Film: Interpreting The Shining

Ever since high school or so, I've always been fond of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining, and it remains one of the creepiest and best-made horror films I know if.  Having recently also viewed the documentary Room 237, I was enlightened on the notion that there is a wealth of subtexts hidden within The Shining.  I'm still not certain that I'd give credence to the notion that there are moon-landing-conspiracy messages within Kubrick's film, but the other theories have been intriguing enough to warrant a deeper look.  Based on my recent viewing of The Shining and Room 237, I've developed the following thoughts regarding the movie that its deeper themes.

"Wendy...I'm home!"

If you are not familiar with the film, then I do recommend seeing it, for it is a classic in the horror genre, and a one-of-a-kind experience.  It is adapted from the Stephen King novel, albeit not that closely, since director Stanley Kubrick had ideas of his own, which did not include the existence of the supernatural.  For those who want a synopsis, here it is (be warned that this whole article may contains spoilers):  the film is all about a family moving into the Overlook Hotel one winter to serve as the hotel's caretakers:  Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is the father, a writer suffering from a creative block, and with a history of violence against his son caused by alcoholism, but he is going on five months sober.  His son Danny (Danny Lloyd) has a weird split personality, which is later identified as "The Shining," which is like a psychic perception of the past, present, or future.  Wendy Torrance (Shelly Duvall) accompanies the family as well.  The hotel seems like a nice place, but has a terrible history of violence behind it, for one of the previous caretakers went insane and axe-murdered his family.  As things go on, the hotel becomes snowbound and cut-off from the rest of the world, and Jack starts to feel the stress the isolation, the burden of responsibility (which, funnily enough, has been lifted by his wife anyway, but it never stops Jack from fretting about his "work"), and the frequent visitations from the ghosts of the hotel (and it's never clear as to whether these ghosts are really there, or just figments of Jack's own imagination).  Inevitably, Jack reverts back to his alcohol problem, and with the encouragement of the ghosts he sees, he proceeds to chase down his family with an axe in his hands.

What else could this film possibly mean, beyond some crazy guy wanting to chop up his family? Turns out that there's plenty to contemplate, given the film's thoughtful compositions and stark imagery.  Stanley Kubrick was one of the most intellectual directors:  he was well-educated, he read a lot (including books on subliminal messages and Freudian symbolism), and he had a penchant for arranging the scenes in his movies in very specific ways.  He had an expert knowledge on photography.  Above all, he sought to make films that were different and intellectually-challenging.  The Shining is no exception, and after some contemplation, I've concluded that there are at least a few themes worth exploring...

This might be how you'll look at me and this article after reading...

Oppressive Locations

One of the most obvious features of the Overlook Hotel is that it is a lonely, isolated place, which becomes surrounded by impassible snow.  As the film goes on, every room becomes darker and darker, making it all seem really dim and bleak.  The three main characters have the entire place to themselves; every hall and room is huge and cavernous.  For the film's final act, it makes for an effectively disorienting labyrinth.  Many rooms have unique color schemes; some of the most oppressive-looking locations are drenched completely in red, appearing bloodied, or perhaps hellish in nature.

In the film's beginning, when Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) talks to Danny about the Shining, he goes on to explain that places shine too, and they leave traces behind that some people (especially people who "shine") can pick up on.  As it turns out, the Overlook Hotel was built on the site of an Indian burial ground.

Considering that there are no Indians in the movie, it might seem like a passing, irrelevant detail.  But for some odd reason, the Native American influence is everywhere in the film.  The Colorado Lobby in the hotel is crammed wall-to-wall with Indian stuff:  there are Indian patterns on the floor, patterned rugs, patterns on the ceiling, on the walls, ordaining the big red elevator, artifacts in Mr. Ullman's office, it's all over the china, and at one point, Wendy even wears a bright yellow jacket with Indian patterns on it.  Next to Mr. Ullman's office, you can see an abstract painting of a Native American of some sort.  Pictures of Native Americans appear on various walls. 

Could this BE any more Native American?

Even though Native Americans aren't involved with the story at all, they are heavily imbued in American history.  They have been tragically pushed and exterminated throughout the last couple hundred years from the expansion of American settlers, and Colorado is filled with its own history of such conflicts.  All of American history and civilization has been built on the blood of countless Native Americans, just like the Overlook Hotel has been built on their bones.  In fact, the hotel's elevator shaft would dig deep into the ground, so when the doors open and all the blood pours out, it's as if the blood of all those Indians are being unleashed in a gradual and horrifyingly slow torrent.

The Overlook Hotel had a bleak history as it was, thanks to its previous caretaker (Delbert Grady, played by Phillip Stone).  As things go on, its apparent that there's a whole host of ghosts at the hotel, presenting shades of the past.  But while these ghosts appear on-screen as high-class party animals, the history of the Native Americans may present an untold and forgotten host of spirits not shown on-screen, but could be ominously represented by the blood-elevator opening, or the freaky voices in the music score.  If nothing else, this is one small detail that could subliminally hint at the horrors of human history, extending the film's themes of domestic violence to a world-wide scale.

There is another possible reference to the horrors of human history:

Nazis Are Everywhere!

There is a theory floating around that The Shining makes references to Nazi Germany.  A lot of this involves numerology:  the number 42 can be seen in certain places (such as on Danny's sweater), which may be a reference to the year 1942, the year in which the holocaust was in full swing.  There are also multiples of 42 scattered around (especially the number 7, such as the stack of 7-Ups in the kitchen area), to (supposedly) reinforce this idea.  In one scene, the characters even watch the film Summer of 42.  I'm personally not that convinced by the presence of such numbers, but I did notice that there are Heinz products everywhere in the film (mostly, the storeroom scenes, where there are Heinz sauces all over).  The name Heinz is indeed a Germanic name.  One other odd thing I saw was that, in Mr. Ullman's office, there is a stein on his desk being used as a pen holder.  So, it may be possible that Germany is being subtly referenced in certain spots.

As it is with the massacre of Native Americans, referencing the holocaust and the terrible genocide of six million Jews is another stark reference to the terror of human history.  Even though the holocaust doesn't play into the story at all, the clues above may provide enough of a subconscious connection to think of Germany, and ultimately think of the Nazis.  There are a couple of scenes that may directly reference the holocaust though:

• When the Torrance family first enters the hotel, the scenes fades into the next:  the big pile of luggage that was present in the background fades almost perfectly with a group of people standing around in the next scene.  When the holocaust occurred, there were huge stacks of luggage left behind by the Jews, to be confiscated by the Nazis; the fact that the film shows people being encased within luggage may hint at the inhumane compartmentalization of human beings, in addition to invoking the image of abandoned luggage.
• Toward the end, Danny crawls into a metal kitchen oven to hide from Jack.  It invokes the memory of the ovens used to burn human beings at places like Auschwitz (and, holocaust sites are real-life examples of "places that shine").
• In the film's final shot, we see the 1920s photograph with Jack front-and-center; when it fades into the close-up, Jack's hairline fades and appears directly over his upper lip, appearing just like Hitler's mustache.

I know this looks really weird, but in the middle of the scenes fading, the people in the next scene overlap the luggage in the background.

Fading into the last shot, it looks like Jack has a slight Hitler mustache going on.  Also, the woman's dress crosses over his face like some kind of freaky mask.

 American Conquests

So, the Overlook Hotel is a focal point in space and time, where the memories of such atrocities as the slaughter of Native Americans and millions of people during the holocaust, are channeled in the form of subliminal clues.  These connections would not only affect the collective psyche of the audience, but would also reinforce the notion that the hotel "shines" to the characters in the movie.

But you'll notice that none of the ghosts shown on-screen are actually Native Americans, or Jews, or any other type of victim.  The only victims shown are the twin girls that Grady butchered.  Every other ghost you see are not victims, but appear as former residents of the hotel in some eternal ballroom party.  They're all flashy and debonaire, dressed in fine suits and flashy art-deco-era dresses.  And they all gather in the Gold Room, where booze is dispensed liberally by the ghost bartender Lloyd.  Among this group, Grady approaches Jack and offers him a place among the ranks of these rich and powerful spirits.  Every time Jack is in the Gold Room, he is treated like royalty, up until the film's end, where the final photographs shows him as the life of the party.

'Sup?

It's the point of both the movie and the original book that the ghosts are actively seducing Jack and wanting to assimilate him among their ranks (although, in the move, Kubrick revealed that Jack is a reincarnation of one of the hotel's former guests, as seen in the photo at the end, and the ghosts just want him to return to power).  They went so far as possessing Jack in the original book.  The movie, however, is perhaps a little more frightening; they are able to push Jack over the edge and use his insanity to lure him in.

The ghosts of the hotel are basically elitists, and Jack himself is looking to be an elitist himself.  As the film marches on, Jack proves to be more and more of an elitist jerk as he goes on, whether he realizes it himself or not.  In one defining scene, Wendy approaches Jack with a friendly smile and offers friendly conversation and comfort; Jack just bites her head off, and goes on to blame Wendy for bringing him down and preventing him from reaching the levels of greatness that he strives for.  Later on, he rants and raves about the responsibilities he's entrusted with.  The sad but funny thing is, Jack has never really done anything to be the caretaker for the hotel:  Wendy was the one going around, checking the boilers, cooking and cleaning, and talking on the radio.  All Jack was doing was writing (and even that was not substantial).

Jack:  man, or beast?

The whole point of Jack being there is to do a job of some kind.  In the context of the movie, he's the caretaker.  On a larger level, however, Jack could represent anybody hired by some authority to do something.  More specifically, Mr. Ullman in the interview scenes appears very distinctly like JFK, leading many to speculate that this scene represents Kubrick's own employment with the government for faking the Apollo moon landings (which I don't plan on covering; see the film Room 237 for more info).  If nothing else though, this could very well be an American authority, like the government, hiring somebody to do some kind of dirty work.

Is it me, or could this guy look like a Government official, with his suit and little American flag, and Kennedy-style haircut? Also notice the mugs in front of him with the Native American patterns, the stein to the right, the curtains behind him, and whatever that thing is to the left below the curtains.

The entire interview scene is a weird, surreal, and nutty experience overall.  For one thing, the office contains a window with a view of the outside.  But if you watch it carefully, the camera follows Jack all the way into this office, so you can see that the window should not be facing the outside at all; if anything, it would show a view of the elevator shaft.  When Jack enters, he's introduced to Mr. Ullman's secretary.  Why does this guy have a secretary? Where does she sit? What's her job? Seriously, she has no desk there, and just stands off to the side doing whatever she's told.  Then a guy named Bill comes in (played by Barry Dennen), who appears very glum and ticked-off all the time.  The way this guy sulks, the way he takes orders, and the way he tails everybody else, suggests that he is an indignant figure who doesn't necessarily like his job.  He is basically a subservient henchman, sizing Jack up, and seeing if he has what it takes.  After all, Bill is a guy who would have seen the terrors of the hotel, and only he really knows what's in store for Jack.

Who is that woman to the left? Why is she there? What's with that window? What's with the Native American painting to the left?

What are they looking for in Jack? On one hand, it could just be just like it appears:  they're looking for a new caretaker.  Or, could it be that Mr. Ullman is himself some kind of ghost, looking for a stone-cold killer to continue the hotel's legacy?

If nothing else, the hotel is identified as a place for the elitists:  it is explicitly stated that all the best people stayed at the hotel.  Jack got to meet all the best people in the Gold Room.  One of them straight-up said that, if Jack wanted to be one of them, he'd have to murder his family.  The fact that Jack is hired to take care of this elitist hotel develops that initial thought in him that he has to do his best and not disappoint Mr. Ullman:  his talk with Grady pushes that even further, driving his continuous evolution into becoming an elitist himself.

As time goes on, Jack starts to believe that, more and more, he is above and beyond his family.  When his wife and son are playing outside in the snow, he's on the inside, staring out at them in this cold-looking room, with a freaked-out expression on his face.  As things go on, Wendy continues to be warm to Danny, but Jack remains cold and somewhat awkward.  He tells Danny "I wouldn't do anything to hurt ya," but it never sounds convincing; it sounds scary as hell.  It sounds like something you'd say to a pig before slaughtering it.

Thus, by the film's end, Jack becomes the elitist monster:  essentially, a conqueror of sorts, on a level not that much far off from a guy like Hitler (and, as mentioned earlier, the final cross-fade makes Jack look like Hitler for a brief moment).  And for the Overlook Hotel, that's perfect, because it is the all-American focal point of the terror of American history.  Not only is it because of the Native American connection, but also because Jack was hired by a guy that looks like an American authority figure.

If you look at the storeroom that the characters go into frequently, you'll see nothing but wall-to-wall food.  This is where you'll see all the Heinz products, and all the Calumet products (which also has images of Native Americans plastered all over them).  But that's not all; the storerooms also has rice, noodles, canned fruits, and even Tang on the shelves.  These goods cover all manner of products from all corners of the world, in addition to all kinds of popular name brands.  The point of this, as I see it, is a representation of American capitalism:  the storeroom essentially contains all the goods obtained from commerce, or perhaps even conquest.  They have products from afar, and they even have stuff used in outer space.

Best product placements ever! Notice all the Heinz stuff, the Calumet, and Tang in the background, among other great American name-brand stuff.

If you draw a parallel between the stockpile, and the historical terrors outlined above, then you could almost think of the storerooms as the spoils of war, and it's Jack's job to protect those interests.  Maybe even at the expense of his own family.  Is that no different than a soldier or a spy working for the government? Could it be that Jack is contributing to the continuing saga of the nation's, or the world's, bloody history?

Something about this reminds me of the dragon Smaug sleeping on his pile of gold...

The Labyrinth

Jack inevitably becomes the story's main antagonist of monstrous proportions.  At the end, he even starts shouting and screaming out in incoherent, beastly cries.  In these final scenes, Jack chases Danny throughout the hotel, and into the hedge maze; both locations are so complex and twisty that they are distinctly labyrinthine.

In fact, there are a few clues that may suggest that The Shining harkens back to the legend of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth:

• That shot I mentioned before, where Jack looks out the window with this psycho expression on his face:  his head is tilted down, eyes looking up, much like a bull would look up from under its brow before goring somebody with its horns.
• When the twins are first seen on-screen, there is a skiing poster off to the left.  It is especially ominous, because Mr. Ullman confirmed that there is no skiing at the hotel.  Some viewers believe that this poster resembles the Minotaur, because of the way the figure on the poster is posed and lit.  Also, through the doorway behind the twins, I believe there's a picture of some kind on the wall that appears to be a bull-like figure.
• The actual hedge maze, is a literal labyrinth.  It is perhaps most apparent in that weird overhead shot of the model, where Wendy and Danny are visible as tiny figures at its center.

Notice the poster on the left, which is a skiing poster, but looks like some kind of dark evil figure.  Notice the rodeo poster to the right.  Notice the poster in the middle.  It's all bull, man!

  Setting up the film's climax as a retelling of the Labyrinth story is great for the context of a horror story, because this is where all the action and thrills are, and it is very disorientating and suspenseful to watch these characters running around lost in the maze.  On a deeper level yet, this could be seen as the maze of one's mind; especially Jack's mind, who becomes so lost in the maze that he stops and becomes frozen in its center.  This could represent Jack regressing so deep in his own insanity that he becomes literally frozen, or stuck, there (and ultimately, at least in his own mind, becomes part of the never-ending Gold Room party).

Must memorize all of this before the movie ends!

Being stuck in the labyrinth spells certain doom, as the cold sets in and the person stuck in the maze becomes a giant icicle.  The same thing could happen to us as a society, if we traverse through the labyrinth of the future without remembering how we got into the maze in the first place.  Danny managed to escape the labyrinth by retracing his steps, going backwards and allowing Jack to bypass him and become lost.  We need to do the same:  retrace our steps in history, to prevent ourselves from repeating the atrocities of the past and escaping certain doom.

He's smart.

When Danny is being chased, Jack screams at him "You can't get away! I'm right behind you!" This is not only Jack saying that he's right behind Danny; this could also represent centuries of terrible bloodshed and atrocities always chasing us as a species, threatening to herd us into a corner and overwhelm us in repeated onslaughts.

History Repeating Itself

Therein lies the biggest point I see in this film:  the terror of repeating history.  In direct association with the plot, it's the terror of having Jack Torrance repeat the murder that Grady committed.  On a larger level, with the mention of the Native Americans and Nazi Germany, there's also the terror of allowing those atrocities to be repeated.  The film also makes mention of the Donner Party:  there could be the fear of having that incident repeated.

As Danny proves in the film's end, the only way to avoid repeating history - to avoid the monstrous Minotaur of historic violence - is to look back.  It is a dangerous move for him to stop, but in doing so, he took the time to study the steps he took, work backwards, and find his escape.  When Jack comes to that point, he stops following Danny's footsteps, because they disappear.  He finds himself at a three-way intersection, and becomes hopelessly lost.  Thus, Danny - the future generation - escapes doom.

SPOILER ALERT:  Jack didn't make it...

From that moment onward, Danny and Wendy escape in the Snowcat.  Even though they'd have to descend down the mountain, their last shot shows them ascending up a slope, and into a fog; they're essentially moving on to unknown, uncharted history.

Distractions

What is the biggest obstacle to learning from the past? That would be forgetting the past, and it's easy to forget the past when our society is filled with nonstop distractions.

There are a ton of distractions in The Shining; not necessarily distractions for the audience (well, they might be), but the characters are always engaged in cartoons, TV, or other distractions throughout the film.  Cartoons are especially prominent; there are at least two times when Danny and Wendy watch a Road Runner cartoon (never actually shown on-screen, but you definitely hear the sound effects and theme song).  The Road Runner is especially interesting, because that is a very basic predator-vs-prey conflict in every episode, and it's a reflection on the final labyrinthine chase.

Does this really look cozy to you?

These cartoons contrast so heavily with the bleak nature of the movie that it's obvious just how gaudy and candy-coated they are in the context of everything.  The Road Runner cartoons, for example, is a watered-down representation of a predator chasing its prey.  When Jack busts down the bathroom door to get Wendy, he recites the lines of the Three Little Pigs; the original story and cartoon for that is pretty slappy and lightweight, but coming out of Jack's mouth and with the context of murder, there's suddenly nothing cute about it anymore.

A fine line between cartoony, and scary as frakk!

To further harp on the distractions of the commercial world, Jack goes on to scream "Here's Johnny!!!" at Wendy.  The scene is easily the most famous one in the movie, but it remains one of the wickedest and most menacing parts, even if it does illicit a little chuckle.

Throughout the picture, you'll see cartoons on the walls, cartoons on sweaters, and in the backgrounds of various scenes (even the scene where Dick calls his buddy at the garage).  At times, the characters also engage in more explicit forms of entertainment:  Jack reads a Playgirl magazine while waiting on Mr. Ullman, and Dick surrounds himself with erotic artwork in his hotel room.

In nearly every scene that these distractions occur, they contrast with the rest of the movie, because all of these scenes are still so dark and somber that the cartoons (or erotica) lose their effectiveness and reveal just how useless they really are.  Early in the film, Jack even makes a comment that reinforces this notion; when talking about the Donner Party, Wendy wants to stop the conversation because she's concerned that it's too much for Danny, but Danny says that it's okay, because he learned about cannibalism on TV.  That's when Jack sardonically says, "See? It's okay.  He saw it on the television." With the way he says this line, you can tell that he's harping on how watered-down TV makes things, further contributing to our collective forgetfulness of history and its brutality.

As the characters become absorbed in these distractions, they are still surrounded by dread and darkness, and eventually, they are forced to stop what they're doing and confront it.  This ties in to the main theme of forgetting about the past, because the story never really moves anywhere when these scenes occur; nobody talks or thinks about what happened to the older caretakers, much less the full brunt of world history and all its wars.  All that terror is sugar-coated and watered down by their onslaught of commercialization, cartoons, and television; when people aren't reflecting on history, they allow it to repeat, and violence happens again and again.

What has been seen cannot be un-seen...

Through the ability of Shining, however, Danny achieves more cognizance of the terrors of the Overlook Hotel.  He is the first one to see the blood-elevator, which in turn, could represent the collective bloodshed of human history being unleashed to his mind.  In the end, Wendy is made to face this terror as well, when she's running around the hotel seeing ghosts everywhere.  Only Jack is left oblivious to the blood-elevator, and he's the one left freezing in the labyrinth.  Thus, without actually seeing the unleashed horror of the blood-elevator, or the horror of all the blood of history, Jack condemns himself to repeating the cycle of violence, and getting himself trapped.

The blood of all human history, unleashed! Notice even more Native American patterns on the elevator frame, and along the walls to the left.

The Sounds of Madness

We've established that human history is full of so much bloody carnage, so there should be millions of ghosts flying around everywhere, right? We only see a small amount in the Overlook Hotel (and as the center of elitist power, all those ghosts are essentially the evil, bloodthirty, megalomaniac ghosts, who just want to repeat the cycles of violence).  Where are all the other ghosts in the world?

The answer is that they're in the movie's soundtrack.  There are many key scenes where the music score contributes to the terror that's on screen.  A lot of what you hear are weird and unsettling sounds - heartbeats, odd instruments, and above all, voices.  From the opening scenes to the end, the music score is laden with ghostly chants and voices, which could effectively give a voice to all the spirits that are otherwise not shown on-screen.

In the film's most frantic scenes, the chanting becomes very fast and frantic; it's actually very similar to Don Davis' score for 1999's House on Haunted Hill, making me wonder if Davis was inspired by Wendy Carlos' work in The Shining to replicate that same sensation of ghosts watching the action and adding their cries into it.  In fact, both films cover a very similar concept:  both their respective houses contain a whole mass of ghosts that are actively trying to lure in and assimilate the living into their ranks.  Both films also draw a distinct line between those ghosts that dished out the violence, and those who were the victims; HOHH went so far as to making the ghosts seriously violent, and allowing the atrocities of the past echo into the experiences of the characters, as they actively witness the terrors of the Hill House insane asylum.  I would go so far to say that Jeffrey Combs' character, Dr. Vannacutt, would probably find himself quite at home among the Overlook Hotel's elite.  In regards to The Shining's story overall, it has me wondering if Stephen King was initially inspired by the original Vincent Price film.

Regarding The Shining's film score, it is one of the most effective contributions to the atmosphere and overall tone of the movie.  Even during the opening helicopter shots, the film sets an ominous mood with its use of Dies Irae, a composition that describes the Day of Judgment.  It's perfectly fitting, with the ghostly voices thrown in, that these opening shots would have this music while tracking Jack's car crawling up the mountain, heading toward certain doom.  It's as if the ghosts themselves are following Jack, ready to either deliver their judgment, or watch Jack being judged, at the Overlook Hotel.  In an indirect way, it reminds me of the final act of Pasolini's Salò, which also features an elite class of people who enjoy dispensing misery on people.  In that last circle of torture, the elitists unleash their most direct and most brutal forms of torment, with Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.  Just as those fascists watched the torment from afar, and included the audience in its voyeurism, so too does The Shining throughout the picture.  And it always has the commentary of the ghosts on its soundtrack to make sure that we, the audience, are included in the judgment being passed on the Torrance family, if not all of mankind.

At the Mountains of Madness.  (Curse you Guillermo Del Toro, I really wanted to see that movie!)

The Final Judgment

Upon writing all these random thoughts down, I realize that the film is creeping me out in a deeper fashion than it has before; I suspect it's because there's a lot of underlying terror to the movie that's transparent.  Thinking about the deeper issues, such as the bloodshed of history, the threat of forgetting it all and letting it happen again, is probably far more terrifying than just having Jack running around spouting TV lines with an axe in his hands.  I realize that the image of millions of ghosts and millions of gallons of blood pouring out of the doors of the mind is probably way more invoking and terrifying than anything that's on-screen.  And that's probably what Kubrick wanted:  to make the audience face the terror of human society, the same way he addressed it in A Clockwork Orange, or Full Metal Jacket.

The ultimate point to take away is that The Shining is all about the fear of history repeating itself.  On the surface level, it's the repeat of a homicide.  But where there's homicide, it's not too much of a stretch to think of genocide, or war, or the exploitation of entire nations, of slavery, of suffering, cannibalism, or any other terrible thing that plagues the human race.  Whether implicitly or explicitly, The Shining invokes all of these things as much as it can, to instill a deep psychological fear in every human being in the audience.  You could almost say that Kubrick is intellectually exploiting our human nature to illicit a reaction.  More than just scaring the living frakk out of us though, it all works to remind us of the evils in the world, and that if we allow distractions to overwhelm us, or if we don't think to retrace our steps and learn from our mistakes, we could all end up like Jack, lost in a labyrinth of madness and psychosis, to be frozen eternally.  With our spirits frozen, perhaps we are doomed to repeat our cycles of violence and remained trapped in the maze of the human psyche.

Only by Shining - perceiving beyond the maze and recognizing what's ahead and behind us - can we escape.