Eyes Wide Shut with Honey Pluton

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
have individualism? It's the patriarchy, ZEFFI bast start changing with
the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I welcome to the Bechdel Cast. I am Illuminati, horny
overlord of the secret sex called Caitlyn Durante.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And I'm Caitlyn's friend Jamie, and welcome and welcome to
our sex party. You might notice our titties are out.
That's going to keep happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh. Welcome
to the Bechtel Cast. I'm Jamie, and this is our
show where we take a look at your favorite movies

(00:53):
using an intersexual feminist lens, which will be so fun today,
using the buck Still test as a jumping off point
for discussion. But Caitlin, what the fuck is that?

Speaker 4 (01:05):
Oh my gosh. It's a media metric created by queer
cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Many versions of the test. The one
that we use requires that two characters of a marginalized
gender have names, they must speak to each other, and
their conversation must be about something other than a man.

(01:26):
So we'll just see about that for this movie, which
is Eyes Wide Shut a Christmas movie? A Christmas movie,
I really do.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
I mean it is a Christmas movie. This, I you know,
not to be all twenty twelve about it, because I
feel like in twenty twelve people love to be like,
did you know Diehard is a Christmas movie? And it's
like calmed enough, you know, find a new struggle.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
In any case, Eyes Bideshut is canonically a Christmas movie.
I don't think the source material is.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
But the source material takes place during Marty Gras.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Oh oh right, yes, so h no, but Stanley Kuprick
loves a twinkly little light excuse and so he's like, okay,
we got to get these tongs and it looks beautiful.
I'm so excited to talk about this movie. So let's
just get into it. Let's get our guests in here
for crying out loud.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
Yes, let's He is a comedian host of the podcast Upgood.
You remember him from our episode on The Little Mermaid.
It's Honey Pluton.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
Hello, I'm so happy to be back.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Welcome back.

Speaker 6 (02:32):
I know I feel like The Little Mermaid to Eyes
White Shut, Pipeline doesn't really exist.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
So I am glad.

Speaker 6 (02:39):
I mean maybe there's some similarities I guess within maybe
the curious misogyny of both movies perhaps, but that kind
of exists throughout media, you know.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
Sure Incarnate, I.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Think you're you're innovating the space today. This pipeline will
exist after today. Yeah, so thanks for joining U tells
what your your relationship to this movie is.

Speaker 6 (03:05):
I watched it for the first time last year, actually
because I think it was one of the only Kubrick
movies I had never seen, and I really was immediately enchanted.
Upon first viewing last year and then watching it again
over the past two days, I really just fell deeper
and deeper in lust with the movie.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
To be honest, I.

Speaker 6 (03:27):
Think it's just like it's so hot, it's so freaky.
I love Tom Cruise. It's such I want to know
if y'all were Tom Cruise heads. Do y'all like him?

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Okay, we setting aside his not.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Ethically but performance wise yes of course.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
No.

Speaker 6 (03:45):
Yeah, scientology, I mean it's so and like also thinking
about their relationship, like pop culturally, it's such a fun movie,
I know, I just thinking about the infamous picture of
Nicole Kidman divorce off.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Oh my god, the picture. No, Oh my god, show
me pull it up. It's a famous picture of Nicole
Kitman walking out of her lawyer's office the day she
divorced Tom Cruise. And it's like the most raw joy
you've ever seen on a human faith.

Speaker 6 (04:17):
It's like her hands are down at her side, palms open,
her chest like solar plexus is outstretched, and her face
is just that of like joy and relief, radiating a sigh.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
And for some reason it's was taken from multiple angles.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
But I bet every paparazzi in the world was just like,
outside ready for that.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Wait, Caitlyn, pull this up. It's so amazing.

Speaker 5 (04:42):
I'm looking at it too. Oh, it's so wow. It's
so good.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
I've wanted to get a framed photo of that for
my house for a while. Oh my god, that would
be a great Halloween costume.

Speaker 6 (04:57):
I was just gonna say, yeah, it's really it's a
signature look.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Yeah, amazing. But yeah, despite Nicole Kidman hating being married
to him and his horrible personal life, I do tragically
love Tom Cruise movies.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
He's got the juice.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Yeah, he's an amazing actor.

Speaker 6 (05:19):
He really does have the risk and how much taller
is she than him?

Speaker 3 (05:24):
I think Nicole Kidman's like five ten, five eleven, She's
pretty tall.

Speaker 5 (05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:29):
I really love the movie magic that's present where they're
always at eye level to one another.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
I know, I was like, I wonder at whose insistence
that was impossible to say, impossible.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
To know there's no way to really get that answer.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, No, men are famously secure, so it's kind of
you know, yes, but yeah, I mean the performances in
this movie are I think, both great and weird as
a terrible weird. I can't wait to talk about this movie.
So you are a recent convert to the eyes wide
shut averse.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 6 (06:05):
And I watching it again over the past two days,
I was like, it just is and watching it again
knowing we were going to be discussing it obviously, I
was just kind of starting to like call the themes like,
I'm just really obsessed with how hell bent straight people
are on infidelity, and I don't know, you know, it's
like straight people are obsessed with cheating. It's just like

(06:28):
in this really unique way that obviously is so like
present within the movie, this like psycho sexual ringer of
infidelity and how that is like a tether to completely
unraveling your consciousness and your psyche.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie?

Speaker 5 (06:49):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Kind of complicated. I've seen this movie. I think this
was my third time seeing it. The first time I
saw it was in college and I was like, that
movie looks cool. I didn't really understand what was going on,
but sure, why not? Like I sort of but I
think this is a movie that really uh ages with you. Well,
I guess because each subsequent time I've seen it, I

(07:12):
feel like I've gotten a little bit more out of it.
And then this time, especially doing some research on the context,
I feel like I have a totally different feeling about it.
And I've come around to really appreciating this movie because
I think, you know, when I saw it, I also
went in Gina Bloom, guest of the show, did an
eesweed Shut themed comedy show I think, like last year,

(07:32):
and I know, so I rewatched it for Gina's show.
She had the robe. It was great. I'll see if
fucking dig up a picture of it please. That was
really fun. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I
this viewing in particular, especially with the context of the
source material and really doing a close look. Like I
just I have like a whole new theory of how

(07:54):
I what the I think the internal logic of this
movie is. And yeah, I mean we'll talk about it,
but it's like I used to be like, what a
weird movie with stilted performances that are very it's like pretty,
you know, male gazy, and all of that is true,
but I feel like I understand sort of the intention
behind it. And we're like caught in this like Tom

(08:15):
Cruise fugue state because he's like and that every woman
like we're seeing the movie I think from like Bill's perspective,
and women are just bodies that are ciphers to him,
and so all we see his bodies and blank stares
from women, not because that's how women are viewed by Kubrick.
Not to say that he was perfect, but like I

(08:36):
don't think that that's the values of the movie. But
I think it's like we're just seeing him how he
sees women. So it's just vacant stares, robots, sexual propositions,
and everyone kind of looks like his wife, and everyone
kind of has a boyfriend that looks like slightly uglier
Tom Cruise and I just I don't know. I got
so much out of it this time, and I'm excited

(08:58):
to talk about it. What's your Street, Kaitlyn.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I had seen the movie for the first time in
the Great Caitlin Movie Binge of two thousand and five,
Never Forget, Never Forget, and I there's a lot I
didn't remember about it from that first viewing Alan Cumming
for example, for example, what a jump scare love it.

(09:24):
I was under the impression that a much larger chunk
of the movie took place at the like sex cult party,
because that's kind of the only thing I remembered about
the movie. So I just sort of assumed, oh, that
was like most of the.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Movie, it's mostly Tom Cruise walking around, walking away.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Okay, I do like this movie. I will say that
the pacing makes me furious. It's such a slow movie.
It is one hour longer than it needs to be.
I could re edit this movie to be a cool
one hundred minutes. But I do like the you know
intrigue that it builds, and you know, he goes to
the party and you're just like, oh my god. And

(10:03):
then I watched it again last year in a theater
one of these oh, theaters in La that just like
screens older movies. I went to one of those and
saw it and it was partially because so not to
brag here, but last year around this time, I went
to a few sex parties we wo we woo, and

(10:26):
anyone I told this to, which was a lot of people,
ninety nine percent of them, would be like, oh, like
an eyes wide shut was it like that? And the
sex parties I went to were nothing like that, But
that's like everyone's frame of reference.

Speaker 6 (10:40):
Yeah, you weren't going to some like Illuminati descent of
the Worswazzi where you're like.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Right, what are there other I'm trying to think, are
there other like pop culture touchstones about sex parties or
is it really we just have been culturally conditioned to
think that every sex party is the Illuminati, realizing that
might just be what I thought.

Speaker 6 (11:02):
It's like eyes wide shot are like epscen Island, right,
It's like that's all that we know, right.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
Right, So these sex parties were nothing like either of
those things, and it was just like horny, shy people
going to a party and like trying to talk to
each other.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
I love it, Yeah, And it sounded like you had
really good experiences there generally, Yeah, they were fine. I
almost went once and then bailed because that's my vibe.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
It's a very interesting social experiment to go to a
sex party, especially if you're by yourself.

Speaker 6 (11:35):
Did you have to answer a secret question like in
the movie?

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah, they they gave me a series of passwords that
I had to know.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
I want to be booked at a sex party. I'm
not like, I don't think I would thrive as a participant,
but if they have, for if you book local sex
parties and you're interested in maybe some light stand up comedy.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Right, So one of the ones I went to has
a focus on like performance, and most of the performances
were like sex someone. Yeah they were sexy someone doing
like pole dancing and things like that. But there was
one comic and I didn't even know that was an option,
or else I would have been.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
Like interrupting the Gregorian chance with a tight five.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, just to just to make everyone
feel safe, that would be. Yeah, that's that's now on
my cursed gigs wish list.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
It was.

Speaker 4 (12:28):
It seemed like he had a good time, and then
I went to I went up to him afterwards, and
I was like, who books this anyway?

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Look, I mean shows, shows are sparse in LA. Right now.
The show is a show, a show is a show,
a gug is a gig.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
Stage time is stage time. Yep, that's true. So anyway, uh,
people kept being like, oh, why is Wide Shut? Right?
And then I was like, right, I need to rewatch
this movie. And that's what prompted me to go to
see at the theater. And then I watched it a
couple of times to prep for this. So you know,
it's now very top of mind and I have a

(13:04):
lot to say about it. Let's take a quick break
and then we'll come back to do the recap.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Let's do it and we're back.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Okay, So here is the recap of Eyes Wide Shut.
The first one second of the movie is Nicole Kidman
taking off her dress and showing her bare ass.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah okay, look, by our metrics, not a strong start
from a horny emetric. Amazing start. Nicole Kidman is unbelievable
levels I've hot in this movie. This is not an
original observation at all, but oh my god, oh my god.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
Yeah no, she's a star for sure.

