The Overlook Hotel as an Ontological Agent: Object-Oriented Ontology and Film Analysis

In this article, I move beyond the usual human-centred perspectives that so often possess film analysis, directing attention instead to the significance and agency of objects themselves. By anchoring this discussion in the framework of objectoriented ontology (OOO), I argue that every object in a film can act not merely as part of the backdrop but also as an agentic presence in its own right. I propose conceptualising the object as an ontological unit existing beyond its outward attributes, independent of human experience. Focusing on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), I contend that the Overlook Hotel is depicted as an almost living, ominous entity, enveloping the audience in a way that aesthetically reveals the film’s phenomenal–noumenal duality. I then connect OOO’s ideas—such as the tension between object and its qualities, the asymmetry of metaphor, and vicarious causation—to the film’s visual and auditory components. I summarise this approach as the film’s process of reframing itself as a new object and thereby making the viewer’s experience a constitutive element of its ontology. Therefore, in the case of The Shining, I argue that the Overlook Hotel—laden with cultural codes—operates as an independent subject within the cinematic universe, thereby prompting a thorough re-evaluation of the ontological position of objects.