SCENE 4 : EYES WIDE SHUT

In this scene, Jack contacts Wendy by telephone. He talks in riddles and in ambiguities so as not to betray his true feelings - possibly the first sign that the hotel is influencing his behaviour or that he is economical with the truth. Behind him stands a motionless concierge dressed in a crimson red - which becomes quite unsettling on repeat viewings - a throw back to a bygone age of serfdom and slavery, of privilege, power, and perversion.

Danny then has a vision (as used in the trailer), and blacks out. The use of the two girls seen first in this sequence was inspired by Diane Arbus’ photograph “Identical twins”. The photograph, showing two near identical sisters, was taken by a friend of Kubricks in 1967. In the film, the Grady twins were played by two sisters, aged 8 and 10, who were almost - but not quite identical : in keeping with the distorted symmetry of the rest of the film, where there is both the yin and yang, the light and dark side, good and evil, left and right, Danny and Tony, Charles and Delbert Grady, The Overlook and Jack.

The following scene with the doctor is excised from the European cut of the film. This scene makes it explicit the nature of, and the relationship Danny has with Tony : Tony is the boy who lives in his mouth, in the fashion of many persons imaginary friends, and appeared at the time that Jack Torrance first struck Danny : Tony is in many ways, Danny’s guardian angel. In the European Cut of the film, due to this deletion, this has to be largely assumed.

The other factor missing from this film is of larger significance. The information regarding Jacks alcoholic past and also the issue of domestic violence is not revealed until far later in the film : in the European version, the viewer/voyeur does not know that Jack has brought his own demons into the hotel with him, and he is fighting a losing battle with those, as well as those of the Overlook.