THB #574b: Eyes Wide Shut (at 25)

Part 2 of 2

(Part 1 - THB #574a)

And now, let’s discuss The Orgy.

Dr. Bill enters and puts on his mask. Everyone, including the staff, is masked.

He walks into a ceremony of some kind. a leader surrounded by 10 cloaked people, who we soon will see are women. They all wear masks and the same g-strings. They are all about the same height and weight and breast size and shape. They are surrounded by more people in masks and cloaks, who watch. The women ritually kiss each other, but it’s mask-to-mask kissing.

A man and woman on the 2nd floor look down at Dr. Bill, who notices, looking back at them, making eye contact. The man in the tricorn mask seems to be meant to be Sydney Pollack’s Victor Ziegler, the host of the Christmas party from the start of the film, probably with his wife, who looks nothing like the women who we will see naked through the rest of this sequence and whose mask we never see again. We met her as they greeted the Harfords at the party. I used to think it might be Alice herself behind the mask of the woman next to Tricorn… could still be.

One of the women from the circle, a recurring character who I will call Black Plumes for the sake of this discussion, approaches Bill. We see the red-tinted hair that almost all women who engage with Bill in the dreams has. They have a mask-to-mask kiss.

BP: I’m not sure what you think you are doing here. You don’t belong here.
Bill: I’m sorry, but I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.
BP: Please, don’t be foolish. You must go now.
Bill: Who are you?
BP: It doesn’t matter who I am. You are in great danger. And you must get away while there is still a chance.

At that point, she is taken away by some kind of house functionary.

The dialogue is, to my ear, double entendre, really about the danger that cheating on his wife will bring to his life.

Also, I believe that Black Plume is, the woman who Bill was seeing as a patient, topless, at his office. Remember, we are floating around reality here… and all of the women featured at the orgy house have very similar bodies (all natural, btw). I’m not going to offer a visual comparison here because I am embarrassed to have made one myself, but the office visit and Black Plume’s breasts seem very close to identical.

Moreover, I believe all of the women who come into Dr. Bill’s sphere in the dreams to be variations on Alice/Nicole Kidman. Ms. Kidman is still beautiful, but her body at 30/31, when the film was shot, is stunning and shown off a lot in the film. All the women around Bill in the dream sequences seem to be a cup or 2 bustier and slightly more hippy than Kidman…. but all very similar. Frankly, how a man with an incredibly beautiful wife might still judge her and how she could be even more perfect.

Moving on the the orgy part of the orgy…

Dr. Bill walks into the first orgy room. A blonde with a mask rides a man with a mask on a chaise lounge while everyone else (all still masked) watches. Around another corner (camera-wise) a standing man has intercourse with a woman on a table.

The next room has what looks like a clothed dining room table with 4 sex groups on it. One is 2 woman, simulating 69-style mutual cunnilingus, as they can only be simulating with masks on. A man with a mask simulates going down on a woman. A threesome is tangled with their faces near genitals, but with masks. And 3 women rub each other’s naked bodies while sitting on 3 stools.

Another corner turned, a man athletically has sex with a woman from behind, as both leap in the air a little with each thrust, slightly comically.

In the library, Dr. Bill watched a man thrusting into a woman on her back, who is laying on the back of what seems to be a man-servant of some kind, as he doesn’t have a cloak on. Once again, a bit silly.

This is the last sex act for Dr. Bill to witness, as he is about to be outed. So let me take this moment to say for this sequence and the one to come, this orgy plays like the fantasy a 20-year-old boy might have about what a rich person’s orgy would be like. Are there sex parties in the world? Absolutely. But when you think about how deranged the whole set up of this sequence is - and I maintain that it is a dream, ultimately - the sex is rather vanilla. And as noted before, most of it seems simulated, as you can’t put something in your mouth through a mask… unless it is a very specific kind of mask… and even then, you can’t bring a woman’s genitals into a mask.

I see Mandy - in Ziegler’s bathroom, drugged but with a remarkable physique, presumably having just serviced Ziegler, in the context of Bill being in this amazing house at this half million dollar Christmas party - as a trigger for the most aspirational part of Bill’s dreams. Could he have what Ziegler has? He is younger and better looking… but not nearly as rich. But Bill deals with people like Ziegler all the time… why shouldn’t he get some of what seem, in that moment, like benefits?

Back to the action!

At this point, Tricorn Hat shows up with a naked woman who is not the one he was on the second floor with earlier. Based on her hair color - a darker red than any other character in the film - and her body - which again, it hard to match because there are so many body of the same shape(s) - I believe this is Mandy, who almost overdosed at Ziegler’s house way back in the first act.

She approaches Bill and asks if he wants to go somewhere private. He says, “Private… that might be a good idea.”

But Black Plume shows up and takes him away with her.

(Sidebar: As they walk into their next conversation, they pass a woman having some degree of sex with a man in a cloak… but in this place of exotica and nudity, she seems to be wearing a kind of normal skirt and top. And her hair is wild in a way seen nowhere else in the sequence. Maybe this is a visual trick of the eye… but it strikes me as odd every time I see it.)

BP: I don't think you realize the danger you're in now. You can't fool them for much longer. You've got to get away before it's too late.
Bill: Why are you telling me this?
BP: It doesn't matter.
Bill: Who are you?
BP: You don't want to know. But you must go now.
Bill: Will you come with me?
BP: That's impossible.
Bill: Why?
BP: Because it would cost me my life and possibly yours.