Eyes Wide Shut Essay Research Paper Mark

Eyes Wide Shut Essay, Research Paper

Mark Marvelli

Professor Dawes

FL/ENG 223

3 December 2000

Like any film that is carefully constructed, Eyes Wide Shut is the sum of its elements and of the ways by which these interact with each other. The most significant elements of the film are color, (particularly red, blue and yellow) sound (such as voices plus external and internal music) and the repeated figures of the Female Nude and Masks.

Eyes Wide Shut can be divided into three parts, each of which contains the elements mentioned above. Part I introduces the main characters and their relationship towards each other. Dr. William Harford and his wife Alice attend a party where pianist Nick Nightingale (Todd Field), an old acquaintance of “Bill” and a pivotal character for the plot, provides the music. The Harford’s friend and host Victor Ziegler (Sydney Pollack), introduces his wife to his guests and later solicits Bill’s medical attention to save the overdosed prostitute and “beauty queen” Mandy (Julienne Davis), who is sprawled naked on a divan in an upstairs room of the mansion, while Ziegler nervously gets dressed. On the wall behind her hangs a large painting of a female nude. In this manner, the figure of the Female Nude is introduced as having a dual significance: as a measure for risk and fatality (Mandy), and as a representation of aesthetic beauty (the painting.) This is a modern representation of the medieval view of women, who were once stereotyped into one of two roles. The first was Eve (the temptress, who was associated with the serpent and the fall of Man) and the second was Mary (the mother, who was associated with redemption and the birth of Christ.)

In the meantime, Alice drinks several glasses of champagne and dances with a pressing suitor. Upstairs, Bill in a demanding staccato calls out to Mandy’s dying ear: “Mandy…can you hear me? Can you hear me…Mandy? Look at me…Mandy.? In both cases, Alice’s drunkenness and flirtatiousness, and Bill’s tense, yet hopeful tone produce slowness in their way of speaking and in the overall rhythm of the scenes. This device is common throughout the film, where whatever altered state the character happens to be in (fear, shock, distress, stupor) can be defined as a ?justifier.? This strategy of justifiers is used in numerous scenes. In one, which follows the scenes of the party, Alice and Bill smoke marijuana and she initiates an interrogation that tests her husband’s sense of jealousy. The scene evolves from her dispassionate questioning to her violent reproach, to a daring confession of figurative adultery. Throughout all three phases, however, Alice deals with the effects of the drug and of the mental tiptoeing around her husband’s defensive rationale. This is represented by her slow speech.

Part II presents the protagonist’s prolonged reaction to his wife’s confession, and leads up to his participation in the mansion. In the first sequence of this second part, Bill attends to the death of a patient, whose inconsolable daughter Marion (Marie Richardson) confesses her love for him in a slow and jagged voice (loss and heartache being here the justifiers.) By the end of this scene, it is clear that Bill is made the target of women’s solicitations, the next of which takes the form of a prostitute (”Domino”, played by Vinessa Shaw) who summons him up to her apartment and leads him through a building’s bright red doors, the color red taking on it?s traditional association with sexuality. This entrance marks the first phase of the character’s transformation. Although these female characters are in neither case seen in the nude, the figure of the Mask is introduced. Inside the bedroom where Marion’s father lies as she confesses her love, there is a stone mask (or what seems to be a decorative replication of a tribal mask of some kind) resting vertically on a night table in the background, at the far left side of the screen. Later, in Domino’s bedroom, two walls hold a series of colored paper mach? masks. The image of the Mask is not fully defined here, as that takes place in the mansion.

After leaving the prostitute’s house, Bill visits his friend Nick at a local bar. Nick confesses that he is hired regularly by a group of eccentric men to play piano blindfolded at their congregations, and that he is to attend the mansion that same night. Describing the events’ habitual ambiance and women as out-of-worldly, Nick unwillingly reveals the secret password that would get him inside the mysterious house. Bill is unable to resist the obvious temptation of beautiful women, especially after his wife reveals her obsession with the naval officer. One can understand his obvious desire to ?get back? at her.

The events that lead up to Bill’s arrival at the mansion (from his encounter with Nick to finding a costume) introduce the character to a world that differs from those of his home, his work, and his friend Ziegler’s mansion. In his world, the characters are identifiable and their roles are defined. In this “external” world, Bill is introduced to a world that requires a specific code of access, and a world whose inhabitants are portrayed as players of an unidentified game. For example, Bill convinces the costume shop owner Milich to open the shop for him late at night. Flashing his card which identified him as a doctor and promising to pay a good tip, Bill is allowe