What important visual message was Stanley Kubrick telling us in this shot filmed in the same mirror that Wendy later sees “Redrum” in?
The fictitious town of Stovington, Vermont is mentioned in 4 of Stephen King’s novels, and it’s the only direct visual link in the movie to his novel. What’s printed on Jack’s t-shirt is meaningless to moviegoers but it’s a well-known name in Stephen King circles. What’s interesting is that for some strange reason Stanly Kubrick shows it to us backwards, “NOTGNIVOTS”. It’s reversed because we’re looking at it in a mirror. The inverted word is a metaphor because as I will show you we’re viewing Stephen King’s entire novel the same way, in a mirror; Stanley Kubrick’s special mirror, his version of “The Shining” where everything may turn out to be the opposite of what you think. I can’t think of any other movie where reading the source novel was so enlightening. You cannot have a through understanding of Stanley Kubrick’s “Shining” without looking at what he did to Stephen King’s story. Viewers have often wondered why so much was changed from the novel but just exactly what did he do to a
