Revisiting Eyes Wide Shut

Summary

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Love and Radio | QCODE

Episode: Revisiting Eyes Wide Shut
Release Date: March 15, 2023
Host: Nick van der Kolk (“Nick Sardine”)
Special Guests: Tracy Morris (poet and sound artist), Becca, and other unnamed participants

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Love and Radio delves into Stanley Kubrick’s enigmatic final film, Eyes Wide Shut, through the lens of poet and sound artist Tracy Morris and other thoughtful panelists. The discussion navigates themes of naiveté, sexuality, class, race, and Kubrick's subtle meta-commentary. Host Nick van der Kolk, initially a skeptic of the film, endeavors to step outside his comfort zone and interrogate his own response to the work, sparked by Morris's admiration and Benshi-inspired performance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Film’s Central Plot & Its Polarizing Nature

• [03:08–06:35] Nick recounts his first reaction to Eyes Wide Shut as a teenager—finding both Tom Cruise’s character and the film’s core conflict (infidelity anxiety) difficult to empathize with, especially Bill’s (Cruise’s) dramatic response to his wife Alice’s (Nicole Kidman) confession of fantasizing about a stranger.

  • Quote:
    “For me, the main hurdle to enjoying the film is Bill's completely over the top reaction to what I personally would consider an extremely minor transgression of marital fidelity.” (Nick Sardine, 04:07)

• The episode sets up a generational divide in understanding and appreciating the film, with Nick’s elders asserting he’d “understand when he was older.”

2. Tom Cruise: The Ingenue & Masculine Naivete

• [06:35–10:04] Becca offers a unique perspective: Bill Harford, played by then-megastar Tom Cruise, is the most naive and innocent character in the movie—a role typically not embodied by masculine leads.

  • Quote:
    “You don't see the ingenue framed like a guy like Tom Cruise...especially in the 1990s, when he and Nicole Kidman were the it couple.” (Becca, 06:35)

• The discussion notices how Bill is always on the outside of knowledge—both socially and sexually—clueless, continuously trying to do the right thing but consistently out of his depth.

  • Quote:
    “He knows the least about what's going on in the whole movie.” (Becca, 06:40)

• The group discusses pivotal dialogue that exposes Bill’s naïve, limited view of women’s sexuality and desire.

  • Becca highlights: “What you're saying is women don't actually have desire.” (08:31)

• Bill’s reliance on his social status (as a doctor) is critiqued—he identifies with the upper class, but fails to realize he’s “the help.”

3. Class Dynamics and the Illusion of Access

• [10:28–12:03] Becca articulates:

  • Bill’s self-perception as part of the upper class is inaccurate—Victor Ziegler belongs to a different league, and Bill is, in fact, “help.”
  • Victor’s parties and social circles remain inscrutable—a symbol of Bill’s outsider status.

• [12:05–13:04] Becca points to the mastery in Kubrick's direction, especially the scene where Victor confesses that the orgy threat was a charade, further emphasizing layers of power and deception.

  • Quote:
    “Victor is absolutely lying to him. And he realized he's trapped and he can't manage it.” (Becca, 13:04)

4. Kubrick's Directorial Intent and Actor Dynamics

• [13:04–14:01] The group reflects on Kubrick’s obsession with authenticity in performance, notably his exhaustive demands for numerous takes.

5. Small Roles, Racial Commentary, and Script Changes

• [14:01–18:40] The conversation transitions to the unusually white composition of the film and how Kubrick intentionally removed Black characters from the original script.

  • Quote:
    “He is making a political comment, I think, about the absence of black characters in the film to highlight danger and sort of meta commentary on the type of world that Bill Harford allows himself to be in.” (Becca, 16:37)
  • Becca reveals access to Kubrick’s earlier scripts at the London archive: Black characters (such as a model and the chauffeur) were later erased, and their roles transferred to white actors, intensifying the film’s commentary on whiteness and privilege.

• The rarity of characters of color—just an orderly, a bodyguard, and a Latina maid—further underscores the deliberate "sea of whiteness" surrounding Bill.

6. Status, Ethnicity, and the Invisible Elite

• [18:40–20:39] Becca speculates that Kubrick’s own background—a Jewish Bronx native and son of a doctor—infuses the film with a nuanced awareness of social and ethnic status in post-Holocaust America. Even Victor Ziegler, for all his wealth, is depicted as never quite securely within the elite "in-group".
  • Quote:
    “He says those a lot, which to me means his status with all of his wealth just gets him into the door. Right. But it's still actually a bit tenuous. He doesn't say we. He says they and those. So it's all relative.” (Becca, 20:39)

7. The Power of Contrast and Invisibility

• [20:39–22:44] Becca:
  • Celebrates the film for its “macrocosmic to the microcosmic” contrasts—class, gender, race, sexuality, naivete, and the “luxury to be invisible.”
  • Attributes to Kubrick and the actors the power to unsettle and illuminate such themes through nuance, casting, and performance.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You don't see the ingenue framed like a guy like Tom Cruise...He knows the least about what's going on." — Becca, [06:35]
• "What you're saying is women don't actually have desire." — Becca, [08:31]
• "He is making a political comment...meta commentary on the type of world that Bill Harford allows himself to be in." — Becca, [16:37]
• "With all his wealth just gets him into the door. Right. But it's still actually a bit tenuous. He doesn't say we. He says they and those." — Becca, [20:39]
• "All of these issues of class, all of these issues of knowledge, you know, from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic meta commentaries on race, sex, sexuality, the luxury to be invisible, the luxury to be naive, all of these fantastic contrasts are embodied in this movie." — Becca, [22:11]

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Essential Timestamps

• [03:08] Nick’s background and challenging first encounter with Eyes Wide Shut
• [06:35] Becca on Tom Cruise’s character as naive ingenue
• [08:31] Dissection of gendered desire and Bill’s blindness to women’s sexuality
• [10:28] Discussion on status, class, and the delusion of access
• [14:01] Kubrick’s attention to small roles, and scene analysis
• [16:37] Racial erasure in the script and its intended meta-commentary
• [20:39] Jewishness, social standing, and the film's nuanced comment on inclusion and exclusion

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Conclusion & Conversion

After a deep and multidimensional discussion, Becca asks Nick if he has been “converted” to appreciating the film.

• [23:07] Nick: “I'm converted enough that I'm willing to give it another shot. Let's put it that way.”
  • A gentle closing: Becca jokes she’ll go watch Toy Story as a palate cleanser.

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Summary Takeaways

This richly nuanced conversation reveals Eyes Wide Shut as a text deeply concerned with what is visible and invisible—status, naiveté, sexuality, and race. Through careful analysis and playful debate, the episode invites listeners to rethink their initial judgments and consider Kubrick’s film as a deliberately uncomfortable mirror revealing society’s—and cinema’s—hidden social structures.

Transcript

[Tracy Morris]

You better hope Jesus save you you better hope Jesus save you you better hope Jesus save you you better hope Jesus save you, save you, save you, save you Jesus you better hope Jesus save you, save you, save you, save you, save you you better hope Jesus saint you save you saint, you saint you Jesus you better hope Jesus ain't you saint, you saint, you saint, you saint, you saint you better hope Jesus ain't you, ain't you, ain't you ain't you Jesus? You better hope Jesus Saint Jude, Saint Jude, Saint Jude, Saint Jude Jesus you better hope Jesus ain't Jude ain't you, ain't you, ain't you, ain't you, ain't you you bet hope Jesus say so say so say so say so say so say so you bad oh Jesus ain't so say so say so say so Jesus you better hope Jesus save soul say so say so, say so, say so say you better hope Jesus say so say so say so say so Jesus you the hope Jesus say so, say so say so say it so say it so say it so you better hope Jesus save you, save you, save you, save you, say so say so Jesus. Oh Jesus saint, you saint, you saint, you saint, you saint, you saint you you bad say Jesus.

[Becca]

Why do I like this movie? Why do I like this movie? I just kept watching it over and over and over and I said, what is it that's pulling me towards the movie? And you were sitting there saying, well, what's pushing me away from the movie? Out of all the movies that I could like and that I do like, why am I liking this one so much? It was annoying me that I couldn't figure out what it was that really drove me to watch it several times. I've seen that movie so many times.

[Conversation Participant 1]

But I mean, how many times have you actually seen it?

[Becca]

Oh, probably 50. Yeah. And I'm just like. When I performed, I was just like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Look at that, look at that. A 10 sentence synopsis of this film. I think that's gonna be kind of impossible.

