Kubrick is not talking about what he is talking about

Rating: Null/10 (16 May 1999)

The back of the box for FULL METAL JACKET says that it is the greatest war movie ever made. However, I do not think it is a war movie. The setting is the Vietnam War, but Kubrick is using this to talk about something else that he cannot talk about directly. The same is true for THE SHINING. This is not a horror movie. It has all the attributes of a horror movie, but Kubrick is using this as a vehicle to talk about something that he cannot talk about directly. So what is it that Kubrick can't talk about? Why was this story and the horror genre the proper vehicles for this subject? I don't know, and I am glad that I don't know. I first saw this movie when I was six. I've seen it a hundred times, and I will watch it hundreds more because there is something going on that I haven't figured out. I am sorry that I cannot remember who wrote it, but an article I read talked about the way Kubrick played with the viewers' horror-movie expectations. Throughout the movie, the viewer is wondering "where is the horror movie?" Then near the end, when treated to standard horror movie ghosts and gore, the viewer gets to relax - it is a horror movie they are watching after all. But the camera zooms in for the last shot of the movie, and once again Kubrick shatters the viewer's expectations.
The first time I saw Alan Resnais' LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, I was convinced there was something else going on in THE SHINING. I feel that these two films are closely related (along with HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR and the last half an hour of 2001).
There are aspects of our world that we just cannot express with a page of prose or a ten minute speech. Real art puts us as close to these inexpressible concepts as we can be without actually expressing them. Even if I fully understood what THE SHINING was about, I wouldn't be able to say it. Kubrick needed to use a "horror movie" to point towards something he could not talk about; he was too much of a genius to do anything less (to simply decide he felt like making a horror movie). I think it would be a loss for someone to talk about this movie's scare-factor and leave it at that. I've struggled with this film for twenty years and will continue to do so. I strongly recommend to anyone who is intrigued by THE SHINING that they watch LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR.