It occurred to me this morning I should likely find interviews with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, but I tend congenitally to look more for background characters. I tend to trust janitors more than CEO’s.
Be that as it may, she tried twice to share her view of what the movie was about, but I think the interviewers–as seemingly always happens with her in these interviews, which she warns them of at the outset–were more interested in her as a conduit to get to stories about the Master.
She says that in her view the essential scene is that in which Nicole Kidman admits to spending a pleasant day with Tom–Dr. Bill (and I will say that even I noticed the pervasive symbolism of the wallet, his badge of authenticity and importance, and money)–but still thinking about her Navy officer the whole time.
She was interrupted (it was a poor interview), but here is where I think she was going: we all of us are split in some ways between our social roles, our place, our mask, our persona, and our inner reality. Kidman, there, was admitting to being simultaneously dutiful wife and what we would call a lustful slut. She is saying, effectively, that women are just what Tom Cruise accused men of being. They are no different. Men have inner fantasy lives, and so too do women. And these fantasy lives, even if they are not acted on, matter.
What both learned, what opened both of their eyes, is who they really were, how much larger and unconfined, and simultaneously vulnerable and free. Fucking is what Kidman felt would finally close that circle, and complete some part of the process, put a stamp on it.
Alice starts the trip down the rabbit hole. She admits to Dr. Bill her lust. He in turn is startled to see expressed feelings he too has–he was clearly enjoying the attention of those two models, and it was unclear where it was going–but not fully brought into consciousness. This is what women do better than men: feel consciously. Cruise did not think about what he was doing at the party, but certainly it was inappropriate for a married man to be both flirting so aggressively, and consenting to receive such more or less open invitations to sex.
So we have the public, pious role, and the shadow licentiousness that rejects all limits–Kidman was willing to lose everything for a man she had never even spoken to (now: this is a fictional story line, and I can’t say how many women might actually feel this way, but the story comes from SOMEWHERE, and I have heard enough crazy stories to believe this may be how it actually works on strange, weird, inexplicable occasions).
Dr. Bill goes liminal. He does eventually leave the gates of the city, to be received in another set of gates, but before that he meets someone whose ROLE is lust. That is her point and purpose. She is not trying to be someone else. She is not split in any way, at least for the purposes of this analysis (prostitution is no doubt very emotionally demanding, and a profession likely largely populated by survivors of various forms of abuse). Domino, as I have said, is the only person I like in this movie, other than Nick, who I will get to in a moment.
Domino represents a kind of way point, between role and the reality of lust. Dr. Bill satisfies his role with her–he gives her money, as an attentive and responsible benefactor–but never fully meets his lust. He does not integrate them, or even fully admit them. Since he was quite prepared to spend the night out–based on his subsequent behavior, his primary concern was not with worrying his wife by staying out late–he could have slept with her, and in my opinion that may have been the honest thing to do.
But he doesn’t. He meets his friend, whose eyes are to be shut by a blindfold, and who mediates the world of the orgy and the world of Dr. Bill’s role. Nick goes into the party as himself. He is the only one who does not wear a mask. But his eyes are wide shut. He cannot see, literally or figuratively, just what he has gotten himself into.
For his part, Dr. Bill, ironically, puts on a mask–symbolizing a role–where the role is the satisfaction of lust. And as I have said, making sexual gratification a point and purpose also misses something. Making it a role misunderstands its arbitrary nature. Can this fundamental split be FULLY healed even within a carefully constructed ritual context? I don’t know. I don’t know.
Coming full circle–and the symbol of the magic circle plainly means something, and likely multiple somethings, in the childrens department store–Dr. Bill and Alice are left living in the liminal zone, processing it, while trying to fulfill the role of parents. Alice, being more aware, sees that Dr. Bills experience has to be consummated, with her, within the space of both of their roles, and that for the time being everything will be OK. I suspect they will get divorced later, though, as indeed Kidman and Cruise did.
I am thinking out loud, but there may be something here. I will add that Davis, when asked if the filming was the first place she met Kubrick, said something like “Oh no. I had lived in Britain at that point for several years.” Now, I could live in Britain for decades and never meet anyone famous. Implicit within that statement was the idea that she–as an attractive model “with great tits”–went to parties where people like Kubrick could be found. What else that implies, I can’t say.
Here is a video of her singing what in 2007 was her latest single: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB6g66OYoKI
I put off seeing Eyes Wide Shut, because I knew I would react how I am reacting, and at that time, I was unsure how to make creative use of it. Now I know how. This is all good for me, even whatever nonsense I am writing.