[Nick Sardine]

Hey there, it's Nick. I wanted to do something a little bit different. That is, I wanted to actually give you a little background on the conversation you're about to hear. Weird. It's with Tracy Morris. Morris is a poet and sound artist and I first saw her perform a piece called Eyes Wide A Not Neo Benshi read at the ICA in Richmond, Virginia. I had never heard of Benshi before, but it's a Japanese tradition of live narration from the silent film era and Morris used that as inspiration for a live poetry reading during a screening of the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut. It's a film that when I saw it as a teenager, shortly after it came out, I despised. Eyes Wide Shut was Kubrick's last film. He died just six days after completing the final cut in 1999. In it, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who were married in real life at the time, play a married couple, Bill and Alice. After getting into an argument, Alice tells her husband Bill that a year prior to that she saw a naval officer in a hotel. As in she literally saw him. They didn't even speak with one another. And her attraction to him was so intense she briefly considered leaving the family. That's it. She made eyes with a hot guy and thought about leaving the family for a second. But this news is so upsetting to Bill that he immediately goes on an all night bender during which he unsuccessfully solicits a prostitute and eventually sneaks into an orgy party run by a shadowy cabal of powerful rich people. For me, the main hurdle to enjoying the film is Bill's completely over the top reaction to what I personally would consider an extremely minor transgression of marital fidelity. The film repeatedly comes back to Bill's imagined scenes of Alice having sex with the sailor, intercut with shots of Tom Cruise's face in the throes of debilitating jealousy. These are scenes that become increasingly tedious with every repetition. A few days after I first watched it, I had dinner with a group of middle aged folks who had already seen it. They all loved it and rather patronizingly I felt told me that I would understand when I was older. I took this to mean they felt I would eventually become consumed with the kind of toxic insecurity that plagues Bill. I don't know if that's a fair interpretation or just a teenager lashing out against generational Baggage.

[Becca]

But.

[Nick Sardine]

But 20 years later, when I heard about Tracy Morris upcoming performance, I thought it would be a great opportunity to put that claim to the test. And I'm sorry to say I had pretty much the exact same reaction. I just couldn't get past how supremely annoying Tom Cruise is. But Morris. Morris adores this film. And when she spoke after the screening, the exhilaration she displayed when describing it made me question if I had wildly misinterpreted everything I had just watched on this show. I often ask you, at least implicitly, to get out of your comfort zone. And it's in that spirit that I wanted to get out of my comfort zone a little bit and try to understand what I might be getting wrong about. Eyes Wide Shut.

[Becca]

Tom Cruise in that movie is playing the most naive person in the whole movie. And you don't see the ingenue framed like a guy like Tom Cruise, especially in. At the time, in the 1990s when he and Nicole Kidman were the it couple. You don't see a guy who, at that time especially, was presented very masculine, sexy, straight, wealthy, gorgeous wife as the most naive person in the whole movie. He knows the least about what's going on in the whole movie. And he tries to do, in quotes, the right thing, even when he's mad, but he just doesn't know anything. Everybody knows more than him. And I'm just like, why did Kubrick do that?

[Conversation Participant 1]

It's not just that he doesn't know stuff, but he's like. Doesn't even know about how the world works.

[Nick Sardine]

You know what I mean?

[Conversation Participant 1]

It's not like he's out. It's like a mystery where he doesn't have certain pieces of information. It's like he's actually a naive person.

[Becca]

Yeah. Yeah. He's an innocent. He's an ingenue. And the scene where he and Nicole Kidman are smoking a joint, I shouldn't say, well, he and Alice. Bill and Alice are smoking a joint.

[Dr. Harford]

I think we both know what men are like.

[Male Character]

So on that basis, I should conclude that you wanted to fuck those two models.

[Dr. Harford]

There are exceptions.

[Male Character]

What makes you an exception?

[Dr. Harford]

What makes me an exception is that I happen to be in love with you.

[Becca]

And of course, he says the thing he's supposed to say, well, because you're my wife and I love you, and I know you wouldn't. Dinner. But at a certain point, because this character, she knows this man, and she's like, that's not what you're saying. What you're saying is women don't actually have desire.

[Male Character]

Men have to stick it in every place they can. But for women, women, it is just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else.

[Becca]

And he agrees with this boy. He says, well, it's oversimplified.

[Dr. Harford]

But, yes, a little oversimplified, Alice. But yes, something like that.

[Male Character]

If you men only knew.

[Becca]

And you're like, oh, see, now I know why she's pissed off. Because he has no sense of who she is. This is somebody who's very much out of touch with his sexuality. The way that I read it, even the way that he exudes sexuality to other people. He just doesn't know do you suppose.

[Dr. Harford]

We should talk about money?

[Male Character]

Yeah, I guess so. It depends on what you want to do. What do you want to do?

[Dr. Harford]

Well, what do you recommend?

[Becca]

What do you recommend? This is another one of my favorite scenes. The actor is perfect. She just says, what do I recommend?

[Male Character]

What do I recommend?

[Becca]

She's so trying to hold it together. She's like, I have never heard that in my entire life of being a. Of part prostitute.

