hol and mysticism rather than art and creation. Jack's obsession leads him toward an inevitable meeting with Joe Black, and even time becomes distorted along the way. The screen titles move from months to days to hours as Jack nears the moment when his mad desire for the immortality of death-a kind of Freudian Thanatos goaded by his society-causes him to lose all sanity.The Shining also comments on racism in United States, with the Overlook Hotel as a symbol for America. During the interview, an American flag and a miniature ax sit on Stuart Ullman's desk. In addition, red, white, and blue reappear throughout the film as the dominant color scheme for wardrobe. Ullman tells Wendy (in a line of dialogue that does not appear in the novel): "This site is supposed to be located on an Indian burial ground, and I believe they actually had to repel a few Indian attacks as they were building it." Indian artwork appears throughout the film in wall hangings, floor designs, carpets, and architectural details. Jack, representing the weak, exploitative American male, shows blatant disregard for Native American motifs as he hurls a tennis ball at them. Bill Blakemore of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "The Shining is explicitly about America's general inability to admit to the gravity of the genocide of the Indians-or, more specifically, its ability to 'overlook' that genocide." 6 America wants to forget about its brutality toward the Indians, just as Jack wants to forget about his brutality toward his son.Danny's first and most frequent shining shows a river of blood gush from an elevator shaft framed by Indian artwork, yet the river makes no noise; it is a mute nightmare. The blood represents the bloody foundation upon which the United States was built-a foundation that is now ignored and overlooked. The United States broke away from Great Britain in order to escape its empiricism and values, only to become more violent and headstrong than its an...
