Transcription
Eyes Wide Shut is a movie shrouded in mystery. A film frequently discussed due to its subject matter as well as the fatal allegations surrounding its release. As the world is consumed by a never-ending scandal, Eyes Wide Shut continues to draw more attention. Whether that's for the film's explicit and graphic nature or potential clues into the death of the man who made it.
Despite being one of the most highly regarded directors in Hollywood, some argue that even Stanley Kubrick learned the fatal lesson of what happens when you attempt to expose what goes on behind the curtain. This is Eyes Wide Shut, the movie that killed Kubrick.
Stanley Kubrick was coming fresh off his last two projects, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. At the peak of his career, Kubrick unknowingly began working on his final film, Eyes Wide Shut. Released in 1999, the film is, in typical Kubrick fashion, an adaptation, this time of Dream Story, originally published in 1926. Both stories follow a married doctor destabilized by his wife's sexual confession. That turmoil leads him on a perilous night-long journey that culminates in a secret mass sexual ritual, one that blurs the line between reality and dreams themselves.
So, what could have Kubrick added to this story that would have led to his murder? The answer to this question is difficult because the film alone reveals only half the answer. The shooting process for Eyes Wide Shut was notoriously secretive. Both Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were forbidden from sharing notes all throughout the filming process. Stanley Kubrick often worked with the actors individually in order to further divide them.
"Okay, Sydney, come here." I'd come and I'd sit down. He wouldn't say anything to Tom. Then he would take go through it with me or, "Okay, Tom, come here."
The movie was also subjected to multiple rewrites and re-shoots.
And we worked on the scene and Stanley rewrote it and then worked on a little bit more and rewrote it again.
Constantly updating what the story would be and what it would look like.
It would depend. He'd he'd look at the staging, but he'd first work on let's get let's get this scene right and he would rewrite every single day. He rewrote rewrote rewrote rewrote when he was cutting. He you know he's rewriting working.
There's a clear on-screen benefit to this as the movie's foundation is built on doubt and deception. However, Kubrick was known for his obsession with perfection. Nothing in his films happens by mistake. Some speculate that all of the rewrites and secrecy may not just be a part of Kubrick's atypical filming style. But in reality, an effort to hide his true intentions with the film.
So that begs the question, why this film? The conspiracy surrounding Eyes Wide Shut is difficult to pin down to any single element. Many point to the vulgar displays of orgastic ritual, but this type of graphic imagery was nothing new to Hollywood. This theory becomes clearer when we look deeper at why Kubrick chose this story, this setting, and these characters.
The film follows Dr. Bill Harford, a successful New York physician living alongside his wife Alice and their daughter. We meet these two characters as they enter the house of Victor Ziegler, a wealthy Manhattan businessman who is fond of Dr. Harford and his medical practice. Despite all of his success and ever growing societal status, Dr. Harford was unable to escape the perils of marital strife. On an otherwise ordinary night, Alice reveals that despite her picture perfect life, comfort has left her unsatisfied. She recounts a moment when she was willing to throw everything away for a chance to spend the night with a naval officer she encountered while on vacation. This confession by Alice ignites a series of religious and spiritual themes that form the foundation of the film's deeper meaning.
Religion and a more specifically traditionally Christian belief permeates throughout the film and almost becomes a character within itself. The Christmas party celebrating the nativity of Christ that opens up the film signifies beginnings. A symbolic rebirth into a new world for Dr. Harford. Now Alice finds herself in confession spurred by resentment due to her husband's indifference.
Taking things for granted, Bill did took her for granted. Took his family for granted, his life for granted. It's just a little too smug and she just goes bang.
This revelation sends Dr. Harford spiraling. He receives a call and leaves home to console the daughter of a recently deceased patient. Forced to wrestle with the insecurity and humiliation planted by his wife's venomous words. After his business concludes, he strolls the illuminated Manhattan streets only to be solicited by a young escort. Entering her home in a desperate attempt to reclaim his wounded masculinity, Bill enters a state of sin. His anger and pride have led him onto the brink of adultery, putting his family in jeopardy. Kubrick illustrates this moment perfectly through a subtle inversion. the Christmas tree inside her apartment.
Nice tree.
This detail stands out because of its cold, distorted presentation, a perversion of a sacred symbol. Eyes Wide Shut uses inversion and perversion as a primary motif. On one side, you have a joyful festive world full of people going on about their lives, but on the other you have a dark underbelly of abuse, scandal, and pure evil. Just as Bill's encounter with the escort is an inversion of love, so too is the imagery surrounding it. Bill is unable to follow through with the escort's services and departs her house. Dr. Harford's character is so compelling because throughout the film, he never becomes consumed by evil despite capitulating multiple times. Just like you and I, he's imperfect. He's the perfect canvas for reflection. And to ask yourself, what would you do in this situation?
