USA, fire in the hotel of Stanley Kubrick’s film The Shining: the building is safe

It has nothing to do with the malevolent room 237. Nor the ancient Indian cemetery. And not even the terrifying Grady twins. The fire broke out Thursday evening in the historic Oregon hotel used in 1980 by Stanley Kubrick for the horror film masterpiece The Shining it was generated from the burning ashes of one of the fireplaces. The flames reached the attics and were contained two hours later thanks to the intervention of four teams of firefighters.

The exteriors of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining

The Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood was one of the places selected by Kubrick to shoot some scenes of the film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. Built entirely by hand and inaugurated in 1937 by then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor, it became a national monument in 1977. Kubrick used the hotel for exterior scenes, although King had been inspired by another large hotel, the Stanley, California. Aerial views of the Timberline, transformed into the Overlook Hotel in the film fiction, open the film whose interiors were shot in the Elatere Studios in Hertfordshire, England. Among Kubrick’s numerous changes and adaptations compared to the book, there is also the room number of the famous “Redrum”, which goes from 217 to 237, apparently at the insistence of the management of the Timberlinesworried about the negative and scary image of the room on future customers.

An iconic hotel of horror cinema

Thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s film, the Overlook Hotel has been transformed into one of the most famous and beloved locations in horror cinema. As the director himself said in a famous interview: “I wanted the hotel to feel authentic, rather than similar to those traditionally spooky hotels you see in the cinema. I believed that the labyrinthine layout and large rooms of the hotel would alone provide a ‘quite scary atmosphere. (…) It seemed to me that the perfect guide for this type of approach could be found in Kafka’s literary style.”

Over the years, the most disparate, fascinating and bizarre analyzes have been undertaken. A kaleidoscope of presumed meanings and theories, summarized in the documentary Room 237. But regardless of what one wants to read behind Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, the aura of The Shining continues to shine since it was screened for the first time. In short, the morning continues to have gold in its mouth and the notes of “Midnight, The Stars and You” still echo in the party room. So, thanks to the firefighters who prevented an unsurpassed architectural icon of the seventh century from ending up in ashes. art.