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Eyes Wide Shut (1998) with Jonathan Kennedy · Left of the Projector

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector.
• 0:02
  I am your host, Evan, back again with another film discussion from the left.
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  You can support the show on Patreon at leftoftheprojectorpod and subscribe on
• 0:12
  all platforms at leftoftheprojector.
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  com.
• 0:21
  Our film this week is Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes
• 0:24
  Wide Shut, released in 1999.
• 0:26
  My guest this week is Jonathan Kennedy.
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  Jonathan is an award winning filmmaker, writer, and shitposter
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  based out of Hamilton, Ontario.
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  Hope you enjoy!
• 0:36
  Sit back in your seats, get something to eat.
• 0:39
  Watch this movie.
• 0:40
  Don't let the kiddies see it.
• 0:43
  Well, we'll let you hear the movie first.
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  Alright, we'll get into the conversation this week with Jonathan.
• 0:57
  Thank you for joining me today.
• 0:59
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:00
  Yes.
• 1:00
  Yes.
• 1:00
  So as I mentioned, we're talking about the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film eyes
• 1:05
  wide shut and You know, this was of course Stanley Kubrick's final film
• 1:12
  It was released after his death and it had a starring cast of Tom Cruise
• 1:17
  Nicole Kidman who play a married couple Who were married at the time?
• 1:20
  Sidney Pollack Marie Richardson was actually Stanley Kubrick's most
• 1:25
  profitable movie in the box office making 162 million On a 65 million budget.
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  So, you know, it was definitely a big hit.
• 1:33
  I think, uh, it's one of those movies within, I don't know, Kubrick
• 1:37
  fandom that is often divisive, people love it or people hate it.
• 1:41
  It's their favorite movie.
• 1:41
  It's their least favorite movie.
• 1:43
  And so I know you mentioned beforehand that it's your favorite Kubrick movie.
• 1:47
  I'm wondering what's your sort of memory of this movie was and if.
• 1:50
  when you first saw it, you liked it, you know, immediately or if it was one of
• 1:55
  those ones that sort of like grew on you?
• 1:58
  Yeah, I, I was already kind of into kind of weirder art cinema at that point.
• 2:05
  Um, I think the first time I saw it was probably when the, uh, the Kubrick
• 2:13
  box set, the DVD box set that had, you know, I don't remember what movies, The
• 2:18
  Shining and 2001 and like all the the kind of major later Kubrick films and
• 2:26
  it had the Life in Pictures documentary.
• 2:29
  Um, and I think at that point Eyes Wide Shut was the only one I hadn't seen.
• 2:34
  Um, I have very vivid memories of like the commercials, like the ads for it
• 2:41
  being on TV all the time in 99 with the, the like real sexy spot with
• 2:46
  like the Chris Isaac music playing.
• 2:48
  And it was like, you know, it's like Kubrick Kidman cruise, uh, and being
• 2:56
  like, Intrigued just as like, you know, this like sexy movie and I was, you
• 3:04
  know, adolescent, just like, What what's all this about but like I didn't end
• 3:11
  up seeing it until Probably like 2002.
• 3:13
  And, uh, yeah, I, I, I liked it right off the bat.
• 3:18
  It was, you know, the kind of weird I was, I've always been really into like
• 3:23
  the occult and like weird conspiracy theory secret society shit and stuff.
• 3:29
  So this is perfect.
• 3:30
  It kinda, yeah.
• 3:30
  Yeah, it kinda like spoke to me on that level.
• 3:33
  I was like, yeah, this is weird as fuck.
• 3:34
  I love it.
• 3:35
  . Yeah, it's, um, it is, uh, I, I actually watch, sometimes I try and watch the
• 3:39
  trailer for these movies because.
• 3:42
  A lot of times movies are the way they're marketed is not necessarily
• 3:46
  like the movie that you're getting.
• 3:47
  I don't even think that the trailer really does it justice.
• 3:51
  It's, it's really weird.
• 3:53
  Yeah, it was, uh, while I was like researching for, for this, uh,
• 3:59
  for this podcast, I was looking at some like some of the more notable
• 4:05
  articles about it that have come out.
• 4:08
  And I can't remember who or where they said this, but there was like
• 4:14
  one critic who was talking about how it was like really marketed as
• 4:18
  like an erotic thriller, which it Isn't and it like a lot of like,
• 4:22
  it seems like a lot of the backlash was like, oh, it's not sexy really.
• 4:26
  And it's like, it's, I think it was Roger Ebert.
• 4:28
  I think I saw that too.
• 4:29
  It or wasn't that it was not the one I was thinking of,
• 4:34
  but he did say things of that.
• 4:37
  Yeah, he said some stuff to that effect as well, but it was.
• 4:41
  Like, you know, people, people went in expecting to be titillated
• 4:44
  and they were freaked out instead.
• 4:47
  It's weird because people going in knowing it's a Stanley Kubrick movie
• 4:51
  that always has so many layers and nuance and details of things that he's
• 4:56
  not, he doesn't leave anything Nothing is an accident, you know, obviously
• 5:00
  not just him, but very much like that.
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  And so it was a weird, uh, came out again too.
• 5:06
  And so, I mean, I'll briefly say when I saw it the first
• 5:08
  time and then I'm curious too.
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  I was thinking about this being 1999 and sort of one of those years that
• 5:14
  a lot of people call, you know, one of the best years in the cinema.
• 5:17
  But I saw this the year after it came out in 2000.
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  I was a freshman in college and took a film class and we watched a
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  bunch of movies, including this one.
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  I think this might've been the first one we watched.
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  And so it's a bunch of 18 year olds with the professor in
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  a room watching this movie.
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  And it was kind of awkward in a way, and some of the people in the class
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  were sort of taken aback by maybe hadn't seen a movie like this, maybe never
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  seen a Stanley Kubrick film before.
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  And I, I would say I liked it, but didn't really understand it.
• 5:51
  Which maybe I still don't.
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  I don't know.
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  I guess with any of these kind of things, but over the, over the years,
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  I feel like it was one of those ones.
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  I had it on DVD, maybe.
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  Four or five years later, and I've watched it, you know, maybe six,
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  seven times all the way through over the years and parts here and there.
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  Um, but yeah, I've always thought it was top Kubrick movie, not my favorite, but
• 6:16
  definitely near the top, uh, top few.
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  But.
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  I don't know.
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  I don't know what you think about the 99 thing with, you know, we
• 6:22
  don't have to get into an argument over which year is the best year.
• 6:25
  I don't think it's 99, but some people do, but I don't know what
• 6:28
  you make of it being part of this.
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  Um, you know, a big year in Phil, let's say 99 definitely had,
• 6:35
  you know, a handful of bangers.
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  You know, being john Malkovich is probably one of my favorite
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  movies and came out in 99.
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  Um, Uh, you know, the, the thing that I find most interesting, interesting
• 6:49
  about 99 in film and like, kind of in like pop culture in general, really, or
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  just culture in general, I guess, you know, we're like almost a decade out from
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  like the overthrow of the Soviet Union and it's like, there's so much like so
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  many of the top movies of 1999 are about dudes who are like, Dissatisfied in
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  their like middle class like ostensibly comfortable lives and it's uh, you
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  know, like I even saw a meme about this like this week where it's like, oh, you
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  know, you have this high paying job with benefits and you're fucking miserable.
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  And it's like, you know, this is.
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  We still exist under capitalism, like, you know, we're all alienated
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  from like every aspect of our lives.
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  Basically, like, of course, you know, working a shitty office job that means
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  nothing to you is going to bum you out.
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  Um, you know, but it's like, you know, cold war is over.
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  So we can't really.
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  You know, capitalism one, so we can't critique capitalism as the reason
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  that, you know, everyone's miserable.
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  So everyone's, you know, kind of struggling to, you know,
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  pinpoint exactly what it is about this kind of like way of life.
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  That's Making, you know, people miserable and, you know, whether it's,
• 8:11
  you know, fight club, masculinity, office space, uh, yeah, office space.
• 8:19
  Like, you know, there's so, so many, like, people just like kind of struggling to,
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  like, come to terms with the fact that.
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  You know, capitalism one, but no one's happy about it.
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  So that, that to me is like the really interesting thing about like 1999 and
• 8:39
  how it kind of reflects kind of the Western malaise of, uh, of it all.
• 8:45
  Yeah.
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  One of the, as you were saying, I just wrote down to my, as like a note, it's
• 8:49
  sort of like this, um, I think this, this is probably like the, one of the
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  big speeches in is when he's, when, um, Brad Pitt's character, Um, is kind of in
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  the basement and they're, maybe they're starting to get the fight club going and
• 9:02
  he talks about, you know, basically kind of an anti capitalist anarchist kind of
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  speech of, you know, You know, we don't need to buy bullshit stuff and all this
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  and it's kind of like these movies and the way you're describing them It's
• 9:16
  sort of like this disillusionment of like the Gen X, you know They've come
• 9:20
  out of of the 80s and 90s and still have all of these presumably like good
• 9:26
  things They probably all have homes.
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  So they were able to buy they're all like pretty good jobs and may not
• 9:30
  like them But they're doing okay.
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  And yet, you know, all they're gonna do is complain about it.
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  I don't want to say that, you know, again, if I worked a job like office
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  space, I probably would hate it too.
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  But at the same time, you know, it could be worse.
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  I don't know.
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  I mean, that's not to say that there isn't.
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  I mean, I think that those movies like Fight Club and those do have
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  that critique that's interesting.
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  With Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as kind of the, you know, pretty much
• 10:26
  The only the main pieces of this film.
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  Obviously, there's some other characters that I think are important as the
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  film goes on, you know, in kind of playing on that 1999 theme, which
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  I think kind of runs through and you're kind of, uh, I don't know.
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  I don't call it a thesis, but you're kind of take that, you know, this kind
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  of disillusionment and these kind of male characters How would you say that that
• 10:51
  plays a role in this one because we talked about those other movies you mentioned,
• 10:55
  uh, Fight Club and Office Space, but how do you think that theme kind of persists
• 10:59
  in Tom Cruise's character in this movie?
• 11:04
  Yeah, I guess like with, with Tom Cruise's character, it's, he's, you know, he's,
• 11:11
  he's this, you know, successful doctor.
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  He, you know, works for all of these, like, You know wealthy clients it seems,
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  uh, you know, he's doing house calls um, you know helping out Ziegler when the sex
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  worker od's in his bathroom And you know, he he he's got this kind of like lavish
• 11:34
  seeming life, but he's like I think like the theme that like runs through it Is
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  that he just constantly feels inadequate and like, not able to kind of do what he
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  thinks he, as a man, is supposed to do.
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  throughout, um, like all of the, all of the strange encounters he has,
• 11:59
  like, uh, I don't know if you've read the novel that it's based on.
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  It's a little, uh, it's a little more, a little more explicit in
• 12:09
  the novel, but he's like very uncomfortable in his masculinity.
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  He's always, uh, you know, the scene where he gets like, Harassed
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  by the frat boys, uh, in the novel.
• 12:21
  He's like seething and like trying to convince himself that he should, you
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  know, just chase them down and fight them.
• 12:27
  And, uh, it's like the, the, it's very much, you know, he's struggling
• 12:35
  with like his ideas of masculinity and how he's supposed to be as a man.
• 12:40
  And it's, it's less explicit in the movie, I think, but it's still definitely.
• 12:45
  Uh, there in subtext, if not text, um, you know, anytime he encounters, you know,
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  when he has his encounter with Domino, the sex worker, he is, You know, he,
• 13:03
  he wants to go through with it, but you know, there's something preventing him.
• 13:07
  He, you know, he, uh, he gets really jealous when, or not even he gets, he
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  doesn't get jealous when, uh, Alice tells him about her fantasy about the,
• 13:22
  like, the naval officer or whatever, um, but he has this kind of sense
• 13:29
  of You know, he has to be secure in everything and, you know, anything that
• 13:37
  kind of seeps in to undermine that as an affront to kind of his masculinity.
• 13:43
  Um, And that's just kind of, you know, kind of recurs throughout he,
• 13:50
  you know, when he encounters when he goes to visit the, the daughter
• 13:56
  of his patient who passed away.
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  Yeah, he, he, uh, you know, he is.
• 14:05
  Throw into kind of the inverse of the situation that Alice
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  had just described to him.
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  And so he is constantly in these scenarios where he is, you know, he
• 14:19
  wants to do what he thinks is like the masculine thing to do, but is never
• 14:24
  quite able to to go through with it.
• 14:28
  Yeah, that's um, I, as you mentioned the, the book being more explicit,
• 14:32
  I think a lot of the moments in this are more, you know, implicit or just
• 14:39
  you're, you're kind of, if you look slightly deeper, you mentioned the
• 14:43
  sex worker scene and then, you know, there's a number of different scenes too.
• 14:48
  Actually, maybe it's a good moment to actually mention.
• 14:50
  So one of the, yeah.
• 14:51
  The very opening scene is they're at their house, they're very nice,
• 14:55
  multiple, you know, gotta be multi 5, 10 million, I don't know, you know,
• 15:00
  brownstone and, uh, or is it apartment?
• 15:02
  I don't remember whatever it is.
• 15:03
  It's huge.
• 15:04
  It's a huge ass apartment in New York City.
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  And you think, okay, these people are rich.
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  He's a doctor.
• 15:10
  And then they go to this gigantic party, which you alluded to.
• 15:13
  There's a, you know, an O.
• 15:14
  D.
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  there, um, of someone who was, you know, was engaged with the, the host
• 15:20
  of the party, which is played by Sidney Pollack, who is awesome in this movie.
• 15:26
  I just want to throw that out there.
• 15:27
  And so, but when you go to his house, it is a fucking mansion.
• 15:31
  It is, You know, the like, it's a, you know, capitalist wealth, you know,
• 15:37
  we don't ever really know what he does, but he's top of the food chain
• 15:41
  and it almost makes Tom Cruise even character feel inadequate to him, right?
• 15:47
  Like he's almost poor compared to, you know, the, I mean, maybe not poor
• 15:53
  is the right word, but he's, yeah.
• 15:54
  On a much lower level than his character, uh, the Sidney Pollack character.
• 16:00
  So, you know, immediately he's kind of emasculated by just being at this
• 16:03
  party, not knowing anyone, because he doesn't really fit in with this group.
• 16:08
  And then the part that I was going to mention is he comes
• 16:11
  across these two women, I think models, who he somehow knew.
• 16:14
  And he's hit, they're hitting on him and they're, you know, clearly they want to
• 16:18
  go take him off to some room somewhere, but he's not able to complete that.
• 16:22
  He's not able to go have sex with them, as seemingly he wants to,
• 16:26
  while his wife dances with some other rich dude, you know, who
• 16:30
  also wants to sleep with his wife.
• 16:31
  And so there's immediately these, uh, this dichotomy of like the wealth
• 16:35
  disparity and then the inadequacy of him, Tom Cruise, unable to Go through
• 16:43
  what's what make him like manly as you're saying, like the being able to go, you
• 16:47
  know, have sex with a couple models at a party like you're supposed to.
• 16:53
  Yeah.
• 16:54
  And I think one of the really, uh, kind of interesting aspects of the way
• 17:03
  kind of the disparity and, you know, wealth is shown throughout the film
• 17:09
  is like, you know, we, we go through all of these different, you know, very
• 17:16
  luxurious houses and, you know, then we.
• 17:19
  Yeah, we have
• 17:24
  domino, the sex worker, her tiny little apartment and, you know, we
• 17:29
  have the mansion later that the, you know, secret society is doing their
• 17:35
  ritual orgy thing in and it kind of like, it kind of shows the workings of.
• 17:43
  How class isn't just about money because like three layers of that are all wealthy
• 17:51
  people, but it's their, uh, you know, they have very different acts, um, access to
• 18:00
  power and like the, the levels of control over aspects of their surroundings.
• 18:10
  That, you know, uh, a really common misconception that I see whenever,
• 18:15
  uh, whenever people talk about class.
• 18:18
  You know, in political discussions or whatever, is they equate money with
• 18:25
  class specifically and you know, they'll
• 18:30
  kind of reduce the concept of like material analysis and class
• 18:36
  analysis to who has money and who doesn't, when it's, you know, a lot
• 18:43
  less about that than it is, you know, when Sidney Pollack is talking about, you know,
• 18:50
  how if Bill didn't know if bill knew who were under those masks at the orgy, he
• 18:59
  wouldn't sleep so well at night because they're the powerful people that are like
• 19:02
  the people who are really running things.
• 19:05
  And like bill, you know, he, like his night out, he, you know, he goes to
• 19:11
  buy his or to rent his costume and he pays like 200 bucks over the price.
• 19:17
  And then he pays a couple hundred bucks for the cap.
• 19:19
  And I saw in one of the articles I was looking at, he spends
• 19:23
  about 700 bucks that night.
• 19:25
  And, like, I can do that.
• 19:27
  I can, like, you know, I wouldn't be, you know, I would be broke for the rest
• 19:31
  of the fucking month if I did that, but I could do that, you know, um,
• 19:34
  whereas he, like, you know, he thinks that that being able to throw around,
• 19:43
  you know, that bit of money to, to, you know, finagle his way into you.
• 19:50
  This super secret, uh, you know, group gives him kind of, uh, a certain level
• 20:00
  of power that he doesn't actually have.
• 20:03
  And, you know, people, when people think of, like, the middle class, they kind of
• 20:10
  misunderstand it as, You know, being a little more adjacent to the ruling class
• 20:18
  than it is to the working class, but like one of the very first, uh, things I
• 20:27
  learned in one of the very first sociology classes I took, uh, during my undergrad.
• 20:33
  was we were doing a unit on Marxism and the professor was talking about the
• 20:39
  concept of proletarianization, which is, you know, super, super basic concept.
• 20:44
  It's like people in the middle class and even like, you know, some people
• 20:47
  in the ruling class aren't going, you know, they're more likely to end
• 20:52
  up with, you know, being downwardly mobile than they are upwardly.
• 20:56
  Of course.
• 20:56
  Yeah.
• 20:56
  You know, more middle class people.
• 20:59
  Are more likely to end up with, you know, lower wages and less power
• 21:06
  in their workplace and what have you, then they are being the boss.
• 21:11
  And so like.
• 21:13
  I feel like the, the class dynamics of the movie kind of are a really interesting
• 21:22
  way of kind of highlighting that, um, you know, he, you know, when, when bill
• 21:29
  goes to, I'm sorry, I'm like, I know the names here, but, uh, but like, you know,
• 21:35
  when he goes the next day back to the mansion, he gets the, the letter saying
• 21:41
  like, you know, stop your pursuit, which is, you know, pointless or whatever.
• 21:47
  Uh, you know, they, you know, the people who are giving him that
• 21:51
  letter have the very real power to, you know, destroy his life.
• 21:57
  And he does not have the power to, you know, even if he knew who they
• 22:02
  were and tried to expose them, like nothing would ever come of that, you
• 22:05
  know, yeah, it's, it's the, yeah, I think it's a, it's a really good point
• 22:09
  to point out the, because you see, again, Tom Cruise is Bill's father.
• 22:15
  You know, house, he, he believes himself, he, he thinks that he can use
• 22:21
  throw around a little bit of money and it's going to get him, you know, get
• 22:26
  him some somewhere when he'll never be, you know, it's more likely that
• 22:30
  he could lose his job as a doctor.
• 22:32
  I don't know, have a stock market.
• 22:34
  I'm sure he has lots of stocks or whatever and have some crisis
• 22:37
  and he could lose everything.
• 22:38
  Whereas Cindy Pollack isn't going to lose everything.
• 22:40
  Like the only the worst that could happen to him is maybe he gets, you know,
• 22:44
  indicted or, you know, uh, and then he's powerful enough that he won't go to jail.
• 22:48
  You know, And it's, it's not even, it's when Tom Cruise goes to, um, Domino's
• 22:55
  apartment, I think he refers to it as cozy, like he had never been somewhere.
• 22:59
  So he would consider like, it reminds me of that, uh, that Hillary Clinton,
• 23:06
  where she's, where she's just standing in this like tiny New York apartment.
• 23:11
  It was like, yeah, The plant in the sink and stuff.
• 23:13
  And she's just like in awe at what she's seeing.
• 23:15
  That's, I mean, I think that's exactly what he, he's never probably known.
• 23:19
  You never really get a background of where he came from, but
• 23:22
  he went to medical school.
• 23:23
  Obviously he had probably parents who could afford it.
• 23:25
  Exactly.
• 23:26
  And then the other, this is just a completely random note about
• 23:28
  it, but you know, you say he spent 700 and that's, you know, a lot.
• 23:33
  When he go when Tom Cruise goes to city politics, uh, house at the end towards
• 23:37
  the end of the movie and they're like confrontation and, you know, kind of the
• 23:40
  resolution, I guess he they've they have a glass of scotch and then he's like,
• 23:45
  Oh, do you want me to send you a case?
• 23:46
  That's probably like 50, 000 worth of scotch.
• 23:49
  And he's just like, I'll just send you a case.
• 23:52
  And so like, that's the kind of that's the disparity you see.
• 23:55
  I mean, yes, it's technically the money he has to buy that, but He has the power.
• 24:00
  You probably just make a call and someone will just give him
• 24:03
  this case of scotch, right?
• 24:04
  It's it's yeah, he wouldn't right.
• 24:07
  It doesn't money doesn't mean anything to him at this point.
• 24:09
  It's just a like the room he when in that original party in the the.
• 24:15
  The woman ends up ODing in that room like this is like a bathroom and had
• 24:19
  a fireplace and a desk and an office like that was like bigger than it.
