Eyes Wide Shut

Stanley Kubrick's final film is perhaps the first of its kind: it is the only film I have watched that exists within the state of death itself. It's no surprise; Stanley Kubrick died 4 days after submitting the final print into Warner Bros., Sydney Pollock died in 2008 and my grandparents, who saw this film at a screening in 1999, are dead. However, these aren't merely the reasons this film evokes a death-like state, this film evokes a death-like state throughout Bill Harford's sexual odyssey. During the Masonic orgy, which is arguably the film's center-piece, women are used and discarded as corpses who are only valued for their material gain. This film is shroud in ultra-violet blue, especially at the end of the film where it accentuates the characters' trembling flesh and vulnerable humanity, and the powerful red which contrasts against this blue reflects one of Kubrick's favorite themes: dominance. Perhaps it's inexplicable that Eyes Wide Shut evokes a man's dying thoughts. Ironically, this film feels more fresh and timeless than many of its contemporaries, only reaffirming the inestimable value of Kubrick's contributions to cinema and a decade of a cinematic drought aptly followed his death. It was fashionable to deride Stanley Kubrick's final film during its theatrical run, regardless of the fact that he considered it his personal favorite. It seems that the audience expected Kubrick to inundate them with gratuitous eroticism as opposed to ideas. Yet, Eyes Wide Shut has outsmarted time and the film industry itself. It was almost incongruously released a week before American Pie and the abysmal Will Smith star vehicle Wild Wild West. It continues to hold a mere 7.2/10 on IMDb in contrast to escapist science-fiction film The Matrix which holds an 8.7/10 rating and is listed in the top 30 films of all time, above Kubrick's more cerebral science-fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. All of this may be due to the fact that Kubrick argued that 'Observancy is a dying art' and Eyes Wide Shut requires an attention to detail and an attention span that transcends the average summer blockbuster; it's easy to get lost in the terrifying labyrinth of Kubrick's musings. Though, unlike other films, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut refutes the transcendent imagery and magic that is featured in the majority of Kubrick's films, even in Eyes Wide Shut itself, and strips humanity down to its fragile human core, figuratively speaking; Kubrick comes to the conclusion that when man is confronted with the cold and harsh reality, he favors comforting self-delusion and blissful ignorance.

Sydney Pollock's Ziegler argues, during his amazing final monologue, that the Masonic orgies are practiced by society's elite which excludes Bill. Bill spends the duration of the film's first half attempting to engage in infidelity after his wife reveals that she was willing to choose one night with a naval officer over their future. Naturally, this enrages Bill and he spends the night attempting to fulfill his personal need to subjugate his feelings of impotence, sexual and otherwise. Even in the very beginning, when Bill walks with two models, his short stature implicitly denotes his lack of power. Bill is convinced that he has been subjected to a life of domesticity and his wife is responsible; he vows to reaffirm his masculinity. Kubrick paints long shots of New York at midnight which is designed to inspire the viewer with dread. Almost every single beautiful shot capturing the very essence of soft, warm colors in the beginning soon descends into the dark and strong colors that reflect the very dream-state many describe when they watch this film. Yet, to me, it evokes a foreboding death-like state which suggests impending doom.

Bill's quest for reaffirmation of his masculinity only renders him emasculated when he enters a Masonic orgy and is rendered socially powerless by a group of the masked elite. Bill's journey neither leads him towards enlightenment nor satisfaction but humiliation and understanding that he has been domesticated by the higher classes. Ironically, his quest for sexual empowerment only led him to the understanding of social domesticity; Bill is not as influential or elite as he had initially anticipated. Not unlike the elite's perception of women; they use the high-class prostitutes as objects valued for their material value which reflects their perception of the masses that are responsible for their success. As in the beginning, when Ziegler needs Bill to revive a dying woman who almost overdoses on a combination of cocaine and heroin, Ziegler values Bill for his medical expertise which prevented trouble with the law rather than his personality. Kubrick's film argues that we live in ignorance of others perceptions of us and this is the ultimate existential fear of Harford; the elite have seen Harford unmasked, vulnerable and exposed. Pollock says 'If you knew who was there, you wouldn't sleep so well.' Kubrick has finally exposed man for who he really is; vulnerable and ignorant of the mysterious forces which govern him. The final and most playfully complex of cinema's closing lines concludes that Bill and Alice Harford have learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. They refuse to acknowledge their social impotence and would prefer for their eyes to remain wide shut, ignorant to the mysterious forces that govern them. On a more optimistic note, however, perhaps Bill's odyssey only made him aware of his vulnerability, and Kubrick evokes this through the dark imagery that recreates the sense of subjective paranoia that Bill is experiencing. Bill realizes what ultimately matters: love and family, as opposed to the power which he initially craved but only realized he was at the mercy of others' application of such social power. I'm open to many interpretations of this film, because Kubrick wanted the audience's eyes to remain wide open soon after they finished experiencing this masterpiece.

