I remember the first time that I saw ‘The Shining’. I was 13 years old. My father, being a hardcore Stephen King fanboy, thought it was essential that me and my brother watch this horror genre diamond with him.
At this time in my life, I had yet to read a Stephen King novel or even watched a Stanley Kubrick film. To say that it was sensory overload is putting it lightly.
It blew my mind- Scanners style! from the fantastic storytelling of the books material to the LONG, brilliantly crafted shots and attention to detail or ambiguity. Not to mention the creepy pacing, the odd sights that make you jump out of you seat and supernatural elements that make chills run up and down your spine. Nothing is overused. When The Shining wants to be scary it is. And when I was a teenager, it scared me to death.
‘The Shining’ taps into fears. Fears of isolation, insanity and the fear of helplessness that we get when we find that the father figure, the person whom we rely upon when we are frightened, is the person whom we should be frightened of.
Maybe my father was trying to tell me something. Subconsciously. Or maybe it was Kubrick himself.
‘Room 237’ premieres at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival this week in Park City, Utah. Produced by Tim Kirk and directed by Rodney Ascher.
I was first introduced to Rodneys work via ‘Tucker And Dale VS Evil’ Sundance circa 2010. His short, ‘The S From Hell’ screened right before. If you haven’t seen this and enjoy the idea of logophobics tormented by the Viacom ‘V’, The Hanna-Barbera swirling star or the PBS ‘Faces’ … this will be a sureshot for you, Youtube/Google it.
While, ‘S’ dealt with the most terrifying logo of all time…’Room 237′ investigates the alleged hidden messages within the film ‘The Shining’. I had a chance to ask Rodney some questions about this and the FUTURE of Kubrick (wormfood?) here’s how it went…
How long have you been making films and videos, Rodney?
I’m afraid to count…let’s say more than a decade.
What first got you interested in film? How did you get started?
Growing up I had wanted to be a comic book artist, but since A) I wasn’t quite good enough and B) I thought filmmaking would be more of a fun adventure with a pirate army of friends…I switched courses.
At what age or time in your life did Filmmaking cross from a hobby into something more serious?
It was never a hobby. When I picked film as my major in school I just went with it.
What are some of your favorite American films? Foreign films Television shows?
In no particular order…
American: Robocop, Patty Hearst, Dark Star, Babe, Boogie Nights, eXistenZ, Mullholland Drive, Demon Lover Diary, Night of the Hunter, Stepbrothers, The Limey, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Body Double, Dr Strangelove, The Shining, Glengarry Glenn Ross, The Trial, The Thin Blue Line.
Foreign: Songs From the Second Floor, Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris, Lair of the White Worm, Alphaville, TV: Night Gallery, I, Claudius, Breaking Bad, In Search of, Upright Citizens Brigade, Peepshow (UK), This American Life.
The list could go on and on…
How would you describe your ‘film’ education?
Well, I did study film in college at the University of Miami but certainly I learned as much from sharing notes with my friends, shooting no-budget music videos for Miami’s best industrial acts, from years working on sets in every capacity from PA to storyboard artist to 2nd unit, etc, etc, going to art-houses, multiplexes and (especially?) high school weekends at AMC’s long lost Midnight Movie Express.
Or childhood Sundays parked in front of creature double feature
Where the last act of Rodan would always make me cry. I’ve been teaching editing the past two years and that’s made me think really actively about the process, which was especially useful for 237.
How would you describe your filmmaking process?
It changes from project to project but figuring out the angle of attack is job one. ‘Room 237’ was about finding the right people to interview and then piecing together freestanding 3-8 minute sequences until we crossed some Rubicon (or maybe it was deadline) and started to braid them together, finding exciting links and surprising synchronicities as we go. I shot a music video over the summer, which was about creating a chaotic atmosphere, and shooting long takes with multiple cameras and searching for little moments afterwards. Pretty different projects but I guess in each of them I tried to balance what I could plan ahead for with allowing room for unexpected, interesting things to happen spontaneously.
What do you consider the elements of a good film? A great one?
Atmosphere, characters, story, attitude, and ‘metaphoric possibilities.’ If a movie has the potential to be used as a metaphor to help me describe or understand the world around me (or the people in it) that goes a long way for me to consider it ‘great.’ In a conversation/debate I had a little while back we settled on Godzilla = Climate Change and King Kong = Endangered Species and I think their flexibility as metaphors are part of why those films (characters?) are so great.