• 24:23
  It took me a few watches to realize that.
• 24:26
  I know, right?
• 24:28
  You don't think it's a bathroom and then you see the shower kind of
• 24:31
  like from a like a when he walks in.
• 24:33
  You can see the shower.
• 24:34
  I think on the right left hand side and like that's a bathroom
• 24:37
  and it's like nicer than Domino's apartment bigger than her apartment.
• 24:42
  Yeah, like that bathroom's probably bigger than my apartment.
• 24:45
  It was huge.
• 24:45
  I mean, they have multiple people in that room And yeah, I mean that's you could go
• 24:49
  on about like all the like the design and all that But I think to the whole point
• 24:53
  of you know This is that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman fancy themselves as kind
• 24:59
  of this Wealthy big to do thing because he like the big thing is they may he's
• 25:04
  a doctor, but he makes house calls He goes to rich people's houses and gives
• 25:07
  them You know, personalized service.
• 25:10
  And so that's kind of his in to how he even knows Sydney Pollack is that
• 25:14
  he does this kind of additional bit to his, you know, regular doctoring
• 25:18
  or that's not a real word, but his regular practice that he has.
• 25:22
  And so he, he, he fancies himself as wanting to do.
• 25:27
  Get a glimpse of the real power, the real wealth.
• 25:31
  And so he's doing everything he can along the way to do what he can,
• 25:36
  you know, get his friend to give him information to get to that, you
• 25:39
  know, the orgy and the the scene.
• 25:42
  So all those things like slowly lead there.
• 25:44
  But I think along the way, as you've, both of us have mentioned,
• 25:48
  he's unable to, he can't.
• 25:49
  You can't get yourself there.
• 25:51
  No one can go from, I guess you could say he's like bourgeoisie to capitalist level.
• 25:57
  If you're just using, I mean, I don't know if you You probably could have a
• 26:00
  more detailed analysis on kind of where they kind of fit, but Sydney Pollack
• 26:04
  is lives in a mansion in Manhattan and he lives in a nice apartment.
• 26:07
  They're not even they're not on the same level.
• 26:10
  Never will be.
• 26:11
  So I'm feeling I'm just kind of rambling on about that, but I think it's very
• 26:16
  much, you know, kind of sets the.
• 26:19
  The mood of all the different scenes as we go through.
• 26:22
  And I think the very next scene after the little initial party is when Nicole
• 26:26
  Kidman and Tom Cruise are back at home.
• 26:28
  And I think they're smoking, they smoke some weed, which I
• 26:31
  have to say that they're smoking some pretty shitty ass weed.
• 26:34
  It looks like for like some, he's a doctor.
• 26:37
  You think he could get some like medicinal marijuana or something?
• 26:40
  I don't know.
• 26:42
  That's I don't know, but yeah, so they get high and then Nicole
• 26:44
  Kim is kind of berating him.
• 26:46
  Telling him what you mentioned before, this dream that she had of, um, or
• 26:51
  wanting to, this fantasy of having sex with this, uh, what did you say
• 26:56
  he was a, not a marine, um, air,
• 27:01
  or was it a marine?
• 27:02
  was a marine or like some, some sort of like, naval, yeah, that's
• 27:06
  right, naval officer or something.
• 27:08
  They also, by the way, they mentioned that they're at some like country club
• 27:11
  or in some fancy place, so a resort.
• 27:14
  So clearly they have, you know, they're talking about this and she has this
• 27:16
  fantasy, And this is, I feel like, the moment that the entire You can say
• 27:21
  like sets off the rest of the events of the movie and Tom Cruise is sort of
• 27:26
  attitude and his need to do all of these things because that emasculated him to
• 27:32
  he's constantly throughout the movie.
• 27:33
  He has this, you know, they show the sort of like the imagery of Nicole
• 27:38
  Kidman with this naval officer, and he just can't get it out of his mind.
• 27:42
  Everything he does from that point for the rest of the movie
• 27:45
  is simply because of this scene.
• 27:46
  And then.
• 27:47
  It makes me think that the movie is also about marriage and fidelity,
• 27:52
  but I think underlying that it's like the mask emasculation that he feels.
• 27:58
  Yeah, and I think, like, ultimately, like, it kind of stems from
• 28:08
  almost like their inability, like.
• 28:12
  In like a heteronormative monogamous like way to like
• 28:20
  to really like communicate like how they feel about other people and themselves and
• 28:26
  like, because like neither of them is able to really come to terms with the fact that
• 28:31
  they can find other people attractive.
• 28:33
  Or like fantasize about other people or whatever without it being a threat
• 28:37
  to their own relationship and like it sort of like when they're confronted
• 28:44
  with that while being apparently stoned.
• 28:49
  I'm not sure Kubrick or Tom had ever smoked weed in their lives based on I'm
• 28:55
  assuming Nicole had, but she was just following Kubrick's direction, but.
• 28:59
  I've never seen anyone high act that way because yeah, it was a
• 29:05
  little bit a little over the top.
• 29:07
  That's you know, that's that's uh, you know, I digress.
• 29:11
  Um, but you know, the.
• 29:16
  The like that, like that inability to come to terms with that is kind of like
• 29:20
  a bubbling underneath and like, you know, Bill comes across as this like really
• 29:25
  like smug detached asshole a lot of the movie, especially in the beginning,
• 29:30
  which like would drive anyone nuts and.
• 29:33
  I feel like Alice is maybe like struggling with like the guilt of her fantasy about
• 29:39
  running away and Bill is, you know, acting like he doesn't have those fantasies
• 29:46
  and she like sees clean through that.
• 29:48
  Like, of course you fucking do.
• 29:49
  Don't be like, don't he just, he just, he just with those two moms at the party.
• 29:54
  Exactly.
• 29:54
  And you know, she's like, Like there's like this kind of
• 30:04
  underlying anxiety that like,
• 30:09
  you know, there's there are these like external threats to their relationship
• 30:15
  and, uh, you know, bill is just so dismissive that she's like, like, how,
• 30:23
  how could that not set her off really?
• 30:26
  And then, you know, rather than They kind of like devolve into like some kind of
• 30:32
  like proto Jordan Peterson evo site about like, you know, she's just like clearly
• 30:39
  just like calling him on his bullshit.
• 30:40
  Like, he's like, this is how you think, right?
• 30:43
  Like, this is, you know, women just want security and men just want to
• 30:46
  fuck and like, it's, it's like, it's such a funny scene, but I think it
• 30:56
  has like a lot to say about that.
• 30:58
  It's like, That dynamic if that like, I don't know how rambly that
• 31:03
  was, but yeah, no, I, I know that the scene is, I like was reading.
• 31:07
  There's some articles even just kind of about talking about that scene.
• 31:11
  And I think it's like I said, I think it is like a pivotal moment.
• 31:14
  But the other thing that kind of underlies it that I wrote in my, my notes was
• 31:20
  for them to have this conversation, you know, you never find out how they
• 31:23
  met, whether it was some kind of, you know, You know, they, maybe they met
• 31:27
  in a, you know, probably met some rich country club or I don't know, something.
• 31:32
  It just doesn't seem like they have, well, definitely don't have a good
• 31:36
  relationship, but they don't, they have like a pretty, you would probably say
• 31:39
  they have a pretty shaky marriage and in some ways kind of superficial in
• 31:43
  the sense that, you know, they're not able to even have, this is like the
• 31:48
  first time they've had this discussion.
• 31:50
  I think they say they've been married for 10 years or more.
• 31:53
  I don't know.
• 31:53
  At some point they mentioned that, but I think.
• 31:56
  They clearly have problems.
• 31:58
  And, you know, you hate to say it, like, be that be that stupid thing,
• 32:02
  but like, you know, maybe you should go to therapy, Tom Cruise and, you
• 32:05
  know, and, uh, work out some of these, uh, clearly issues you have.
• 32:09
  And he's takes it all out on Nicole Kidman.
• 32:12
  And she, maybe her way of describing this wasn't the best, maybe getting high
• 32:18
  and having this argument wasn't the best idea, but I think she's, Generally right
• 32:22
  about, you know, him being this, uh, you know, the way he is, I think, um, but
• 32:30
  yeah, so I think that the next thing that I think that happens in, I know where I
• 32:33
  sort of sometimes say I'm not going to go through a scene by scene, but I think
• 32:36
  I think in some ways like it's very, I don't know, like the way that like the
• 32:40
  scenes are blocked off and almost, it's like this little web of things going
• 32:44
  through, but he gets a phone call on.
• 32:46
  He's taken away to some patient who's died.
• 32:48
  And actually, this is another moment that I'm curious what
• 32:51
  you think, um, about this.
• 32:53
  And I have like another theory I came up with today.
• 32:55
  So he goes to see this other woman who's also very wealthy and one of
• 32:59
  these, you know, at home patients.
• 33:01
  And it's a daughter who's, seems to be around his age ish, maybe a little
• 33:06
  older, I don't, maybe, maybe older.
• 33:09
  And his, her father had died.
• 33:10
  He's literally lying there dead on the, on the bed, which is also kind of creepy.
• 33:14
  Um, and she comes on to him like kisses him and saying that she loves him
• 33:20
  and throughout the movie, many women seem to be attracted to Tom cruise.
• 33:26
  They seem to love him.
• 33:28
  They all want him now.
• 33:29
  I'm wondering if that was intentional or if it's Actually, what Tom Cruise
• 33:36
  thinks that people feel about him, like, you know, there is kind of this playing.
• 33:40
  You don't ever really get a sense that things aren't real.
• 33:43
  But I almost wonder, you know, especially with the movie title Eyes Wide Shut
• 33:46
  and dreams and all of the things that are fantasies going through this, like,
• 33:50
  do you think that's his fantasy that every woman wants to sleep with him?
• 33:53
  Or you think that's actually the reality, or I guess it doesn't really matter.
• 33:56
  But I'm curious.
• 33:57
  What do you think?
• 33:58
  About that, um, I kind of, I mean, even like the book is, you know, the title
• 34:03
  of the book is dream story, so like, I kind of view it as so like one of the,
• 34:09
  like, if you look up like interpretations of the movie, one of the ones to like
• 34:14
  invariably come across as though like, you know, it's all a dream or whatever.
• 34:18
  And like, and, you know, implying that like it, it all happens
• 34:22
  like completely in Bill's head or whatever, but like, I think I'm more.
• 34:27
  Interesting way to look at the kind of dream aspect of it is through Uh,
• 34:35
  through more of a, like a surrealist lens, um, like in, uh, in communicating
• 34:43
  vessels, Andre Breton kind of talks about, he kind of like sets out the
• 34:49
  notion that surrealist kind of view the conscious and the unconscious, not
• 34:54
  as like separate realms, but like as a dialectic between one another that
• 34:59
  like influence one another, like, you know, your unconscious influences your
• 35:03
  consciousness, which, you know, in turn.
• 35:05
  Um, Influences your unconscious or whatever.
• 35:07
  So I kind of like this, the scene with, uh, Marion, the, the daughter
• 35:13
  of the dead patient, uh, like the, I, I kind of see that scene as.
• 35:23
  Sort of a an inversion of like bill analysis relationship, you know, he it
• 35:28
  happens right after alice tells him about the dream of like seeing this guy and
• 35:35
  wanting to run away with him and start a whole new life and what, you know, he
• 35:40
  immediately goes off to this, see this patient's daughter after the patient dies
• 35:46
  and she he kind of is taking the place of.
• 35:52
  The naval officer in, you know, in the dynamic of the relationship and like the
• 36:00
  Marion and Carl kind of even look like an off brand version of Tom Cruise and Nicole
• 36:04
  Kidman, you know, it's like completely.
• 36:06
  It's like a doppelganger.
• 36:07
  Yeah, exactly.
• 36:08
  So it's like it like plays out in this kind of like dream logic of his
• 36:13
  like What his unconscious, uh, kind of conception of what just happened and
• 36:21
  like his relationship with Alice is it and like, it's almost like a projection
• 36:28
  of his anxieties, um, which like, isn't to say it, you know, like, like I said,
• 36:37
  you know, it's, it's not that these are things that are all happening in his
• 36:41
  head, but they're almost like, like, I mean, and this is like, you know,
• 36:47
  Complete like theory crafting, like not there in the text at all, but it's
• 36:51
  almost like, uh, he's like manifesting these as like tulpas, like they're,
• 36:55
  they're very real and material, but they're like almost like a thought form
• 36:59
  that's like coming from his unconscious.
• 37:02
  Yeah, I, that, that's actually, I like that, that reading of it and it does,
• 37:06
  um, and actually this, you mentioned the surrealist thing and I didn't,
• 37:09
  I, I'll, I'll say there's a really good article, I'll link it in the.
• 37:14
  The notes, that's like a, I don't know, it's probably a good 30 page analysis
• 37:19
  of the movie, but in, in it, they talk about surrealism and surrealist art.
• 37:24
  And there's, I'm not going to go into all the detail, but apparently at a
• 37:28
  moment later in the movie, when he leaves the morgue, when he finds out
• 37:31
  that the woman from the party had, uh, had died of an overdose, He walks down
• 37:37
  a hallway that apparently has a bunch of like surrealist abstract paintings.
• 37:42
  Oh, interesting.
• 37:42
  I a really weird, I did, I did, I did not know like dozens of
• 37:46
  times I've seen this movie.
• 37:48
  Well, there's, there's like art plays a really big role in the movie, which
• 37:52
  you probably could have a podcast just episode on just the different pieces
• 37:55
  of art, but I didn't notice this.
• 37:57
  And so it's very strange and very intentional to have those kinds of
• 38:02
  paintings in a place that you wouldn't expect there to be like at a You
• 38:06
  know, at a morgue at a hospital, why do they have these paintings there?
• 38:09
  Who the fuck knows?
• 38:10
  But I think it's intentional and that kind of playing with the reality and
• 38:14
  this surrealist, um, kind of, you know, things are maybe not what they
• 38:21
  seem and he's kind of projecting and all, all these different things.
• 38:25
  I think they all come together and makes, it doesn't seem like when you're
• 38:29
  watching it, that things are confusing.
• 38:31
  It feels very straightforward.
• 38:33
  But as you like kind of dig into it, it does kind of seem kind
• 38:36
  of complex and, uh, you know.
• 38:40
  doesn't really make sense.
• 38:42
  There's like, there's like an uncanniness to how everything plays out, especially
• 38:47
  you mentioned the, the, this, the other couple looking like them in that article.
• 38:51
  There's also a bunch of discussions of different
• 38:53
  doppelgangers throughout the movie.
• 38:55
  And I think that that makes it, you know, again, playing with your mind
• 39:00
  of, you know, which one did I see?
• 39:03
  Was that actually Tom Cruise or, you know, did it's kind of
• 39:06
  this, it's very, um, very weird.
• 39:10
  And I think That after he leaves there, he is, this is when he's sort of like
• 39:13
  wandering the city and going on his.
• 39:16
  You know, various, uh, escapades.
• 39:18
  You mentioned the scene where the, like, the frat boys, you know,
• 39:20
  taunt him for being, you know, for being gay and start shouting at him.
• 39:25
  And he just kind of moves on in the movie.
• 39:28
  And then I think right after that is when the, uh, sex worker, um, Domino
• 39:33
  approaches him and they go to his, to her apartment and he's unable to perform.
• 39:38
  I mean, You could say he doesn't officially try, but I think this is
• 39:42
  like another one of those moments where he can't physically perform and is
• 39:46
  emasculated because his wife calls him.
• 39:51
  Yeah.
• 39:51
  And I think, uh, that kind of even ties into my sort of surrealist interpretation
• 39:59
  because like in most of these situations where he's, you know, about to, You know,
• 40:06
  engage in like some sort of, uh, you know, he, you know, he's about to have sex with
• 40:12
  domino or, you know, he is, you know, being, uh, you know, Embraced by Marion
• 40:21
  or whatever, you know, he, the thing that stops him is always external, but it's
• 40:29
  almost as if it comes from, you know, he, he doesn't want to go through with it.
• 40:36
  So he again manifests sort of like this, this way out for himself.
• 40:41
  Um, And again, you know, not that's not, you know, they're in the
• 40:46
  text and like I often make fun of people who kind of make leaps that
• 40:49
  aren't, you know, text or subtext.
• 40:52
  But like, you know, it just kind of like seems like there are always these like
• 40:56
  kind of external forces that reinforce is, you know, not wanting to go through with.
• 41:03
  You know the thing that he thinks he's supposed to go through with this is
• 41:06
  a safe space for uh, you know leaps of Of you know theories and whatnot.
• 41:12
  I mean i've I i've been watching a lot of like theory crafting videos for the
• 41:21
  remedy video game universe recently like alvin wake 2 and control and the the
• 41:27
  like kind of like the leaps that some of these like cube People make infuriate
• 41:34
  me, so I'm like, so like I try not to be like, you know, like, like they they'll
• 41:40
  make leaps that are like, okay, you're clearly missing some like very obvious
• 41:44
  text here, so like, I, I try to make it when I'm like thinking about like what's
• 41:50
  going on in a movie, I tried to like, I try to at least make it plausible
• 41:56
  that my kind of like headcanon make.
• 41:59
  For lack of a better term, I fucking hate that term.
• 42:00
  But you know that that kind of goes along with what's actually happening on screen.
• 42:05
  Uh, I understand.
• 42:06
  But yeah, yeah, I mean, it's um, I think with them, you know, maybe
• 42:11
  this is, you know, movies like this.
• 42:13
  I mean, you can and sometimes in some cases I would say like, you know,
• 42:16
  it's your theory on why a character is doing something as opposed to
• 42:20
  You know, I like these, uh, we were, I'm trying to, I lost my track.
• 42:26
  Oh, I know.
• 42:26
  You're saying, you know, he was, it was almost like him, his
• 42:29
  mind telling him not to do this.
• 42:31
  And actually the note that I wrote when he was there was, Is this something
• 42:35
  like it seemed very obvious that he had never, you know, done this before
• 42:39
  and never, you know, gone to a sex worker or had this kind of engagement.
• 42:44
  But at the same time, I wondered if this is something he actually, you know, had
• 42:48
  fantasized about doing or if it's simply like this fantasy just sort of, you
• 42:52
  know, It literally just like comes along.
• 42:54
  She just starts hitting on him on the street and it's just kind of all
• 42:57
  these things often happen as you say from external things that really are
• 43:02
  beyond his control and you know, but but they always kind of like line
• 43:09
  up with what's exactly almost to the point where it's like it seems.
• 43:13
  You know, uh, I don't want to say like coincidental, but in some ways
• 43:16
  or not coincidental is the wrong word.
• 43:17
  Um,
• 43:20
  yeah, it just like too perfect.
• 43:21
  And yes, yeah, that's a better term.
• 43:25
  And then I guess especially to when he meets his old friend from medical
• 43:29
  school at the very opening party.
• 43:31
  You're like, Oh, like what, you know, who, who cares?
• 43:32
  He met this guy, but then he of course drops in the line that he is playing
• 43:36
  like a residency at a jazz bar.
• 43:38
  And it just so happens that where he is downtown, after you've been walking
• 43:42
  around, he's now by this jazz bar and he peeks in and he, you know, kind of
• 43:46
  has this very weird, superficial kind of conversation with him, which leads him
• 43:52
  down, you know, the next like rabbit hole of learning about the exclusive party.
• 43:58
  And I think he doesn't know how.
• 44:01
  Big it's going to be until he gets there.
• 44:03
  He knows it's a costume kind of party or whatever, but he just wants to do
• 44:07
  something exclusive and sort of risque and something yet again, that kind of
• 44:12
  ups the ante, everything kind of is, you know, upping one, upping itself from each
• 44:18
  situation he kind of finds himself in.
• 44:20
  I think anyway, I don't know.
• 44:22
  I would definitely, yeah, it definitely seems like he's, you know, definitely
• 44:28
  like kind of like, Come in his own head, like working himself up, you know, he's
• 44:33
  just like getting more and more like.
• 44:35
  Just just like, you know, like this is I got to do something here.
• 44:40
  I got a you know, I got I got to prove to myself that I'm You can't go home until
• 44:46
  like he's pre like he's a man or something like we're we're exactly Finding, you
• 44:52
  know new avenues and I'd so I don't know.
• 44:54
  I don't know.
• 44:56
  Did you say what's your favorite scene?
• 44:57
  No, I didn't So I'm gonna tell us so we're at they were actually at my
• 45:03
  favorite scene in the movie You When he now has to go to this party and
• 45:07
  he convinces his friend to give him the address to where this party is.
• 45:13
  Which you know his friend shouldn't have taken the call in front of him to begin
• 45:18
  with but I think he also wanted to seem Kind of cool impressing this doctor guy,
• 45:22
  but he goes to a costume shop, which apparently it wasn't open But he goes
• 45:27
  to this costume shop, which I think also is titled like somewhere at the end of
• 45:30
  the rainbow And so, you know kind of also this kind of you know, the entire
• 45:34
  movie Wizard of Oz is a dream So again playing with this dream thing, right?
• 45:39
  And he goes and he wakes up the, uh, the guy because he knows
• 45:44
  someone who used to own the shop, I think, or something to that effect.
• 45:48
  I don't remember the exact.
• 45:49
  Yeah.
• 45:51
  Yeah.
• 45:51
  He, uh, he, the, the former owner was one of his patients.
• 45:56
  That whole scene, like the play, this is again, where he's using his influence,
• 46:00
  where he thinks I'm a big shot.
• 46:01
  I can drop some more money.
• 46:03
  You mentioned earlier, he pays extra for the cost, but only 200 bucks.
