Room 237: Tim Kirk & Rodney Ascher Interview

We can all agree that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a film that haunts you long after the credits roll and the elevator doors close. It’s not your typical horror film.  At long last, questions about the meanings hidden within the film are visited in revelatory depth. Ascher admits that he’s been obsessed with The Shining since he ran out of the theater as a petrified kid.  Now, he’s gathered information from a wide range of sources, all with unique and captivating theories. To one it’s Native American genocide; to another it’s about the faked Apollo landing. To all of us though, it’s clear through Room 237 that Kubrick’s mysterious messages are worth the exploration.

Along with a roundtable of other journalists, I had a chance to speak with Ascher and his producer Tim Kirk regarding their choice to keep the interviewees anonymous, the outlandish theories they explored and what moments provoked eerie realizations about the mastermind Stanley Kubrick.

ATW: Talk about what it is about this movie that you think has inspired so many people to study. It’s 30 years old, and there’s still this incredible interest in it.

A: I think a big part of it is that The Shining is really a puzzle that’s missing a few pieces. Even at the simplest level of the story, there are huge gaps about what we know about what goes on in it. The central event in the film, what happens to Danny in room 237, is never explained, let alone shone. I think people are attracted to watch and re-watch it to sort of try to solve those sorts of puzzles and then they find all these new ones. A lot of horror movies end by giving you the shock answer of what happens, that explains everything and then in a way you can leave sort of satisfied. Shutter Island is a really interesting movie, but the twist ending in that movie puts everything into perspective and you kind of get it. The Shining you never quite get

ATW: You stated that Kubrick had an IQ of 200. How did you find out about that?

K: That’s actually Jay Weidner, the person we interviewed, saying that. Fact checking wasn’t a major part of our film…I mean, in a positive way. [laughter]

A: This is not a hard-core behind the scenes film. It’s what are people saying about The Shining.

K: Rodney and I, before we interviewed anyone, one of the decisions was that we weren’t going to talk to people who worked on the film.

ATW: There are so many different conspiracy theories you delve into; some of them make complete sense, some of them are outlandish; the paper tray erection! What is the most over the top thing you did here?

A: That The Shining is the story of three people trapped in a hotel over the winter. [laughs]

ATW: Was there anything you rejected because it was too outlandish?

K: There were people we wanted to interview, like two big fish who got away. But I don’t think outlandish was ever a yardstick; I think it was more if it were less persuasive.

A: Outlandish is a hard thing to dismiss when you’re talking about a symbolic interpretation of a horror movie that’s drawing on things like Freud’s sense of the uncanny.

ATW: Once you all developed these four or five main theories that drive the film, why just have one voice represent them instead of a compilation?

A: I think it was about wanting to dive deeper down fewer holes and not assemble something that’s a thousand sound bites, but to let someone take the time to lay the ground work and expand on it. There’s somebody who had something negative to say about the film, but I took it as a compliment, comparing it to a late night dorm room conversation. I remember really loving those conversations! ‘I have a class at eight in the morning, but we haven’t’ quite figured out the implications of this song yet or Dawn of the Dead!’  There’s that excitement that’s contagious.

ATW: What was your thinking behind not showing [the interviewees] faces?

A: Stylistically, sometimes when you see the talking headshot it’s like coming up for breath or coming down for landing, ok now we’re back to reality. I wanted to stay in that dream like world of ideas and pictures; let the movie take place in outer space and the old west, not in somebody’s office or hotel room.

ATW: Is there a tendency to think of Kubrick as infallible, when some of the things highlighted in the movie I would personally put down to continuity errors? 

V: I think for sure there is a tendency to think of him as infallible.

A: Well, he does have a pretty good track record [laughter]. You’re not the first person to suggest that some of those continuity issues might have just been errors, but there sure were a lot of them. From one of the most accomplished filmmakers of all time, if you see something that looks like an accident at first glimpse, there’s at least a reason to go and consider it and say, ‘Is that really an accident?’

ATW: If someone were to make another documentary about The Shining, and interviewed you all, what theory would you choose to share your insight on?

A: I think I might use the one that’s more personal to me, Tim and I have talked about it and it works on both of us, what the movie says about family as sort of a cautionary tale about how people can let their work tear their family apart or blame your failures on them. The ghosts in the hotel can represent some of the temptations out there that might lead you to betray your family. You might rather be in a fancy hotel room talking to journalists about your film instead of staying at home taking care of your baby! You should try to resist that theory nonetheless!

ATW: With all of the theories and people you talked to, what is the one thing in the film that someone said that stuck with you?

V: I could listen to Bill Blakemore talk for eight hours straight; he’s a really compelling guy. I just remember reading Jay’s essay really early in the process and maybe being a little dismissive about the moon landing. Then I got to this part where he was talking about that if Jack represents the caretaker of the hotel for the Apollo missions, the previous caretaker would be representing the previous program from NASA, and it was Gemini, which are twins and Grady has twins…and I just remember my hands shaking!

A: One thing that was interesting to me… was John Fell Ryan talking about the power of the dissolves. The intermediary space between them would create a relationship that was meaningful and saying something in particular. At one point he saw those two pictures of Jack Nicholson come together and form the Hitler mustache. What was especially eerie about that was it reinforced Geoffrey Cock’s story about the World War II theories in the film. It was really eerie connecting those dots.

Room 237 will be released in theaters and on VOD by IFC Midnight on March 29^th!