Eyes Wide Shut – Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film based on Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novella, Traumnovelle (Dream Story), starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as Dr Bill Harford and his wife Alice, an art curator, and Sydney Pollack as the wealthy Victor Ziegler. Over two days, mostly sleepless, a labyrinth of confusing symbols and imagery form in Bill Harford’s thoughts and experiences, arising from sexual tensions with his wife’s confession of nearly having an affair the previous summer and his own encounters with attractive women combined with a feeling of impotence to act effectively following the death of a patient, the bullying insolence of some drunken young men, and the persistent hallucination of his wife’s fantasy lover.

The scenes we view through Dr Harford’s eyes are highly subjective since we have no other reference to help us determine their reality; the two scenes in the costumer’s shop lack empirical coherence; Alice’s description of her dream also shares many similarities with Bill’s experiences. More than any other movie, this best captures the sensations I experienced when reading John Fowles’s The Magus. (Kubrick’s title also echoes the title of my novel, Lie Awake and Dream).

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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