[Male Character]

I. I'd rather not put it into words.

[Becca]

You just think, does he really know anything about sex and sexuality in a woman's body besides the clinical? No. He thinks he's at a certain status. And he's even wrong about that. I'm a doctor. He's always pushing, pulling his doctor card out. He's showing people he's a doctor.

[Nick Sardine]

And so, Becca, set that up a.

[Conversation Participant 1]

Little bit more because this is one of the most interesting points I think you made. Can you just. For someone who hasn't seen the film, like, what is his social class? I guess, for lack of better term.

[Becca]

He is a doctor that works with elite people. He has a probably Park Avenue practice somewhere. He helps people and he refers people like Victor Ziglar. But Victor and he are not in the same class. He thinks he's in the same class because he helps people like Victor. He's not in the same class because he helps people like Victor.

[Dr. Harford]

Excuse me, ladies. Sorry, Dr. Harford. Sorry to interrupt. I wonder if you could come with me for a moment. Something for Mr. Zigler. Oh.

[Nick Sardine]

Fine.

[Becca]

He's help. And he doesn't realize he's help. Now, there are different echelons of help. That I think is a very class, focused picture. And we see people at different strata in Kubrick's film. But he is not even in the same universe as Victor Ziggler.

[Victor Ziggler]

It was great seeing you both.

[Conversation Participant 1]

Cheers.

[Nick Sardine]

Cheers.

[Becca]

We don't know what Ziglar does. We don't know why Ziglar does what he does. We don't even know why he has these parties. We don't even know the people at these parties.

[Victor Ziggler]

That's a 25 year old. I'll send you over a case.

[Dr. Harford]

No, please.

[Nick Sardine]

Sure.

[Becca]

Victor always talks about playing. He never talks about working.

[Victor Ziggler]

You feel like playing?

[Becca]

No. Victor's interest doesn't have to work.

[Conversation Participant 1]

You know what I mean?

[Becca]

One of my favorite scenes in the movie and there's so many that I love is when Victor puts his hands on Bill's shoulders. When Bill is, like, in the corner realizing that Victor is lying to him.

[Victor Ziggler]

Suppose I Told you that. That everything that happened to you there, the threats, the girl's warnings, her last minute intervention. Suppose I said that all of that was staged. That it was a kind of charade, that it was fake.

[Male Character]

Fake?

[Victor Ziggler]

Yes, fake.

[Becca]

Victor is absolutely lying to him. And he realized he's trapped and he can't manage it. Kubrick loves actors. I don't know how he treated actors. I mean, I know that Tom Cruise was. He had to go through many, many takes just because I think Kubrick was breaking down the character and breaking down the actor, which is, you know, a choice, I guess. I wonder if people have ever asked him. I mean, I know that he and Nicole Kimmin has said they worship Kubrick. They just would do anything that he said. And they. They were very, you know, they talked about how much his loss meant to them. But I think in general, he really loves actors and he appreciates actors. Kubrick.

[Dr. Harford]

Good evening.

[Nick Sardine]

Good evening.

[Dr. Harford]

I'm Dr. Hartford, and one of my patients was admitted earlier this morning, Ms. Amanda Curran.

[Becca]

There's a death in the movie, and Tom Cruise's character, Bill, is going to the mortuary to confirm the death of this person. Her name.

[Dr. Harford]

Again, current.

[Becca]

There's an orderly, one of the few black characters we see on screen. Not so in the original, in the earlier script, but in this scene, I.

[Nick Sardine]

Want to get to the.

[Becca]

And he just takes him there and he. The orderly brings the body out of the drawer or whatever that they call it, and then he just steps to the side. It's very small, but Kubrick makes sure to give him care. That actor, that moment. And I just feel touched by it. I think the actor did a wonderful job. You know, they say no small roles, just small actors. I think that he embodied that in that little moment that he had. The only person who didn't get any attention, who had a larger presence in the film was Kubrick. You never saw him, but he was actually made a cameo in the movie.

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[Conversation Participant 1]

It's a super white film. I think there's two black characters in the whole thing.

[Becca]

Yeah. That are actually featured. Yeah. I think in the first party, there's a couple of black people floating in the back that are not even, like, really focused on. It's just notable because of Sea of Whiteness. But. Yeah, but besides that, there are two characters that you see, the orderly and the bodyguard. It's not the case in the original script. And he removed black people from the script.

[Conversation Participant 1]

So when did you find that out?

