Some things keep you up at night. In the universe of Kubrick, and more specifically, the world of Eyes Wide Shut, we are bound to comes across more than a few such examples. Not that the detail in question actually keeps me up at night, or ever did, it being more of a metaphor for the feeling of an unexplored detail whose overall importance in the narrative could be considered more than marginal.
The scene in question occurs during the "day-in-the-life" montage, which shows Bill going to work, and Alice and Helena going about their daily routine (this includes grooming, wrapping presents, eating breakfast, etc). Alice is guiding Helena as a mother would be expected to do. It could be assumed that Helena is on holiday break from school, given the Christmastime theme. But, we should reconsider a word I just used: grooming. I.e., grooming is what they are doing, but, it is also what Alice is doing to Helena. This meaning of the word also has a darker connotation which, as we can currently see, the media tends to ignore or, hold in ironic contempt - as if such things really happened. But sadly, they do. Or, simply, "they do." As the world saw (or didn't see) with Epstein, and later, Maxwell, there can be no question of the dark powers preying on the wealthiest individuals in the world. Kubrick and Eyes deep-divers are surely already well-acquainted with speculation about Alice's dark-horse dynamic. This may shed light on the exegesis that follows.
Alice and Helena are seated at the dinette table; Alice is reading a newspaper, and Helena is eating breakfast and watching Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales. I began to fixate on the question of which newspaper Alice was reading. This scene happens twenty-one minutes into the film, at the beginning of what I dub the "Rockwellian" montage (after Norman Rockwell's twin works Day in the Life of a Little Girl, and, Day in the Life of a Boy, c. 1952). I think of this artist and his particular work for a few reasons: first, because Kubrick is also commenting on traditional roles of men and women; second, because he is subtly inverting these roles; third, because the routine of their daughter Helena bridges the gap between child and adult, and speculates about modern theories like nature vs. nurture. Also, it registers at a personal level: one wall of a doctor's waiting room in childhood was furnished with reproductions of this modern diptych. There was something somber about it. This mood, I think, connects to Bill's office and waiting room, both of which are furnished with reproductions of expressionist, impressionist, and academic art works. This sets a strange and maybe ironic tone.
There's also a storybook-ish, fantastical, and fantastically-deceptive atmosphere which characterizes the film as a whole. This fits with the linear, idealized Day in the Life tableaux. But Kubrick uses this only to the end that it can be inverted, not to mention that its chronological location is dubious. This "montage" enters the film after twenty minutes of footage which surely could lead us to doubt whether Bill and Alice are truly in love. In fact, the montage would seemingly make for a good overall introduction to a different kind of movie entirely. There's a "recut" trailer which imagines a PG version of the film on Youtube, and Shostakovich's "Waltz No. 2" provides a similar feeling.
Kubrick employs the same trickery when Ziegler, coded via Sydney Pollack to be Jewish, says "Merry Christmas!" Are Bill and Alice Christians? Are the Zieglers? Is the party in any way celebrating Christmas? As atheists and other critics would point out: Christians appropriated a Pagan tradition some time in the Middle Ages. This is partly true. But, similarly, the atheists and critics would be wise to criticize a commercial, consumerist culture which appropriated the tradition of gift-giving which dates from St. Nicholas, the 3rd century Greek bishop who gave presents to orphans (and later became appropriated as Sinterklaas/"Santa Claus"). Considering the "star of Ishtar" wreaths at Ziegler's mansion that couldn't be more pregnant with notions of pagan worship, scandal, and sacrilege (even in the context of orthodox Jewish belief, as Baal, Ashtoreth/Ishtar, and Moloch are false and foreign idols that insult Yahweh), we have a subtle inversion of Christmas, Holiday, and Worship.
But, back to the topic at hand. The montage (which also breaks the cinematic rules of "montage" and is in itself an inversion of "filler," offering us vital clues to the narrative) feels cold and out of place. The montage is comprised of eleven shots, the last of which transitions back into the film's "real" or "lived" time.
Bill exits the elevator and enters the office. The scene cuts to Alice reading the newspaper with Helena at the table. Maybe this is gender neutral. But I tend to read this actually as masculine - not to make this whole thing about that dreadful word, "gender:" Alice seems more like a tired father who puts the kids in front of the TV so that he doesn't have to engage with them. Yet Alice is reading, or appearing to read, while Helena is entertained with a small television playing Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales. Consider, again, the dissonance of the Jewish-founded Warner Bros. (also Kubrick's main production company) catering to a majority white Anglo-Saxon Protestant audience. Or, the title itself, "Looney Christmas Tales," which might reflect a cynicism and mockery of Christian belief. None of this can be ruled out, though it isn't central to the topic at hand.
So I delved deeper into the very short clip during the "montage" and was able to identify the article title seen above. "Rival Camps Hold Rallies In Serbia." The article (from the Associated Press) appeared in the Friday, November 1, 1996 issue of the New York Times. My guess is this scene was shot in 1996 around the time of November or December. Regrettably, I paid for a trial subscription of NYT to read the contents of the article. But all was not lost: I was also able to scour the entire paper, just for fun.
The bulk of A3 is seen above, and A4 is pictured below. The large article on A3 concerns Scottish independence. It's difficult to not imagine a possible allusion to the Scottish Rite and Freemasonry. Alice seems to be reading the article on A4, "Writer's Message to Those Who Trashed His Work." This article is about the Indonesian dissident writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer. His library was burned after Suharto's military dictatorship ascended in the 1960s, purging the country of communists and suspected communists alike. Toer was imprisoned for much of his adult life. I have some thoughts about this: first, the title of this article obviously mirrors the subject of Kubrick and his work. A Clockwork Orange was banned in the UK shortly after it played in theaters. Full Metal Jacket was deeply subversive. Eyes Wide Shut was no box office hit (and clearly, has inspired skeptics for more than two decades). Kubrick was not to live to see the response to Eyes as he died shortly after completing the film. Some articles I've found in the summer 1999 issues of the NYT mention controversy over allowing the film to be considered "R" rating without removing or altering some of the explicit orgy scene. One article mentions the controversial material is only sixty-five seconds of footage.
The bottom article, "Nepal Storm Hampers Search for a U.S. Couple" talks about a couple hiking in Nepal at Shey Phoksundo National Park. The bodies of Philip Fialkow, who was dean of University of Washington School of Medicine, his wife, and three sherpas were indeed later found. This disappearance maybe mirrors Nick Nightingale's disappearance - Fialkow and Nick are both from Seattle. The patterns seems to spell danger for Nick.
Finally, we should consider the title phrase that enabled my search: "Rival Camps Hold Rallies In Serbia."
Slodoban Milosevic, president of Serbia and later, Yugoslavia, was accused of war crimes in 2002 for his killings of Bosnian muslims, Croats, and Kosovar people. He was actually exonerated in 2016, ten years after his death in prison. Here's the smoking gun for this entire post: Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, was called the "Red Witch" and "Lady Macbeth" by her many opponents. It is thought her devotion to Communism largely influenced Milosevic's actions as president. It happens that Alice and Helena both have strawberry blonde, "ginger" hair, as well as Domino, Sally, and Mandy. We have a possible reference to a woman (and/or women) pulling the strings of her husband. We also see a strange red figure on the wall above the TV in this scene.
What else? Well, obviously, there is a parallel between "Red Cloak" and "Red Witch." The Red Cloak at Somerton is male, while the "witch" is female. Red Cloak seems to be in charge of the activities at Somerton. We can say Red Cloak is powerful, or, at least appears powerful. The double-headed eagle on Red Cloak's throne ties back to Freemasonry, to Russia, to Germany, Albania, to the Byzantine Empire, to the ancient Hittites. The ubiquity of the symbol amplifies its mysterious character.
Similarly, The Red Witch seems to have been powerful. Threats are issued at Somerton, just as atrocities were committed under Milosevic/Markovic's watch. I've written about the Stalker character at the end of the film. He is also seen at the jazz club where Nick's band is playing. This connection between "jazz" and the "stalker" also may point to Shostakovich's "Jazz Suite No. 2," which plays at the introduction, during the montage, and at the final credits. The Russian composer narrowly escaped exile and persecution - God knows why - when so many other artists in Stalin's Soviet Union were shown no mercy. It is said the composer was paranoid throughout his life. The piece used in Eyes is hardly representative of the composer's trademark dissonance. Listen to his fifteen string quartets, or fifteen symphonies, for textbook examples of discord, polyphony, and a general mood of anxiety and angst. Anyways. This, merely to suggest that Markovic's later exile in Russia paints a picture of deep Russian-Communist ties. It is well-known that all Communist parties across the world ultimately take their directives from Moscow.
The second half of the article also holds some interesting clues
That the USA and Germany were considered by Milosevic to be "the world's darkest powers" sheds light on Kubrick the man, his German wife, and his films. Of course, Milosevic is also to be understood as a warmonger and Communist propagandist, whose words foreshadow those of deceptive autocrat Putin. Entering the KGB in 1975, Putin transitioned to politics in the 1990s, serving over eighteen years (four terms) as president, not to mention two single-year terms as prime minister. The civil war in Ukraine exemplifies the Janus-headed nature of Russian foreign policy, invading and waging war on innocent civilians on the one hand, while maintaining that it is Russians who are under attack, on the other. As for Kubrick's pictures, Paths of Glory is set in France during the First World War, when Russia, Italy, Japan, the UK, France, and the US were allied. In the wake of the Second World War, it's interesting to consider the geopolitical changes: an independent Austria is annexed by Nazi Germany (also called "Anschluss"); Poland is dominated by Germany and Russia; Hungary and other Eastern European countries are lured into fascism; Fascist Italy and Japan stand with Germany; France, the UK, and Nordic countries resist Nazi invasion; etc., there are probably books about all of this. And then, with Nazi Germany demolished, the US and Russia become engaged in a Cold War.
The Shining features symbolism with clear links to Nazi Germany (the meat cooler; Adler typewriter), while also suggesting the American elite to be corrupt. Full Metal Jacket all but condemns the US military, particularly in relation to the Vietnam War. As for Eyes Wide Shut, Schnitzler's novella was written in German; the USPS "eagle" appears many times begging the question of dubious origins. Furthermore, Eyes showcases New York as a symbol of America, with Bill as the symbol of American men, and his name as an obvious reference to the dollar bill. "Dollar," in fact, comes from the German "daler" or "thaler," dating to the 16th century.
Austria-Hungary wanted to destroy Serbia, and Germany provided the empire with financial backing. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo, in nearby Bosnia. The Rainbow costume shop owner, Milich, is played by Rade Serbedzija, who is Serbian, and the character seems to be coded as "Eastern European." The music playing at Somerton was taken from a Romanian Orthodox liturgy and played in reverse (by Jocelyn Pook) to demonic effect. We could also mention that the mythical vampire hails from Transylvania, in Eastern Europe, and that many other vampire myths have existed in the Balkans. Elizabeth Bathory herself was a Hungarian noblewoman whose alleged deeds are chilling.
No comments:
Post a Comment