Speaker 6 (14:03):
She's like alluring and aloof but still like with it
and sharp, you know, classic.

Speaker 5 (14:13):
She's a bombshell for sure.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
She's doing so much. Yeah, and I really like, I
don't know, like, I feel like I was able to
appreciate her performance so much more this time because she's
not even acting like a person. She's acting the way
her husband sees her. It's just like and it's her
husband and it's.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
Her real life husband, and yeah, and she.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Secretly wants to divorce it.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
Like, right, did they meet on set? Do you'll have
that info?

Speaker 4 (14:37):
Not this set?

Speaker 3 (14:38):
No, they'd been married for almost ten years. Yeah, they got.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
Were married for that long.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, they were married. If I'm remembering correctly, they were
married from nineteen ninety to two thousand and one. So
this was like so scary, I know, I like, I mean,
she really earned that fist.

Speaker 5 (14:53):
Yes that.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, they were married for over ten years and they
met on the side of a different movie I don't
remember wh okay.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
But also this movie started shooting in nineteen ninety six
and it famously lasted, so it was like it has
a Guinness Book of World Records record for like the
longest consecutive shoot of a movie.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
Or at least an American movie, Stanley Kuper It loves
to take his time psychologically torture his cast and crew.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 6 (15:25):
And then I like to Caitlyn say that the movie
was too long. I love a short movie, but I
think because this movie is literally about time Cruise being
a cock and like unable to get his nut. It's
like it's like two and a half hours of him edging,
like he's unable to ever true.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
I'm like, so I was right.

Speaker 6 (15:45):
I was down to be part of the plotting because
it really felt like gooning at a certain point, like
it was edging.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
I was, yeah, I was like, there's a really good
video essay about this movie by one of my favorite
YouTuber's Broid Channel, who did a great sort of round
up of like the history of this production, and yeah,
part of it was, like, I mean, it definitely was
speculated that the length of this shoot and the intensity
of their scenes together did contribute to like the end

(16:14):
of Cruise and Kidman that like it was just it
was a lot, but also that like, like speaking to
your point, honey, that Stanley Kubrick a lot of like
crew members were like he was really enjoying clucking Tom
Cruise to the nth degree and like stuff that I
don't I wouldn't know or remember, but like once she

(16:36):
said it, I was like, oh, yeah, Like there was
a lot of speculation around Tom Cruise's sexuality at that time,
which Kubrick makes sure to explicitly add like and if
you know, you know, reference of him, you know, being
like being harassed by a bunch.

Speaker 5 (16:50):
Of all the apps were I was like, right, like that, Yeah,
that makes sense to me.

Speaker 6 (16:56):
That was like more like a pop cultural like top down,
let's include this.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Yeah, it felt like he was sort of I mean,
and it's kind of hard to be like, oh, it
feels so bad for Tom Cruise, but it was like
that was pretty harsh because that was changed from the source.
I mean, we'll talk about it, but like the source
material was changed. It was an anti symmitic group of
men in the source material, but Kubrick changes it so
that they're throwing homophobic slurs at a wasp, so it

(17:23):
seems more like pushed at Tom Cruise specifically, or that's
what people speculated at the time.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
Got it.

Speaker 4 (17:30):
Okay, So that's the.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Second one of the movie.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
Yeah, that's after the first second of seeing Nicole Kyman's ass.
So this is Alice. She and her husband. Her husband
and husband, doctor Bill Harford played by Tom Cruise, and
their seven year old daughter Helena, live in a very
nice and large home in New York City. Ever heard

(17:54):
of it?

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Poor Helena left in the damn dust this.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
So Bill and Alice go to this big, fancy Christmas
party and are greeted by the host, Victor Ziegler played
by Sidney Pollock. At the party, Bill recognizes the piano
player Nick Nightingale, played by sometimes actor, sometimes director of
tar Todd Field.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
Oh interesting, Wiles, I know, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
I didn't connect that until until afterwards.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Yeah. And he tells Bill that he'll be playing at
this club downtown for the next two weeks and that
Bill should stop by sometimes so that they can catch up. Meanwhile,
Alice is approached by a man named Sanders Savost who
comes on very strongly and hornile. They dance a bit.

(18:51):
On the other side of the room, Bill is flirting
with two young women, these beautiful models.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Badly, I might add, which is like another like Kober
Cucking Cruise moment where it's like flirt but do a
horrible job.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
But it doesn't stop them from being horny for him,
and they're kind of throwing themselves at him, but he's
interrupted when the host, Victor Ziegler, summons Bill to tend
to a woman named Mandy who has just overdosed on
a combination of heroin and cocaine, and doctor Bill saves

(19:28):
her life and Victor is like, don't tell anyone about
this wink. Now downstairs, Alice is still dancing with that
guy and it's again very horny.

Speaker 6 (19:41):
Her drunk acting, and this part was by what some
of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, where she's like,
she's like, so it's kind of like klanapin Baby, where
she's kind of like Marilyn Monroe, you know what I mean,
and really taking her time, like it was so so fab.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
Yeah, she's so good.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
But she seems to kind of come to her senses
and she realizes that she needs to find her husband
and go home. So we cut to Alice naked again.
She and Bill are back at home and they're kissing
on the lips. The next day, the two of them
are going about their lives, Bill at work seeing patients,

(20:23):
Alice at home with their daughter, and then that night
Alice and Bill are in bed together doing marijuana. No,
I know, no, and Alice asks him if he had
sex with those two hot women he was talking to
at the party, and he's like, what, No, were they hot?

(20:47):
I didn't even notice anyway, What about the man you
were dancing with? And Alice is like, yeah, he wanted
to fuck me. And then they have a whole conversation
argument about how men and women approach sex differently, and
Bill is being very prescriptive and presumptuous about gender roles,

(21:10):
basically saying women don't think about sex constantly the way
men do, and Alice is like, oh, really, well, how
about that time that I saw a naval officer when
we went on vacation and how I fantasized about ruining
my wife to be with him for one night. And
she's like, yeah, I was prepared to like throw everything

(21:34):
I had away, my my husband, my family, my daughter
just to be with this guy who I didn't.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Even meet again. Helena found dead. Na Ditch like justice
for Helena.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
Literally, she's like, what's for dinner? Though I'm so hungry.
She's like.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
Exactly, Helena's raising herself. Yes, that I mean, And oh god,
that seems so good and yeah, this like I don't know,
I'm sure that there's like commentary to this too that
you know, like doctor Bill is the primary medical care
for so many women, and he's like thirty seven and
just learned that women can be horny, like right for

(22:16):
not their husband and this I feel like that that moment,
like his brain is broken. And then my theory is
the rest of the movie is kind of like a
dream that he has. I don't believe that's my hot
digg is I don't believe most of the movie actually happens.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (22:32):
Also in that scene too where they're arguing Nicole Kimman's
character like she's the only one who's even able to
tell the truth.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
Like he's so like there's like a filter.

Speaker 6 (22:42):
Between what he thinks he can acquire for himself with
his sexuality and what he feels confident and able to
say it. He's just like this, like liar, he he's
unable to like sacrament anything because he doesn't actually know
what he wants and he can't put that to words.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Yeah, feels so tom Cruise coded, Like it's so well cast. Yeah,
like it's wild, especially like watching it more carefully to
get ready for this, the like effortlessness that he lives
with or like takes advantage of his own station power
how he's perceived. He's like, you have to talk.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
I'm a doctor with his doctor card. I'm a doctor
like they're cops. No, literally, I'm like, are you like this?
SVU was so funny doctor.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Clashing his like medical ID card as if he's like
an FBI agent, being like, here's my credential.

Speaker 5 (23:37):
Literally, men in black.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
It's so so great.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Bill is listening to this story that Alice is telling
about how she fantasized about having an affair with this
stranger basically, and Bill does not like this story, and
he thinks about it for the rest of the movie.
But then he gets a phone call that a patient

(24:04):
of his, a man named Lou, had just passed away,
so Bill goes to pay his respects. He's imagining the
naval officer having sex with his wife on the way,
and then when Bill gets there, Lou's daughter Marion is sad,

(24:25):
of course, but she also kisses Bill and tells him
that she loves him, and he's like, we barely know
each other. But this like reinforces what Alice had just
told him. As far as like if you men only
knew how women are horny too, right, and this.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Is another moment, and then I hopefully there was like,
fans of this movie, you are gonna be like Jamie
is a dumb ass. But I really do like I
was getting fully pilled as I was watching it this
time where she's acting irrationally right, her hair is styled
to look like Nicole Kidman's, and then her husband to
be shows up and he right his style. He kind

(25:06):
of like Tom Cruise completely, So I think he's just
like projecting mirror images everywhere he goes, and like once
she says it, every woman acts irrationally horny towards him,
And like, I just think that that conversation with Alice
breaks his brain and then the rest of his of
the movie is like him having this weird protracted dream

(25:27):
trying to process and like failing to process that information.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
Yeah, I like that theory.

Speaker 6 (25:31):
I like that too, And it just shows the like
lack of totality that he sees any women as where
it's like my wife is, you know, the mother and
my children. It's kind of this like virginize Mary, and
then you're you just kind of like like you're saying
project that onto every other woman that you see, because
you only understand women as a role that they inherently

(25:53):
already negotiate with you.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah. And it's like his own insecurity too, because it's
like he's lying and almost cheating on her so many times.
But he never closes too, which I found was interesting.

Speaker 5 (26:05):
He's a he can't close.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
He is he can't close, but he's somehow irrationally presented
with infinite opportunities. Like I'm just like, this isn't really
I don't know, I kind of I'm like, is this
my favorite movie?

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Now?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (26:20):
It's good? It's good?

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Yeah, Okay. So he leaves the home of this patient
of his who has just passed away, and a sex
worker named Domino played by Vanessa Shaw of hocus Pocus fame.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Oh what a what a career?

Speaker 4 (26:39):
Right? She approaches him and he goes home with her,
but decides not to go through having sex with her
because he gets a call from Alice asking when he'll
be home.

Speaker 5 (26:52):
So a woman's intuition.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yeah, So he leaves Domino's place and goes to the
jazz club where his friend Nick Nightingale had mentioned he
was playing, and Nick tells Bill about this other gig
he's playing later that night. It doesn't start until two am.
He won't know the address until like an hour before

(27:16):
he has to play blindfolded, so it's all very secretive,
although Nick says he did get a sneak peek last
time and the women at this party were so hot.

Speaker 6 (27:27):
I think there's a fun moment in that scene too,
where like a lot of this movie is Tom Cruise
being really naive, and I think it's like I've been
trying to like parse out what that is and like
why this character has such like an intense naivete Where
like in that scene where where Nick's.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
Like, I'm blindfolded, He's like, what.

