People have been pointing out that the graphic I use at 5:43 is causing some minor epileptic fits. I am dreadfully sorry. Thank you for telling me so I don't use it again (or if I use it, I do it conscientiously).

Here's a thought. Having a Red Book appear on the desk was a case of synchronicity. Kubrick knew about Jung's Red Book and the set designer knew about the hotel Red Book but neither knew about the other. Jung definitely believed in synchronicity.

By having it be a hotel red book instead of it actually being jungs red book, gives it enough ambiguity while justifying the subtle reference's placement in the shot. It would be too much of a coincidence to have the great mother painting and a "red book" in the same scene. Kubrick was too smart and chaps like you catch the rest of us up. Great video!

Man, the red book being a regular item in hotels does not prove your theory is wrong. Knowing how Kubrick's attention to detail works it could have been easily a two way reference. Yes, the red books is there because is normal for hotels to have it but it could also be a direct hints towards Jung's red book.

I really liked Doctor Sleep. Like Blade Runner 2049, it’s a sequel that does it’s own thing but builds on its predecessor.

But Danny became an alcoholic because it DULLED his innate psychic abilities, it didn't heighten them. On a surface level, Danny's character arch is that he overcomes his alcoholism and faces the fear of his Shining, embracing it instead of hiding it because he needs to help another who shines. Below the surface it's about alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous. One of the key tenants is that after you recover, you need to help another alcoholic to both straighten your sobriety and help them through your personal experience. I suspect Steven King used a lot of his own experiences struggling with alcoholism and getting sober as inspiration for Doctor Sleep.

Max, you putting out a correction is proof that you only want to share the absolute truth. Don't let it get you down, people get things wrong, just the fact that you put up a response tells us you meant well to correct it. Much love, -DSH

Honestly if I were a director I'd really love the double meaning of a red book in a hotel. He might of even seen it as a synchronisicity lol. Like I can imagine him having everything ready to film, and then randomly finding out that hotels often have a red book. How could he not have resisted putting one on that desk then lol?

Funny, I was just looking up your videos on SOMA and needed an existential crisis, perfect timing lol. Your videos are highly underrated and always thoughtful, cheers from Canada dude.

Frankly I'd argue that the 'Red Book' could be both a Jung reference AND a 'Hotel Management' set piece. Kubrick would have probably found it a fun synchronicity.

Are you sure that it wasn't a reference to the The Red Book, "OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL"?

Say you're Canadian without saying you're Canadian. Max: "at the July 4th party"

Always happy to see your videos! I respect your efforts to correct or elaborate your previous entries. Keep up the good work!

I really appreciate your content...especially the way that you present it. The way you talk about your thought process is very relatable. Your content has helped me deal with mine and my son's predicaments.

Ohhhh Boi I was *excited* to see this in my sub feed, Max! Keep it up!

Dear Max, your Shining commentary and analysis here on KZfaq are among the best I've watched. This effort of wanting to further elaborate on a theory after adding new external evidence is a testament to your intellectual honesty in my (non-red) book. Keep up the good work. ;-)

Awesome as always. And way to be cognizant that people often watch the first few minutes and bail, and here you are just admitting a mistake at the beginning for their benefit. Good on you. Keep up the good work.

Goodness... Such a well thought out and explained analysis... Gunna follow... Hope you have more

Great video dude, the fact that The Shining can still generate this kind of analysis and debate over 40 years since its initial release is remarkable, I still find it as haunting and mesmerizing as I did when I first saw it over 30 years ago, a true masterpiece.

Had the pleasure of finally sitting down to watch and soak in Doctor Sleep late last year and I remember finishing it feeling that Flanagan did a wonderful job at such a monumental task like that. Anyway, great video as always, Max.

Such impressive deep work! Thank you for your perspective.

Fantastic video as always, keep it up!

fascinating ideas and approach. Thank you for this work.

Thanks again Max!!

I found doctor sleep to be lacking in Kubrick’s signature clinical austerity, the film worked on the base level of competent directing (love mike Flannigan but he isn’t Kubrick, for better or worse) but was far more interesting in further deepening the theories and themes you presented in your video that lie in the original film. But as always incredibly thorough and astutely made points coming from you, great video. I love seeing your singular and very focused analysis of media, ie creating your own system of meaning to see art through. Very cool very informative thank you

I needed to watch this video, thank you.

Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed the movie and now want to see it again.

Wild that the theory about the Red Book came out 2 years ago, but I watched it 2 days ago. Now this video drops.

Oh boy, was I waiting for this video

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the hotel red book was intended as also being a reference to Jung's Red Book. Kubrick was really, super into Jung and he was also the kind of director that would blow miles of film to get a perfect scene. There's no way that a possible Jung reference would be an accident in one of his films. I mean... the man hunted down an indigenous artist just to get the rights to use his painting of the Great Mother! Nothing was a coincidence in this movie.

Liber Novus may not be featured in the films, but Jung's ideas definitely are! Excellent theory, dude!

Great video! I love your theories involving silent hill, Jung and Stephen King!

Best review well done Love it so much to take from it

Always love your videos man. They are dark but not so much so that they are scary and without purpose. By the way, I too have aspergers/autism.

I never understood the horror of the shinning and thought all of the horror elements where random. But now it all makes sense and u can enjoy the film more with the information you've given. Thank you

Really enjoyed this. You're the reason I'm saving up for a nice copy of Aion. I want to read it for myself and have it as a collectors item. I was into psycho analytics for a while but I hadn't known about those books o: guess I just never cared to really look lol

That's so fascinating! And what if the red book is meant to be seen as a regular hotel book AND a direct reference to Jung (for keen eyes to see)? Knowing that Kubrick was obsessed with details, it's possible.

Great video as always, but if I'm not mistaken, in the book it's noted that danny and jack use alcohol to dampen the shine within them, rather than use it for easier access to a state of consciousness more conducive for psychic phenomena.

The 3/8" thick blue pages in the middle of The Red Book from the Dr. Sleep scene answer what / which red book. Happy hunting.

Great video! But yeah that graphic at 5:43 gave me a headache 😂😂

The colective unconscious is mentioned "Evangelion images all over the place" Nice

I was late to watching ‘The Shining’ in my life, but when I did, I did find it to be very much worthy of the praise and discussion surrounding it. Having watched ‘Doctor Sleep’ a year later, I thought it was very much a worthy follow-up (funnily enough, based on the novel that Stephen King basically wrote out of spite for Kubrick rendition-as the word “adaptation” is a stretch to use)!

Groundskeeper Willie: "Boy, you read my thoughts! You have the SHINNING!" Bart: "You mean Shining..." Groundskeeper Willie: "SHHH! You wanna get SUED?!

The Apollo astronauts got a realization of the Overview effect. The Overlook Hotel represents a doorway to the overview effect.

Kubrick may have used the Red Book to actually mean both things. Jung & the hotel book. Chillax - another great video :)

I bought the Red Book ... and just re-watched your video yesterday

Great stuff as usual. I am confused only on the possibility of the book being a specific reference however, wasn't the Red Book only recently released?

I can’t wait to see more videos this month.

Not saying it will be easy to do, but you can forgive yourself for your mistake in the previous Shining video and any other future mistakes. What matters is you have the integrity to admit to being wrong and that is not only wonderful, but admirable as well. Your conquest for truth which is what distinguishes you from others, so far is unparalleled to many channels on this site in that they avoid it, never consider it, or are charmingly dishonest about it while using a webcam to 'show' themselves. As your viewers, we are glad and grateful to have such people like you, who aim for truth. So thanks, Max. We'll stay yellow

Thank you!

Just real quick Danny didn’t steal the single moms money, the girl he went home with had stolen that money from Danny and he took it back from her. Danny’s real sin was leaving the dead mom and her son because she had aspirated sometime during the night and died. He left the girls son to die of dehydration and hunger. On top of that the single mother’s neighbors near her apartment were used to the kid crying all the time so no one called the cops to come snd check because they were used to her son crying from neglect all the time. That scene disturbed me something fierce because he could have just called the authorities on his way out and at least saved the kid. Crazy scene, so much nuance packed into a scene they don’t discuss much in the movie at all.

We are here because we never left. Excellent work.

In family life sciences we would refer to this concept as generational transmissions theory. As a neuroscientist myself I was fascinated by this concept - and breaking the transmissions of the archetype of my genetic consciousness…anger. My father was angry, his father was angry, and so on for generations. I made a conscious decision that my kids would never see the anger that I saw and the transmission ended with my offspring. It’s probably the single most valuable thing I learned in my undergraduate studies.

