What does the costume shop owner's daughter whisper
in the doc's ear?
shareI know I have granny panties, but I'm still pretty young and smokin....
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?
MovieChat Forums > Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Discussion > What does the costume shop owner's daugh...
"Sometimes you just gotta say, what the fúck! You know what I'm saying?"
But seriously, the line "you should have a cloak lined with ermine" is what she says, apparently. Whether it was supposed to be inaudible or not, it's quite interesting.
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"the moon landing was fake and Stanley filmed it"
share[deleted]
This thread should be required IMDB reading. I tried my best to think of something clever, but sadly could not.
I did however become curious about the ermine thing, and after an intense amount of research (i.e. a couple of Google clicks), I read that because of its white fur, the ermine became a symbol of moral purity and innocence. Not sure if that's what Kubrick was intending to convey, most likely ironically, but the ideas seem to fit with the scene.
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It's also associated with royalty, centauri. Good observation on the purity/innocence angle. Fits in with a running theme of women's purity/virtue that the film undermines and explores with reality and unreality.
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Yes, for hundreds of years ermine fur was a symbol of royalty and nobility as well as the Roman Catholic monarchy (clergy have worn it on their capes since the 15th century)**. An ermine is actually a little Weasel (a stoat or short-tailed weasel) who is normally brown or golden-coloured, but its fur changes colour to a pure white in the winter and becomes thick and silky and as a result the little chap was and is hunted and slaughtered for its fur and fur pelts. It is considered today to be a pest as it multiplies rapidly and hunts rabbits and birds very effectively. Numerous paintings over the past centuries have depicted nobles portrayed with a little ermine weasel (in actuality they wore the fur; they didn't keep them as pets):
Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine" from 1490:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoat#/media/File:Dama_z_gronostajem.jpg
A 16th century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I with an ermine:
http://tudorhistory.org/elizabeth/ermine.jpg
And, right up to the present day, here's a recent photo from 2008 of the previous pope, Pope Benedict XVI, looking just like Red Cloak (or Santa Claus, depending on your mood) in "Eyes Wide Shut", sitting in his throne and wearing a red velvet cloak lined and trimmed with white ermine:
http://www.gettyimages.ie/event/pope-delivers-his-end-of-year-speech-to-rome-clergy-72855156?#pope-benedict-xvi-wears-a-red-velvet-cape-trimmed-in-ermine-as-he-picture-id72869398
While obviously its use by the aristocracy was to delude themselves into believing they were morally pure (and virginal), it is ironic that it served as an inner lining or trimming, as if to imply, "I might appear nasty and brutal on the outside, but inside I'm a really nice guy, pure as a spring lamb." The film, of course, is examining similar modes of obscene hypocrisy, examining the dark underside of false appearances, especially among the wealthy and corrupt.
**" ... the ceremonial robes of members of the UK House of Lords and the academic hoods of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge are traditionally trimmed with ermine, although in practice rabbit or fake fur is now often used instead due to expense or animal rights concerns. Prelates of the Catholic Church still wear ecclesiastical garments featuring ermine (a sign of their status equal to that of the nobility)."
The use of Ermine in heraldry:
"Ermine in heraldry is a "fur", or varied tincture, consisting of a white background with a pattern of black shapes representing the winter coat of the stoat (a species of weasel with white fur and a black-tipped tail). The linings of medieval coronation cloaks and some other garments, usually reserved to use by high-ranking peers and royalty, were made by sewing many ermine furs together to produce a luxurious white fur with patterns of hanging black-tipped tails."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermine_(heraldry)
So what do you make of the costume shop owner's daughter being the character to make reference to it?
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I think that in the film what the girl whispers to Bill is quite deliberately muted, is kept secret and mysterious and exclusive; that we, the audience, the viewers, in our unwitting prurience, are not supposed to hear it. While the script articulates what Milich's daughter says (the ermine suggestion to Bill), the film doesn't (the film is very different from the script in many other respects, and is as dissimilar from the source novel as the script is similar to it eg the film's entire end sequence in the toy store is neither in the script nor in the novel), the film leaves open the possibility of interpretation, of intrigue, of ambiguously suggesting that the girl could be doing anything from, at one extreme, naively flirting with Bill, to, at the other extreme, warning Bill about something or other. Such polysemous possibilities are also true of that whole scene in the costume rental store ... and, as we find out the next day, what was really happening the night before was actually very different from what we had been led to believe was happening, especially what Milich had (falsely) led us to believe.
shareThere is so much going on in the scenes in EWS - they have to be watched several times. The daughter assumes a mannequin pose at the end, the mannequin's in the background move and a few of them seem to be actual people. The asian guy is hiding behind a green cloak, there are several noticable red cloaks, it might be subtly implied that Milich knows where Bill is going and the daughter might know as well. You can hear what she whispers if the audio is turned up quite a bit, but I agree it was meant to be muted - does this mean Kubrick anticipated people obsessing and investigating this film? I would say yes and the layers of conspiracy speak to this.
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" it might be subtly implied that Milich knows where Bill is going and the daughter might know as well."
I don't think so. Milich is just a low-life petit bourgeois shop-keeper incestuously abusing and pimping his own daughter, is a mad patriarch: these sequences in the film are like a micro-version, a microcosm, of what will later happen on a much larger scale at Somerton (and before that at Ziegler's party). Milich and his daughter know nothing about Somerton, Ziegler, etc; they don't have supernatural abilities, but are just 'ordinary' folk largely insular and clueless about the wider world in which they have been indoctrinated and conditioned, the world structured and presided over by the Somerton crowd (ie wealthy elites who are agents of power).
"You can hear what she whispers if the audio is turned up quite a bit, but I agree it was meant to be muted - does this mean Kubrick anticipated people obsessing and investigating this film? I would say yes and the layers of conspiracy speak to this."
But the 'conspiracy' in relation to Milich and his abused daughter is ultimately Bill's silence, his complicity in what he has witnessed (Milich selling his daughter into prostitution). Bill doesn't do anything about what he has seen, just expresses empty sentiments (Bill to Milich the following day: "Milich, last night you said you were going to call the police"), so revealing Bill to be a passive participant, passively colluding and conspiring in Milich's systematic abuse of his daughter ( a classic "conspiracy of silence"), just as he (and his wife) later will in relation to all the events at Somerton ... everyone is always colluding in some conspiracy, even when they know they are, even when they oppose it or deny that they are, like the Harfords.
Kudos to all the funny responses above.
I cannot top any of them, but laughed my ass off!