Eyes Wide Shut is a movie like Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz (which is subtly referenced in the film) in that the more times you view it, the more you get out of it. (I imagine at some point you would wring out all the meaning, but that would take scores of viewings.) One infamous scene is so over-the-top it is easy to miss all the subtle references in the film, which necessitates multiple viewings. Fair warning--the more times you watch it, the more you go down the rabbit hole Kubrick digs (a reference to Alice in Wonderland, also evoked in Eyes Wide Shut).

Eyes Wide Shut was inspired by an Austrian novella called "Traumnovelle." The film is indeed dreamlike. Kubrick recreated Greenwich Village on a sound stage in London, which, like a dream, is slightly off from the real thing and contains no superfluous elements. This evokes the perfect atmosphere for the movie as we accompany Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) on his all-night, humiliating, surreal odyssey.

To me, the title of the movie, Eyes Wide Shut, implies willful naivete, particularly Dr. Bill's, and by extension the viewers', which seems to be (one of) the theme(s) Kubrick intends to highlight. Even the movie's poster seems to imply this: a mirror image of Nicole Kidman's character (Alice, as in Through the Looking Glass), looking right through the mirror in what appears to be an Illuminati image, while Dr. Bill has his eyes closed. In fact, all the shots of Alice looking in the mirror started to creep me out on subsequent viewings.

The movie then indulges in conspiracy-theory dog whistles to anyone whose eyes aren't wide shut. The Harfords are a WASPy family living in a luxurious apartment in Central Part West, which may be out of reach for a doctor (basically, a highly paid member of the working class) whose wife doesn't work. Furthermore, Dr. Bill Harford (whose name sounds like "Dollar Bill Harrison Ford") throws around money like it's no object. Which raises the question of how he really makes his money--apparently by making house calls to the ridiculously wealthy who can afford to avoid hospital waiting rooms. Dr. Bill seems to aspire to rub shoulders with these people, but he is spectacularly naive to the realities of the world he is tangentially involved in and his actual role in it. It seems to me the reason he was invited to the Victor's (as in an economic "victor's") luxurious party at the beginning is because it is a house-call in disguise in case of something like the OD that indeed occurs at one point. I determined this by reading between the lines when the two models hit on him, and he seems oblivious to their allusions of taking him "to where the rainbow ends" (more on that below) and when he is taken away at Victor's call, they exchange looks that seem to say they had mistaken him for one of the elites, not a working-class schlub.

FULL-ON CONSPIRACY THEORIES BELOW.

If Dr. Bill's eyes are wide shut, then Alice's are partly open. This is implied in the very first dialogue exchange in the movie, when Alice knows exactly where Dr. Bill had left his wallet, while he had forgotten, and he doesn't remember the name of the babysitter, which was mentioned like 30 seconds earlier. This comes to the fore when he simply can't imagine Alice being unfaithful to him because women don't think like men, and she falls to the floor laughing and divulges a depressing sexual fantasy. Alice looks in the mirror a lot, most memorably when she stares in the mirror as Dr. Bill begins kissing her. Is Kubrick implying Alice is a former sex slave who is going "through the looking glass"--the mental space sex slaves go to mentally block their abuse? Is that why Alice is constantly grooming their daughter, Helena? Is she subconsciously grooming her daughter for a similar fate? Is that why in the final scene, when Alice and Dr. Bill are wrapped up in their conversation at the toy store, Helena can be seen running away in the direction of two men in the background, who had also been in the background at Victor's party? Among the strange toys at said toy store are stuffed tigers and a game called "Magic Circle"--resembling the imagery at the secret society's ritual/party Dr. Bill crashed and apparently a prop created for the movie. The stuffed tigers are identical to one on Domino's bed, a streetwalker Dr. Bill meets in Greenwich Village. Is Kubrick implying Domino is a sex slave, having undergone "Beta Kitten" programming, and the juxtaposition of the same toy with Helena in a toy store implying the girl's fate as well as the creepy conditioning the elites are subjecting the masses to?