I hope this video does you justice. Youre the man

Also, the “Red Book” from “The Shining” looks like the exact same edition of Jung’s “Red Book” I used when I was working on my Doctorate, the typeface while blurry is familiar, and that central section with the “art plates” (the shiny image paper for photographs) seems to be the same as I remember. So Kubrick may have indeed used Jung’s “Red Book” on set as a replacement for the “Hotel Red Book” on purpose for the double meaning. So you may have indeed been correct in your first evaluation.

I have "The Red Book". It is my most important book. Jung also wrote seven journals called The Black Books. Quite expensive but very worth it.

Two things that intrigued me about the story and the labyrinthian structure of the Overlook Hotel 1. When Wendy was talking to Jack about the winter weather, why were some chairs or furniture displaced?" 2. Was Jack always The Caretaker? I say that because of the Gold room bar scene, when he talked to Lloyd, and maybe as a bonus did Jack have the ability "to shine". That last one is slightly doubtful though.

The Shining is a masterpiece and so it can be analyzed multiple ways. I love the Jungian analysis as well as so many observations and theories ( not the Apollo stuff) that abound about this film. This film can be enjoyed and thought about from so many ways endlessly which is what great art does!

I cant believe its been 2 years since the first video. I can't believe the time has run away so fast

For some reason watching this again after a couple of years and now that I'm coming back to this episode again as a parent... I feel like i just rewatched an entirely different video. Still agree with everything in here but it's just even more so uncanny

I think it’s so far in the foreground, you are correct, sir. In an interview, Kubrick says, “I thought it was one of the most ingenious and exciting stories of the genre I had read. It seemed to strike an extraordinary balance between the psychological and the supernatural..,” which is a rather simple description for Jung. The Red Book, being a standard for the operation of hotels going back for a long time makes the hotel the reality-based place for Jung’s theories contained in his own Red Book. I’ve watched other videos on The Shining, and much of the shifting realities people attribute to one person being crazy, are more likely to being the collective unconscious of the hotel being a site of trauma and creating a hypnagogic state which they are constantly moving through. This explains why the furniture moves, they can all communicate psychically, the can feel past events. Some of videos put too much emphasis on things that don’t take into account the area the movie is taking place in or the fact that this was the 1970s. This is a holistic theory, including the whole site. Thank you for your series. As Jung would say, “mind and matter,” so with his Red Book being widely released after The Shining, it’s almost like these played off each other. The hotel and it’s famous book were bound in leather and became famously known for its hypnagogic state in The Shining, before his own book, thanks to his theories. Kubrick and Jung would love this.

Hey, I know those feels. I watched that video and the follow-up, and I think even though there is an explaination for the Red Book, it is still a completely valid literary read of the text. My first college professor of psychology told me "Everything is multiply determined." The Red Book is both a banal ledger and a peek into the collective unconscious.

It may not have been Literally Jung’s Red Book in order for it to be METAPHORICALLY Jung’s Red Book.

Amazing analysis!!! But it shocked me that you never connected the symbolism of the maze with the Jungian psychology; how jack never was able to leave the maze, referencing the individuation process, of course, it's very easy to point out the bits left out after somebody built something. Amazing movie and amazing analysis man, congratulations!!

Well done

Hey Max, love your videos! Something that's been weighing on me though, is that The Shining was released in 1980 and Jung's Red Book wasn't published in any complete form until 2009. I know the book was widely whispered about and people claim to have seen it in his office, but from my understanding, no one other than Jung's estate or close colleagues had even glimpsed what the content of the book was. I may be totally wrong about this, but it could still be a reference to Jung, but perhaps alluding to the unknown within ourselves, since the contents of the Red Book were not yet known? Just thoughts.

i really feel like you were right tho, and it was a double meaning. kubrick is smart enough, he would have added it as the hotel reference but also a direct call to the jung red book.

i read The Red Book after watching your original video, and I notice The Gold Room scene is very similar to one chapter in The Red Book. In the book, Jung was in a kitchen, talking to a cook about a religious book which everyone disapprove in his time. He felt everyone was looking down on him. Suddenly he found himself in a mental hospital where doctors declare he's insanity, then the best part--------- he suddenly found its not a doctor talking to him, but he was in a grand ball room on a boat, a gentlemen asked him if he needs a drink. Jung didn't find anything strange, he just goes with all the strangers. The way Jack felt trapped in the hotel and not getting alone with his family and find strangers in The Gold Room friendly, is very much like the Red Book.

