Kubrick

by **cortez** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:21 pm

I thought I'd post this again, since Fidelo Rainbow ties in allot with rainbow imagery given in the movie. GATEMAN 1 (polite and well-spoken) Good morning, sir. BILL Good morning. GATEMAN 1 Can we be of any help you? BILL I suppose you'd like the password? GATEMAN 1 If you wouldn't mind, sir. BILL (slowly) Fidelio Rainbow.. GATEMAN 1 Thank you, sir. <a href="http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0085.html">www.visual-memory.co.uk/a.../0085.html</a>

by **JimNelson** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:30 am

One year later, on January 4, 1984, Bush would travel to Miami to deliver one of his well-rehearsed “war on drugs” speeches at the Omni International Hotel. Later in the day Bush rendezvoused with boat builder and former racer Don Arnow at Islamorada in the Florida Keys. Bush’s high-priced “Cigarette” speedboat Fidelity was purchased from Arnow, his friend and fishing partner. As one local resident said, “everyone in Miami knew that if you needed a favor from Bush, you spoke to Arnow.” Bush's boat is called 'Fidelity?' I never knew that.

by **morganwolf** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 11:35 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Since *everything* in this movie is doubled and reflected (over 40 instances of one character "parroting" another's last line, for example ...), I've been thinking about "Fidelio". We're TOLD that it's an opera, okay .. and the connection to the theme of marital (in)fidelity is explicit. In fact, it's what a lot of commentators take for the main theme of the movie; what it's about. But if we look at it in (Alice's) mirror, the reflection is infidel. That's what the movie is really about, not the surface play of extramarital affairs (as if that could ever interest Kubrick).<hr></blockquote> Perhaps my last response contained too much conventional "film theory" but there is a value in keeping the manifest text of a film in mind when delving into the multiple subtexts. It's also worthwhile to think more about how we are being manipulated as spectators. I had to watch EWS several times before I got past the manifest text - it was almost too explicit, to the point of being off-putting. The way I got past it was to ferret out the various form of manipulation in order to follow the director's clues to the resolution of this mystery play. Infidelity is the movie's manifest theme, but this is no accident. It's a rich vehicle that allows Kubrick to move rapidly from one subversive element to another - much of which we've already discussed here. Someone earlier mentioned the curious choice of Tom and Nicole. I think that choice was brilliant - Kubrick exploits their famous maritial status because exploitation and abuse of power are subsets of the manifest theme of infidelity. That's just my opinion, mind you. *Hanshan - a big 'thank you' for posting the fabulous articles. I'm saving all of these references to my own files for future use.

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:04 pm

Agreed on the repeating of lines; the first couple of times I saw the movie I was driven nuts the way Cruise repeated almost everything said to him.. There has to be significance to that, cause I've never seen it so pronounced in any other film ever. At first glance, it smacks of terrible directing.. Maybe that was a filter he used deliberately?

by **jenz** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:21 pm

interesting analyses of symbols, metaphors etc. but for me, first and only time I watched it, I could not shake dead feeling that it was propaganda for. could practically hear the seargent plod's lining up to mock victims bringing complaints which refer to masks, cloaks, candles, chants - 'been watching a film have we?' It pissed me off. if I, with no resources and no contacts can know what really goes on, as opposed to the watered down, abstracted, tame, nicified parody in ews, SK did. This gripe because for years I have been hoping, praying crying dying for any capable artist to do for ra what is done for holocaust - at least make it understood, recognised, talked about. this film keeps it under wraps. metaphors and symbols are no use if the primary layer of meaning is so obtuse and impenetrable that they stay in the box. many journos writers broadcasters I have met and watched go through one or other persons account, meeting a victim, and finally getting to the point of shakily saying "I can't broadcast/write this." I thought only way would be if creative film maker would break the ground. I'm still waiting, praying, hoping I don't care about a film which only initiates can understand.