Speaker 6 (27:48):
You're playing blindfolded, where it's like he goes for two
and a half hours, he's just being like defiled and
defiled and defiled, and it's like unable to meet the
like libid in that of the world. For some reason,
he like can't quite find the dance of this like
defamatory nature of society that he's been so repressed towards

(28:11):
because he's been like a man who's a doctor with
a wife and a daughter.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Right, it's oh, God, he's a Bill is a mystery.
Yeah not when I not when I'm eager to see solved.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
Defense. I don't care because I don't care about him at.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
All, right, right, like this is whatever's going on with
him is none of my business. I just like, best
of luck to Helena. At least their family is rich
enough that she'll be able to afford therapy later.

Speaker 6 (28:38):
Yes, she'll have a wonderful Lakhanian psychoanalyst who she'll pretend
to be her father or something.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
That has to be Oh god, someone had to have
done that sketch at some point, like if your parents
were the eyes wide shot parents.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
I love that. I love that.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
Oh that's great.

Speaker 5 (28:57):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
So Nick is telling Bill all about this secret party,
and Bill is very intrigued, especially after Nick receives a
phone call with the password for the party, which is Fidelio.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah. I thought it was going to be Apple. I
thought it was going to be the Da Vinci code.

Speaker 4 (29:14):
Not quite the Da Vinci code.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
No Da Vinci code has.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
It's really like Pee Wee's Playhouse, Like the word of
the day is Fidelio.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
So Bill begs Nick to let him join, and Nick
is reluctant, and he says that Bill couldn't even get
in the party with the clothes he's wearing because everyone
is always costumed and masked. So Bill goes to a
costume shop, even though it's like nearly two am at
this point, but he convinces the owner, mister Millich, to

(29:52):
let him in.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
This guy.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
And this is when Bill starts flashing his medical ID
card around everywhere. He'll do it like three more times.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
You need to give me a sex costume.

Speaker 5 (30:03):
I'm after, all right, it's an emergency.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
It's a medical emergency. I need to go to a
sex party on.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Long Island as a notorious chiefs Gate. I was just
keeping a tap, like I was trying to do that.

Speaker 5 (30:19):
He was spent.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
I did the math. So much money in nineteen ninety
nine money he's spent like seven hundred dollars or something like.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
I think that it's closer to nine hundred dollars.

Speaker 5 (30:30):
And that what like two days just in the one
night wow.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
Because he pays one hundred and fifty dollars to Domino.
He pays one hundred and fifty dollars for the costume rental,
plus an additional two hundred dollars over the rental price,
plus twenty five dollars for the mask that he loses,
the eighty dollars for the taxi to the party, plus

(30:54):
one hundred dollars over the meter, plus whatever the meter
costs while the driver waits for him, which is probably
another like seventy five eighty bucks, plus presumably another eighty
dollars to take him back to the city.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
He's gonna write it off. He's gonna write it off.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Research research, Yeah right, yeah, as researching bodies. I'm a doctor, exactly,
researching boobs.

Speaker 5 (31:16):
I'm a doctor.

Speaker 4 (31:18):
And that doesn't even include the beer he bought at
the jazz club or the taxi to the costume shop.
So when you do all that math, I think it's
around nine hundred dollars that he spent that one night.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
Must be nice.

Speaker 5 (31:31):
Yeah, that would have really put me back. Yeah, that
would put me back. That could be That would be
a lot hard.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
I'd be upset, especially if you spent it doing just
thinking about cheating on your wife and you.

Speaker 5 (31:44):
Didn't even get laid. You spent nine hundred dollars you
didn't even get laid, babe.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Oh many such cases, I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
Right, okay. So Bill rents a tuxedo, a cloak with
a hood, and a Venetian mask. There's also a part
here which we'll just get to later in the discussion
where mister Millich discovers his teenage question mark daughter played
by Lee Sobieski, with two older men, and we will

(32:13):
address this, but I'm just going to kind of breeze
past it here. So Bill heads to this party, still
imagining the naval officer railing his wife. The party ends
up being in a mansion somewhere secluded.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
You said Long Island, definitely, definitely.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
He gives the password Fidelio and is admitted. Wearing his
cloak and mask. He enters and sees what is clearly
some secret society. There are dozens of others in masks
and black cloaks. There's a leader in a red cloak
doing some ritual with a group of masked women who

(32:57):
disrobe and then choose a partner who they go off
with for sex. And one of the women who has
this big feathery mask chooses Bill, but it becomes clear
that she only approached him to warn him that he
doesn't belong there. He's in grave danger and he must leave. Immediately.

(33:23):
It is not clear how she knows this, and it
might just be because Bill is dreaming this whole thing,
but she seems to know that he doesn't belong there,
so she warns him to leave, but someone else comes
and pulls her aside, so Bill continues exploring. He goes
into the other rooms of the house where several people

(33:44):
are having sex others are watching. He's like a wooga
and then the woman with the big feathery mask comes
back and reiterates the danger that he and possibly she
are in. Then a masked man approaches Bill and brings
him to the main room, where surprise, everyone is staring

(34:08):
at him, and the leader in the red cloak kind
of puts Bill on trial, knowing that he wasn't invited
and he's not supposed to be there.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
So that doesn't happen at the party's Caitlin, it doesn't happen.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Yeah, you don't walk into her room and suddenly all
eyes are on you and they're like, you don't belong here.

Speaker 5 (34:28):
Yeah, uniquely ridiculed.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
I love that that happens if you're like Cinderella or
Tom Cruise, an eyes wide shut where all all of
a sudden, yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
So they make him take off his mask, revealing his identity,
and just then the feather mask woman says, stop, let
him go take me instead. I'm stop.

Speaker 5 (34:54):
Stop.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
She says, I'm ready to redeem him, and it's implied
that she he is sacrificing her life to let Bill live.
So they let Bill go free, but warn him not
to tell anyone what he has seen or try to
investigate anything or else he and his family will suffer

(35:16):
dire consequences. So Bill returns home and he comes into
the bedroom where Alice is laughing in her sleep, and
he wakes her up, and she proceeds to tell him
about a dream she was having where long story short,
she was having sex with the naval officer and then

(35:37):
a bunch of other men in front of Bill in
the dream. And he does not like this either.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
I'll be it now, listen. I'm pro I'm Alice till
I die. But I was like, what I have shared
that whole dream with him?

Speaker 6 (35:52):
I would have waited until coffee the next morning, at
least I would have done it over continental breakfast, maybe
some grapefruit with some brown shoes.

Speaker 5 (36:01):
That's a morning conversation. That's not nighttime I would need to.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Yeah, I would be like, let me just process that,
let me process that.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
Right.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
So cut to the next day and Bill he's running
some errands, including going to try to talk to Nick Nightingale,
and he finds the hotel where he's staying. Alan Cumming
is at the front desk telling Bill that Nick has
already checked out and two big scary men were with

(36:29):
him and it seemed like they were threatening him. And
then Bill goes to return the costume that he had rented,
although he forgot the mask somewhere. There's more to this
leey Sobieski subplot that again we'll revisit later. And then
Bill goes to the mansion where the party took place,

(36:52):
or at least he's at the front gate, where someone
brings him an envelope with his name on it, inside
of which is a letter telling him to stop his inquiries.
And this is his second and final warning.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
It occurred to me, I mean, it's just it's because
Halloween was two weeks ago. But like the note, another
good Halloween cost him just to dress up as the
note that Tom Cruz to see that.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
Would be really good.

Speaker 6 (37:20):
It can be a couple's costume where it's that note
and then the other note that is in the Jersey
Shore that is, yes, the Jersey Shore note would also.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
Be really, wait, what's that?

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Oh it's I can't repeat that can't be repeated in full.

Speaker 6 (37:34):
But it's a note that I'm pretty sure. Snooky writes
to Sammy, saying that she's been cheated on by Ronnie. Yes,
oh yes, and it's read aloud equally dramatically, Caitlyn.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
It used to be like hung as a banner at
the iHeartRadio offices in La We had a banner of
it hanging up.

Speaker 4 (37:54):
If I saw it, I didn't register that that's what
it was.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Yeah, I think they eventually took it down. It's some
pretty fucked up stuff. But I did see someone dressed
up as the note that Carrie Bradshaw gets, the post
it note, the post it breakup note. It's like, sorry,
I can't so many notes.

Speaker 6 (38:17):
A note of men being disappointing. Yes, yes, it can
start with like magna karta and it's kind of.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Declaration of it dependent I mean, yes, anyway, the note iconic.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Okay, So Bill returns home, Alice is helping their daughter
with math homework famously, and I think the only scene
that passes the Bechdel test. But all Bill can think
about is the dream Alice told him about all the
men she was fucking. So he leaves again and pays

(38:55):
a visit to Domino. She's not home, but her roommate
Sally is, who invites him in, and she's like very
close to him and being flirty. The vibe is horny,
but then she reveals that Domino just got some blood
test results back and they were HIV positive, So the

(39:16):
mood shifts and he's like, oh, I'm sorry to hear that,
and he leaves notices a man is following him, so
he like ducks into a restaurant where he reads a
newspaper clipping that a beauty queen named Amanda was admitted
to the hospital after a drug overdose. So Bill goes

(39:37):
to the hospital. He's still flashing his medical ID card everywhere.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
I'm like, can that get you into the more?

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Like, I mean, of anything that would make the most
sense to me? Why he shows a diner staff member.

Speaker 5 (39:53):
Funny, but I feel like he.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
Was just trying to like class intimidate her there to
be like I'm more important than you. You have to
do what I say, I feel like he's really really
sly with taking advantage of people he feels are less
important than him.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
Right, because he does the same thing to Alan Cumming
at the front desk with the hotel.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
And Alan Coming's being such a little weirdo and I
love it. He's like, I guess something weird happened, but
I don't know. You're like, what is this trickster? What
is this trickster persona?

Speaker 4 (40:25):
I read that Alan Cumming auditioned for this role six
times before they cast him.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
I also love King because he's doing like an American accent,
which I think is so funny. But it's like, I
feel like his lilt is really present as he's getting
more kind of like curious in the way that he's
discussing everything.

Speaker 5 (40:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
No, it's it's very much like Twink who has been
up since the night before.

Speaker 5 (40:47):
Yeah, like, that's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
My boyfriend works the night shift at a hotel and
I made him watch the scene with me. I'm like,
so it's like that, right, and that happens. He's like, yes, site,
that is how I behave and that is the job.

