(May 10, 2020 at 6:23 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Welp, I’m on the last movie in my Stanley Kubrick Film Festival, Eyes Wide Shut.I was on the west coast for a work conference some years back and we had a bad weather night. I was looking for something to watch and this movie was available on pay-per-view...one of the biggest wastes of money ever. It was simply difficult to watch but since I had paid for it I felt like I had to sit through it. UGH! I think I'd have been more entertained standing out on the PCH in the wind and the rain.
My hypothesis on the masked orgy scene: aside from Ziegler, Nick, and Bill, nobody else in the previous scenes was there. The lady who sacrificed herself wasn’t Mandy or Domino (FWIW, the actress who played her is neither Julienne Davis nor Vinessa Shaw, but Abigail Goode.) While the fact that she used his name implies she knows him, bear in mind, Ziegler was there and he’s a friend of Bill’s. Perhaps he blew the whistle on him. He’s probably not telling the whole truth with his big speech at the end, naturally, because it’s just too convenient, wrapping everything all up in a bow just enough that Bill can stop snooping around. And, honestly, if anyone else in the film was involved, something tells me that this would just be too convenient. I don’t think this is a puzzle that can be solved from everything the film gives us up to that point. And I don’t think Kubrick wanted it to be, if only because the conspiracy is ultimately secondary to the major themes of love, sex, and honesty. If it just seems like a cop-out, think of all the mysterious things you’ve seen in your life, all the mysteries that you never got an answer to. It’s so tempting to immerse yourself in these mysteries, but, as exciting and intriguing as they may be, they can’t be the main focus in your life. There’s other things more important, like this:
Also, this shot cracks me up:
It’s just so on the nose, coming moments after he finds out the hooker he screwed the night before tested positive for HIV and the day after escaping from the orgy with his life.
“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.” — Confucius