by **Morgan Wolf** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:25 pm

Is Dr. Bill a 'real' doctor? Well, barely. It was hilarious watching the bathroom scene where he does nothing but ask Ziegler questions, take the girl's pulse, and look into her eyes. He calls her name several times to "wake her up". I found it curious that there was no syringe or obvious drug paraphernalia to be seen. If she had just shot up, you'd think she would have passed out instantly. Unless that creepy male assistant to Ziegler tossed it before he went and got Dr. Bill. Still, I didn't see any ugly needle marks on her arms, nothing, in fact, to indicate that she is 'real' - except when she finally speaks. Even then... The next day, Bill Harford is at work in his office. We see him 'treat' three specific patients. The first is a young, pretty model-type, not unlike the kind of patient Alice fears will eventually tempt him. Next, he sees a child with a sore throat. Last, he sees an older man with a back injury (he's lifting the guy's legs up straight, which is done to see the level of pain the patient can tolerate, and to rule out disc involvement). Clearly, Bill practices general medicine - he is no specialist. So, his clients distinguish him, not the other way around. How does he make enough to live on Park Ave? Well, someone already said it: because he makes house calls to a select clientele to whom he has proven loyalty and discretion. That is, until his brain gets short-circuited by his wife's 'tale' about the naval officer. I agree that Bill abuses the power of doctor status by using it to gain entry to where he does not belong and to gain information that is not rightly his. To the super rich, he is of the service class. To himself, he is special, as privileged as his clients, and thinks nothing of acting as they do. He is, as Ziegler puts it, 'out of his league'. For that, Bill gets bitched slapped pretty badly - by the street gang, the trillionaries at Somerset, Ziegler, and finally, his own wife. No wonder he ends up in tears. Later...

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:30 pm

"I don't care about a film which only initiates can understand." Maybe EWS is the Initiaion Ceremony for the rest of us..

by **malthus** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:33 pm

decide for yourself <a href="http://www.youreyeswideshut.com">www.youreyeswideshut.com</a>

by **morganwolf** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:39 pm

Jenz, I'm sorry for your situation and sorrier that you think EWS should be more explicit in its handling of RA. EWS is art - it is not a documentary. It is the final work of a beloved director. I'm very sorry that you find the themes too obfuscated. That's just Stanley's way. I pray that a filmmaker comes along who is brave enough to make a documentary on RA. I don't what more to say.

by **Col Quisp** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:43 pm

Watched it again last night: When Bill and Nick first "link up" they are literally "linked up." They walk as if they are joined at the hip like Siamese twins. Nick wears a white jacket, Bill wears black. Bill is "once a doctor, always a doctor," and Nick is "never a doctor, never a doctor." Could Nick be St. Nick, as well as Old Nick? After all, Satan and Santa are anagrams. Alice is sort of like Sally (Domino's roommate) when you say it backwards. Sally is the only female other than Alice that Bill takes the lead with (he immediately starts fondling her within five minutes of meeting her). All the other women have to lead him around by the nose, and he doesn't even know what to do with Domino. "What do you recommend?" he asks her. One of the few sites that lack an Xmas tree is the castle, where the "satanic" ritual takes place. Bill passes by a gallery called the Artinis Gallery. Artinis is Sinatra spelled backward, and this was featured in an old episode of The Dick van Dyke Show, the one where they buy an old painting at a flea market by an artist known as Artinis, which turns out to be Sinatra, who is attempting to disguise himself. Remember that one? It always stuck in my memory, and maybe in Kubrick's too. There's a restaurant called "Verona Restaurant" in the Village scenes. Another Italian reference is the movie that Alice is watching in the kitchen while Bill is with Domino. It's "Blume in Love," (backwards for Love in Bloom) and the dialog is something like: "Prego, prego." "Thank you." "If you were really Italian you would have spoken Italian to me." (I could be wrong about that, typing from memory.) A reference to someone pretending to be something they're not? Trying to "pass" as a native, the way Bill tries to pass as a Satanist/Illuminatus? The hotel clerk, PeeWee Herman, doesn't want to give out info until Bill flashes his ID (the way an FBI agent would) and then spills the beans on Nick. After Bill leaves, PeeWee rubs the side of his head as if in relief. What DOES his wallet show? We never see it, yet he flashes it all the time to establish his authority. Plus, Bill is obsessed with his wallet. The first line of the film is "Honey have you seen my wallet?" Anyway, what if Bill is an MK subject who has gone off track, and they've lured him to the castle in order to kill him? Farfetched, probably. But he seems "fake," like a Manchurian candidate, esp. when talking to the woman whose father just died. "Michigan's a beautiful state, etc." The women: All the main character females have red hair and wear purple. The Scarlet Woman? Babalon? Is Helena being groomed to become one? The story Alice reads along with Helena has the line: 'when I jump into bed." Alice and Bill seem disinterested in her, especially at the toy store, where she picks out a baby carriage for her doll, but Alice says it's "old fashioned." They barely pay attention to Helena yet she keeps looking at them in the store while she walks further and further away. There are so many layers to this film, it's just amazing. On edit: I just realized "Artinis" is NOT "Sinatra" backwards, but that WAS his pseudonym in the Dick Van Dyke episode. Hmmm! On second edit: OK. I'm completely wrong about Artinis being the name in the Dick Van Dyke show. It was "Artanis." <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Rob, Buddy, Laura & Sally go to an auction to find something Alan could buy but not know he bought something. Rob is about to be the own an Artanis after Rob shows Buddy & Sally how people made bids (by pointing to someone's nose.) Mr. Holdecker thinks Frank Sinatra may have painted the picture.<hr></blockquote> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=colquisp>Col Quisp</A> at: 12/9/05 9:57 am

by **Et in Arcadia ego** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:47 pm

