Eyes Wide Shut, and pub

[ciphergoth]

First off, come to the pub tonight!

Second, I watched Eyes Wide Shut on C5 last night. What was that all about then?

Lots of impressive but meaningless imagery, very very slow plot development, rather irritating incidental music and an inconclusive conclusion. I saw lots of sex-related imagery, but if there was a sexual morality fable in there, a warning against "empty, meaningless sex" or otherwise, then it passed me by. To me, it was a warning that if you gatecrash a party and someone warns you to get away before they kill you, do as they say. Also a warning against telling people you don't know very well about things you've been paid to keep secret; or against working for organisations that have people killed in the first place.

At one point, taxis refuse to pick him up because he's crossed the Bad Guys. What did they do, send a fax to every taxi driver in New York saying "don't pick this guy up, photo attached, signed the Bad Guys"? Or did they write "don't pick me up" on Tom Cruise's forehead while he slept, in a special ink that only taxi drivers can see?

I think EWS doesn't work for me because it depends on the audience imagining that sex parties are the most forbidden and secret thing there could ever be. I'd like to wave a little flag at this point and say that, in common with many of you reading this of course, I go to sex parties quite often, they're generally jolly good fun, and people hardly ever get murdered! After watching EWS, I wanted to write that on banners and hang them out the window.

Though it did make me wonder if an opening ceremony at a sex party might be a cool thing. Unfortunately that would require people turning up on time...

Comments

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Yes, well that's why it doesn't work really, isn't it? The setting was changed for the film. The story comes from this book, which as you can see is set in early twentieth-century Vienna, and not post-post-post-sexual revolution New York. Doesn't really transfer, IMHO.

[winterthing.livejournal.com]

I'd tend to agree - promiscuous sex in an age without reliable contraception, incredibly uneven power balance between the sexes, and with a much closer connection criminality, in people's minds and to a certain extent in practice is one thing.

Promicuous sex with condoms, the pill, feminism and liberal divorce laws is something else.

To me - wandering to random seedy nightclubs in an era when there weren't the same practical ways to protect against picking up diseases (syphillis at that time, I guess, would be an issue) or getting a random girl pregnant is something of a self destructive adventure. Being that man's wife, when divorce wasn't as feasible an option is something a little darker and scarier.

Going out and getting laid at a private party in the 20th century (if one avoids the parties with the slightly weird psychos in masks and robes) doesn't have the same impact.

And why were all those men at that party masked and robed while the women were naked? Wouldn't those robes, erm, get in the way quite a lot. Admittedly I found Eyes Wide Shut so mind numbingly dull I didn't quite manage to watch it all, and may have forgotten big chunks, so I'm probably not the best person to be commenting on it.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

I think because the attenders at the party were female prostitutes, and male Rich and Powerful people. In fact, if you read it as a fable about an Impossibly Rich And Powerful layer of society who control all (like the cabs) and do extraordinary things behind closed doors, then it makes a little more sense, though again the Things Behind Closed Doors seem very tame by this interpretation and The Invisibles does a rather better job.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

If that's what the Rich and Powerful do behind closed doors, then the world is a very dull place indeed.

[reddragdiva]

The Rich and Powerful are as tediously banal as the rest of us.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

I know plenty of people who aren't all that tediously banal.

I'm sure if everyone on ciphergoth's friends list were Rich and Powerful we'd think of far more interesting things to do Behind Closed Dooors. Like ritually humiliate people liek George W. Bush, in the name of some silly initiation ritual.

Yes, that's it; if I were running a secret society of the mega-rich, I'd let people like George W. join, and put them through a horribly embarrasing and humiliating ritual in front of all the other members, and then I'd only invite them to half the secret parties/rituals/whatever. Of course, they wouldn't even know about the other parties/rituals/whatever, where all the really fun stuff would happen.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

In Dubya's case, the ritual humiliation would have to go fatally wrong. Oops! We forgot to load his and Sharon's duelling pistols with blanks!

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

hmmm... I see a problem there. You see, one or other of them might live. Best to be safe and have him duel with someone you like, and give Bush blanks. Same deal for Sharon.

[zz]

or you could just have a tournament of all the ppl you don't like, with as many rounds as necessary (*giggles internally at unintentionl gun and crypto references*), so you're only left with one of them alive to dispose of (or not), while everyone else does something more interesting in the meantime..

that's given me an idea for an experiment. 3 ppl in a locked room or something each given a gun loaded with one bullet, tell them any survivors can only get out when someone's dead, and see what happens.. :)

[silverclear.livejournal.com]

have you seen a bizarre film called 'battle royale'? it's a similar theory only there can only be one survivor and it's on an island... but the principle is the same. very strange film.

[zz]

yep, several times :>

[reddragdiva]

"I know plenty of people who aren't all that tediously banal."

