MovieChat Forums > Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Discussion > Bill's Uncanny Moment (Morgue Scene)

Bill's Uncanny Moment (Morgue Scene)

posted 8 years ago by countdown-to-zero
19 replies | jump to latest

The morgue scene in the film, where Bill Harford gazes peculiarly down at the deceased Amanda Curran, is best described as an 'uncanny' moment or event because it is an instance of the strangely familiar, of that sublime coincidence of something radically other, excluded, unusual, disturbing, strange AND that which is seemingly very familiar, homely, reassuring. Why is this so?

Because Bill cannot recognise, identify, the woman in the morgue while at the same time 'identifying' her. Bill believes that she, Amanda Curran, the woman he read about in the newspaper who has passed away supposedly after an overdose of drugs in her hotel room, is also the woman he met, the "Mysterious Woman", at the bizarre Somerton event, the sexualized rituals he witnessed as an interloper, a gate-crashing intruder. That this is so is reinforced by the voiceover narration that accompanies the scene, of Bill recollecting what the woman said, via her now disembodied voiceover, to him at Somerton, her warnings to him about the dangers to him and to her should he remain there. But Bill does not know for sure that it is her because, like everyone else at Somerton, she was wearing a mask, a persona, a staged identity. The whole scene at this level, therefore, is radically other, strange, and uneasy.

However, what Bill doesn't know, is not consciously aware of, as with we the viewers at that moment, is that this is the very same woman, Mandy, who he had earlier - two nights previously - attended to in the lavish bathroom of Victor Ziegler's Madison Avenue mansion during his Christmas party (Bill and we the audience only learn of this later when Ziegler finally reveals it, blurts it out to Bill during the meeting in the poolroom at Ziegler's house). But while Bill is not consciously aware of the woman being Mandy, the OD'd woman in Ziegler's bathroom, he is certainly unconsciously 'aware' of it, for we witnessed his very close attention to her during that scene, including his repeated demands to the slumped, drowsy, half-awake Mandy: "Look at me! Look at me, Mandy!! Look at me!!". It is this familiar dimension, this disavowed, barely remembered event, this effectively repressed encounter (recall Ziegler's advice to Bill in the bathroom: "I know I don't have to tell you, but this is just between us"), an encounter that Bill 'forgot' about, compartmentalized away.

Bill in the morgue couldn't remember his memory, didn't know what he really already knew, didn't know that he knew that this dead woman was the very same woman he had earlier met at Ziegler's party (but, of course, she also 'reminds' him of other woman, many woman, including Alice, his wife, and all the numerous other 'red-haired' or strawberry blonde woman and girls he encounters throughout the film, including his own daughter). Such moments, the affects they generate and provoke, are always uncanny: something very strange is happening but at some level it is like they have happened before, that something from the past is being repeated, that this is all really familiar, all too familiar, seductive and attractive. And so also horrific, frightening, traumatic. Seductive and repulsive simultaneously, awesome and shocking at the same time, the sublime antagonism that is the Uncanny, the always overpowering void of the Real, the real of Desire.

[–] McQueen1980 8 years ago

this is an incredible jaw dropping post of this awesome movie and why i dedicated my username to this seductive inducing picture

analyzing plot points like this are perhaps dangerously irrevelant as the movie is a dream that circulates in kubrick's mind that he wants to translates to the viewers mind which is why someone like you can produce lines like " bill in the morgue couldn't remember his memory" think of what u said ? and then u carry on your post as if that was plausible???
that kind of line tells you what this picture is, an illusion in reality, a reality of allusion

[–] countdown-to-zero 8 years ago

"analyzing plot points like this are perhaps dangerously irrevelant"

They are totally relevant to comprehending - and appreciating, enriching - the film.

"as the movie is a dream"

It is not. There are absolutely no dream sequences in this film (except for the monochrome inserts, 5 of them, of Bill's jealous fantasy of Alice with the sailor). If you mean to say that all movies are dreams, all stories, novels, poems, etc are 'dreams', are fantasies, that isn't saying anything but stating the country-simple obvious. They are fictions, but someone's else's fictions, someone else's fantasies, someone else's desires. And the better ones can reveal to us the truth about ourselves, can glimpse the real, the truth that we repress: fictions that take us out of quotidian reality to reveal the fictions of everyday reality itself, and the fantasies that structure it.