Most likely it would be a hotel red book in the shining but I'm sure it was put front and center in our view so people can make the connection to Jung's red book.

Those last moments of young Danny and Wendy gave me a better ending for both than in the book, the haunting image of an old Wendy with her face full of flyes suddenly disapearing felt anticlimatic to me.

14:33 We can definitely say that is Carl Jung' "Red Book" by interesting fact, book have very dark region in pages binding, this is special kind of books that inserts pictures in this case in the middle of the book, that dark region in book binding represents pictures, no hotel register red book contains pictures in it.

Thank you

An interesting view, Max. Incidentally, you may have your theory for Bloodborne, too.

The red book can be both the hotel red book and Jung’s Red Book at the same time. Plus, there wouldn’t have been a bound volume of Jung’s book available, either to Kubrick or to the characters in the story.

Personally, I believe that most, of not all of Kubrick’s films might be about one thing. As Joker states in “Full Metal Jacket”, ‘I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man sir…..The duality of man, the Jungian thing sir’. From 2001 on, that theme seemed to be present in all of his films, imo.

Carl Jung (like any philosopher) is trying to draw a framework for ALL HUMAN STORIES and NOT just the Shining. It just so happens that Kubrick LOVED Jung's writings (teachings), so it is appropriate to decode Kubrick's films using the keys spelled out by Jung (just as Kubrick used them to create his films while leaving us clues). I'm sure you could take any movie and use Jung's ideas to decode it without even looking for clues left by the director (as you find in SK's movies).

If Jung's book wasn't published until 2009 or whenever you mentioned, Kubrick wouldn't have had a copy regardless of whether he had actually seen it at some point. And even if he did have a copy it would have been too odd for a hotel manager to have at the top of a stack of documents on his desk. The fact that there was also a guidebook for hotels by that name which would make perfect sense to be in the scene is a typical Kubrick double meaning prop. I think Kubrick might have been almost giddy when discovering such a hotel management manual existed by that name and how obviously he could slip it into the movie. Whether you misidentified the book or not, your assertion still seems to hold.

Mr. Kubrick was a fan of Jung, thus synchronicity. Would it not have been possible that he included the Red Book because he knew of Jung's manuscript and thought it too good to leave out? I think you were right all along and that Kubrick was aware of the Red Book. No proof, just a sneaking suspicion that I can't shake, though I am also willing to be wrong! Love your content. :) Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Kubrick was complex enough to have played a visual pun with Jung's RED BOOK and the hotel "Red Book"

I have a question? The collective unconscious is meant to explain how we humans essentially work when we face different issues, but how is it supposed to help any ordinary people? What is the meaning of the collective unconscious? Maybe you’ve already explained it, but I’m just really shit at understanding things, would love to learn tho, because I find the discussion fascinating.

Hi Max!!! Big fan! If you ever got time to kill and I mean about 50 plus hours, you should play the game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. Great game about reality being create from the mind type of deal and what happens if you commit the greatest sin of all.

You said yourself, "Don't let my viewpoint discourage you from attributing multiple different meanings to The Shining". I choose to believe the Red Book could be Jung and a hospitality guide at the same time.

🤔🤔🤔✨🍿🎥✨ New subscriber here 😁 Thanks for sharing this interesting video on The Shining 🌟

I know that I can't change the way you feel just by telling you not to be anxious about that original video, but I really mean it when I say that you shouldn't be. Even if your theory is incorrect, there is always a form of cohesion that comes from your analysis, which I see as the soul purpose. Your videos don't necessarily try to change someone's mind as far as I can tell, they are meant to open up interpretations and theories that can just as easily be explored by others. The video made perfect sense to me, whether I agreed with it or not, and that's all that matters.

I suggest you should also watch Code: Geass. It also references collective unconscious in many many occasions.