Speaker 5 (41:02):
That is the job.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Okay. So Bill goes to the hospital and discovers that
this woman, Amanda, who was admitted for the drug overdose,
died earlier that day, and he sees her body in
the morgue and he suspects it's the same woman at
the sex cult party who had warned him and offered

(41:25):
to redeem him. Then he gets a call from Victor Ziegler,
the host of the party that happens at the beginning
of the movie. He invites Bill over to tell him
that he knows what happened the night before at the
Horny Illuminati party because Victor was there.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
He's like, come over, I have some plot to share
with you.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
Yeah, and Victor Ziegler is like, you've got the wrong
idea about what's going on. No one's dead. It was
all stage to scare you into staying quiet about what
you've seen. And Bill is like, well, what about the
dead woman I just saw at.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
The morgue who seems to be Mandy from the beginning
of the story.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
Okay, see, I think to me, that's a different woman. Yeah,
I feel like they did not have the same face.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
I agree.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yeah, well, okay, interesting because I sort of assumed this
was the first time, but that I was like Amanda Man,
I'm like, is it the same person? Weird that they
would give her such a similar name in that.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
Well, Ziegler says like, that is the same woman, and she.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
I guess I shouldn't have believed him.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Right, So he's trying to play it off as like, oh,
you know she has addiction issues. You know that because
you saw her overdosed at my party and it had
nothing to do with her sacrificing herself for you at
the cult party. But I think he's lying because that
they have the same hair color. But I don't think

(43:01):
that's the same woman.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
But also she's like completely blue even though she died
at three forty five. Today she's like she looks like
she's been smurf.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
Cry of she's more dead and she has a different
face than the other woman.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
So who knows? Who knows?

Speaker 4 (43:17):
Yeah, so you know, Bill doesn't really know what to believe,
and everything is very suspicious. But he returns home and
the mask that he had rented and misplaced is in
the bed next to a sleeping Alice. Apparently she had
found the mask and was going to ask him about it,

(43:37):
and so he bursts into tears and he's like, I'll
tell you everything. Cut to Bill having told her everything.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
I kind of liked that we didn't need to watch that. Well,
I guess we saw it.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yeah, it's like the movie's already long enough.

Speaker 5 (43:53):
Yeah, I know that's true.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
So she's very upset. They're both crying, and then they
have to take their daughter Christmas shopping that day. So
while they're like roaming around the toy store, Bill and
Alice have a conversation about their future, if they're going
to stay together or split up, and they're speaking so
cryptically that I'm not really sure what they decide. But

(44:16):
the conversation ends with Alice saying I do love you
and there's one thing we need to do as soon
as possible. And Bill is like, ah what and Alice says.

Speaker 5 (44:28):
Fuck blackout the end.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
I forgot that's how it ended. And I was like,
I he got me, he got me.

Speaker 5 (44:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (44:37):
No, Kubrick's last movie ever ending with fuck is so good,
like that iconic.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
As a famously not fucky guy.

Speaker 5 (44:47):
Yes, it's just fuck. Oh yeah, So that's the great recap.

Speaker 4 (44:53):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much. That's the movie.
Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
This US and we're back baby, with everyone's permission. I
want to start with the source material for this, which
I did not know very much about, but the title

(45:22):
of it does support my theory because it's based on
novella called trom Novelle by Arthur Schnitzler, which translates to
dream story. But I think, I mean, there are the
eyeswey shut does like follow the story pretty closely. The
original story is set in Vienna during Marty Gral like

(45:44):
you said earlier, Caitlin. Obviously it's switched to be in
New York around Christmas. I think that the character of
Victor Ziegler is added, but other than that, it follows
the beats of the story, just adjusting for time period
and location.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
But the thing that is worth mentioning that I don't
feel like, you know, qualified to like intelligently comment on,
but it is something that has been written about a lot,
is the fact that Arthur Schnitzler was a Jewish author.
Their original work was published in nineteen twenty six. I
don't think it is explicitly stated that the lead character

(46:25):
in Traub Novelle is Jewish, but it is heavily implied
it's a character named Friedolin, and in that exchange we
were talking about earlier, that is changed in Eyeswide Shut
to be a group of like homophobic frat bros yelling
at Tom Cruise. Originally that's a group of like anti
Semitic men harassing freedom. And so it's like it's suggested

(46:46):
that he's Jewish, and like Schnitzler was like a you know,
would frequently write about Jewish characters, was an openly Jewish
author to the point where his works were like banned
in Nazi Germany. Like he was persona non and was
a close friend of Freud, which also I feel like
explains a lot of the treat Yeah, I highly so

(47:10):
much of this information is coming from that broidational video.
She did like an incredible job of contextualizing that. But
just worth mentioning that. Stanley Kuprick is a Jewish director
who was in the sort of this weird Infinity War
with his co writer Frederick Raphael, who there's a lot
of funny clips because I think that they were both

(47:33):
kind of egomaniacs and like Kubrick wanted to change a
lot of Rafael's script. Raphael was also a Jewish writer
and wanted to retain the implied Judaism of the lead character,
but Kubrick was pretty adamant that it be removed and
that this character be changed to be like a wasp,
which is obviously who we end up with. So there's

(47:56):
been a lot written by Jewish writers about like Stanley
kuprick relationship to his Jewishness. But I just think it's
worth mentioning, and that the character that he adds, Victor Ziegler,
who is not a great guy, isn't the only character
who's implied to be Jewish in the story. So yeah,

(48:16):
I just wanted to start with that. I didn't know
this was an adaptation of anything.

Speaker 5 (48:21):
But most of Kubrick's work is I believe too.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Yeah, and I guess there's other I can't pull it
off the top of my head because I am not
a Kubrick completionist, but I guess this is not the
only example of Kubrick taking a Jewish character, or even
an implied Jewish character, and being like, I want to
change it. So you know, he was not like very
into talking about his personal life, so we'll never know,

(48:47):
but it is worth mentioning and has come up a
lot because it caused a lot of friction within the
writing team because I think Frederick Grafael was like, why
the fuck not. Kubrick was like, now, so we'll never know.
But and then the only other really shift from the
source material is that Eyes Wide Shut does sort of

(49:09):
shift the perspective to follow Bill throughout where it's like,
the height of the dramatic action in the book is
the Alice is Albertina in the book whatever, but like
the height of the action is related to her. But
in the book they add in, you know, like another
sex party and his like return and all that. So

(49:33):
that's the source material. That's my little background.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Yeah, very interesting context. I couldn't find anything to the
effect of why Kubrick chose to remove the elements of
Judaism from the source material. At first, I was like, oh, no,
is it because he's anti Semitic? And then I learned
that he came from a Jewish family but did not

(49:58):
practice like he decided did at some point in his
life that he was not going to be a practicing
Jew and considered himself to be an atheist. So I
don't know if like that informed anything. I'm a yeah,
we don't know, but I don't know.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
We'll never know why the change was made, but I
was kind of pleased to hear that the story translated
to dream story, and I was like, it's not really right,
it's all made up.

Speaker 5 (50:23):
Well, if it is a dream, when when does he
wake up?

Speaker 3 (50:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
That's the word fuck the fat the fuck rouses him back.
He's like, finally I can fuck it's in two and
a half hours.

Speaker 6 (50:36):
I know.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Yeah, we've This really is like a grand odyssey of
watching Tom Cruise not close edge.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
Yeah, it's an edge off, definitely really wild.

Speaker 4 (50:48):
So that theory, which I like, and I feel like
it makes a lot of sense. Applying that lens to it,
you're like, oh, yes, this tracks as far as the
way Bill perceives women and what he thinks about them,
as far as their role in society and their role

(51:08):
in his personal life and things like that. If you
remove that lens, you're like, oh, this is a movie
full of characters who are women who are not well developed.
Their functions in the story are to just behave bizarrely
around Tom Cruise's character, and so if you just look

(51:30):
at it very face value through that lens, you're just like, oh, yeah,
this is a movie that doesn't seem to respect women,
But when looking at it through the lens of oh no,
this is how this particular character perceives women and prescribed
gender roles and all of that, then you're like, oh,
actually this might be brilliant.

Speaker 6 (51:50):
The disembodiment of women is so on the nose where
it's like there's that one quick scene where he's at
work and it's just like a topless woman and he
has like a stethoscope like in between her boobs. It's like,
we all know you don't actually have to get fully
topless when someone's taking your heart beat with stetho scope, you.

Speaker 5 (52:07):
Know what I mean. Like it's just so on the
nose that it does. It just is satirical, you know.
It's like it's such a chriacaterre.

Speaker 6 (52:14):
It's so over the top where it's like women don't
even have faces half the time when you're talking to them,
Like it's.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Just they all kind of look the same, like.

Speaker 5 (52:23):
There's one type of body.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
It's all white, white, all white New York City.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
And also for so much of the movie it's like
New York is empty. Yeah, Like that's the other thing
that I was like this is not happening because there's
no one on the street of like Manhattan right in
the West Villae Saturday.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
Night except for one man who's following him.

Speaker 5 (52:46):
Yeah, but yeah, I agree.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
It's like the way that I when we were watched,
when I saw that doctor scene where she's completely topless,
I'm like, I know, a fourteen year old boy saw
this and was like, I'm going to be a doctor.

Speaker 5 (52:56):
Literally, I want to see so many boobs.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Right, Yeah, you're like, you're you're in. You're in for
a surprise, my friend. Not a sexy environment. But I
also I like, I wonder how intentional this was, but
it did, like I don't know, like having had a
lot of you know, like I know we've all had
our experiences with like doctors who are not like listening
to us, or like, you know, the fact that he

(53:22):
is the first line of defense, and it doesn't seem
like he's a bad doctor to be fair, Like anytime
there's like an opportunity, if there's like someone who needs
his help, he does do it. Like I think that's
part of what's complicated about Bill is like he is
deeply misogynistic and like baffled by women but he's not
like necessarily a bad person.

Speaker 5 (53:44):
He's just incredibly insecure. He's just so so so insecure because.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
It seems like he's good at his job and he
does care about it and and like you know, and
even in the opening sequence when he like you know,
prioritizes like we have to take care of Mandy. I
was really struck by that, Like you know, when Ziegler
is like, Okay, can I get the fuck out of here?
And he's like, no, you have to stay here for
an hour and make sure that she gets home safe.
And like he is, you know, very professional about what

(54:12):
he does, but doing that all while having these like
base assumptions about how his patients see the world. You're like, oh,
that's a lot of doctors.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
Yes, I had a doctor who not a man. It
was a doctor who's a woman because women can uphold
the patriarchy to But when I told her that, like
my libido was disappearing, She's like, well, do you have
a partner? And I said no, And she said, well
then how do you know that you don't have a libido? Yeah? Oh,

(54:48):
I was like what do you mean? And how can
you be a doctor and also think that like what.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
Where did you come from?

Speaker 4 (54:57):
It's still the most shocking thing it has ever happened
to be in a doctor's office at least, and.

Speaker 5 (55:02):
I'm like, is she a nun like? Were you at
a nunnery? I'm so confused.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
No, it was just a regular ass doctor's office. But
it was truly I had, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
We talked to I think I brought this up on
the show recently, but I had, like, I found like
a lump in my breast a couple of months ago
that thankfully was nothing, but I went to have it
tested and then I went back to my primary care
and she was like, you know, you should try being
happier because sometimes depression causes breast lumps.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
And I was like, no, you can't see advice.

Speaker 5 (55:31):
No, Well I'm good on that, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
So there are many examples of doctor we're saying is
women shouldn't be doctors. That's like Caitlin and I are
trying to be.

