So far, Bill has been gliding through the movie (unlike Alice) with nary a moment’s reflection, relying on his status and his handsome mug to get him from scene to scene. But now, as Gayle and Nuala draw him forward to “where the rainbow ends,” he’s forced to choose. Who is he? Is he a loving husband and father, or a smug philanderer? The terrifying thing, really, is that he could probably get away with being both. Alice’s confession, the following night, that she fantasized about giving up her life with him in favor of one passionate night with another man shocks Bill to his core, but he need not consider any such sacrifice with Gayle and Nuala. It would be a one-night stand that he, as man and breadwinner, would not have to suffer for; it would not alter his life or psyche, not unless he wants it to. And that choice, that need to stop drifting and relying on circumstance, the moment when he must take responsibility for his life, terrifies him, and will continue to as it recurs throughout the movie.
As such, you can imagine how grateful he is when Kubrick interrupts, in the form of another of Ziegler’s servants. “Sorry, Dr. Harford, sorry to interrupt. I wonder if you could come with me for a moment. Something for Mr. Ziegler…?”
Note the obsequiousness. His co-worker had interrupted Bill and Nick without indulging in apologies or polite caveats, brusquely calling Nick away while giving Bill a decidedly unfriendly once-over. It’s a minor contrast, but it highlights the twin peaks of Eyes Wide Shut‘s internal power structure: money and sex. Servant #2 is terribly sorry to cockblock Bill, but does so on behalf of the wealthier Victor’s abusive sexual authority. Servant #1, calling his fellow underling Nick away from (snigger) platonic friendship, could not possibly care less. Why would he? Neither Nick nor Bill put up a fight. Bill, interrupted, spares a glance for Gayle and Nuala before stepping away. “To be continued?” he murmurs over his shoulder.
It won’t be, of course. Bill never sees them again, and neither do we. This potential future, what could have been, will never be, an existential absence that is no less melancholic for its sleazy-sexy content. Eyes Wide Shut, like the Lynch and Polanski classics to which it pays tribute, is haunted by what remains outside the frame, beyond its particular time-space corridor, regardless of whether that Non-Existence is itself meaningful or important. The loss is what matters, the limits of subjectivity crying out for a bigger picture that remains just beyond our sight. We will never learn for sure what is waiting where the rainbow ends, because the wanting and the hoping is what matters.
I lied, though. We get one glimpse of Gayle and Nuala that Bill does not. As he turns to follow Servant #2 upstairs, the two ladies are left alone, neatly framing the shot (Gayle to the far right, Nuala on the left). It’s an immediately uncanny moment because the protagonist has left the frame, yet the camera lingers, not cutting away just yet. They glance at each other, and Gayle drops her mask, glaring stone-faced at Nuala as the latter insolently stares back. Cut.
What just happened? What passed between these women? Is it merely frustration at the interruption, a flicker of emotion captured on film (a subtle, transitory moment that no other medium can convey, because only moving images live in time and therefore die)? Or something…more, something sinister?
But nothing suggests that, really! Gayle and Nuala don’t share code words or transmit information to some shadowy benefactor. So why do I insist that something is happening here, that Gayle and Nuala were paid to seduce Bill? Because that look, Gayle’s glare, indisputably exists. It is there, for a second, before Kubrick cuts away, and we are left to make of it…whatever we want. Eyes Wide Shut frequently functions as a Rorschach test, its dazzlingly colored inkblots offering any number of interpretations; whatever one we choose says as much about us as it does about the movie. Film is Existence recorded and then immediately lost, a rainbow that begins and ends in none-more-black. The conspiracy lurking behind Eyes Wide Shut is not necessarily a consciously organized one, but it nevertheless touches every individual involved, if only by implication. This iceberg approach to narrative, character, and mood, where the true nature of all three lurks beneath the surface, is what allows Eyes Wide Shut to age so well, and to cut deeper with each viewing. There’s something there, in a flicker of Gayle’s eyelids, and it has a cumulative effect, compounded with each following scene.
Fidelio 