The "red book" represents both it would have been too on the nose if it was Jung's book

I like the idea of Jack embodying the "negative father" archetype because it fits with Kubrick's description of Jack Nicholson as someone who "was already prepared to take on the role (of murderer) when he walked in that hotel" (paraphrased)

it didn't have to BE the jung red book for it to be a reference TO the jung red book. could be that kubrick just thought "hey, that's kinda serendipity... jung red book, hotel red book... i can use that coincidence to illustrate what i want to say."

That painter, Norval Morrisseau is a CANADIAN First Nations artist. His grandson Kyle was one the missing children written of in a book by Tanya Talaga called, Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City. The painting on the cover of the book is by his father Christian Morrisseau, who learned from his father. Kyle was also carrying the talent to paint before he was presumably murdered.

Though "The Red Book" of Jung's was not published until this century, the existence of it was fairly well-known for some time. There was much speculation as to its contents, yet it would be safe to say that it would not deviate from established Jungian thought as far as The Archetypes, etc. Perhaps Kubrick saw the Red Book that is pretty much the hotelier's diary in an office, knew of it via a hotel employee, or through whatever general knowledge this bright, well-traveled man picked up over the years. Jung's book may have been one of the things that popped in his head whenever he saw the diary sitting on the hotel manager's desk. Jung's book (or maybe Chairman Mao's Red Book of Quotations, as that was read by many, especially of his generation) could easily spring to mind whenever Kubrick saw any red book, and to leave it so prominently on Ullman's desk as a prop would have been an easily-placed hommage to another great intellect and possibly even quasi hero. There is no need to apologise, as there is no reason to assume or rule out anything Kubrick decided to keep in the Mise En Scene. Look at it, man! It's as defining a piece of spot colour as anything else Kubrick does with his bright oranges and reds in any of his other colour films, this one obviously included. The audience was meant to see it, of that we can all be certain. Nothing was present in the frame of any Kubrick-directed scene that was not intentionally placed. Hitchcock did the same thing. That you even thought of Jung's work when you saw the book is good enough for me. Your subsequent videos on the subject attest to your fandom-ness on the man. Men. Carry on; I'll be in the vicinity.

I don't see why it cant be both the hospitality book and the Yung work at the same time.

Weird in the book it's um It, and a giant cosmic turtle. That's the reason for everything.

good for you!

just here for the ride, a fun fun ride :)

The hotel is a ‘mind palace’; mnemonic. Perhaps the mind palace of the ‘Overlook’ hotel (a place where people live transiently) is the physical manifestation of the memories of all that have passed through since the original archetypes playing out at the same time as all future echoes.

Choice is the essence of freewill which is fundamental to consciousness and matter (See: The Strong Free Will Theorem) so it is interesting that Danny has a choice even while confronted by the archetypes. If the universe of the Shining was deterministic, he would have taken that drink. His father was not very self-aware and rather than choosing simply let his unconscious make the choice. If you don't choose, if you don't exercise the freewill you are allowed, then the choice is made for you by archetypal forces.

7:50 - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche interpreted the function of alcohol to be the removal of the feeling of duality; i.e. the separation of one ego from the collective

I found you analyzing very interesting using Jung’s Red Book. I personally disagree with just about all of Jung’s interpretations of the mind in your short breakdown. But seeing you explain it to the movie makes all the sense. The Shining isn’t a supernatural movie. It is a human collective mind movie where the family is not connected to one another in a physical, emotional, and spiritual way. But once they enter the hotel and knowing all its entire history. The house turns on their collective conscious. Which then in turn pulls to over drive their mind over matter to the point where they see, feel, create actions in reality. It’s a movie of the collective conscious and mind over matter run amok on an isolated family of three not being able to connect with each other due to their personal faults and not being in a stabile collective group that could have balanced out their issues. It’s all on the perspective of each one going thru a mental breakdown while all are linked mentally. They all had views of a room and it’s layout differently. Until they left the house. Danny memorized the maze layout that never changed and tricked his father who now could not “see” where he was. Where he fooled him in getting lost inside and dying.

That Turbo Kid game looks pretty neat!

A message to take with us through the ages, it is not what we cannot control (i.e. our blood relatives, circumstances, what stresses us out physically/mentally) that determine who we are, it is what we CAN control (i.e. our choices and sense of responsibility)!