"decide for yourself www.youreyeswideshut.com" Mildly amazing site.. The shot of Nicole in front of the mirror perfectly shows the Illuminati pyramid in the curtian top complete with the isolated upper tier..Not to mention she's flanked by the Masonic Pillars.. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=etinarcadiaego@rigorousintuition>et in Arcadia ego</A> at: 12/9/05 9:49 am

by **Col Quisp** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 12:51 pm

is the The Urartian (pre-Armenian) sun-god, and a non-Aryan. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=colquisp>Col Quisp</A> at: 12/9/05 9:55 am

by **morganwolf** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 1:00 pm

I just saw this and thought it relevant.<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Art, Truth and Politics by Harold Pinter In 1958 I wrote the following: 'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.' I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false? Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost. <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1208-28.htm">www.commondreams.org/views05/1208-28.htm</a><hr></blockquote>

by **Pants Elk** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:23 pm

Cut and pasted from the "Bra" thread: So, anyway, I've been thinking about the interiority of Eyes Wide Shut; how it's all interior. The so-called exterior sequences are nothing more than corridors to be moved along to the next room. The use of sound-stages increases this feeling of never being truly "outdoors". If we go further, it becomes apparent that all the interiors are models, or echoes, or reflections, of each other. There is only one room, and Dr Bill goes from room to room as we do in a dream. They're dream rooms. He's stuck in the house of sleep, dreaming he's a doctor.

