Stanley Kubrick’s cryptic Hollywood blockbuster Eyes Wide Shut was released in movie theatres in 1999.
The plot focuses on a young, moneyed doctor and his beautiful wife, played by the two leading performers of the decade, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
Early on in the film, when Cruise casually explains to his wife that women don’t have sexual fantasies, he is shocked to discover that Kidman considered leaving him a year earlier for a handsome naval officer she didn’t even know.
Kidman’s confession shocks the cool, composed doctor out of his comfort zone and he embarks on a journey of sexual self-discovery that ultimately leads him back home to his wife. The doctor gains a newfound sense of perspective from his adventures, yet the fresh point of view acquired isn’t quite what he bargained for…
During his night-time escapades, Cruise infiltrates a secret society sex party being held at a rural mansion. Once inside the stately home, the doctor finds himself surrounded by naked men and women enjoying a masked orgy. Cruise revels in the sexuality of the scene for a short while, before he is discovered and brought before the leader of the clan in order to explain his actions.
When the doctor’s invitation is found to be bogus, one of the female models working the event steps forward to save Cruise and accede his punishment. When the model dies a few days later in mysterious circumstances, the doctor sets out again seeking answers.
Indeed, Eyes Wide Shut is a conspiracy theorists’ dream.
There’s the masked orgy in the mansion, the death of the high-class hooker working the party, and don’t forget the cabalistic advertising hoardings and road signs we see during street scenes, which are layered with esoteric coding. Factor in the ‘death’ of Stanley Kubrick only six days after he showed Warner Bros. his final cut, and it’s easy to see why Eyes Wide Shut remains such a hot topic of conversation within conspiracy circles.
We will never know if Stanley Kubrick was murdered for making Eyes Wide Shut. What we know for certain, however, is that Kubrick’s death helped to promote his directorial swansong. As did the marketing campaign, which billed Eyes Wide Shut as an erotic thriller packed with super hot sex scenes… which it is and it isn’t…
The most important message delivered by Eyes Wide Shut concerns the mastery and control of the Human biological sex drive.
There are four basic biological drives that govern Human behaviour. These four natural drives promote individual survival and the survival of the Human race. They are:
1. The Human Hunger Drive
2. The Human Sex Drive
3. The Drive for Thirst
4. The Human Self-Preservation Drive
In his cinematic study of the Human sex drive, Stanley Kubrick describes how a particular section of society has learned to control their sexual urges… and how another section of society are still being led around in circles by their unconscious desires.
What Kubrick unveils in Eyes Wide Shut is high Masonic philosophy revealed in plain sight. Yet few understood what they were seeing. Hence the name of the movie: Eyes Wide Shut…
After hearing his wife’s confession, the doctor receives news that one of his patients has recently died. The lady daughter of the deceased meets Cruise at the bedside. They make small talk for a few minutes, before she unexpectedly confesses her love for him and lunges forward for a kiss. The doctor declines the lady’s advances, but not immediately. In defence of Dr. Hartford, he appears deep in thought, contemplating, perhaps, with even greater earnestness, what his wife tried to explain to him earlier: that women DO have sexual fantasies just like men…
In the next scene, we see Cruise walking the midnight streets alone, trying to get his head together. We watch as he is assaulted and called a ‘fag’ by a crew of drunks wearing sports jackets. This is how Freemasonry perceive young, uninitiated men – juvenile, aggressive, graceless and base. In addition, it is explained to the viewer in this scene that uninitiated men walk alone and are not protected from the profane in the same way as initiated men.
His ego damaged, Cruise soon becomes an easy target for a female prostitute who invites him into her home for sex. After a bit of chitchat they start getting it on, but are soon interrupted by a phone call from Kidman, which drags Cruise back to reality. The doctor subsequently apologises, before making his exit. Later in the movie, Cruise discovers the prostitute is HIV positive, meaning he had a fortunate escape…
Dr. Hartford’s journey into his own sexual subconscious continues at the costume-rental store Rainbow Fashions, where he picks up a tuxedo, a cloak with a hood and a mask, which he requires to gain entry to the masked orgy at the mansion.
During his visit to Rainbow Fashions, the doctor engages with shopkeeper Mr. Milich, who we see pimpin‘ out his young daughter to two Japanese weirdoes. When Mr. Milich offers his daughter to Cruise, the doctor is left speechless, standing mouth agape, agonising over his own suppressed desires.
Next, Dr. Hartford takes a taxi ride out of town to find the orgy mansion.
The mood inside the mansion is very different to the mood in the first half of the film during which Cruise spends much of his time pacing the cold, dark streets of New York, randomly picking up diseased prostitutes, being assaulted by the profane and finally finding himself in embrace with Mr. Milich’s underage daughter. In comparison, the atmosphere at the secret society sex party is clean, controlled, yet highly eroticised and undeniably classy.
The secret society party takes place in a ‘safe zone’ where its members are able to explore their sexual desires within a controlled environment. ‘Dream-like’ parties such as these are organised to prevent sexual desires spilling over into the ‘real world’. If that should ever happen, powerful families would naturally be drawn into conflict and the harmony of the social structure undermined.
We also see that the escorts at the party are smoking hot; premium pornstars and high-class hookers all of them. These women are definitely not HIV positive. They are ‘clean’ and regularly tested – unlike the prostitute Cruise found on the streets earlier, who hadn’t even washed her dishes…
But despite his visit to the mansion, Dr. Hartford is still unable to comprehend the true meaning of what he saw when he was there. And so he continues trawling the night, seeking answers from the outside world, when he would have been better off looking within.
Dr. Hartford’s friend, Victor Ziegler, attempts to put the doctor’s mind at ease about the death of the model and the innocuous nature of the orgy. But Cruise is uninitiated, which means he and Ziegler cannot communicate on the same level. Ziegler is bound by his secret society oaths which prevent him from speaking frankly and Cruise has not yet accustomed his eyes to the light and cannot read between the lines. After all, the doctor is still fighting his own inner shadows and for this reason all he can see is shadows all around him.
It’s not until the truth of Dr. Hartford’s nighttime adventures are discovered by his wife that Cruise finally surrenders to the reality of his own unconscious desires. At the same time, he also comes to accept what his wife was trying to explain to him all along: that women DO have sexual fantasies just like men.
In the final scene of the movie, we see Cruise and Kidman walking through a toy store with their daughter.
Despite their ordeal, the channels of communication are now open and husband and wife are no longer strangers to one another, each having woken up to the true nature of their unconscious ‘Self’.
Moving forward, the couple must now decide how best to manage their relationship. Will they solicit membership to Victor Ziegler’s secret society? Or will they choose a better way?
To be clear, we’re not promoting masked sex orgies like the one depicted in Eyes Wide Shut or opposing them. Although fetish parties like these do not make for a workable society, as long as they are consensual and the playroom aficionados who attend aren’t screwing around with children or manipulating anyone involved, these events are entirely lawful. Our motivation here is simply to unveil the vast wealth of esoteric knowledge contained within this movie, which should be considered the finest examination of the Human sex drive yet to be delivered on celluloid… which means we gotta use this important piece of art to our absolute advantage… rinse its meaning, yeah?
And when we do so… when we start to use Stanley Kubrick’s marvellous cinematic summarisation of the Human sex drive as an educational guide, the core message is clear: first, we must accept our unconscious desires, then we must learn to control our natural biological drives… otherwise we’ll always be running around in the dark like the good doctor Hartford in Eyes Wide Shut.
Got some good music coming tonight, yeah. Stay tuned. Might be 3 tracks. Might be 100. Let’s trawl the record box.