• 46:06
  Like, If I was a costume owner, I'd be like, how about 500?
• 46:09
  How about a thousand?
• 46:10
  Like he's, he just has a, you know, a pocket full of money and you
• 46:14
  could have asked whatever you want.
• 46:15
  But just the whole way that scene plays out is just, I don't know.
• 46:19
  And then they go into the back room, this enormous costume store with
• 46:23
  like this weird room with, you know, mannequins kind of all draped around.
• 46:29
  And then he finds his daughter in a room with two random other people.
• 46:34
  And it's just, yeah.
• 46:36
  I don't know that that scene to me just it does.
• 46:38
  It's it.
• 46:40
  It almost seems like impossible to have come up with that with that scene.
• 46:45
  I don't know, deep in the minds of Stanley Kubrick.
• 46:48
  Yeah, the, uh, the thing I found I've always found interesting about
• 46:52
  that scene, which I never really thought to look into before today.
• 46:59
  Actually, uh, when legally CBS keys character is like, Okay.
• 47:04
  Standing behind him and she whispers into his ear.
• 47:08
  Like it never occurred to me to try and find out what she whispers to him.
• 47:12
  Um, but I was watching it today and I had the head subtitles on
• 47:17
  because my neighborhood can be a little noisy during the day.
• 47:20
  And she, what she whispers is that he should have his cloak lined
• 47:26
  with ermine, which is, so I like decided to look up what ermine is.
• 47:31
  It's a, like a, a fair type animal and in, uh, Komi folklore, which is
• 47:40
  like a, they're the, an indigenous people from, uh, northeast Russia.
• 47:48
  Um, which, you know, the, the, uh, the store owner is Russian.
• 47:57
  So.
• 47:58
  Presumably, the, uh, you know, the kind of like undertone of that is
• 48:03
  that, uh, Erminer is symbolic of, uh, beautiful and coveted young women.
• 48:10
  So like that kind of, you know, kind of underlines, uh, Yeah.
• 48:15
  The entire pursuit of, you know, kind of Bill's night.
• 48:18
  Yeah.
• 48:19
  Um, that's interesting.
• 48:22
  So I, I, I, I found that really interesting.
• 48:24
  I, like, I had never thought to, to like, look that up or like, I was always kind
• 48:29
  of like fascinated by like, Oh, it's so mysterious that she whispers in his ear.
• 48:31
  It's like, I never knew that either.
• 48:33
  I could find out.
• 48:35
  Yeah.
• 48:35
  So that was, uh, Yeah, I found that funny.
• 48:38
  I think I watched it the last time the other day with subtitles, but
• 48:42
  maybe I just wasn't paying attention.
• 48:45
  Like, I sort of have them on just in kind of in case you want to,
• 48:48
  you know, same thing with me, like my neighbor can be loud.
• 48:50
  So or at night, I don't want to turn up too loud.
• 48:52
  But yeah, that's That's a really good interesting thing.
• 48:55
  So again, like Kubrick does not leave anything He knew what he
• 48:59
  knew what that word meant and he knew how to place it in there.
• 49:02
  Yeah Yeah, yeah, and then and then the thing that's even creepier is that when
• 49:05
  he brings the costume back So, well, I'm gonna go back one step when he when when
• 49:11
  he goes to the costume store He's mad that his daughter and is with these men
• 49:15
  and you're thinking like maybe they're taking advantage of him of her in some way
• 49:19
  You don't really kind of understand But then the scene later when he returns the
• 49:22
  costume, it's very clear that he's using his daughter as, I guess, a sex worker
• 49:28
  of some kind, or it's not entirely clear because he's very implicitly saying to Tom
• 49:35
  Cruise, like, Oh, you want my daughter?
• 49:37
  You know, that's something you can have too.
• 49:39
  Yeah, you have to come back for anything you want.
• 49:41
  It's like he, yeah, it's, it's gross.
• 49:44
  I mean, it's, uh, to say the least, but it's, it's, it's all, it's all these
• 49:50
  things in this movie that I, that I think are constantly, you might say are
• 49:54
  like taboo or sort of like within the margins as some people, you know, might
• 50:00
  think of them as, you know, obviously these things aren't necessarily in
• 50:04
  the, you know, are so taboo, but, yeah.
• 50:07
  Maybe, um, to someone like Tom Cruise, who also, do you think he seems like
• 50:11
  repressed too, especially in the scene with the, with, uh, Davidov.
• 50:15
  It seems like that's kind of what prevents him too, is like he's, maybe he's also
• 50:20
  thinking about what those men said on the street where he's now questioning
• 50:24
  his own masculinity, which, which is, um.
• 50:28
  But yeah, like even like in that interaction with Domino, like there's no
• 50:33
  like, there's no like lust in anything like there's no libido in what he's doing.
• 50:39
  He's like, I suppose we should talk about this transaction.
• 50:42
  It's not even like a real.
• 50:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, acting.
• 50:45
  Yeah.
• 50:45
  And like, even like that.
• 50:48
  That interaction is like interesting too because there's like it doesn't seem like
• 50:53
  domino like it doesn't seem like sex work is like dominoes main kind of like the
• 50:59
  way she interacts with build to it like it doesn't seem like it's her main kind
• 51:03
  of when she when he tries to pay her.
• 51:06
  When he has to leave and she's like, no, don't worry about it.
• 51:09
  Don't worry about it.
• 51:10
  Like if that was her main source of income, like I feel like she wouldn't
• 51:14
  be like, and there's like one of the really interesting things that people
• 51:20
  often point out about that scene is when tom is bill is on the phone
• 51:25
  to alice there right next to him.
• 51:28
  There's a textbook on her shelf that says introducing sociology.
• 51:33
  Yeah.
• 51:34
  And so it's like, you know, she is probably a student using sex work to
• 51:40
  like pay the bills while she's, you know, going to university or whatever.
• 51:44
  And so like the, like the just like kind of transactional nature, uh, that like
• 51:51
  he approaches it with like, it's almost like she doesn't know what to make of it.
• 51:54
  You know, she's like, you know, she's probably used to dealing with
• 51:58
  guys who are a lot, you know, he's the nicest person because she like
• 52:03
  literally tells her roommate when he comes back later to bring her, uh.
• 52:07
  A gift or the cookies or something and she was like talking about how like kind
• 52:12
  he was, you know, like that's probably, you know, given that she's doing this,
• 52:16
  like you're saying, like on the side to pay for school, presumably or potentially,
• 52:20
  you know, she's probably not coming across the nicest people walking around.
• 52:26
  I don't think they say exactly, but I assume it's probably like
• 52:28
  Greenwich Village, West Village.
• 52:29
  If it's yeah.
• 52:30
  I think it is supposed to be Greenwich Village, uh, because just
• 52:33
  because I read that, like, they had a replica of Greenwich Village
• 52:38
  built in, like, a London soundstage.
• 52:39
  I think I saw that too.
• 52:40
  And it also makes sense.
• 52:41
  That's where, like, a lot of the jazz clubs and things would be anyway.
• 52:45
  But yeah, so like, that's, um, it's funny.
• 52:47
  I feel like we've gone a long way and obviously we're kind of going
• 52:50
  through a lot of stuff that happens.
• 52:51
  This movie is, it's also very long.
• 52:53
  You know, as well, but we haven't talked about probably like the, the scene that
• 52:58
  if you have only seen this movie one, so you like, don't care for it, you probably
• 53:02
  would immediately be drawn to this massive opulent mansion that I think they allude
• 53:09
  to is probably like on Long Island, I think they say, or maybe they don't say,
• 53:15
  but given like where he drives on the highway in the cab to goes to this massive
• 53:19
  party, he's got his fancy ass tuxedo, he's got the cape, he's got his mask.
• 53:24
  And he goes in and you now see, you know, what the creme de la creme people at the
• 53:30
  top, you know, politicians, presumably, you know, probably, uh, business leaders,
• 53:36
  capitalist type people, people who, uh, run the city and run the, run the country
• 53:42
  are engaged in this just very odd ritual.
• 53:46
  And I guess there's like parts of two parts of this whole thing,
• 53:49
  like, number one is like, what do you make of like the ritualistic.
• 53:53
  Nature of it.
• 53:55
  And then on the other side of it also is I think the like the idea of like
• 54:00
  the masks is obviously meant to hide their identity, but I think it also
• 54:04
  adds another piece to like the dream surrealist kind of You know, uh, idea.
• 54:13
  So I guess there's like, there's tons of stuff that you could probably talk about
• 54:16
  in the scene, but I'm not wondering what you maybe just make of it in general.
• 54:22
  Yeah.
• 54:22
  I think what it reminds me of more than anything is, I don't know how
• 54:27
  familiar you are with Bohemian Grove.
• 54:31
  Um, it's so in like 2000.
• 54:39
  Alex Jones of all people, uh, decided he was going to, you know, infiltrate
• 54:44
  this, uh, like secret society that like hosted the, you know, much like, uh,
• 54:53
  much like this party, you know, the creme de la creme, you know, uh, you know,
• 55:00
  George Bush and Henry Kissinger and like all these like top leaders, uh, they,
• 55:08
  you know, Meet, I think it's, I want to say in California, maybe, um, I can't
• 55:16
  remember exactly where it is off the top of my head, but, uh, they, it's been
• 55:21
  going on since like the 1800s and they do to like kick out, they do it every,
• 55:27
  every summer, uh, in July, I believe.
• 55:30
  And to kick off the, um, to kick off the week, they do this thing called the
• 55:37
  cremation of care, which is like this really elaborate, basically a play.
• 55:43
  Um, there is one year where apparently George Bush senior and Clint Eastwood
• 55:47
  played frogs in, in this thing, but like, they're, they're all like, you know,
• 55:53
  All cloaked and like they have this like giant stone owl that they burn an effigy
• 56:03
  of what's supposed to represent like the, uh, kind of like the, the burdens
• 56:09
  of the world because, you know, they're all these, you know, big leaders who
• 56:13
  are, you know, the ones carrying those burdens, uh, you know, in their minds, at
• 56:18
  least, um, and so, like, Alex jones had had this idea to like sneak in and film
• 56:26
  it and stuff it was really funny because there was this like british documentary
• 56:31
  and that was with them who like follow them on like kind of documented.
• 56:36
  They're planning and stuff and based on everyone they spoke to, like
• 56:40
  in the town near where it happens, you can just like walk on in.
• 56:44
  Basically, if you look kind of like preppy and just like, you know, walk
• 56:48
  past the guards and like seem like you belong there, they'll let you go in.
• 56:52
  But as they're like approaching, uh, you know, they have this British
• 56:57
  documentarian with them and they all of a sudden they're like, We can't trust
• 57:01
  these people and like bolt through the woods to get to where they're going.
• 57:05
  And the, the documentary is just like, I'm going back through our fucking motel.