Desperate to avoid returning home, Bill reunites with Nick Nightingale, a pianist and longtime friend. During their discussion, Nick receives a phone call formally inviting him to a super mysterious ultra exclusive gathering. Dr. Harford is completely enamored by this and demands information that would grant him the same access. After some hesitancy, Nick finally complies. One taxi ride later, Bill arrives at the gates of the Summerton mansion. He approaches the entrance and speaks the password.
Fidelia, thank you, sir.
Escorted inside, Bill steps through massive oak doors into a grand estate. All the guests are being guided by well-groomed hosts. As Bill ventures deeper, he eventually reaches the mansion's central hall, a vast tiered space that reveals the true scale of the mansion. Inside the main hall, Dr. Harford uncovers what could only be a secret mass ritual in progress. While this sequence originates from the novel itself, Kubrick's adaptation transforms it entirely. Kubrick's version feels ancient, rigid, ceremonial. This ritual is overseen by a patriarchal figure surrounded by cloaked women. Every movement is deliberate and rehearsed. This ritual has clearly been performed hundreds if not thousands of times before. Gregorian style chants echo through the hall. Incense fills the air. Dr. Harford's night of temptation and sin has finally reached hell. The audience gazes in silence, each member awaiting the ceremony to truly begin. Like the party at the beginning of the film, Alice's confessions, and the escort's decorations, this ritual is a desecration of a Christian mass, an intentional distortion of worship itself. One by one, the women begin to undress and lead their desired partner deep into the mansion. Dr. Harford is among those chosen. However, the woman who pursues him instantly notices that he's an outsider and provides a stark warning.
You've got to get away before it's too late.
She is not the only one who notices Dr. Harford as an abnormality as he's the only one not partaking in the festivities. His half-hazard disguise is easily seen through. One of the hosts leads Dr. Harford back to the main hall under the guise that his cab is requesting his return. As he re-enters the foyer, he becomes the focal point of the congregation. In one of the most chilling scenes in modern cinema, he is interrogated. Unable to fabricate a lie convincing enough to save his life. Only through the sacrifice of the woman who previously warned him is Bill allowed to leave. Clearly rattled from this event, Dr. Harford has now entered into a world that will swallow him up if he's not careful.
Eyes Wide Shut is a film overflowing with temptation and corruption. A costume shop owner offering his adolescent daughter for favors. the ritual at Summerton Mansion or even Alice's fantasies. But the idea that any of these depictions would have Stanley Kubrick murdered is just not plausible. Unfortunately, that exoneration is short-lived as Kubrick concludes his most damning message towards the end of the film. This being the final conversation that we see between Dr. Harford and Victor Ziegler.
Throughout the film, Ziegler has been Bill's invisible link to this elite society. The opening Christmas party occurs in Ziegler's home. the woman that Bill saves at the Christmas party later saves him at Summerton. Victor Ziegler was the one who hired Nick Nightingale in the first place and unknowingly played a massive key role in Dr. Harford being enveloped in this new world. Now it's time for Victor Ziegler to pull back the curtain. This meeting does not exist in the source material and Stanley Kubrick, obsessed with perfection, would not add such a scene lightly. Many believe this conversation is why Stanley Kubrick was potentially murdered.
Dr. Harford returns to Ziegler's apartment over scotch. Tension suffocates the room. Ziegler's first mode of communication is not verbal. It's symbolic. Before speaking of parties or rituals, Ziegler taps his Q-ball twice on the table.
That was just um
Twice. The only other time we've seen this gesture is during the Summerton ritual, giving us our first clue as to where this conversation could be heading. Ziegler struggles to find the right words, but eventually he reveals the truth.
And I have to be completely frank. It concerns you. I I know what happened last night and I know what's been going on since then. I was there at the house. I saw everything that went on.
He was at the mansion. He knows how Bill got in. He knows Bill went looking for Nick afterwards, searching for answers.
What the hell did you think you were doing? I couldn't even begin to to imagine how you how you'd even heard about it, let alone got yourself through the door.
The tone shifts. Ziegler begins to scold Bill, explaining how deep this rabbit hole truly goes. What follows unequivocally is the most poignant piece of evidence in this entire conspiracy. Ziegler begins by saying,
"Listen, Bill, I don't think you realize what kind of trouble you were in last night. Who do you think those people were? Those were not just ordinary people there. If I told you their names, I'm not going to tell you their names. But if I did, I don't think you'd sleep so well."
