Transcription
Eyes Wide Shut. You know, the movie where then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman endure on-screen marital problems while hiding their off screen marital problems? Hollywood, am I right?
While the film was billed as an erotic thriller starring the two hottest, and yes, married actors of the time, critics were pretty scathing. They expected hot sex scenes. Instead, they got one measly masked orgy and Tom Cruise taking a lot of brisk walks. Like a lot.
While the world initially balked at Kubrick’s final film, critical opinion has turned in recent years. What was initially dismissed as a failed piece of erotica has proven, upon further inspection, to be something way deeper - an exploration of sociology, dreams, desire, and yes, sex through the lens of New York City’s elite. At it’s deeply cynical core, the film asks the question: Are we all somebody’s whore?
Welcome to this Wisecrack Edition on Eyes Wide Shut. Spoilers ahead but no Illuminati sh*t, we promise.
But real quick - wanna let you guys know about the inspiration for this video - our movie podcast Show Me The Meaning. Every week, I’m breaking down movies with the awesome writers and researchers who work really hard on these videos. We cover huge blockbusters like Avengers: Endgame, Venom, and The Dark Knight, to film nerd favorites like Walkabout, They Live!, and of course, Eyes Wide Shut. Recently, we’ve even started covering documentaries on subjects like Fyre Fest, Theranos, and Flat Earth. You can see me doing the cast live over at our WiseCASTS channel, or you can catch it on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or Google Play. We all love doing it, so hope to see y’all there, and now back to the show.
But first, a recap. In this Christmas film that perversely debuted in the summer of 1999, we follow wealthy couple Dr. Bill and Alice Harford as they navigate the elite world of New York City’s Upper West side. When Alice gets stoned and details an old sexual fantasy she had about somebody else, Bill loses his sh*t and roams around the city on the hunt for sex and extravagance. That hunt takes him to a literal masked orgy, where this lady makes a number of melodramatic warnings before saving Bill’s butt, when he gets caught infiltrating the members only sex-a-thon. "Let him go. Take me!” Later, he plays amateur detective and sneaks into a morgue where he finds a woman, (the same woman??), now dead. Then, his wealthy patient tells him to stop pissing off rich dudes who throw masked orgies, and he’s like, “Yeah, good point, man,” so he drops the whole thing and takes his family Christmas shopping. Joy to the world.
Part 1: Dreams and Desire
Eyes Wide Shut is an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle, German for “Dream-novella”, about a doctor who freaks out after finding out his wife had a sex dream about not him. Fittingly, Eyes Wide Shut is constructed like a Dream-film in service of one of the movie’s central themes: desire. What are dreams, if not fulfilling our secret desires to fly, or ace our 9th grade algebra test? Or, let’s be real - F**K.
There’s sort of an ambient undertone (or sometimes, overtone) of sexual desire buzzing throughout the entire film. Like most people in 1999, every character in this film wants to f**k Tom Cruise - from Mrs. Nathanson to Alan Cumming to the fiscally-motivated Domino. The Hungarian propositions Alice in the middle of a crowded Christmas party. It’s even heavily implied that this random barista had a fling with Nick Nightingale - how else is she able to point Bill to the exact hotel where he’s staying? You get the sense that, even outside of any orgy parties, New York is kind of one great big orgy. Weird sexual tensions permeate the air, from these bizarre and homophobic teens – “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! What team’s this switch hitter play for?" "Looks like the pink team." – to these models.
The film stays pretty squarely in the realm of hazy non-awake-ness. In his book, “Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis,” author Mario Falsetto claims that, “We never know what to believe... Truth and fiction, objectivity, and subjectivity and the public and private are intermingled to such a degree that the viewer remains in a state of constant uncertainty.” Falsetto adds that, “Nothing in this film can be taken at face value.” "It's so unreal."
Indeed, Kubrick employs certain cinematic techniques to imbue the film with a dream-like quality. Certain fantastical scenes are marked with ambiguity through an ever-lurking Steadicam. By contrast, scenes more grounded in reality remain static. The editing also contributes to the dreaminess, with dissolve transitions like this. Additionally, there are a great deal of characters “dissolving” into one another, like in a dream where your friend Joe suddenly turns into a chill lizard person with wings, and it makes sense.
