At the 98th Academy Awards nominees luncheon, two of cinema's most celebrated directors orchestrated a playful homage to one of horror's most iconic images. Guillermo del Toro and Paul Thomas Anderson deliberately posed to recreate the mysterious final photograph from Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece, The Shining.
The Shining's Enduring Influence
Del Toro confirmed the intentional reference after social media users noticed the striking similarity between the luncheon photo and The Shining's closing shot. "You got it! PTA and I said: Let's do the Shining pose and we tried," the Frankenstein director revealed. The original image from Kubrick's film shows Jack Nicholson among 1921 partygoers at the fictional Overlook Hotel, with Nicholson raising his right arm while another guest places a hand on it—an eerie tableau that has fascinated audiences for decades.
Unraveling Cinematic History
The background of Kubrick's source material adds another layer to this cinematic reference. In 2025, New York Times reporter Aric Toler and British academic Alasdair Spark discovered that Kubrick's photograph was actually an edited version of a 1921 Valentine's Day dance at London's Royal Palace Hotel. The director had obtained the image from what is now the Getty Images archive, replacing dance instructor Santos Casani's head with Nicholson's to create the film's haunting conclusion.
This revelation about The Shining's photographic origins makes del Toro and Anderson's recreation particularly meaningful—it represents not just a nod to a classic film, but to the creative repurposing of historical imagery that Kubrick himself pioneered. The directors' lighthearted tribute at Hollywood's prestigious pre-Oscars gathering demonstrates how cinematic history continues to inspire contemporary filmmakers, blurring the lines between horror and homage, between 1921 London ballrooms and 2025 awards season celebrations.
