Episode 57- Eyes Wide Smut (Part 1)

Our Epstein obsession continues with another epic two-parter, this time re-evaluating Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 slow burn classic Eyes Wide Shut. In this first half, we discuss the context this film was released in, some stories from the record-breaking 15-month shooting period, and the events of the first half of the film, right up to the infamous mansion party scene. Of particular interest to us is the role of Dr. Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), our leading man, as avatar for all clueless upper middle-class professionals, and his stilted, myopic view of the social hierarchy we inhabit, which is thrust open when his wife, Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman, of course) is revealed to have sexual fantasies of her own. When this film was first released, its relatively tame and seemingly dated view of sexuality led to mixed critical reviews. Upon a rewatch 20 years later, in our current post-Epstein gilded age, it seems all too prescient in the interactions it reveals between the rich and the super-rich, clueless men married to bored women, and “average” people when they are forced to confront the seedy underbelly of supposedly respectable society. Find the book Dan keeps referencing here: Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film by Robert P Kolker and Nathan Abrams https://books.google.com/books/about/Eyes_Wide_Shut.html?id=39SxvAEACAAJ