"" bill in the morgue couldn't remember his memory" think of what u said ? and then u carry on your post as if that was plausible???""

That is precisely what is happening in that scene: Bill has actually met with the woman before - in Ziegler's bathroom - but does not (consciously) remember, a memory that is disavowed, is unconscious, that is, a memory he can't remember. Everyone engages in such quasi-forgetting all the time.

[–] McQueen1980 8 years ago

the movie is first and formost a fictional story therefore it IS an illusion in kubrick's mind

the only "real " scenes within this story are the start and beginning of the movie which involve tom and nicole

the large middle section is an imaginary odyssey by the tom cruise character

[–] countdown-to-zero 8 years ago

"the movie is first and formost a fictional story"

All stories are fictional. Everyday reality is itself 'fictional', ie based on, and structured by, fictions and fantasies.

"therefore it IS an illusion in kubrick's mind."

This is completely absurd. It is neither illusional nor in anyone's 'mind'. It, the film, is external, something entirely separate from anyone's mind or anyone's fantasies about the content of someone's 'mind'. Anyone's mind, its 'contents', is itself externally constructed.

"the only "real " scenes within this story are the start and beginning of the movie which involve tom and Nicole"

You are contradicting yourself: if the film is just all an 'illusion in Kubrick's mind' then how could any of it be "real" as you are now seeking to argue? Those scenes too would have to be an 'illusion'.

"the large middle section is an imaginary odyssey by the tom cruise character"

More confusion: so now it isn't Kubrick's mind that's deluded, it's the Cruise/Harford protagonist/character who is just imagining things? It isn't; it's part of the reality of the film's narrative, a narrative world without any dream sequences, without any fantasy sequences.

[–] Barbed_Wire_Strawberry 8 years ago

The argument is moot because 'no dream is just a dream'. Reality informs dreams, dreams inform reality. For Bill, reality has been much a dream world it seems, and like a mirrored version of Alice in Wonderland, Alice chases the rabbit OUT of Wonderland.

Films are dreams. Dream story was turned into a film.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

[–] countdown-to-zero 8 years ago

"The argument is moot because 'no dream is just a dream'. Reality informs dreams, dreams inform reality."

What argument are you referring to? It isn't that reality is 'informed' by dreams, or vice versa; rather, it is that it is structured by dreams, by fantasies: if you remove from reality the fantasies that mediate it, that support it, you don't just lose the fantasy; you lose reality itself. What remains is 'reality' without its support in fantasy. Your whole world collapses, propelling you into a 'subjective destitution', as happens Bill Harford in the film to some extent. And it is not only that reality - the social-symbolic order - is libidinally fully supported by fantasy, but reality itself is based on a series of symbolic fictions, symbolic identifications (eg Bill falsely believing that "Once a doctor, always a doctor", believing that such a social identity is intrinsic, essentialist, rather than a transient symbolic identification and inscription.

Dreams, in other words, are not escapes from reality; they are realizations of desire, of the traumatic Real of desire. It is waking reality itself that is escapist, is an escape from the Real of the dream, from the real of desire, a continuation of the dream by other means. We wake from a nightmare (as Alice does in "Eyes Wide Shut") to escape from the horrific real or void of desire, to repress the truth. Reality (the repression that is the symbolic order) is an escape from the Real; it can only emerge because something is being repressed, being primordially repressed.

"For Bill, reality has been much a dream world it seems,"

But it hasn't been a 'dream world' for Bill, or anyone else. What we witness in the film IS Bill's everyday reality, what Bill has been taking for granted, along with everyone else, including the viewers. It is that this reality is BASED on fictions and fantasies, completely framed by them. And the film's world, it's narrative reality, is a fiction that exposes the fictions and fantasies of the viewers', the audiences', everyday reality.

