Eyes Wide Shut (1999): Film Analysis
The last Stanley Kubrick film I was yet to see, not his strongest in terms of thematic development, but yet it still provided me with Freudian and interpersonal insights that many similar films could not.
The Bedroom Argument
The bedroom scene where tensions of infidelity reach a high appeared to reflect Jacques Lacan's axiomatic simplified observation that "Man knows nothing of Woman and Woman knows nothing of Man." The exchange pivots on Alice's (Nicole Kidman) grilling Bill (Tom Cruise) about whether he wanted to be with two Women he met the evening prior at a party, and why he is different to other Men in not wanting to act on his urges. Bill is the reasonable, boundaried, civilised figure in the exchange, yet Alice attempts to undermine and even humiliate him in getting him to acknowledge the depth of her explicitly female desire, and the infidelity that is always lurking as a potentiality in any relationship.
I think it is more accurate to say this scene is a perfect embodiment of Freud's rhetorical question: "what does the woman want?". The Man here does not know and appears to be completely undermined by the flux of desires, ambivalence in commitment and attraction his wife experiences, almost appearing like a loss of desire for her husband, and the unconscious imposition of a fantasy she has. There are echoes of Jordan Peterson’s insistence that a female who is not "dominated", meaning, in a complex way, rivalled in competence by her partner, in my interpretation, will eventually be dissatisfied with their long term partner. Which is self-evident given Alice’s disdain for her husband and allure for a taller, more assertive and articulate Man. Bill's character highlights these predisposed flaws even more so during Bill's passive response to harassment on the street.
The female perspective is convincing in it's honest tonality throughout the exchange in it’s embodiment of the chaos of desire and lust. The bottom line is that Bill thought he knew his wife, and it turns out he assumed her goodness and became troubled during this realisation, cementing his decision to take up his own malevolent "adventure" by entering a secret orgy.
Secret Party
The striking choral music and catholic symbolism and iconography, including the smoking incense, sets this scene with the contrasting nudity/obscenity apparent throughout with a very clear seedy and promiscuous aim. Religious iconography and the anonymity of the individuals, enabled through the ritualistic rules themselves, is the utilisation of the sacred to formalise the profane and obscene. To elevate hedonistic desire to the elevated position of religious virtue in a value hierarchy.
The backdrop of such acts and rituals against a highly individualistic, impulsive, hedonistic and capitalistic urban New York, illuminates the known unknowns of our culture. That we know immoral and damaging practices continue behind closed doors and we are powerless to truly prevent them, as established by the rules of the liberal establishment themselves, and that our value hierarchy is some way pervertedly protecting the liberty to collectively do such things without recourse to punishment. In Christian America, this must also be a particular issue that pricks the conscience of many, where Christian morals disintegrate as liberalism becomes sacred, instead.
The use of masks by the party-goers denote an obvious deindividualization and anonymity imposed upon them, yet it is entirely voluntary in terms of admittance to the party. Therefore the function is more complicated and may serve to preserve the civility of the "outside world" (the world outside the secret party) in a sense. It is a way to permit the impermissible in such an environment without "losing face" by revealing identity, emotion, shame, or fear in the face of obscenity.
The Reality
There are reported obscene parties of this sort that were engaged in the most obscene crimes. One documentary featuring Anneke Lucas reported these sorts of "highbrow" parties occurring in Belgium in the 1960s, and serious abuse occurred, committed by political elites, aristocracts and people of significance. Kubrick's envisioning of these parties in the party scene is both alarming in it's realism and relevance to recent scandals. The role of central authority figure controlling the crowd and executing punishment was also true in the real parties reported in the 1960s. In the documentary mentioned above, many individuals were deemed "disposable", meaning, if abused individuals spoke out, they would be killed. That is the seriousness of what is behind this scene, in a supposed "civilised Europe", and this occurs in the film too.
Closure
In the finale, the realisation of Bill in attempting to pursue this desire by entering the orgy, out of a form of revenge against his wifes suspected infidelities, creates a deadlock between Bill and Alice, where they mutually agree on the need to be grateful for their relationship and not allow such desires to run amok and destroy the meaning in their lives, including their family. There is a theraputic wisdom here in exhalting ones deepest desires in a real and honest way to one another; in the form of a dream/confessional fantasies from Alice, and in the form of visiting the orgy party from Bill. The crux of this "agreement" is to not allow the promiscuous rot around them to destroy the sacred, which in this instance relates to their marriage - which is a sacrement. Therefore harking back to the deliberate portrayal of the party with sacred iconography to be a perversion of the sacred and something that is set against that which is sacred, akin to a marriage and family bonds.