Eyes Wide Shut - The semiotics and hidden message of the film

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

Part 1 of an interesting article.

“Eyes Wide Shut” was promoted as a steamy, suspenseful movie starring the “It” couple of the day: Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. While the actors were prominently featured in the movie, it is everything around them that told the true story of “Eyes Wide Shut”. Stanley Kubrick’s attention to detail and symbolism gave the movie an entire other dimension – one that cannot be seen by those who have their eyes wide shut. This multiple-part series will look at the hidden symbolism of Kubrick’s final film.

I remember when I first watched Eyes Wide Shut, back in 1999. Boy, did I hate it. I hated how slow everything was, I hated how Nicole Kidman tried to sound drunk or high and I hated seeing Tom Cruise walk around New York looking concerned. I guess I reacted the same way critics did at the time the movie came out and thought: “This movie is boring and there is nothing hot about it.” More than a decade later, equipped with a little more knowledge and patience, I re-watched the movie … and it blew my mind. In fact, like most Stanley Kubrick films, an entire book could be written about the movie and the concepts it addresses. Eyes Wide Shut is indeed not simply about a relationship, it is about all of the outside forces and influences that define that relationship. It is about the eternal back-and-forth between the male and female principles in a confused and decadent modern world. Also, more importantly, it is about the group that rules this modern world – a secret elite that channels this struggle between the male and female principles in a specific and esoteric matter. The movie however does not spell out anything. Like all great art, messages are communicated through subtle symbols and mysterious riddles.

The rest:

http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-hidden-and-not-so-hidden-messages-in-stanley-kubriks-eyes-wide-shut-pt-i/

[The Arthen]

It's very difficult to find movie-lovers in the conspiracy realm, without the pretentious folks who never gave a **** about any kind of art before, but now suddenly they're "symbolism experts", like as if movies are "NOTHING BUT SYMBOLISM OOOOOOH"

the best part is, they also think that hollywood movies or big budget movies are ALL THAT'S EVER MADE. They don't care about so many other kinds of art or medium, they don't care about how different many kinds of mediums are - they just ASSUME that the ENTIRE UNIVERSE OF PRODUCTIONS THAT HAVE MONEY is ALL MADE BY DARK SINISTER FORCES.

Then they gather around for "art festivals" to promote peace and love. And who's left out of this whole thing? The people who WERE in it, but yet now they're being forced to be part of a stupid art festival for idiots that were NEVER INTO ART.

Thanks but no thanks.

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

eerrr... O.K.?

[Ivanhoe]

Wow. A little angry this morning the arthen?

[toad]

such a beautiful movie, I like the churchy occult rituals and the Venetian mask motif, swell as the Christmas light repetion.

[Mike]

So much I could say about the film, but for now I'll just say this: the scene where Cruise is confronted and asked to remove his mask...one of the most intense I've ever see.

I recall watching this movie, mid-winter, 10 years ago or so. It was around midnight and the snow was falling prodigiously. The beer was ice cold and going down effortlessly, and it felt as if I was in some sort of meditation. All great movies are like that - you are so lost in them that when a commercial comes on, the reintroduction to reality is slightly jarring.

I had a feeling throughout the entire movie, one which confused me at the time but I would later recognize as my truth alarm. I wasn't nearly as knowledgeable back then about this stuff as I am now, but I had no doubt in my mind that something very profound and true and secretive had been revealed. And it made me feel uneasy, the same way I felt uneasy when I was a kid exploring my parents closet and drawers when they were away from home. This was not something I was "supposed" to see. And there was a certain tangible feeling there, as I was watching the movie, that wouldn't leave me alone. "Guilt" is perhaps too strong a word, but there was certainly a certain something that wouldn't allow me to completely relax....

[noprophet]

Big fan here.
This video is all plot-level symbolism, but gives a good example of how well Kubrick was hinting around things.
Zc0M696luhE

[ulli]

I always wanted to go to film school when I was young and had a friend who long time ago worked as an editor with Ridley Scott, and he used to tell me insider anecdotes about Kubrick.
Because of these stories I developed an obsessive curiosity about Kubrick the person.
What was he trying to tell us?
Until I saw Eyes Wide Shut he was a mystery to me, but that movie, title and all, opened my eyes.

Kubrick was trying to wake up the world to an incredibly sinister reality.
Satanism in high places, and MKultra.
And the way the media treated it confirmed my other suspicion, that we no longer have a free press.
Soon after seeing the movie, and wondering if his death was timely or not, I came across this article.
Everything in it confirmed what I had suspected.

http://www.konformist.com/flicks/eyeswideshut.htm?ref_=ttexrv_exrv_205

[Freed Fox]

I found the following link in one of the comments for the original article EWO linked to. I haven't finished reading it yet, and although a few of the connections being made seem tenuous, it is overall pretty interesting and seemingly well thought out.

http://subliminalsynchrosphere.blogspot.com/2012/09/stanley-khufu-brick.html

This goes into analysis and details regarding various Kubrick films, including Eyes Wide Shut. I may comment further once I've finished reading and digesting it myself, but I still wanted to share it here in the meantime.

