Symbols in Stanley Kubrick's movie 'Eyes Wide Shut'

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Stanley Kubrick’s (\HV:LGH6KXW, one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the 1990s, turned out to be the most controversial cinematic work of this decade. Critics are divided between scathing criticism and commendatory enthusiasm; reviews range from calling Kubrick’s movie intellectually over-hyped, a disaster, or a boring experience to praising it as a triumphant victory and a masterpiece. For one thing, (\HV :LGH 6KXW generates controversy on first viewing. It does not present easy answers or reassuring certainties, but leaves the viewer baffled as to its meaning. It is the movie’s complexity and large symbolic dimension that makes one realize that a single screening may not reveal all the meanings necessary for an interpretation.

One of the movie’s outstanding features is its extensive use of recurring motifs, symbols, allusions, and paradox – one of the reasons why the film is difficult to understand. Thus, to come to a fuller understanding of one of the film’s possible messages, it is not only useful, but also necessary to take a closer look at its symbolic structure. This paper attempts to discuss the symbols employed in the movie as it is of benefit to the film’s analysis.

(\HV :LGH 6KXW presents two different planes of discourse: there is an outer reality, the social dimension, and there is the inner world of the characters, the psychodynamic dimension. To allow for the viewer to penetrate beyond the surface of outward appearances and human superficiality into the hidden worlds of dreams and fantasies, the use of symbols is an ideal instrument. Symbols appeal to the imagination and they address and evoke our emotions. They reflect on the interface between fiction and reality and thus help to reveal the truths of the subconscious mind. 1 This helps to foster audience participation and emotional involvement in the story, which is of importance for (\HV:LGH6KXWto develop its full effect. However, even though Kubrick’s movie is full of symbols and hidden meanings, it is difficult to put them together for an analysis. There is not one interpretation that fits perfectly and renders a symbolic coherence. Thus, (\HV :LGH 6KXW is open to several interpretations, none of which fits perfectly to all parts and aspects of the film. And this is exactly what makes the movie so intriguing: its ambiguity and loose ends, which leave interpretation to the viewer.

1 Ahrens, Rüdiger, ed. 6\PEROLVP $ QHZ LQWHUQDWLRQDO MRXUQDO RI FULWLFDO DHVWKHWLFV. Volume 1. New

York: AMS, 2000. xii.

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After one quick shot of a woman stripping naked in front of a mirror, the screen turns black, “as if an eyelid had closed reflexively to mask what the retina had just glimpsed.” 2 Such is the startling image that opens Kubrick’s movie (\HV ZLGH VKXW. The focus of this very short first scene is on the visual impressions; there are no words. At the outset, the viewer is pushed in a position in which they are forced to concentrate on what their eyes can see, only taking in the images without having much room to think further. Alexander Walker even goes so far as to compare the role of the viewer to that of a voyeur in a peepshow with the shutters descending. 3 This does not seem to be too far-fetched, since the interior of someone else’s dressing room with a woman taking her clothes off is not for an audience of millions to watch. It is a very private moment that usually nobody is supposed to look at – except maybe her husband.

One function of this very short first scene is that it serves as an eye-catcher, trying to whet the viewers’ voyeuristic appetite and seemingly promising the audience that the movie is about to give them what they came for: to watch sex on the screen. This is a very sly move, since the viewer, ready to have their expectations fulfilled, is taken by surprise as the movie enfolds its different perspective and thus turns from mere eye-catcher to hypnotizing eye-opener. Lee Siegel sums it up in his review of (\HV:LGH6KXW: Kubrick makes us “look at the film the way the film looks at life.” 4 As the story unfolds, the focus shifts gradually from outside to inside, and the viewer’s attention is captivated because the movie’s sex is more in the mind than on the screen.

(\HV :LGH 6KXW’s opening scene encapsulates some of the symbols that will recur throughout the movie: There is nudity as Alice undresses, there is the black color of her dress, the red of the drapes, and a mirror in front of which she is standing. And, though in a very subtle way, the eye-motif is introduced as well. Alice is not looking toward the audience, so it seems that she is being watched secretly without her knowing it. Thus the question arises who is watching her and for what reason. It is a highly condensed image, like a tight ball of string from which the threads of ideas will unravel during the movie. When the screen blacks out, the

2 Walker, Alexander. 6WDQOH\.XEULFNGLUHFWRU. New York & London: Norton, 1999, 344.

3 Walker, Alexander. “It’s a sex odyssey:” 7KLV LV /RQGRQ.

hottx/film/top_film.html?in_review_id=29653&in_review_text_id=14004> (01.12.2001).

4 Siegel, Lee. “Eyes wide shut. What the critics failed to see in Kubrick’s last film.“

(30.07.2000).

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audience seems to be summoned to stop staring and instead start seeing with their inner eyes. As the course of the movie then shows, the story develops into a direction where the mind can see but the eyes cannot.

³1RGUHDPLVHYHUMXVWDGUHDP´ ±IDQWDV\RUWUXHVWRU\" (\HV :LGH 6KXW raises the question whether Bill’s and Alice’s adventures are real or just a dream, since the story continually and ambiguously crosses back and forth between fantasy and waking reality. For Bill it is of no importance whether he dreamt about his nightly odyssey or actually experienced it – what is significant here is that the events exerted such a profound influence on both the dreamer and his environment that they changed the life of all involved. 6 Bill emerges as a different man, and his perception of his wife and the world around him has changed as well. He has been awakened to the reality of the non-rational dimension of his being and challenged to accept that fantasies also do shape his self-understanding. The doubts that arise through the ambiguous way in which the events are presented reinforce the idea that nothing can be known for certain. Thus, the dream is an important tool to enfold the movie’s essential theme: the “exploration of appearance and reality and the problem of knowledge.” 7 Another point worth mentioning in this context is that the function and effect of the dream-motif is closely related to those of the symbol. (\HV :LGH 6KXW is a psychological exploratory film that attempts to look beyond appearances and examine the interiors of motivation of human behavior, which in its evasiveness cannot clearly and precisely be pinned down. Thus there is a certain element of unreality in the movie, adequately expressed through the dream-motif, symbols, and paradox. These elements do not suggest definiteness where there is none; the ideas and insights they evoke remain naturally imprecise. The dream enables the mind to grasp subconscious or suppressed ideas and encourages the dreamer to gain affective experience instead of cognitive knowledge. 8 To achieve this, symbols are frequently employed. As has been mentioned in the introduction, symbols speak to the

5 Kubrick, Stanley, and Frederic Raphael. (\HVZLGHVKXW. New York: Warner, 1999, 164. 6 As mentioned by Daemmrich, Horst S., and Ingrid Daemmrich. 7KHPHV DQG PRWLIV LQ ZHVWHUQ OLWHUDWXUH$KDQGERRN. Tübingen: Francke, 1987, 95.

7 Scourfield, David. “The appearance of knowledge: Oedipus and Eyes wide shut.“ %ULWDQQLFDFRP (03.03.2002).

8 Ibid., 94.