And by the end of the film it is as if the Harfords have learned nothing, have not reached any kind of a catharsis, any real comprehension, but instead resolve to go back to sleep again, to return to the illusions that support the everyday reality of their miserable lives, retreating into 'sex' in order to escape the Real of the traumatic fantasies that threaten to over-whelm them, including turning a blind eye to everything that has happened in their world, in the film, resolving to passively collude in it all while pretending to be distance from it all.

"Films are dreams. Dream story was turned into a film."

But this isn't addressing what is being discussed here; it's retreating from it back into denial. If anyone 'really believed' what you are claiming, nobody would ever watch films, or read novels, etc.

If that's true of film in general ("just a dream"), then that there would be
nothing special about "Eyes Wide Shut" in respect of its examination, analysis, portrayal, or treatment of dreams, and its careful distinction between reality and the Real, and between reality and the fantasmatic-real. The most banal 'fly on the wall' documentary, or all those directors who dwell in dreary naturalism, would be as as 'dreamy' or as surreal as "Eyes Wide Shut", or, for that matter, anything produced by Kubrick, or by any other director.

If all films are dreams, there would still be a difference between watching a film and dreaming because watching a film would be to experience another's dream, someone else's desire . This theme seems to me central to "Eyes Wide Shut": whose desires are we subject to? Bill finds himself excluded from Alice's desire, then included - to some degree unwittingly - in the ritualized desire-space of the wealthy-corrupt power elite at Somerton. To make the Somerton ritual simply a fantasy of Bill's would be to remove the film's political dimension entirely, reducing everything to the domestic and the private. But if the Somerton scenes are 'real', then the distinction between the public and private, between the world of power, capital, sexuality, influence and wealth and what happens inside one's own head/mind, disintegrates, collapses. Not because 'everything is a dream' (one's own dream), but - on the contrary - everything is someone else's dream, someone else's desire, someone else's fantasy, the Other's desire (a desire that transpires to be nobody's, because this Other is purely virtual, fantasmatic: it does not exist).

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the reality of the film's narrative, a narrative world without any dream sequences, without any fantasy sequences
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"Apparently you need a pillow, a zoom-in of some character's eyes, and a snooze to convince yourself that you are dealing with a dream?"

There are no dream sequences in the film. Everything that happens in the film is within the diegesis of the film, within the everyday reality of the film's world.

"The list of logical impossibilities and coincidences that occur in EWS is enormous."

Just as it is in everyone's everyday reality, but which they systematically repress, disavow, or dismiss with equally irrational alibis or excuses.

[–] Xav6101 8 years ago

"The list of logical impossibilities and coincidences that occur in EWS is enormous."

Just as it is in everyone's everyday reality, but which they systematically repress, disavow, or dismiss with equally irrational alibis or excuses.

So, “in everyones’s everyday reality” one takes a cab, drives several blocks, to arrive just a few meters opposite the street from where one jumped into the cab? Maybe this happens in your backyard, but not in Kubrick’s; and he is a too perfect director for not purposefully letting the reflections of the street lights and signs reveal the true nature of his story. This is just one example of the many constructed phenomena that disrupt the viewer’s reference to real life reality.

And maybe in your backyard every event occurring reveals that you are a very desirable man, where women spontaneously kiss you, where women and even men fall for you without any reason, where one specific woman, you hardly know, even wants to die for you. All this happens directly after your wife had confessed a fantasy that made you feel humiliated, redundant and as desirable as a corpse.

The story provides enough reasons for the good doctor to feel responsible and guilty about the death of a “lost girl”, whom he failed to save from a faint, alleged powerful and menacing, acquaintance. The way the good doctor performed at Victor’s X-mass party made him (unwillingly ?) an accomplice of something beyond his imaginations, of which the final outcome he read in the newspaper: Amanda Curran - Ex-beauty queen in hotel drugs overdose.

http://vigilantcitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/eyes20.jpg

All in all, EWS is not a set of happenstances but an ingenious construction of a mind seeking an exit, longing for salvation and forgiveness; not just a dream, albeit a nightmarish introspective exploration after committing several moral failures.