[Becca]

When I read those earlier scripts at the Kubrick archives in London. He removed black characters from earlier versions of the script. He is making a political comment, I think, about the absence of black characters in the film to highlight danger and sort of meta commentary on the type of world that Bill Harford allows himself to be in. He doesn't have black patients. There is a Latina woman that is featured as the maid of one of his clients that we see, Rosa. And I think, as far as I know, those are the three characters of color that come to mind immediately from the film. It is interesting to see who he took out. One of the models who was hitting on him at Victor's party was originally a black character. And he also, in an earlier version had a driver. Bill Harford had a driver. And that chauffeur was black. So now we see him in a cab, which creates more of that class contrast that we were seeing. And the model being white and with a particular type of posh British accent. It was that character who was originally a black character. It heightens the context in which Bill Harford is slowly being initiated. I suspect that those two models were also involved with the sex group.

[Conversation Participant 1]

If we could just pause for a second, though, because that just blows my mind that it's like that they erased black characters and made them white. Normally, if you hear about black characters being erased from scripts, it's usually to highlight how racist it is. And your interpretation is. No, that is evidence that it is. That the movie is more racially conscious. By removing these black characters.

[Becca]

Yeah, because he co wrote the script. The earlier versions of the script. So, yeah, I think that he's consciously taking these black characters out because he's making a meta Commentary on whiteness. And I think that that meta commentary also has to do with his background, Kubrick's background. Kubrick's father was a doctor. And I think in that immediate post Holocaust generation, they're also thinking about what is their standing in terms of whiteness, even in a city like New York, and interacting with different strata of society. So I don't think that he's making an explicit commentary about that, about Jewishness in this context, because Sidney Pollack, clearly Jewish character with a Jewish affect in this particular performance. But I think in Kubrick's mind, somebody who's from the Bronx, he's thinking about this meta commentary, like, how does his life and his understanding of New York before he moved to England reflect what he saw all the time? You know? But I want to say, and I haven't really said this before, he is still tenuous, because money doesn't buy everything. And how we know this is because in that final scene, when he's in conversation with Tom Cruise's character, he talks about the other people at the party as if he's not really part of the group. He says, talking about Nick Nightingale.

[Victor Ziggler]

Of course it was Nick's fault. If he hadn't mentioned it to you in the first place, none of this would have happened. I recommended that little cocksucker to those people, and he's made me look like a complete asshole.

[Becca]

That guy made me look like a complete asshole to those people. He says those a lot, which to me means his status with all of his wealth just gets him into the door. Right. But it's still actually a bit tenuous. He doesn't say we. He says they and those. So it's all relative. And I think that that might be because of his ethnicity and religion, that he's not really there. He's in. But he's always got to prove that he should be. And that's why he was worried, and that's why he had to have the attention of Tom Cruise's character, Bill. He's like, I've got to tell you what's going on, because first of all, you're not going to endanger my position. And second of all, because you have something that I don't have with all my wealth, and that is Waspness. Right? So again, he can be naive. I don't think that Victor is just an object either. I definitely don't think he's a good guy. That was pretty much made clear throughout the movie. Victor is not a good guy, but he is not at the absolute top of that food chain either. So we don't know who's at the top of the food chain. And that's also the point. It's invisible. It's invisible. We can't even speculate. So all of these issues of class, all of these issues of knowledge, you know, from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic meta commentaries on race, sex, sexuality, the luxury to be invisible, the luxury to be naive, all of these fantastic contrasts are embodied in this movie. And it's also beautifully sh. And it's off. It's unnerving in really beautiful ways through gesture, through performance, through the script, through the casting that I just think is revelatory. So I'm very much indebted to Kubrick and all of the actors and all the people involved to taking me on this journey of working more with film. So my question is, have I converted you to liking this film?

[Conversation Participant 1]

I'm converted enough that I'm willing to give it another shot. Let's put it that way.

[Becca]

Okay. Baby steps. Let me know what you think. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm gonna go look at that. Toy Story.

[Nick Sardine]

That's it for Love and Radio.

[Producer/Editor]

This episode was edited with help from Paulus Van Horn. Special thanks also to the Brooklyn Museum who hosted Tracey and I. The producer for this episode is Phil Domhofski. Love and Radio is an independent project and a labor of Love and Radio and made possible thanks to our supporters on Patreon. Thank you. With extra special thanks to Ali, Mothra Perry, Andrew Simmons, Casey Anderson, Chakrit Sudhachan, Dan Palmino, Jacqueline Leake, Jason V. Joe Palmieri, Sam Hoffman, Sandra. Nick actually has to read the Schroeder, William Spears and Edging Candytuft. I'm Nicholas Sardine. Punch Punch vendor Cult. Thank you for listening.

[Becca]

Sam.