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F i l m - P h i l o s o p h y
ISSN 1466-4615
http://www.film-philosophy.com
Volume 3 Number 30
July 1999
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Marty Fairbairn
The Gaze and _Eyes Wide Shut_
_Eyes Wide Shut_
Produced and Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Warner Bros., 1999
Stanley Kubrick's much-anticipated last film, _Eyes Wide Shut_ is an
appropriate conclusion to the director's distinguished career, as well as
being a summation of his views on the role of art in culture, in particular
the role of the narrative arts such as cinema. Ostensibly, the film deals
with the marital troubles of a young, successful New York couple, Bill and
Alice Harford (Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman), who, after engaging in some
harmless flirtation at the upscale party of rich socialite Victor Ziegler
(Sydney Pollack), begin to question their commitment to each other. Alice
expresses jealousy at Bill's attraction for two young models. This prompts
Alice to tell Bill a story about her more serious attraction for a naval
officer the couple ran into at a vacation resort. This is a disturbing
story in so far as Alice makes it plain that if the naval officer had
'wanted' her, she would have given up Bill, their daughter Helena, indeed,
their whole life for a single night with him. Not surprisingly, the story
causes a crisis of marital confidence in Bill, who, when suddenly called
out to attend upon a patient's death, follows a sexual yellow brick road
through a bizarre New York night, ultimately descending, via a series of
gates, to a secret, nightmarish, possibly dangerous underworld of
voyeuristic, ritual sex. But like Dorothy, Bill finds 'there's no place
like home'.
The film features two strong central performances that subtly capture the
sexually repressed, emotionally alienated psyches of a modern, successful
couple. Cruise's and (especially) Kidman's performances show us a
superficial, self-deluded sensuality, yet manage to suggest that deeper
passions bubble just below the surface. This 'successful' couple's
happiness, like their sensuality, is only skin-deep. Kubrick's camera
suggests his characters' duplicity by constantly flipping sides, showing us
the same characters from two opposite directions. Sydney Pollack is the
manipulative philanderer Victor Ziegler, surrounded by art but thoroughly
corrupt and degraded. A nightmare version of the wizard, it is he who
reveals the secrets behind the masks but, as it turns out, there *are* no
secrets.
This is a film that operates on many levels: it is about the vagaries of
adult sexual relationships, but it is also about voyeurism; it is about the
fetish of looking, 'scopophilia', as well as the problem of being looked
at; and, it is about the role of the 'image' in the postmodern world. Right
from the start, Kubrick makes us accomplices in looking. The opening image
of the film, inter-cut with the credits, is one of Alice/Nicole Kidman
sliding out of her dress. This opening sets the tone for the film: Kubrick
casts *us* in the role of voyeurs by casting America's most-watched couple
in the lead roles of his film. We enjoy watching Alice and Bill watch
themselves make love in front of a mirror (to the strains of Chris Isaac's
'Baby did a Bad, Bad Thing'). We also enjoy watching Tom Cruise and Nicole
Kidman reveal *them*selves. This is perhaps the central image of the film
and it operates simultaneously as sexual stimulant and cultural commentary.
Within the film, it operates as a template for the powerful lure of the
image, the superficial facade of things and the 'story', the fascination
for which causes trouble between Bill and Alice Harford. Outside the film,
it operates as a central example of the reason why this film, starring this
couple, holds such interest for us: they are perhaps filmdom's most
alluring couple. We are attracted to them; we want to look at them.
(Indeed, the sequence even suggests that star images are a source of
fascination *for the stars themselves*, but this takes us well beyond the
scope of this review.) But images are a temptation, a trap into which we
may fall at any time, a trap that resonates with Christian theology's
history of ambivalence vis-a-vis the image as icon.
_Eyes Wide Shut_ suggests that the more you look at something, the less you
actually see. Looking is a type of flirtation, but there is a price to be
paid for it. For Bill, the price is humiliation; for us, it is losing touch
with our own sensuality by living our dreams through others'. The more we
look at that which is private, intimate, the less able we are to deal with
our own intimacy. But more than the role of the image is dealt with here.
Kubrick suggests that the arts, especially the narrative arts such as film,
have an important role to play in the self-conscious awareness of a
culture. We tell stories to learn about ourselves. But we should never take
the stories *themselves* for real. Bill's 'crisis' is based on the story
that Alice tells him, but the reality is that Bill and Alice are still
together: she didn't go off with a sailor and he didn't go off with the two
models. Similarly, film artists tell us stories and actors 'reveal
themselves' to us, but none of it is real. Film directors play games,
audiences participate. Through Sydney Pollack, Kubrick tells us 'It's all
fake. None of it is real.' ('Just ignore the man behind the curtain.') It
is not accidental that Kubrick casts Sydney Pollack, a well-known American
film director, in the role of a rich manipulator who likes to watch the
intimate sexual acts of strangers. Bill's reaction to Alice's story reminds
us that stories can stimulate all manner of emotions; fear, sexual arousal,
amusement, excitement, anger. (In the case of cinema, they sometimes send
us reeling from the theatre, especially if the director is Stanley
Kubrick.) Hence, film art, like the other narrative arts, is a force to be
reckoned with. Like Gadamer's notion of 'play', narrative art is a serious
game. It can change the way we view ourselves, even sometimes the way we
live. But it is not real life. Real life is what we live every day.
_Eyes Wide Shut_ is the work of a gifted director near (as it turns out,
*at*) the end of his career, reflecting on the role of film art in popular
culture and the lure of the image. As much as it is a film about the
vagaries of adult sexual relationships, it is a film about scopophilia and
our obsession with the postmodern god, the Hollywood icon. This perhaps
accounts for Tom Cruise's and Nicole Kidman's interest in the project,
apart from the rare opportunity to work with one of the world's great
directors: _Eyes Wide Shut_ is about people seduced by images, people who
are so taken with the image that they forget the substance of the object of
their gaze. Film directors/story-tellers -- not limited to, but perhaps
especially Kubrick -- manipulate our emotions and play fast and loose with
personal identity through temporarily blurring the distinction between
dream and reality, art and real life. But as Alice and Bill discover,
stories are essentially 'fake'. Our lives are real, ours to live, ours to
be in. Take what is useful from this 'dream for waking eyes', but don't
stay too long, because in the end it's about reality, not dreams.
Bon voyage and thank you, Mr Kubrick.
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
July 1999
Copyright © _Film-Philosophy_ 1999
Marty Fairbairn, 'The Gaze and _Eyes Wide Shut_', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 3
no. 30, July 1999
<http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy/files/fairbairn3.html>.
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