...Credo quia absurdum...

[–] countdown-to-zero 8 years ago

"So, “in everyones’s everyday reality” one takes a cab, drives several blocks, to arrive just a few meters opposite the street from where one jumped into the cab?"

In the film's explicit reality, this is what in fact is actually happening. Nobody is 'dreaming' it; it is what Bill is actually doing. The film, needless to add, is expressionistic. It's not some dreary docu-drama, documentary, or dubious imitation of some insular empiricist's false notion of reality.

"This is just one example of the many constructed phenomena that disrupt the viewer’s reference to real life reality."

But the entire film is constructed around such 'interruptions', such gaps, inconsistencies, and antagonisms. They are the blind spots where ordinary everyday reality - the reality principle, social-symbolic reality - breaks down, they are its limit, of what people ignore, deny, repress, of fantasize about. They draw attention to the fact that what you are calling "real life reality" is a FICTION, an ESCAPE from the Real.

"All in all, EWS is not a set of happenstances but an ingenious construction of a mind seeking an exit,"

It is nothing of the sort. Kubrick, in his films, has no interest in 'characters'. The world Kubrick presents in not one of egocentric humanism or solipsistic myopia. Humans, for Kubrick, are not at the centre of the universe; it is the reverse: they are entirely a product of Environment, are subject to external forces - social, political, economic, cultural, ideological, sexual, and material. He paints a large canvas, a wider cosmos in which humans are just bit-part players trapped in idiotic delusions, destructive drives and desires, and fantasy worlds. This also includes the ego and the mind; they don't 'belong' to anyone, they are external constructions that humans internalize, misrecognize as their 'self', are ideologically interpellated. But, as the films show, this 'self' is not only radically external, it is split by the unconscious, by the Real that everyone systematically represses in order to enter into the realm of social-symbolic reality. But the Real always returns, is that which can never be avoided, is that which always persists, returning in Fantasy, in spectral apparitions, in fantasies that stage desire, and that conceal, hide, or fill in the unfathomable void of the Real. "Eyes Wide Shut" isn't just about some petty bourgeoise couple and their imbecilic obsessions and preoccupations, or isn't simply about smug Bill and his neurotic obsessions. It is a critique - and a satire - of all this, it is a film about the nature of the contemporary world under the global capitalism, about the nature of Power, wealth, subjectivity, identity, intimacy, sexuality, of how they all interconnect, as well as the fictions and fantasies that sustain it all.

[–] Xav6101 8 years ago

“So, “in everyones’s everyday reality” one takes a cab, drives several blocks, to arrive just a few meters opposite the street from where one jumped into the cab?”

In the film's explicit reality, this is what in fact is actually happening. Nobody is 'dreaming' it; it is what Bill is actually doing. The film, needless to add, is expressionistic. It's not some dreary docu-drama, documentary, or dubious imitation of some insular empiricist's false notion of reality.

If this were true then this leads to the “devastating” conclusion that the good doctor is totally nuts, that he has lost all senses with … reality, and the good thing about that is that this is by definition the description of a … dream.

"This is just one example of the many constructed phenomena that disrupt the viewer’s reference to real life reality."

But the entire film is constructed around such 'interruptions', such gaps, inconsistencies, and antagonisms. They are the blind spots where ordinary everyday reality - the reality principle, social-symbolic reality - breaks down, they are its limit, of what people ignore, deny, repress, of fantasize about. They draw attention to the fact that what you are calling "real life reality" is a FICTION, an ESCAPE from the Real.

