Thread by @BorealBaron

The movie could have ended in this scene: “Go home, Doctor. You have a beautiful wife. That should be more than enough for you, because you are not cut out for the highest levels of power.”

Thread on Eyes Wide Shut 🧵

The initial reaction to Eyes Wide Shut was that it wasn't really provocative or erotic and that Kubrick was out of touch. Like with every Kubrick movie, it took the critics more than 20 years to reassess the film.

There is an explanation for this: Kubrick confused many by adapting well-known genre novels and completely changing their tone and message. The novella this movie is based on is a 19th-century novel of manners, …

… and thus many thought that the movie was about obsession and the troubles of the marriage institution, but Kubrick was as interested in doing THAT adaptation as he was in filming Dr. Strangelove or The Shining as serious commentaries…

… instead of the particular genre films that they turned out to be.

If his goal had been to make the most erotic film about jealousy, scenes like this would not have been discarded in pre-production.

Kubrick wasn't trying to outsmart 1970s Italian directors by shooting "realistic" sex scenes with hand-held cameras or whatever; everything for him had to be perfectly choreographed, and it works because that is not the point of this film.

The powerful secret society that Hartford discovers indulges in ludicrous sex rituals: dancing in circles, following Byzantine codes, and stiffly watching while other men fuck prostitutes. It is not difficult to image elites doing this. In fact, it is cringey.

But Hartford was completely humiliated by these people after they discovered him. Who knows how many of his clients were in that room? That was the lowest point for him—to be chastised by people who are obviously in a higher position than him.

And this is, I think, the real tragedy at the core of this film. Hartford’s powerlessness.

The meeting with Victor Ziegler was an act of mercy on his part. There was no need for him to explain to Dr. Hartford anything if he was truly an evil man.

He knew that Hartford had ruined his reputation that night and that New York's high society would exclude him if he didn't help him.

At the end of the scene, he tells him "life goes on... until it doesn't." It wasn't a threat, but an act of mercy on his part.

… as he knew that a simple man like Hartford would be morally shocked by the death of "the hooker" if he found out through the press. If this secret society was truly murderous, he could have ordered his killing …

… since it is heavily implied that he is very high in the hierarchy of the sex cult by the way he continuously makes this gesture of hitting the pool table, echoing a similar gesture by the Red Cloak. 

There is no way that this gesture wasn't intentional.

Kubrick is notorious for not liking natural or method acting at all. In Dr.Strangelove he lied to George C. Scott by telling him that his most outlandish takes were just rehearsals.

He also told Jack Nicholson to go overboard because he wasn't interested in doing another movie about a good-father-gone-bad. Thus, there is a reason why Ziegler makes this gesture, and there is a reason why there is a pool table in this room built at Pinewood studios.

This movie was shot over a period of one and a half years; the actors went over these scenes hundreds of times, and Kubrick showed them their performances on a video screen after every take, telling them what to focus or what to drop altogether.

There is no reason to think that anything at a story level was left to mere chance.

I think that this is the dark message that Kubrick was trying to express in this movie: Hartford will never be a powerful person despite knowing powerful people.

As the last line in the movie implies, he can be grateful that he has a beautiful wife to "fuck," a nice apartment, and a child. But that's it; he will never rule over anybody.

I love this film and it is in my top three from Kubrick's. When I went to the Kubrick exposition, I was more enthusiastic about seeing props like the New York Post article or the napkin than about the models from 2001 or the statues from the Korova Milkbar.

I think that Kubrick better expresses his bleak view of humanity in this movie than any of his war or horror films. And given that this is a story about a middle class man, it may be even bleaker.

By the way, there is a myth making the rounds on the internet (around the same people who believe that there is such a thing as a "Kalergi Plan") saying that Kubrick never really finished this movie.

I think he did; it looks extremely polished in every department and up to his standards. If any scenes had been cut, we would have known already, or did Warner Brothers actually kill Sydney Pollack to stop him from revealing the secrets of the sex cult? lol