Eyes Wide Shut

Jamie Stuart's essay Eyes Wide Shut is easily the best piece I've read on that film. It's long and it starts getting good in the Aesthetics section, about a third of the way through.

I saw the film twice on opening weekend and years before this blog started writing notes about it, trying to figure it out. I picked up on how in the first part of the film Bill visits various characters and in the second he tries to find out what happened to each of them but is dependent on others (roommates, desk attendants, Victor) to tell him and we can never be sure if the info is right.

It wasn't until seeing Martin Scorcese guest on At The Movies where he listed his favorite films of the 90s that he described Eyes as Kubrick filming a dream that I got it. And I was annoyed that none of the many reviews I had read mentioned this at all. After that I didn't put much more effort into analyzing it though I have seen parts of it again when it's shown on cable.

Stuart's essay really makes me want to watch it again. Here are some choice paragraphs, but just read the whole thing.

"Eyes Wide Shut’s main character, Bill Harford, is constantly entering into situations that existed before him, and will continue once he’s gone. Bill is traveling through a series of future light cones, touring through the ripples of previous events, and the viewer, put in his place, enters into these situations as blindly as he does. We’re given no more exposition than the main character. Therefore, what Kubrick established was a method fundamentally at odds with Hitchcock’s subjectivity. Hitchcock built suspense by granting the audience more information than his characters through the use of cutaways, or, in the case of Rear Window, panning away from a sleeping James Stewart to show the murderous events going on across the courtyard. Kubrick, who felt 20th Century art had become too subjective and was in dire need of locating a sense of objectivity, would have none of that winking. "

"As Eyes Wide Shut unspools, Kubrick begins filling our minds with strange inconsistencies, of which the previously mentioned [air conditioner] is only one. An obviously missing statue in one scene is another example; a chair that comes and goes near Bill’s front door which he likes to place his coat on is another. He’s begging us to wonder whether these things are intentional or not."

"The black & white motif is used to directly counter the “rainbow” of colors awash throughout most of the film. (Remember, The Wizard of Oz pairs B&W reality in Kansas against lush color in Oz.) There appears to be a logic to the use of colors which goes as follows: blue represents an artificial or mechanical surface; red represents an internal entry, Eros, or the life instinct; orange represents normalcy and familial warmth; and yellow represents unreliability and a lack of control. Red and blue are seen most frequently, often paired within the same shot to contrast each other. Kubrick paired these two once before during the opening titles of A Clockwork Orange, and a clockwork orange is, of course, somebody who appears to be living yet is really mechanical."

"Bill is a boob...This scene features one of the funniest moments in the film. As Mr. Milich steps out of his apartment, we can see some lights reflected on the glass door of the building. These lights are the neon signs in front of Sonata Cafe and Gillespie’s Diner. Upon cutting to a reverse we can see both buildings directly behind Bill. He's apparently hired a cab to drive him to a destination that was right across the street from where he was. The cabby most likely drove around, then dropped his clueless passenger off.

Now, here’s a curve ball. The next day when Bill returns to Sonata Cafe and finds it’s closed, he steps back and looks around the block; in the background, we can see the building with the storefront that’s supposed to be Rainbow Costumes -- however, it’s been stripped of any visible identification, save the marks of where the Rainbow sign was. What’s going on? Is this intentional? Poor production values? No. Once again, it’s intentional. Like the AC. Like the missing statue. The reason Kubrick has Bill step aside to look around is to deliver this information. Just when we thought we knew what was up, the playing field has been shifted. Kubrick is refusing to grant us the slightest bit of resolution. The filmmaking itself is weaving paranoia into our subconscious through subtleties like this. And it's these traits that render the film functionally surrealist."