Til Death Do Us Part III

Series so far here 

The opening scene of Eyes Wide Shut functions as a prologue. It introduces the primary characters and their relationship to one another. It establishes the crucial setting of the Harford apartment, doing so in a dexterous fashion that immerses us in the film style. It deftly calls attention to our place in making meaning out of what we see and hear. We are now ready to begin the journey through the looking glass to the end of the rainbow.

That journey begins with the Zieglers' Christmas Ball, a dazzling labyrinth that ranks among Kubrick’s most assured and accomplished works. It is one of four crucial sequences of Eyes Wide Shut; the others are the marital showdown in the bedroom, the ritualistic orgy at Somerton, and the final reckoning in Victor Ziegler’s game room. Like most everything about Eyes Wide Shut, these four scenes resolve into matched pairs. The marital showdown and the reckoning with Victor are the most critical of the film’s many dialogue scenes. The Christmas ball and the ritual at Somerton are more visually elaborate setpieces built around architectural reveals, the camera exploring tableaux so detailed that there’s always more to discover on rewatch. The artistry of Eyes Wide Shut shows itself subtly in the dialogue scenes, a function of the painterly framing and uncannily detailed performances. By contrast, the ball and the ritual are triumphs of maximalism, baroque bordering on rococo. The lighting, the music, the production design, the confidence of the camera movements, the conceptual clarity of the editing...all sublime. These sequences are simultaneously stylized and true to life, alchemic cocktails of fear and desire which take on the quality of externalized daydreams. They are movies within movies; the characters enter knowing their lines but leave in silence, masks falling away. 

The ball and the ritual are clear contrasts, so much so that considering one feels incomplete without considering the other. The public face and the private face. The polite smile and the snarling animal. The ball is who you are in the eye of the beholder; the ritual is who you are when no one is watching. They complement each other not only in terms of imagery and theme, but tone. The ritual is a horrorshow which gradually becomes comedic. The ball is an exquisite comedy of manners with some dreadful implications. These masks are opposites, but together they form a whole: two hearts that beat as one. The similarities between the ball and the ritual run as deep as the contrasts, starting with our host for the evening.

Victor Ziegler looms over Eyes Wide Shut as a mask worn by the director himself. No character like Ziegler appears in the original novella; as an invention of the director, he stands in for Kubrick’s presence. Ziegler is played by Sydney Pollack, himself a noted director. He ushers us into the film, vanishes, and then pops up again at the end to tell us it what it all meant. Like it or not, his is the version of events we are left with, just like Kubrick’s. There is a dream logic to it. In a film all about mirrors and doubles and projections, why wouldn’t the director--the dreamer--have himself a doppelganger?

As Bill and Alice follow the camera into the Ziegler mansion, Victor emerges on the left side of the frame with his wife Ilona. The two couples do the effusive little dance of social recognition captured so well in the past by directors like Max Ophuls and Jean Renoir. Among Kubrick’s contemporaries when he made Eyes Wide Shut, I also think of Robert Altman and Edward Yang: experts at capturing the customs of people moving around each other.

The Rules of the Game (1939), dir. Jean Renoir

The Zieglers form a precise mirror of the Harfords as they are birthed by the corridor of light behind them. The mirroring continues as the paired pairs greet each other by name: "Victor! Ilona!" "Bill! Alice!" As with David Bowman at the end of 2001 or Jack Torrance in the Red Bathroom in The Shining, Bill and Alice are being shown what they will look like when they are old. The Zieglers are an aspirational vision, a couple that has “made it” and can now age as gracefully as possible. 

But the Zieglers are also richer and more well-connected than the Harfords; not only a step forward in time, but a step (or two) up the ladder. For all that Victor is chummy with Bill here, the camera framing them as equals, their dialogue reinforces their power dynamic. Victor thanks Bill for referring him to an osteopath. Bill calls the latter the best in the city, and Victor replies: "I could've told you that looking at his bill." The joke is that being "the best" isn't about some objective measure of skill. It's about getting paid, and the social recognition that comes from getting paid. "His bill" could also refer to Bill himself; Bill profits by means of these social connections, which have delivered him to this party tonight. Victor says the osteopath got his tennis serve back in shape. This calls back to the overlapping tennis rackets in the opening shot, which symbolized marriage: two shall become one flesh. Victor's fond of dirty puns about games, as we'll see later on around his pool table: "Just knocking some balls around." So when he says that he's got a great serve, he's...not actually talking about tennis! Victor believes that money is sex, that sex is power, and that power is all there is. That will become crystal clear when Bill has to revive a naked woman on his host's behalf. Victor's line about seeing Bill "in a little bit" is sinister on rewatch, when you know what the circumstances will be.

Even more revealing are the Zieglers' comments to Alice. Victor declares that she's "absolutely stunning," a choice of words suggesting not only beauty but a sort of enchantment. It's high praise, and Victor insists that he doesn't say that to all the ladies...but Ilona says that he does. Any sense of gallantry is immediately deflated. Victor is a cad who has been flirting with other women in front of his wife all night. Moreover, he's been doing so mechanically, handing out the same compliment while pretending he's just thinking of it on the spot. Somehow, that's worse! Victor's behavior lacks even the pretense of capital-r Romanticism: the idealization of beauty's impact on the senses, the poetic addiction to the present moment. He has routinized Eros, that which is precious precisely because it is spontaneous. 

The meaning of love and beauty are at stake in Eyes Wide Shut, and Kubrick projects his movie against a backdrop of the older forms that have struggled with this question. On the far right of the frame, behind the two couples, is a third: not of moving flesh but rigid stone. We get a better look at it later:

The myth of Cupid and Psyche is about the marriage of love and the soul. Desire mingles with the life force and produces eroticism, the elevation of flesh. A mortal woman challenges the beauty goddess, merging marriage and death into a single rite. Psyche is transported to a cultivated grove and then a marvelous house where Cupid has sex with her in disguise. It's a quest to the underworld, into the unknown, and Eyes Wide Shut mirrors its structure. The myth has been interpreted as an affirmation of love, or as a rejection of death; it has inspired operas and tableaux vivants, folklore and children's tales. English playwright Thomas Heywood adapted the myth as a masque for the court of Charles I, an appropriate reference point for Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's modern masque. In psychological terms, Joel C. Relihan argues in his 2009 translation, the myth is about how "a mutable person … matures within the social constructs of family and marriage." He could've been describing the Harfords. Relihan acknowledges that psychological interpretations will produce different conclusions than allegorical interpretations. The same is true for Kubrick's film. We each see what we can.

This allusion to Cupid and Psyche positions Eyes Wide Shut as the cinematic heir to the grand paintings depicting their marriage as a feast for the gods:

The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche (1532) by Giulio Romano

But Eyes Wide Shut is also a Christmas story, and that's reflected in the glowing tree on the far left side of the frame. As the Harfords enter the ballroom, an exquisite dissolve gives way to a zoom out in progress. 

The curtains of light seem to double, quadruple, and then melt into one another. The dreamy camera movements only add to the sensuousness. As Victor said of Alice, it's absolutely stunning. It's the winter solstice, the wreaths and trees gilded by the rebirth of the sun. Now the film resembles a Gustav Klimt canvas from his gold period: 

The Tree of Life (1905) by Gustav Klimt

The clearest reference point here, however, is a call coming from inside the house: Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. This hazily lit ballroom full of well-dressed couples would be right at home in the Overlook Hotel, where the spirits of the dead carry on eternally. 

This parallel lends a layer of unease to the Christmas ball. It's as though Bill and Alice are dancing with ghosts. The ball in The Shining is set on the 4th of July, fitting that film's subconscious commentary on American history. But Eyes Wide Shut is set at Christmas. From Dickens' A Christmas Carol to Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, Christmas is a time when the borders between past and present are rubbed thin. People can slip through, or feelings, or entire worlds. The dialogue brings this uncanny sensation to the surface.

"Do you know anyone here?"

"Not a soul."

"Why do you think Ziegler invites us to this thing every year?"

"This is what you get for making house calls."

As it turns out, Bill is wrong--he knows multiple people at this party. Anonymity provides its own thrills, but everyone you meet has their own past, which might dovetail with yours. The same holds true at the ritual: everyone is masked, but they know Bill on sight. It's the empty heart of desire, where there is indeed "not a soul."

Alice feels awkward. Out of place. You might think this is their first time at the Zieglers', but then Alice says they come every year! Old and new, repetition and change. Christmas is supposed to represent the rebirth of the world: BC flips over to AD, and our accumulated sins are redeemed. But how easily Christmas becomes its own routine. This is a perfect backdrop for a story about a sleepwalking couple that needs to wake up to each other once more. 