• 57:09
  Um, but like, then like when they go back, when they come back and they
• 57:14
  have their footage, they're showing the footage of like, you know, this
• 57:17
  really elaborate performance of like all of these cloaked figures.
• 57:21
  And like, they're talking about how like, It looks like, uh, you know, they're
• 57:26
  worshiping malloc and, you know, it's, uh, you know, they're probably maybe
• 57:31
  they're not actually burning a child right now, but, you know, this is, you
• 57:35
  know, representative of child sacrifice and like, uh, like, and then, then,
• 57:41
  then after this, which is kind of like brought me to realize, like, you know, how
• 57:48
  embedded this kind of thing is in, like, kind of popular culture and, and whatnot
• 57:54
  that they interview, you know, uh, Harry Shearer of all people who had been invited
• 57:57
  there one year and he was like, honestly, the only conspiracy going on there is
• 58:02
  how these people take it seriously.
• 58:05
  Um, he was just like, yeah, it was insane and like, just complete nonsense.
• 58:11
  Like, I can't remember why he was invited that year, but, but it like made me
• 58:14
  think of Stonecutters and the Simpsons.
• 58:18
  And like, you know, that kind of like idea of and like things were known
• 58:22
  about, uh, Bohemian Grove before that, like there was a journalist.
• 58:26
  Uh, in 89 for spy magazine who, uh, who infiltrated and like his quote
• 58:34
  was that like the only religion they consecrate is right wing laissez faire
• 58:38
  and quintessentially western with some druid tree worship thrown in for fun.
• 58:43
  And it's like, that's kind of like, that, that, that was like, and like, when,
• 58:47
  when I saw eyes watch up for the first time, I was like, very like familiar
• 58:52
  with like, that kind of stuff was like.
• 58:55
  You know, when I was a teenager, I was like super, super into like conspiracy
• 58:58
  theory and shit and uh, yeah, so like, and like even watching when I was like
• 59:04
  rewatching it today, I was kind of thinking, watching it and thinking about
• 59:06
  how like it's very clearly like that scene is a performance like, you know, they
• 59:13
  have nightingale up there with like the electric piano and he was like, uh, An mpc
• 59:18
  sampler next to him and like, you know, they're playing like a, I guess a Romanian
• 59:23
  orthodox liturgy backwards as like part of the soundscape and it's like all very much
• 59:30
  like a performance that they're putting on to like, kind of like represent they're
• 59:35
  like, you know, in, in this instance, I guess, like, they're like sexual virility
• 59:41
  with like these, like, you know, all these naked women in masks and stuff.
• 59:48
  Yeah, so like that's that was like kind of kind of where that scene always took
• 59:57
  me, uh, and then like In like a more like modern day context, uh, it's kind
• 1:00:04
  of like ties in with a weird conspiracy theory about it being unfinished as well.
• 1:00:08
  There's like this like allegation that there was like 20 to 25 minutes cut by
• 1:00:14
  Warner Brothers because it revealed too much about like the nature of the super
• 1:00:19
  society and it's like real life parallels.
• 1:00:21
  They were like, yeah, they were like, uh, apparently they were like.
• 1:00:25
  You know, oh, this is they're they're doing child trafficking here and like
• 1:00:30
  like very like q and on weirdo shit Apparently that theory came from This
• 1:00:39
  conspiracy theorist David Wilcock who's been on like aliens and like a bunch
• 1:00:43
  of really But like the, yeah, like it kind of like it like very clearly like
• 1:00:51
  evokes that kind of imagery, but like it was so it was already so like in the
• 1:00:58
  culture as like representing like as like a metaphor for the kind of like
• 1:01:03
  class power that these people would have.
• 1:01:06
  That like it makes sense to in my intimate to my mind to like, to use
• 1:01:11
  that kind of imagery as like, you know, not as like the conspiracy theory like
• 1:01:17
  expose that like a lot of, you know, these people might think, but like,
• 1:01:21
  you know, it, it works as a metaphor.
• 1:01:25
  Well, it's um, it's interesting.
• 1:01:27
  You mentioned like it being performative and I hadn't really considered.
• 1:01:31
  As you're watching it, it's almost, um, like it, like if you brought people
• 1:01:36
  in that were just, you know, maybe if, like, you could, like, film that scene
• 1:01:41
  and then you showed it to, you know, other wealthy people or maybe even
• 1:01:45
  people like Tom Cruise, they probably would just, like, think it's stupid.
• 1:01:48
  They probably would just laugh.
• 1:01:49
  Like, what the fuck is this?
• 1:01:50
  It's almost like a thing that you do because you can, in a way, almost.
• 1:01:55
  It's just this, it's just to show your Dominance over those women and
• 1:01:59
  dominance over just you have it's uh, yeah, totally I know like a power
• 1:02:03
  play it's like these are just like very very You know cliche terms.
• 1:02:08
  Yeah, and like the rest of the night Yeah, like and like the rest of the
• 1:02:12
  night presumably is that getting blasted and having lots of sex, you know, like
• 1:02:17
  that's probably the only thing that's actually going on at these parties.
• 1:02:22
  Um, but like going back to like the bohemian grove thing, like the after
• 1:02:29
  that, you know, the big cremation of care performance that they do, like basically.
• 1:02:35
  Yeah.
• 1:02:36
  The entire week is just rich people getting drunk together like
• 1:02:41
  apparently lots of public urination.
• 1:02:42
  I could see that.
• 1:02:43
  Yeah.
• 1:02:43
  I mean, it's, it's, it's like, um, it's like this ritual thing
• 1:02:47
  to make what they do seem special.
• 1:02:50
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:02:51
  I think that that.
• 1:02:53
  Part of what I, in my notes, writing about the whole, like, orgy thing, it's
• 1:02:57
  very much this just proof that you can do what you want and you just do it because
• 1:03:02
  you can and all of that and it, the, the thing, so this is maybe going beyond, this
• 1:03:07
  is more like a plot thing, so you know, When Tom, when Tom Cruise, like after
• 1:03:12
  this little ritualistic thing, one of the women chooses him to like walk away
• 1:03:17
  with, and she immediately is warning him.
• 1:03:19
  Are you meant to think what we learn later is, is it because, I guess, is it
• 1:03:26
  known as to how she immediately would have known that he was this sort of outsider?
• 1:03:30
  That's another thing that kind of ties into like my like, maybe
• 1:03:36
  his like, maybe his like, kind of general demeanor lets her know that
• 1:03:40
  he's like, not meant to be there.
• 1:03:41
  Like in the book, uh, you know, he like Friedland, the character that's
• 1:03:47
  a bill in the movie, he like, kind of hangs out around the musician
• 1:03:53
  and like, kind of keeps to himself over in the corridor and stuff.
• 1:03:55
  And like, it's, it's a little more obvious in the book that like, You
• 1:03:59
  know he doesn't know anyone right yeah exactly and like doesn't know what the
• 1:04:05
  ceremonies is what like the rituals are what he's supposed to be doing with
• 1:04:09
  himself um but like in the movie that's a little less clear and like kind of
• 1:04:17
  you know the fact that it you know does.
• 1:04:21
  Evidently seem to be you know the sex worker who OD'd in Sydney
• 1:04:25
  Pollock's bathroom and like she does seem to recognize him as.
• 1:04:30
  You know as bill as the doctor that helped her, um, you know earlier It's there's no
• 1:04:37
  like from what I can tell there's no like explicit way that she would know that so
• 1:04:41
  like in my mind that kind of leads back to this like dream logic of just like an
• 1:04:46
  intuitive recognition of who people are even though you don't actually recognize
• 1:04:53
  visually who they are you just kind of like understand who someone is in a dream.
• 1:04:57
  Uh, like that, that's, that's how that's always kind of felt to me.
• 1:05:00
  Yeah, that's, and that's where I sort of briefly mentioned kind of
• 1:05:03
  like the, everyone's wearing a mask and in the scene, obviously you can
• 1:05:06
  only see people's eyes, you know, within their, within their face.
• 1:05:10
  And there is the moment when he comes in, he also like comes in late,
• 1:05:15
  you know, it's also kind of weird.
• 1:05:17
  So maybe that's a weird thing.
• 1:05:18
  And then, but you see one of what seems to be sort of like the leader
• 1:05:22
  of the group kind of gives him a look.
• 1:05:25
  And at first it seems like they're just, you know, nodding,
• 1:05:27
  being like, oh, you know, right.
• 1:05:28
  Good to see you here or something.
• 1:05:30
  But I think it's like he's giving himself as an outsider as well.
• 1:05:34
  I think that that's it.
• 1:05:34
  I think it just maybe also he is like a shittier tuxedo.
• 1:05:38
  He literally got at a costume shop where these people have, you know, like, I
• 1:05:42
  don't know, designer, whatever, some designer you can think of here, tens
• 1:05:46
  of thousands of dollars easily, right?
• 1:05:49
  It easily there just for their, just for their mask is like custom
• 1:05:53
  made or something, who knows?
• 1:05:54
  And so, yeah, so I mean, it's very much that.
• 1:05:57
  And, and I don't, does, does he, does he also realize that it's
• 1:06:02
  the same person from the party?
• 1:06:03
  I mean, You never really officially are said but I just assumed immediately when
• 1:06:08
  you see her that it looks like her I see I don't think that he does really initially
• 1:06:14
  realize until until she like maybe starts, You know, starts to help him.
• 1:06:23
  But even even then like it seems like he's unclear because
• 1:06:28
  like later when later when he.
• 1:06:33
  Is at sydney pollack's house and sydney pollack's like, you know, giving him
• 1:06:39
  reading him the riot act about like how he shouldn't have been there and
• 1:06:43
  stuff he he's like, you know, she, you know, the the one who like offered
• 1:06:49
  herself up to, you know, save you or whatever was the one that you saved
• 1:06:54
  in my, uh, right in my bathroom.
• 1:06:57
  So, like, I don't think he quite realizes, like, Maybe like he has an inkling but
• 1:07:01
  like doesn't quite draw the connection until it's like made explicit uh by sydney
• 1:07:08
  pollack or does he i can't remember if he talks to sydney pollack first or if
• 1:07:13
  he sees the article about her first he's at the he's at like the restaurant where
• 1:07:19
  he's because he's being followed and he's like he sneaks into the restaurant
• 1:07:23
  reads the article and then he i think he goes later and hands it to him you
• 1:07:27
  When he's in his like massive pool room.
• 1:07:30
  Yeah.
• 1:07:30
  I think he, uh, yeah.
• 1:07:32
  Cause I, so I think like when he sees that article, that's when he, like, it kind of
• 1:07:36
  clicks to him that that's who that was.
• 1:07:38
  I, I paused it so I could see, like, to read the whole article.
• 1:07:42
  Cause you know, I'm sure someone probably screenshotted it online, but I paused
• 1:07:45
  and I'm like, Reading the whole article because they very explicitly wrote out.
• 1:07:50
  I mean, it was all about the, you know, about them.