Speaker 5 (55:42):
Or also women shouldn't go to the doctor.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
Don't go.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
You're not safe either way, don't go, don't become one.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Take your chances, take your chances.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
So, yes, Bill seems to be a decent doctor for
all intents and purposes, but he does have all of
these assumptions about women that he is not considering from
a like medical or scientific point of view. He's just like, oh, well,
I've just always heard that, because I mean, the whole

(56:14):
movie happens because he's made assumptions about his wife because
of her gender. And then when he learns that Alice
has sexual desires for other people throughout their marriage, which
is a like normal and human thing, which we know
because he also does it and knows all the time, right.

Speaker 6 (56:36):
Right, Yeah, that really is the catalyst for the entire movie,
is that she's like once ahead a sex dream during
fleet week and he's like, well, I'm going to enter
a secret society now and I'm gonna kill my h
how dare you do that? And then during that fight
he's like, I don't get jealous, and then it's like
this jealousy fueled like underworldean event that like procures after.

Speaker 4 (56:57):
Yeah, he is so emasculated that he tries to join
a secret sex cult about it. He cannot handle.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Try and fails. I've actually failed to join it. Like
he is turned out of the Illuminati. They're like, sorry,
you can't hang.

Speaker 5 (57:12):
You have weird vibes. It's like you have weird vibes.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
No, And I mean even his again, I wonder how
intentional it was, but like even his fantasizing about her
cheating on him, it feels like weirdly juvenile. Like it's like, yeah,
you know, he's imagining her like basically having wild sex
with a guy in a like navy eye party outfit.

(57:39):
Like it just feels very like his conception of sex is.

Speaker 5 (57:42):
So high school.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Yeah, like so yeah, so naive and so very blue.

Speaker 4 (57:49):
Yeah, the flashbacks are very blue, and yeah, it's like
this very muscular, handsome fit man that she's having sex with.
And I read that Koup like directed those scenes to
be like as pornographic as possible. And I hope that
there was like an intimacy coordinator and that Nicole Kidman
and the man and you know, everyone involved felt comfortable.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
But I was able to find this was I was like,
of course they didn't ask her, but that Tom Cruise
was not allowed to go to those filming sessions. Yeah,
but it wasn't clear if that was Kubrick cucking him
again or if Nicole Kidman didn't want him there, both
of which are possible.

Speaker 5 (58:28):
Oh that's so interesting, but like, of course.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
No one asked her, right right, right right. People speculate
that Kubrick like wanted to stir up drama on the
set to like make the performances more realistic.

Speaker 5 (58:41):
He's so messy.

Speaker 6 (58:43):
I'm like, okay, he is a def okay, defaut. That's
very like Andy Cohen of him. He's like, I'm gonna
stir the pot like you're, yeah, the Real Housewives of
Eyes wise shot.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
He's like the pot.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
I kind of love that. He's like, Okay, I've got
I've got eighteen months to live. What can I get done?

Speaker 5 (59:00):
Like he's like, can I get two of the most
famous people on earth to get divorced?

Speaker 3 (59:05):
I won't be around to experience like your last wish.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
It's so traumatic.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
That's so that's diabah god. I kind of am like
if I knew, because I also confuse it because this
is his last movie, but like unclear if he knew
he didn't have much time to live while he was
making it, but if he did, fan theory, he's like,
as my last act, I'm gonna make two famous people divorce.

Speaker 6 (59:30):
Like I also was on his Wikipedia before this, and
I read in his personal life section that he was
infamously distrustful of doctors. Really, oh yes, so maybe that
is present and this conversation as well. He's like, I
got to cock the doctor for my last movie.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Oh also, and uh, because Katelyne, I know you were
talking about this before we started recording. But this this
was like this was kind of like Kubrick's Megalopolis kind
of like this was a story that he had the
rights to for like thirty years. He envisioned it in
all of these different ways with different actors. Like there

(01:00:07):
was a point where he was gonna have Woody Allen
in it. Glad he didn't. Oh interesting, there was a
point where it was going to be more of like
a comedy with Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman,
Warren Batty, Albert Brooks, Alan Alda, Sam Shepherd. Like he
had like fifty different conceptions of what.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
This Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger because he was like
really interested in having a real life married couple play
the married couple. Yeah, but then he finally, I mean,
in the nick of time, he did it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
But it was it was interesting too, because I mean
I don't know, it's interesting to kind of speculate, like
what drew him to this story so strongly, And I
guess also his his wife, whose name is Christiane Harlan.
She sort of was like, he wanted to adapt this
in I think the seventies, and she was like, it's

(01:01:00):
a little too early into our marriage to like be
making something like that for my comfort level. And He's like, Okay,
i'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait. And so it was
like sort of in deference to her, because she was
like worried about how it would reflect on their marriage
as they were raising kids together, and so there were
all these reasons he waited, but it seems like it

(01:01:21):
came together the way it should have.

Speaker 5 (01:01:23):
Yeah, so he had to wait along too. So he
was also getting cocked by his own movie.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
He was true edging himself.

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):
Yeah, big time. Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:01:32):
He also apparently considered this movie to be his greatest
contribution to the art of cinema. Oh wow, And I'm like,
I mean, it's a good movie, but I'm like, you
made like two thousand and one and Doctor Strange Love
and stuff, but sure, this maybe is the best of them.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
He's i mean, good for him.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
That.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
I mean, I imagine having a body of work that
strong that you're like Oswood shut and it's kind of
mid tier, like because.

Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
It's so good. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I just I
find the character fascinating as far as like his perception
of gender and sex and how men and women are different.
I feel like we had a similar conversation about the
Inception episode where it's hard to evaluate the characters who

(01:02:19):
are women in that movie, and specifically mal the marrying
Courtyard character, because it's like Leonardo DiCaprio's characters projection of
his wife rather than who she actually is, And so
a lot of that is also arguably present in this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
That's the Christopher Nolan cheat code. He's like, you never
need to learn how to write a woman.

Speaker 7 (01:02:42):
Character's not real, She's a projection, right, So I think
there's a strong argument to be made that that's how
to read this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
That when we see Alice, she is mostly a kind
of like fever dream projection of what bills.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
And she's also like always in bed. She's like literally like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
In bed, in bed, crying, wearing the same outfit.

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):
Yeah, she's just asleep or crying.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Yeah, even the way like the way. That's such a
good point. Like the way she's costumed is either it's
very Madonna horror Like it's either she is like in
bed crying in a sheer top, which she looks great in,
or she's like wearing her glasses and a turtleleg and
she's being a mother and a wife. Like there's just
I really feel like he's just totally unable to see
her as either a sex object or a like quote

(01:03:35):
unquote woman doing what woman does. And yeah, again expanding
on this theory, I feel like we see the real
her at the very beginning of the movie, but the
second they have that argument, he just like his brain
breaks because we see her. I mean it's like, you know,
she's Nicole kidman. She looks great no matter what. But
it does feel like it's very specific. It's hard in
one direction or hard in the other. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:03:57):
I think that's true because.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
I don't know about y'all, but I'm not sleeping in
a sheer top like I'm sleeping in a large T shirt. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
Cozy, it's good to be cozy.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yeah, especially if I've been married for ten years. Right, Yeah,
you're not catching me dead in a sheer top. I'm
so sorry.

Speaker 6 (01:04:12):
But yeah, on that first scene where she's dancing with
that older guy who's trying to sleep with her, like
she's really dynamic, Like you're watching a woman negotiate her morality,
her values, her ethics, like in real time, like both
as they reflect as her as a wife, but also
like her as a sexual being as well.

Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
But it really is. Yeah, when Jamie's saying, I guess
maybe it is.

Speaker 6 (01:04:38):
A dream, even though I don't want it to be
a dream, is that once she snaps and she's the
only one in that argument that is honest about her desires,
then she just kind of becomes sleeping beauty and she's just.

Speaker 5 (01:04:51):
Kind of like relegated to the bed, the bedroom, right.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
Yeah, And if we see her at the beginning, we
see her like on the toilet, we see her just
like seeming more normal than she does for the rest
of the movie.

Speaker 5 (01:05:03):
Totally.

Speaker 4 (01:05:04):
Yeah, during that scene where she's dancing with that man
at the party and you know he's being he's coming
on very strong, but she seems into it. She's receptive
to it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
They're vibing, Yeah, they're vibing.

Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
And she tells him like, oh, I'm actually looking for
a job. I used to run an art gallery in Soho,
and he's like, oh, you like art, Let's talk about
art and da da da, and so like, I could
see why she would take an interest in him, and
she does seem to consider like going upstairs with him,
and maybe that would lead to sex. We're not sure.

(01:05:37):
But then you know, she's like, oh, right, I'm married
to Tom Cruise.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
I better go well, especially, it's like if you could,
I haven't even thought of that, but like if you're
considering like he, you know, we never see Bill ask
her about how she's feeling about work, Like, he clearly
has no interest in her having a career, and so
it's like, of course you would be kind of I mean,
especially if you're like kind of fucked up, and it's

(01:06:04):
like a hot old guy, you know, like someone who
asks you about yourself. Of course you're gonna be interested
in that person, right, And.

Speaker 6 (01:06:11):
Then out of the corner of her eye, she's watching him,
like Tom Cruise laugh with those models.

Speaker 5 (01:06:16):
You know, he's like, haa so gregarious.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
It's like my cuck husband, I've got to get out
of here.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
Yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 4 (01:06:25):
And then just to kind of like walk through the
beats of the conversation that like is the catalyst that
gets him to have this this meltdown, fever dream kind
of thing, you know, where she says, yeah, that guy
wanted sex, and she was perfectly honest about it, again,
because she's able to be honest with him about her

(01:06:47):
feelings and about like, you know, uncomfortable truths or kind
of taboo things that you're quote unquote not supposed to acknowledge,
such as how even when you're in a committed anogamous relationship,
many people still have sexual desires for other people. And again,
that's a perfectly normal part of the human experience. And

(01:07:11):
Alice is able to be honest about these things and
Bill is not, because he's like, I'm never jealous. Meanwhile,
the rest of the movie is him being so jealous
and jealous, right, but anyway, so she's like, yeah, he
wanted to have sex with me, and Bill's like, yeah,
men are like that, not me though, I'm the exception.

(01:07:32):
I wasn't even flirting with those two beautiful models because
I'm married to you. And she's like, okay, so you
did want to have sex with them, and you just
wouldn't fuck them out of consideration for me, like, what's
what are you saying?

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Well, she's like trying to have a conversation with them,
She's trying to get him to like it seems like
she would be happier if he just admitted that and
they could talk about it openly, but like he's just
too closed off for sure.

Speaker 6 (01:08:00):
She had her copy of Like Polly Secure like right
behind her back, was about to bust it out, but
then the conversation didn't go well, so she buried it.

Speaker 4 (01:08:09):
This is a couple that probably should just, I don't know,
try polyamory and see.

