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The shloka controversy revealed an element of Eyes that wouldn't have been noticed otherwise. The presence of the Gita links the film to the Hindu caste system or, more generally, to the shadow of a rigid hierarchy impervious to attempts to leave or destroy it. The specter of the caste system, while profoundly negative in most respects, in Kubrick's filmed world represents unquestioned hierarchy handing down orders and plans from "above." Kubrick's critique of this hierarchy has been constant and consistent since Paths of Glory (1957). He has depicted those in charge of a society living in a "closed world," one in which no one shall enter without approval from those already inside. Kubrick's closed worlds have had Army Generals (Mireau and Broulard; Dax is the outsider) in Paths of Glory; Roman patricians with slaves on the outside in Spartacus; a pornographer (with Humbert on the outside) in Lolita; the men of the War Room in Dr. Strangelove; scientists (Dr. Floyd and his superiors) in 2001; criminals and politicians (Alex and the Minister of the Interior) in A Clockwork Orange; eighteenth-century British aristocracy (Redmond Barry is the outsider trying to become Barry Lyndon) in Barry Lyndon; the Overlook Hotel (Jack is the perennial outsider) in The Shining; and the Marines (Joker is and is not a member of this club) in Full Metal Jacket.
Eyes Wide Shut's Kshatriyas, so to speak, are the masked figures at the Long Island Mansion led by a red-cloaked man. Many of the orgy participants wear masks resembling the aristocrats of Barry Lyndon (1975), in a mansion much like those in Barry Lyndon and Paths of Glory. Bill Harford has witnessed secret rites of the "best people" pleasuring themselves, and he must be sent away into the night, warned off the trail. The participants may seem to overreact in wanting to scare him, let alone kill him or, Harford's old buddy, pianist Nick Nightingale (Todd Field), but the absurdity of the threat's extreme nature fits perfectly with our potential apprehension of the real power that these "best people" have.
The "hierarchy" theme is not predominant in this movie nor does it represent the sole reason for the shloka during the orgy scene. It's the context of the Gita itself that has a bearing on the shloka's presence during an orgy. In this Hindu sacred song, Arjuna searches for the meaning of his actions in the midst of a war. Bill Harford's search for sexual meaning in the midst of a sexual battle with his wife parallels Arjuna's actions. Mrs. Harford has just unloaded a barrage on her husband, which knocks him senseless. When he's called out of his apartment, Bill uses this opportunity to embark on a sexual odyssey. He clearly wants sex with anyone in his path, and women continually thrust themselves toward him. Trying to make sense of his wife's desires, he wants to explore (or runs into) all aspects of sexual desire (his and others). As in 2001, though, the odyssey transmigrates from the character to the viewer. We're watching what Bill is watching. Watching the movie becomes a parallel practice to the following passage in the Gita (chapter 6, verse 10):
Once, someone asked, "Why is it said that the eyes should be half-open and half-shut?" I said, "The answer is easy. If you shut the eyes completely, you fall asleep. If you keep them fully open, they turn on all sides and prevent concentration."
Bill Harford's quest becomes a literal and metaphoric opening of the eyes. At the heart of all of Kubrick's movies is an ambivalence toward the moviegoing experience; the very things that transfixed one to the screen molded the viewer into a passive receptor to myths and the authority of the screen. Kubrick slowly but surely detonated story and genre to shake people from their stupor and managed to entertain filmgoers. Maybe Eyes Wide Shut went too far in its contemplative mode. I can't help thinking of the way Nicole Kidman spoke throughout much of the movie, in a near agonizingly slow and affected cadence, which tended to draw attention away from, not toward, her words. Just as Dr. and Mrs. Harford must sort out their marital differences, so too the viewers must come to grips with the movie's meaning and heed the Gita's verse:
Sacred stories send us to sleep; / Care keeps us awake in bed; / Obscure is the way of karma; / Why weep?
* * *
"Dharma" may not have an exact equivalent in the English language, but it has generally been defined as "righteousness" or "duty." Much of the critical, economic, and religious pieties thrown against this movie do not have the same spirit of "dharma" that the Gita speaks about. Yet the shallow righteousness of our reigning if bumbling commentators and censors could have been alluded to by Kubrick through the choice of the particular shloka from the Gita.
Besides alluding to the caste system, the verse indirectly references one of Eyes' cast members, Thomas Gibson, who had the nearly speechless role of Miranda Richardson's fiancé. Gibson currently stars in the sitcom Dharma and Greg, and his presence in the movie seems justified by two factors. Kubrick often selected lookalike cast members —especially vivid doublings can be seen in Barry Lyndon — and Gibson makes a competent physical double for Tom Cruise. The doubling in Eyes is akin to the kind in The Shining when Jack Torrance, being interviewed, is seated next to Bill Watson, whose brief function in the movie seems nothing more than to resemble Jack.
Yet, the Dharma and Greg allusion only comes into play when the viewer becomes aware of the meaning of the shloka in the chant during the orgy scene. Such a remote allusion is not uncommon in Kubrick's movies and usually functions as an added detail of character or depth, not exactly necessary but helpful in understanding a character's psyche or filling out a motif in the film. For example, in The Shining, when Jack Torrance enters the bathroom and sees the naked woman in the bathtub, they eventually embrace and Jack kisses her. When he glances in the mirror, the woman becomes a decrepit hag and Jack recoils in horror. An early movie in Jack Nicholson's career, Roger Corman’s The Terror (1963), ended with a scene in which he's kissing a beautiful woman who turns into a skeleton in his arms. Putting a similar scene in The Shining accentuated the narcissistic core of Nicholson's character, in the sense that Torrance's delusions were inspired, in part, by the films of the actor who played Torrance!
Only with the presence of the now displaced shloka does Gibson's casting make sense. He serves as a near invisible pun — maybe AHAD should have been wailing about this desecration of their holy verses as well — and a statement on the shallowness of the television culture of which Gibson was a part. The same television ethos envelops the main characters of Eyes, as well those in The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. When Eyes incarnates Kubrick's pessimistic vision of contemporary Americans grappling with themselves, their sexual desires, and their understanding of reality, Dr. Bill and his wife come up short. In a sense, television cultivated and maintains a superficial dharma or righteousness.
Eyes Wide Shut strives for a deeper, more elusive spirit that will not eschew the superficial but, rather, will use it for protection, the way an "animal mother" protects its brood, but also as a means for discovering a serious spiritual meaning without actually uttering the word "spiritual." This very superficiality infected the critical response to the film two-and-a-half years ago. Too many critics carried shallow notions and expectations of "great art" by which to judge the film, whereas the mass of filmgoers became frustrated over its lack of an easy understanding. Many modes of trite righteousness, including that of the censors, washed over Eyes Wide Shut and led to fundamental perplexities over its intentions and meaning. This shouldn't daunt or bring to tears anyone trying to understand and value the film.
AFTERWORDS
An interesting news article from September 1999 on the shloka controversy can be found at www.rediff.com/news/1999/sep/01us1.htm. Sérgio Telles’s intriguing analysis of the source of Eyes Wide Shut, Arthur Schnitzler’s 1926 novel Traumnovelle, and its relationship to the film is available at www.psychematters.com/papers/telles2.htm. Check rohznuka.tripod.com/eyeswideshutorgy.html for a description of the censored scenes. And… if you’re in the U.S., where only the censored version has been released on video, get a multi-region DVD player and buy the European (PAL) DVD, which restores what was cut by the skittish brothers Warner. Ebay, natch, usually has several copies up.
January 2002 | Issue 35
Copyright © 2002 by Robert Castle
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