Stanley Kubrick

Name

Date

Professor 's Name

Course

`Eyes Wide Shut

Or

The Modern Man 's Sex Odyssey

Kubrick 's film Eyes Wide Shut presents audience members to the protagonist Dr . Bill Harford and his wife Alice and their sexual misadventures . The word `misadventures ' is used because it seems that Dr . Bill Harford is a bumbling type of `hero ' in the film , and although sex is going on all around him , and his central preoccupation in the film is sex (or his wife having an affair ) he does not indulge

in the act despite his latent desires . Thus , the film is constantly castrating him from his desires is another theme so blatant in Kubrick 's film . This essay will seek to explore Dr . Bill Harford 's sexual misadventures , his relationships with the characters of the film , his interaction with them , and finally the essay will culminate in the fact that the protagonist , despite the odd and bizarre events exploding around him , does not in fact change or gain a greater sense of himself in his own world . Thus , the essay 's title The Modern Man 's Sex Odyssey but could just as easily be entitled Static Dr . Bill Harford

In contrast to the typical and over-portrayed patriarchal society as depicted in the banal cinema of modernity , Kubrick 's film Eyes Wide Shut displays a society in which the female seems to be the figure of power Even though Kubrick portrayed the women as objects as is evident in depicting women nude , in high heels , in specific thong attire , the women of the film still harbor an `all knowing ' enigmatic quality which appeals and frightens the protagonist Bill . This is seen in the conversations with his wife Alice : The beginning of the film shows an upward angle of the bathroom panning up Alice 's nude body as she gets ready for a night out . Alice does not show any signs of being un-empowered by her nude state but rather she goes about her business in a casual and calm manor and in fact is stronger in comparison with her male counterpart Bill as Mulvey states [w]oman [ .] stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other , bound by a symbolic in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer , not maker , of meaning (p .35 . This is the main signifier of Alice and Bill 's relationship , the idea of fantasy , language , and imposition

In Kubrick 's film the women are definitely not bearers of meaning only but also makers as is witnessed in Alice 's character and the slew of other female caste members . Alice is the pivotal character in Kubrick 's film as she is the main proponent who catalysts the idea of women as makers of meaning . This is especially true in her revealing to Bill of her sexual fantasy of the naval officer . In this scene...