"EYES WIDE SHUT"--- KUBRICK, SCHNITZLER, FREUD

The New Yorker magazine, long a foe of Freudian psychoanalysis, makes the following interesting connections in its "Book Currents" (August 2, 1999)

"Now that the Viennese writer and libertine Arthur Schnitzler has suddenly become big box-office--- David Hare's "The Blue Room," (Grove) was an adaptation of Schnitzler's most famous play, "La Ronde." (1903), and Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," is based on the novella "Traumnovelle" (1926)--- the raffishly amoral spirit of fin de siecle Vienna is enjoying a renaissance. Schnitzler, who as a medical student had written a dissertation on neurosis, was influenced by another adventurous Viennese, Sigmund Freud.

"The admiration was mutual; in the introductions to his new translation of "Four Major Plays" (Smith and Kraus), Carl Mueller quotes a letter from Sigmund Freud to Schnitzler expressing envy that the playwright could have intuited 'this or that secret knowledge which I was able to discover only after arduous examination.'"

Kubrick's genius was to hark back a hundred years to a time which is, amazingly, not too different from our own in the respect that intimate love relationships can be hazardous to one's mental health, causing turmoil and--- well, angst. Borrowing from Schnitzler, Kubrick re-acquaints those who are jaded by, or ignorant of Freudian psychoanalysis with his last, artful film.

It is about the vicissitudes of a marriage, and from the start the movie is both deep, multi-layered, complex and subtle. At the very beginning, Nicole Kidman shockingly steps out of a party dress, leaving her stark naked. In a flash she is seen sitting on the toilet, asking her husband, Tom Cruise, "how do I look?" He is tying his bow-tie and says, "perfect!" She asks about her hair. He says, "great.' She says he didn't really look, and he responds, "It's beautiful."

These are clues that their nine year marriage is on shaky ground. He is a busy doctor and she is a stay-at-home mom, half-heartedly looking for a job. They are going to a party. Tom was invited because he "makes house-calls," meaning that he tends to the very, very rich. He mingles with the high and mighty.

At the party the apparently warm and gracious host gives him a glad-handed welcome. Then Tom and Nicole go their separate ways. Tom is quickly escorted by two models who seductively imply they will service him upstairs, but just before he succumbs to their charms he receives an urgent message that the host needs him right away. Upstairs, the party-giver is half undressed in an elaborate bathroom in which a beautiful woman is completely naked and completely out cold. The host wants help with this embarrasing situation. She overdosed on drugs and he doesn't want a corpse on his hands. He would not want to deal with a police investigation and coroner.

Dr. Tom examines her, entirely dispassionately, and determines that she is going to live. He gives this barely conscious woman a concerned lecture about going to rehab and taking better care of herself. Later in the movie, this professional act of kindness comes back to save his life.

Going her way, Nicole is looking for something. She takes a glass of champagne and swallows it in one gulp. Then she takes another. She is quickly spotted and approached by a sexual predator, a distinguished looking Hungarian, who approaches her, and who oils his way around the floor, dancing seductively with her. He asks if she were acquainted with Ovid's "Art of Love." She acts coy but dances close. The camera whirls around the couple hypnotically, while he gets more and more insistent and persuasive, and she seems to be under his spell. Finally, she holds up her wedding ring, breaks the spell and abruptly leaves.

Neither Tom nor Nicole have physically consummated a relationship in an extramarital affair, but it is clear they are both on the lookout. Later that evening they are home and Tom is getting amorous. She rolls a joint and they each smoke, as if this is their normal procedure. Why do some people need a joint to make love? To overcome inhibitions? To relax controls? To bury and hide ambivalence? Afraid of true passion? Or are they are looking for expanded consciousness, intensification of feelings?

After a few puffs, rather than things going smoothly, Nicole starts to argue. Things like, "why do you love me?" What he answers is plain enough, but Nicole is not satisfied. She tries to provoke him by suggesting he that he gets a surreptitious thrill from examining his naked women patients. He insists he has no such feelings about them at all. She then asks what does he think the patient is thinking and feeling about the handsome doctor squeezing her titties. He says in effect, "don't be ridiculous."