Each new woman Bill meets, from Mandy to Domino to Sally, is a redhead for one. That’s a statistical improbability and a meaningful choice, which led film critic Lee Siegel to suggest that each of these women represent Alice, the woman Bill is subconsciously seeking. There’s also a lot of straight up doubling - Bill meets two flirty young models, and the costume store guy’s daughter has two men over. Bill encounters Ms Nathanson’s boyfriend, who looks JUST like him. There are two Eastern Europeans: Sandor Szavost, the Hungarian, and Millich, the costume store owner. Two imposing men stand outside the gates of the orgy palace. There’s also Millich’s mischievous daughter contrasted with Bill’s naive, sheltered Helena. It all calls to mind Kubrick’s best use of doubling: "Come play with us, Danny." It may not be as spooky this time, but it’s certainly not incidental. It all gives the film an uncanny quality, a sense of dream-like reality.
Similarly, there’s a lot of repetition - Bill tells us that he’s a doctor a ton of times, almost always when he’s trying to get away with something. “I’m Mr. Grenning’s doctor.” “Just to let you know that I really am Dr. Harford-“ “It’s okay, I’m a doctor–” “I’m Dr. Harford.” Other lucid-dreaming style repetitions occur. These two models tell Bill that they’re “going where the rainbow ends,” and a short time later, Bill ends up at Rainbow fashions. This newspaper also, oddly, literally repeats text. Basically everything that happens in this movie feels like it exists in that weird gulf when you first wake up from an impromptu nap and can’t quite remember where the dream world and life world separate.
In embodying the aesthetic of dreams, the film suggests that dreams have the power to reveal desires and unearth deeper truths about us as people. Most directly, Alice literally recounts her dreams of an imaginary sex life twice in the film, and they ultimately serve to express resentment towards her husband. In real life, Alice’s sexuality exists primarily in the realm of pleasing others with her attractive appearance. "Wow, you look amazing Mrs. Harford." “Alice, look at you! God, you’re absolutely stunning!” It is only in dreams that she can express her own desires. These dreams remain offscreen, though. We only see one of them come to life in Bill’s mind, and then, it’s his experience of her dream, filmed from an voyeuristic third person perspective. Here, the point is clear: The idea of Alice having her own mysterious and extramarital desires proves remarkably disturbing to Bill. That’s probably because it falls outside of her role as an object of sexual desire for Bill. It’s fitting that the only time we see the pair have sex, Alice’s reaction is seen entirely in the mirror as she gazes at herself: even her relationship with her own sexuality is one of bemused voyeurism.
Which brings us to…
PART 2: Are We All Whores?
There also exists some biting social commentary at the heart of Kubrick’s hazy dream world. Plenty of scholars have interpreted this film in a number of interesting ways, but one of our favorite perspectives comes via film scholar Tim Kreider. Kreider points out that each of Alice and Bill’s functions in the story can be defined by the first on-screen lines they speak. Bill’s is — “Honey, have you seen my wallet?" — fitting for a dude about to go on a spending spree that would make private-island era Johnny Depp blush. Meanwhile, Alice asks, — "How do I look?" — utterly aware of and ready to fulfill her role as a voyeuristic object onto which men can project their own desires. Bill is the consumer, Alice is the object of consumption.
Kreider points to this critical moment at Domino’s apartment. In the foreground, we see the book, Introducing Sociology, literally foregrounding the idea that we should look at this film as a sociological commentary. Reminders of class and wealth fill the screen, and the opulence signifies copious consumption by the privileged. Each interior is more glamorous than the next, from Bill and Alice’s luxury apartment to Victor Ziegler’s even more luxurious home to that epic piece of real estate fit only for a masked sex party. What’s more, the film is set during Christmas, that time of socially-mandated shopping sprees and trash bags full of used wrapping paper. "So, how do you feel about wrapping the rest of the presents?" “Uh, let's do that tomorrow." The metaphor of Christmas as an orgy of consumption is more than implied, as nearly every location in the film has a Christmas tree. Oh, and Tom Cruise cites the fact that he’s a doctor to gain trust at least 7000 times. "Once a doctor, always a doctor."
