Eyes+Wide+Shut+Analysis+by+Ryan+Chong

In the film Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick uses the theme of “assimilating into the Upper Class” to show how the Upper Class society does have the same moral values as Lower Class citizens may have, due to the Upper Class’ rich backgrounds. This idea is best supported by the scene in the film itself in which the protagonist Bill (Tom Cruise) is confronting his so-called friend, Victor (Sydney Pollack).

In the aforementioned scene. Bill is out on the street reflecting on the past events of the last two days he spend, of which are the events of the film, until he is called by his friend Victor who invites Bill to be confronted with some revealing information about a particular party Bill had attended. Bill arrives at Victor’s mansion to find Victor at a red pool table, preparing for his next move. An author summarizes this scene in one sentence:

// Victor’s explanation of what happened and what didn’t only satisfies if one blindly trusts Victor, who has everything to gain by lying to Bill. //

One element we can analyze in this scene is the red pool table. The aforementioned writer writes:

// The pool table itself, blood red in color, seems to point not only to the orgy sequence but to death, and the implication that Victor is lying. //

How Victor is trying to cover up the events of the film, eluding Bill from what really happened, only supports how there are great things in the Upper Class society that Victor does not want the Lower Class Bill to be apart of.



__Deprived__ I can see that the main character Bill did not have sex at all in the film. He tried to get it on with the two models, and was taken away for an emergency. Then he is kissed by a former patient's daughter, who says she loves him. He meets a prostitute on the street who takes him to her house, but is called by his wife, so he didn't have sex with the prostitute either. Is he passing up opportunities? Maybe he’s being saved, and when you look at the real world there is nothing to save people in the real world.

__Ending__ "I think we need to fuck" -Alice Alice goes on about going through a lot in just three days, the both of them. They are fortunate that nothing happened to them and that they need to fuck. This shows how fortunate they are. In the real world, not everyone can be this fortunate.

They are rich, but they seem to take it for granted. It seems to me that the film is telling us not to take things for granted. Sex, for one thing, to some, is a religious act and should not be exploited, and in the film, it is shown as taken for granted.

__Rich People__ There are lots of rich people in the film, with extravagant houses. These are juxtaposed with New York downtown apartments, rundown and plain.

__Rainbow Fashions__ The store keeper rejects the money at first, but changes his mind as he sees that Bill is desperate. To the store keeper, it probably was not about the money. This shows that poor people are still people.

__Quote__ "There's no reason to assume we're expected to like Bill and Alice Harford (in fact, Kubrick once told Michael Herr he wanted to make a film about doctors because "everyone hates doctors." [ 7 ]) They don't, like typical Hollywood villains, literally slather or speak with foreign accents. The Harfords are what we think of, uncritically, as "nice" people--that is to say, attractive and well-educated, a couple who collect art and listen to Shostakovitch. But evil among our elites is more often a matter of willful ignorance and passivity--of blindness--than of any deliberate cruelty. And Kubrick emphasizes that culture and erudition have nothing to do with goodness or depth of character; in this film they have more to do with the exhibitionistic display of imperial wealth."

__Bibliography__ http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0096.html