Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

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Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – S. Kubrick

I decided to rewatch Kubrick’s last film to see if there was something that I missed on first viewing 15 to 20 years ago. I think, in fact, that there wasn’t.  Which is not to say that the film doesn’t plumb some depths – it has a fair bit to say about sexual desire and jealousy and how these might be expressed in relationships.  Then married couple, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, describe their fantasies, acted on or not, to each other and witness the pain they inflict.  Based on the source novel by Arthur Schnitzler (Traumnovelle, 1926), sexual desire has a Freudian feel, consciously repressed (or just lied about?) and/or sublimated into dreams.  In fact, we don’t quite know whether the majority of the film is one of Tom Cruise’s dreams.  It certainly is an outlandish story (he discovers a secret meeting of the high and mighty, all dressed in masks and robes, and engaged in an orgy) and there are threats all around for anyone, Cruise in particular, who seeks to be unfaithful (the superego battling the id, no doubt).  As a cinematic experience, the film certainly is dreamlike, rambling from episode to episode (often in Kubrick’s studio-recreated version of Greenwich Village), filled with great chunks of emotionally laden speech and, yes, sexually suggestive moments. The colour template is warm oranges and chilly blues (often set against each other in the same shot), perhaps representing closeness and distance and the easy way we can slip between them. However, despite all the nudity and sex, it isn’t a particularly erotic film – there is too much anxiety for that, too much fear and jealousy.  The use of sex for domination by the powerful (i.e., the wealthy; such as Sydney Pollack’s evil host) or to control one’s spouse is too overt here and too uncomfortable. Of course, if you haven’t seen it, this is well worth investigating – I wouldn’t see it on a first date, however.