Members of different classes collide rarely, usually only out of desperation. Sometimes, that desperation is a matter of life or death, as when Bill tries save the wealthy Victor Ziegler’s hired escort Mandy, or when Bill leans over a dead Mandy in the morgue. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of sex, as when Bill agrees to follow Domino home. This is perhaps the most uncomfortable encounter in a film of uncomfortable encounters, at least when viewed through the lens of class. Domino admits to Bill that she has a roommate and jokes — “Maid's day off." — to excuse the mess in her apartment. Bill replies with a weak compliment — “Cozy, it’s… Cozy place." Both comments call attention to her comparatively lower socioeconomic status. He is clearly embarrassed to be confronted with the way the “other half” lives. Bill changes the subject, awkwardly and fittingly by saying — “Do you suppose we should talk about money?" Though they decide the monetary terms, the terms of their sexual arrangement are never spelled out, with Domino saying — "How about you just leave it up to me?" More importantly, those acts are never fulfilled as Alice calls in the nick of time to make Bill feel guilty. However, Bill still insists upon paying Domino for services not rendered, and he places a small wad of cash into her hand with a smile. In this moment, sex is just the window dressing for the greater power dynamic at play. The interaction points to the film’s message that the transactional nature of prostitution is perhaps the fundamental building block of society. Even if you’re not an actual sex worker, chances are, you’re still for sale. "A hundred dollars?" "Yes." "I don't think so." “Well, uh, okay. How about 200 dollars?" “200 dollars over the rental price?”
Domino and Mandy are hardly the only people selling themselves to the wealthy - Bill makes house calls for his rich clients, while his piano-playing friend is driven to mysterious locations and blindfolded during gigs for the wealthy. “Yeah, well, you gotta go where the work is.” Meanwhile, Bill uses the money he makes treating rich people to act super rich himself. “Could you just put it on the bill, please?” Indeed, Bill seems to relish in his own opportunities to lord his money over those less powerful than him, as when he tears this 100-dollar bill in half to bribe the cab driver to wait for him. The message is clear: we’re all selling ourselves to somebody.
This is particularly true for the women, who must meticulously present themselves in ways that cater to the men around them. For Alice, her central job as a wife is to look good. This is suggested when we watch Bill at his job-going through his day of seeing patients and cut back to Alice doing her job - getting ready, making sure she smells and looks perfect. In front of her, Helena also gets ready, suggesting that she is being groomed to become a hot ticket item, just like her mom. Krieder even attributes significance to Helena’s homework that Alice is helping with, in which Helena learns to calculate which boy has more money than the other. “Alright, we have Joe, and Joe has $2.50. And Mike has $1.75. Joe has how much more money than Mike?” Alice seems to be aware of what her role is, and she plays it willingly, but every so often there are cracks in the veneer. When she and Bill have sex early on, she stares at herself in the mirror with a look that quickly turns from bemused to turned on to resignment, she sees herself for what she is: a hired woman.
To emphasize that point, the film juxtaposes Alice and the various sex workers in the film. As previously mentioned, she, Mandy, Domino, and the mysterious naked woman are redheads; she and Mandy both have a fondness for drugs; and there’s this stuffed tiger that links Alice to Domino. Then, of course, there’s the famous final line, where Alice goes, “There is something very important we need to do as soon as possible.” “ What’s that?” “F**k.” And since this is Youtube, you gotta use your imagination. This moment is Kubrick’s final curveball, suggesting that the entire contents of this film, the orgy, the dead girl, the disappeared piano player, all of it - amounted to nothing more than some kind of kinky foreplay for this couple. They haven’t learned anything from their escapade; it’s merely aroused them. Alice’s glasses are on outside the house for the first time, which you COULD read as proof she’s seeing clearly and not bumping into things. But this line makes us think that Kubrick is saying that they’re doomed to repeat the same petty jealousies again and again, while potentially spending beyond their means. You know, the American dream.
This also connects to the title of the film, which evokes a sense of enlightened false consciousness. We may know that we’re being screwed over and controlled by the wealthy and powerful, but at least it’s Christmas, and we can play with our toys - both commercial and sexual. So, our eyes are firmly, deliberately, shut, because that’s the only way to tolerate this world. It’s not cheerful.
In conclusion, Eyes Wide Shut is not a movie JUST about sex, it’s about dreams, desire, and power, and particularly the power that comes with having a ton of cash to burn on one night out alone in New York City. But, what do you think? Is the film a deeper commentary about class in the heavily stratified world of NYC? Or, is the famously-perverse Kubrick just messing with us? For an even deeper breakdown on this film or over 70 others, don’t forget to check out our movie podcast Show Me the Meaning on our WiseCASTS channel, or on a variety of podcast platforms. Links are in the description. Thanks to all our patrons who support us and be sure to hit that subscribe button. And thanks for watching, guys. Peace.