What sort of things do you study and consider when watching a film?
Hopefully I just get lost in it and enjoy it, but one thing in particular that attracts my attention and makes me admire a film or want to study it further is strong juxtapositions between picture and sound (or even picture and picture) – Soderbergh in particular has done some great work stretching the traditional marriage of the two. From the “Walk And Talk” section in the Limey where a single conversation is shown unfolding in three different times and places simultaneously to the way a seemingly random and disconnected voice over (in The Informant!) gives us an important key into our protagonists state of mind, he upends the traditional (redundant) way picture and sound typically work together to communicate more complicated ideas.
How did you finance your first short film? I noticed that you had a ‘Kickstarter’ for ‘Room 237’ how did that go?
After college me and two friends teamed up and shot a few music videos together that the bands would pay for (or almost pay for) and when we made the shorts around the same time, we’d just make ’em. We’d keep them cheap enough that we wouldn’t really need to raise much money. The Kickstarter worked – I was a little reluctant to shake the can in public, but Tim Kirk put it together and it picked up steam pretty quickly after being written up in a few places (and then bam! one super-donor came in with 80% of what we asked for!) We’re still in the hole a little but 237 ate up a lot more time than money.
How would you define the actual role that a director is supposed to fill?
1) To clearly visualize the film (in broad strokes, anyway) and 2) help each person involved get the film closer to that vision whether that means a close collaboration or just staying out of their way.
How about the sound design of films, how do you pick the ‘right’ music?
The music (by the amazing Jonathan Snipes and Bill Hutson) was inspired by analogue synth horror scored +/- a couple years of the Shining. For me, a lot of those Goblin/Tangerine Dream scored shared a similar transcendent quality with Philip Glass, so if you could imagine the soundtrack to Lucio Fulci’s Koyaaanisqatsi, that’s kinda what we were going for. And Ian Herzon, my sound designer sat down with me for 5 days creating a deep surround mix. Again, we were going for a design heavier than a lot of more straightforward docs might use, in some ways I want 237 to play almost as a horror film itself.
What brought you to the subject, Room 237?
My friend (and 237 producer) sent me Jay Weidner’s essay about the secret meaning of the Shining and that reignited a long-standing passion for the film and soon we were down the rabbit hole reading as many analyses of the film as we could (and there’s a lot!) When we started doing 237 in earnest. It was wildly satisfying to talk to the people writing these analyses and getting them to expand on what they’ve written.
What do you believe is the real meaning of ‘The Shining’?
For me, it’s about not neglecting your family in order to pursue your own selfish interests. Of course that created a conflict for me while working on this film for no money, sitting at the keyboard working on what may or may not have turned out to be a lot of gibberish and I felt an awful lot like Jack. I just tried to be a little nicer when my wife came by asking me how it was coming.
What other films would you expect to have ‘Da Vinci’ code like messages in them?
I’d guess Jodorworsky, Greenaway, David Lynch and Matthew Barney. Though, Lynch’s movies are the only ones I know very well, and even then I’m hardly an expert. But the Shining seems to attract the most investigation, based I’d guess on Kubrick reputation, methodology, and it’s unique spot on the venn diagram between art film and popular film. I’ve certainly come across interesting thoughts on Avatar and Inception too, but nothing that compares to The Shining.
Did you get your all of questions answered by making this film about it? Or did the answers actually give you even more questions?
If my intention making 237 was to definitively discover and explain ALL the hidden messages in The Shining, I’ve utterly failed. I’ve barely been able to include the tip of the iceberg.
What are you thinking about doing next? What do have in the works?
I’ve got a handful of stuff I’d love to do, but the two that are most similar to 237 would be about the surprising origin of a popular comic book character (and the singular utopian vision of the creator) or comparing and contrasting the effects of vigilante movies and kids shows on urban decay/gentrification.
How about commercial success why has that alluded a talent like yourself?
I like to think there’s still time for that to change.
Where can out readers view your films and learn more about you?
I’ve got a couple videos up on Rodneyascher.com, though right now, I stripped it down a bit to be more relevant to 237.
And…what do you see as the FUTURE of Kubrick?
I hear they discovered a script he wrote with Jim Thompson called ‘Lunatic At Large’ (maybe I can pitch to direct it!) and his influence will continue for a long time. Oddly enough my students don’t really care much about 2001 (“too slow, those monkeys are fake”), but they’re all into The Shining.
http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120136/room_237