OK - the Rich and Powerful are as tediously banal as the rest of me ;-)

[lovingboth]

He's already been in one - wasn't he, like daddy, a member of Skull and Bones at Yale?

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he was.

Still, I wanna see him undergo ritual humiliation, don't you?

While blindfold, of course. How much fun would that be?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

From that link: Schnitzler seems to ask how two intelligent, attractive, sentient people can share a bed, a child, and a life for years on end when erotic yearnings elsewhere are inevitable.

Reading that, it strikes me that another reason that it doesn't work for us is that we don't yearn for an answer to this Great Imponderable, because we have one that works for us.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> how two intelligent, attractive, sentient people can share a bed, a child, and a life for years on end when erotic yearnings elsewhere are inevitable.

I expect it depends on the personalities of the people involved. Some people prefer monogamy, others prefer to be poly.
So long as nobody's telling lies or taking advantage, either arrangement is fine.

In the bad old days men got to be promiscuous and women (on the whole) didn't. These days, since we have a principle of equality in relationships, there are other options.

One comment I would like to make is that the statistic that 70% of married women have affairs was greeted with howls of derisive laughter at a drunken night out of a group of married mothers - not because any of us would claim that we have never looked at people other than our lawfully wedded and found them attractive - but simply because we don't have either the time or the energy...
Keeping one emotionally fulfilling adult relationship going while trying to raise children is hard enough - the thought of managing more than one is not exciting, it's exhausting.... :o)

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

They didn't claim to have multiple emotionally fulfilling relationships. Just one of those and one or more affairs.

[nickys.livejournal.com]

If there was only one emotional relationship to be managed that would be more workable from the point of view of expending less emotional energy in juggling priorities.

But you do then have to consider what basis the affairs would be run on. As we have discussed previously, women in general aren't as good as men at seeing the point of having sex just for the sake of sex. We're more likely to either only have sex where there is already an emotional connection, or to become emotionally involved as a result of having sex.
And once there's an emotional connection then the complications start up again.

Obviously it is possible to make arrangements which are acceptable to all parties, since there are poly people who make a success of their relationships.

I'm rather skeptical about being able to manage the practicalities if one is also involved in parenting on a day to day basis, because that takes up so much energy and affects every other aspect of life so profoundly. Although I suppose the original quote was written by someone who expected the actual work of raising the child to be done primarily by a Nanny, in which case the parents would have enough free time for affairs.

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

From what I understand based on accounts of people who have affairs, the idea is to have an uncomplicated part-time relationship that gives you sexual pleasure and makes you feel attractive and desired. As soon as one of the affair partners begins to love the other, a mess results.

As I say I never get this myself. What I want is to have affectionate or sexual relations with my friends, since we get on very well and they seem like the right people to do this.

Pavlos

[nickys.livejournal.com]

> As soon as one of the affair partners begins to love the other, a mess results.

That certainly seems to be the case in all the affair situations I've seen.

> What I want is to have affectionate or sexual relations with my friends, since we get on very well and they seem like the right people to do this.

It seems to me that that could be a lot easier to manage.
Particularly if the friendship is a longstanding and stable one then feelings of both people are less likely to be drastically changed by adding sex to the relationship.

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I had a similar thing with 8mm. There was stuff that was clearly bad in it and other stuff that seemed completely unrelated, and some kind of moral connection I didn't get, and it all seemed a bit melodramatic.

I've not seen EWS because I thought it might be how you said it was. I don't really enjoy sex parties, though I don't think they're particularly remarkable from a moral PoV, it's an aesthetic thing (not of the people, but of the idea), and difficult to describe, I'd have to think about it, and don't have any problems with them happening! Their potential illegality also worries me (in both the political and the selfpreservation sense), particularly about the issues surrounding watched male/male acts and the victorian bawdy houses laws.

From the clips of EWS I saw on Film Whatever, I also got the idea that there was very little empathy with why the characters might be doing what they did (in terms of the sex), little motivation, dahling.

[lovingboth]

The European Court of Human Rights effectively legalised gay group sex at the end of July 2000 - a few months after Tory and Labour MPs voted against changing this bit of law. Someone got over £20k compensation after having been 'done' some years ago.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_859000/859506.stm

[sanjibabes.livejournal.com]

It was pretty, but I didn't understand it.

[babysimon]

I know, and from the director of 2001 as well! Who'd have thought it?

[lovingboth]

Yeah. It is not Kubrick's greatest and the words 'self indulgent' did come to mind when I saw it on release. Still, it did mean some of us got to see all of Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room while hubby was off doing retake after retake of his solo scenes.

The bit that amused me was when he was asked for the second password - if you don't know, it makes a lot more sense to say "there is no second password" than to guess...

The ones I've been to that worked the best had a 'no admission after n o'clock' policy, so it could be done.

Typical American screen-writing problem

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

I briefly contemplated watching the film because I though it might be erotic or sex-positive, but quickly decided it would be as you describe. Casting Cruise and Kidman added to these fears, nor did the publicity around it.

