Traumnovelle

Rarely do I seek out TV movies, and never before have I sought one from West Germany and Austria, where Traumnovelle was produced in 1969. My interest in seeing it is that it is based on the same novella, Dream Story, that forms the basis for Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). It is quite interesting to compare the two, namely in the number of specific events that occur in both, with identical dialogue appearing in both films. The two films feature virtually the same story, a doctor driven to jealousy when his wife tells him about her lust for other men, and then undergoing a sexual odyssey in which he is tempted by a darker world.

Traumnovelle is over an hour shorter than Eyes Wide Shut, and in a way, that's part of what makes it less satisfactory. The pacing feels rushed, there's little time to absorb the dramatic elements. The suspense and tension one feels when the doctor is at the orgy is lost in this version; the orgy itself has a less ritualistic and frightening flavour, almost more absurd. The jealousy the doctor experiences, and many other important themes, are conveyed via narration. Still, Kubrick brought a much more artistic direction to the story- and such a direction can rarely be found in TV.

Strange as it might seem, I prefer Dream Story/Traumnovelle over Eyes Wide Shut. How can this be? On every technical level, (camera work, lighting, music, direction, editing, acting), Eyes Wide Shut is far superior. What is lacking with EWS? Certain details about the story.

Dream Story/Traumnovelle, with both the TV film and the novel, takes place in early 1900s Vienna. This is essential to make the story work. The characters are still in the very conservative, religious Victorian age. So, the depiction of sexual dreams, infidelity, prostitution, orgies and abuse by the aristocracy was shocking to some story characters. The power of Dream Story/Traumnovelle's plot is best told when set in an older time.

Secondly, the writer of the story, Arthur Schnitzler, was Jewish and railed against anti-Jewish sentiments in Europe during his life. In the TV movie the protagonist, Doctor Fridolin, is pushed aside by a German student. Dr. Fridolin is an outsider as a Jewish man. That dynamic adds meaning to the secret society of aristocrats who banish Fridolin from the masked ball as he was again an outsider (a Jew).

Third, the motivation of Dr. Fridolin in the TV movie is more clear as a man who is insecure about his wife's shocking sexual dreams and decides to go on his own sexual adventures.

EWS takes place in 1990s New York with an American, Dr. Harford, as the protagonist. That alone strips out various motivations from characters from the novel. By the 1990s anyone could read women's sexual fantasies which had been widely published for over 2 decades. Prostitution in New York? Widely known. Go to Times Square at night. Watch Taxi Driver.

EWS as a commentary on sexual slavery and exploitation is trying to fit a masked ball by early 1900s European aristocrats into modern New York organized crime. It does not work even if one goes into far fetched conspiracy theories.