives in the world (with over 25,000 film titles dating back to the origin of cinema), and which in turn is a part of ... the University of Rochester. It's also the archive that has had a print of Kubrick's debut, Fear and Desire, for many decades (and which has often been screened at the Dryden Theatre), but has always avoided publicizing it as Kubrick had requested that it maintain a low profile years ago.

So it's very likely to be an uncut print, ie 146 minutes, as the archive would have received early prints of many, if not all, of Kubrick's films (and may also have some of his photographic portfolio too) straight from the studios.

[socketlevel]

awesome, i would love to see it.

[Reel]

Sweet! I gotta make it to Rochester, only 2 hrs away. I'm probably not gonna go though  

[Fernando]

from mark romanek's twitter:

"I was at The Beekman in NYC for an opening day matinee of THE SHINING. I saw the deleted scene. SK was right to cut it."

[Reel]

I read that, too. So it's like the expository scene at the end of Psycho, I'm guessing. I'm pretty sure Rob Ager's explained that the studio wanted it there to tie the movie together.  I really want to see more Shining though, Kubrick is Kubrick.

[Pubrick]

actually as the links i posted explain, kubrick originally wanted the scene because he had a soft spot for Danny and Wendy and thought they should be shown to be safe and sound at the end of the film.. that is OSTENSIBLY the reason that the scene would have been included, that's the reason he gave the co-writer of the film Diane Johnson.

i say ostensibly because as with every other time kubrick experimented with (and perfected) a genre, he used archetypal figures, events, and narrative conventions in order to undermine preconceived notions of everything we ever thought we knew about film (and everything else) while pretending to play it straight. what can be gleaned from the extensive accounts on the first link i provided is that the scene is a simple coda, a relief of tension before the mysterious tracking shot into the photo.

ullman talks to wendy and comforts her -- this is the conventional part -- but then he undermines the gesture by ignoring and placating her queries about the events of the hotel by suggesting (outright stating?) that none of it happened and they should just move on. he does the same thing to danny, talking to him which is a nice thing and then giving him a tennis ball -- what the hell, what does he know about the tennis ball and it's use in the hotel? it's a comforting gesture turned instantly ambiguous, even sinister.

this ties in with some of Rob Ager's analysis, as he uses what we knew about the deleted scene to talk about the use of animals in the film. the oversized coat that ullman wears is described as making him look like a bear, which along with a few other animals makes recurring ominous appearances throughout the film and suggest life behind the still walls/inanimate objects. this, ager describes (correctly, i reckon) was kubrick's way of incorporating King's original menacing topiary animals that come to life in the original story.

they say he spent a whole day trying to get the ball that Ullman gives to Danny to bounce the right way, and i'd be really interested to see what kind of surface the ball is actually bouncing on. the design of the carpets in the hotel, along with the layouts, maps of exteriors, and roads leading up to the hotel (MAJOR focus on this in the opening shot right? obv.) all are used to suggest the boundaries of the hotel. that is to say, whatever is going on in that location is suggested to extend to the adjacent maze, to the roads leading up to the Overlook, and beyond the mountainous terrain itself, all the way to Halloran on the other side of reality in sunny florida. his long trek an illustration of a descent into hell.

and inside the hotel, the layouts, contours and shapes on the carpet, suggest a different kind of extension internally.. the open-ended exterior landscape which introduces the film so majestically degenerates into an intricate web that ends as a closed loop.. the single tracking shot that ends the film comes (in the final/official/perfect cut) after a chase through an endless loop created by danny into which jack falls into, effectively danny overcomes the trappings of the hotel and jack by seemingly walking on a higher plane.. he is obviously the starchild. jack is absorbed into the geometry of the hotel, so much so that his frozen face becomes the gaping mouth of the elevator, an amazing contrast given his bloodless death, the final tracking shot of the film then perfectly follows a trajectory similar to the blood that would leave his mouth -- in this case his spirit, or soul, or whatever energy the hotel absorbs (maybe even his words?), flows through the hotel in the most straightforward movement in the entire film.. to end up as a lifeless photographic grin of yesteryear.

given the perfect placement of the final tracking shot contrasted with jack's death and frozen corpse, the removal of the hospital scene is understandable. but it still contains worthy extensions of the elements kubrick had been building up to that point. it primes you for the ambiguity of the final shot, and while this may have added to the feeling of wanting to think about this film forever, the weight of so much ambiguity after such a seemingly happy outcome (jack's death and danny's escape) was too much for conventional tropes to bear.

[maxx]

Thanks Pubrick!
I am italian and i'm writing a book about King and Kubrick: the title is: " Shining: from Stephen King to Stanley Kubrick and back ".
May I use this photos?
Thanks

Max

[Pubrick]

i don't hold any rights to the photos. they are present in the kubrick archives, published by taschen, so maybe they're the ones to ask.

good luck with your book.

are you trying to cash in on the recently published memoir by Emelio D'Alessandro that is currently available only in Italian?

[maxx]

I don't know about this book over Italy.

It exists a video about other final of Shining?

Thanks

[maxx]

Thanks for link! I have this book, but a short version..there aren't these two photos, unfortunately.
I try to send a mail to Taschen, asking for the photos, but I'm afraid that want money...

What are you thinking about this?
I can not send any mail, and write the book, but it's an high risk...or I can publish the book without the photos..

[maxx]

So, than It's not a book about ONLY the movie..but a book about Stephen King's book and Kubrick's movie.

[Reel]

Believe it or not, you can make multiple points within one post

[maxx]

Are you Jokying me?