The problem you describe seems to be a widespread problem with American screenplays. It goes like this:

• Characters undertake morally questioned activity (public sex, unusual relationships, raising dinosaurs).
• Characters are fall victims to straightforward criminal agression unrelated to the above.
• Everyone concludes that the original activity is disastrous.

Eh? Eh again! What sort of society thinks that way? It could only be a stupid one that's based on fear. Now wait a minute...

Pavlos

Re: Typical American screen-writing problem

[selectnone.livejournal.com]

You have a point. It's not dinosaur safari parks that are the problem, it's the people willing to sabotage them and cause dinosaur death rampages.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

plot development?

That suggests it actually had a plot, which would suggest some sort of progress... it looked, to me, like a series of rather dull and pointless events that led to no conclusion whatsoever. Shame the bad guys were so dull, really. And what the hell was the point of Nicole Kidman's character?
"Oh, I thought about being unfaithful to you once, but I didn't do it, but you know I would have!". ugh.

Shame really, Kubrick was a damn good director.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

EWS - there really was no point to it, although the sex party scenes were very pretty (hell, I liked the robes). And would someone please SHOOT THAT PIANIST!

[ex-meta.livejournal.com]

I don't really have the energy to go through the whole thing right now... However, I will say that almost nothing in the movie is irrelevant. The musical choices are specific and part of the story. The decor on the walls of the sets is significant. Names (of characters and places) are significant. Like Terry Gilliam, Kubrick packs each scene with detail. If it seems slow, you're missing something.

The dreamy visual style is deliberate and significant. It's not clear how much of the movie is dream, how much is fantasy, and how much is real. (The only real visual effect is used to show not dream sequences, but Harford's obsessive thoughts.) The meaning and significance of fantasy is one of the major themes of the movie. Like the other themes, it's explored within the context of a married relationship, and I find myself wondering if maybe the movie is meaningful only to someone who's married.

Is there a conspiracy? We know that one taxi driver refuses to pick up Harford, saying he's had a long day and is going off-duty. Is that conspiracy or coincidence? What about the headline of the newspaper?

It takes a great deal of effort to make an orgy seem so unerotic, passionless and cold. Clearly it's deliberately so. A statement is being made about the people in power. Yet the movie isn't anti-sex, and the portrayal of the prostitutes is sympathetic.

A passable web review of EWS is at LiP Magazine (http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/revicontent_102.htm)'s web site.

Kubrick always has a secondary story under the surface. "2001" is about humans in a technological society starting to interact like machines; "The Shining" is about the massacre of Native Americans; "A Clockwork Orange" is about the Christian conception of free will; and so on. It takes repeated viewings to extract the non-verbal meanings, which is why I don't have much to say right now. If you want to discuss "2001", on the other hand...

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can credit Kubrick with any perceived secondary story in Clockwork Orange; There wasn't much in the film that wasn't also in the book. Although, gimme some examples and I'll maybe reconsider?

[reddragdiva]

In fact, I would say there was less in the film than in the book.

The book is one of my very favourites. I thought the film was ludicrously shallow by comparison.

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

yes, it was rather shallow by comparison, but it's a gorgeously graphic film in some ways; there are so many images that just stay with you. Bits haven't aged well, but it's still a really good piece of cinema.

[please-sir.livejournal.com]

yeah, I loved the book.

[illscientist.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I thought that, to simplify, the movie wasn't about the sex party so much as it was, simply, a meditation on the way that, in a monogamous relationship, the suggestion or implication of unfaithfulness can get into your brain, niggle itself into your mind like a wedge, and color everything you see and do for a while; not necessarily that verything that happened in the movie needed to be taken literally.

But I liked the movie.

[jhg.livejournal.com]

But lots of it is beautifully 'naturalistic'.


J

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are lots of pretty girls with no clothes on...

ews and parties.

[midori.livejournal.com]

you were at vacant_ and gothtart's flat party majig.
i recognise you. i was hideously drunk, you either took my lj name on your palm top or you looked like someone else and i asked you if you were him and you said no. um, either way, i am a twat. apologies.

I go to sex parties quite often, they're generally jolly good fun, and people hardly ever get murdered!
hardly ever? GOOD O! lmao.

i was under the impression that he was actually at a masonry or whatever they are called which is a pervy secret agency thing. it's pretty taboo. i think it was meant to be kinda sinister and fucked up really. i liked the movie. perhaps you need to have a certain mindset to get it or something because a lot of people make similar complaints to yourself, however, i don't see it. hmm!

Re: ews and parties.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Don't worry - you were indeed as drunk as a lord, or as a skunk, or possibly as drunk as Lord Skunk, but it was lots of fun to meet you and hope to see you again soon! :-)

Re: ews and parties.

[midori.livejournal.com]

hehe, nice one.
Lord Skunk.