SOURCE: “The Black Maria Rides Again: Being a Reflection on the Present State of American Film with Special Respect to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining,” in MLN, Vol. 95, No. 5, December, 1980, pp. 1360-366.

In the following essay, Miers asserts that “to understand Kubrick's achievement one must attempt a reading of the mass-market book on which it is based.”

This orbe of starres fixed infinitely up extendeth it self in altitude sphericallye, and therefore immovable the pallace of foelicitye garnished with perpetuall shininge glorious lightes innumerable, farr excellinge our sonne both in quantitye and qualitye, the very court of caelestiall angelles devoid of greefe and replenished with perfite endlesse joye the habitacle for the elect.

—Thomas Digges, A Perfit Description of the Caelestiall Orbes (1576)

Cinema is the continuation of life by other means.

—Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

It is a truism of film criticism that the movies were a visionary dream even...