IFC has been showing “Eyes Wide Shut” (EWS) recently, so I was
inspired to do some more research into the film and came upon this article.
Like the article about “Mulholland Drive” that I shared with you years ago, I find
this type of writing amazing. Like most art, the actual “real” intention of the
artist is almost moot, as the world of the writer is a subsequent world built
upon the first world of the artist (in the case of “Eyes Wide Shut”, itself
based upon a book). I had seen EWS when it first came out, but like many of the
reviewers mentioned in the article, also found myself similarly disappointed by
its lack of erotic titillation (with the very limited scenes of Nicole Kidman).
The article is amazing to me because both myself and the
author (Tim Kreider) saw the same movie and yet I came away with none of what
Kreider writes about. Like the author, I did perceive the dream like narrative of the movie, its
undertone of a sinister, mildly Satanic theme, but I did not at all understand
it within the overall larger arc of the movie, or even Kubrick’s movies.
Somewhat painfully, it reminds me of the extremely fractious nature of political
discussions in recent years, when the same “reality” is perceived in vastly
different ways and both sides come away with completely opposing conclusions
from the same story.
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