from imdb.com
Probably the single most frequently asked question in relation to this film is what does the final shot mean; how and why is Jack in a photograph from 1921? In a film with so much irreconcilable ambiguity, this one shot has generated more puzzlement than the entire rest of the movie, yet it is one part of the film on which Stanley Kubrick has been extremely clear about his intentions. As he told Michel Ciment, "The ballroom photograph at the end suggests the reincarnation of Jack" (quoted here).
So, Jack is reincarnated. But what exactly does that mean? Perhaps the simplest explanation for this is that Jack is the reincarnation of a prior hotel guest; the person in the photo is not Jack, but a guest who was present in 1921. Jack is the reincarnation of this guest. This would seem to support Gordon Dahlquist's argument that Delbert Grady and Charles Grady are different people (mentioned above); if we follow the argument through, it would suggest that Charles Grady (the caretaker who killed his family) was the reincarnation of Delbert Grady (the butler in the 1920s). Similarly, Jack (the caretaker who attempts to kill his family) is the reincarnation of the unnamed man in the photograph (the caretaker in the 1920s). This argument would also seem to support Grady's claim to Jack that he has "always" been the caretaker; if Jack is the reincarnation of the caretaker from the 1920s, it would suggest that the hotel continuously 'reanimates' its 1921 guests, bringing them back in different guises; hence, just as Delbert was brought back as Charles, so too is the man in the photo brought back as Jack, in a process which, it would seem, is ongoing. As such, when Grady comments that both he and Jack have always been at the hotel, he is correct; they will forever be brought back to the hotel as reincarnations, hence they are 'always' there.
However, despite the fact that this argument does seem to take into consideration many of the variables in the film, and does seem to provide a reasonably logical rational for the photograph, it is not the most popular theory about the final shot. Instead, most fans subscribe to the notion that after he dies, Jack is 'absorbed' back through time into the past of the hotel, becoming, for all intents and purposes, a 'part' of the hotel. This explains why he is present in a photograph from 1921; when he dies, the hotel takes hold of his spirit or soul, and traps him within its own history (this argument would seem to suggest that Jack was not in the photo prior to his death). As with the above argument regarding reincarnation, the 'absorption theory' would also account for Grady's "always" comment. Presumably, the same thing happened to Grady as we see happening to Jack, he too dies in the Overlook Hotel, and he too is absorbed back into its past. As such, Grady has always been the butler, just has Jack has always been the caretaker insofar as they were both imprisoned in the future by the hotel, and their spirits became anachronistically part of history.
A reasonably detailed analysis of the mysterious photo was published in the September 1999 edition of Sight and Sound magazine; an article by Jonathan Romney entitled "Stanley Kubrick, 1928-1999: Resident Phantoms," in which he looks at, amongst other things, the meaning of the film's final shot.
Initially, Romney supports the absorption theory, writing "The closing inscription appears to explain what has happened to Jack […] after his ordeal in the haunted palace, Jack had been absorbed into the hotel, another sacrificial victim earning his place at the Overlook's eternal thé dansant of the damned. At the Overlook, it's always 4 July 1921."
However, Romney is quick to point out that it may not in fact be this simple; "Or you can look at it another way. Perhaps Jack hasn't been absorbed – perhaps he has really been in the Overlook all along. As the ghostly butler Grady tells him during their chilling confrontation in the men's toilet, "You're the caretaker, sir. You've always been the caretaker." Perhaps in some earlier incarnation Jack really was around in 1921, and it's his present-day self that is the shadow, the phantom photographic copy."
In this sense then, Romney is acknowledging that the reincarnation theory is just as plausible as the absorption theory. Whatever the case however, whether Jack is a reincarnation of a previous guest or whether he has been absorbed into the history of the hotel, Romney reaches one inescapable conclusion about the final shot; "Jack's reward, after his defeat [is] a central place among who knows how many other doomed variety acts on the Overlook's wall of fame. He's added to the bill on the Overlook's everlasting big night back in 1921."
So, irrespective of whether it is reincarnation or whether it is absorption, it would seem that the one thing about the final shot that is certain is that Jack has somehow, in some sense, become part of the hotel, and will remain a part of it forever.
