Eyes Wide Shut

In Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick explores a world of emptiness. He reveals a society of masks with open eyes that never actually see anything. He uses the relationship between Bill and Alice Harford, an ordinary, although wealthy, couple to show the difference between reality and fantasy. Red is a prominent theme throughout the movie as it represents passion and evil. He also uses mirrors to give an actual, unbiased reflection of the characters.

As in many other movies, Kubrick names the main characters with a purpose. Bill and Alice are such everyday names, for everyday people. By naming them with such ordinary names, he is comparing them to the viewer. He follows up on this idea when Bill goes to Somerton and he zooms in on the security camera on the building. Instead of the security camera watching Bill, it’s as if it’s watching the camera, or the audience.

Kubrick strategically places the color red in places where Bill is “giving in” to some

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Kubrick also shows Alice’s contribution to their dead relationship in the toy store. Although, Alice never physically cheated on her husband, she had in her mind. ” Once Bill decides to explore the other side, he will lose the wholeness of his reality forever. That scene compares her to the hooker Dominoe. The scene where Alice wakes up from her nightmare mirrors the earlier scene, except for the roles are reversed. The door to Dominoe’s apartment, the Sonata Café, and the costume shop are all covered in red.

Kubrick uses much symbolism throughout the movie to show the emptiness within society. Kubrick also used death as a way to show emptiness. On his deathbed, Nathonson appears to be sleeping and is in a room that has African masks all over the walls. In Dominoe’s apartment, Bill “wears” a mask, as he stops being the loving husband, and tries to re-establish his masculinity by having emotionless sex. Each place is like a warning for Bill to turn back, but he continued on. Like a mask, a dead person’s face is expressionless. At Somerton, the masks allow the people shed all morality, and give into their physical desires. They lose their identity, and become nameless, empty individuals.

Approximate Word count = 645
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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