Alice's question about why they're invited every year isn't just an expression of ennui; it takes us back to the power dynamic between Bill and Victor, which Bill makes plain in his response. This is what you get for making house calls. We are here because I work for our host. I'm his private doctor, noted for my discretion, as we'll see upstairs later. Victor likes having me around, because he knows I can be counted on to keep my eyes wide shut, seeing only what he wants me to see. What do I charge, my "doctor bill" for my services? An invitation to his fancy party...where we don't know anyone, and where my wife gets bored and drunk. Some reward! But Bill doesn't seem to realize that he's getting screwed (so to speak). He's impressed with the place, pleased and proud of himself for getting them through the door. "This is what you get," he says, a line that doubles as a threat. Bill thinks the system works for him. He will be disabused of that notion over the course of the film; it works for Victor.

Bill is not Victor's friend, he is Victor's servant. Kubrick emphasizes that reality by cutting to Nick Nightingale at the piano.

That's who Bill is to Victor: someone to keep the party going. It's a class marker. Bill doesn't know any of the guests; he knows someone in the band. "I went to medical school with him!" Bill exclaims. Tom Cruise gives his finest performance in Eyes Wide Shut, a hypnotic groove likely produced by the sheer length of the shoot. On page, Bill Harford is an opaque and largely passive character. Aside from brief fantasies about his wife cheating on him, his interiority is expressed indirectly, through the scenarios that unfold around him. Yet Bill is fully formed in the final product, and it's almost entirely due to Cruise: his range of facial expressions, his backslaps and wallet-flourishes, and above all his line deliveries. There's a palpable boyish crack in his voice when he notices Nick Nightingale, betraying his excitement. Here is someone who knew me before I was married. He will make me young again. 

"Really?" Bill and Alice revolve on the spot, their eyes fixed offscreen on Nick. It's a marvelous little moment, motion and stillness at the same time, suggesting Alice has briefly adopted Bill's perspective: her eyes seeing where his eyes just were. "He plays pretty good for a doctor."

Gradually, things fall apart. The tension in the Harford marriage is buried deep at the beginning; bit by bit, it reveals itself. It explodes into prominence the following night. Alice's line here is an early tremor of the breakdown. He plays pretty good for a doctor. Her husband's a doctor, and she doesn't think he'd play the piano all that well. He lacks that certain...special... sexy...something. She's calling him boring; she might also be saying he's bad in bed. In response, Bill bolsters his ego: "He's not a doctor. He dropped out." In pursuing his romantic creativity that appeals to Alice, Nick gave up the steady career path. I'm a solid dependable caretaker, Bill is saying. I lived up to class expectations, making house calls to get us here. Isn't that enough to make me sexy? Well, what if it's not?

As Bill says "dropped out," the music drops out. Another uncanny harmony, like when Bill himself switched off the score. The bandleader says they're taking a quick break. Similarly, when Bill arrives at the Sonata Cafe later in the film, he's only able to catch the end of Nick's set. Timing is everything; we're only getting a partial glimpse of what's happening. The rest stays submerged, like an iceberg. Bill wants to go say hello to Nick, but Alice demurs; she needs to use the bathroom. But as soon as she walks away, she grabs the nearest drink and downs it with an eyeroll. Alice didn't need to pee. Remember, she did so right before they left! She just wanted to get away from her husband for a minute, and get drunk before she has to face him again. Bill has no idea. Only we saw it happen.

Bill approaches Nick at his piano. Kubrick uses a high angle shot so we can see every other guest streaming away from the bandstand. Only Bill approaches, unaware of how he suddenly stands out, exposed.

"Nightingale. Nick Nightingale."

"Oh my God, Bill. Bill Harford! How the hell are you, buddy?"

Despite his fairytale name, Nick Nightingale feels more authentic than Bill, less like he's wearing a mask branded into his face (to borrow from Fanny and Alexander). Onstage at the Sonata Cafe, Nick can barely feign enthusiasm for his backup band; we can tell he's been let down by their performances, even before he says as much to Bill. Here in his introductory scene, Nick is much more chill than his old pal Bill. The glowing wreath behind Bill expresses his excitement, whereas behind Nick lurks his piano, a reminder that he's on the job. As when Bill's voice cracked, he seems overenthusiastic, grabbing Nick's shoulder and patting his belly with what seems like excess familiarity. Our hero is too eager to have a good time. For the rest of the film, we don't see or even hear about any other friends of his. Is Bill lonely? When Nick asks how it's going these days, Bill answers "Not too bad, y'know...not too bad." His tone drops; he breaks Nick's gaze. That bad, huh, Bill? As Alice said before, he wasn't even looking at it. Sometimes, it takes a blast from the past to make us really look at the present. 