What counts for just one man, i.c. the good doctor, does not automatically count for groups, not even for a “people” in general. Your generalisation skills go beyond imagination

"All in all, EWS is not a set of happenstances but an ingenious construction of a mind seeking an exit,"

It is nothing of the sort. Kubrick, in his films, has no interest in 'characters'. The world Kubrick presents in not one of egocentric humanism or solipsistic myopia. Humans, for Kubrick, are not at the centre of the universe; it is the reverse: they are entirely a product of Environment, are subject to external forces - social, political, economic, cultural, ideological, sexual, and material. He paints a large canvas, a wider cosmos in which humans are just bit-part players trapped in idiotic delusions, destructive drives and desires, and fantasy worlds. This also includes the ego and the mind; they don't 'belong' to anyone, they are external constructions that humans internalize, misrecognize as their 'self', are ideologically interpellated. But, as the films show, this 'self' is not only radically external, it is split by the unconscious, by the Real that everyone systematically represses in order to enter into the realm of social-symbolic reality. But the Real always returns, is that which can never be avoided, is that which always persists, returning in Fantasy, in spectral apparitions, in fantasies that stage desire, and that conceal, hide, or fill in the unfathomable void of the Real. "Eyes Wide Shut" isn't just about some petty bourgeoise couple and their imbecilic obsessions and preoccupations, or isn't simply about smug Bill and his neurotic obsessions. It is a critique - and a satire - of all this, it is a film about the nature of the contemporary world under the global capitalism, about the nature of Power, wealth, subjectivity, identity, intimacy, sexuality, of how they all interconnect, as well as the fictions and fantasies that sustain it all.

The boundaries of a “dream” do not limit the possibility to symbolise a profound critique against social structures, against consumerism, against the corrupt elite, against whatever suits the director’s interest; e.g. an actress that vomits on the Walk of Fame and dies near the star of Joan Blondell opens up a door to a very wide range of associating meanings. That’s the power of abstractions within film.

Keep in mind that all meaning(s) you cast onto Kubrick’s movies is “just your opinion, man” among many many others.

...Credo quia absurdum...

[–] Xav6101 8 years ago

the reality of the film's narrative, a narrative world without any dream sequences, without any fantasy sequences

Apparently you need a pillow, a zoom-in of some character's eyes, and a snooze to convince yourself that you are dealing with a dream? Anyhow, the list of logical impossibilities and coincidences that occur in EWS is enormous. Additionally the viewer has the option to "see" this story from Bill's perspective, from Bill's perception of reality, which all together evokes a labyrinthian realm where cause and effect become questionable as many a symmetrical pattern destroys the look and feel of real life day to day's reality.

...Credo quia absurdum...

[–] Barbed_Wire_Strawberry 8 years ago

Semantics debates are thrilling.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

[–] McQueen1980 8 years ago

since when is a director creating an imaginary odyysey for its main character the result of a deluded mind??

your whole post and your laughable process of mind is undermined by saying that there are no fantasy or dream sequences in the movie

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Barbed_Wire_Strawberry 8 years ago

Film invites many perspectives, Harry.

To the good doctor it was a dream journey, it seems. Room enough for all takes.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

[–] countdown-to-zero 8 years ago

"Film invites many perspectives, Harry."

Many false ones.

"To the good doctor it was a dream journey, it seems. Room enough for all takes."

Except that it wasn't. The only dream sequences explicitly depicted in the film are of Bill's envious, jealous fantasy of Alice with the naval officer. There are five of them interspersed throughout the film, Bill obsessively repeating the same fantasy over and over again, depicted clearly in monochrome, in black and white to highlight their purely fantasmatic status, and for viewers having great difficulty comprehending basic film grammar. Far from Bill being on a 'journey' (into the interior emptiness), he is seeking to escape the dream, to escape from Alice's desire, from the Real of that desire (a Real he covers over via his seedy fantasy of Alice with the sailor), from the other's fantasy, a fantasy he can't cope with, can't possibly match, and which repeatedly torments him throughout the film. For neurotic Bill takes women for granted, as with everything else in his life, assumes that they have no desires of their own, is outraged by Alice's revelations of her fantasies, her desires. This is why he chases after prostitutes in the film: they restore for Bill the enslaved role of women in his ultra-conservative male libidinal economy, of women as kept, passive, obedient, or as sex slaves. Bill is someone in total denial of his desires, seeks to keep them entirely hidden from public view, from his 'official' social reality, including his marriage, and this is why he breaks down when he sees the mask on the bed next to Alice, the mask a manifestation of the real of his repressed desires, of the truth he has been denying.

