Eyes Wide Shut: A Risky Fairy Tale?

Editor’s Notes: Christian Jimenez is finishing a doctorate on fascism, story-telling, and narrative theory. He currently is at work on a number of projects including a novel and a book on conspiracy theory in the work of director Stanley Kubrick.

I’m sorry to differ with you sir …

- Delbert Grady in The Shining (1980)

Revisionism comes naturally to critics especially over Stanley Kubrick. Pauline Kael dismissed 2001: A Space Odyssey as boring and amateurish. Roger Ebert considered A Clockwork Orange pornographic trash. They certainly didn’t retract their opinions but critical opinion is more kind on those efforts than was the case when they were released. But few films have engendered more mixed feelings than Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

Upon its release Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s final film, adapting a Schnitzler novella, Traumnovelle (or dream-novel). Some critics did defend Eyes Wide Shut even going so far as to praise it as his best film. Others dismissed it as perhaps one of Kubrick’s worst films. Indeed, one of the worst of all time. Both reactions seem to misunderstand his goals enormously.

Some critics did defend Eyes Wide Shut even going so far as to praise it as his best film. Others dismissed it as perhaps one of Kubrick’s worst films. Indeed, one of the worst of all time. Both reactions seem to misunderstand his goals enormously.

The issue isn’t the sheer boredom of the film. Barry Lyndon is a notoriously slow film, too, but it’s been revised as one of Kubrick’s forgotten masterpieces. Still there is evidence Kubrick did think he failed. The character actor R. Lee Ermey, the notorious Marine drill sergeant Gunnery Hartman in Full Metal Jacket (1987), says (allegedly) Kubrick admitted in a telephone conversation he considered Eyes Wide Shut as a “piece of shit.” Even if Ermey could be believed, I think Kubrick may have gone too far.

For a perfectionist like Kubrick, this might be a correct judgment. And any honest reading, to be sure, has to confess Eyes Wide Shut does have lots of problems. Lots of them (the script, story, ponderous pacing, etc.). Perhaps many of them are insurmountable. But it deserves a fair hearing and should be given an even-handed assessment of a very problematic picture.

The story essentially has Tom Cruise as Dr. Bill Harford and Nicole Kidman as Alice Harford. At the beginning, there is evidence that Bill’s marriage to Alice is clearly strained. They leave their daughter, Helena, to attend a Christmas party by Ziegler, a client of Bill’s. At the party, he helps Ziegler concerning a drugged model, Mandy he has in his bathroom. He also catches up with his former fellow medical student Nick Nightingale (Todd Field). They come home and have a fight. There she confesses some erotic fantasies involving a naval officer.

This sends Bill off on a sexual odyssey of bizarre encounters that climax at some mansion that has an incredible orgy occurring that Nightingale provides (blind-folded) music entertainment for. Captured and seeming about to die, his life is saved and he eventually returns to Alice and they seem by the conclusion to have resolved to stay together.

Perhaps many of them are insurmountable. But it deserves a fair hearing and should be given an even-handed assessment of a very problematic picture.

On the surface, the plot almost entirely is faithful to the novella, but at a deeper level differs from much of Kubrick’s canon in terms of the closeness to him. Kubrick was born in New York and his father was a doctor. The story itself is about female and male dreams and fantasies, a long-time subject for Kubrick. But the visualization of these fantasies is confusing to the extreme. The sex scenes (such as they are) seem fairly boring, even clinical. To be sure, yes, the multiple shots of Nicole Kidman’s bare behind and other supposed titillating scenes. But this is misdirection that Kubrick is (in)famous for.

The real subject for Kubrick is not sex in the usual sense but entire ideological and cultural systems hidden beneath our fears and desires. But if Kubrick was such a deconstructive artist (for evidence on this point the reader should consult Luis M. Garcia Mainar’s great book on Kubrick) why not be more upfront about this? One reason is his notorious sense of humor. Another is his political leanings and perhaps paranoia. Kubrick actually cut and re-edited some scenes from Strangelove to make sure no one thought he approved of the JFK assassination (whatever his own actual feelings). If you’re conspiracy-obsessed but still socially active artist how are you to respond? For Kubrick, it is to douse your films with both subtle but also obvious visual clues. In one crucial scene, for instance, Bill is led by the prostitute Domino into her apartment.

There the camera stops to capture a textbook sticking out called Introducing Sociology. The lesson is obvious: Dr. Bill has not been introduced into the rougher side of life. The film forces him to be introduced into the harsher underside of class politics in a major city. Another added layer is that Domino looks a lot like Bill’s daughter. In fact, their attempt at intercourse is interrupted by a call from Alice. It’s unclear if Bill chooses to stop himself or Alice has intervened. Bill’s perversity is emphasized when he returns to the apartment only to find Sally, Domino’s apartment-mate, who he aggressively attempts to bed. But then she revealing Domino is HIV positive. Sally, of course, also looks much like the daughter, too.

A later scene has a newspaper headline telling Bill he is “LUCKY TO BE ALIVE,” presumably alluding to his almost being infected by Domino. The pen-ultimate scene has Bill crying over the dead body of the model, Mandy, he earlier examined in the morgue. Is he truly sad or is he is guilty of necrophilia? One can’t tell. The film concludes in a rather disturbing debate with Ziegler who advises him to essentially remain silent.

As Ziegler tells Bill, frankly: “You’ve been way out of your depth for the last twenty-four hours.” In other words, he has overstepped his bounds. Nightingale’s blind-fold symbolizes just how starkly and powerfully elites guard their secrecy. Wealthy people can indulge in all the crazed sexual escapades (pedophilia, necrophilia, group sex) he witnessed but that is their privilege not his. This brutal male-dominated hierarchy is not so different from the one the Moonwatcher experiences in 2001.

Many conspiracy theorists think Kubrick left behind some ultra-secret message. But they don’t have to look very far for conspiracies in Kubrick. Watching Lolita, one finds even the earliest scenes alluding to some grander, greater conspiracy by power elites.

Many conspiracy theorists think Kubrick left behind some ultra-secret message. But they don’t have to look very far for conspiracies in Kubrick. Watching Lolita, one finds even the earliest scenes alluding to some grander, greater conspiracy by power elites. That Kubrick (like most artists) was ambivalent about American capitalism and imperialism is obvious but he codes his messages so finely that one can’t tell the exact political message. There is now pretty strong evidence that The Shining (1980) contains many hidden messages regarding colonial violence and even the Holocaust. Those reappear in Eyes Wide Shut. The issue, unfortunately, here isn’t politics but aesthetics.

If class, war, and feminism are the film’s real subjects how does it hold up as a viewing experience? On purely its artistic merits, the film is ridiculously muddled and unfocused.

Perhaps this is meant as a clever attempt to, literally, submerge us in the dream logic of the film. If so, the abrupt and often silly acting comes off as tired and forced. It’s hard to enjoy even the sets and designs since they seem to announce their message. Still if critics attacked Eyes Wide Shut for offering lousy foreplay, they largely missed the point. Yes, eroticism is front and center in the film but it is more precisely the erotic politics of a man thinking he is higher in the hierarchy than he is being humbled by his lovers and his employers. Perhaps the best reading of the film is an allegory about political and social responsibility.

If this interpretation is right then the film has been mainly successful since the concentration on elite conspiracies has been a theme Kubrick covers in all his films and many fans have focused on this. As for myself, I’d have to judge it is as a good but not great film. And, personally, found the constant use of György Ligeti’s “Musica Ricercata” is torturous, distracting, and unbearable. If one desires eroticism, anti-fascism, and conspiracy to be combined a much better film here is David Cronenberg’s Videodrome. In contrast, Eyes Wide Shut can only be considered a moderately good film.

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Christian Jimenez

Christian Jimenez is finishing a doctorate on fascism, story-telling, and narrative theory. He currently is at work on a number of projects including a novel and a book on conspiracy theory in the work of director Stanley Kubrick.

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