SOURCE: “Too Late the Hero,” in Sight and Sound, Vol. 9, No. 9, September, 1999, pp. 20-5.

In the following essay, Gross discusses the major motifs of Eyes Wide Shut and places the film in context with several classic movies from the 1960s.

“Art treats appearance as appearance, its aim is precisely not to deceive. It is therefore true.”

(Friedrich Nietzsche)

Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's turn-of-the-century short novel Dream Story. Kubrick, as we've lately been learning, was always seriously respectful of the mechanisms of the texts he adapted. So dream and story will be of peculiar importance in thinking about this film.

The first dreamlike thing that happens in Eyes Wide Shut occurs in the midst of a long sequence depicting an opulent Manhattan Christmas party. Dr Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) is summoned by threateningly authoritarian manservants. We see him...