• 1:07:53
  But yeah, I mean, I think the I always took it as he maybe he didn't know, you
• 1:07:59
  know, again, I think you're saying, right?
• 1:08:00
  It's it's one of those things where it's part of this.
• 1:08:04
  You know, Surrealists, you know, kind of, you don't really know what's real,
• 1:08:09
  even though kind of what you see is real and everything and all of that.
• 1:08:13
  And I mean, I guess you kind of talked about maybe sort of like the final
• 1:08:17
  scene of the one of the final scenes, I guess when we're talking about
• 1:08:20
  the very final scene, but the sort of the second to last scene is when
• 1:08:23
  he you mentioned he approaches is.
• 1:08:26
  Um, Sidney Pollack and he kind of goes through this whole thing.
• 1:08:29
  And actually, this is another curiosity thing.
• 1:08:32
  Do you think that all of the, what Sidney Pollack told him was true?
• 1:08:36
  That they actually, you know, that that little ceremony for him was made up to
• 1:08:41
  just kind of get him out of there and he, they didn't actually kill the, the woman.
• 1:08:46
  Like, do you think that's all true?
• 1:08:47
  Or do you think he.
• 1:08:49
  Did all of those things and he's just basically being
• 1:08:52
  like, come on, come on bill.
• 1:08:54
  Yeah, we wouldn't do that.
• 1:08:56
  I that's a tricky one.
• 1:08:59
  Um, like in the is the way it plays out in the book is kind of
• 1:09:04
  interesting because it's like, Yeah.
• 1:09:08
  In the book, Friedland Bill, uh, is like when he gets found out, he kind of like
• 1:09:15
  tries to make a stand and he's like, you know, he, the whole night, uh, he's
• 1:09:21
  been trying to convince this woman under the mask to like run away with him, um,
• 1:09:28
  as like, you know, kind of like acting out what he, you know, what his wife's
• 1:09:31
  fantasy was with, uh, Uh, the other person at the hotel, um, but like that when he
• 1:09:39
  gets caught and like she offers to redeem him, he's like, no, let her come with me.
• 1:09:44
  We'll leave and never come back or whatever.
• 1:09:45
  And like, he's trying to like put on this macho, uh, performance.
• 1:09:50
  And there's, uh, this like sort of undertone that they're like, it does
• 1:10:00
  kind of come across like they're just like putting on a show to like, make
• 1:10:07
  him leave and not want to come back.
• 1:10:11
  They're powerful enough that they could do both things, right?
• 1:10:13
  They could actually do this or they could.
• 1:10:16
  Put on the charade for him.
• 1:10:18
  Yeah.
• 1:10:18
  And like convincingly put on the charade because like everything that's happening
• 1:10:23
  is so like just over the top and out there that like, you know, why wouldn't
• 1:10:28
  you believe that they are willing to, you know, do unspeakable things to this woman,
• 1:10:35
  you know, before killing her, you know?
• 1:10:40
  Um, but also, you know, she very clearly lives a life that, you know, is.
• 1:10:47
  On the edge of, you know, doing, yeah, exactly like, you know, that's.
• 1:10:54
  That's, uh, you know, she loves a risky life as it is.
• 1:10:58
  So it's like, it's, it's so hard to really.
• 1:11:03
  Yeah.
• 1:11:03
  I think it's one of those things you're sort of meant to do as we are
• 1:11:07
  like it could kind of go either way.
• 1:11:08
  I think the one line that.
• 1:11:10
  Makes it less likely.
• 1:11:11
  Although again, it's a, maybe it's a throwaway.
• 1:11:14
  I think that Cindy Pollack says when they found her, the door was locked from the
• 1:11:18
  inside to basically say she was home.
• 1:11:21
  And so you're like, Oh, well, all right, fine.
• 1:11:22
  Yeah.
• 1:11:23
  She, you know, she presumably was home and decided to shoot up and But at the
• 1:11:29
  same time, if you are rich enough and wealthy and powerful enough to have these
• 1:11:34
  incredible events, you could pay off the cop to just say the door was locked.
• 1:11:40
  I mean, it's really not.
• 1:11:41
  Yeah.
• 1:11:41
  And then coming back to the idea that like everything that happens
• 1:11:46
  throughout the movie is a manifestation of like Bill's unconscious, you know,
• 1:11:54
  desires or whatever, like, you know.
• 1:11:56
  Yeah.
• 1:11:57
  In his mind, he, you know, probably wants to have like this notion of like
• 1:12:04
  this grand, you know, deus ex machina coming in to save him and, you know,
• 1:12:10
  like You know almost like a power fantasy of his own like that like a woman would
• 1:12:16
  be willing to sacrifice herself for him You know, right, right Yeah, that
• 1:12:20
  like place that kind of plays into that original like fantasy that his wife had,
• 1:12:25
  you know Nicole Kidman of this someone I guess throughout the oh, I'm actually
• 1:12:29
  more so like throughout the movie every woman Seems to want him constantly.
• 1:12:33
  I mean like you don't know whether it's a projection or actually what it is in this
• 1:12:37
  case I He again has to see that someone is willing to literally what he appears
• 1:12:42
  as, you know, die or whatever for him.
• 1:12:45
  So it's, yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty crazy.
• 1:12:50
  Um, and I think that the final two scenes of the movie and maybe the one
• 1:12:55
  that's kind of the creepiest and, you know, maybe this is, uh, Again, a Sidney
• 1:13:00
  Pollack thing is when he gets home, the mask from the party is on his pillow and
• 1:13:05
  he's can't figure out why you got there.
• 1:13:07
  And I just assumed when I watched this, even the first time was that
• 1:13:12
  Nicole Kidman had gone into the little safe that he had kept the costume
• 1:13:15
  in and stole the mask out of it.
• 1:13:17
  Yeah, that was kind of, uh, kind of what I always assumed was the case
• 1:13:21
  to really interesting thing about that scene that I find unsettling is
• 1:13:25
  the eyes in the mask seem to glow.
• 1:13:28
  So.
• 1:13:28
  Did you notice that?
• 1:13:29
  No, I didn't.
• 1:13:30
  I, I, I don't know if I like, like, I mean, like I've said before, like I've
• 1:13:34
  seen those movies so many times that like, I'm not like I'll probably go back
• 1:13:38
  and watch it like watch that scene again after we're done recording this but like
• 1:13:42
  I feel like they're like, I don't know if I'm like miss seeing it every time
• 1:13:48
  but like it seems to me like there's like a light or something underneath
• 1:13:52
  the mask, which I find very unsettling.
• 1:13:56
  Um, yeah, but like questions reality a little bit too.
• 1:13:58
  Exactly.
• 1:13:59
  Exactly.
• 1:14:00
  And.
• 1:14:01
  You know, then Nicole Kidman's having her nightmare that she
• 1:14:05
  wakes, that he wakes her up from.
• 1:14:07
  And basically, uh, basically her nightmare is kind of, uh,
• 1:14:10
  you know, what his night was.
• 1:14:12
  Exactly.
• 1:14:12
  Like that's, that, that like confused, you know, that's meant to, I guess, really
• 1:14:17
  to put a whole thing of like, was this, was it actually her dream the entire time
• 1:14:22
  of what Tom Cruz might've been doing?
• 1:14:24
  You know, it's very unclear, or is it his fantasy?
• 1:14:27
  And because she's, you know, the way she, you know, it's.
• 1:14:31
  You could go on and on, I guess, on, you know, the, the reality and the dream
• 1:14:35
  sequence, but then when he eventually decides to confess to everything that
• 1:14:39
  happened the whole night, because he either feels guilty or like,
• 1:14:42
  he's not going to be able to explain the mass, like where it came from.
• 1:14:46
  And so, you know, you kind of, the first time I watched it, I
• 1:14:49
  thought that would be, that was it, like, that was the last scene.
• 1:14:53
  He's kind of like crying on the couch or, you know, upset.
• 1:14:55
  And it's over.
• 1:14:56
  But then you have the very final scene where they go to a gigantic toy store for
• 1:15:01
  Christmas and they're buying the daughter, presumably whatever she wants or whatever.
• 1:15:07
  And they kind of have this, you know, what do we do now?
• 1:15:10
  Kind of thing.
• 1:15:11
  And of course, you know, I think people probably all know if they've
• 1:15:14
  seen this sort of like the final line is, you know, what do we Yeah.
• 1:15:17
  Yeah.
• 1:15:17
  You know, what do we do from here?
• 1:15:18
  And she's, you know, the only thing left to do is fuck.
• 1:15:20
  And, uh, you know, it's kind of taking everything back to the very beginning and
• 1:15:25
  kind of maybe another theme of the whole movie is just, you know, this inadequacy,
• 1:15:31
  you know, he, he could never achieve this.
• 1:15:33
  And now, you know, he's finally able to, but then the movie also ends.
• 1:15:37
  And so he again, doesn't actually do it.
• 1:15:41
  So it's almost like one final emasculation in a toy store and, you know, You
• 1:15:45
  know, goes to black and I don't know.
• 1:15:47
  I don't know.
• 1:15:47
  What do you make of the ending?
• 1:15:50
  And I think, uh, one of the things that like, I think the ending really
• 1:15:58
  encapsulates and not just the ending, but like the general Christmas setting,
• 1:16:03
  uh, is kind of like the, the, the, like the function of family, uh, within this
• 1:16:10
  kind of, um, Um, Dynamic and how like he probably like he seems to be both like
• 1:16:18
  stifled by having a family, uh, but also like, you know, Christmas is, you know,
• 1:16:28
  the time of year when, you know, you spend all your time with your family.
• 1:16:33
  If you're fortunate enough to be in, you know, the kind of position where
• 1:16:37
  you Can take vacation time during Christmas or whatever, and, uh, so
• 1:16:45
  like he is probably spending even more time with his family or supposed to be
• 1:16:52
  spending more time with his family, but he's like going through this crisis.
• 1:16:55
  That's like taking that.
• 1:16:56
  He like feels like he needs to escape his family, uh, as as a result of and.
• 1:17:03
  You know, it reflects kind of at the same time, the, the kind of dynamic
• 1:17:11
  he finds himself in with like, you know, these more powerful people where
• 1:17:15
  he's, you know, You know, Christmas has become like obviously a very commercial
• 1:17:22
  like capitalist kind of time of year.
• 1:17:26
  That's much more about these like, you know, financial concerns
• 1:17:32
  than actual family concerns.
• 1:17:34
  So it kind of kind of draws out the kind of like to competing tensions, I think.
• 1:17:41
  Uh, that are making him question everything about his
• 1:17:46
  life, if that makes sense.
• 1:17:48
  Yeah.
• 1:17:48
  Yeah.
• 1:17:49
  I see.
• 1:17:49
  Yeah.
• 1:17:49
  I mean, like the, especially being at a toy store where you're literally just.
• 1:17:54
  It's like the ultimate, you know, Christmas capitalist buying,
• 1:17:59
  you know, buying needless toys.