[–] tieman64 8 years ago

your whole post and your laughable process of mind is undermined by saying that there are no fantasy or dream sequences in the movie

The film would make NO SENSE if it was a GIANT DREAM SEQUENCE.

Its whole point is that what we take as GROUND ZERO REALITY is a mass of delusions, charades, repressed knowledge and shared fantasies. Its whole point is that man, when fully awake, is blind to all kinds of violent socially sanctioned behaviour and that human beings are used to facilitate the (often violent) desires/fantasies of others.

The film would be irresponsible if it were "a dream".

Bill is totally consciously awake when he decides to "live in a dreamland" where he forgets a woman has died, a musician has disappeared, he works for murderers, his wife is a human being and a daughter has been sold to businessmen.

Anyhow, the list of logical impossibilities and coincidences that occur in EWS is enormous.

That is true of all of Kubrick's major films, which are heavily symbolic, satirical and expressionistic.

But something being "not literally realistic" doesn't mean something is "therefore a dream".

To wonder whether "Eyes Wide Shut's" a dream or real is to miss the point. It's a kind of satirical misdirection Kubrick uses in most of his films. With "AI", for example, you find people debating whether or not David is finally "like a human being" or whether he is still "merely programmed", when the film's title and subtext are actually ironically critiqueing human beings; ie Man is Artificially Intelligent and himself programmed. ie What you consider real is robotic.

In a similar way, "Eyes Wide Shut's" portrays what you consider "awake" to be a kind of sleep walking, and vice versa.

Same thing with "The Shining", where people miss the point by wondering whether the "ghosts are real", or in "2001" where people wonder "if the monolith represents aliens".

[–] Barbed_Wire_Strawberry 8 years ago

Harry, It is disingenuous to say there are no dream/fantasy scenes in the film then when there are (you've both said there are and aren't) - you've contradicted yourself a few times on this point. There actually are a few clues as to it being in Bill's mind, but my take on that is a Kubrick red herring.

You should consider your perspective is just one among many, instead of insinuating it is the only truthful 'real' one like an elitist.

Personally I agree with most of what you say of the film, but your analysis is often too broad.

One can assert the reality in the film was a dream - but what then of the content?
One can assert the reality in the film was 'reality' - but what then of the content?

Same difference. The point is uncanny.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride

[–] countdown-to-zero 8 years ago

"Harry, It is disingenuous to say there are no dream/fantasy scenes in the film then when there are (you've both said there are and aren't)"

Go back and read the thread, because you are talking blatant nonsense here. I repeatedly stated that, apart from the monochrome inserts clearly indicated in the film, there are absolutely no fantasy sequences in the film. This is a Kubrick film, not a Lynch film. Learn elementary film grammar before embarrassing yourself further on a public forum.

"There actually are a few clues as to it being in Bill's mind."

What's happening to Bill in the film is being registered in his mind?

"You should consider your perspective is just one among many."

I haven't been presented with any 'alternative' credible perspective that isn't sheer irrational doggerel, and that is because there isn't any. This is adolescent ontology ("everything's just an opinion, everything's personal"), a retreat into idiotic and delusional solipsism, into the very narcissism upon which consumerist ideology runs. You are demanding that people 'respect' and accept other 'opinions' even though they are sheer gibberish? You need to begin to address your mistaken assumptions about the world.

[–] Barbed_Wire_Strawberry 8 years ago

You are the definition of an impotent narcissist, so address your own assumptions about the world (and your own place in it, arbiter of all things Kubrick).

You are demanding that people 'respect' and accept other 'opinions' even though they are sheer gibberish?

Did I demand, or did I say 'consider'...true sign of a keyboard warrior there, everything is a battle, everyone is against you in your little bubble of anti-this and anti-that.

So instead of debate with other posters, you attack and belittle. Half of what you post is 'sheer gibberish'...which is why your posts are so often ignored. Not because you are a misunderstood master of film interpretation. You seem to be a decent example of consumerist idealogy and narcissism, and a sad empty attempt at elitism.

Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride