No.35
No.35 is an external shot of the hotel. Because of the heavy amount of snow, the size of the hotel has been greatly diminished, the mountain behind it also gone.
The time of day is impossible to discern; it’s a visual disorientation.
American History/Culture
“Make Every Indian A Tree”
This line is a quote from General Amherst to his (someone) giving the order to give the infested blankets to the Native Americans. In the letter, there is the promise to “make every Indian a tree”.
This is a constructed environment and the tree placement is intentional. They’re set up mimicking an image of Native Americans circling the school that holds their kidnapped children.
Domestic abuse
If the snowstorm is a metaphor, we’re in the thick of it now.
The external shot of the hotel serves as reiteration that the grand hotel has now become a normal looking home.
The Maze
Time:
Much of the establishing shots have been indicating time and a sense of pacing for the day. The amount of snowdrift makes it impossible.
Trees
This is a constructed environment and the tree placement is intentional. They’re set up mimicking an image of Native Americans circling the school that holds their kidnapped children.
Cabin Fever
A “no turning back now” sense is provided, given that the entire concave parking lot is now overfilled with snow.
No.33 and No.35 show a distinct shift in snowfall. Whereas Jack could have chosen to come outside before, now he no longer has that choice. The snowstorm didn’t so much create the issues present in the Torrance’s relationship/Overlook Hotel as much as exacerbate an issue already there. See: “Is there something bad here?”
Ghost Story
Similar to Cabin Fever, this shows the hotel becoming absorbed in ‘disorientation’. Could signify disorientation in Jack’s mental state.
Opening the chapter with an establishing shot that diminishes the grand hotel into a ranch style home carves out the message that this is becoming the Torrance’s “normal home life”.
Establishing Shots of the hotel
Continued from No.33 is Grygory Ligeti’s Lontano