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
Oh to a swingers party, put your keys in a bowl,
figure something out, and they.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
Literally did, and like I just write, I yeah, And
I think, Caitlin, you said this earlier. I was like,
in my mind, for some reason, there was another sex
party and she went back, and so I kind of
like I was like, oh, no, she never gets to
do fucking anything, And I think that, like it's interesting
that I don't know. My memory was that, oh, she

(01:08:39):
must do something wrong at some point. She never does
anything wrong. She has a sex dream. That is all
she does.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
Yeah, right, She tells him about different sexual desires she
has or dreams, which again normal human thing for someone
who is a sexual being, right, And she also conveys like,
I have never acted on this, Like I'm not acting
on these desires. I'm just having them the way a
sexual person has sexual desires for people.

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
And then he blames the pot. Yeah, okay, these pots.

Speaker 4 (01:09:13):
Most hilarious line, classic pot, classic pot, classic pots, always
making people so aggressive, and then yeah, she says, like,
what about you when you're with your patients touching their
breasts like.

Speaker 5 (01:09:30):
And he's like, no, no, no, I don't think like
he's he's so offended.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
Meanwhile, we've seen him.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
He's like, I do make all of my patients take
their tops off, right so I can hear their heart beat.
I'm waiting for them to ask why, but they just happen.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
Yeah, right, And then she's like, well, what about those
women in your office looking at the handsome doctor And
he says women don't think like that, and she's like, oh,
so you think that women only care about security and commitment,
and then this is and she launches into the story
about the naval officer, and so it's just yeah, him
like making all of these very prescriptive assumptions about his

(01:10:09):
partner because he just is like, yeah, this is how
women are, and then she sets them straight.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
If you men only knew you're like And I.

Speaker 6 (01:10:17):
Think that's also like part of the Kuckoning, where like
he's at this sex party and I feel like he's
unable to close because it's the first time in his
life that he's understanding women having sexual autonomy.

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
He's like, oh, all.

Speaker 6 (01:10:33):
These women came here alone without their husbands, perhaps, like
they're here on their own volition. Because it's like interesting
too to think about his the relationship of like sex
work in the movie too, where it's like these women's
sexual autonomies are negotiated as part of their career, where

(01:10:54):
like a man is soliciting them, so that's why they
want to have sex. But then at the sex party,
it's like, I don't believe it's implied that these women
are sex workers. So it's like, oh, like they're like
they just want to be here, right, Like a man
didn't ask them to be here.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
Right, Like he can't conceive a woman having sex for
pleasure at all.

Speaker 5 (01:11:15):
Right, all totally yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
His interactions with women.

Speaker 5 (01:11:20):
I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
It's like it's either like if if you're just looking
at the movie, like, these are women in this world?
It makes no sense. I feel like weirdly, the leely
Sobieski character I found very kind of like clarifying, Yeah,
because her character acts so irrationally, especially in her second appearance. Yeah,
we're in the first one. I really wasn't sure. So

(01:11:41):
she's for listeners. She's the daughter of the costume shop owner.
He finds her with two older men and like, you know,
basically threatens to have the two men arrested. But she
like she hides behind Tom Cruise and she's like, hey,
I'm such a little scamp. And you're like, okay, that
could happen in the but it still feels very I

(01:12:03):
don't know, like conception of a woman versus a person
who has reason to be afraid of her father.

Speaker 5 (01:12:09):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
But then when we see her the second time, I
was like, this cannot be real because she says nothing.
She just stares vacantly ahead basically, and the costume shop
owner is like, oh, by the way, I am now
my daughter's pimp, and so if you're interested in having
sex with my possibly underage daughter, just let me know.

(01:12:32):
And she's just staring vacantly ahead. I was like, I
just I do believe. I mean, Stanley Kuprick is not
great at writing women characters. Again, maybe this is his
cheat code, but like it's just so hard to buy
into that we're supposed to take that scene at face
value for me for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:12:50):
Right, I was not sure what to make of these
beats that involve this character. And I was like, Okay, well,
it seems like it's common terry on how people will
abandon their principles for a large sum of money. Because
it's implied that this guy Milleg the costume shop owner,

(01:13:11):
comes to an agreement with these two older men who
he had found his daughter with, and that they were like,
will pay you to not call the cops or you know,
we'll give you all this money, and that's what changes
that dynamic.

Speaker 5 (01:13:27):
And I think it's implied to that he's kind of
like a sleeze bag, valueless guy.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:13:32):
It's like for sure he was able to be like
bought in to Tom coming in after hours, like you know,
he's like a sleazy guy.

Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
Right, And so it's like, oh, well, this guy just
you know, for the right price, he'll like literally sell
out his daughter. And I mean, we see things like
this happening all the time in the real world, that
people are corrupted by greed and wealth. But what didn't
work for me is like first glance is like, well, then,

(01:14:01):
like why is the lely Sobieski character seemingly a gleeful
participant in this scenario? Like that doesn't track at all.
But if it's through the lens of like how Bill's
very warped perception of women is informing why she's behaving
that way, then it tries. And we've seen him shell

(01:14:23):
out a ton of money, right, I think it was
very intentional for him to constantly being like, I'll pay
you two hundred dollars over the rental price, I'll pay
you one hundred dollars over the fare for the taxi.
Like he's he has money to throw around and he
knows he can use it to manipulate people into doing
what he wants, and he does not hesitate to do so.

Speaker 6 (01:14:47):
Yeah, class is really interesting in the movie where I
definitely do think that this is like a movie about
the bourgeoisie. It's like, these are wealthy people with lots
of time and lots of resources, and they're a little bored,
and their boredom allows them the extra time people to
get up to no good, you know what I mean,

(01:15:07):
where it's like I kind of like got that too
in the Alan Cumming scene where he's like a working
person and he's like really like loving the juiciness of
what these rich people in the hotel that he's doing
is getting up too, and he said he's having so
much fun kind of like recounting what he saw, and
even that with like the waitress and even that with
the sex worker. It's like all of these more working

(01:15:29):
class people are just avenues to me to like get
information or get what I want. And they're sexual too,
but they're of less value obviously, right.

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
I was sort of wondering that with like, because I
don't do we ever find out what Victor Ziegler does
for a living?

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
I don't think so, I don't know, Okay, we just
know that he's very wealthy.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
Yeah, so I also almost wondered if, like I mean,
it definitely seems like even though like doctor Bill he's
like weird, I don't know, he's just weird. He's Tom
Cruisey's weird. He's weird, but it does feel like part
of what's tied into his insecurity is like he's rich
and successful, but not as rich and successful. He's still
technically working for others. But even though he is in

(01:16:14):
a different class, he still interfaces with people at the diner.
His connection to the sex party is someone who works
for the sex party. So it's like, true, he's not
invited or necessarily like openly welcomed by like the highest
echelon that it seems like he probably aspires to be
a part of, right, you know, he's he's instead sort

(01:16:35):
of like reveling in his power over people who have
less money than him, as opposed to like you never
really get the feeling that he is fully accepted by
the like one percent one percent until he's causing them problems.
But even then, like Victor Zegler's calling him over at
the end to be like you shouldn't have been there,

(01:16:56):
you don't belong there.

Speaker 5 (01:16:58):
It's another layer of a masculization for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:17:02):
I have to imagine that's why the change was made
for from the source material to have that group of
like agromen. Yeah, call Bill a homophobic slur because that
just emasculates him even further and then excuse me. And
then when he comes back home after the party, after
like the sex party. That's when Alice describes the dream

(01:17:26):
where she was like, yeah, we were naked together. I
was scared you left. I felt so much better after
you left. And then that sexy naval officer came out
of the woods and we started having sex and it
was awesome. It turned into this orgy where I fucked
so many people. I don't even know how many men,
but I was with so many. And then I love

(01:17:47):
her performance. She's like, I'm sorry, hah, Like that's so good, right,
And then she describes in her dream like seeing him
and laughing at him and like wanting to humiliate him.

Speaker 3 (01:17:59):
It's even worse in the source material. In the source material,
while she's fucking other guys, he's crucified.

Speaker 5 (01:18:06):
No, I love that's so good.

Speaker 6 (01:18:12):
Well yeah, it's like even though he's a doctor and
he's wealthy and has a beautiful wife, it's like the
ego wants more. It's like when everything the only way
that you're able to define your worth is by what
you believe you've achieved and like acquired, and he's like
my wife, I like acquired her, Like that's my property,
Like that's an investment.

Speaker 5 (01:18:32):
And my understanding as a man. And when you realize that,
when he realizes that she has desires and dreams outside
of him, he's like, wait, why is my thing thinking
about anything else besides me? I'm about to freak the fuck.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
Out, Like no validation is going to be enough for him,
like no validation from anybody unless he is And I wonder,
I mean, I don't know if in the source material,
like he they have a daughter or son. I know
they have a kid, but it feels kind of also
intentional that he has a young daughter and has no
interest in her whatsoever, right, like another thing to have

(01:19:08):
around the house, and.

Speaker 5 (01:19:10):
Doesn't the daughter look doesn't a cool kitmen too? Like
same hair color ye strawberry blonde? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:19:17):
Yeah, And even though I mean I want to say, like,
you know, it does seem like Alice is a good
and thoughtful parent, but it's like if we're seeing her
through Bill's eyes, we see what Alice is doing almost never,
like we get no insight into what her life is
like except that she isn't working right now and she's
a stay at home mom, and we see her do that.

(01:19:38):
We see her cooking, we see her helping Helena with
her homework. We see her enjoying being a parent, but
we get no insight into her outside of that. And
it's just like, I don't know this. I have no
idea how we're going to rate this, because it's like,
I think this movie has so much to say about
like masculinity and insecurity, but also by design, and it

(01:20:00):
has nothing to say about women because it's about a
man who doesn't understand women at all.

Speaker 5 (01:20:06):
Total people know, Yeah, for sure, right.

Speaker 4 (01:20:09):
I also wasn't sure what to make of the part
where Domino. Yeah, So Bill pays a second visit to Domino.
And also this is right after he has made a
phone call to Marion, the woman whose father had just
passed away, and presumably he's thinking, oh, she was throwing
herself at me, and my wife keeps emasculating me, so

(01:20:32):
that gives me license to cheat on her and try
to have sex with whoever has showed any interest in me.
And so he calls her home. Her fiance answers, so
he hangs up, realizing, oh, that's probably not a viable
option actually, So then he goes back to Domino's.

Speaker 5 (01:20:52):
He's trying every angle. It's like his roster is on zero.
He's like, it's about to be coughing season, and like
I have there's no one around.

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
Miserable he's so he's so desperate. It's like, go, I
refuse to talk to my wife, right.

Speaker 5 (01:21:10):
Exactly, it's so pathetic, right, But.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
Anyway, so he goes to Domino's and her roommate Sally
is there, and he's also trying to have sex with her.
It seems like she's receptive to it as well. Again,
probably because this is a projection of his and not
what's actually really happening.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
Right, because yeah, who would like come on to you
by being like, by the way, my dearest friend is
something horrible. It's just happened to her, like.

