Although in general, Stanley Kubrick was always reticent to talk about the meaning of his works, there was a documentary in which Kubrick was encouraged to expand on this topic. He looks at what he said.
Stanley Kubrick is considered one of the greatest filmmakers in history thanks to works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and The Shining (1980). Well, recently the explanation that the New York director offered about the final scenes of those two films came to light. Although he was generally reticent to talk about the meaning of his works, there was a documentary in which he was encouraged to expand on this topic.
We are specifically referring to a feature film directed by Jun'ichi Yao that aimed to talk about the paranormal events that occurred during the filming of The Shining. Although this documentary was never released, some fragments of it were shared on YouTube. In conversation with his Japanese counterpart, Stanley referred to the closing scene in which Dave Bowman appears prostrate on a bed in the middle of a luxurious room. About such a sequence, Kubrick explained:
"The idea was supposed to be that he was taken in by divine entities - creatures of pure formless energy and intelligence - and placed in what I guess you could describe as a human zoo, to study him."
Later, he delved into other details about this strange place run by extraterrestrial life: "They chose this room, which is a very inaccurate replica of French architecture, deliberately. It is inaccurate because they wanted to show that they had some idea of what was beautiful to him. … but they weren't entirely sure, just as we humans aren't very convinced about what to do in zoos with animals, to give them what we think is their natural environment."
By way of closing the story, he added: "When they finish with him, as happens in so many myths from all the cultures of the world, he transforms into a kind of super entity and is sent back to Earth, where he transforms and becomes "He becomes some kind of superman. And we just have to guess what happens when he comes back. It's a pattern of a lot of mythology. And that's what we were trying to suggest."
Regarding the end of the film starring Jack Nicholson and based on the literary work of Stephen King, Kubrick spoke of the meaning of the scene in which he puts the magnifying glass on a photo that shows the hotel's past and assures that this was intended to convey the idea that evil survives: "It's supposed to suggest a kind of reincarnation cycle of evil, where he [Jack] is part of the hotel's history."