She asks if he ever thought that she was unfaithful. He says no. She is inexplicably insulted by this answer, as if she were angry with his assumption that she didn't have her own intense sexual drive. He responds that she wouldn't do that because she was married to him, assuming undying marital love and vows of fidelity. She didn't want him to assume that, finally blurting out that there was a time last year, when they were on vacation, a naval officer walked by and gave her a glance. She then she confided that she was attracted to him, so much so that she thought of him while they were making love later that evening, and finally her conscious determination that if the officer had approached her, she would have gone with him, leaving everything behind--- her husband, her daughter, her marriage, her past life.

Shocking? When have you ever heard of someone risking everything for one grand passionate fuck? Suffice it to say Tom and Nicole didn't make love that evening, but the rest of the movie deals with Tom's obsessing about the naval officer making mad, passionate love to his wife, and her responding in kind. These obsessions were at the same time disturbing and exciting. With the ongoing shaky marriage and her admission of mental infidelity, Tom is looking to act out, in an attempt to bolster his sagging self-esteem.

He is tempted by a prostitute and ultimately he is lured to a dramatic and dangerous orgy, a secret ritual arranged by the very, very rich. He is in disguise, but he is warned by the recovered call girl he tended before to get out while he still had the chance, implying that the secret of the orgy would be protected, even if he had to be murdered.

The orgy is an pagan opera-ballet-Bacchanalia that is a miracle of dramatic cinematography. Because of the ratings requirement, the sexual activities were cleverly hidden but clearly implied. Interestingly, all the nudity throughout the film was not erotic, as the Kubrick's camera had a clinical, rather than erotic point of view. The sum total impression of the orgy was that of an ancient religious rite, polymorphous perverse, primitive and regressive, an ancient Greek ritual, as if written by Sophocles.

Tom luckily escapes safely and hides his mask and costume in a bedroom cabinet. He returns the costume to the costume shop, minus the mask and observes that the owner has a young daughter he is marketing for sexual purposes. Tom is puzzled and confused as the day before the father was proclaiming moral righteousness. Tom is trying to be a good doctor, husband and father, but he seems surrounded by licentiousness and amorality.

He is lured and tempted by a street prostitute, but resists. The next day he comes for her, but she is gone and her room-mate is there, ready to be of service. Hookers seem to be interchangeable. Tom, like Nicole, still attach some meaning to their marriage, each keeping the vow of fidelity.

He comes home late, his wife is sleeping and he is horrified to see the missing mask in his place on the pillow. He wakes her up and cries deep, raking sobs, wanting to confess, wanting to explain, wanting to be forgiven. Tom Cruise is completely credible in this moving scene, as he sobs uncontrollably for a long time, Nicole holding his head and stroking his hair. She is also totally believable as she realizes they both have fantasies distancing themselves from their marriage, threatening to destroy their life together.

The film covers a period of about 48 hours in Christmastime. Kubrick never fails to show the colored Christmas lights and decorations, with the lavish trees of the rich and the raggedy little ones of the down-and-out. Still, everybody has a tree and colored lights. The message seems to be that all this evil is going on while the holiday season is all about love, hope, compassion, redemption and salvation. It is the human condition, the light and the dark.

The confession is like a purging of a damned spirit and afterwards the young couple seem to have regained their equilibrium. Nicole's feet are back on the ground and her vision clear, and so they take their seven year old little girl shopping. They are in FAO Schwartz, looking like any upscale couple, preparing for Santa Claus. Their daughter is innocent and charming and we wonder how she can be insulated from the turmoil going on between her parents. She wants a great big teddy bear. She is told that Santa will be duly informed.

The normalcy of this scene is not lost on the couple. They are back into 'everydayness,' which seems to cure them of their lustful drives and fantasies. They talk to each other again, this time without champagne or marijuana. Nicole says, "Maybe, I think, we should be grateful... grateful that we've managed to survive through all of our adventures, whether they were real or only a dream. Tom asks, "Are you sure of that?" She says, "Am I sure? Umm... only... only as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole life time, can ever be the whole truth."