Speaker 4 (01:21:40):
Right, Well, the dynamic changes after that, but prior to that,
she lets a perfect stranger into her home, stands like
one inch away from him.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
And also she knows this this information about Domino the
whole time, Like why would you behave that way?

Speaker 5 (01:21:55):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:21:56):
That's how he behaves when he has to tell his
patients that they're like terminally ill.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
Yeah exactly, yeah, right, that news, babe.

Speaker 4 (01:22:06):
But I guess my question is, like why is that
detail in the movie? And I was like Okay, is
it that like the movie has an anti sex worker
prejudice where it's like trying to offer some sort of
cautionary tale of like don't cheat on your wife, especially
not with a sex worker, because then you'll end up

(01:22:28):
with a disease or what exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:22:33):
My take on it is actually further in the Cockinging,
which is like it's Kubrick showing at ever it's like
he's he's he's getting caught from like a like a
societal perspective where it's like you're not like rich enough,
and then like you're getting caught from like an interpersonal
perspective where it's like you don't have enough game you

(01:22:53):
understand your wife, and then then now you're getting caught
from like a cultural perspective where it's like, oh, there's
actually like a bigger conversation that you're not even like
aware of that could also impede you having sex.

Speaker 3 (01:23:06):
Maybe I was curious about that, yeah, because I was
looking into like if there was a version of that
in dream Story, but it doesn't in the book. It
just says he looks for her name's Mitzi in the book,
but he can't find her. So that was like an
intentionally added, right, I couldn't make other tales of it.

(01:23:26):
I think, honey, what you're saying makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 5 (01:23:29):
Because Kubrick doesn't really like he's not like a cautious
man like he's it's kind of like fuck caution and
you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
No, this is the guy who whiffed Lolita at unprecedented levels.

Speaker 5 (01:23:41):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, So I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:23:46):
I thought that scene was curious too and why that
detail would be relevant, But I guess my take on
it was part of Tom Cruise's character's narcissism where he's like, oh,
something else is getting in the way of my nut
and it's aids right.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
And then he's like polite about it, but then gets
the fuck out of there. It doesn't offer it any
further help or anything like totally yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:24:10):
And I mean maybe it's also like part of him
being like a medical professional or something I don't know, right, Well.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
The same way that he doesn't do anything to try
to help the lely Sobiesky character, who yes, like he's
just like, oh weird, the dynamic is shifted.

Speaker 5 (01:24:27):
It's like a concubine tea and he's like gotta go.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Yeah, and he's like, well, sorry about the mask, I've
lost it by what right?

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
Yeah, It's like he a man, I'm like, is this
Vivie so amazing? Where it's like he he always behaves politely,
but that doesn't mean that he's doing the right thing.
He's almost never doing the right thing right.

Speaker 6 (01:24:51):
Well, he only does at the very beginning where it's
like his willingness to help the model Amanda or Mandy
Mandy Mandy, where it's like he he was so willing
to like meet and be the real medical professional, but
as as the time is going on where he has
yet to get laid, he's like, I'm kind of need
to get out of here and go sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:25:11):
Right, And even like it's it's implied that oh, what's
her name, Marion, the daughter of the patient who dies,
It's implied like he's again very polite in extracting himself
from that situation in the moment, but then it's clear
he doesn't actually care because when he feels insecure and
on his heels, he calls her and so it's like

(01:25:34):
he is not above any of this. He just can't
close to save his fucking life, Like I don't know,
curious a curious little movie. I wanted to mention that,
because this movie is so much about tumultuous straight marriage,
that many of the paintings, most of the paintings in

(01:25:57):
the Harford Household were painted by Stanley Kubrick's wife, Christian.
She was like an accomplished painter.

Speaker 5 (01:26:04):
Oh fascinating.

Speaker 4 (01:26:05):
Also, that set is a recreation of Stanley Kupbrig's and his.

Speaker 5 (01:26:12):
Wife's real home, the apartment or the sex party.

Speaker 4 (01:26:16):
No, the apartment.

Speaker 5 (01:26:17):
Oh, I got it. Oh my god, he's so messy.
I'm like, bro.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Good for Christian being like, we've got to wait until
you're basically dead to do this, because I'm not carrying this.

Speaker 5 (01:26:30):
I'm not carrying.

Speaker 4 (01:26:31):
Because he died, I believe, of a heart attack six
days after showing the final cut of Eyes Wed Shut
to Warner Brothers.

Speaker 6 (01:26:41):
I also like to think about what Tom's character thinks
he would gain spiritually existentially from infidelity and from closing,
where it's like this like immense desperation that carries the
entire movie that's exclusively inspired by his wife having a

(01:27:01):
dream once, It's like it's kind of it kind of
seems like he was never even considering what a different
libin in all reality for him would even offer him
outside of it being like conquest that comes from being
like emasculated. It's like, what's like, what do you think
you would even get spiritually, like personally from doing this.

Speaker 4 (01:27:22):
It's all about male fragility. Ever heard of it?

Speaker 3 (01:27:25):
Yeah? Exactly, And I think a lot of Kuprick's work
is about that. The more I was thinking about like
zooming out on what his filmography seems to be about.
And again it's like, not that he's making an intelligent
comment on women at really any point. I can't think
of an example where he is, but it does seem
like he has an eye for like very fragile men

(01:27:48):
lashing out, I.

Speaker 5 (01:27:49):
Mean and ruining their lives essentially.

Speaker 3 (01:27:52):
Yeah, right, the shining for us?

Speaker 5 (01:27:56):
Yeah right, if you will.

Speaker 4 (01:27:58):
Right, because Bill is again so emasculated by his wife Alice,
being a real person with real desires and real feelings,
and he can't He just simply cannot comprehend or handle
it except to seek revenge. Basically, it seems like he's

(01:28:21):
on this quest to, oh, well, if my wife had
a dream about having sex with someone else, well it's
payback time.

Speaker 5 (01:28:31):
It's like you don't have dreams, babe, Like what do
you do when you sleep? You just cut to black
and wake up eight hours later.

Speaker 4 (01:28:39):
So again it's all about like the ownership he feels
over her, and he can't handle this person who he
deems as his property having any kind of autonomy or
anything like that, and so he goes out looking for
a revenge. Fuck.

Speaker 5 (01:28:59):
Basically, definitely, and.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
It's kind of I mean, it's like devastating from the
Alice character's perspective, where she is like genuinely reaching out
and trying to get her husband to be a little
vulnerable with her and he will not. Budget Yes, it
makes me sad for her too, because it feels like
this marriage has taken a lot from her, a lot
of things that she wants, like, you know, someone who

(01:29:23):
is supportive of her career, like someone who can have
an honest fucking conversation, like someone who respects her at
a base level. It seems like she has none of.

Speaker 6 (01:29:33):
This right and I think that at the end of
the movie, I think she has the upper hand. Like
I think by the end of the movie, she sees
his insecurity is so whole and knows that her admitting
her truth sent him on a spiral that he will
never be able to recover from, and she knows that

(01:29:56):
her sexuality actually fully holds the power in the releaseationship.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:30:01):
I was curious about that because like her being like, well,
the way to address this marital issue we're having is
Rosta's fox. I'm like, is that part of his dream
still or is that just her kind of like understanding
that she now has some power in this situation. I'm
not sure because when he tells her, like the next
morning after he has told her about this whole you know,

(01:30:25):
wild night he's had, she for the first time is
like seen without a full face of makeup. Yeah, And
like I'm like, oh, this seems like reality again. It
doesn't seem like he's projecting or imagining or fantasizing or whatever.
So is the rest of the movie from that point on,
which is only like I don't know, five more minutes.

(01:30:47):
Is that reality again?

Speaker 5 (01:30:49):
Or I thought it was reality again?

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:30:52):
I did too, because it's like again, I'm like, maybe
I'm overthinking it. But the store is crowded at the end.
It seems like actually it's New York at Christmas, Like
there's people where I feel like for all of the
parts that feel very unreal, like there's no one around
except the person that he's talking to or reacting to him.

(01:31:13):
But towards the end, it's like the lighting is more
realistic and it's busy and I don't know, and.

Speaker 5 (01:31:20):
Once again, poor Helena, she's like, I want a Teddy Bear.

Speaker 6 (01:31:23):
And they're talking about the like libidinal exchange of like
infinite regrets, and.

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
They're like and they're like, Teddy Come, she's been through enough.
They won't even teach her math, Like she's she's cooked.

Speaker 4 (01:31:42):
She should have been adding up all the cash that
her dad was throwing around that night.

Speaker 3 (01:31:47):
The cook budget. It's built into the budget.

Speaker 4 (01:31:53):
Does anyone have anything else they'd like to chat about?

Speaker 5 (01:31:56):
I don't know. Let me look at my little notes.

Speaker 3 (01:31:58):
That I took.

Speaker 4 (01:32:00):
Apparently, in twenty nineteen, it was revealed that the voice
of the mysterious masked woman at the party it was
done in voiceover because the original actor apparently couldn't do
a convincing enough American accent, so they had another non
American do an American accent, but it had a Kate

(01:32:21):
Blanchett Oh provide the voice.

Speaker 5 (01:32:23):
That's so cool, She's everywhere at once.

Speaker 6 (01:32:26):
The only thing that I wrote down was I found
that Tom's character was also extremely insecure, and he was
talking to men too, where he like there's the series
with Nick and they keep like slapping each other. It's like,
so this like macho bravado that I was really touched
by how insecure he was, even in his patriarchal conversations,

(01:32:48):
where it's like you could tell he was always trying
to like get above something, but he could never really find.

Speaker 5 (01:32:53):
His footing right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:54):
Yeah, I mean even his approaching Nick above anyone else
at that first party is like, oh, this is a
former peer of mine who I now perceive to have
less power than me. Let me go talk to him.
So it's like, yeah, he's not comfortable talking to men
he perceives to be more powerful than him.

Speaker 6 (01:33:11):
And it's like it's men who are revealing these secrets
to him as well. It's like it's like this weird
as hazing that's like fraternal hazing, that.

Speaker 5 (01:33:20):
He's always one step behind. M h. I'm like, you
don't talk to your bros, dude, you don't know about
the secret society.

Speaker 3 (01:33:26):
Like come on, he's got no friends. We gotta get oh,
he's got nothing going for him.

Speaker 5 (01:33:32):
It's really shit.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
We gotta get this guy some friends.

Speaker 4 (01:33:34):
Stat Another just production fun fact is that the way
it was shot originally probably would have garnered a more
like NC seventeen rating. So to ensure that it could
be released theatrically with an R rating in the US,
Warner Brothers digitally altered several of the like very sexually

(01:33:58):
explicit scenes. And I think I think it's that they
put in like cgi cloaked figures in front of interesting
people having sex to sort of like obscure the more
graphics time.