• 1:18:01
  And actually one thing that made me think of as you were talking
• 1:18:05
  about that is it would probably be no surprise to me that Tom Cruise
• 1:18:10
  is sort of a very absent father.
• 1:18:12
  He's probably always at work, you know, he's always has to go see some
• 1:18:17
  patient and does these house calls.
• 1:18:19
  And he probably does that in part to.
• 1:18:22
  Maybe get away from his family and at the same time to, you know, make more
• 1:18:26
  money and accumulate and do the thing he thinks, you know, he's supposed to
• 1:18:30
  do and just keep making money and, you know, have a, have a wife and have 1.
• 1:18:35
  5 kids and, you know, the, the whole like his version of like, uh, I don't
• 1:18:40
  want, I hate to say American dream, but sort of like what his vision of being,
• 1:18:44
  you know, successful in quotation marks in, in, You know, in America and ending
• 1:18:50
  in a toy story also kind of feels, and we actually, it wasn't actually
• 1:18:54
  until right now that we mentioned that this is a Christmas movie, which, you
• 1:18:58
  know, it's a, it is a Christmas movie.
• 1:19:00
  It's takes place during Christmas.
• 1:19:02
  It's, uh, it's probably more of a Christmas movie than die hard for anyone.
• 1:19:05
  Oh yeah, it's totally like, like the, the thing about eyes wide shut is like,
• 1:19:10
  I think Christmas is kind of integral to.
• 1:19:13
  What happens like, you know, if you I'm I mean, I guess the the novel takes
• 1:19:18
  place during Shrove Tide, but, um, you know, that's, you know, a similar kind of
• 1:19:24
  festival period where like, you know, it's very much about, you know, the family and.
• 1:19:31
  And why not, but like, you know, all of these like undercurrents of like family
• 1:19:36
  and and what have you are like draw really like drawn out by Christmas in
• 1:19:43
  a way that like, you know, and die hard that could have happened any time of year
• 1:19:48
  like it happens during Christmas party, but like it could have happened any time
• 1:19:52
  of year during any kind of party like it like Christmas is not essential to the
• 1:19:58
  plot of that movie is like, you know, I, I, I'm a really big Christmas nerd.
• 1:20:05
  Like, I fucking love Christmas.
• 1:20:07
  Like, it's it's a thing.
• 1:20:10
  But like to me, for a movie to be a Christmas movie, it really
• 1:20:15
  needs like Christmas needs to be like kind of at the core of.
• 1:20:19
  Like the, the theme of the, of the movie and like it, I really think it is
• 1:20:26
  in the case of, uh, of Eyes Wide Shut and, uh, I think worth noting that, uh,
• 1:20:32
  we're recording this three days after half Christmas as, uh, that's true,
• 1:20:36
  fought for our rights to celebrate half Christmas were fought for by, uh.
• 1:20:41
  Blake and Adam to the chagrin of Durst, if anyone isn't a workaholics fan.
• 1:20:46
  Yeah.
• 1:20:47
  And as you're saying too about the, uh, like being like an integral part,
• 1:20:52
  you know, when he goes to Domino's apartment, I'm pretty sure they
• 1:20:56
  have a little Christmas tree there.
• 1:20:58
  Yeah.
• 1:20:59
  There's like gifts in the, in the sink because they have
• 1:21:02
  nowhere else to put them.
• 1:21:02
  Right.
• 1:21:03
  Right.
• 1:21:03
  Yeah.
• 1:21:03
  And I think there's a couple other places where, when they go to the hospital or
• 1:21:07
  when he goes to the morgue, I'm Maybe I'm misremembering it for some reason.
• 1:21:11
  I seem to remember there being decorations at the hospital.
• 1:21:15
  Maybe I'm not remembering.
• 1:21:16
  I think I was reading earlier today, actually, that like,
• 1:21:20
  and this might be wrong.
• 1:21:21
  I didn't double check or anything, but like the only scene that doesn't have
• 1:21:25
  Christmas decoration, the only scenes that don't have any Christmas decorations
• 1:21:28
  are the scenes that happen at the orgy.
• 1:21:32
  Interesting.
• 1:21:33
  It's kind of like, uh, what you would say secular, uh, I don't
• 1:21:39
  know what the, almost pagan.
• 1:21:43
  Yeah, that, yes, yes.
• 1:21:45
  Very much.
• 1:21:45
  So like this ritualistic thing, like doesn't matter.
• 1:21:47
  They don't care about Christmas.
• 1:21:49
  Like what do they need Christmas to buy a bunch of shit and they
• 1:21:51
  have, they have all the shit, right.
• 1:21:53
  They have.
• 1:21:54
  15, 000 suits and God knows what else.
• 1:21:57
  And yeah, exactly.
• 1:21:58
  The other, the other funny, this is like, just, I forgot to mention this.
• 1:22:02
  I think it's funny when, uh, Sidney Pollack is talking to him and they,
• 1:22:05
  he's like, you know, he's like, how did they figure out who it was me?
• 1:22:08
  And it's like, you left a, you had a cab driver waiting for you at the end of this
• 1:22:11
  hallway when Everyone else came probably in like Bentleys and limos and shits.
• 1:22:16
  That that's kind of the, would be a good dead giveaway, you know, to, uh, to, um,
• 1:22:22
  but yeah, I just, I just thought that was funny, but yeah, I mean, that's, yeah,
• 1:22:25
  again, definitely a Christmas movie.
• 1:22:27
  And, um, I don't think I had, I think I most part, pretty much all the notes
• 1:22:33
  I had, I think I hit, was there any things you had noted that we didn't
• 1:22:38
  touch on or do you want to think?
• 1:22:41
  I think we've hit pretty much everything.
• 1:22:44
  I think.
• 1:22:46
  The only thing I think I, I missed was when I was talking about the,
• 1:22:51
  like the, the, uh, the ritual as sort of like a performance of like, uh,
• 1:23:01
  like a demonstration of, you know, the power of, of class or whatever
• 1:23:07
  in the, in the novel, all of the.
• 1:23:11
  All of the costumes are all of the men are dressed as, uh, monks and
• 1:23:17
  all of the women are dressed as nuns.
• 1:23:19
  So, you know, the time that that was written, you know, those were seen as,
• 1:23:25
  you know, the arbiters of power within, you know, uh, within that society.
• 1:23:32
  So it's.
• 1:23:33
  You know, still, uh, you know, drawing on kind of the imagery, just an
• 1:23:38
  updated version of that imagery to, you know, reinforce the, the, the
• 1:23:43
  way that, you know, this power is, you know, costuming itself, I guess.
• 1:23:47
  But other, other than that, that was the only, I think, point that I really missed.
• 1:23:52
  Yeah, I don't think.
• 1:23:52
  Oh, so this is, so I only have one other note and this is partly from that
• 1:23:56
  article that I've mentioned before this article, I guess you call it article.
• 1:24:00
  That the, um, there's probably again, if you went through this, you could
• 1:24:03
  probably have a whole another couple hours talking about all the things
• 1:24:07
  that he, that this person uncovered.
• 1:24:09
  But one of them is that the daughter's name is Helena, which is,
• 1:24:12
  you know, a very form of the word Helen, which is apparently a Greek
• 1:24:16
  word that means light or bright.
• 1:24:19
  And, you know, you obviously Christmas being like the time of lights and things.
• 1:24:23
  So it's very much that he chose her name as this, you know, very, Likely very,
• 1:24:29
  uh, uh, you know, nothing, nothing.
• 1:24:31
  Kubrick doesn't leave everything to chance.
• 1:24:33
  I mean, it's very, which is why I can't believe that the movie
• 1:24:36
  wasn't finished, considering how much detail is in this movie.
• 1:24:40
  I mean, it's so meticulous that I, I don't believe that it wasn't finished.
• 1:24:45
  And I think, did he make an appearance in the movie?
• 1:24:49
  Did I read that right?
• 1:24:51
  That he's in some scene?
• 1:24:53
  That's a really good question.
• 1:24:54
  I don't know.
• 1:24:55
  Oh, yes.
• 1:24:56
  Um, maybe in one of the like cafe scenes.
• 1:25:00
  I'm not sure.
• 1:25:01
  Yeah, I don't remember.
• 1:25:03
  It's I thought that I had read that, but I can't find can't find that note
• 1:25:08
  now, but maybe I'll maybe I'll find.
• 1:25:09
  But yeah, so I mean, yeah, I don't have anything left on the movie.
• 1:25:14
  Um, but Jonathan, it's been a great to have you on the show.
• 1:25:19
  And, um, Yeah, I don't think I have anything else.
• 1:25:22
  And I don't know if you want to, I guess I should have, this probably
• 1:25:25
  would have been better at the beginning.
• 1:25:26
  I guess I could just move it, but I don't know if there's anything you wanted to,
• 1:25:29
  um, to share anything you're working on or places people can find you on the
• 1:25:34
  internet if you, um, want people to.
• 1:25:38
  Yeah, I'm not sure.
• 1:25:39
  Yeah, I'm not sure when this is going to come out and when the video is going
• 1:25:44
  to come out, but I have a video for the artist Fog Lake coming up soon ish.
• 1:25:50
  So that'll I'm pretty excited about that.
• 1:25:53
  Um, but, uh, you know, that'll eventually make its way to One of
• 1:25:59
  my various corners of the internet.
• 1:26:02
  I'm like, I'm on most social media platforms.
• 1:26:07
  I'm not on Twitter anymore because I was unjustly banned for uh, for I
• 1:26:12
  suspect for trolling Zionists That Twitter tells me it was for gaming
• 1:26:19
  the platform Something like that.
• 1:26:22
  I don't know what the fuck they're talking about, but I Yeah, I've been
• 1:26:24
  suspended for a few months, and it's probably a blessing, um, but I'm on,
• 1:26:29
  like, Blue Sky, Instagram at getratified, um, my website is johnkennedy.
• 1:26:37
  net, j o n kennedy.
• 1:26:39
  net, um, And yeah, a bunch of my short films are up there.
• 1:26:44
  I've got a few short films in the works that may or may not be out this year.
• 1:26:50
  I don't know.
• 1:26:51
  Uh, I'm really bad at finishing projects.
• 1:26:55
  Um, but, uh, Yeah, so like follow me on, I'm, I'm most
• 1:27:00
  active on Instagram probably.
• 1:27:02
  Yeah.
• 1:27:02
  I'll put the, I'll put over all those links down there too.
• 1:27:05
  And I, but yeah, Jonathan, thank you so much for, uh, for coming on.
• 1:27:08
  It's been great.
• 1:27:08
  Yeah.
• 1:27:08
  Thanks for asking me.
• 1:27:09
  This was really fun.
• 1:27:11
  Absolutely.
• 1:27:11
  And so, you know, you can find this podcast on all those same internet
• 1:27:17
  places and, uh, subscribe, like, rate, and we'll catch you next time.