Tom says, "And no dream is just a dream." Continuing this exquisitely wrought dialog, Nicole says, "Hmm... The important thing is we're awake now and hopefully for a long time to come." Tom says, "Forever." She asks, "Forever?" The answer is a resolute, "Forever." To which Nicole responds, Let's... let's not use that word, it frightens me. But I do love you and you know there is something very important we need to do as soon as possible?" What's that, he asks? "Fuck." Why does she say "fuck" and not "make love?" Kubrick leaves the answer to the movie viewer.

It's a shocking end, but fucking is also 'making love.' These now dead-white-males (Kubrick, Schnitzler, Freud), at the turn of the last century were onto something. They were attuned to the importance of harnessing the sexual instinct (Eros) as a basic prerequisite to civilization. They were also aware that society offers many challenges to conjugal fidelity, as well as reinforcement.

I think Kubrick-Schnitzler-Freud were trying to tell us something that we maybe already know--- that love fades, that love is irrational, that sex can be ruthless and reckless, that individuals, marriage, home and family are always in danger of disruption. I think the audience is invited to consider the complex and deep truths of our own lives. People may identify with Tom or Nicole or both. Everyone has a lustful part that knows no rules and refuses to be controlled. The conclusion seems to be that marriage is the best way to civilize the otherwise uncontrollable sexual drive, and that an objective, matter-of-fact perception needs to be balanced with the rose-colored glasses of passionate love. The lesson seems to be that a couple must communicate on the deepest level in order to maintain their commitment to be faithful to each other forever.

Tom and Nicole could be any married couple. The apparently calm exterior gives little clue to the roiling deep waters of the unconscious. Much pathology is invisible. In the words of St Exupery, "what is essential is invisible to the eye."

It is interesting to note that Freud and Schnitzler were contemporaries, in a society that is similar to our own in terms of how people deal with the conflict between instincts and society, between psychopathy and caring behavior, between the Life Force and the Death Wish. We have learned that marriage provides a unique opportunity for intimacy and vulnerability which most marriage partners tend to avoid. It is easier for many to make war, rather than make love. Numerous writers have documented the institution of marriage as a sexual war, in which the essences of the male and female can be violently opposed.

Although Freud envied the dramatists and poets for their intuition, he gained his insights by laborious self-examination. He had daunting intellectual defenses, but a lively imagination, great intuitive powers and revealing dreams. Ultimately, his scientifically-gained insights were more penetrating than any before him. They were not only penetrating, but comprehensive as well about the human psyche and the human condition.

Because of Freud's beautifully written observations, Western Civilization has yet another way to understand the depths of the human soul. His theories have endured and penetrated modern 20th century thinking. They have served to help us understand the power of art. And the artists, more than anyone else, return the favor by producing compelling works which do not fail to impact powerfully, those who are open to deal with unresolved, unconscious conflict.

"Eyes Wide Shut" is about repression, denial and acting-out, but it is also about our need to keep our eyes open, open to the viscissitudes of a human life, and open as well to the dangers stemming from our primitive unconscious. Finally, it is clear that we must remain open to our need for love and hope for the future, in spite of everything.

I wonder if I should explain my motives or apologize for 'giving away the plot.' Suffice it to say, there is much more in this great work than I could possibly cover in few or many words. For example, the conversations between the protagonists are in amazingly clear diction, even drawn out slowly over time. Kubrick has undoubtedly decided to risk boredom and impatience to show that these people are thinking and feeling as well as talking.

In this respect, the film is almost Shakespearean in its attention to words, nonverbal gestures and implied meaning. We know the plot of Oedipus Rex, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, but we go to the theater and movie-house again and again, seeking greater insights into the ever more complex and powerful depths which are at the core of our being.

Victor Bloom MD Clinical Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry Wayne State University School of Medicine

1007 Three Mile Drive Grosse Pointe Michigan 48230

phone: 313 882 8640 fax: 313 882 8641

email: vbloom@comcast.net

URL: victorbloom.com