Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut  (film)
Kubrik leaves a hint at the identity of the secret society: Kidman's "one eye" is a symbol frequently used by Freemasons.
Type	fiction
Publication date	1999
Author(s)
Subjects	VIPedophile?,  secret society,  freemasonry
Depicts a hidden world where the richest and most powerful people partake in occult sacrificial sexual rituals.

Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 film directed, produced and co-written by Stanley Kubrick.

Plot

The film follows Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) who embarks on a sexually charged odyssey, during which he infiltrates a masked ritual orgy of an unnamed secret society of extremely powerful people.

Kubrick’s attention to detail and symbolism gives the movie another dimension – one that cannot be seen by those who have their eyes wide shut. Not only does the movie depict the world’s richest and most powerful people partaking in occult rituals, it also shows how this circle has also the power to exploit slaves, to stalk people, and even to get away with sacrificial murders, which are then covered up by media.

Untimely death

Kubrick died six days after showing his final cut to Warner Bros. Pictures, making this the final film he directed. Considering the fact that Eyes Wide Shut is about an occult secret society that eliminates those who cross its path, some theories arose about Kubrick’s death and its suspicious nature.

Plot

Dr. Bill Harford and his wife, Alice Harford, live in New York City with their daughter Helena. They attend a Christmas party hosted by wealthy patient Victor Ziegler, where Bill is reunited with Nick Nightingale, an old medical school classmate who dropped out and now plays the piano professionally. An older Hungarian guest attempts to seduce Alice, and two young models attempt to seduce Bill. He is interrupted by his host, who had been having sex with Amanda, a young woman who has overdosed on a speedball. Mandy recovers with Bill's aid.

The following evening, while smoking marijuana, Alice and Bill discuss their episodes of unfulfilled temptation. Bill tells Alice he is not jealous of other men's attraction to her because he deems women naturally inclined to fidelity. She then discloses that during their vacation on Cape Cod, she encountered a Naval Officer and fantasized about him enough that she considered leaving Bill and their daughter. Bill is disturbed by Alice's revelation before being called to the house of a patient who has just died. The patient's distraught daughter, Marion, unsuccessfully tries to seduce Bill.

Upon leaving, he engages with a prostitute named Domino. Alice phones when they start kissing, prompting Bill to have a change of heart. He pays Domino for the sexless encounter and meets Nick at a jazz club. Nick describes an engagement where he must play piano blindfolded in events featuring beautiful women. Invitees require a costume, a mask and a password. Bill goes to a costume shop and offers the owner, Milich, a generous amount of money to rent a costume. Inside the shop, Milich is outraged when he catches his young daughter with two men.

Bill takes a taxi to the country mansion mentioned by Nick. He gives the password and discovers a sexual ritual is taking place. One of the masked women (later revealed to be Amanda) warns him he is in terrible danger. Bill is ushered to a crowded room and unmasked by the master of ceremonies. The woman who had tried to warn Bill intervenes and insists on redeeming him, at an undisclosed personal cost. The master asks her "Do you know what this entails?", and she confirms her willingness. Bill is let off with a warning not to tell anyone about what happened.

Bill discovers in the newspaper that Amanda was found dead in a hotel room due to an overdose.

Bill arrives home guilty and confused. He finds Alice laughing in her sleep and awakens her. She tearfully explains a dream in which she was having sex with the naval officer and many other men, and laughing at the idea of Bill witnessing the scene. The next morning, Bill goes to Nick's hotel. The desk clerk explains that a bruised and frightened Nick checked out hours earlier escorted by two dangerous-looking men. Bill returns the costume but seems to have misplaced the mask, and learns that Milich has sold his teenage daughter into sex slavery.

That afternoon, plagued by thoughts of his wife sleeping with the naval officer, Bill leaves his practice early to return to the site of the orgy. As he stands at the front gate, a man comes down to greet him and hands him an envelope addressed to him by name. Inside is an anonymous letter issuing him a second warning to stay away.

Bill calls Marion, but when her fiancé answers he hangs up. Bill heads to Domino's apartment, apparently having decided to consummate his affair. However, he is greeted by a woman who claims that she is Domino's roommate, Sally. There is obvious sexual tension between Bill and Sally but she then reveals that Domino had received just that morning the results of a test that indicated that she was HIV-positive. Bill leaves.

Having left the apartment, Bill notices he is being followed by a mysterious figure. He sees the news about a beauty queen's death from an overdose, goes to the morgue, and identifies her as Mandy. He is then summoned by Ziegler, who reveals he was a guest in the orgy and identified Bill through his connection with Nick. Ziegler claims the secret society's warnings are only intended to scare Bill from speaking about the orgy. However, he implies that the society is capable of acting on its threats. Zigler says:

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 gonna tell you their names – but if I did, I don’t think you’d sleep so well.

Bill asks about Nick's disappearance and Mandy's death, correctly identifying her as the masked orgy participant who sacrificed herself for him. Ziegler insists that Nick is safely back home in Seattle, and the punishment was part of the same charade of intimidation and had nothing to do with Mandy's death. He also says that Mandy was an addict who had died from another accidental drug overdose.

Returning home, Bill finds the rented mask on his pillow next to his sleeping wife. He breaks down in tears and tells Alice the whole truth of the past two days. The next morning, they go Christmas shopping with their daughter. Bill apologizes to Alice, and Alice muses that they should be grateful that their marriage and mutual love survived. She suggests that there is something they need to do "as soon as possible". When Bill asks what, she simply responds, "Fuck."

Symbolism

Cloaked in red, the High Priest sits on a throne which features a very important symbol: A double-headed eagle topped by a crown. The double-headed eagle is one of the most ancient and prominent symbols of Freemasonry. A crowned double-headed eagle is representative of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry, the highest degree attainable. Kubrick might be implying that the High Priest is a 33rd Degree Freemason.

The film is laced with oculist symbolism, with mirrors, masks, magic circles, eight-pointed stars, ritual sex and sacrifices, the difference in light between the "Christmas tree lighted" outside world and the clear light of the secret world, and human sacrifices.

The mansion in which the orgy scenes were filmed also just so happens to be Mentmore Towers in Somerset, England, built for the Rothschild family in the 1850s.

Dream Story

Very loosely based on the 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler, the movie transfers the story from early 20th-century Vienna to 1990s New York City.

Kubrick obtained the filming rights for Dream Story in the 1960s, considering it a perfect text for a film adaptation about sexual relations. He revived the project in the 1990s when he hired writer Frederic Raphael to help him with the adaptation. The film, which was mostly shot in the United Kingdom, apart from some exterior establishing shots, includes a detailed recreation of exterior Greenwich Village street scenes made at Pinewood Studios.

Corporate critics

Film critics in corporate media noticeably skirted the main points of the movie. Roger Ebert compared it to "an erotic daydream about chances missed and opportunities avoided." The Guardian wrote it was "bound up in a certain kind of deadpan absurdity and soft-porn seriousness." The Washington Post made sure to point out that the ritual orgy of "consenting adults" is "like an unintentional Austin Powers joke, in which private parts are strategically hidden just as the camera sweeps past."

Resources

• The Hidden Messages in “Eyes Wide Shut” pt1 The comments are great too
• The Hidden Messages in “Eyes Wide Shut” pt2
• The Hidden Messages in “Eyes Wide Shut” pt3

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References

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