Through Victor Ziegler, Kubrick appears to articulate the ultimate conspiracy that elites of society gather in secrecy, engage in ritualized depravity, and wield the power to minimize or even erase their threats altogether. Dr. Harford, visibly shaken by this confrontation, reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out the newspaper clipping of the young woman who is found dead in her apartment. the very same woman who saved his life at Summerton Mansion. Ziegler dismisses it as addiction, a coincidence, an inevitability, and the message is clear. Drop it. And Bill does.
Stanley Kubrick, through the story of Eyes Wide Shut, the journey of Dr. Harford, and the confession delivered by Victor Ziegler, tells the story of how the wealthiest elites of society come together to perform satanic rituals, engage in orgastic sessions of depravity, and use their power and resources to silence anyone who seeks to oppose them. Now, the question is, could Stanley Kubrick have fallen victim to the very system he was trying to expose?
On March 2nd, 1999, Stanley Kubrick conducted a private screening of Eyes Wide Shut. This screening included multiple key figures, namely Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and various Warner Bros. executives at the time. Those executives may have included Terry Semel, who was serving as chairman and CEO, and Robert A. Daly, co-chairman, alongside Semel. The only thing that's confirmed is that the film was shown to a small group of unconfirmed individuals. But something happened once the movie ended.
Episode 2,240 of The Joe Rogan Experience featured Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery, two of the most prolific figures in Hollywood and individuals who most certainly understood the culture and inner workings of the industry. During the podcast, in a segment lasting less than 5 minutes, Avery begins discussing aspects of the film that were removed prior to its release.
In the movie. That's because the movie was recut and and changed after his death. and and they'll and they will um deny it. But as a student of Kubrick, I'm watching the movie and I'm like, "Well, Kubrick wouldn't do that. Kubrick wouldn't do that either. Kubrick would have trimmed this scene."
The most concerning reveal occurs during the midsection of Avery's discussion.
But I think that they changed the the notes, it's definitely missing a narration. That scene where he sees the prostitute who's died, he's at the morgue and he's looking at her. That there's an entire thread that's kind of been squashed. Squashed in that film. And that's the the two men that are throughout the movie who are constantly in the background of the film who eventually in the final shots of the film, you see like uh Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in that final scene in the toy store when she's looking at the Rosemary's Baby bassinet, which is totally Kubrick saying something. And they never take their eyes off their daughter until the moment they take their eyes off and the final line of the movie is coming up. You see those two guys walking off with the daughter. M. They're taking her away. They've given their daughter to the pedo cult. That's what's happened at the end of the movie.
And towards the end, Roger Avery references that very same final screening prior to Stanley Kubrick's death.
Uh people who were outside apparently, this is all secondhand, by the way. There were people who were outside of the theater who could hear inside of the theater Kubrick yelling at all the executives and saying, "It's my movie. You can't cut it. You can't [ __ ] cut my film." Blah blah blah blah. Big argument going on. Then he dies like 4 days later.
However, this is all just a conspiracy. Probably. The world today as we know it is filled with scandal, depravity, and the everpresent uncertainty that things truly are what they seem. Could Stanley Kubrick have attempted to tell us something in his final days? That's for you to decide. Whether he was murdered or not is something I fear we may never truly know, or at least not for a very long time.
If I were to make a counterargument or simply a different perspective for the sake of adding something to the conversation, it would be this. Stanley Kubrick was very old. He lived a beautiful life doing what he loved and doing it in a way that he wanted. He spent decades holding on to this idea for a film, one he viewed as his personal magnum opus. After the film's creation and the inevitable need for edits from Warner Brothers, perhaps he simply could not handle it. There is a chance that Stanley Kubrick wasn't murdered for attempting to uncover an ancient satanic cult, but instead, and perhaps even more tragically, Stanley Kubrick died of a broken heart. He sat on this film, allowing it to fester and evolve for decades. Upon completing the masterpiece he so desperately wanted to make, he may have realized he would not be able to see it fully come to fruition, despite yearning for it for so long. To me, that is even more devastating than any conspiracy theory currently circulating. A man tortured by his artistry, stifled at the end of his career over something as procedural as an MPAA rating.
Stanley Kubrick will always remain in the pantheon of great directors. Despite his final work not being everything he may have hoped for, he achieved something far greater than he ever could have imagined. Legend. His name, his films, and his untimely death will be discussed for as long as cinema continues to exist. And if Stanley Kubrick was anything like they say he was, then I'm sure his soul is at peace.