Then again, Bill and Nick don't actually reminisce about the glory days. Neither of them say "Remember when we..." When Bill says that Nick hasn't changed a bit, we have to take his word for it. Nick's response--"Thanks, I think"--highlights the ambiguity. He doesn't know whether or not it's a compliment, because he doesn't know what Bill is referring to. Besides, is it really a good thing to never change? Bill thinks so; he told Alice that she "always" looks beautiful. It sounds like a compliment. But it's actually an expression of clueless detachment, which is why Nick winces in response even as he grins.

Bill notes with a raised eyebrow that his dropout buddy became a pianist. He's treating Nick the way Victor treated him: with a faintly patronizing air of class condescension. Bill's on the left side of the frame now, where Victor was in the previous shot; he's clapping Nick's back the same way Victor clapped his. Nick, however, doesn't play along with this dynamic. A pianist? Yeah, all my friends call me that! It's a dick joke, of course, but it's also a subtle reminder that if Bill had stayed in touch all these years, he'd know more about Nick than his profession. Bill isn't really Nick's friend any more. They lost touch after Nick dropped out. Bill became a doctor, and as he says: "once a doctor, always a doctor."

There's that absolutism again! You always look beautiful; you haven't changed a bit. Bill thinks he has won at life and now gets to coast into the grave. Nick wryly confirms his outsider status: "in my case, never a doctor, never a doctor." The verbal mirroring itself reflects the physical mirroring. Bill is talking to his double, his opposite: the man who took the different road at the fork. 

"I never did understand why you walked away."

"No? It's a nice feeling. I do it a lot." 

These are the most critical lines in the conversation, summarizing Bill's mindset at the beginning of his arc and setting up Nick's contribution to that arc. Bill is so sure of himself (as Alice says later), so confident in the status quo, that he cannot imagine why anyone would deviate from that path. Being Doctor Bill Harford means being young and handsome and successful. It means being a guest at a party like this, rather than playing in the band. Alice just challenged Bill's complacency. He wants Nick to validate his decisions, affirm that he, Bill, has lived right. 

Nick refuses to do so. Yet nor does he actually explain his own choices. His self-justification has nothing to do with the crushing responsibilities of medical school, nor the satisfaction of living for one's art. As is typical for Eyes Wide Shut, Nick's response is more abstract, almost existentialist. He walks away because it feels good. It is liberating to drop one's mask and pick up another one. No matter what you have, Eyes Wide Shut reminds us again and again, you can lose it in a heartbeat to death or to ennui, the inner death. Anything and anyone can walk out on you. Be prepared to walk out on them first. 

When we first saw Bill, he was walking away from a glimpse of the Other, back to what he knows. Nick is tempting him to do the opposite: walk away from what he knows. He's talking about a life without attachment. The callous life of a womanizer? Perhaps, but it could also be the sincere life of a monk. This duality is key to Nick's character. He is both likeable and worrisome: a funny, friendly guy who nevertheless exists in the narrative to get Bill into trouble. On one hand, he's wearing white. On the other, he's got that villainish goatee. What's in a name? "Nick" could refer to the devil or to Santa Claus. Is Nick here to give Bill a gift or drag him down to damnation? Maybe both; his lair in the Village, the Sonata Cafe, is both a hellish underworld and a Christmas fireworks display. "Nightingale" is a direct translation of his character's name in the novella, Nachtigall; nightingales are typically associated with creativity, romance, and the inspiration of nature. Nick's opening line makes reference to both God and hell. He's got angels and devils on his shoulders, multiple masks like anyone else. 

Just as Nick says he walks away a lot, he is forced to walk away from Bill. They are interrupted by one of Victor's servants, suddenly looming in the background. Interruptions are constant in Eyes Wide Shut, whether in person or by phone. You never quite get the full picture; you never get where you're going, but are looped back around in frustrated desire. We don't know what this man wants from Nick, but we can assume it's about the ritual at Somerton. Later on, Victor says he knew Nick got Bill inside the ritual because they were talking at his party; this is that moment of contact. Already, the setup is in place. Already, they have given themselves away to the eye of the beholder. Bill and Nick reunited by chance, but now, destiny will have this dance.