Eyes Wide Shut is Stanley Kubrick’s last film and one of his most difficult to understand. Viewers will likely finish the film with major questions about key events. Who was the woman at the ritual? Who was the man in the grey mask? What was the meaning of the film’s unusual narrative? What was real, and what was a dream?
This piece will definitively answer those questions plus several more. While most analyses of Eyes Wide Shut that I’ve seen focus on connecting the film to dubious, real-world conspiracy theories, my essay below will use actual evidence in the film to draw thematic conclusions.
The action of Eyes Wide Shut begins when Bill Harford’s (Tom Cruise) wife, Alice (Nicole Kidman), shares that, in the early years of their marriage, she fantasized uncontrollably about a naval officer that she saw in passing but never met. The confession rattles Bill—so much that many analysts have concluded that the subject of the movie is sexual jealousy.
Jealousy, however, doesn’t quite fit Bill’s behavior. A jealous husband would increase his oversight of Alice out of suspicion, which Bill does not; instead, he leaves the house for long periods to go on adventures of his own.
So the first question that will help us understand Eyes Wide Shut is: why does Alice’s confession leave Bill so upset, and what is the specific nature of his emotional state following that conversation? The answer, which I’ll go on to support, is that Bill has become afraid that Alice married him for his money and that, by extension, she doesn’t desire him sexually.
Alice’s brief fantasy, after all, involved a striking officer of presumably lower economic status than Bill, a doctor. Therefore, the story, intentionally or not, casts Bill as the safe, steady choice—and the officer as the desirable but unviable suitor. Although Alice was “willing to give up… my whole fucking future” for the man, she ultimately remained with Bill, suggesting that she merely settled for him due to other factors, especially his affluence.
And we know that the interplay between money and sex is Bill’s primary concern afterward because it dominates all of his subsequent encounters. For instance, Bill then speaks with a daughter of a patient of his, and she essentially retells Alice’s story of the naval officer—only with Bill in the role of the desirable stranger. Soon after that, Bill nearly has sex with a prostitute, and after that, he witnesses a costume store owner discover his young daughter in a sexual situation, a discovery that he later profits on by prostituting her.
These minor episodes, though, are only thematic openers to the famous “orgy” sequence, in which Bill manages to gain admission to an event that features masked men and women having sex in bizarre, ritualistic fashion.
The key to understanding the orgy is that it represents Bill reflecting on a previous event—the party at Victor Ziegler’s house—through a new lens that has only become available to him following Alice’s confession. As we’ve said, after Alice’s story about the naval officer, Bill worries that she married him due to economic incentives. Because of that worry, he reflects on the earlier Ziegler party as a hub for the unsettling exchange of sex and money—a reflection brought onscreen in the dreamlike orgy sequence.
Consider that both scenes, the Ziegler party and the orgy, take place at extravagant mansions, and the prospect of sexual adventure, even outside of marriage, is prominent in both. At the Ziegler party, Bill and Alice flirt with strangers. Ziegler himself, also married, gets in trouble after a prostitute overdoses in his bathroom, necessitating Bill’s medical intervention. Nearly every scene at Ziegler’s highlights sex as a driving social force. In the orgy sequence, this is also the case, only more explicitly.
In addition, the two scenes feature a common dynamic between men and women, in which men are of higher status and women display sex appeal. At Ziegler’s, Bill banters with “a couple of models.” Ziegler admits that the woman in his bathroom was “a hooker.” Meanwhile, Alice’s suitor is a rich “friend of the Zieglers.”
It’s fairly obvious that the models who converse with Bill were paid by Ziegler to attend the party, given that even Bill and Alice feel out of their league there. The models may have been hired as eye candy, but perhaps more realistically to be available for the male guests: they all but offer Bill sex, a rather unlikely development (given his awkward flirting) unless explained by professional obligation.
Recall that at the orgy, a red-cloaked man commands women to undress and sends them off with wealthy male guests. Metaphorically, then, this is what Ziegler has done by paying vulnerable young women to attend his party. A great YouTube video exists here detailing the interesting visual cues that link Ziegler to the “man in the red cloak” who leads the ritual at the orgy. It’s difficult to disagree, based on the evidence in the video, that Kubrick wants us to recognize that the two characters play similar roles at their respective events.
To understand the orgy sequence, think of it as a dream. It’s not a literal dream: Bill does attend it in reality, as evidenced by his costume rental and his later discussion with Ziegler, who references the event and claims to have been a guest. But it unfolds in the manner of a dream, with its events and characters based on real events. Eyes Wide Shut is loosely based on Arthur Schnitzler’s book, Traumnovelle, or “Dream Story,” so it makes sense that the story progresses in parts as a dream would.
