Eyes Wide Shut - Why do we, the audience, always interpret things by jumping to spectacle?
*this was a rant I wrote after watching this movie for the first time, wanting to watch/read think pieces on it, and only being met with conspiratorial theories and analysis.. which is still cool... But did not align with my personal interpretation
I think that it is important to regard the fact the elite power and control is discussed and shown in this film. I think it adds a layer of mystery, control, and realism which is really important to the story. However a lot of people attach to this, Bill (Tom Cruise) as his hurt ego and pride, and the journey he goes on through the lens of falling too deep into the rabbit hole of this cult on a literal sense.
People take this as some sort of cautionary tale Kubrick wrote before his final days as a warning to the underground societies of the elite, which I find interesting, but was never my initial read on it.
People love to read Eyes Wide Shut as some grand conspiracy warning about elites in sex cults (which, sure, maybe, who knows), but I think that misses the quieter and more unsettling heart of the film.
To me, it’s a cautionary story about the desire to own and possess love, and how that urge gets in the way of genuine intimacy. It asks how well we really know the people we love, and what we do when that illusion cracks.
Instead of sitting with the unknown, the uncomfortable, and the complex, the instinct is to recreate what we thought we had through fantasy, transaction, and performance, instincts that conveniently mirror capitalist systems that profit from us not knowing ourselves or each other very well. I mean the film isn't set during Christmas for shits and giggles.
Desire here isn’t meant to be spectacle, it’s a mirror. And realizing you don’t fully know someone you love (or even yourself) is terrifying, but also the beginning of something more honest.
The film shows how systems that claim to offer "permission” or "liberation" for desire and pleasure often still control, judge, and surveil it. That’s the real horror of it all, not secret dungeons, but the illusion of freedom.
Sometimes what’s radical isn’t knowing everything about someone, but choosing to stay and discover each other honestly over time. Because sure, joining a sex cult sounds nice but it's the narrative equivalent of instant gratification.
Getting to know yourself through finding out the dark and light truths about how the WORLD experiences desire (exploitation, fear, power, etc) so you can find out how YOU experience it is the hard journey you go through when your seemingly perfect picture of intimacy cracks.. But at least in the end you get to have the choice between that, the expectations and the pressures to give into how society seems desire to be reallly likeable or captivating, and the real kind of intimacy you feel good in.
So yeah maybe it hurts to hear your wife's sexual fantasies, but at least you get to go on a journey of looking inward at how you process your own desire by doing everything in your power to cheat on her LMFAO
