Cryptokubrology: Frame 237s

There is a view by which it can be shown, or more or less demonstrated, that there never has been a coincidence. That is, in anything like a final sense. By a coincidence is meant a false appearance, or suggestion, or relations among circumstances. But anybody who accepts that there is an underlying oneness of all things, accepts that there are no utter absences or relations among circumstances --
Or that there are no coincidences...

~ Charles Fort, Wild Talents, 1932.

The title to Rodney Ascher's 2012 documentary Room 237 refers to a room in the haunted hotel featured in The Shining, which a character is warned to never enter. But, of course, it means much more than that.

The [Torrance] family* arrives at the [Overlook] hotel on closing day and is given a tour. The chef, Dick Hallorann [played by Scatman Crothers], surprises Danny [Torrance, played by Danny Lloyd] by telepathically offering him ice cream. Dick explains to Danny that he and his grandmother shared this telepathic ability, which he calls "shining." Danny asks if there is anything to be afraid of in the hotel, particularly room 237. Hallorann tells Danny that the hotel has a "shine" to it along with many memories, not all of which are good. He also tells Danny to stay away from room 237.
[*Jack Torrance is played by Jack Nicholson; Wendy Torrance is played by Shelley Duvall.] ~ Wikipedia

Can the "237" phenomenon "shine" beyond Stanley Kubrick's film?

I decided to test this by experimentally taking the random selection of "Frame 237s" from a Alfred Hitchcock film database to see what such an exercise would demonstrate.

As the author of the site "1000 Frames of Hitchcock" notes, it is "an attempt to reduce each of the 52 available major Alfred Hitchcock films down to just 1000 frames. The aim of the project is to create a library of images which can be used to illustrate blog posts, web articles and reviews," and so forth. 

So, to be clear, for this random analysis, the 1000 frames are not picked by Alfred Hitchcock nor me, but merely by film researchers who selected them and numbered them using their own criteria as a means to summarize each Hitchcock film. I then found a few examples of the frames numbered "237." I used the "Frame 237s" that popped to the top of my Google image search, without any discrimination against one film over another.

Obviously, Hitchcock was a great filmmaker and his motion pictures have a certain style, but it was rather intriguing that these "237s" tend to be rather reflective. Is it a theme of what these "237s" reveal?

Reflecting on paintings...

Reflecting on where the characters are headed...

Reflecting what someone else is thinking, saying, or indicating...

Having the viewer reflecting on the scene, from a distance...

In one dramatic instance, making the reflection overt, via a mirror...

What do you think? What's your thoughts while reflecting on these frames?

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Cryptokubrology: "A useful methodology for deconstructing cinema, history, and synchronicity." ~ says Alex Fulton, January 31, 2017.

Cryptokubrology has been defined as "digging through the works of Stanley Kubrick on the premise that its body is a muted mass of coded cabalistic ministrations comparable (in scope) to the works of William Shakespeare, but incomparable (in complexity) to anything in recorded history. In fact, Cryptokubrology has led to an entirely different view of so-called 'history' itself." Source.

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Other postings on Cryptokubrology and 237:

Birdman Copycats The Shining: Getting the Room 237 Treatment

Cryptokubrology: Two Jacks

Frame 237 to Room 237, from The Shining to Westworld

Kubrick Red: Redrum, Redrug and More

More 237: Scorpion and The Shining

IKEA Even Set The Clock At 2:37

Beyond Room 237: Pitch Perfect 237 and 9/11

Flight 237, Obama's 237, and Room 237

Frame 237 to Room 237, from The Shining to Westworld

Frame 237. November 22, 1963.

Besides the 35th President of the USA John F. Kennedy, two other notables died on November 22, 1963: Aldous Huxley, English novelist and philosopher (b. 1894) and C. S. Lewis, Irish-English author, poet, and critic (b. 1898).

On Nov. 21, 1963, film critics were planning to catch a special preview of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove the next day. But when the news came from Dallas on Nov. 22, those plans changed.

"NEVER HELD ... THE DAY KENNEDY WAS SHOT," one guest scribbled on an invitation that resurfaced Friday on Reddit and other social media (see below), with many identifying the handwriting as Kubrick's own. Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2013. 

A photograph from a JFK meeting at NASA, allegedly in 1961, is attended by individuals who seem reflected in characters appearing in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 Dr. Strangelove.

One of the subtle but significant characters in The Shining (1980) is Stuart Ullman. Ullmann is a German surname also associated with Jewish Europeans. It means "man from Ulm." 

Ulm is a city in the federal German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the River Danube. The Battle of Ulm on October 16-19,1805 was a series of skirmishes, at the end of the Ulm Campaign, which allowed Napoleon I to trap an entire Austrian army under the command of Karl Freiherr Mack von Leiberich with minimal losses and to force its surrender near Ulm in the Electorate of Bavaria.

Most people who identified as Jewish were wiped out in Ulm during World War II.

In The Shining, Barry Nelson wore a toupee which made him look like JFK at a desk with the U.S. flag. Nelson was the first actor to play James Bond, in Casino Royale in 1954 on television, eight years before Sean Connery got the nod for the Bond movie role in Dr. No. His last major film character was as Stuart Ullman in 1980, in The Shining. His last movie appearance (uncredited) was as an "actor on television" in the 1982's Poltergeist. Barry Nelson died on April 7, 2007, while traveling in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, nine days before his 90th birthday. The cause of his death was unknown.

Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is a historically strange location - known for "ringing rocks" and Thunderbird sightings. The following films are linked to Bucks County: M. Night Shyamalan's 2002 film Signs was entirely set and shot there; Stephen King's The Stand has one scene set there; all of The Last Broadcast (except the NJ footage) was shot in Bucks County; and one of Steven Spielberg's earliest films, Something Evil, is set in Bucks County.

Scatman Crothers played Dick Hallorann in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Here he is killed by Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson). In the real world, Crothers died on November 22, 1986, on the 23rd anniversary of President John "Jack" Kennedy's assassination.

Stephen King's home state telephone area code is 207. Area code 217 is central Illinois.

JFK's Apollo takeoff for the moon makes an appearance in The Shining.

Stephen King's book versus Stanley Kubrick's film.

The Maze from HBO's 2016 Westworld first appears, most clearly, via a skullcap.

Noted by Alex Fulton: from Westworld, "Anomaly Detected" at 23:07.

Oli Dunlop writes, "It emphasis the characters internal conflict, a choice - 93 (confirm) 42 (cancel) - two different paths."

237/327

Campaign 2016 memes with The Shining themes make the rounds.

Folkore, fake news, or fakelore? The Cruz family is alleged to be involved with Lee Harvey Oswald without any firm evidence, apparently by Trump campaign operatives.

In The Shining, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and his son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who is plagued by psychic premonitions.

In real life, it has been nearly 15 years since the 67-year-old actress Shelley Duvall has starred in a film. She struggles with mental illness. November 2016 articles note that Stanley Kubrick’s daughter, Vivian Kubrick, has started a GoFundMe campaign to help out The Shining actress Shelley Duvall.

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