Then there are the references to "rainbows," as in "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," another reference to sex slave conditioning, similar to "through the looking glass." The two models at Victor's party offer to take Dr. Bill "to where the rainbow ends"--where they go mentally when they're having sex. Then there is the costume shop "Rainbow" where Dr. Bill obtains the cloak for the secret society's party and where the proprietor's daughter prostitutes herself. The girl runs from her enraged father, gets behind Dr. Bill for protection, then whispers something inaudible into his ear. The version of the movie I own has Japanese subtitles that translate what she said: She tells him which cloak to choose. Does she infer where he is going with that cloak and does she have knowledge of what goes on there? That would seem to connect her with the rainbow image in the store's name.

Finally, I question how accurate Kubrick's depiction of the elite's secret society is. It seems to be a hodgepodge of hellfire club, Bohemian Grove, Illuminati/Freemason, O.T.O. imagery. Are there elite cadres involved in these types of ritual debauchery? I'd guess Kubrick was close enough to these people he probably saw a lot and knew enough to guess at the rest (such as the sort of parties the Rothschilds threw--the exterior of the house of the party was one of the Rothschilds' residences). There are disturbing parallels with Eyes Wide Shut in the Jeffrey Epstein case and his "suicide." I'm guessing it is true in broad strokes. I think Kubrick was telling us society's elites engage in depravities that would frighten and disgust the masses if we knew about them, and therefore we shouldn't be so naive to grant the economic victors any moral authority.

Are there secrets that you keep outside your marriage, locked away inside an unseen secret carriage, of the way you might behave, if you were confident and brave, although your partner would most likely not, encourage. As a doctor is presented with an image, of his wife's fidelity that starts him to twitch, leads to several rendezvous, that seek to demonstrate, imbue, of how that scratch that can't be reached, just might be itched. Interpretation of the outcomes might reveal, how you engage with your love, just how you feel, do you know just who they are, do they know how high's your bar, or would the truth, if it came out, make you both squeal.

Initially was at a loss for words with this one. I can't necessarily explain the feelings this film brings out, but I can say they feel real personal and there's just something so off yet so painfully real about (most of) this movie and it is just really undervalued in Kubrick's filmography, I think. Besides being one of my favorite looking movies ever, the midpoint turn is one of the scariest heading down rabbit hole reveals I've really encountered in a film and it just disturbed me for the entire time (you know the point) and after as it continued provocatively building to the disturbing and bizarrely cathartic ending, which haunts me as the final scene in a Kubrick film. It's perfect in it's imperfectness and I get an insane level of both joy and sadness watching this movie.

Eyes Wide Shut is ill-suited for the summer movie corridor. It has no explosions, no running, shouting, or a single gunshot. What it has are long scenes in which characters talk to one another. Slowly and carefully. The problem is that the film is marketed as having white-hot sex scenes and plenty of gratuitous nudity, while it has neither. There is plenty of naked flesh, don't get me wrong, but in exactly the opposite way that the ads make it appear. This is not a movie about being sexy and naked -- it's a movie about how flesh is just another part of being human, so what is all the fuss about? The marketing campaign is misleading, and led to disappointment in the audience that I saw the movie with, who were just looking for some skin.

The tension in the plot and the issues that the film discusses aren't telegraphed to the audience, they're hinted at in the dialog. There is no neat resolution at the end, life simply goes on. You may watch the whole film and think "that wasn't about anything!" Then think about what you've seen and realize it has a great deal to say.

The film is a meditation on sexuality and how it relates to marriage, death, and money. It's a fascinating commentary on modern life, and a rare movie that dares to examine sex as impassionately as any other issue.

The directing and cinematography alone would be worth the price of admission without the social commentary. The sets are an integral part of the movie; they breathe and glow and live. Kubrick was a master director, and he uses long shots and dissolves to great effect. Cruise and Kidman are at their best, and the supporting cast is also strong. It's Kubrick's magic work with the camera that holds the film together.

All in all, definitely worth seeing for the un-uptight. It's possible to watch this film and actually think about it for hours afterward. That's something you won't get with the Wild, Wild West.