by **hanshan** » Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:27 pm

Academic analysis often obfuscates rather than elucidates; this also characterizes film theory. As a signifier of underlying structure certain utlities obtain. Meaning is not one. The following quotes are not an endorsement of the theories therein; simply a skeleton upon which to hang ruminations. <a href="http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:E_II0RIh2Q0J:www.arts.cornell.edu/knight_institute/publications/Discoveries%2520Sp2005/10.pdf+image+%2B++mirror+%2B+identity+%2B+Eyes+Wide+Shut&hl=en" target="top">Filmic Repetition</a> Andrew Mittman <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The notion of repetition, as will be discussed, is as crucial a facet of the uncanny experience as Freud’s “Fort/Da” theory is critical to Freud’s explana- tion of the uncanny and to films such as After Hours and Eyes Wide Shut is the notion of doubling or the double. The mirror is an essential catalyst of this doubling action. The mirror, through the formation of an illusory doppelganger, creates a “double” that could insure “against the destruction of the ego, an ‘energetic denial of the power of death’” (235). Effectively, the narcissistic action of doubling oneself takes place in childhood development. The child insures his/her immortality. When the uncanny experience is encountered and repeated later in life, when the childhood narcissism has subsided, the doubling notion is catalyzed. When childhood narcissism triumphs, “the ‘double’reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death. . . . The ‘double’ has become a thing of terror” (235). Therefore, the uncanny experience describes the narrative pattern of repetition and ironic reversal. <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> Freud eventually illustrates a dichotomy between the uncanny in our real-life experiences and in fiction. He proposes that readers (view- ers) will mend their sensibility to the fictional landscape presented. Events labeled uncanny in reality may not be so in a fantasy world governed by laws of fiction. Yet, fiction can generate an uncanny ef- fect, according to Freud, if the author or director allows the readerts to believe that the filmic world is an emulation of the real (245-46)<hr></blockquote> Key point in bold. The intergrity of self is dependent upon a unity of vision even if the interpretation is false. Ergo, the uncanny effect of propaganda, most especially if the progaganda is the mythology of a false self. <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The notion of repetition is a crucial and perceptible character- istic of the structural organization of both Kubrick and Scorsese’s films.<hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> Repetition is an element in MK technique. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Structurally, the film is saturated in repetition and ironic reversal. The narrative structure is comprised of about six focal loca- tions that are each visited twice by Bill. These points of convergence include the Rainbow Fashions costume shop, the Somerton Mansion, Ziegler’s house, and Mandy’s apartment. However, the first illustration of repetition is the imagined sequences of Alice having sex with the officer. These shots are interspersed five times throughout the film. They initiate the motif of repetition. Repetition, as explained by Freud, is the outlet through which people can subconsciously work through repressed emotional infirmities.<hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> .<blockquote>Quote:<hr> In its most fundamental meaning, the uncanny is something that was once known and has since been repressed or rendered unfamiliar, but is once again brought to light by memory.<hr></blockquote> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>It is this exclusion that is repeated from encounter to encounter. Bill’s repressed fears have become a palpable reality—there is, in fact, “a sexual ‘secret society,’ which [Bill] did not know and was excluded from; a situation common to all children” (Telles).<hr></blockquote> i.e.; the control of sexuality begins in childhood <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> . <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Since one may “be tempted to ascribe a secret meaning to [these] obstinate” reoccurrences, and they would be doing so justifiably, these repetitions strengthen the argument of the uncanny within Eyes Wide Shut. Further, Freud’s theory of the uncanny stresses the pattern of repetition through the notion of “doubling.” Mirrors saturate the film and become an essential repeating symbol of duplication. In one of the film’s most famous scenes, Bill has sex with Alice while looking in a mirror. It is evident that Bill reverts to his reflection as a haven of protection. However, it seems, he is offered none. The mirror that once offered fortification against the destruction of the ego has now, for Bill, become a thing of terror. This uncanny repetition proves, further, to be a moment of ironic reversal—a definite bulwark to the notion of “working through.” For Bill, the function of his reflection has seemingly changed and reversed. It seems he finds no solace in his reflection. <hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> The myth of the eternal return doubled on itself in a twisted Sysiphean nightmare. <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Each time, it seems, he fails and is either doomed to perpetu- ally repeat his actions without hope of progression and transformative therapy, or fall victim to ironic reversals of action.<hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>All of Bill’s attempts to work through his sexual frustration through repetition not only fail, but also end up overtly indicating his impotence. In fact, in one of the many repeated Soho scenes, Bill is called “impotent” and “queer” by a group of college kids. Kubrick presents us with an interesting picture of two different ways in which men manage their sexual fears—self- abasement and ridicule of other men.<hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> Enter magic doubling & the use of the doppelganger as a substitute sexuality aniamted by ritualized sex. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Even the notion of doubling, in Freud’s theory of the uncanny, cannot pacify Paul’s fear of castration. Doubling, is inherently char- acterized by repetition. It should be considered that the exploitation of the doubling nature of mirrors reflects a narrative structure of remedy through repetition. In childhood, the externalized and reflected image of the body (mirror image) produces the psychological notion of the “I.” The mirror that once offered fortification against the destruction of the ego has now, for Paul, become a thing of terror. The reflected doppelganger that the child would use as insurance against the destruc- tion of the self is now combated by the castration graffiti next to the mirror in the Terminal bar. . Further, Jentsch, the originator of Freud’s more expounded “Uncanny” argument, claims that the uncanny may be produced when there is a confusion between the animate and the inanimate. He claims specifically that the uncanny emerges when there are “doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate” (SE 17). Freud asserts that perhaps the most uncanny feeling is created when the audience/reader is uncertain “whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton” (SE<hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Both Paul Hackett and Bill Harford try to combat the uncanny through repetition compulsion. Such repetition is echoed within the structure of the films. The term “symphonic structure” alludes to the pattern of repetition, points of convergence, and progressive change that ostensibly characterize Eyes Wide Shut and After Hours. Through their exploitation of this “symphonic structure,” it is apparent that Kubrick and Scorsese explicitly share similarities in their organizing principles. Through repetition, characters are given an opportunity for catharsis. Whether they fail or succeed is debatable, but the repetitive structure of their efforts wonderfully parallels the Freudian struggle for self-remedy.<hr></blockquote> <div style="text-align:center">-****-</div> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>New York is presented as the ultimate labyrin- thine landscape in which nightmares become realities and characters are compelled to repeat mistakes into asymptotic infinity. It becomes a landscape so defamiliarized but paradoxically recognizable that it, perhaps, also catalyzes the uncanny within each film’s viewers.<hr></blockquote> tx morgan <img src="http://www.revradiotowerofsong.org/images/165_Eros_Psyche.jpg" style="border:0;"/> ....

Kubrick

Fidelo Rainbow?

Fidelio

Infidelity ...

Re: Infidelity ...

GBA

"Dr" Bill

Re: GBA

link

Jenz - RA

A few quick notes

Re: Jenz - RA

Artinis

Art, Truth and Politics...

Interiors

re:mirrors of identity/eros & thanatos

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