Speaker 3 (01:34:09):
I also, this is a movie for how horny this
movie is. I didn't see I just only saw women.
Like I know that we've like sort of touched on this,
but like you only see like cis women's bodies shown
and put it, which does feed into the theory that
we're just seeing the world through Bill's eyes. But like
anyone who is an assis woman, their body is obscured

(01:34:32):
for the full movie.

Speaker 6 (01:34:33):
Yeah right, Oh, there was a I don't know if
y'all caught this, but as he's leaving the party, there's
gay couples too.

Speaker 4 (01:34:41):
Oh I did see a glimpse of that.

Speaker 6 (01:34:44):
Yes, as he was leaving the party, it's like women
in tuxedos with naked women, and then it's like men
in tuxedos with naked men with masks on.

Speaker 5 (01:34:52):
For like what like ten seconds, I missed that. I
was like, why not have some representation for sex party?

Speaker 3 (01:34:59):
And it's just walking past.

Speaker 5 (01:35:01):
Yeah, yeah, And he's like, I didn't get the download
on that yet. He's like, I don't know about gay yet.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
We'll circle back.

Speaker 5 (01:35:07):
We'll circle back, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:35:10):
Yeah, anything else from anybody, I don't think so. I
do believe the movie passes the Bechdel test. When Alice
and her daughter Helena talk about math women in.

Speaker 5 (01:35:23):
STU, women in stad, we did it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
We did it.

Speaker 5 (01:35:27):
Yep, we did it.

Speaker 4 (01:35:29):
But as far as our scale, the nipple scale, where
we rate the movie from zero to five nipples based
on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, choosing
to experience the movie through the lens of this is
very much the character of Bill's perception and like projection

(01:35:52):
of his very intense misogyny and patriarchal values informing why
the characters who are women behave the way that they do, because, again,
looking at it, at very phase value. It doesn't fare
very well on our scale. But I do think the
movie is an indictment of male fragility and the toxicity

(01:36:18):
of men being emasculated and what that and how that manifests.
So because of that, I mean, I don't know, I
think like split down the middle a two point five
nipples or does it deserve more? I don't know. This
one's really a head scratcher.

Speaker 6 (01:36:35):
I mean, I think that there's like inherent and hilarious
patriarchy and having the nipple scale be a head scratcher
because you have to understand it as through men, you
know what I mean. It's like, obviously patriarchy exists because
men are really fragile and challenging, and that's bolstered societally.

(01:36:56):
So like should y'all change the scale of the nipple
in order to make room for that? Like, I don't
even know if that's fair.

Speaker 3 (01:37:04):
It's blowing up the system. The system is totally.

Speaker 5 (01:37:09):
Where I guess if the nipples could also be men's,
it's like if.

Speaker 6 (01:37:15):
If the nipples are gender neutral, And we're talking about
like a movie that really does a perverse and wonderful
job at trying to explain gender, then ramp up the nipple.

Speaker 5 (01:37:28):
I guess maybe just like a four.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
Even you know what I'm gonna do three point two five?

Speaker 5 (01:37:36):
Yeah, wow, I think that's very fair.

Speaker 4 (01:37:38):
Thank you so much. And I'll give them to Alice
and Helena because because who were they doing nothing wrong?
Who were they probably?

Speaker 3 (01:37:49):
Who were they up to that whole weekend? I don't know,
We'll never know the last weekend. I don't even know.
I think I'm gonna abstain from nipples in this one
because I feel like this movie is doing something very
weird and unique that I really appreciate, and also like
I really do like I mean, I feel like this
with a lot of Stanley Kubrick work I've seen accepting

(01:38:12):
Lolita again because that's a trash adaptation and he should
have gone to prison for it, but he didn't, and
so we have eyeswead shut. I think this is a
really thoughtful like it just makes, you know, traditional waspy
American masculinity look like a fucking nightmare.

Speaker 5 (01:38:35):
To have to uphold. And it's like, definitely it's a.

Speaker 3 (01:38:38):
Zero sum game. Doctor Bill is suffering this entire movie,
and everyone around him is suffering as an extension And
I was really taken aback by this movie this time around.
And you know, does it have anything to say about women?
Not really, but I don't think that that is the point.

(01:39:02):
And I feel like this, to me is like Kubrick's
cheat Code, where it's like he is actually talking about
gender really intensely and thoughtfully, but like from a perspective
that he understands. Yeah, and it feels effective. Like I
don't think I really am interested in Kubrick's I mean,
I actually kind of know I'm not interested in Kubrick's

(01:39:23):
interpretation of women. I don't think he really you know,
that ever really connected at least in his work that
I've seen. But I think he has a really good
eye for like insecurity in these like masculine structures, and
this is like a really great version of it. And
again like Tom Cruise cult Leader, however, like I really

(01:39:46):
I like this era of his work a lot where
he was really willing to like give up or like
you know, give away pieces of this hyper masculine movie
star persona and really seem vulnerable. Like I feel like
this movie doesn't work without his performance or without Nicole
Kidman's performance, because just the amount of layers of like

(01:40:07):
she's performing how the character sees her, and it's her husband,
and it's a Kubrick movie, so they have to do
three thousand takes of every single shot.

Speaker 4 (01:40:17):
He made Tom Cruise walk through a doorway ninety five times.

Speaker 3 (01:40:21):
WHOA, yeah, cook, Truly, he's like the most famous man
in the world. What can I do? And this is
this is a sort of another conversation. But I know
when we talked about The Shining back in the day,
that it was a more prominent cultural narrative at that
time that he tortured Shelley Duvall on that movie and
Scatman Cruthers and Scatman Brothers. I can't speak to Scotmancrouthers.

(01:40:42):
I do know that later in her life, because Shelley
Devalt just passed, she kind of significantly pushed back on
that narrative. Not to say Stanley Kuperck innocent, it really
does seem like part of his process is kind of
torturing his actors. Yeah, and the crew. I mean, this
movie if you did not need to take two years
to shoot or whatever, right, But I don't know, I

(01:41:04):
just like I have been like thinking about his work
a little differently since I read sort of Shelley Devall's
account where she was like, it was brutal, it was horrible,
but I care about him and I wasn't like, I
don't hold any sort of animosity towards it, which also
seems how both Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman remember this
experience where like he was torturing us, but like he

(01:41:25):
was cooking. Yeah, which is interesting, and I think that
there is a level of privilege encoded in that as
well of like the you know, these like cispenotur geniuses
are always given a way longer leash with what is
permissible behavior. That definitely factors into it. But for sure, anyways,
I think, yeah, he was cooking here, and I don't

(01:41:45):
know nipples. I quit for this one.

Speaker 4 (01:41:48):
That's fine, Yeah, honey, do you have any thoughts.

Speaker 5 (01:41:50):
I don't know nipples either. I mean, there's probably like
one hundred thousand nipples in the movie, so it's definitely
a nipple heavy film home for sure.

Speaker 6 (01:42:01):
But I think that what y'all are saying is I
agree with and it's a student To grade the movie
on a scale of intersectional feminism seems impossible because women
were only seen as projections of men.

Speaker 5 (01:42:18):
So I don't think I can rate it on that scale.

Speaker 6 (01:42:22):
Yeah, but I think it's an awesome movie about gender right,
And I know it's curious thinking about what an insane
cult leader, misogynist Tom cruises. And then it's like, what
did you think this movie was about? You know, I
think it's all you know what I mean, what do
you think you were doing?

Speaker 4 (01:42:35):
He's the guy in the red cloak going.

Speaker 5 (01:42:37):
Literally, yeah exactly, you were the one Gregory chanting what
do you think is going on?

Speaker 3 (01:42:43):
I feel that way about Dennis Quaid in The Substance,
where I was like, yeah, what does he think the
Substance is about? Because he had he gives a great
performance and he's a notorious piece of shit, and you're like, right,
what did you think you were doing? Like I totally
feeling don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
Well, anyway, that's the episode. Honey, Thank you so much
for joining us.

Speaker 5 (01:43:06):
Of course, thanks much for having me. This was so fun.

Speaker 3 (01:43:08):
The Little Mermaid to Ieswig Chut pipeline is complete. We've
done it.

Speaker 5 (01:43:12):
We've done all.

Speaker 4 (01:43:13):
Yeah, where can people check out your work? Follow you
on social media? Plug anything you want to plug.

Speaker 5 (01:43:21):
It's all my name at Honey Pluton. I have a
podcast that was mentioned up top called Up Good with
Honey Pluton. We love pod listen up and yeah follow
me excellent.

Speaker 4 (01:43:34):
You can follow us on Instagram and Patreon that's patreon
dot com slash Bechdelcast to join our Matreon community Q
where you get two bonus I know right, You'll get
two bonus episodes every month centering on a fun little
theme that Jamie and myself cook up, plus access to

(01:43:57):
the entire back catalog of over one hundred and fifty
bonus episodes. So there's a lot of good stuff there
and it's the best way to support the show. Also,
don't forget to check out our live shows coming up
in January. We've got one in La on January nineteenth.
That is a big Bechdel Cast celebration, lots of fun segments.

(01:44:18):
We've got stand up from some of your favorite past guests,
plus from Jamie and myself, chats about movies, all kinds
of fun stuff. That's live in La. Plus it's being
live streamed, so you can watch that show from anywhere.
Then we've got a show as a part of sketch
Fest in San Francisco on January twenty third that's a

(01:44:38):
Shrek Tannic show where we're covering Titanic. And then the
following night on January twenty fourth, also at sketch Fest,
is a Honey's show called Jeppar Gay, which I am
going to be one of the guests on, so please
come check that out. And then finally we have a
show in Portland on January twenty sixth that's an other

(01:45:00):
Shrek Tannic show, this time we're covering Shrek and this
one is also going to be live streamed, So all
the tickets and all the other details are on our
link tree link Tree slash Bechtel Cast, as well as
the description of this episode. So please, please please come
out to the shows, especially if you live in those areas.

(01:45:22):
Come see us live. If not, tune into the live
stream shows. Supporting our shows is the other best way
to support this entire podcast. So yeah, I hope to
see you there, and.

Speaker 3 (01:45:38):
You can get our merch at teapublic dot com slash
Bechdel Cast. Holidays coming up, blah blah blah. Give it
to the eyes wide shut in your life.

Speaker 4 (01:45:48):
And with that, shall we hop in a taxi and
go to a sex party.

Speaker 3 (01:45:53):
I was gonna say it's time to fuck.

Speaker 5 (01:45:56):
It's time.

Speaker 3 (01:45:57):
Yeah that too, Bye Bye bye.

Speaker 4 (01:46:05):
The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin
Drante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by
mo La Boord. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in merch
is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit

(01:46:27):
link tree slash Bechdel Cast

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

The Bechdel Cast News

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Caitlin Durante

Jamie Loftus

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Monster: BTK

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Eyes Wide Shut with Honey Pluton