Having definitively established this link between the movie’s two most crucial episodes, we can explore the symbolic cues it provides for the rest of the movie.
First, I’ll focus on Kubrick’s use of color in the two scenes. The Ziegler party is lit by Christmas lights, multicolored and decorative. The orgy scene, on the other hand, features darker lighting and emphasizes red and blue.
We can infer, then, that the multicolored lights represent the “façade” of the Ziegler party, with its formalities and splendor disguising an ugly interior. Indeed, most sets that Bill passes through during the rest of the movie feature Christmas trees decorated by these multicolored, glamorous lights. They invoke the Ziegler party, indicating that Bill is still thinking idealistically, resisting his growing suspicion that money and sex are intertwined.
However, after Bill’s final talk with Ziegler, he returns home and turns off his Christmas tree lights, indicating that he’s given into that suspicion. He opens the refrigerator and sits down at his table with a beer. This is truly “where the rainbow ends”—the rainbow revealed to mean the rainbow-colored lights that symbolize idealism, as first introduced at Ziegler’s party.
But what of the red and blue scheme featured in the orgy scene? That, too, recurs throughout Bill’s adventure, and those colors signify, respectively, sex and money. Red is always linked with sex, and blue is always linked with money.
Consider, firstly, the costume store. When Bill first visits, the prominent color is red, as Mr. Millich discovers his daughter having sex with two men. But the second time Bill visits, Millich is wearing blue. His daughter enters from a red-lit room with the two men seen earlier, and Millich hints that he has prostituted his daughter (“we have come to another arrangement”). Thus, Millich wears blue to represent his monetary gain, while his daughter still wears red, evoking her sexual participation.
Secondly, consider the scene with Domino, the prostitute. She wears purple, the only character in the film to do so. Purple is a mixture of red and blue; fitting, since Domino embodies the interplay between money and sex. Consider also the image below that features a red and a blue light behind her head.
Other examples of red and blue fitting this symbolic framework in the film are plentiful. To survey briefly, recall the Harfords’ bed (red), the lighting in the Harfords’ expensive apartment (blue), the bars of the orgy mansion doors (blue, only the rich may enter), and the toy store at the end of the movie (red, the couple agrees that the best solution is to “fuck”).
This framework also enables a more telling interpretation of certain scenes. Let’s return to Bill’s early cab ride, during which he pictures Alice having sex with the naval officer. The images of Alice and the officer are filtered in grey-blue. But why not red, if red is supposed to be associated with sex? It’s because Bill is actually thinking about money following Alice’s confession. Although he’s picturing his wife in a sexual act, he’s thinking about the role of money in his marriage—and in Alice’s decision not to pursue the naval officer.
We’ve covered colors, so let’s move on to a different motif: masks. In the orgy sequence, everyone wears them. One might wonder, though, why this is the case if the orgy represents the Ziegler party. But this would be a misinterpretation of the relationship between the two scenes.
Think of it like this: since the the Ziegler party operates via facades and deceptions, its guests are represented in the orgy sequence as wearing literal masks. The orgy doesn’t uncover any secrets to Bill; rather, it represents his reflections on the true nature of the event following Alice’s confession.
It’s significant, therefore, that Bill “loses” his mask at the orgy: following the reflection on money and sex that the orgy represents, he’s less able or willing to put on the same social façade as before. Shortly after losing it, he turns off his Christmas tree lights—as we’ve said, a similar symbolic event: “where the rainbow ends.” Not surprisingly, then, the costume store is called Rainbow Fashion.
But after returning to his apartment after his conversation with Ziegler, the mask is somehow sitting on Bill’s pillow. What does this mean?
The answer is that the mask’s presence symbolizes Bill’s last chance to suppress what he has witnessed. The mask represents the social facade of Ziegler’s guests, a facade that Bill also formerly assumed. But he has now “lost” that mask. By cutting to the mask, Kubrick signals that Bill has one more chance to assume the facade again. The mask isn’t literally there; it’s an entirely symbolic visual.
Notice also that Kubrick cuts to the mask on the pillow long before Bill even enters the bedroom. Kubrick is communicating that Bill is considering this return to his blissful ignorance as soon as he enters the apartment. Bill probably thinks it over as he drinks his Budweiser. Ultimately, though, he decides against reclaiming the mask, instead breaking down in tears to Alice (“I’ll tell you everything!”). In a bizarre, Kubrickian way, it’s an uplifting ending, especially since the couple endures the ensuing difficult conversation and decides to remain together.
End of Part 1
Continue to Part 2, which explains the mysteries of Mandy the prostitute, the man on the balcony, and whether Alice was at the ritual.
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