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

Here is part 2 of the article in the O.P. Just published.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-hidden-and-not-so-hidden-messages-in-stanley-kubricks-eyes-wide-shut-pt-ii/

[EYES WIDE OPEN]

Been doing so digging and just found this article. An interview with Christiane Kubrick.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/18/stanley-kubrick-christiane

Here are some interesting quotes:


There were some things I always felt nervous asking her about, like anything to do with her uncle Veit Harlan, but tonight over dinner – Paths of Glory making her nostalgic for the early days, I think – she brings the subject up herself. It turned out that when Harlan (her uncle) wasn't clowning around with Christiane, he was writing and directing propaganda films for Goebbels.


All Stanley's life he said, 'Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.'



It all began, she says, while Stanley was editing Eyes Wide Shut, which starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Stanley asked Vivian to compose the score, but at the last moment she said she wouldn't. Instead, she disappeared into San Francisco and Los Angeles. "They had a huge fight. He was very unhappy. He wrote her a 40-page letter trying to win her back. He begged her endlessly to come home from California. I'm glad he didn't live to see what happened."

On the day of Stanley's funeral, Christiane says, Vivian arrived with a woman nobody recognised. "She just sat in Vivian's room. Never said hello to us. Just sat. We were all spooked. Who was this person? Turns out she was a Scientology something-or-other, don't know what."

"Did Vivian give a reason why she joined the Scientologists?" I ask.

"It's her new religion," Christiane shrugs. "It had absolutely nothing to do with Tom Cruise by the way. Absolutely not."

"Maybe it was her way of dealing with her father's death?"

"I think she must have been very upset," Christiane says, "but, again, I wouldn't know. I know nothing. That is the truth. I can't reach her at all. I've had two conversations with her since Stanley died. The last one was eight years ago. She became a Scientologist and didn't want to talk to us any more and didn't see her dying sister, didn't come to her funeral. And these were children that had been joined at the hip."

[ulli]

Been doing so digging and just found this article. An interview with Christiane Kubrick.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/18/stanley-kubrick-christiane

Here are some interesting quotes:


There were some things I always felt nervous asking her about, like anything to do with her uncle Veit Harlan, but tonight over dinner – Paths of Glory making her nostalgic for the early days, I think – she brings the subject up herself. It turned out that when Harlan (her uncle) wasn't clowning around with Christiane, he was writing and directing propaganda films for Goebbels.


All Stanley's life he said, 'Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.'



It all began, she says, while Stanley was editing Eyes Wide Shut, which starred Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Stanley asked Vivian to compose the score, but at the last moment she said she wouldn't. Instead, she disappeared into San Francisco and Los Angeles. "They had a huge fight. He was very unhappy. He wrote her a 40-page letter trying to win her back. He begged her endlessly to come home from California. I'm glad he didn't live to see what happened."

On the day of Stanley's funeral, Christiane says, Vivian arrived with a woman nobody recognised. "She just sat in Vivian's room. Never said hello to us. Just sat. We were all spooked. Who was this person? Turns out she was a Scientology something-or-other, don't know what."

"Did Vivian give a reason why she joined the Scientologists?" I ask.

"It's her new religion," Christiane shrugs. "It had absolutely nothing to do with Tom Cruise by the way. Absolutely not."

"Maybe it was her way of dealing with her father's death?"

"I think she must have been very upset," Christiane says, "but, again, I wouldn't know. I know nothing. That is the truth. I can't reach her at all. I've had two conversations with her since Stanley died. The last one was eight years ago. She became a Scientologist and didn't want to talk to us any more and didn't see her dying sister, didn't come to her funeral. And these were children that had been joined at the hip."

Thank you so much for this. She made an interesting point about artists thinking they are more intelligent than the people in power, but that they are fools. But maybe true intelligence is debatable. Perhaps she meant cunning.

Quote:
"Where my uncle was an enormous fool, as many talented people are, was that he mistook his gift for intelligence," says Christiane. "He was a great big famous film person. He looked better and talked better and had enormous charm. So he thought he was also far more intelligent than Mr Goebbels. Goebbels was 10,000 times smarter than my uncle." She pauses. "Film people, actors, are puppets. We are silly. We are silly folk."

[Warlock]

A phenomenal, phenomenal movie.

Powerful truths that very few will even consider.

A masterpiece.

Warlock :wizard: